(I do not own anything from Star Wars.)
Chapter Nine: Help Me I am in Hell
Maul, as well as his Jedi captive, had begun meditating; the Sith in his bedroom and the Jedi in the living quarters. She noticed that Maul hadn't made any movement for over a 48 hour period.
Farkas had brought Uriael's food and clothes in quietly. He seemed to be fearful of upsetting his "Lord Maul."
"Have you knocked him out in his sleep?" Farkas asked the third day, after having handed over a tray of fruit.
"That would be a rather foolish thing to try, Sir Farkas," Uriael answered, carrying in the tray and placing it on a small lamp table near the couch.
"It has been almost four days and he has yet to come out. And why is it that you haven't tried to escape?"
"He's just in meditation. If I tried to escape, he would know."
"Is that something that a Sith Lord does on a regular basis?" Farkas asked out of curiosity.
"It's something that anyone who is linked with the Force does."
"I see," Farkas said, understanding what she was saying. "Do you know what kind of food he would like?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if he had a preference for meat," she answered with the knowledge that he was a zabrak.
Farkas then took some time to look at her.
She stood with her hands cupped in one another as he would prepare to leave, which she did almost every time he had entered Maul's quarters. This time, though, her hair was no longer in a tress or in a braid, but was down and parted off center. Apparently she naturally had fine, wavy hair which went all the way down past her shoulders.
He noticed to his distaste that she had appeared to be even worse off than the day before. Her body looked pale and dramatic dark circles around the bottom of her eyes helped with the effect.
"Are you sick?"
"I haven't been feeling my best. Do I look it?"
"Yes," Farkas grunted. "You should eat something. I may have to give you more food. I don't want either Lord Azazul or Lord Maul giving me a hard time about not being able to use you because of some illness."
"Yes," she replied, as she had begun to look through the pile of clean clothes that Farkas had brought her.
Farkas shut the door and walked away. He hated treating her like that. He hated that she was stuck with yet another evil that would claim her as his own and subdue his pleasures with the help of her unwilling body.
He couldn't do anything about it now, though. No matter how much he wanted to help her, he had to keep a low profile. So to bring her more food and clothing was the least he could do.
The tattooed man sat in the center of the navy-colored velvet sheets with his shirt off and his boots set on the floor at the foot of the bed. A look of intensity contorted his face which was already clenched slightly from his shut eyes.
Maul hadn't left the room once for what must have been almost four days because he needed to be rid of the strange thoughts, dreams, and visions that had been plaguing him. Yet each and every time he had worked on erasing them in their entirety, they came back in heavier doses, and with much more meaning as well as detail.
He began wondering if he was doing something wrong in his training or if he needed to work harder and longer. The training itself couldn't be faulty. There wasn't anything that Sidious had told him that could be a mistake, so it must have been his own weakness that caused these sudden thoughts.
Maul decided to commence with his meditation and relaxed his shut eyelids, while he dismissed all feeling. The Force instinctively gathered around him and brought him into true darkness.
A feeling of frigid air surrounded him. He didn't mind the cold, even though his upper body and feet were bare. He wasn't the type to be picky over things like that; hot or cold, wet or dry, living or dead, it was all the same to him.
Maul listened to the silence that drowned in the seclusion that was his mind. This was the only thing that he would admit was comforting; darkness along with quiet. Everything seemed right. He didn't see anything of his past.
The meditation was a success.
"Running from your past is considered a success?"
Maul's senses rose after having heard a voice speak inside of his head, which had never happened to him before whilst he was conscious.
"Who are you?" Maul asked in an aggressive tone.
"Sorry, I did not mean to startle," the voice replied.
"How did you get in here?" Maul growled.
"That is none of your concern."
"Get out," Maul ordered.
"Why should I? It's not like you are busy doing anything other than drowning yourself in denial."
"Denial?" Maul hissed a chuckle. "I have nothing to be in denial of."
"A Sith usually doesn't take to weakness well and it seems you have found such a weakness."
"I do not hold onto weakness," Maul answered flatly.
