#mermaul

꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°⌖꙳✧˖°

It’s a less than an hour left before the end of may for me, so I made it just in time! Happy Mermay everyone!

(And yes, I’ll have the fanfic for this guy soon!)

Look here for more photos!

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Mermaul was made using Merman Classics amigurumi pattern by MushroomFableCrochet on Etsy!

All of his markings were made from needle felting using black and red wool roving and a 42 gauge triangle needle.

His horns are cosclay and painted in acrylic!

Red and black seed beads were also used for detailing!

I used way too many references for his markings.. haha!

“They could not bring me back the same.”

It wasn’t an explanation you understood, finding him that first time, submerged to the ears so that only the glow of his eyes and the reach of his horns protruded above the brackish water of the swamp. Little webs of sodden lichen and moss clung to him, and with nothing visible save for his expression, all you felt was cold hunger —

A million miles between your kind and his, and not knowing his words were warning, you crouched on the shore, your bare toes sinking into the silt, and you held your human hand to him as if you could beckon the creature closer.

“I can help you,” you told him.

Beneath the surface, his smile was a reflection in razors.

“No, my dear.”

He did not retreat, but sank, sending ripples across muddy water that echoed in the Force, leaving your shirt sticking to the sweat on your back and your hot skin fettered with Dathomir’s humidity; its bog-reek and festering, fecund decomposition stuffed into your nostrils a guarantee that whatever dies here feeds the nexus.

It’s just the way of things: death, decay, and life’s return.

Nothing is wasted.

It makes the planet rich.

When he blinks, the membrane leaves his shining gaze slits of flame, burning and hollow, and achingly alone —

A solitary creature who will not show you his face, though he wears the markings of a Nightbrother, forgotten to the swamps and consumed by solitary contemplation between the splayed roots of trees, and in the recesses where the water and the Force stir together.

He watches you — a being so powerful that he can breathe these waters despite the difficult conditions — but something is missing in that burning stare.

“What dwells here is more monster than man,” he says. “You should go. Do not return.”

“But I can help you —”

Because you felt some relief at finding another living soul who might communicate with words and feelings after so many nights studying the ruins of a civilization hostile to outsiders. Dathomir whispers, but its interest is entirely self-serving:

You think the nexus wanted you to find him.

“No one can help me,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Darkness descends when the swamp closes over his head, and only the slap of water against the trees from the lash of a powerful, spiked tail fin reveals his true nature as he vanishes beneath the surface.

The world falls to quiet, the silence muffled as you realize that all life goes still when in the presence of a powerful predator, and slowly, your heart pounding, you listen to the first trill and glug of life returning.

He’s gone, you think.

But somewhere in the distance, between the drape of moss and vine, you think you can see the bright gleam of his consideration, looking at you from a distance safe enough to realize he’s intrigued.

“No.”

The jedi spares a moment to be angry at the circumstances. Every jedi was met with challenges on the path of life. It was supposed to be that way. They were chances for self reflection and growth. But how many jedi had their mortal enemy return from the grave looking like something out of a wet dream -no pun intended- and kidnap them, only to change their mind and decide they just want companionship and sex? They just want him to stay with them, forever, simple as that.

It's absurd. It's enticing. It's sad. It's sweet.

It makes Obi-Wan want to punch something.

It makes him want other things too…

“No.”

He has to leave. He has to. It's only a matter of time before slick scales and stress levels mix him up into a cocktail of poor choices. Obi-Wan wants to rail Maul into the ground. He wants to see what all that mess at the apex of his tail tastes like. He wants to get on his knees and-

Blast it! It's time to try escaping, with or without help from local fauna.

The jedi walks to the water's edge, and gathers his mental fortitude. He knows he's unlikely to succeed in getting to the sparkle of his lightsaber crystal, or to somehow find his rebreather. However, Maul's force signature is far away. Now is a good time to explore, and hope, and trust in the force.

Obi-Wan jumps into the frigid water, grimacing as it rises around him. He swims as close to the exit tunnel as he can, and starts taking deep breaths, trying to hyperoxygenate a bit.

Then, he dives.

What follows is a slow and cautious exploration of the nearby tunnels that serves as a double blessing for how it takes his mind off Maul. He swims one way, and finds nothing but tunnel that goes on further than he can see. The jedi returns to air, catches his breath, and goes out again.

The other direction offers a split in the road. One way leads to a dead end, the other hits a second divide. Again, he reoxigenates, and despite the terrible cold he goes back down for a third attempt.

Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh… a hour passes and the chill sinks into his bones. He finds two more air pockets, not quite as fresh as the algae and moss crowded caves, but still breathable.

And then, he stumbles across another ‘room’.

Obi-Wan breaches the water's surface and finds himself in a trove. He crawls up onto land, and looks around curiously. This cave is a series of smaller rooms that connect, with an exceptional number of pock marks in the walls. Perhaps millennia ago this was living coral? Whatever the case, the larger pockets have been turned into shelves, and these shelves hold myriad items.

Droid parts, sea shells, and pearls as big as his head. Tin cans, fabric scraps, and a silver platter. An entire trombone, half rusted, sits in a footlocker without a lid. There's a pile of datapads which all look to be out of charge, and a statue of some long forgotten nubian queen. These and more, a flee market’s worth of curios.

His most unexpected find is an area of sand, which seems... combed? Gemstones and polished rocks in shades of blue combine with patterns in the sand to create a garden of sorts. Many of the stones are no bigger than a bean. The largest is a chunk of lapis lazuli the size of his fist. Obi-Wan ponders the rock garden for a few minutes before moving on, not quite sure what to make of it.

A sith with a sense of artistry... that's just... odd?

From what he had seen in the archives, the sith of old stuck to geometric patterns and flat colors. Their ideal temple was a barren monolith or an angular ziggurat with either no decoration, or, records of horrible deeds carved in words. Sometimes pictures.

Yet... Maul had made a lovely little garden, in shades of blue and white and beige. Strange.

Obi-Wan turns away from the mystery, and goes digging through the droid parts to see if there's anything that could boost his comm signal. It's a possibility, there's a lot to work with here. Rather than take anything, the jedi memorizes what he sees and makes note of it. He will plan what to take and where to hide it to work on before risking revealing the direction of his thoughts.

At the very back of the caves is a large cubby of stone that looks like it was carved into the wall with a lightsaber, then carefully sanded smooth.

On a shelf beside it sits a saberstaff. Obi-Wan can feel the song of the kyber from here, now that he listens. Two notes in harmony, one longing and angry, the other spiteful and determined. The jedi knows this blade, and has no desire to touch it… but it's good to know where it is.

He shakes his head sadly at the sithly melody, and sits down at the edge of the cubby, exhausted and sluggish. Obi-Wan rests his elbows on his knees, needing a minute to gather his strength. Even with a jedi's ability to propel himself with the force and slow his heartbeat, it was still a long swim back.

Emotionally Obi-Wan feels a lot better though. He's mapped a significant amount of tunnel, found three places to get air for further exploration, and most importantly he's gotten his mind off-

Oh, kriff.

The jedi master groans, flopping backwards onto the smooth stone with a wet smack, exasperated with himself. Truly? Truly. A single stray thought about beautiful black scales, and he's back in the thick of it like he'd never left.

Obi-Wan covers his eyes with a shaking hand, hiding from reality for just a moment. Two moments. Perhaps five moments…

He sighs, removing his hand to look up at the ceiling. This is, inconveniently, when he realizes his fingers are very pale. Bother. He needs to get up, and… and swim back to the radiant heat of the magma ball.

Just the thought of it is dreadfully tiring, and he is comfortable here. Very comfortable... So very…

Oh no.

He knows exactly what being sleepy when one is very cold means. The jedi curses under his breath, forcing himself upright. His vision is slow to catch up with where he's looking. He's pushed too far, and now his body is paying the price of that.

Obi-Wan draws in the force to support himself, and rises unsteadily to his feet. Every bone in his body pleads with him to lay down. He denies the instinct in favor of a survivalist mentality.

The problem? He is much too cold.

The solution? Getting out of wet clothes and closer to warmth, or barring that, some kind of insulting material.

He thinks through a mild fog, and recalls the cloth scraps. Obi-Wan goes hunting around in the treasure trove as he pulls off his belt. He dumps his clothes onto the floor, managing to lay them out to air dry for what it was worth in the relative humidity. Then he gathers up every last scrap of fabric he can find.

The pile of scraps. A sail cloth. Half a tarp. His best find is a pair of old wool socks, which he puts on right away. The lot of it he piles in the cubby, and curls in on himself in the midst of it. Obi-Wan knows he just needs to warm up, then he can put everything back, and return to where he was supposed to be. Maul's force presence was still far away. He wasn't in a rush…

…and that's part of why the jedi falls asleep precisely when and where he really shouldn't.

