maul pets his disobedient jedi, lies curled up in bed with him. obi-wan drifts in and out of sleep, held close and safe. what happens next?
obi-wan recovers and they explore the contents of maul's cave together.
obi-wan falls ill from all the cold and wet, and requires bed rest and tlc.
rescue arrives to find them naked in bed together. anakin has a conniption.
obi-wan wakes up to breakfast in bed and presents.
obi-wan wakes up with morning wood, thus begins again the dance of resistance
maul warns that if he will not stay put there will be... bloody consequences.
Voting ended onDec 30, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 16 ~
When he returns from hunting treasure to find the cave empty of jedi, his scream of rage is enough to make the walls shudder and rain with scree. Maul reaches out in the force, throwing a wide net of energy out with the intent to hunt Kenobi and drag him back here. Retribution would be paid in blood for this-
He finds the jedi's energy signature just a little ways away, stationary. Lambent. The sith is brought up short, confused. Taken aback even.
Was this an escape attempt… or not?
Lashing down on his rage, setting aside judgment for a moment, Maul leaves his pot and box on the shore, and returns to the water to seek the jedi through the force. He swims fast and true for less than a minute, left and right and around…
The dragonfish sith breeches the pocket of his own bedroom cave, and rises up in a quiet rush of shedding water. Kenobi is here? Here? He went wandering, but not to his lightsaber or the surface, but here?
Maul sways his way through the caves and comes up on his own bed. There the jedi lies, buried under makeshift blankets, curled in on himself, shivering.
The sith looks around in disbelief. There on the shelf of his nightstand is his saberstaff, he leans close sniffing… not a trace of skin scent on it. Kenobi had not come looking for a weapon to kill him with then.
The last embers of his rage dowse themselves as he returns his attention to the cold little ball of stewjon.
“Jjjedi,” he whispers thoughtfully, running his claws through salt-crisp hair. “Always leaving behind the heat you need, awake or asleep. What a pathetic thing you are.”
Maul withdraws, considering the situation. Either Kenobi needed to be brought to heat, or heat needed to be brought to Kenobi. He ponders it briefly, but easily decides that he likes the jedi to be in his bed.
He goes, gathers the magma ball from the second prison cave, and returns. It is cooled somewhat, so he slices it in half with his saber like an orange, revealing the cherry red center. The freshly unmasked lava blooms with heat, rapidly forming a new black crushed shell on its surface.
Maul situates one of the halves just so, pointing it's radiant heat toward the bed. Then, he climbs in, finding his way under covers to drag his Kenobi to him. He discovers bare skin, offering him easy access to touch new places. The variety of textures is fascinating.
Predictably, when faced with heat and weight and a living body, the jedi seeks him out like a plant turning to the sun. Limbs unclench and the ball of him eases open. Arms come winding around his back, and a scruffy face presses to his shoulder.
Kenobi sighs with contentment at his presence, and Maul feels… he feels…
The words for this. These too are missing from his memory of before. Or perhaps he never had them.
Darth Maul draws his prisoner close, and waits for him to wake. The other man’s force signature brightens at one point, perhaps touching consciousness, but he drifts back down again without a word.
It is hours before the jedi truly stirs, groaning at the back of his throat as he peers blearily around.
“Kenobi,” Maul says, catching the man's chin in his fingers and drawing that watery gaze toward him.
The jedi blinks a few times, focus slow to resolve. “Where am I?” he asks.
He hums, fingers playing through that ginger beard. Soft. So soft. “Where you are meant to be.”
With a muddled huff, Kenobi turns to look around, not satisfied with his answer. “I remember getting bored and going exploring, and then I found a cave with… things. Art and trinkets… was I dreaming?”
“Mmno,” the sith denies, “you have found my cave, and put yourself in my bed. This is... good.”
The jedi scrubs a hand over his face, and back through his hair. Maul runs a hand down his bare side, then back up again.
“Sorry. I'm… not really parsing anything,” Kenobi replies.
Maul scoffs, “Because you left the heat, again. You are too weak to survive the cold. I have scolded you before but you did not listen. Hear me now: I forbid you from leaving warm places again unless I am there to watch you.”
Kenobi sloughs back down, loose limbed in his hold. “...”
“Jedi,” he says warningly at the silence, leaning in toward the other man's face. “Obey me.”
That tired, watery blue gaze lifts to his. “Mmnnn?”
So unfocused. So soft and pliant. Irresistible.
Maul’s eyes are drawn to chapped pink lips where the lower one is loose and slightly parted from the top. He doesn't question the stray desire to taste the cracked texture of it. The sith presses close, licking those lips, slipping his tongue inside a slack mouth.
“Ah,” Kenobi says softly, letting him take what he wants. His smooth tongue slides against Maul's, reactive to the languid stroking of his.
The dragonfish sith runs his claws gently down the back of his prisoner, careful not to cut unintentionally, until back becomes backside. He cups the handful of curve, squeezes and pulls, drawing their hips closer together.
The jedi turns his head away, hiding in Maul's neck. “Please, I don't…”
“Hnn?” he asks, enthralled with the way Kenobi’s soft belly and scattering of body hair felt against his own smooth stomach.
“Just hold me and let me sleep. I just want to rest,” the man pleads softly.
He tsks, “If you would stay where I put you, your strength would not wane.”
Kenobi sighs gustily, relaxing when Maul's hand returns to petting the pale flesh of him higher up. Straying places that are personal, but not quite so personal. The jedi comes back out of hiding when the trend continues. His eyes look like they struggle to stay open.
“I have gifts for you,” Maul tells him, “To earn your favor.”
“It isn't something that can or should be earned with material things,” Kenobi mumbles.
“Jedi drivel,” he counters. “Nice and necessary things are a fair measure of who to show favor to.”
Unable to help himself, the sith's claw skim just a little lower, teasing the sensitive line of skin between the other man's low back and ass. Kenobi groans, and his hips rock.
“Nng,” the pale man says simply, brows drawing faintly upward in pleasure.
Maul kisses him again, far more gently than he deserves, then settles down. “Sleep, Kenobi. Regain your strength. When you wake I will show you your gifts.”
obi-wan has fled the field of battle! maul stands at the water's edge. what happens next?
obi-wan returns of his own free will once he's... refreshed.
maul pulls him from the water, hissing with laughter at the stupid jedi.
back up arrives and a battle for obi-wan's freedom ensues!
maul jumps in after him, and the game continues under water for a spell
each on the wrong side of the water, they begin a conversation long past due...
maul gets pissed off at the hot and cold treatment! is obi-wan dtf or not???
Voting ended onDec 3, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 12~
It had taken a very long time for whatever strange, oceanic narcotic that Maul had imbibed to wear off. Anytime Obi-Wan had stopped levitating the moss around, he'd very quickly had a newly bored and curious sith getting uppity with him, trying to get his hands on the jedi's chest hair. It was easier to float the damn plants around than to peel the dragonfish man off of him, by a long shot, and so he did.
For hours.
Eventually Maul had worn himself out and coiled down into a circle of tail and sith. Obi-Wan found his own spot on the cold, rocky ground beside the magma ball, and passed right out.
He dreams of master Qui-Gon. Nothing specific, just fragments of taking a walk. The world they're on shifts, from Stewjon to Nar Shaddaa to Naboo. They don't talk much, but it's very comfortable.
He thinks of Anakin. The young man is panicking about something again, always so passionate, asking him over and over where he was. Obi-Wan tries to tell his padawan that he's quite fine, but the boy won't listen. Oh, Anakin. He never does listen.
Hmm… why is it so cold?