"Oh yes, the proud Sith." The voice gave off a calm laughter. "Then why is it that you are trying to rid yourself of your past?"
"My past is of no importance to the present."
"It seemed to be important enough when you saw what happened to the woman."
Maul almost opened his eyes at those words. He knew where this voice was attempting to take the conversation.
"Get out."
"Come on, Darth. I know you have been thinking of your mother."
Maul became very agitated with this presence, both physically and mentally. He was so close to forgetting about the memory and everything linked with it and this guy had to ruin his almost two days of progress.
"It's sad when one's mother can cause them such distress. I wonder how bad she could have been to you."
He remained silent and tried not to break under this man's torment on him, but it was a violation on his privacy. The worst of it all was that he recognized the voice.
"You are pathetic, Darth Maul."
He couldn't take any more of this strange torture and resentfully released the control of the Force on his own mind and allowed himself to awake from the trance.
On the floor in the living room, Uriael was having some trouble of her own when it came to meditation. But rather than voices in her head, it was physical discomfort and pain.
She had started to have horrible cramps that started in her abdomen two days before. The cramps would end and start at an unpredictable moment each time, and the pain had begun spreading to her lower back and rear end.
She had been nauseous for a few weeks and only threw up a few times, but she figured it had to do with the treatment that was inflicted on her.
The Jedi knew of how to heal and reduce pain with the help of the Force, but whatever was happening inside of her was not going away.
She sat on the most recent robe given to her and tried to focus on the energies of Coruscant. The pain hadn't given her any problems for the last half-hour, so she gave it another try.
Everything was beginning to feel alright again. The comforting blanket of the Force sent her into a relaxing state of mind.
That was when she saw the many dunes of sand that developed around her in the last dream that she had. Two suns were straight up in the sky, one slightly closer than the other.
This place resembles Tattooine.
She stared up into the blue sky without noticing the little boy that had walked up behind her. He tugged on her robe and she turned to see him.
"It's you again."
"Uh-huh," the little boy said.
"Why is it that I keep coming back here?" Uriael asked the boy while she kneeled down to level with him.
"I dunno. Maybe you're supposed to come here or something," he said innocently.
"And what would I do here?" She wondered.
She looked around and saw a small underground house with what looked like a moisture vaporator.
"Is that your home?" Uriael asked.
"Yes, Miss."
"People live out here? It seems a bit far away from Mos Eisley, but I've only ever been there once," she commented.
"A lot of people live out here. Most of us are moisture farmers," the little boy said with a bright smile. "We give water to people who need it, or we use it for our crops."
"That's good of you," Uriael acknowledged. "But I don't know why I keep on finding myself here with you."
"I dunno either," he replied.
Just then he looked down. Uriael thought that maybe the same thing would happen again to his eyes as in the last vision.
This time, it hadn't. He was looking down at her, his face full of worry.
"Does it hurt?" he asked sounding troubled.
"Does what hurt?"
"Your belly."
"H-how'd you-" Uriael couldn't understand.
Who is this boy?
As soon as she had begun to ask, he placed a hand on her lower abdomen and started to shed tears.
"Why are you crying?" she asked him, responding to his touch by placing a hand over his.
"I'm sorry. You have to go back now."
"What do you mean?"
"You have to go back to the pain."
Uriael opened her eyes and grabbed a hold of her gut. She held back a moan of pain that wanted out.
She caught herself just before her body reacted in falling over, and kept the weight of her torso up with her palms. But she crumbled to the floor anyway and ended up rolling onto her back to relieve the discomfort.
Her first instinct was to flex every muscle in her lower body, but she couldn't help but claw at the floor. Whatever she did, she didn't want to be loud enough to disturb the man in the bedroom.
After what felt like several minutes the pain stopped, and her eyes shot open and wandered aimlessly at the room around her. She could see that the robe folded on the floor was mere inches away from her face.
What's wrong with me?
She tried pushing herself to her feet, but it was too hard for her to accomplish. Her muscles screamed for her not to use them anymore.
