AN: So this chapter became a totally different beast than I intended. I like it. I hope you do too! Crazy is just sort of my thing, I guess.

Chapter 97: Talzin

Obi-Wan felt it in the Force when she had conceived. It was a strong pulse that beat like a heart, one right after the other, and with it came visions, new and vivid like he had never known before. Hers was not the dark thrum of power that Satine exhibited when his powerful, Dark Side son took root within her. Padmé's child was quieter, a low, soft murmur , a gentle ripple in the Force as opposed to his son's sudden tidal wave. The Dark Side had roared in triumph for Satine's son, a herald of what was to come, a child born in a tide of darkness that signified the dawning of a new age that belonged rightfully to the Sith. But Padmé's pregnancy was...different. Soft and silent, barely perceptible, like it was some great secret that the Force held close and carefully guarded.

He couldn't imagine why that was. Perhaps the child simply wasn't as powerful as his beloved first son, which was a distinct possibility. Padmé Amidala was no Satine Kryze, after all, but he sensed this was not the case. The child was strong, or its conception wouldn't have been felt the way it was. He supposed the difference may be in himself. After all, this child, like his first, would be a prince, the future of the Sith. The difference, of course, was that Obi-Wan didn't care. He had come to...care for Padmé, yes, but the fate of her child meant very little to him. This wasn't the child he wanted, wasn't the one that he had come to love. He and Satine had made their son as a promise, not just to each other, but to the future of the galaxy. Their son would be the first of the new Order of Sith, his birth would bring the death of a Master, his life would bring balance to a galaxy torn by war, and his death had dash the hopes of all of that. For Obi-Wan, Padmé's child held no such promise. All that would come of this was a new apprentice for Sidious, and Kenobi had no desire to stop it.

The visions, though, had changed. No longer did he find himself standing in the desert, two suns blazing down upon him. Now, the location was...nonspecific. A desert, a forest, a waterfall, a swamp, the inside of a ship, he couldn't tell for all the surroundings shifted and changed. But he was there, the Sith and Jedi holocrons in hand, just as before, and not one, but two children reached out to them. The blond boy from before stood, his hand outstretched, his blue eyes bright, and right next to him stood a girl, dark brown hair and the deep, brown eyes of her mother, her own fingers outstretched toward the holocrons. Both children were strong in the Force, and they stood in the very likeness of their parents, the girl with Padmé's dark colors, and the boy a reflection of Obi-Wan when he had been young. They had made twins, which helped account for the strange, heart beat pulse he had felt when they had come to be.

"Lumis." The deep, sonorous voice pulled him out of his vision, and he opened his eyes, his body tight and aching from being still for so long. Dooku sat before him, legs crossed, posture rigid, his dark eyes touched with concern. Kenobi rolled his eyes. Since Satine's death, Dooku had done little more than...mother him. "You were gone for quite some time."

"The Force takes me when it wishes, for as long as it wishes."

"Were you having visions about the mission?"

Kenobi frowned. "No, not about that. I'm not worried about that. This mission has been won before it even began." He scoffed. "You'd think our Master would want to see the bitch killed just to make sure it's over."

A faint smirk passed over Dooku's lips as he felt anger, hatred...disgust flowing off the Sith Lord before him. This was...new. Much more like his old self. He had even eaten breakfast that morning. "Is that resentment I feel, Lumis?" Dooku asked, and was pleasantly surprised when Kenobi tilted his head to the side and observed him, a clever smirk on his face and the touch of his presence reaching out to him.

"I just think that our Master has gotten very comfortable letting us do the work."

"A strange thing to say for the man that had his Master come to his aid on Mandalore." It was a risk, Dooku knew, but he was prepared for the backlash, had his defenses well in place, and their lightsabers were conveniently stored away in their respective rooms aboard the Umbra. There was no need to carry them around on the ship, after all. There was a flash of anger within Lumis, wild and almost rabid in its intensity, and then it quickly faded. Good. He was regaining control, however slowly that may be.