He dreams of the room of a thousand fountains, of dozing beside the waterfall. At some point, that becomes going for a swim in the pools. He slips into the water, and discovers that Kit is down there, meditating. Obi-Wan doesn't want to interrupt! So he swims slowly around the outside. After some number of laps, his nautolan friend awakens from his meditation, and waves to him. Obi-Wan waves back, and they go for a swim together through the tunnels beneath the fountains, built especially for the waterborn species of jedi. Their version of a walking trail.
Between one tunnel and the next, he loses track of Kit, and the lights start to dim. Dimmer and dimmer and dimmer… He can't seem to be truly afraid for some reason, but he does feel mild concern. He'll be lost down here forever without some kind of light.
Something swims past him, too fast to see in the growing darkness. A splash of green, and it's gone.
Oh! There he is.
Obi-Wan swims that way, trying to find him. He almost catches the other man as he swims by again. Almost, almost, almost… drat! He wishes Kit would stop swimming by him so bloody fast. The next time he feels the drag of scales under his palm, Obi-Wan throws himself toward them, and latches on.
Ha! Got him!
Quite pleased with himself, the jedi master wraps his legs around the other man, and uses his fingers to write in sign language on Kit’s pecs, chastising him for playing games in the dark. The nautolan’s chest moves like he's laughing, and arms wrap around Obi-Wan's back. He huffs, smacking the man for laughing at him. Kit nips at his chin in return.
Oh so that's how it is?
Obi-Wan bites back. Then Kit repays it. He returns fire yet again, and finds the hips under his rolling toward him. Cool, clawed hands run up and down his back.
Distantly, he wonders how he's breathing, with no rebreather in his mouth, but the thought fades softly away. Even underwater this is so nice. Being held is such a rarity for him, but oh it's so…
Those cool hands move lower, tracing the curve of his ass, and he feels his interest stirring even more. These were public tunnels though… they shouldn't tempt fate by-
Hips roll into his, harder, more insistent, and Obi-Wan groans. Kit wanted to…? Here? Oh he was ridiculous… but the nautolan would surely hear anyone coming long before they came...
Obi-Wan kisses his way down slick skin, pushing lower, lower, trying to find the bulge between the other man's legs by feel alone, to rub against it. He finds not a bulge but a full length, already free from cloth. Strangely much lower than expected…
… larger than expected too.
Hips rock into his, and he can't help but meet them, spreading his legs, lifting his knees. Oh, it's been so long…
Obi-Wan finds this strange angle puts his face right at eye level with Kit’s fantastic chest. He palms both pecs, kneading, then dips his head to run his tongue over one pert nipple. The body underneath him thrashes, making him smile muzzily. It must have been quite the dry spell for Kit, too. He turns to the other half of his chest, applying teeth and tongue to the sensitive peak.
Claws dig into his shoulders. He takes that as encouragement. Strange… where did the water go? The body beneath him rocks up against his, but their buoyancy is gone.
There's no water, there's only air.
There's no temple, no tunnels, only stone and-
Obi-Wan blinks his eyes open, only half conscious, and finds himself straddling a dragonfish man. Maul is looking up at him with wide eyes, chest heaving and gills fluttering with his panting breaths.
The jedi blinks half a dozen times, but the image doesn't resolve itself into something that makes any more sense than before. Maul has been on land long enough that his skin is dry, save for a sheen of wetness on both nipples.
The sith’s tongue makes a lap of his own lower lip, then he swallows. “Kenobi…”
Oh ye gods.
Obi-Wan rolls off of him immediately, “I apologize!” he yelps, skittering away until his back hits a wall.
Their eyes meet, luminous green to watery blue. The sith’s gaze dips, landing on the bulge in his pants. Obi-Wan shoves it downward and crosses his legs over top of it. Maul’s head tilts, like he's identifying when Obi-Wan has done that before. Oh kriff.
The jedi clears his throat. “That was completely inappropriate, I do apologize. I'm not sure what happened, I was having… ah, pleasant dreams, and then… did you come near me in the night?”
Maul writhes gracefully, his tail coming up under him as he rises and sways closer. “I did. You had rolled away from your lava, so I put you back and pinned you down.”
Obi-Wan shuffles awkwardly sideways, trying to keep his distance, desperately trying not to look-
“Thank you for your consideration then, so sorry for the trouble. Shall we go back to bed? Separately! I mean. You… over there. Me, over here.”
The other man continues to sway closer, a rhythmical shifting of his tail from left to right and back again that propels him forward. His blue-black cock sways with the motion of his hips, hypnotic like a metronome. A red line runs along the underside, with tiny red dots going halfway up either side. The tip is pointed, and there's these little-
Obi-Wan wheezes, and scrambles the other direction until he is backed up against the water line. “Maul,” he starts, not sure what to say to make the other man stop looking at him like that.
Oh force, the sith lord looks like he wants, and is determined to get what he wants. Obi-Wan just needs to spread his legs and invite him to-
As a jedi master, he must rise to the occasion, despite great personal cost. “Maul,” he says again, “I just want you to know…”
“Yessss?” the man croons, eyes half lidded as he approaches.
“That this is not an escape attempt, I am merely in dire need of a bath. Immediately.”
With that, he tosses himself into the ice cold water, for the absolute worst blue balling he has ever experienced.
To be continued...
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maul is high as a kite, and obi-wan is exasperated and maybe a lil flattered by the unfiltered things coming out of his mouth... what happens next?
maul monologues, high & affectionate. obi-wan desperately resists (gay crisis)
obi-wan takes advantage of the situation to interrogate maul (fun & subtle)
obi-wan overpowers maul and ties him up (both riled, but it's aggressive)
maul is sweet & playful & silly, and obi-wan falls (a lil bit in luv)
unfiltered maul explores his kenobi, and gets explored himself (less convo)
the pufferfish poisoning gets worse, and maul becomes sick!
Voting ended onNov 27, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 10~
There are so many thoughts in his head that the dragonfish sith feels like he is drowning in them as he swims out of the tunnels. It was impossible for him to literally drown, but he was...
Maul had not spoken to another sentient at length since that final conversation with his master on Coruscant, all those years ago. Now, only in these strange circumstances, he is realizing that his nemesis is a better conversationalist than Sidious. He was interesting and he… he asked questions. He listened when Maul spoke…
It was.
It felt…
Kenobi had talked for hours with him, of stewjoni and zabrak, of favorite foods and weather patterns, about all variety of things lost to him from the world above. Words and ideas refreshed themselves as conversation flowed, and Maul felt… he felt… like he was being restored in some subtle, expansive way.
They did not speak of sith and jedi things, but, perhaps another time. Oh yes, they had so much time, now. They had forever.
He was pleased with himself for keeping the jedi, for belaying final vengeance. Kenobi had taken Maul's destiny away. Was it not poetic that he was now owner of the other man's?
Yes, yes it was.
Smiling with his many excellent teeth, the dragonfish sith finds his way out from the caves and out into open water. From there, he swims further from the coast, away from fruit trees and civilization, and into the craigs of a grand trench.
Deep in the winding rocks, was the source of the glowing moss he had collected and replanted to create the dim but functional lighting of his home. Harvesting more was dull, repetitive work. Perfect for keeping his hands busy so his mind could think.
And oh, he has so very many thoughts. So many ideas.
Maul loses hours stewing in his own head, hunting down and bundling up square after square of bioluminescent mossy sod for transplant.
The sith's preoccupation is, without a doubt, why his hand closes around a pufferfish to get it out of the way of where he's working.
It panics and balloons outward, spikes pricking his skin. Then the stupid thing bites him.
He snarls, backhanding the aggravating thing away so hard it disappears into the gloom.