Instead of walking, Uriael began crawling to the couch.
While slowly moving up a cushion, she used the Force to bring the robe back over to her. It rested on her shoulders, and she put her arms through the sleeves. Even doing something as slight as that hurt.
She fought back a moan and began to cuddle and wrap herself within the robe. The black insulated boots had warmed her feet, so she didn't need to pull herself up to strain her body even more.
As soon as she settled in, her body fell into an immediate rest.
Maul used the Force to open his door and began to walk into the kitchen. The sun was up, so he guessed that it was sometime in the morning.
He calmly traveled over to the water dispenser and grabbed a glass out of the cabinet right above it. He moved it under the pouring water and let it fill to the brim.
Maul swallowed it down impatiently with the want of more, despite the large portion. Yet he still gulped it down like it was nothing but a few drops.
After his fourth glass of the cool refreshing water, he leaned against the counter and set his emptied glass on it.
He held onto a stern look and stared off at nothing in particular.
Soon, the smell of sweet fruit tickled at Maul's painted nose and distracted him from his annoyance from his failed meditation.
He looked to his left, and saw a discarded tray of an assorted selection of citrus, berries, and melons, along with some bread.
He willed the tray over to himself and picked some of the fruits out and disregarded the bread completely. After he was done he could still smell fruit and he looked over by the couch and noticed another tray on one of the side tables.
Maul decided, after eating some more of that tray's fruit, that he would go back to his room to properly meditate. On his way, he quickly glanced down at the Jedi only then noticing her condition.
Her face was worn and she had darkened circles around her eyes. Her fair skin looked tinged with a sickly-beige and shined from a thin layer of sweat. Her lips were lacking of their usual color and were, instead, pasty.
Maul crouched down in front of the couch to better observe her.
He noticed that her right hand was currently being used as a pillow for her head and that her left arm was hanging off of the couch.
He picked up her left hand by its index finger and his eyes found a healing abrasion that encircled her wrist.
Chains...
He remembered in his vision that Azazul had chained her wrists in an almost impossible position on her back. He thought about how long she had had to wear such a medieval device.
Maul also realized that when he saw her memory that she had not had those markings. They certainly weren't tattoos because the markings weren't exactly perfect, as if Azazul had gotten a bit carried away with a blade.
While comparing the color of the markings to the color of her hair, he wondered what her race was. Yes, she was a near-human, but not a hundred percent. Not with that mix of brunette and mulberry hair. He looked at her roots and saw the same color was growing naturally from her scalp. Then there were those pale yellow-gray eyes. They seemed to almost reflect the light that shown in them nights before, like an animal's would.
The predicament that the Jedi was in was a very strange thing for Maul to comprehend. He didn't really feel sorry for her, not only because she was a Jedi, but because he never really felt sympathy towards anyone.
It did, however, bother him that Azazul was using her in such a way, because he should have killed her rather than keep her as a sex slave.
And the way that she looked when they had last encountered… Did she look like that each time Azazul had walked over to her, preparing himself for his pleasure?
Did his mother look angry and helpless as well?
Quit thinking about that, you fool.
As he cursed himself for only feeding fuel to the fire that were unwanted memories, a surge of energy drew into him. It relaxed against his chest and he was caressed by an intensely cold sensation.
He released the hand, letting it fall limply onto the side of the couch, which didn't even cause the Jedi to move in her rest.
Something was definitely wrong with her. Her pain was now filling inside of him.
His senses searched over her and found where the cramping and the sharpness in her back had ensued. He could even feel a strain of nausea that caused her to feverishly sweat.
Interesting…
Just as he had spotted where all of the main points of pain were, he found where the pain had begun. He didn't know what it was, but he sure found out that all of it was caused by something in her abdomen.
At that he remembered what Azazul had said to him. Brief quotes of his during their conversation those few days ago.
"Would your taste possibly be inclined to a younger, suppler woman? She still… feels like a virgin."
Azazul had deceived him and it enraged him to know such a fault.