Obi-Wan wakes sometime later with his head tucked under a pointed chin. A scaled tail curls around his naked legs, and a lumpy magma hemisphere radiates heat against his back.

... kark.

Obi-Wan can't deal with this right now. He's beyond exhausted, possibly a bit ill. The jedi master takes a deep breath, and just... goes back to sleep, held close in red and black arms.

To be continued...

-Tag list- (Comment if you want added!)

@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals @icequeen8043 @moonsickvampire @maulish @milkcioccolato @cyborg0109

New? Start from Chapter 1! 👇🏽

“Huu- hu-... rtss…” he manages, vision going dark near the edges.

Without warning, it lifts.

Suddenly the pain is more than halved, something like a four of ten, rather than a nine. More than enough relief for him to finally gasp, dragging in fresh air like it was all he could ever ask for.

It takes Obi-Wan a moment to reorient himself, after the suddenness of it all. He had gone from a light doze, to waking up under attack, to fighting for his life, to being in incandescent pain, and then relieved of it. All within a span measured in minutes.

When he's refocused enough to get outside of his own head, the jedi master discovers he's half on top of the bloody -literally and figuratively- sith. He cries out, feeling scales under his hands as he throws himself away-

The pain returns like a lightning strike, like an electro-whip across his shoulders. It's so sudden and intense that Obi-Wan can't help but scream, losing all his air and finding himself unable to get it back. He hits the floor, hard, but past that he can't make sense of the world.

It hurts it hurts it hurts-

It lessens.

Obi-Wan drags in lungfuls of air, shaking in place as he tries to just be.

“Witless jedi! Be still,” Maul hisses at him.

He does, but only because he can do nothing else. Minutes turn over, and Obi-Wan regathers himself again. He is still in pain, significant pain, but not enough to blind him. The left side of his chest… hurts.

‘That is a very bad sign,’ the jedi thinks wearily to himself.

When he can see straight once more, Obi-Wan dares to assess where he is and what's happening before moving this time. The results are just as uncomfortable. Actually, no, they're worse. Where he had last been laid over the sith's scaled lap, now he was up against a muscular chest, that long tail fin running between his legs.

The jedi thanks the force, twice, that he hadn't decided to put his legging out to dry as well as his tunics.

“What-” he tries to speak, coughing before he can continue, “What's happening to me?”

The creature's touch… had done something to him.

Obi-Wan suddenly realizes that Maul, that Darth kriffing Maul, is cuddling him. One hand holds the back of his neck, pinning the jedi to his breast. The other clawed hand is… petting him, is the only way Obi-Wan can describe it. Gently, rhythmically, petting him.

He legitimately wonders if he's hallucinating.

“The gorogoro is venomous, and it stung no small section of your pathetically delicate flesh,” the sith underneath him explains scornfully.

“It… hurts. It hurt more before but…” Obi-Wan trails off, thinking sluggish, “... you're doing something?”

Maul makes a disgruntled noise. “If by something you mean reinacting an ancient sith rite of pain sharing to keep you alive? Then yes.”

The jedi makes three different faces trying to acclimate to that reality. “I'm. We're. What.”

"Connected. Sharing."

Obi-Wan fails to produce words, and has to breathe for a moment and just, parse everything. Then, he tries again, “That octopus stung me… with it's suckers…”

“Yes,” Maul confirms, “the pain is meant to make you seize, unable to breathe, then you die.”

“... kark,” he decides quietly. The sith scoffs, his claws slowly gliding back and forth across Obi-Wan's upper back.

Oh. He can feel it now. Where the sith's hand passes, the pain… much of it lifts from him. But where does it go? Wait…

“You said, this is a pain sharing ritual?” He asks to clarify, immediately feeling stupid. Maul had already said so, twice, and yet it answered very little.

“Ahhh,” the other man confirms, “Sharing of pain is sacred. Surviving pain makes you stronger. Passion overcomes weakness, proof that peace is a lie.”

Maul speaks like a true believer. Obi-Wan just thinks that all sounds like cultish hogwash, but sure. Not dying of indescribable pain is… good.

"And... you're not effected by the sting?"

"Mmno, zabrak are resistant to most toxins," he replies.

Obi-Wan glances at his ear-fins pointedly. "You're not exactly a zabrak anymore..."

Maul chuckles, and it's half way to being a threat. "I am half of one, as yet. I wonder who I have to blame for that."

The sith is, of course, complicit enough in his own choices to be equally, if not more, responsible for the results.