Maul shakes his hand out, annoyed by the stinging, and returns to gathering. The moss grows in disparate small clumps. He swims from one to the next, hunting them by the light they produce. Some are easily uprooted, others are entrenched and not worth the effort.
The dragonfish sith sees another such batch of radiance off through the craigs, and heads for it, his previous findings tucked under one arm.
He runs into a wall.
“Mmngg?” Maul grunts, recoiling from the surprise. Bubbles escape his mouth at the vocalization.
They're so… pretty.
The silvery orbs wibble and wobble, shimmering as they rise upward.
Why are they leaving?
…he did not give them permission to leave!
Maul swims upward, trying to catch the bubbles. His snatching grab only breaks them up into smaller bubbles, like fizz. The world narrows down to him, his hand, and the disobedient silver balls.
What follows is a slippery, slidey, unfocused stretch of time where Maul rediscovers bubble physics anew. At length. Gleefully. He notices, somewhere in there, that his lips and fingers tingle. His throat feels warm. Then, he realizes his moss is missing.
The dragonfish sith swims in a circle, spiraling until he spots a lumpy glow down below. He had dropped them! Maul swims that way like a drunk whale, getting closer, and closer, and the glow is getting so big, and closer, and-
He mashes his face into the plush mound of light. Who knew light was so fluffy? Slick and floof and good.
Yes, moss is very very good. So Good.
It glows!
Maul gathers up all of his new favorite thing into a ball, and holds it to his chest as he turns for home. At some point he loses track of where he is or where he's going, then finds it, then loses it again. He ends up back at the warren of his caves, enters, and then gets lost in them too.
An indeterminate amount of time later, the dragonfish sith finds a Kenobi.
KenobiKenobiKenobiKenobi.
Swimming is very hard, but land-swimming is even harder. He persists, because he must show the Kenobi his MOSS.
The jedi looks up at him, waking from a doze beside the magma ball. Maul gurgles gleefully, and dumps the pile of luminous fuzz on him.
“Moss!” he declares, then also drops himself on the pile as well.
“What in th- oof! Ff, Mhh-” the jedi flails underneath it all, “Maul!”
It takes him a minute to remember how his mouth works. He forgets for a moment there, but that is understandable. He has forgotten many things.
“Mmmmmmossss!” Maul howls when he figures it out, then rubs his face on the slick fluff.
“Have you lost your mind?” Kenobi accuses, unburying himself and getting some distance.
The jedi does not understand, and that is terrible. He must understand! Who else will understand? No one!
Maul picks up a very nice hunk of moss, and puts it on Kenobi’s head. “This is the best thing,” he tells the man firmly, “It is good.”
The jedi’s brows furrow, his arms crossing. “The… moss?”
“Yessss,” Maul hisses, picking up another chunk to stack on his own head. It catches on his horns, and trails over his ear fins. Now he glows too!
“... are you…” Kenobi starts, then stops, squinting at him.
Maul falls over into the remaining pile of aquatic fluff, arm spread wide, and rolls in it.
“... are you high?” the jedi asks incredulously.
Maul thinks about this very seriously, before replying. “We are below sea level, so no.”
The other man takes the moss off his head with a grimace, drops it into the pile, and crosses his arms. “You know that's not what I meant. Have you taken something… recreational?”
He doesn't know that word. “Reee, reeecreee, reehhhkrre…” Maul gathers up a ball of moss, and throws it in the air. It smacks wetly into the ceiling before falling back down. He giggles.
“Force. You did.”
“No you did!” Maul replies, not sure what they are talking about, but happy to be talking. He also just liked being right.
Kenobi kneels down to his level, and sets hands on either shoulder. “I won't ask how you got it, but… what did you even take?”
The dragonfish sith leans in, grinning, tail curling around the jedi's knees. Then he whisper-shouts, “I took a Kenobi!” and snatches the man up.
His jedi sputters, flailing, yelling his name and trying to escape, but oh no, nooooo. There shall be no escape for the Kenobi.
Maul pins him on the carpet of luminous mass. “Hnnnnn~ I am keeping you. You are clever and interesting and good. You are good and moss is good and this is perfect. You talk! Yessss. You are so good.”
Kenobi's eyes widen, his face changing colors again, from cream to splotchy red. Maul runs his claws over the swathe of it, fascinated. As he does, the crimson strain spreads.
"It changes..." he gushes.
With a groan the jedi eventually gives up struggling, his bipedal frame no match for the strength that Maul had stolen from the tides.
“Ye gods,” Kenobi says to the ceiling, limp in his coils.
chapter 6: obi-wan is still alive, and still imprisoned. what happens next?
a cave in! they have to escape!
they fight... and hurt each other's feelings
they fight, physically, and it gets... strange *wink*
maul decides to do *another* sith ritual
obi-wan just wants to rest and be taken care of
maul decides to share some of his underwater world with obiwan
Voting ended onNov 17, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 5~
It hurts.
Obi-Wan curls in on himself where he kneels by the back wall, deeply regretting taking his tunics off to dry. They might've protected him from the creature's tentacles. Instead, one of it's long, sucker-lined arms has lashed across the skin of his back.
Breath stealing pain is blooming over the marks, around his shoulders and half way up his neck on the other side. He can feel the circles from the octopus’s suckers like they're on him even now, a brand of fire-and-ice.
“Breathe,” demands the sith who has imprisoned him here.
Obi-Wan tries, truly he does, but his efforts to inhale are choppy at best. The hurt is so profound he can barely think.
“Breathe!” Maul orders him.
“Huu- hu-... rtss…” he manages, vision going dark near the edges.
Without warning, it lifts.
Suddenly the pain is more than halved, something like a four of ten, rather than a nine. More than enough relief for him to finally gasp, dragging in fresh air like it was all he could ever ask for.
It takes Obi-Wan a moment to reorient himself, after the suddenness of it all. He had gone from a light doze, to waking up under attack, to fighting for his life, to being in incandescent pain, and then relieved of it. All within a span measured in minutes.
When he's refocused enough to get outside of his own head, the jedi master discovers he's half on top of the bloody -literally and figuratively- sith. He cries out, feeling scales under his hands as he throws himself away-
The pain returns like a lightning strike, like an electro-whip across his shoulders. It's so sudden and intense that Obi-Wan can't help but scream, losing all his air and finding himself unable to get it back. He hits the floor, hard, but past that he can't make sense of the world.
It hurts it hurts it hurts-
It lessens.
Obi-Wan drags in lungfuls of air, shaking in place as he tries to just be.
“Witless jedi! Be still,” Maul hisses at him.
He does, but only because he can do nothing else. Minutes turn over, and Obi-Wan regathers himself again. He is still in pain, significant pain, but not enough to blind him. The left side of his chest… hurts.
‘That is a very bad sign,’ the jedi thinks wearily to himself.
When he can see straight once more, Obi-Wan dares to assess where he is and what's happening before moving this time. The results are just as uncomfortable. Actually, no, they're worse. Where he had last been laid over the sith's scaled lap, now he was up against a muscular chest, that long tail fin running between his legs.
The jedi thanks the force, twice, that he hadn't decided to put his legging out to dry as well as his tunics.
“What-” he tries to speak, coughing before he can continue, “What's happening to me?”
The creature's touch… had done something to him.
Obi-Wan suddenly realizes that Maul, that Darth kriffing Maul, is cuddling him. One hand holds the back of his neck, pinning the jedi to his breast. The other clawed hand is… petting him, is the only way Obi-Wan can describe it. Gently, rhythmically, petting him.
He legitimately wonders if he's hallucinating.
“The gorogoro is venomous, and it stung no small section of your pathetically delicate flesh,” the sith underneath him explains scornfully.