"It's almost more strange to me that he was there at all," Obi-Wan mumbled, and Dooku felt a pulling of hope deep within him. If Kenobi had somehow managed to find a reason to re-energize his desire to kill Sidious, than with all the help they currently had, it was absolutely possible. "Do you think it was planned?" he asked, uncertain and unsure. "Do you think Sidious was involved somehow in Satine's death?"

"...I don't know," Dooku whispered, looking over his shoulder as if their Master were nearby, as if he could somehow hear them. "Maul was a threat, and the destruction of Mandalore got everyone's attention, even his. Especially his. That one man could topple an entire empire doesn't bode well for his own plans. And he was going to train your son."

Kenobi winced. "Perhaps he found out. Maybe he knew I'd never allow it, maybe he sensed my treachery. Maybe," he hissed, taking in a deep breath as he stilled his nerves. His hands were shaking. "Maybe he knew about it all along and let me have it just so he could take it all away."

"...maybe," Dooku said carefully, observing the man and trying to gauge his intentions. "But it seems unlike our Master. If he was going to kill Satine, he would have waited until after your son was born. He could have his apprentice, and he could have guaranteed your subservience by depriving you of your lover and holding the safety of your son over you as a threat."

Kenobi bit his lip and looked away. That was far more cruel. Dooku was right. That's the path Sidious would have taken. "...maybe so."

"The real question, Lumis," Dooku said quietly, "is why you are harboring doubts about our Master now."

"I...saw something," Obi-Wan whispered. "Not a vision, a memory." He closed his eyes, tried to think of a good way to discuss the madness that he had witnessed, the culmination of Sidious' manipulations on Padmé, but he could think of nothing that made him sound less insane than he felt. "Do you think he'd be looking for a new apprentice?" was the question he settled on, and going off Dooku's reaction, he failed as coming across as anything other than stark raving mad.

"He has you, what could he possibly want with another apprentice?"

"He had you when he took me, Tyranus."

Dooku sighed heavily. "Yes, but...as you said at the time, I'm an old man. I'm hardly the future of the Sith Lords. He needed someone young and powerful, and the Dark Side gave him you." He growled and slicked back his hair, a deep frown on his face. "You understand the Force better than most, Lumis. You know it strives for balance. The nature of balance is up for debate, but there's no hiding that in response to the Jedi receiving Anakin Skywalker, the Force gave you to the Sith." Kenobi's eyes shot to him quickly, wide and confused, and Dooku chuckled deeply. "This is about Skywalker, isn't it?"

"Y-yes, but how-"

"You are not so difficult to read as you think, Lumis," the Count said, both amused and disdainful. "You make his wife your mistress and since then, everything you do has been about him. Surely you have seen something to make you believe our Master has designs on him."

"...I have." He took a deep breath as he felt for the Force, still and calm and cold around him, the flames driven from his mind in favor of the serenity of silence. "I stand opposite Anakin Skywalker in the Force itself," he said firmly. "But, if he joins the darkness...where does that leave me?"

Dooku found himself at a loss for words. He certainly didn't have the answers the young Sith Lord sought. He laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, still thin, but slowly beginning to regain the health he had before Satine had perished. "You're going to kill him, Lumis. Your fears are without merit, and if you believe our Master means to replace you with this...Jedi, killing Skywalker will make Sidious think twice about where he places his faith."

"And our Master will die for it," Kenobi said, and Dooku leaned away from him, the strain of madness clear in the man's voice. His insanity made him powerful, terribly so, but it also made him dangerous and unpredictable. It was no way to kill Darth Sidious, not when it would require tremendous focus in addition to rage, and Sidious would never show weakness in the face of poor, insane Darth Lumis. Murderous intent had again been planted within the boy. They could stand to wait until he was ready.

"Not until you kill Skywalker," Dooku said firmly, groaning as he rose to his feet. "And now, we need to focus on the task at hand."

Kenobi scoffed as he jumped to his feet. "We don't need to focus, we have already won." A short, manic chuckle was torn out of the young Sith, and he shut his eyes tightly against the encroaching madness. "I'll show him," he mumbled. "I will defeat his enemies, I will lead the Sith to victor, and Master will never have cause to doubt me..."

