Maul was on garbage duty at the Blue Lemon to make up
for the broken tables, and the Karaeoke
tape of ‘Barbie Girl’. He grumbled to himself
unhappily, hefting the last bag of trash into the
dumpster in
the alleyway. He snatched a wayward banana peel from
his horns and flung it into the shadows, snarling.
“Doesn’t it say somewhere ‘Sith do not do Garbage
Day?” he muttered to himself, then kicked
the dumpster. He was about to turn and open the back
door of the club when he heard a soft noise. He
froze, searching the alley.
He drew his lightsaber in a heartbeat as a garbage
can fell over further down the alley. He
paused, watching warily as the lid rolled away. He
heard the soft sound again, this time recognizing it
as
a cat’s meow. Curious, he tucked his weapon away and
stepped closer.
There, tangled in some plastic six-pack rings, was a
filthy little ball of gray and white. It mewed
piteously, swishing its tail. Maul sighed and smiled.
He crouched down to untangle the kitty, and was
greeted by a vicious hiss, the swipe of claws, and the
formerly-cute kitty trying to bite a chunk out of his
glove. He growled, about to abandon the little
monster to its fate, then paused, looking down at the
terrified wad of matted fur.
Something melted.
Ignoring the cat’s protests, he held it still with
the Force while untangling it, then set it gently
onto the pavement. The cat flicked its paws
curiously, glancing warily toward Maul, then took off
into the
shadows. Maul sighed, smiling.
He instantly frowned again as he heard applause from
behind him.

“Bravo. So the soulless killer has a heart after
all,” Kiraan rumbled from the doorway. Maul
scowled and walked past him, pretending to ignore the
comment.

-----------------

Three days later he was on garbage duty again. This
time, there was a broken window and
lightsaber-char-removal to atone for.
“Wasn’t my damn fault damn alter universe damndable
Jedi had to show up and damn near try to
damn fraggin’ kill me,” he muttered under his breath,
trying to squeeze a large black bag through the
back door. He heard a familiar plaintive mew, and
paused, looking down.
The cat was back, sitting next to the same garbage
can and grooming itself. It wasn’t helping.
The kitty was a mass of gray filth and tangles, and
the faux grooming only seemed to be making it worse.
Maul sighed, leaning his knee against the garbage bag.
The cat looked up as if it had just noticed him,
then trotted off behind the cans again. Maul shook
his head, returning to his task, but kept glancing
back
for the kitty.
Later, after cleanup was done, he smuggled a plastic
dish of leftovers out of the fridge and set
them by the back door. He guessed the rats would get
to it before the cat, but at least he’d tried.

The next day, the dish was empty, with a dead rat and
some shed white cat hair nearby. Maul
smiled.

---
He kept feeding the cat for almost a week, then it
disappeared. Disappointed, Maul kept looking
every evening, but there was no sign of the stray.
At the Hotel, he started leaving out a small dish of
milk in the alley, hoping the cat might find it.
Ulic found it first.

“You are /NOT/ to leave my good glassware in the
alley,” Qel-droma snarled, holding Maul to
the wall by the back of the neck. “Am I Understood?”
he asked, emphasizing each word by banging
Maul’s horns off the wall. He snarled, but tried to
nod, scratching the plaster further.
“Good,” Ulic said. “Now, you’re going to help me
repack all my Madrid pieces into tissue and
bubble wrap this weekend, and we’ll start on the Block
Optic and Prescut on Monday,” he added,
releasing Maul. “And if you so much as chip a
sherbert cup, I’ll saw off your horns and have your
tattoos
laser-removed.” Maul gulped, nodding.
“Good boy,” Ulic said, smacking him across the back
of the head before leaving.