... but that isn't a fight he wants to pick right now. “You're feeling the pain you're lifting from me?”

“Mnnnn,” Maul hums, and oh, ye gods, he does not sound unhappy about it.

“You're enjoying this!” Obi-Wan accuses him.

The sith laughs like wind whistling through rusty pipes. “Yesssss.”

The jedi closes his eyes and just… checks out for a moment. Now he knows what that bulge underneath him is. He's not going to look at it, he's not going to think about it-

Wait, if Maul is half fish now, does that mean he has a-

No. no.

He is not going to think about it, he is going to focus, and- and-

Step one is figuring out if he absolutely needs to be draped over the other man in order to have his pain lessened. Yes, he's going to ignore what's happening in favor of being… clinical.

“Is this much contact really necessary for the… rite?”

“Hmmm?” the sith asks, like he's half high on the pain, no meds required.

Obi-Wan tries again, asking what he really wants to know more directly. “Can I be on the floor while you do this?”

“Mnh,” Maul replies, “I suppose.”

The dragonfish sith rolls them over, and it is ridiculous how graceful he is about it. Obi-Wan's left leg is nudged up and over, then he is rolled face first onto the cold ground.

Loops of tail coil over him, pinning his legs to the ground. Forearms brace on his midback, and a suspicious bulge nestles between his thighs. Obi-Wan draws his arms forward, and hides his face in them. This is... not even slightly better. Worse, actually.

“Is it completely necessary for you to be laying on me while we do this?” he spits.

Fingers slide into Obi-Wan's hair, grabbing it and wrenching his head back.

“Ungrateful!” the sith hisses, “Every word out of your filthy mouth should be gratitude that I would share such a gift with you.”

This is a horrible time for Obi-Wan to be reminded that he has a hair pulling… thing.

“S-sorry, sorry. My. My apologies,” he gasps.

The tension on his scalp is released, and the jedi buries his head in his arms again, just about coming up on being too emotionally overwhelmed to be sensible. The sith leans over him, covering him, claws still gliding over the slowly bruising sucker marks.

“Thank me for sharing your pain, Kenobi,” Maul whispers in his ear, threatening.

He just… doesn't have it in him to snark back like he wants to, and deal with the repercussions, not right now. “...Thank you.”

“Good,” the sith croons, and-

Surprisingly, the weight on his legs rolls away. Maul lays on his side next to him, petting his back slow and steady.

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says again, softer.

“Mnnn.”

“... how long will this last?” he asks, subdued.

“... I do not know. I have never seen anything survive it.”

Obi-Wan emerges from the shelter of his arms to give the sith a horrified look.

Luminous yellow-green eyes meet his gaze, and the man snorts. “Most things stung die in minutes Kenobi. There is no reason for it to be long lasting, and even if it goes much longer, you will be fine. I will endure with you.”

“Oh… okay.”

“Say it back to me,” the dragonfish sith demands airily.

“... say what back to you?” he prevaricates.

Maul gives him a look.

Obi-Wan sighs, really not interested in actually engaging in a creepy sith ritual, but, well, the man was active life support at the moment, and doing it the hard way.

Er… the… the… something besides hard. Not the figurative hard way at all, actually, the other man was clearly enjoying it enough that he…

Obi-Wan is not going to look.

The jedi masters his curiosity by gluing his chin to the forearm beneath it. “I will endure with you?” he tries, uncertain.

The sith makes a pleased hum. Then, he whispers, “So attractive…”

Alarmed, Obi-Wan side eyes the sith, “Excuse me?”

Maul is leaning in, inspecting the circular bruising that stripes his back in the same way a jeweler would appraise a new shipment of precious stones.

“Your skin purples, and- and yellows…” The sith inhales, enraptured, “it is lovely. Like a painting of the damage.”

“Er… thank… you?” What the kriff is he supposed to say to that?

Maul lays his cheek down on the bruising he so favors, and the pain in that area fades to basically nothing. They both sigh in response, for very different reasons.

Hours pass like this, with sporadic conversation and pain sharing. By the two hour mark, Obi-Wan feels fine. A bit hungry. In want of a softer place to lay, as well, but fine enough. He begins to suspect that after a certain point, Maul started taking all of the pain. The jedi isn't going to complain about it though.

He does fall asleep, however, lulled to rest by the radiant heat of the lava orb, and gentle claws that stroke his back, even still.

-Tag list- (Comment if you want added!)

@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals @icequeen8043

New? Start from Chapter 1! 👇🏽