Dooku sighed, shook his head, and followed his fellow into the cockpit to see Dathomir hanging large and red in the forward viewport. It would all be over soon. Kenobi had, at least, been right when he said that the mission had already been won. Talzin was down there, alive, as they had suspected, and Sidious had demanded that they go and finish what they had started. When Dathomir was purged, they suspected that Talzin escaped into the magics of her tribe, whatever vile misconstruction of the Force she commanded, and through Maul's memories, Obi-Wan had confirmed this. She had survived the slaughter of her people, yes, but bringing back Maul had forced her into something of an incorporeal form, a creature of green mist without a physical presence. It was unacceptable, of course. Sidious demanded her death, and one could not bring death to a phantom.

With Maul's defeat on Mandalore, Sidious began to feel a stirring deep in the Dark Side, strange and unfamiliar as Talzin's spirit howled in the wrath of revenge unfulfilled. It was only a matter of time before the witch found a way to rise again, and finally, after months of waiting, Sidious gathered his apprentices and informed them of something dark stirring on the planet Bardotta. Pong Krell was dispatched to investigate, and when he returned, he reported that within their capital city was a strong following of Force sensitive Bardottans, hundreds of them, and none of them had survived. They had been drained, the very Force energy within them torn out of their bodies, and Sidious felt the touch of the Nightsister within them. She was alive, and with the power of the Force stolen from the Bardottans, she had resumed physical form. The moment of revenge was at hand.

The trick, of course, was to draw Talzin out of hiding, and with Dathomir as her seat of power, it was unlikely she would leave, and defeating her on her own territory had been shown to be fruitless before. But before, she had been prepared, and this time, they would catch her off guard, and Obi-Wan had a good idea of how that was to be accomplished. All the woman had left was her son, and it was through Maul that they would trap and kill the witch, and that effort was easy enough.

Maul had, of course, escaped his captivity on Mustafar in a daring escape by a handful of Weequay pirates who were loyal to the Hutt Cartel and demanded revenge for the execution of the Hutt Council on Nal Hutta. They had turned to the leader of the Shadow Collective for guidance. After all, he had dealt a crushing blow to his enemies on Mandalore and would surely do so again, were he given the chance. And so they fled to Dathomir, the one place Maul felt he could turn, the place where he had been restored once before. It was all too perfect. Kenobi would have to send Hondo a case of the most expensive liquor he could find to thank him for the brilliant use of his men.

"Are you certain you won't be detected?" Dooku asked softly as the ship drew closer to the planet. Kenobi nodded.

"Nobody senses me in the Force if I don't want them to."

"That was before madness gripped you, Lumis," Dooku said frankly. "You aren't exactly subtle when you're stark-raving mad."

"Maybe not..." He breathed deeply and centered himself, reached out through the Force to the planet below and felt death. Complete destruction. Murder and the Dark Side, wild and rampant like the Sith themselves. It may be the seat of Talzin's power, but with the execution of the Nightsisters, the Sith's Dark Side overshadowed the innate power of Dathomir. "Maul exists because of Talzin," he whispered. "Without her, he never would have come back, he never would have killed Satine, and I would have been one month away from being a father. This is the last of my revenge, this is the end of it. With Talzin's death, Satine will finally be avenged. Do not underestimate my focus in seeing this through."

Dooku chuckled deeply, crossed his arms before his chest and leaned against the wall, watching as Kenobi took the controls in his hands and maneuvered them down into Dathomir's atmosphere. "I've no doubt in your abilities, Lumis. But getting in unseen-"

"Won't be a problem," he finished, settling the ship down in the large clearing where he had landed with Grievous when they came to destroy the Nightsisters. Even now, months after the massacre, there were bodies everywhere, a fresh reminder of what happens to those that cross the Sith. "I'll need half an hour," Kenobi said softly, powering down the ship and rising from his seat to stride down the halls toward his room. "By then, I'll be in position. Then you will show up, and we're going to have ourselves an execution." He shrugged. "Or I'll be dead, and you'll be walking into Talzin's clutches."

"How very appealing..." he droned as Kenobi picked up his lightsabers from his desk and clipped them on to his belt. "And you don't think she will disappear when she sees me?"