“It… hurts. It hurt more before but…” Obi-Wan trails off, thinking sluggish, “... you're doing something?”
Maul makes a disgruntled noise. “If by something you mean reinacting an ancient sith rite of pain sharing to keep you alive? Then yes.”
The jedi makes three different faces trying to acclimate to that reality. “I'm. We're. What.”
"Connected. Sharing."
Obi-Wan fails to produce words, and has to breathe for a moment and just, parse everything. Then, he tries again, “That octopus stung me… with it's suckers…”
“Yes,” Maul confirms, “the pain is meant to make you seize, unable to breathe, then you die.”
“... kark,” he decides quietly. The sith scoffs, his claws slowly gliding back and forth across Obi-Wan's upper back.
Oh. He can feel it now. Where the sith's hand passes, the pain… much of it lifts from him. But where does it go? Wait…
“You said, this is a pain sharing ritual?” He asks to clarify, immediately feeling stupid. Maul had already said so, twice, and yet it answered very little.
“Ahhh,” the other man confirms, “Sharing of pain is sacred. Surviving pain makes you stronger. Passion overcomes weakness, proof that peace is a lie.”
Maul speaks like a true believer. Obi-Wan just thinks that all sounds like cultish hogwash, but sure. Not dying of indescribable pain is… good.
"And... you're not effected by the sting?"
"Mmno, zabrak are resistant to most toxins," he replies.
Obi-Wan glances at his ear-fins pointedly. "You're not exactly a zabrak anymore..."
Maul chuckles, and it's half way to being a threat. "I am half of one, as yet. I wonder who I have to blame for that."
The sith is, of course, complicit enough in his own choices to be equally, if not more, responsible for the results.
... but that isn't a fight he wants to pick right now. “You're feeling the pain you're lifting from me?”
“Mnnnn,” Maul hums, and oh, ye gods, he does not sound unhappy about it.
“You're enjoying this!” Obi-Wan accuses him.
The sith laughs like wind whistling through rusty pipes. “Yesssss.”
The jedi closes his eyes and just… checks out for a moment. Now he knows what that bulge underneath him is. He's not going to look at it, he's not going to think about it-
Wait, if Maul is half fish now, does that mean he has a-
No. no.
He is not going to think about it, he is going to focus, and- and-
Step one is figuring out if he absolutely needs to be draped over the other man in order to have his pain lessened. Yes, he's going to ignore what's happening in favor of being… clinical.
“Is this much contact really necessary for the… rite?”
“Hmmm?” the sith asks, like he's half high on the pain, no meds required.
Obi-Wan tries again, asking what he really wants to know more directly. “Can I be on the floor while you do this?”
“Mnh,” Maul replies, “I suppose.”
The dragonfish sith rolls them over, and it is ridiculous how graceful he is about it. Obi-Wan's left leg is nudged up and over, then he is rolled face first onto the cold ground.
Loops of tail coil over him, pinning his legs to the ground. Forearms brace on his midback, and a suspicious bulge nestles between his thighs. Obi-Wan draws his arms forward, and hides his face in them. This is... not even slightly better. Worse, actually.
“Is it completely necessary for you to be laying on me while we do this?” he spits.
Fingers slide into Obi-Wan's hair, grabbing it and wrenching his head back.
“Ungrateful!” the sith hisses, “Every word out of your filthy mouth should be gratitude that I would share such a gift with you.”
This is a horrible time for Obi-Wan to be reminded that he has a hair pulling… thing.
“S-sorry, sorry. My. My apologies,” he gasps.
The tension on his scalp is released, and the jedi buries his head in his arms again, just about coming up on being too emotionally overwhelmed to be sensible. The sith leans over him, covering him, claws still gliding over the slowly bruising sucker marks.
“Thank me for sharing your pain, Kenobi,” Maul whispers in his ear, threatening.
He just… doesn't have it in him to snark back like he wants to, and deal with the repercussions, not right now. “...Thank you.”
“Good,” the sith croons, and-
Surprisingly, the weight on his legs rolls away. Maul lays on his side next to him, petting his back slow and steady.
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says again, softer.
“Mnnn.”
“... how long will this last?” he asks, subdued.
“... I do not know. I have never seen anything survive it.”
Obi-Wan emerges from the shelter of his arms to give the sith a horrified look.
Luminous yellow-green eyes meet his gaze, and the man snorts. “Most things stung die in minutes Kenobi. There is no reason for it to be long lasting, and even if it goes much longer, you will be fine. I will endure with you.”
“Oh… okay.”
“Say it back to me,” the dragonfish sith demands airily.
“... say what back to you?” he prevaricates.
Maul gives him a look.
Obi-Wan sighs, really not interested in actually engaging in a creepy sith ritual, but, well, the man was active life support at the moment, and doing it the hard way.
Er… the… the… something besides hard. Not the figurative hard way at all, actually, the other man was clearly enjoying it enough that he…
Obi-Wan is not going to look.
The jedi masters his curiosity by gluing his chin to the forearm beneath it. “I will endure with you?” he tries, uncertain.
The sith makes a pleased hum. Then, he whispers, “So attractive…”
Alarmed, Obi-Wan side eyes the sith, “Excuse me?”
Maul is leaning in, inspecting the circular bruising that stripes his back in the same way a jeweler would appraise a new shipment of precious stones.
“Your skin purples, and- and yellows…” The sith inhales, enraptured, “it is lovely. Like a painting of the damage.”
“Er… thank… you?” What the kriff is he supposed to say to that?
Maul lays his cheek down on the bruising he so favors, and the pain in that area fades to basically nothing. They both sigh in response, for very different reasons.
Hours pass like this, with sporadic conversation and pain sharing. By the two hour mark, Obi-Wan feels fine. A bit hungry. In want of a softer place to lay, as well, but fine enough. He begins to suspect that after a certain point, Maul started taking all of the pain. The jedi isn't going to complain about it though.
He does fall asleep, however, lulled to rest by the radiant heat of the lava orb, and gentle claws that stroke his back, even still.
maul is expecting, maybe even *anticipating*, a tough fight when he returns. what does obi-wan do?
he tosses the hilt at him... but then attacks!
he hands over the lightsaber, as promised
he starts trying to negotiate to keep the saber
he attacks, ready to break his word for a chance at freedom
he hands it back, but tries underhanded tactics to get maul to let him keep it
something crazy happens before they can get to it!
Voting ended onNov 19, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish Chapter 6~
Kenobi moves in his sleep. A lot. Maul knows this, because the jedi rolls to a new position approximately every twenty minutes. Primarily, the other man seeks the heat of the magma rock, curling around it until he's over heated. Then, he flops away from the heat and over onto Maul.
This provides a series of interesting discoveries.
For one, Kenobi is affectionate when unconscious, pressing his face to the sith's chest, and holding onto him wherever his flopping arm lands. The jedi's warm breath tickles the soft skin of his gills, and his legs keep trying to tangle with another pair that isn't there.
Amused, Maul winds his tail over Kenobi's restless limbs, and finds that it settles the man. The jedi only wiggles closer, like he wants the weight.
This is oddly pleasing.
Another thing is that he mumbles in his sleep, talking to various people. Someone named Ahnahkin needs to clean his room. Someone named Qwin needs to go away. Various others are complained at or dismayed over. This is the first glimpse, however removed, that Maul has heard or seen of the outside world in years. With the gungan fleeing from him on site -as is right and proper- he has simply not had opportunity.
The dragonfish sith takes note of every name and mumbled secret. He puts together stories, hungry for mental stimulation.