“I oughta pitch your damn Block Optic in the bin with
the rest of the garbage,” Maul muttered
beneath his breath once certain Ulic was out of range.
He heard a soft mew and a scratching noise from
behind him, and turned, startled. He saw the
dirty little stray perched on the windowsill, looking
in at him. Overjoyed that the kitty hadn’t been
flattened by a car or eaten by giant rats, he opened
the door and let it inside.
It promptly waltzed across the maintenance room, into
the kitchen, and planted itself in front of
the refrigerator as if it owned the building. It was
already pseudo-grooming itself by the time Maul closed
the door and entered the kitchen. Apparently it had
once been a housecat, because it certainly knew how
to train a human, Maul mused, rescuing a plastic bowl
from the recycling bin and heading for the fridge.
He started opening containers as the kitty waited by
his feet.
/Kun’s seaweed crap. Xan’s.... *snif, snif* Ugh.
Xan’s expired whatever it is./ He dropped the
furry container into the trash. /Hmm, what’s this?
Ooh, Ulic’s steak Pate` from his TV cooking class.
That’ll do!/ he thought, smirking evilly as he set the
dish of ground meat-paste on the floor. The cat was
already at work at the dish before Maul’s hand had
cleared the rim.

An hour later, a very happy cat and a
warm-fuzzy-feeling Maul were both still sitting in the
kitchen. One busy grooming, and the other trying to
decide what to do. He suddenly wrinkled his nose
and looked down at the floor, where the cat looked up
curiously.
“You need a bath,” he said. The cat tensed and
mrowled dangerously, as if it had understood the
word ‘bath’.

--------------------

“Hold still!!!!” Maul snarled, bleeding in twelve
places and trying desperately to keep from
losing a finger as he tried to scrub the filth off the
stray. It hissed, snarled, spit, bit, and made noises
Maul had never seen a living creature make in his
entire life.
It was currently in a lull-stage, pretending to have
calmed down enough for him to scrub its ears.
Maul knew better. It would turn and rip another chunk
out of his glove and the hand beneath if he let it.
Holding the cat at arm’s length with the Force was
working relatively well for now, he was certainly
furious enough to summon up the Darker Energies to
keep the snarling beast at bay.
Dumping the last of the contents of the bottle of
flea-bath on the squirming feline, Maul ignored
its whining protest as he reached a sponge-scrubber
toward it.
“I am not losing any more blood to you, cat. Hold
still, or I’ll tell Ulic you’re the one who ate his
pate`,” he growled, and the cat reluctantly seemed to
calm.
“Now I understand the joke about cats and water,” he
muttered, scrubbing between the cat’s ears.
“It’s not a joke.”

-----------

-----------
Nearly a month passed, and Nebula remained
undiscovered. The only thing people began to
notice different was the fact that Maul actually
seemed happy.
And then there was the occasional soft, white, downy
cat-hair that found its way downstairs to
mar Ulic’s perfectly clean oriental rugs and favorite
velvet drapes.
Then tragedy struck.

“HEY MAULIE!!!!!!” Evyl bellowed at the top of his
lungs, dropping his knapsack with a heavy
thud to the foyer floor. “We’re back from the wilds
of Yavin 4!!” he announced, looking only slightly
worse for wear. Xanatos slogged in behind him,
dripping with mud and looking like he’d been through a
warzone. Kun arrived right behind him, looking as
fresh as the day he’s left and twice as unpleasantly
cheerful.
Spyke and the Accidental Massassi carried in the rest
of the luggage, looking ready to start
bashing heads. Drakkah shrugged off his knapsack and
turned a gold eye to Kun, who just smiled.
“I’m starting to think it was better /not/ knowing
where my people originally came from,” he
grumbled, scratching a bug-bite. Spyke grunted and
tossed the pack off his shoulders with a heave. It
hit
the floor hard, bringing the instant wrath of Mr.
Dartha.
“I just put eight coats of wax on that floor!” Ulic
snapped from the base of the stairs, pointing
angrily. The clone-pyre shrugged.
“You want it moved, you pick it up,” he grumbled,
rubbing his shoulder and heading past him up
the stairs. Ulic stalked over with the intention to
do just that. He grabbed the straps to haul it away,
and
nearly dislocated a shoulder. Blinking in surprise,
he looked over at the red-skinned alien, who just
shrugged.
“Don’t look at me, I’m nobility,” the retro-mutated
Massassi/Sith said, shrugging and walking
away.
Then, he paused.
Then he sneezed.

