#mauldra

Maul/Eldra?

It’s midmorning, half the criminal groups in the Outer Rim have just formally declared their allegiance, and Maul has a lean body tucked against his side, a lazy leg thrown across his lap as Eldra pages through a spy report, when he realizes that for the first time in his existence, there isn't a single thing he wants to change.

There are, of course, minor inconveniences to be dealt with, the remnants of Sidious's plots to untangle now that he’s no longer in the world of the living, a few holdouts like Hondo still resisting their rise, but—

But there is nothing, in this instant, that Maul would alter. There's nothing he needs to alter in order to feel satisfied, and that is…a revelation.

“Pre Vizsla just took over Mandalore,” Eldra says, and her lek curls around his wrist, a silent way of making sure he’s paying attention. “The Death Watch ousted Duchess Satine and declared the New Mandalorian reign over.”

“Oh?” Maul asks languidly, and strokes the backs of two finger down her lek, admiring the faint pattern of blue striping there. Like Zabrak markings, and she’s told him that the patterns are immensely vivid to Twi'lek eyes, markers of identity that no one can erase. They’re unique, mark Eldra as special, and Maul had realized it in the aftermath of escaping the slavers, but—he sees it even more clearly now.

She’s special, and she’s a complement, and in this very moment Maul wants for nothing but this, far into the future.

With a sound of contemplation, Eldra tips her head. “Two Jedi were sent to help get the Duchess to safety. Kenobi and Skywalker?”

Maul knows the names, if vaguely. “Familiar to you?”

Eldra frowns, trying to remember, and the tip of her lek strokes the inside of Maul's wrist. Not a Twi'lek gesture, but theirs, learned through nightmares and long nights and longer days spent building their empire and toppling a Sith Lord. Maul turns his head, breathes her in, and slides a hand over her knee, up the inside of her thigh. The touch makes Eldra hum, and she slants a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Are you even listening to me?” she asks, but it’s amusement, not anger, and fifteen years from Sidious's control, Maul no longer feels the instinctive wrench of fear that comes with that question. He smirks right back, trapping her lek lightly between his fingers and raising it to his lips.

“Every word,” he promises. “It’s riveting.”

Eldra snorts, unimpressed, but she leans in, hooks a hand around the back of his head and threads her fingers through his horns, then kisses him, slow and light and easy, and Maul has never been able to breathe like this before.

“I'm glad you think so,” she murmurs, pulling back, and Maul knows they're friends after all this time but he has no idea what love is meant to be, no certainty that this is love at all, let alone true love. But—

But he thinks that regardless of what the look in Eldra's eyes is, he wants to stay right here for the rest of their days.

“Because,” Eldra murmurs, and that smirk is a wicked, deadly thing, spoiling for a fight, and Maul is hers, he’s hers, just the same way she’s his. “I want to unseat the Death Watch and take over Mandalore, too. And I want to fight Pre for the Darksaber.”

The Darksaber. Of course. Maul snorts, catching her chin and tilting her head up to kiss her again, deeper this time. He’s already breathless, so it doesn’t matter what more he loses.

“Only if I can watch you make grown men cry,” he says, low, and Eldra laughs and nips at his finger, then turns sideways and slides fully into his lap, precisely where he wants her to be.

Eldra Kaitis! I like to imagine an alternate ETL ending to this where Maul falls for Eldra and they kiss under the stars!

Also, can Luke Ross please do the art on ALL SW comics?! 🙏

“I have condemned her...”

- Darth Maul 1-4, 2017

This was a great comic and it really made me want to draw something. There was something there between these two...

Full image sizes for best quality!

If you've been hanging around the T&B Instagram for any length of time (or woe unto you: around my active fandom persona) then you should know by now that I am a... big fan of Darth Maul. 

I regret that I haven’t been talking a lot about my Maul obsession here on Tumblr, but I’m hoping to remedy that post haste. (I made a lot of Maul variants. I made a few of Maul’s friends and some of his enemies. I have designs on his siblings. I might do a couple more editions from Lotho Minor or Rebels. You know: the usual hyper fixated kind of stuff. I love him, okay??)

Accordingly, I latch onto all aspects of his canon and Legends appearances and I just flipping gobble it up. All the books. All the comics. Rewatch Rebels in the effort to break down his actual intentions on Malachor? Yup. That's my jam. I love the pointy murder hedgehog something fierce.

One of my fave comic book appearances feature him alongside the Jedi Padawan Eldra Kaitis. It's a brief, abrupt partnership that ends in bloodshed, but those moments were really something special to illustrate his pre-Phantom Menace character. I just ate it up.

So how's this for obscure rarepairs: Darth Maul & Eldra Kaitis magnetic bookmarks are available in shop in mega and mini sizes -- perfect for those flashback sequences in Star Wars Tales.

I regret nothing.

–