"Of course not, my dear Duke!" Kenobi drawled, patting the unamused man's cheek. "You are the point. Without you, how can she draw out Sidious? He came to the aid of one apprentice, surely he will come to save the other when held in the clutches of a very real threat..." He shrugged. "In her estimation, in any case. She's made a mistake in underestimating Sith ingenuity."

"Is she?"

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve." Kenobi flashed Dooku a wicked smile as he left his room, making his way to the entry hatch where the boarding ramp had already been extended. "You're coming along to hide my presence, just in case Talzin senses something's up." With one last smirk at Dooku, Kenobi stepped out into the cold, still night of Dathomir and immediately blended into the shadows.

Maul was nearly foaming at the mouth by the time the Weequay carried him into the dark depths of the Nightsister's lair. There were ghosts here. There were ghosts everywhere. The ruined, mangled metal of his legs twitched and he grit his teeth in pain as he looked upon them as they sparked and hissed and failed to respond to his commands. All that was left in them was the odd impulse to move, a command received but not acted upon since the rancor deprived him of the use of his legs for good. It was Kenobi's fault! Kenobi!

He whimpered, writhing in the grasp of the pirates, and they stopped to get a better hold on him, but the Zabrak dropped to the ground, howling and whimpering in panic and pain. Kenobi would not allow this! Kenobi would hunt him, Kenobi would find him, and Kenobi would make him suffer for his escape! Escape was a dream that he did not deserve, not after what he had done, not after he had angered his Master Kenobi. He dug his hands into the hard dirt of the ground, the stumps of his cybernetics twitching uselessly as he scrambled for a grip to pull himself back toward the cave's entrance. He had to get out, he had to go back! If he returned, if Kenobi knew he returned on his own, if he understood that he hadn't wanted to be saved, than maybe the Master would have mercy. Maybe he would pity the creature, the slave that was stolen from him. Maybe then he would be allowed to lay beside the Master, his legs fixed between the mighty jaws of the rancor, and just watch as Kenobi laid his attentions on someone else.

The Weequay scooped him up, and Maul screamed his reluctance before he began sobbing, curling up in their grasp and resolving himself to freedom, bleak and terrible and fleeting as it was. His red and black torso, thin -so thin!- even thinner than his Master's, convulsed with the wracking sobs that tore through him. He didn't want this, and they didn't understand. They were looking for the crime lord, Maul, leader of the Shadow Collective, but it was exactly that. A shadow. Something unreal, something that fled before the fires of Lumis, the Sith Lord of Light, not the comforting light of day, but the light of fire, burning and searing and painful to look upon, light so bright it cast long shadows darker than the black of night, so bright it could blind someone and plunge them into darkness forever, just as Maul had been. It was over, and they didn't understand!

"Hush, my Lord," one of the Weequay said, and Maul winced at the soft tone. Soft tones usually brought pain with them, pain and suffering hidden under the guise of kindness. His Master had shown him that. His Master had taught him everything...

"We're almost there..." the other said, and Maul began sobbing anew when he saw that familiar green light, that cursed thing that brought him back from insanity, restored his mind, gave him focus, purpose, a brother...all which he would lose. All which would be taken from him by Kenobi...

His teeth clenched tightly for a moment when anger ripped through him, and in a moment, it was gone, leaving him cowering and whimpering in submission to the Master that was not there, not yet, but would be, and soon. Kenobi, Master, had taken everything from him for a reason! He hadn't murdered Savage because he was cruel, he had murdered Savage so that Maul may understand what it was like to lose someone dear, so that he may share in the pain of his Master, pain that he had inflicted upon Kenobi. In the act of doing such, it was he that killed his brother, not Kenobi. He hadn't taken his legs to be cruel either. Kenobi had taken his legs, given him to his rancor as a plaything because he was suited to nothing else. Because no matter where he went, there was no escape from him, from the Dark Side, from the Sith. He took his wrath from him as well, his anger, not because he was a threat, but because anger was the domain of the Sith, and Maul was not Sith. Anger wasn't for him to feel, for him to touch, and it was taken from him so Maul could understand that his was subservience, complete and absolute, and were he to accept this, relinquish his anger to his Master and accept his role, he would find peace in his place, in what he was made for.