"Funny thing is- and I tell you this as a man to a man- she feels better than anyone I have ever had…"
He could have killed Azazul if he had known of his deception. He had himself a Jedi for three months, without letting Lord Sidious know of it.
Their job was to be rid of the Jedi; to let darkness bring peace to the Empire and the universe.
What he had done to her… For what use would he have for keeping this Jedi in secret? What was she capable of doing for him that he would have to keep her alive and hold her against her will?
For the love of Bane...
Maul opened Uriael's robe, below her waist, and inspected the area.
The white fabric of a new tunic was pulled away, exposing her small and toned stomach. Each time she inhaled, her small muscles would tense and then relax. But there was a certain area that started right above her naval and continued on down that was only slightly raised.
He went to rest his hand on her but was hesitant.
I shouldn't be doing this. She could die here for all I care.
"Are you afraid to touch her?"
It was the voice again, and this time he would not stray away from the challenge it presented. He pushed himself into laying his hand on her lower-abdomen.
As soon as his touch met with her abdomen he could feel it. He knew that his prediction was indeed correct.
He wanted her to carry his child.
Of course he did. Azazul as arrogant as he was would want to pass on his "legacy".
Surprisingly, she had actually gotten pregnant. Considering the fact that she and Azazul were two completely different species, Maul's interest began to heighten over the woman.
What he didn't understand was what was happening to her now.
His hand remained on her to feel for its life force, but there wasn't any.
Shit…
The Jedi must have been losing the fetus.
Maul hissed a troubled sigh and closed his eyes. His hand remained on her clammy skin, moving up and down along with her breathing.
He didn't know what action to take in regard of this. What was he to do with her?
At that moment, Uriael's breathing rose in volume. The sharp pain had once again met with her abdomen, which caused her to awaken.
She then brought her hands to her as if she was trying to attack the pain. Instead, she had unknowingly jabbed her fingers at Maul's hand.
Maul knew that something like that would happen. He did not try to move his hand, even after her eyes opened.
She couldn't see much but really felt the pain. It hit her mercilessly and persisted from her stomach down to her crotch.
Her body tried to force her to cry out but she held it back and, once again, pushed against the pain with every muscle that would let her. The tears could not be controlled, however.
She tried lifting her upper body, but she could feel a strong hand currently pressed down on her lower-abdomen. She flinched and remembered who else had been in the room with her.
"What are you doing?" she asked shakily through the tears.
"Do you know what is happening to you?" he questioned, noticing her face had turned red.
"No," she choked out.
Her hands met with the one resting on her and grabbed it, as if trying to get it off of her.
He dismissed her touch as she asked, "Are you doing this to me?"
"No," he answered.
Uriael bit down on her bottom lip to try and hold back more tears. She did not want to show him how much she was hurting. She didn't want him seeing her so vulnerable.
The sweat continued to form on her face. Her lip trembled under the pressure from her teeth and she couldn't keep it up anymore.
"Please get off of me-"
Her eyebrows cringed in distress, and her body heaved upward, which caused her head to meet with his shoulder.
Normally, she would have pushed away from him. They were mortal enemies by nature. This time however, she didn't care about her being a Jedi or him being a Sith.
She had felt so alone. Anyone would do for comforting. She would have taken Volutta at this point. Another person was good enough for her.
She was a bit surprised, though, that he had not shaken her off.
Maul could feel just how lonely she was. It mixed in well with the essence of her physical suffering.
He withdrew his hand away from her belly and fixed it onto her back. In turn he slid his other hand under her legs. Her head still rested against his left shoulder.
Maul lifted her up, and headed towards the bathroom, not bothering with being gentle and slow about it.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked in a shivering voice.
"The shower."
The lights turned on and nearly blinded Uriael. She squinted and saw the tattooed figure leaning down over her.
He placed her on the tile and she continued to shiver even while he took off her robe.
His eyes made it to her face to see how truly horrible she looked. Her lips were a pale brown color, and almost matched with the lack of pigment in her face. Her hairline was covered in sweat from her fever as were the beginnings of her violet roots.
