it was so artistically done.

You rarely saw Maul during those first two months. You reported to a Mandalorian who you never saw without her helmet, and whose hand never strayed far from her blaster. She was probably one of the individuals who had found you in the warehouse. You saw Maul’s bodyguard, Savage, slightly more often than the Mand’alor himself, though that was largely in passing whilst walking around the palace. You had been surprised to find you weren’t preventing from walking around, either inside the palace or in the surrounding gardens. You hadn’t pushed too far though – you were technically a prisoner after all, and you doubted ending your life would pose any sort of a problem for Maul.

You were curious, though. About why he had allowed you to live in the first place, why he went so far as to provide you with a job that you weren’t entirely sure he even thought was necessary. Why you had been trusted with crucial data, your own private space, freedom within the palace grounds. You hadn’t seen Maul for long enough to ask, and even if you were to have a second conversation with him, you weren’t sure you’d have the nerve.

You were in the process of getting a cup of caf from the palace’s magnificent kitchen when a different Mandalorian, one whose armour you didn’t recognise, walked up behind you.

“Lord Maul wishes to speak with you,” he said, in a tone which would brook no refusal.

Your stomach flipped. You hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words to him during your stay on Mand’alore, what could he possibly want to talk to you about? You briefly ran through your work, trying to identify whether you had done anything he might have been upset about. But you followed the Mandalorian immediately. If you had somehow managed to secure Maul’s wrath, you didn’t want to make it worse by being late. You realised once you arrived at a room you hadn’t been into before that you were still holding your steaming caf.

The Mandalorian opened the door to reveal what looked like a large meeting room with a round table at the centre of it. Maul sat on the other side, one heel propped up on the seat and his arm resting across his metal knee. A sleeping datapad was in front of him on the table. The Mandalorian closed the door behind you without a word, leaving you clutching your caf like it might be able to save you from potential impending doom. Maul sighed theatrically, fixing you with a scrutinising stare.

“Please. If I wanted to kill you, this is not how I would do it. Join me.”

You were planning on taking the seat directly opposite him, the furthest possible distance away. Instead, Maul kicked out the chair directly next to his own and watched you silently until you slowly rounded the table to sit beside him.

You crossed your legs and gripped your mug with both hands, your shoulders hunched forward slightly. The intensity of Maul’s attention only seemed to grow as you subconsciously made yourself smaller, but once you were seated, you met his gaze anyway. You were in fact greatly intimidated, but that didn’t mean you were going to act like a coward.

Maul’s lips twitched upward minutely, in what you would have thought was the slightest hint of a smirk had you seen it on anyone else.

“You are… curious,” he said softly. “You are terrified, and yet you challenge me. That is admirable, I must say.”

That comment took you a moment to decipher. You were yet to say a word to him and you had taken the chair he had wanted you to sit in. What exactly did he think you were challenging him over?

Then, it occurred to you. It was the eye contact. You knew next to nothing about Zabraki or their culture, but there were plenty of species who considered eye contact to be a challenge, like a Nexu would. Perhaps that was why he had seemed interested in you, when you had first been brought before him in the throne room. You hadn’t backed down from his direct gaze. Accidental or not, you weren’t going to back down now, either. You didn’t think that showing weakness in front of a person like Maul was a good idea.

“I didn’t mean to offend,” you said quietly.

“Offend? No, no. Intrigue, perhaps.”

Maul was staring at you as if he could see straight through your eyes and into your mind – or soul. Possibly both. And from how easily he had raked through your memories when investigating whether your story of how you had arrived on Manda’lore was true, perhaps he could. You decided it was best not to pursue whatever he might have been thinking.

“What did you want to speak with me about?” You asked instead.

It was seeming less likely that you had made some sort of atrocious mistake in your work, which left you with more questions than answers.

“Ah, yes.” Maul switched on the datapad, bringing up your graphs from that morning. “This, here. This shows a discrepancy, does it not?”

Maul held the datapad in front of him, forcing you to lean closer to read it properly. There was indeed a very minor mismatch between data the Pykes had sent in, and that which Maul’s closest operatives kept themselves. Maul’s coffers were missing a whole ten thousand credits – absolutely nothing, given how much money the Shadow Collective dealt with on a daily basis. The equivalent of a single shipping container of spice.

Concentrating on the graph, you put your caf on the table and reached across to enlarge the relevant section.

“It does,” you affirmed. “This is the figure the Pykes reported sending you for the previous day, and this is the figure your own operatives received; it’s ten thousand short.”

Maul hummed low in his chest, and from where you had leaned towards him the sound came from almost directly behind you. You shot back to sit properly in your own seat as if you had been burned, earning the lightest huff from Maul. That was definitely amusement. How exactly you had secured it you didn’t know, but it was far better than the many alternatives you could think of.

Maul returned the datapad to the table and reclined back in his chair, watching you intently.

“So you accuse the Pykes either of lying to me,” he murmured, “or of stealing from me.”

Your eyes widened.

“No, no I-”

“No?” Maul arched a brow. “Then you accuse my own operatives of the same.”