The third thing he learns while watching Kenobi is that he can stay unconscious for a very long time. A. Very. Long. Time. Maul waits, unwilling to sleep while exposed, for what feels like twice the time he would normally rest himself. Still the jedi sleeps.
His bruising has faded away over the course of this hibernation, colorshifting until the skin is cream toned again, and the scrapes and abrasions are nothing but faint lines. On one hand, he is disappointed to see the markings fade. On the other, a blank canvas invites new paint…
Eventually, Maul grows too bored to tolerate. Even with a selection of fresh calamari to nibble on. He shakes the other man, calling him back from his endless rest, “Kenobi. Awaken.”
The jedi groans, burrowing closer.
“Jediiii,” Maul hisses, “Wake. Up.”
Kenobi rolls away, batting at the hands which shake him, wiggling to the magma rock instead.
Squinting, Maul pins exactly one hair from his head between two claws, and yanks.
The other man makes a sad noise, ducking his head further under the rock.
He pinches another hair, and yanks-
Kenobi comes half awake with an angry noise, elbowing him, then burrowing into his own arms.
Maul grins, entertained, and gets ahold of a single beard hair, and yanks-
The jedi punches him in the side of the head, making his ear fin sting something fierce.
“RrrraaaaahH!” Maul shrieks, somewhere between rage and glee, and grabs the other man by his tunics to rattle him about.
Finally, Kenobi truly wakes, muzzily batting him off and rolling away with a groan. “Ye gods, you're a monster, and it has very little to do with your career choices.”
Maul preens. “You brought it on yourself, jedi scum. You would not wake.”
“Have you considered that, perhaps, that was because I needed more sleep?” the man snaps in a cranky rasp, kicking him.
Maul wacks him with his tail fin.
Kenobi kicks him again, harder.
It quickly escalates. The jedi yanks on his horns, making Maul gasp as a strange zing runs down his spine. He gut punches Kenobi for the trouble. Maul snaps his many sharp teeth at an offending arm, and tears a hole in his robes that makes the man cry out in dismay.
The dragonfish sith is tossed across the room with the force, and immediately shows the jedi how terrible of an idea that was by springing back at him like a compressed coil.
Both of them are bleeding a bit by the time Maul is satisfied. Not that Kenobi seemed settled, but it is hard to effectively complain with hundreds of pounds of amphibious sith on top of you.
Maul pins the jedi's shoulders as he leans over him. “We are done now.”
“Go kriff yourself, Maul,” the other man says dryly, flat on his back and trapped under the weight. “I haven't done anything, I've been nothing but compliant! Why are you beating me?”
The dragonfish sith grins, all teeth. The jedi may act disdainful, but his body shows interest in the fight. His pulse is fast, he's supressing a grin, he feels excited in the force, and his blood isn't the only thing that's up.
Good. Maul likes to fight. “You would not wake up, and, you kicked me.”
“I was tired and you woke me up by pulling out my hair.” Kenobi says defensively.
“I was bored. You slept for half a day, at least,” Maul returns, “Such weakness.”
Kenobi sighs heavily, scrubbing hands over his face. “Yes yes, weak as a babe.”
The dragonfish sith giggles like water tossed on a campfire, and licks the trail of blood running from the jedi's split lip where it drips down into his beard. He mouths at the bloodied chin, stealing away all the iron taste. Kenobi makes a choking noise, eyes going wide as he freezes in place.
Maul’s grin only grows, broad and sharp and cunning.
“Must you… do that?” the man complains, cheeks turning red and barely managing a scowl as he looks at the ceiling over Maul's shoulder.
“Yesss,” the sith affirms with a spiteful laugh, writhing his tail over the legs pinned beneath him. He moves just so, and Kenobi’s back arches up off the ground, head tilting back as he moans.
Maul's brain empties itself as he sees throat bared to him.
Pale.
Thin skin.
A pulse, a fraction away from the surface, that would font if nicked in the slightest..
His hindbrain gibbers mixed signals at him like a badly tuned radio. The dragonfish in him says ‘food’, the zabrak says ‘submission’ and ‘trust’, the sith lord and trained assassin says ‘opportunity’... and the man that is all of those things and more just stares at that enticing expanse of throat.
He makes a little noise when it goes away.
No no… he… what was that? He…
Maul roils over top of Kenobi again, hoping to elicit that same…
The jedi paws at him, blinking rapidly. He looks confused with himself. "I, ah..."
“Again!” Maul demands.
“Mngh?” the man asks, limp underneath him.
“Your throat! Show me-
Kenobi makes more choking noises, scrambling out from under him in a flail of limbs and putting his back to a wall.
The jedi swallows, but it is so dry his throat clicks loud enough to hear “...force, I am so thirsty. Very thirsty! And hungry. I'm really wasting away here. Aren't you going to feed me? I'm probably losing kidney function as we speak.”
Maul makes a face, slowly rising up and looking towards the water, considering. “You cannot drink salt water…?”
“... no,” the jedi confirms. “That will kill me in hours.”
“Mnngnngn,” the sith replies. Yes... yes he knew that. “There are… fruits I can bring?”
Kenobi perks up, “Fruit sounds wonderful.”
“Mnnn,” he decides, “Fruit it is. First, we must move you to a more secure location. If one gorogoro found you here, more could come.”
The jedi makes a face himself, glances over at the water, then rotates his neck to look around the walls. “Move… how? I don't see any other caves.”
Maul sloughs over toward the water, pulling on the jedi's arm, “Through the tunnels. Come.”
Kenobi scoots away. “Or, consider, we could… not do that.”
A growl of annoyance rolls out of him. “Kenobi.”
Blue eyes flash at him, challenging. “The water is cold. I'm not well. My robes are covered in dried octopus viscera and crunch with salt, and there's no fresh water to bathe in. I don't want to be wet again on top of all that.”
Maul sneers at him, but pulls back, fists clenching and unclenching as he tries to think through what of that was whining pathetic jedi and which parts could actually kill him.
Dehydration… deadly fast.
Cold… deadly fast.
Poor hygiene… deadly eventually.
Maul hisses in annoyance, he did not like those results.
“I will… mnnnh… I will get a new heat stone, first. I will put fruit there. Hnnn… I will make it warm enough that you do not need clothes.”
“What, no,” the man says.
The sith nods. Yes, this will work. Not cold, not unclean, not hungry, and only wet briefly.
“Maul,” Kenobi says, pained, “You're going to the surface for fruit, yes? Please, just, bring me a container of fresh water? Please do not make me walk around naked. Leave me some dignity.”
The sith thunks his fist on his forehead a few times, then discards all of the difficult thoughts in favor of action. “I will consider it, jedi. For now, I will make the safer room… better.”
“Wait!” the other man calls.
“Mnh?” He turns.
Kenobi licks his cracked lips, “What if another octopus comes while you're gone? Leave me a way to defend myself.”
Maul hisses again, leaning forward, “You think I would give you a weapon? You would use it against me!”
“Just! Just think about it,” the jedi pleads. “If one comes, I can only dodge it. One slip up, and I'll be dead on the ground and half eaten before you ever get back.”
The sith shrieks his denial at that result. “No!”
Kenobi approaches him by the water's edge, reaching out to touch fingertips to Maul's left wrist. “I solemnly swear, on the force, if you give me my lightsaber to defend myself, when you return I will relinquish it without complaint or hesitation. Please. That… that pain. I don't want to die that way.”
Maul vibrates in place with displeasure. The jedi had a point. The jedi was certainly lying. What was the worst risk? Which result was less good?
…
… he would not lose his revenge to a mollusk.
“Fine,” he snaps, “stay here.”
The sith takes to the water with no small amount of aggravation. Down and through the warren of caves, he goes quickly to the distant nook where he had buried the blade and rebreather. Quick as he can, Maul returns to the unsecure prison cave.
