Title: Repentance
Series: Afterlife... (second installment in the series)
Category: The Angst continues
Summary: Maul's POV; his continuing observations on being One with
the
Force. Here, he seeks his Master for a link to the living world.
Archive: Sith_Chicks...all others please ask. It'll eventually be on 
my website as well.
Feedback: Please! Lots! My ego's pretty fragile these days so if ya
hate it, at least be constructive about it, 'kay?
Author's notes: The general consensus is that Darth Sidious was a
pretty awful guy. This piece will buy him no love from those who
already dislike him!
=============================================================
Repentance
by: Jenny Dare

In my life, I left few evidences of my existence; virtually no
personal effects, and even fewer living beings glimpsed me and lived
to tell.

In this place of nonbeing, time has little meaning; an hour, a day,
a year is impossible to tell between here and the living world that
I have sought to wander through. At long last, I have succeeded in
this endeavor.

It is a strange thing, without a body, to will what wisps of my
spirit remains, to touch upon those beings who retain air and
substance.

They are all perfect and painfully beautiful creatures.

If only because they possess the thing that I yearn for.

If only because they live.

On Coruscant, the throbbing hum of traffic affects me not; there is
no sense of movement or energy, only cloudy sensations of what they
were when I had the ability to feel them.

My Master's dwelling is where I'm drawn, that still holds an achingly
powerful sense of what I was.

What I failed at being.

I have no substance. But with all of what I am, I can just touch the
mind of my Master, the Sith Lord who trained me, the Sith Lord whom I
failed.

He is calm, at ease. He is a quiet and deadly strength, a strength I
could never realize, could barely emulate. I admired him limitlessly
in life. In death, I admire him still. But what once would have been
willful, submissive respect and exaltation, is reduced to endless
longing. Longing for what I strove to be.

"My Master..."

There are no actual words, only thoughts, only a projection of what I
wish to be able to speak.

But he is powerful, sensorial. He is perceptive of my touch within
his mind.

His eyes avert from the data pad he is reading and glance sideways
for a brief moment. Unfazed, he casually looks back to his reader as
though he were already bored by this distraction.

Then I heard his voice sound in what serves as my mind.

"What is it, Darth Maul?"

To be addressed, to be acknowledged. It should be a divine sensation
after so long a time being alone, not being at all.

It was not. It was sorrowful and leachingly sad. No words, no
thoughts, no intuitive sense could describe the emptiness, and my
burning yen to live again.

"My Master," I project once more, "I have returned."

He was writing something down, and didn't even flinch as he answered
me silently.

"Returned for what? To gloat in your failure, as you gloated in your
triumph when you lived?"

How is it that I can feel no sense of anything but what tears at my
immortal soul, and those things which I can feel are more desperately
painful in death than they were in life?

His rejection is final, without question, without quarter.

"I apologize, my Master."

"You will find no absolution from me, former apprentice. You
faltered."

"I know."

"You were reckless, arrogant. Always too sure of yourself. It was
your
mortal failing."

"I am sorry."

"You failed in your mission. The Jedi that you battled was knighted
from your failure. That is your legacy."

"All I can offer is my repentance, my Master. Repentance for
faltering."

"And I shall not grant vindication, Darth Maul. I have no use or
regard for you anymore."

In death, how is it that I can still feel such pain?

"I understand."

My Master, Lord Sidious, stood and walked across the floor, replacing
the data pad on a shelf, seemingly unaffected by the conversation he
held within his mind. The next thought from him ran cold through me
as
nothing I ever felt when I lived, a cold unequal to the definition of
the word.

"I have taken another apprentice, of course."

"As you would," I replied. I knew that he would have another
apprentice, but the words were still wrenching to hear.

"Who is it, my Master?"

"That is none of your concern."

"No, of course not. I am sorry."

"Never seek me out again, Darth Maul. Ever."

It was the last sentiment I received from him, and before I could
even try to respond, barriers went up around his mind and he closed
me out forever. He crossed the room and stepped out to the balcony,
throwing the hood of his robe over his head as he walked away.

I will never walk at his side again.

I will never feel the touch of his mind again.

He had not once addressed me with the title of 'Lord.' Did that mean,
in his eyes, my failure had stripped me of the title I'd worked all
my life to achieve? I shall never know. He will never again let me in.

'That is your legacy...'

These words cling to my thoughts. The last thing I saw as I lost grip
on my life were dancing blue eyes. The eyes of the apprentice who
became a Knight with the stroke that broke my connection to the
living world. The world I cannot let go.

I long for a chance; a chance to breathe again, to experience
that which is tangible. That which represents all that is sentient
existence. I had hoped my Master would allow me the opportunity to do
this through him. Touching the mind of a living being, even though
rejected, was painfully wondrous. To be so near to what I lost; I
cannot release this hope, this longing.

In my life, I left few evidences of my existence; my Master, who has
rejected me infinitely, the Jedi apprentice who was knighted as a
result of slaying me. Of the rest, would any recognize my presence,
allow me to touch the warmth of their sentient life?

There is perhaps one.

But for now, my defeat leaves me too weak to try.

.~fin~.

feedback: jeni_dare@hotmail.com