He knew that it was going to happen soon. He could feel the amount of pain that she was in and how the intervals between the cramps had gotten much shorter in length.
Maul knew that she wasn't going to like the next part, but he didn't care. He started taking off her boots with the Force, while he began pulling down her shorts and underwear all at once.
Uriael's eyes opened wildly, and a blanket of despair tightened around her and she reacted to the feeling that she knew all too well.
He immediately grabbed hold of both of her wrists, which were headed towards his face, and unknowingly pushed a scab on her right wrist off of the healing, raw skin underneath it.
She winced in pain as his thumb seemingly dug into a now open wound on her wrist.
"Stop… please, don't do this…not now…"
A soft, pleading voice entered into his mind. He eyed her with seriousness.
"I don't plan on taking you," he answered nonchalantly.
"Then why are you undressing me?" she asked by lack of trust.
He sensed that it wasn't necessarily a lack of trust in him alone.
"I am putting you in the shower, not your clothes."
"Why?"
"I don't want the smell of blood in my room, especially your-"
"Blood…," she repeated. "…What are you talking about?"
Maul paused and stared into her eyes.
Each was laced with a color and physical out line of polished metal, with a small ring of a soft-yellow around each black pupil. He could see the reflection of the tattoos on his skin. They were filled with both the colors on his skin and her own discomfort.
"You are having a miscarriage," he explained, showing no affection by his own words, even though it felt completely unreal to say to a Jedi.
A confused expression now defined each corner of her face. She looked to the side and shook her head.
"No. I'm just sick. You have to be pregnant in order to-"
"Azazul impregnated you."
"You… you're wron-"
"You know it's a fact."
"I…."
She stopped herself before she could really consider the thought that she had been pregnant with Azazul's seed.
"Ok…"
That was all that she could say. If she said anything more or thought about it even more deeply, she would become even more emotional. And with all of the emotions running and dancing through her mind right then, she had become devastated within seconds.
Maul accepted her agreement and pulled off her shorts. He then lifted her upper body from the ground and roughly untied the wrap on her tunic.
She lifted her arms which allowed him to pull it off over her head, and pull it he did, which hurt her neck in the process.
He picked her up and she winced from the cramping and at the sharp pains in her back, neck, and abdomen.
He blocked the sensors of the entrance to the shower, so it wouldn't start while he was in there.
After sitting her down against the shower wall, he lifted up the drain's screen and stepped out to unblock the sensors, so that the warm water poured onto her stressed body.
She watched the peach tile, while patiently waiting for something to happen, even though she was extremely anxious. She didn't know what it would look like. If there would be blood, maybe tissue, maybe even the whole body of a fetus…
Stop it, she thought to herself.
She could feel that her throat and the inside of her nose had begun to grow tight and that her eyes began to sting.
Maul leaned forward over the sink, looking down into the faucet. All of this was an interesting experience, to say the least.
He picked up her clothes from a pile he had made and folded them up with his will, to give himself something to do.
I get up from my failed solitude and am confronted with this irony.
Uriael remained in the shower and stared at the opposite wall while the cramps continued and her nausea acted up again. She was distant from the physical world she was in as well as the pain, which left her with the worst sadness possible. The feeling was one that she never wanted to feel ever again.
She tried to convince herself that this wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't like she wanted to carry Azazul's child in the first place. Besides, it was most likely his fault that it died; he had been so ruthless with her those months.
Even if she hadn't wanted it, though, the fact that she hadn't been strong enough to carry and sustain the life of something so innocent was awful enough.
At that, she began to think about this thing that hadn't had the chance at life. She kept it in her thoughts, in fear that Maul was still in there with her.
Maul stood, wondering when it was going to be over. Steam began to rise from the floor, fogging the mirror that was above him.
He decided to look into her mind to see what she was thinking, if anything at the moment. At first, all he could hear was murmuring, but then he could hear it as a whisper.