He emerges just enough to check that a gorogoro has not appeared in the interim minutes. Seeing nothing but a pacing Kenobi, he rises up enough to catch the man's attention, and then tosses the hilt at him before quickly diving again before he can attack.
They can fight again, later, after there is food and water and warmth waiting for his fragile prisoner. A place for the jedi to recover after he is beaten for his lies.
The dragonfish sith gathers another magma ball, rolling it up and carrying it back in the force. The new cave is a little smaller, and does not have the under-floor water ways that the original one did -which Maul had intended to use to harass the jedi- but, it is much more defensible. Two ways in and out, plenty of oxygen and bioluminescent plants, various boulders, and a relatively flat floor. Also, none of it is splattered in blue blood.
He takes a brief moment to check on the jedi, who is curled up by his heat source, before taking off for the surface. It is not a short trip to the islands with the fruit trees, so he plans to take many.
The sith also steals the laundry off the line of a fishing boat, and uses a sheet to bundle all the things together, but then he has to stop scavenging and descend. It is too bright up here, and the air feels wrong in his lungs. Too thin.
Maul dives for the depths again, eyes scanning the water for escaped jedi, or, conspicuous corpses floating upward. To his surprise, pleasure, and suspicion Kenobi is still in the cave where Maul had left him. He makes a lap to drop off his finds, and returns for their fight.
“Kenobi~” the sith sings, “I am back. Will you kneel before me and hand over your saber?”
The jedi master turns towards him, then looks down at his unlit blade.
darth maul is scheming as he hunts. kenobi must suffer! what will he do to obi-wan next?
restrain and hurt him... just a little (cruelly)
restrain and hurt him! (sexy physical power games)
monologue about the TRUE sith/jedi history
try to seduce him to the darkside...
antagonize him into a fight... to make more lovely bruises
he must be made to kneel to his new master! (mind games)
Voting ended onNov 20, 2023
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Obi-Wan uses a faint tendril of force to brush over his kyber, sending the animus of it his affection. It murmurs back at him, ill at ease to be handled by the energy signature it knows as Maul.
With a sigh, the jedi holds the hilt out. “Kneeling wasn't in the agreement.”
The other man sways closer, tense and watchful.
“It would please me to see you on your knees,” the sith says, reaching out and lifting the unlit saber from his palm.
Obi-Wan leans back on a hip, and crosses his arms. “I'm sure it would. Beat me up some more if you must, but I won't kneel to a sith lord willingly.”
Maul squints at him, calculating, and he has the uncomfortable realization that the other man may have simply taken that as a challenge.
“Hmmm…” The half dragonfish hums, twirling Obi-Wan's saber between his fingers, then igniting it.
He can feel the kyber song shudder. It does not want to be wielded in darkness.
Maul makes a swift strike, stopping a matter of inches from his hips. “Perhaps I should take your legs as you took mine… would that not be fair?” The man sneers, “Surely you jedi care about fairness.”
“No,” Obi-Wan counters, not giving an inch despite the sputtering heat of his own blade too close to his side, crackling as it resists this use. “The jedi code isn't concerned with being fair, only just.”
Maul grins. The defiance only seems to please him.
The dragonfish sith extinguishes the blade and sways backward on his tail, retreating to the water's edge. “I will return, and then I will take you to a different cave. Be prepared to go, jedi. I will drag you under either way.”
“Wonderful,” Obi-Wan drawls as Maul backflips into the water, hardly making a splash, “It's a date.”
Alone again, unarmed again, the jedi prisoner scowls and goes to lurk beside the magma ball. It's only mildly warm now, the cooled shell being too good of an insulator. The center of it is likely still fluid, but it's thermal radiance is diminished. Obi-Wan still leans back against it, plotting.
He had been too stressed on that first day to pay much attention to the pathway Maul had taken from open sea to this particular cave as he kidnapped Obi-Wan to it. An oversight on his part. They would be going to a new one though, and as much as he isn't looking forward to the blasted cold, it would provide an opportunity to learn some of the area.
He could pay attention to the path between here and there, and then, maybe in a day or two, find a way to make Maul consider the new cave to also be an unacceptable cell. The sith would move him again. Another opportunity.
It would take time, cunning, and no small amount of manipulation, but if he could map out enough of these caves, he may be able to learn a way out.
The next problem would be getting all the way to the surface, slowly enough to not die of drowning or diver’s sickness.
One problem at a time.
Obi-Wan flips where he's leaning on the magma rock, attempting to warm his front side in advance of this next trip. That's how Maul finds him, practically hugging the misshapen ball of it.
“Jjjedi,” the sith calls to him from the water. “Come.”
Rather than waste energy being difficult when he wants to be focused and aware for the trip to the next cave, Obi-Wan opts to approach the water himself, and -with a grimace- take a deep breath and hop in. He manages to not gasp from the immense chill by a small margin of success. The temperature is bitterly cold, shocking even when he'd prepared.
Regardless of the chill, it's beautiful and alive down here. The seaweed drifts like tall, ribbon grass. The moss glows white and blue. Little fingerling fish with translucent bodies school around pink coral and porous stone.
Amid the beauty, the sith swims over to him, black and red and incongruous with it all… yet a part of it. A monster from above with dual citizenship on the ocean floor.
Maul swishes up to him, fast and graceful, and grabs his tunics before taking off.
‘Well,’ Obi-Wan thinks as he relaxes into the hold, ‘at least he isn't coiling around me like a vice this time.’
Maul glides them through the water, into a small tunnel that opens up into a larger one after only a few feet. Obi-Wan can see it going off to the left and right, lit by the moss. The sith takes them left, around a curve in the tunnel. The path splits into a dark corridor. They go left again, then right.
He hopes they arrive quickly, he'd like to breathe soon.
They go up, across the open sands of a massive cave the size of the senate chamber. The space is brightly lit by orange crystals and purple fish that glow in neon stripes.
He's running out of breath.
Their path leads though a hole in the wall. Obi-Wan looks upward, hoping to see an air pocket…
There isn't one.
Alarmed, he wacks Maul in the chest and gestures at his mouth. Where in the blazes are they going? He needs air! Even with the lungs of a swordfighter and the aid of the force, he has to-
Maul presses their mouths together, and breathes into him.
‘What,’ he thinks dumbly. The jedi master feels six different things at once. His thoughts are mangled by the chaos.
Now his lungs are overful, but the edge is taken off from his need to inhale. Obi-Wan lets some of the air escape him, making a cascade of silvery bubbles erupt around their faces. Maul does it again. A second stale breath fills him.
Oh. Right, yes, okay, the sith has made himself into a rebreather.
Obi-Wan breathes out again…
…and the Dragonfish sith gives him air once more.
… and again.
… and again.
They breach a water surface and Obi-Wan opens his eyes, blinking owlishly.
When had he closed them??
'Drat,' he thinks, dismayed.
… he'd lost track of their path.
Maul lifts him onto shore, and he feels heat at his back. Obi-Wan rolls towards it before he's even got his bearings, shivering and disoriented.
Mmmmm. Warm.
“This shall serve. A gorogoro cannot pass the threshold to enter unless it is juvenile, the door is too small,” Maul declares, sounding pleased with himself.
“That's nice,” Obi-Wan tells him, trying to get as close to the fresh magma ball as possible without burning himself. He shrimps around it with a sigh.
“You will drink. There is fruit. I shall hunt, while the magma is still hot enough to cook on. Speak your preference, Kenobi, or I will simply bring you crab.”
“I love crab,” he tells the wonderful black stone before him, “but I've no seafood cracker.”