He wasn't insane, not like before. Now, he saw clearly. His Master had shown him the truth, and the truth freed him. Freed him from everything so that he may lay his life in the hands of his Master. And these wretches were stealing him from it. He began thrashing once again, twisting in their grasp and trying to get away, but the Weequay had a better grasp on him than before, and with the green, glowing light of the pools that surrounded the alter at the center of the shrine in sight, they drove forward faster, their goal just within reach.

They laid Maul on the cold, dark stone of the alter, and he immediately flipped onto his stomach and grabbed the edge to pull himself off, but was stopped when a white, long-fingered hand stroked his back. He flipped over, his bloodshot eyes wide as he looked up into the face of Mother Talzin.

"Maul..." she said softly, gently, a hand stroking his cheek and Maul winced, flinched away from her as though her touch were pain. "...what have they done to you?"

"Let me go!" he shouted, shivered, curled up on the stone slab and trembled in anticipation of being touched again. "Let me go..." he mumbled quietly, and continued to mumble until the woman brought her magic down upon him, stilling his shaking, his shivering, the spasmodic twitching in his broken legs. She looked around the vast, dark expanse and hissed in frustration.

"I have nothing with which to fix your legs, my son," she said softly, her voice mingling with the dark undertones that belied her power.

"I need to go," he muttered. "Master will be looking for me, Master..."

Talzin hissed. "Sidious?" she snarled, and Maul stilled, looked at her with a lack of understanding, like a child who found himself lost. He barely recognized the name. Sidious, Sidious...

"N-no," he gasped. "My Master is Lumis. Lumis, Kenobi..." He reached out and grabbed the long, looping sleeve of her robe, tugging it frantically. "Please! When he comes for me, tell him I didn't want to be here, tell him I wanted to go home!"

"You are home."

"No! No, no, home! Home to him, home with my Master..." A sudden sob wracked his body, his protruding ribs heaving as he hyperventilated, and Talzin summoned her magic, the green mist touching his mind, but she found...nothing. None of the insanity that had plagued him before, none of the madness that years and years of pain and pervasive thoughts of revenge had brought. His mind was clear. It was his spirit that was wounded, irreparably so, and there was no magic she knew that could mend a torn spirit.

She shot up, her strange, pale eyes peering through the darkness. She felt something, a pulling deep inside her, a whisper of warning from the dark. Something was here. Someone was here. She closed her eyes, dug deep, and felt him, a presence long gone, but never forgotten. The vessel of her revenge. Count Dooku.

Perhaps magic could not free her tortured son, but revenge could, revenge always could. It could be a balm on the soul, could mend even the deepest of wounds, and with the Sith dead, there would be no Master for Maul to return to, no Dark Lord for him to fear. His life had been defined enough by the Sith. Now was the time to end it.

"Count Dooku is here," she said, circling around the alter and keeping her focus centered on the pulling of darkness she felt. "He will come, Maul, we will trap him here in the center of my power, and we will use him to lure Darth Sidious to us."

"No, no, no, no, no," he muttered, twitching and writhing on the stone as his eyes darted about the darkness, looking for a presence he sensed but could not place. "Master will kill us, Master will-"

"Him too, Maul," she growled. "All Sith. Dooku shall be the instrument of our revenge." She fell silent, the feel growing stronger, the pull tugging harder, and she began to hear footsteps, slow, casual, ponderous, echoing throughout the cavern. She closed her eyes and focused deep on his presence, on his footfalls, on his exact location, and when she was certain she had it, certain she felt exactly where he stood, she reached out, commanding her magic to take hold of the Sith Lord and bring him to her. The wind suddenly rose, inexplicable in the depths of the cave, whipping at her robes as green mist gathered, forming and collecting into a giant orb, big enough for someone to stand inside, and with a wave of her hand, the mist scattered, and in the air before her, suspended by the wrists with swirling, green energy, was Count Dooku.

"My dearest Count..." Talzin drawled, coming so close she ran her hand down his bearded cheek. Dooku rolled his eyes, completely unamused.

