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"Why is he here?" Obi-Wan asked, even as he nodded at the waitperson and took the seat that had been drawn out from the table for him.
"Why not?" Satine asked primly, reaching for her water glass with a completely opaque expression.
"Perhaps because he is a murderer?" Obi-Wan suggested, slanting a glare at Maul.
Maul leaned back in his chair and didn't respond to that beyond crossing his arms across his chest.
"Who among us has not killed another?" Satine asked rhetorically. The waitperson brought out the bread for the table, and Obi-Wan immediately tore a piece off of his roll and buttered it.
"Besides, he's been a stalwart ally to my people throughout this... crisis."
"Crisis?" Maul said, his deep voice emphasizing his wryness. "Is that what you're calling it now, Duchess?"
"Well," Satine said. "We are at dinner. A certain level of... etiquette is merited."
"Etiquette," Obi-Wan echoed, staring at her. He'd seen her bleeding and scarfing down a decade old thermally stable ration pack they'd found in someone's abandoned bunker.
"Etiquette is just another way of lying," Maul said.
"I never said it wasn't," Satine replied. She flagged down the waiter, ordered the wine.
Just before the wine could be poured, Maul looked up, staring at the window. "How did I forget--" and then he snapped "Down!" and pressed Obi-Wan and Satine with the Darkside of the Force, flattening both of them to the ground just before the windows exploded inward.
Obi-Wan pushed back out of instinct, drawing his lightsaber and leaping to his feet to confront Maul, only to see Ventress standing in the spill of glass and ruined food. She had several mercenaries with her, who immediately began rounding up the other patrons.
"How many people want you dead, Kenobi?" Maul demanded, lighting his own lightsaber and then leaping for Ventress.
"Oh, dear," Obi-Wan said, wondering if he should just leave the two Darkside users to fight it out or if he should help Maul. Or perhaps he should help Ventress; at least she only tried to kill him.
It always felt like Maul was trying to lock him in a tower like some fairytale character. And his timing was insanely convenient. It was extremely annoying.
But then Satine hissed his name, and he looked down at her face, pale with fear, and he knew what she'd prefer. So he reached for Maul's robes and caught a handful of them.
"We need to get out of here," he said, and when Ventress tried to take advantage of their distraction, they both shoved her away with the Force, and Obi-Wan shivered at the strange echo that Maul's Force sense always seemed to have.
"She's a threat," Maul said.
"Satine's in danger," Obi-Wan pointed out.
Together they glanced at her, and Maul deflated, then he moved and scooped her over his shoulder in a single motion, and the three of them bolted for the exit just as CorSec started pouring in.
