TFSFM, Chapter 4: The Son of Dathomir

Twelfth Month, 969 ARR (31 BBY)

Maul

Much had happened in the fourteen standard months since Maul had forsworn his former master. He had secured transport off Naboo in the chaos of the Bombardment’s aftermath, absconding with a good freighter that he had then flown to one of the few secret hideouts at his disposal that his former master had no knowledge of.

There he had rested for a few weeks, gathering what resources he could while letting his grievous injuries and wounds heal. Then when he was ready, he set out again, his entire being focused on one single task.

The mission was simple. Sidious had already lied to him so much. How much more had he lied to him about? Maul was determined to find out, and his efforts had already led him to a dead end on Iridonia.

Sidious had told him many confusing tales of his origins. An intentional misdirection no doubt, to ensure that he was fully devoted to him with no conflicting loyalties. One of those tales had been that he had been an orphan from Iridonia and after spending months scouring the planet for clues, he had found no evidence that he was from there at all.

Thus, he now turned his attention to his last remaining clue. Another story Sidious had told him once that his mother had been a woman named Kycina who had foisted him off on him in Blue Desert City on Dathomir, a mother he had claimed had never wanted him and had discarded him with ease. Something Sidious had always used to taunt and belittle him, to fuel his rage and motivation to become stronger and excel in his training.

With everything else Maul had since learned of Sidious’ lies however, he wondered if this too had been a falsehood. Did Kycina really exist to begin with? Was she truly his mother? And if so, had she truly not cared for him at all?

That was what he was here to find out. With all the stealth and subtlety that came with a lifetime of Sith training, Maul landed his stolen freighter on the outskirts of Blue Desert City and made his way into the settlement on foot to not draw attention.

Despite its name, Blue Desert City was little more than a ramshackle town or village, created as a neutral trading ground and meeting outpost for the various rival Nightsister clans though if the local gossip he had overheard was true, there may soon be but one greater Nightsister coven.

It seemed that for many years, a Nightsister Clan Mother by the name of Zalem had been rising to power and uniting many clans beneath her banner, enough to even declare herself Queen of the Nightsisters. Her reign had recently been cut short however by a confrontation with a Jedi over some ancient superweapon that had ended with Zalem dead, the superweapon destroyed, and Zalem’s daughter Ros Lai missing.

In the power vacuum that had since ensued, Maul heard one name above all others as the favorite to succeed Zalem as the overall leader of the Nightsisters. Talzin, Zalem’s half-sister and greatest rival. Though she had lost the initial power struggle that had seen Zalem rise at her expense (for reasons Maul couldn’t ascertain), she remained the most powerful Clan Mother of the Nightsisters apart from the neutral arbitrators and elders who dwelt in Blue Desert City, the Great Mothers, and with her sister’s demise and her niece’s disappearance, Talzin was swiftly consolidating power.

The name Talzin struck a strange chord inside Maul. Though he wasn’t sure why. Something about it felt strangely familiar to him and the Force seemed to confirm that feeling for him. Interesting.

His questioning had not gone entirely according to plan though. He was male and an outsider and the local Nightsisters seemed to have a mistaken belief that males were inferior, a foolish fallacy that made Maul almost growl yet nonetheless had affected their willingness to share with him information.

He had been able to glean general details about Talzin and Zalem and the general status of Nightsister society from the various traders and vendors in Blue Desert City but all of his attempts to inquire after anyone by the name of ‘Kycina’ had been shut down with nervous and suspicious looks.

Worse yet, as Maul made his way to the outskirts of the city, he realized that he had been sloppy. All of his questioning had picked up a trail and he could sense several figures tailing him in the shadows. Casting his senses outward, Maul detected several other figures spread out across the surrounding area and lying in wait for him ahead.

He snarled in anticipation. These fools sought to trap him in an ambush. So be it. He grinned. They would soon find that they, not him, were the hunted.