"Mother Talzin..." he said dismissively. "You have a funny way of being dead."

"You have a funny way of coming into someone's home uninvited."

Dooku scoffed. "A home whose only occupants are ghosts." The insufferable smirk on the Count's face made Talzin's temper flare, the pale mist swirling around her feet suddenly becoming choppy like a storm at sea.

"And who is at fault for that?"

"You," Dooku said casually. "You knew better than to challenge the Sith." Maul whimpered, wriggling away from the Count, turning on his side to face away from him as he curled up against the cold.

"You executed the people of Dathomir!" she snarled. "All my brothers, all my sisters, dead because of you."

"Me?" Dooku asked, both amused by her anger and surprised by her accusation. "I didn't set foot on this desolate waste."

"But you sent them." The Count said nothing, only smirked cruelly in response. "Why have you come, Dooku?" she asked, drawing close once again. "What use is there for a Sith Lord in a house of ghosts and spirits?"

"None at all," he said casually. "But a good friend of mine seems to have lost his pet." His eyes drifted to Maul's thin, shaking form on the alter, and Talzin quickly moved to block his view. "I consider it a personal favor that I bring his pet back. He was easy enough to trace, after he got out of his cage..." Dooku growled, glaring at the Weequay that stood far in the shadows, trying to keep out of sight. Talzin began to laugh, cold and harsh, the dark undertones of her voice seeming to stir the very air around her.

"And now, Dooku, you are mine." She extended her hand, summoning the might of her powers and mist surrounded Dooku, circling around him and permeating through him, and the Count's body went rigid, his eyes wide as pain rushed through him. "I need you alive, Dooku," she said softly, her skull-like visage grinning morbidly in the low, green lighting. "But you will suffer unlike any other. For my sisters. For my planet. For my sons, and when your Master comes for you, you will die, as will he."

Green lightning leapt from her fingertips, striking the Sith Lord in the chest, the Count finally gasping and groaning in pain, writhing against his bonds, helpless to do anything. Maul chanced a look back, slowly rolled over to see Talzin bringing a Sith Lord to heel, the man suffering, weakening, dying under his mother's brutal touch. He hadn't thought it was possible to kill a Sith Lord. After all, he had survived, and while he was no Sith any longer, he had been once, a long time ago. But Dooku was dying. He could feel it in the Force as the old man weakened, as Talzin focused on him to the exclusion of all else, her wrath so great it threatened to tear the very ground apart.

He could have sworn it was a trick of the light, something brought on by his feverish, fearful mind, but the cold pit in his stomach, the trembling that wracked his body told him otherwise. Right behind the Nightsister, Kenobi stepped out of the shadows, crouching down to remain silent, his lightsabers held deactivated in his hands. He moved silent as darkness itself, and Maul had a chance, this single chance, to call out and warn Talzin, to save his Mother, to alert her in her time of need, and from her place of power, she would make herself as mist, lash out and defeat the treacherous Sith Lords. It could all be over, all of it. All he needed to do was warn her, and the Sith would be finished. All of them.

Maul closed his eyes and turned his head away, pressing his hands tightly to his ears. He didn't want to see, didn't want to hear the inevitable outcome, didn't want to show his Master the weakness of his faithfulness to him.

In a moment, the lightning stopped, the painful ringing in Dooku's ears replaced by the low, familiar thrumming of plasma in the air, the green hue of mist covering the area replaced by the blood red cast by Darth Lumis' lightsaber, the wicked blade extending from a shocked Talzin's chest. She slumped over, her body sagging as the power left her, and with a clear, sharp hiss, Kenobi's darksaber came to life, laid gently, carefully, next to the woman's neck, and with one, clean slash, the Sith Lord severed the Nightsister's head. The bindings that held Dooku faded into nothing, and the Count dropped down onto shaking, unstable legs.

"What took you so long!" Dooku snarled, rubbing his chest where the lightning had struck. Kenobi shrugged.