Ulic looked up as Maul descended the steps, the usual
stray white hairs stuck to his pantlegs.
Then Drakkah sneezed again. Kun looked over,
concerned.
“What, you’re not allergic to Zabraks, are you?” Xan
taunted, picking a cake of mud out of his
hair. Drakkah shook his head.
“No, as far as I know, I’m,....” he began, then
sneezed again, “I’m only allergic to Fe....” he
sneezed again. “Felines.”
Every head in the room turned to stare at Maul.
“What?” he said defensively, taking a step back.
Then, Evyl’s voice was heard from upstairs.
“OOH, it’s so ADOOOOORABLE!!!” he cooed.
“Oh shit,” Maul grumbled, covering his eyes with his
hand.

Evyl appeared at the top of the stairs, a lovely
bundle of downy white in his arms. She was
purring happily, completely oblivious to the angry
stares around her. Evyl was muttering nonsense and
happily scritching her ears as he carried her
downstairs.
All eyes but Evyl’s turned to Maul, and the familiar
white hairs clinging to his outfit.
“She’s gooooregeous!!” Obi cooed, happily cuddling
the fluffy creature, then Drakkah sneezed
again. And again. And again.
“Obi get that damn hairball out of here!” Kun
snarled, waving him away. Evyl frowned, holding
the cat closer for safety. Drakkah sneezed again, his
gold eyes turning orange from his allergy.
“/You/ brought /that/....that.... drapery-ripping,
flea-bearing, carpet-shredding, long-white
fur-shedding,” Ulic began.
“Don’t forget toilet befouling,” Maul muttered, and
Ulic blinked stupidly.
“You taught it to use the toilet?” he asked. Maul
nodded. “You taught it to use /My/ toilet?” he
asked again, incredulous. Maul nodded.
“Can we keep it?” Obi asked.
“NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” came resoundingly from three
different directions.

Startled by the loud noise and sudden surge of
hostile energy, Nebula clawed her way out of Obi’s
arms and bolted for the door. Spyke, as usual, had
left it wide open, and she disappeared into the street
as
Maul watched in horror. Everyone stared at where the
cat had departed for a moment, then Ulic snorted.
“Good riddance,” he muttered, waving a hand at the
door and closing it.
Maul immediately turned on him in a rage.

--------------------
Several hours later, after the two Sith had been
pried apart and banished to separate ends of the
hotel, Drakkah finally stopped sneezing. Kun had
Xanatos open a portal back to his own world, where
Drakkah wouldn’t have to be exposed to the
kitty-allergen.
Maul pouted, staring listlessly out the window. Evyl
paused outside his door, watching him pull
a shed fluff of white fur off his clothes and blow it
off his hand. He sighed, leaning on the doorframe.
“She was a pretty cat,” Evyl said. Maul nodded,
sighing. “Hey, don’t worry,” Evyl suddenly
said, acting cheerful again. “Christmas is coming.
Maybe Santa-wan will bring you a new pet?” he said.
He literally had to duck at the vicious glare Maul
cast him as he also cast his Harry Potter paperweight
at
him.
“That’ll depreciate the collector’s value!” Evyl said
as a last comment before bolting as Maul
stood angrily. He took off down the hall, slamming
his door behind him. Maul sighed, sitting back down.
He planted his chin on his fist and stared out the
window longingly, hoping Nebula was all right.

---------Meanwhile.....

“Awwww, aren’t you adooooorable!!!!!” The Famous Miss
Amber Rose cooed, carefully
crouching on her three-inch pepto-pink platforms to
pick up the mewing bundle of terrified white fluff
sitting outside the stage door. The Drag Queen
carried the fluffy creature inside, scritching her
ears and
talking nonsense coos.
She carried Nebula right past some confused-looking
bouncers, a startled stagehand, and into the
dressing room, where several performers immediately
started cooing and fussing over the fluffy white
kitty.
“Awww, who’s this??”
“She’s so sweeeet!”
“Look at her, she’s fuzzier than my boas!”
“Can we keep her?”
“I bet she’d make a lovely GlitterGirl Mascot!”
“Ladies, fetch me some Tuna, because little miss
Princess Snow White is here to stay with the
Queens, where she belongs!” Rose said, to the
unanimous approval of the GlitterGirls.

...And so the ‘Girls’ of the Blacklight Ballroom
gained a new mascot.

--------End------------