In an instant, he stopped himself in place and turned around, calling out to the figures in the shadows.

“Show yourself. Tell me why you are following me,” he demanded.

Out of the shadows stepped a lone figure. Her skin was gray and her silver hair was cut short. She wore the traditional Nightsister garments but was dressed all in red. In her hands, she carried an energy bow that she drew and aimed at him. A fine weapon, though Maul had always preferred to embrace the savagery of a melee.

“You have been asking many questions outsider. Questions a male and a stranger such as yourself should have no knowledge of and no right to be asking. Tell me, what does the name ‘Kycina’ mean to you?” she ordered.

“I do not take orders from Nightsisters,” Maul barked. “My business is my own. Now allow me to pass in peace and this need not end in violence.”

The stranger hissed in anger. It seemed that was the wrong answer as in an instant four separate Nightsisters loosed their energy bows from the shadows. Maul dodged every last bolt with a growl as he charged straight for the Nightsister who had spoken to him.

He did not get to her before four more emerged from the shadows and moved to confront him with daggers and swords, engaging him in perilous hand to hand melee combat. Knowing the importance of maintaining his cover, Maul did not ignite his lightsaber and fought them all bare-handed.

They were skilled warriors; he would give them that. But Maul’s male body that they thought so inferior was naturally stronger than their female physiques and his strength with the Force far eclipsed theirs with training more brutal than anything they had ever endured. He had slain Jedi Masters.

These Nightsisters were nothing but chaff to be weeded out and burnt before him. They were weak and he was strong. The fight could have only ever ended one way, even as outnumbered as he was.

Soon the Nightsister who had questioned him was broken before him on the floor with all of her compatriots and Maul had two of their blades in hand, ready to end the lives of those who had dared to challenge him. Just before he landed the killing blows however, he heard a panicked cry from behind him.

“NO!” an older woman rasped in horror and before Maul knew it, he had been blown off his feet by a blast of green lightning.

Despite himself, he groaned as he spasmed on the ground, struggling to get to his feet and continue the fight. The lightning was not as strong as his former master’s, but it was close, so very close, and it had taken him completely unawares.

Before he could recover, a cloud of green smoke enveloped him and he found himself restrained and forced to his knees by a powerful Force presence. He looked up and saw a Nightsister Clan Mother staring down at him, a strange unreadable expression upon her face as the Nightsisters he had just defeated rushed to enjoy the spoils of a victory they had not earned.

“Give me leave, Mother Talzin, and I will end this male once and for all!” the Nightsister who had questioned him earlier said with a snarl and a bow.

“No. This male you so disparage defeated you and your company with disgraceful ease. You have not earned your victory and thus his fate is not yours to decide, Kycina,” Mother Talzin replied.

Maul jolted as he turned his face to the now identified Kycina with shock. This was his supposed mother?? She looked barely any older than he was! True he had heard rumors that the Witches of Dathomir had discovered means of prolonging one’s life and youth but Maul could sense that had not been the case here. There was no way Kycina was old enough to be his mother.

‘Not mother,’ the Force whispered to him, ‘but connected nonetheless.’ The question was, how?

Talzin looked at him strangely.

“The Force works in truly mysterious ways if it returns you to Dathomir in this manner after all these years, Maul,” she said.

Maul refused to answer the strange woman, snarling as he tried to break free from her grip. The other Nightsisters raised their weapons but Talzin barked at them to lower their weapons in a strangely protective manner.

“You truly do not remember me?” Talzin asked. There was a strange longing and grief in her voice.

As he struggled to recall what in the Force this woman was talking about, an old memory unearthed itself of Dathomirian Nightsisters trying to capture and enslave him years prior, in orbit above the Orsis Academy.

“You were there at Orsis. You were one of the Dathomirians that tried to enslave me,” Maul snarled.

Talzin laughed bitterly. “Not enslave, Maul. Rescue,” she said before pressing her finger to his head.