The sith snorts, “You are an idiot,” the man tells him.
With a small splash, he's gone.
Obi-Wan's desire to be warmer fights with his desperate need to hydrate, until finally he gets up and at least looks for the supposed fruit.
There, not five feet away, is a massive pile of coconuts and laundry. He squints at it, making sure he's seeing it right. Did the oxygen deprivation do something to him…?
No, indeed, it's a pile of coconuts and laundry. There's even a laundry line and clothespins mixed up in it.
“Why-” he starts, then shakes his head, “No, nevermind. Let's see if I can split a coconut with the force.”
He can, but it spills the majority of the milk everywhere. Obi-Wan screws up enough coconut crackings to get his clothes covered in it, but who cares? The swim here might've cleaned off most of the octopus viscera, but he is still wet anyway. What's a little more?
The trick, it turns out, is drilling a hole in the top with a sharp rock, and drinking from that.
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
obi-wan is now trapped in the deep sea cave. maul's body might be changed, but he's still a scheming sith bastard. what happens next?
obi-wan makes an escape attempt
obi-wan tries to surprise attack maul
maul attempts to make his prisoner comfortable
maul plays mean games with obi-wan
maul has to fight another predator off of his jedi
obi-wan gets sick and maul has to take care of him
Voting ended onNov 12, 2023
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals
(Art by Obimaulartfire! Check out the full cut on their blog, or at the end of chapter 1.)
-Chapter Three-
Maul cackles when the jedi goes limp in his hold. Weak. Defeated. Submissive. Oh, what a beautiful thing it is!
He dumps the other man onto his ass and retreats to the water's edge, nearly euphoric. "Enjoy your prison, Kenobi. I hope you find it very comfortable."
Blue eyes glare at him from the floor, but it only delights him further. Maul rolls backwards on slippery black scales, and disappears into the water.
It is time to let the jedi stew in his dwindling hope. Maul intends to find ways to give it back to him... and take it... and give it... and take it. The perfect game, endless amusement until he decides it is time to break the jedi for good.
He swims gracefully through the cave system, almost dancing through the water in his delight. Maul heads for open seas and the room to move. There is a geyser field not far off, with luminous magma flows on the sea floor which make for warm currents and good hunting. The perfect place to plan his next move.
Kenobi, Kenobi, Kenobi… how to keep a Kenobi? To keep him bloody, barely mobile? To keep him starved, begging for food? To keep him... or to kill him?
Oh, ohhhh, how good it would feel to plunge his claws into the jedi's guts, to tear his liver from him and eat it while he watches, hopeless and dying. The very idea is enough to give Maul the chills.
But only… only once. He can only kill Kenobi once.
It would not do to rush the finale, he thinks. Killing him too quickly would only rob Maul of his due, and spare him the full spread of his just desserts.
The dragonfish sith rides the thermals of the magma field, and tries to focus through his own crazed glee enough to plan. Enough to think through logistics.
How best to keep a Kenobi?
First, containment.
The caves were his home, winding tunnels with multiple air pockets, rooms as big as a cargo bay and as small as a closet. It had always been a boon that some sections went closer to the surface… but did they go too close? How far could a force user go without breathing? He isn't sure, anymore. Some knowledge from his old life is simply gone, decomposed during the process of his rebirth.
He would have to get Kenobi to admit to his own limits.
Hmmm… perhaps putting something the jedi wants into a cave not far from the empty room he was stuck in, and encouraging him to go to it? Then another thing, a little further away. He could see how much effort it took…
Yes, a test. He could design a test. That would do. Later.
What else? …food. Yes, food was important.
Maul snatches a blind eel fish from the rocks, and considers it thoughtfully before tearing it's head off with his teeth. Could Kenobi eat eel? Crab? Can jedi live off the sea as he does? Could their weak stomachs process raw fish? This knowledge is also missing, and what personal references he has to compare it with are spoiled by dint of his original species. Zabrak were obligate carnivores. He is still an obligate carnivore. Unhelpful.
But would a hungry jedi admit what he wanted to eat? Maul could even frame it as a kindness, to keep him off base. Room service in prison, what luxury!
He rolls over in the water, laughing silent bubbles that catch the green glow of his eyes and scatter it. The light attracts a school of small, clear fish. He plucks one from the stream of them and pops it in his mouth like an hors d'oeuvre.
What else, what else…
Containment, nourishment… hm. Maul struggles to think of what else a prisoner might need to survive. Perhaps more will come to him later? He will think on it again. In the meantime, he will go back to Kenobi. Watch him, and see if he tries to escape, to wander, or to get into Maul's private cave. There are weapons there, and he will not be allowed such things.
With sufficient plans for the time being, the dragonfish sith returns, drifting into the water of the prison cave slowly, stealthily. He rises up in a shadowy corner so that only his eyes and ears are above the water line.
The jedi is still there. He is pacing, holding a wristcomm up to his mouth and speaking into it.
"This is jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi. If anyone hears this message, please contact the temple on Coruscant and inform them that I am trapped underwater in a cave system off the coast of Theed. Tell them Darth Maul lives. You will be rewarded for the effort. Please."
Kenobi draws in a breath, turns to take another lap of the space, and begins again. "This is jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi…"
Maul covers his mouth with a hand, holding in the snickering that wants to escape and give his position away.
Oh how fun! The fool thinks a little wristcomm has enough signal strength to be heard through leagues of water and stone. Grinning, he sits and watches the other man uselessly call for help, making bets with himself on how long the hope would linger in those blue eyes, how many repetitions it would be before Kenobi gave up begging to empty ocean.
He gets to seventy four repeats before the jedi sits down on a rock, elbows on his knees. One hand holds up his forehead, while the other bears up the comm device to his mouth. At a hundred and sixteen loops his voice trails off, scratchy, and then he falls silent.
Maul slides through the water, going down and under, then coming back up in a pool close to the jedi's left side. He puts effort into stealth, setting his arms on the shore and putting his chin down on them.
There, he waits to be noticed.
Minutes tick by in a pleasant daze. Kenobi sits before him, bent and broken, hope for rescue leaking from him like a cracked glass. Maul watches the man, tail swishing in the water, and thinks he could do this for years. Just sit, and bear witness to Kenobi's growing misery.
The jedi coughs. The dragonfish sith frowns.
Kenobi coughs again, dragging a hand down his pale face.
He is falling ill? Already? Maul scowls ferociously. He is weak! Already he is dying? No! No!
The jedi can only die when he allows it, and not before!
His tail slaps the water in agitation, and they both freeze. The sith quickly wipes all expression from his face, relaxing back onto his forearms as Kenobi turns to look at him.
"Back again, I see," the man says grimly. "Come to kill me?"
Maul grins at him, ever cheered by the idea. The man looks at his mouth and grimaces, seemingly put off by all his excellent teeth.
"Did your allies not return your calls, jedi? What a shame... perhaps they do not want you anymore?" he says, in the tone of a sympathetic confidant. "Do not fret, I will keep you."
"Or you could not," the man suggests dryly. "What worth could I possibly have to you, except for dead?"
Maul laughs at his naivete. "Tell me Kenobi, what do you eat?"
The jedi turns on his rock to face Maul. "Are you taking special requests? Because I would trade my shirt for a shadwa club sandwich right now."
The sith snorts, "Think seafood, imbecile."
Kenobi looks at him, really looks at him, and Maul finds himself compelled to roll his tail, showing off the translucent blue fins and the pretty dots that line him.
He blinks, confused as to where that inclination had come from.
"You're intending to keep me alive then?" the jedi asks.
