Chapter Text
Finally, thought Maul.
“Finally.” Obi-Wan spoke to the night air.
Kenobi sat hunched between an ailing fire and an ailing hut amidst the vast dark of Tatooine. Beyond him, Maul could see the endless wastes of desert expanding into shadow, and then seamlessly up into a black sky.
“I had wondered when you would show up.” The bent figure sat with his back exposed. He spoke over his shoulder, vaguely towards the intruder.
Maul paused in the darkness. The wretch’s accent was Coruscanti, like his quarry, but something was amiss. His voice lacked that familiar ring of superiority; the words had no mirth, no confidence. And Maul sensed no Force presence whatsoever.
“Kenobi.” Maul growled viciously, materializing out of the shadows. He separated the covert lightsaber hilt from his wooden cane, his red blade erupted from it.
Kenobi turned his face back to the fire, unfazed. He fed it some oily wrapper of what might have been his dinner; the fire hissed and ate it greedily. “Out here they call me Ben.”
Maul leapt across the campsite with a flourish, swung his lightsaber in a tight circle and planted his feet in a combative stance. His arms were buzzing, tense as coiled springs.
Obi-Wan neglected to stand. “I’m a little tired for sport tonight,” he drawled. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Maul anticipated the blaze of a blue lightsaber blade, the deft counter-maneuver, but there was nothing. Only the wind, harassing the fire. He studied the figure in front of him for a long moment. “Squalor has not treated you well. You’ve become slow. Ragged.”
Kenobi sat. Maul waited for a retort that didn’t come.
“After twelve years of fetid isolation, I’d become a filthy half-mad wretch, just as you are now. But how long have you been out here? One year, two? More?” Maul spat, moisture quickly swallowed by the sand. “How disappointing.” He stalked closer, “Look at you. Fraying.”
Obi-Wan sighed and frowned, as if considering Maul’s words. The suns and sands of Tatooine were indeed biting away at him. Gnawing him down with each sweltering day. He imagined someone else - someone stronger - taking up his charge, standing guard in the desert in his place. Maybe Bail, maybe Yoda. Maybe Ahsoka… if she was alive. Obi-Wan bowed his head, rubbed at his eyes. He didn’t have the energy to spar, with words or otherwise.
“After all this time. You welcome an end to your misery.” Maul held his lightsaber at the man’s neck, taking in his utter submission.
The blade almost kissed bare skin, catching stray whiskers and crackling with the scent of burning human hair. Maul tried, desperately tried to revel in it, but couldn’t. Something wasn’t right. In lieu of Kenobi’s pique and vim there was only despair.
The beam retracted, and he grabbed the imposter by the back of his head.
“You can’t be Kenobi,” he seethed, yanking him forward, close enough to see the dust in the lines of his face. He gestured towards the hermit’s glowlamp. It flew to his hand and switched on, a parody of his lightsaber. Obi-Wan would have smiled, but the fleeting amusement didn’t reach his lips.
“Oh desert rat. Looks so much like him,” Maul muttered, squinting at him. This so-called Ben’s face was familiar, with its noble, furrowed brow. His hair was lank and unkempt, his temples gray, his beard scraggy. The Zabrak roughly turned the human’s head from left to right, evaluating him. The resemblance was uncanny.
“Look at me,” Maul demanded.
Obi-Wan lifted his chin, and met the blood and bile eyes of a Sith. There stood his nemesis, his shadow. Maul had grown older too; his skin was sallow and ashen in the lamp light, eyes hooded and darkly ringed. His faded gray robes may once have been black; even his black markings seemed washed out. Maul’s pupils dilated; he snarled, grabbed Kenobi by the hair and shoved him to the ground. “Jedi,” he hissed.
“Playing dead? Is that your gambit? End this pathetic act Kenobi.” He kicked Obi-Wan, rolled him over with his foot, and hissed “Get up.”
Obi-Wan rose up on one elbow for a moment, and waved his hand, “You will leave me be.”
Maul brushed off the weak Force suggestion like a cobweb, “Surely, you can do better than that.”
Kenobi remained in the sand where he’d fallen, looking up at Maul with cold blue eyes. He straightened his robes, brushed the grit out of his mustache, his beard, and he waited. If The Path had lead him to this, then so be it. He was ready.
Let someone else take this burden. Let him be free. He was tired of shepherding chosen ones. Let the old general rest.
“Get on your feet, Kenobi.” Maul commanded, voice strained. Internally, he was panicking. He had visited dozens of worlds, trekked over countless kilometers of desert, and called upon every one of his skills to hunt this man down. He had been singular of mind for months - for years - preparing for this moment. He started pacing and cursing Obi-Wan in Mando’a, gesturing with his walking stick. He let out a frustrated growl. This wasn’t what he wanted.
What had they done to Kenobi? Maul had so wanted to share with him the new theories on pain and horror he had developed during his most recent stint in the Emperor’s keep. But the Jedi’s spirit was already broken; he was ruined.
Revenge had been stolen from Maul, yet again.
And then there was the other possibility, the one he could barely entertain, let alone say aloud. Still it rang in his head, a thought he couldn’t silence. An alliance. The enemy of my enemy…
But this, this used up Jedi scum will do me no good if he cannot help bring the downfall of Sidious any closer.
Short of vengeance or vindication, did Maul not deserve a warrior’s death? He had long ago promised himself he would die in combat. No successful gladiator went into battle expecting to lose, of course, but… He had assumed Kenobi would put up a great fight; he always had in the past.
Maul had hatched plans upon plans, but he had no contingency for this.
He was suddenly spent. Adrenaline was failing him. There was no threat here to be spoken of. There would be no satisfaction in killing Kenobi now, no restitution.
And he had no other move to make.
Maul stuck his cane upright in the sand, and crouched beside Kenobi’s campfire.
Obi-Wan remained on his back, not watching Maul, but gazing up at the stars. He crossed his arms. “Well, aren’t you going to come over here and execute me? Or, what? Is your fun ruined if I don’t fight back? Come on, Sith Lord,” he said bitterly, “You’d slaughter dozens of children on a whim, so what’s stopping you?”
“I am not a Sith Lord anymore.” Maul said flatly. A correction, not an answer to the question.
“Oh, is that a fact?” Obi-Wan laughed, harsh and fake. His words were eaten up by the darkness, the wide flat earth, the gentle dunes of endless sand. No echo.
Both men fell silent. Maul felt detached from his body, from the world around him, from the galaxy at large. Seeing Kenobi lying in the sand like a dead womp rat… it didn’t feel real at all.
Obi-Wan covered his face, yawned. This was ridiculous. “Killing me in my sleep. Now that is really low, even for you Maul.” He stood slowly, joints cracking. He got dizzy easily these days.
Obi-Wan shook out his clothes, walked the few paces to his hut and collapsed inside it. His lightsaber was there, in its usual hiding place by his bedroll, but he didn’t have any plans to use it. With any luck he would fall into a black dreamless sleep and not wake from it.
Maul watched Kenobi turn over once, and take a long pull off a small flat bottle of what appeared to be liquor, the galaxy’s universal medicine. He was floored.
If circumstances were different, Maul would have established a perimeter, and found a decent blind from which to watch his prey. But the hunt was over, and the combat nonexistent. He stared into the embers of Kenobi’s dying fire. The night had brought a deep chill. Maul bore it without complaint.
This was just another puzzle to be solved, he tried to reassure himself.
Kenobi does not have my permission to die, not yet.