"I wanted to make sure she actually died this time, it wouldn't do us any good if her focus was divided and she noticed me. We'd have to track her down all over again. Besides," he said, carefree as he deactivated the weapons and attached them back to his belt. "I said half an hour. You gave me fifteen minutes."

"If you weren't ready by then, you'd never be," he growled. "I was tired of waiting!"

Kenobi staggered back, eyes wide and clutching his heart. "You?!" he gasped. "The great and mighty Darth Tyranus?! Impatient?!" Kenobi took a few deep, fast breaths. "Oh, my heart can't take this, I think I'm going into shock!"

"Nobody thinks you're funny, Lumis," Dooku droned, and the other man looked up at him with wide, frantic eyes.

"No, this isn't funny at all! I think I'm dying!" The two Sith stared at each other in silence for a long while, neither of them moving, until Kenobi burst out laughing as he bent over and picked Talzin's head off the ground. "Think Master will be happy this witch is finally dead?"

"Put that down, Lumis, it might have diseases."

"Hmm." He turned around to face the alter, a sly, wicked grin spreading across his face when he saw the Nightbrother shaking, eyes wide and looking at the head he held. "Oh, Maul..."

"M-master..." he whimpered, scrambling on the alter, the twisted metal of his legs scraping lines of sparks along its smooth surface, and he fell upon the ground. Slowly, he clawed his way to the Sith Lord and tightly wrapped his arms around one of his legs, shaking and trembling as he stared directly into the skull-like face of Talzin. "I didn't want to go, I didn't want-"

"Silence, pet, I know," Kenobi drawled, whistling sharply and the Weequay walked out of the shadows. "Boys, pick this up," he said, his voice laced with disgust as he kicked Maul off his leg. "I need that carried back to the ship." Laughing amongst themselves, the Weequay hauled the whimpering, compliant Maul up, the Nightbrother shaking and trembling, but made no attempt to escape as he had before. He was going home. Home...

"Master..."

"You have been very good, pet," Kenobi cooed, leaning over the shivering man and stroking his head, a wicked smile on his face as the creature winced and whimpered, a conditioned response to the cruelty that followed such a comforting gesture. "Very good. I'm even going to reward you!" Maul looked expectantly at the man, and suddenly stopped breathing then the Sith Lord dangled the severed head in front of him. "I'm going to let you present that to Darth Sidious. I can't imagine anything pleasing me more." He pushed it toward the gagging Zabrak. "Go on. Thank me and take it."

"...t-thank you, Master," Maul whimpered, reaching out with shaking hands and taking it, holding it close as the Weequay, obviously servants of his Master, carried him from the lair. This was all as his Master planned, and he was glad he had behaved in a way that honored the Sith Lord. Otherwise, he would be left to face the man's wrath once again, far more fierce than it would have been otherwise. Resistance was pointless, as today went to show. If his mother, if Talzin hadn't been so foolish, had seen the grace and the wisdom of the Sith...than perhaps her son wouldn't have to carry her head all the way back to Mustafar.

"You think it's over?" Kenobi asked, watching Maul out of the corner of his eye. Dooku nodded.

"It's over. The magic she commanded lays still. You collected her head, Lumis, what more proof do you need?"

"I suppose I'm just used to Nightsisters having a nasty habit of escaping death."

Dooku growled in agreement. "It's wise to not underestimate your enemies. But what's dead is dead. As you know, there is no coming back from that."

"...yes." He sighed, breathing deep of the air heavy with the stench of death as they left the cave. He much preferred it to the dank, musty, stagnant air of the Nightsister's lair. "Do you suppose our Master will be pleased?"

"Oh yes. Very much so."

Kenobi smiled and said little else on their walk back to the Umbra. The Black Sun and the Pykes were gone. The Hutts were dead or served him. Mandalore had the starts of a new Empire. Maul was in his eternal custody, broken beyond repair, and now Talzin was dead. There wasn't much else in terms of revenge that he could do for Satine and their son and he felt...empty. The ache returned, deeper and more painful than before, but it was gone a moment later, soothed away by what he could have sworn was the lightest brush of fingertips on his cheek. He shook his head and pressed forward to his ship. He had to get off Dathomir. There were ghosts everywhere on this cursed place.