Maul refocuses, his grin returning as he drags himself up out of the water. He gathers the length of himself beneath his torso and sways closer. "Yesss, jedi. You are here to suffer. You may only know the privilege of death when I am satisfied with my revenge."
Kenobi looks up at him from under long, damp eyelashes, assessing. "I truly doubt you can keep me alive, sith. This cave of yours will run out of oxygen sooner rather than later. I'm already burning through energy trying to stay warm, because everything is wet and freezing cold. I am actively healing myself to handle the pressure acclimation, and I cannot continue for long without a place to rest that won't simply result in hypothermia. Besides, what am I to drink? Saltwater? Hah."
Maul leans back on his tail, brow furrowing.
The jedi stands to meet him, crossing his arms. "I'll be dead in hours at worst, days at best, so you had better decide between watching me asphyxiate, killing me yourself, or letting me go before it happens."
Maul gnashes his teeth in agitation, clawing at the force for answers. No. No! Hours? His revenge cannot end in hours! He has dreamed of it for years!
"Well?" Kenobi asks, droll, "What's it going to be, hmm? Murder or mercy?"
He hisses, "Shut up! I am thinking."
The jedi simply watches him, calm, leaning back on one hip.
Maul flexes his hands, clawed fingers clenching and unclenching. "You will not run out of air. It is always fresh here. Cold… cold. Water. Wetness. Cold. Water." He mutters to himself, thinking of solutions, then raises his chin. "What is most fatal to you, jedi? Which of these threats would steal you away from me first?"
Kenobi looks away, and for a moment it seems as if he's considering the consequences of silence… but then those blue eyes come back around. "The cold. I need to warm up, or my heart will give out."
The dragonfish sith mentally chews on that. He seems warm, to himself, but what temperature is that? Hm. The only thing also warm to him down here are the magma flows… but perhaps their gift could be borrowed?
"I will return," he says, and flips himself back into the water.
Maul swims out to the same field, sinking down and hunting until he finds a brightly lit geyser. The small mountain glows luminous and orange at the core, so hot that even the frigid seawater cannot temper it.
Cautiously, the sith reaches out with the force, pulling on a chunk of molten stone as big as he is. The magma is slippery and uncooperative, but he is determined and far more powerful than mere rock. He pulls a ball of it up and out of the geyser, pushing it through the water and away from the mount by the force.
As it rises the edges cool, becoming a black shell that belies the burning within. Once it is raised high he approaches, finding that it is too hot to touch, but pleasant to be near. Perfect.
Very pleased with himself, Maul swims back to the caves, fighting with the ball to get it through the winding corridor. At one point he has to set the black shell down and batter at an outcropping to make way. When approaching Kenobi's cave, he must also take care to keep the rock from touching the plants and burning their air-giving leaves and light shedding mosses.
He rises from the water perhaps half an hour after leaving. The jedi is in one corner, looking miserable and damp.
What a delightful thing to return to.
Maul drags the magma ball up into the room with the force, where it takes up space at the center. After a moment, steam begins to waft off the surface.
"What in the blazes is that?" asks the jedi, rising to his feet.
while obi-wan peacefully mediates, maul is having a hell of a time. what's the sith gotten himself into now?
gotten into a territory fight with some foolish gungans.
he ran into an even bigger predator...
committing gorogoro genocide to protect his kenobi!
exposed to something that makes him sick.
exposed to someone that's made him delirious...
he's gone on a quest for things to keep obiwan alive.
Voting ended onNov 23, 2023
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~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 9~
Obi-Wan watches the end of Maul's translucent fins disappear beneath the water line, and scrubs a hand down his face. The jedi turns away, and plops down in a mediation pose next to the magma ball.
He hadn't quite realized the extent of it before, but the sith's mind was not… whole.
It had come out in the dips and flows of conversation. In questions about concepts that were common knowledge. Odd moments where yellow eyes would twitch off to the side, or stare into the distance. He expected any sith to be a little crazy, driven halfway to madness by the darkside itself, yes, but... this was something more.
Maul the dragonfish was a very different man from the unblinking, uncompromising apprentice he'd faced at Theed. Was it the… transformation? Was this clever, curious mind underneath the expressionless assassin all along? Was the sharp wit and quick tongue natural, or new? Obi-Wan didn't think he'd ever find out for sure.
And none of that really changed his most startling realization yet: that Maul was strangely good company when he wasn't being psychotic.
All the kidnapping and such aside, Obi-Wan hadn't… he hadn't played like a youngling tussling on the floor for the fun of it in... years? Hadn't curled up with someone to sleep next to since… well. It has been a bit. Bless him, but Anakin is a handful. Adults-only time for training and private pursuits had perhaps not been as common as they should have been these past six years.
It did not help that being on-world and free at the same time as his usual partners for casual assignations simply didn't happen enough for his, ah… tastes. Bant was a prodigious, in-demand healer, and Kit was always hairing off on another adventure.
Actually, the dry spell might explain why he couldn't stop wondering about…
More importantly, it didn't help that for being the prisoner of an evil, insane sith, Obi-Wan finds himself ever more comfortable. That was surely a bad sign. There was some sort of prisoner psychology thing… stackhold or some such? Yes, his experience was probably being colored by that.
He finds himself a bit concerned that such a thing could set in so quickly. His stay at the bottom of the sea thus far was measured in days, not weeks or months. Was his mind prone to the… stackholding?
Obi-Wan regrets not taking more psychology classes as a knight.
The jedi master hums, leaning closer to the black stone to soak up it's radiant heat.
“I need to stop enjoying myself when he picks on me,” he tells himself. “He's being a bully, and just because I like it doesn't mean it's okay to encourage him.”
Obi-Wan resolves to stop rising to provocation.
“I need to stop responding with humorous rejoinders when he is being a smart ass,” he affirms as well. “It only provides him openings to be entertaining and establish… rapport, and rapport leads to regard, which leads to…”
He resolves to be more bland in conversation.
“I must find a way to free myself. Anakin needs me. My duty is to the order, and to the people of the galaxy at large,” he states the obvious. "Though Maul seems... really quite lonesome, actually. Hmm."
His meditative self reflection continues, turning over those thoughts.
Yes he needed to go home, and to go home he needed to escape… but how? Plan Aurek had been a supreme failure.
Obi-Wan knew of a fair few animals, had connected with hundreds of different species in his lifetime… but rarely did he encounter one that was capable of prevaricating. The octopus he had called for aid had come… but it had been sentient enough to lie. To cunningly send him feelings of curiosity and friendliness under false pretenses.
The gorogoro had betrayed him. It had died horribly for it, but that was no comfort.
Obi-Wan sighs. That really had not been a good result for anyone. He still needs help though. Down, over, that way, something like a hundred yards off, he could feel the faint twinkle of his kyber. He assumes -hopes really- that his rebreather is there too.
With a heavy heart, he reaches out into the seas with the force, very careful to avoid the nexus of darkside that is Maul, and the glimmer of other gorogoro. He does not want a repeat of the previous situation, but he will not simply give up.
‘Hello?’ Obi-Wan calls, in feelings instead of words.
‘I’m friendly. I'm safe. I need help,’ he sends.
His gentle energy reaches plenty of creatures, but nothing so dexterous or intelligent as an octopus. Little fish swarm by the water’s edge, excited enough to make little plips and plonks of noise. They can't help him, but the sweetness is heartening nonetheless.
After a little while he gives up. Nothing else with enough force signature to be large or smart was nearby at the moment, but surely something with potential would happen by at some point?
What he does not sense, because it is impossible and so he is not paying attention, is the panicking flare of his padawan’s force bond. Thirteen some odd sectors away, his tiny call for help had been heard by a fifteen year old. One who had been worrying and wondering where his beloved master was.