The cloud of green smoke all around him swirled and pooled through her finger into his head and Maul felt himself lost in his own mind. He tried his best to fight it, to resist it, yet to his surprise, the presence did not seek to harm him. It did not seek to enslave or control him.

It only revealed things that had long been hidden. Memories that had long been buried, a family that had long been obscured by Sidious’ lies and tricks.

He saw himself as a boy on Dathomir, playing with two other young boys. His brothers, Savage and Feral. Once a week, they would be visited by two females. One adult and a girl slightly older than them. Their mother and elder sister. Talzin and Kycina.

Maul watched as they had been happy for a time, even as the traditions of their people prevented them from truly living together as a family. Then he saw as his mother had become increasingly close to a hooded man in red robes that he knew all too well.

‘Sidious,’ he thought to himself with a snarl.

Before long, he watched through his own memories as Sidious grew increasingly interested in him and his power before slowly turning and twisting him against his own family, into believing his own family hated him and driven him away when the truth had been that he had betrayed Mother Talzin and stolen him away from his own family before playing with his mind and telling him half a dozen different lies until he had finally forgotten the truth.

He had only been six years old when it had all happened after all. What chance had he ever stood to hold fast against the machinations of the greatest Sith Lord in history?

The chain of memories finally ended when he saw that fateful confrontation above Orsis not from his own memories but from the memories of Talzin. The despair she had felt when Sidious had revealed himself and ruined her last desperate chance to save her eldest son, taking him away from her forever.

When Maul finally came to his senses, he was still kneeling there in that alley in Blue Desert City, but the green smoke was gone. The other Nightsisters still looked uncertain but Talzin had a great smile on her face as Maul rose to his feet.

Kycina backed away as he stood up and he looked at her curiously. He understood the connection now, understood just what the Force had been telling him. All this time his feelings had confirmed to him that Kycina was connected to him in some way and he had assumed that was because she was his mother when in truth, she had been his older sister. A clever deception on Sidious’ part.

Maul couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the entire situation. Kycina and the other Nightsisters grew even more unnerved by that but Talzin did not mirror their receding footsteps as Maul continued to chuckle in the alleyway.

“I understand now. It had always been a ruse, hadn’t it? He lied to me every single day that I knew him. He deceived me about who my family had been, that they hadn’t wanted me, that he would give me my destiny when I had only ever been a tool to be taken from its home and discarded when I was no longer worth anything,” he snarled as his rage exploded and the walls around them began crumbling as his power pulled and pulled at them.

Soon another presence pushed back against the pull of his rage, keeping it restrained and keeping the walls intact but it was far gentler than Sidious’ forceful restraint would have ever been. Almost tender… and motherly.

“Yet you survived. And you have thrived. And against all odds, you have returned home to us, my son. And in time, together, we will have our revenge,” Talzin said triumphantly.

Maul locked eyes with the woman he now knew to be his mother and in them he saw the same rage, the same hatred and he knew then that even if their bond as kin was never restored, their alliance would never break so long as the man they both hated with all their hearts lived.

“Kycina, send word back to the coven of your brother’s return. Inform them that we will have a feast to celebrate this grand occasion. The return of the lost son of Dathomir!” Talzin declared.

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Author’s Note: Hey there! Surprise double update! It is a shorter chapter though, sorry about that. It’s been a while since I wrote TFSFM and I’m trying to build my passion and interest for the story back up (and also build the stockpile). We actually are still on track for the story and keeping up with what was planned in the chapter outline; this Maul interlude just ended up needing a lot less words than I thought it would. I was debating for a long while on whether or not I should extend it with stuff that had been planned for Chapter 5 but I ultimately decided not to mess with the carefully crafted outline, especially since it’s been so long since the last update.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter despite how short it was. It gives a good look to Maul and sets the stage for where his character will be developing from here. I’m eager to hear any thoughts and ideas y’all may have for his character arc!

Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the comments below or over on Discord!