Please forgive me for not being strong enough to carry you…to bring you into this world. If I had known that you were even there, I would have done better to care for myself. But you will know what it is like to be in paradise- to be a part of something that is much more meaningful than the situation I'm in…
She paused because of a sharp and quick pain that had attacked her abdomen, and traveled down to her crotch. Maul could almost see as both of her hands gently placed themselves on her abdomen, as a mother would in a tender fashion when talking to their unborn child, as many expecting women would.
If you were born, he probably would have taken you away from me. You would have been treated better, I suppose, but most likely, you would have grown up with hate in your heart. You would have grown up with a monster, rather than someone who actually cared for you, as I would have. But like I said, you will now only know peace and remain innocent as you join in on the same thing that I have defended for years.
That fool- why does she give a damn about the thing? Maul asked himself, insulting what she had been thinking. She didn't ask for it and didn't even want it-
His muse was interrupted by the sound of soft and fearful whimpering from the Jedi. He knew that it had begun. The familiar incense of blood emanated in the room.
…
After an hour or two, he walked back into the shower to look in on the Jedi. She had fallen asleep against the corner nearest to where he placed her. She was almost completely drained of her natural color, which made sense because of the loss of blood.
Maul had blocked the sensors once again and his presence alone was enough to wake her up, and startle her enough to where she sat upright and covered her naked body from him.
"Get dressed," he ordered, and then left her in the bathroom.
Uriael blocked the sensors herself and stood up, slowly, and then stepped lightly into the middle of the bathroom, exhausted and dizzy.
The same droids came out from their storage place; one to clean up the water that she once again let drip on the tile along with a little bit of left over blood, and one to rid the room of the humidity that had shaded over the glass of the mirror.
"Hello, Ma'am. Would you like a towel?" the same silver droid in the shape of a trashcan asked in a monotone voice.
Uriael began to cry with a fake smile brought to her face.
"Yes, J-23, I would like that very much. And, maybe some disposable towelettes if you have any?"
"Yes ma'am. Would you like the towel or the towelettes first?"
"The towelettes first please."
…
Maul stepped back in when he knew that she had wrapped the towel around herself.
She gave another false smile to the droids as they scurried back into their place of refuge and then peered up at him.
"I told you to get dressed."
Uriael looked down and grinned out of disbelief towards how uncaring this man was, but was not surprised.
"They're dirty," she explained, pitifully.
"Did you want me to find you an outfit?" Maul offered with a hint of his malicious sarcasm.
"No," she answered, once again having to deal with his mean sarcasm.
"Then put on your damn robe," he ordered in an aggravated tone.
"Ok," she replied, while her cheeks grew warm from how frustrated she continued to be with her situation.
She then walked over to the right to retrieve the robe from the stack of clothes that Maul had folded. Before doing anything else, she turned back at him to see if he was even going to give her privacy, and it didn't surprise her that he gave her a cocked brow as an answer.
Maul watched as she pulled the robe over herself and the towel that was still wrapped around her. He grinned at the fact that she was uncomfortable with allowing herself to be nude in front of him, even after he had seen her naked a few times already.
Uriael handed the towel over to the droid who had given it to her in the first place, and tied the robe around herself, not completely comfortable with how she was no longer supported.
She then walked up to Maul, who was between her and the exit, and decided to wait for him to tell her to leave the bathroom, and then to go lay down, since most of what he said to her was an order.
Instead, Maul turned away from her and stepped out of the bathroom, but not before giving her an indifferent glare for her trying to mock him through thought. She followed behind him after a few seconds.
Uriael wandered aimlessly out of the bathroom and somehow made it down the steps and over to the couch. She dropped and cuddled herself onto the cushions and rested her head on the right arm of the couch, and closed her eyes forcefully as her legs withdrew close to her chest in order to keep warm.
Maul, out of the corner of his right eye, watched her fall to sleep, as a hushed beeping from his wrist link commenced. He willed it over and after reading HK-48's message about how Lord Sidious had requested for his presence, he collected a tunic, his robe, and his boots into his grasp, got dressed, and left the room quietly.