Panic seized your chest.

“No, I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” you rushed out, intent on making him see reason. “I was just reporting on the numbers I was given, that’s all.”

“And you expect me to believe you haven’t considered a single reason as to why this discrepancy exists.”

You stayed silent a moment, your mind spinning. You wanted to grab the caf again so you could have some fantasy of there being a barrier separating you from Maul.

“I… assumed there was some sort of copying error,” you tried, your voice too quiet and too soft.

Maul dropped his head a little and chuckled lowly, his sharpened canines flashing. He was grinning when his gaze flicked up at you. But with his head still lowered, the effect was like being stalked by an anooba.

“Courtesy of the Pykes? Do not believe for a second that I consider you so naïve.”

The weight of his gaze was locking you in place, again. You grit your teeth.

If he was that intent on having you accuse someone, hopefully you wouldn’t meet the end of his lightsaber for your trouble.

“Your operatives work in pairs over shifts to file reports on multiple incoming shipments. If they were at fault, you’d expect the numbers to be wrong on more than one of the shipments they filed. The equivalent of one missing spice container is more likely to be a result of the pilot or one of their crew members siphoning off a cut prior to delivery.

That action would cost the lives of both the pilot and their crew, irrespective of who knew and who benefitted. Even the accusation itself might be enough to incur that price, however unwarranted.

Maul’s grin had become something twisted and vicious.

“There now, was that so difficult?” He near purred, the words rich and indulgent.

It set your nerves on edge in exactly the way he had intended. He was a crime lord in control of most of the galaxy’s criminal underworld, talking about the murder he had planned for spice runners who had thought they could double cross him and get away with it. But his voice was captivating in the worst way.

Even so, in spite of the fear gnawing at you… you were going to get these people killed. You knew who their murderer was going to be. You could find out who they were, without too much trouble. Maul might even tell you just for the cruelty of allowing you to see the faces of the people you couldn’t save from the man sitting right in front of you.

There was absolutely no reason for you to stick your neck out for anyone in this organisation. Not a single other member would do the same for you. But your stomach twisted with the thought of what Maul would do to that crew, even though you hadn’t said anything the Zabrak hadn’t already concluded himself. You would only hold yourself accountable for his actions.

And then, you found yourself actually challenging someone who could kill you faster than you could blink before you could think through the consequences.

“You… you’re going to make sure who was responsible. Aren’t you?” You asked, slowly, ever so quiet.

Maul’s expression changed instantaneously, any trace of humour dropped. He almost looked impassive, except you knew all too well what that mask was covering. Your heart leapt into your throat as your hands trembled where they laid in your lap. He turned to you slowly, both feet planted firmly on the ground and the edge of one knee grazing the side of your leg. He leaned forward until you were forced to look up at him, close enough into your space for your shoulders to raise of their own accord and the muscles in your back to tense to the point of discomfort. He stared down his nose, his gaze icy.

“I appreciate your sense of retribution,” the Zabrak murmured. “This sense of justice you suddenly appear to be so keen to display, however, is going to terminate your usefulness to me with a greater expedience than you can fathom.”

Your chest heaved with quick, panicked breaths, but you remained absolutely silent. You couldn’t have spoken a word if you had tried.

Without withdrawing so much as an inch, Maul took his lightsaber from where it rested on his belt. He held it between you, the blades – were they to be ignited – positioned so that neither would skewer you. But that could change so easily.

“You seemed quite fascinated by this,” said Maul. “Of course, you only saw it briefly the last time.”

A minute flick of his thumb bathed the room in bloody red. The colour of your eyes was drowned out – his own was amplified. The hum of raw energy seemed to permeate everything. He kept the gleaming metal hilt just in front of your chest, matching your orientation. The slightest alteration to his grip could be fatal for you.

“Do you know what it is?”

You swallowed, having to put in effort to unpeel your tongue from the roof of your dry mouth.

“Lightsaber,” you rasped.

He hummed; an agreement.

“Do you know what it can cut through?”

“Anything but Beskar.” Your voice seemed to be stuck in the back of your throat.

“Pure Beskar,” Maul corrected. “An alloy will not suffice.”

With impeccable control, he began to rotate his wrist. Bar for your shoulders, now rising and falling with every breath as if you had run halfway across the planet, you stayed absolutely still. An involuntary flinch could lose you a limb. Maul aligned one blade with his arm. The other came to a slow, slow stop by your face. Immediately, the skin across your cheek began to sear with the heat. It wasn’t enough to burn you – not yet. You squinted hard to protect your eye. Maul’s gaze never wavered.

“And I assume you are aware of the damage one can do, without actually causing death.”

Your head began to swim. Your breathing was flooding your lungs with too much oxygen; you were going to pass out. If you fell against the blade, it would be lights out. Permanently.

You managed to nod. Maul’s wrist, and the lightsaber, cut sharply towards your face –

And he extinguished the blades in time for the hilt to pass harmlessly in front of your face.

You fell forwards, towards Maul, with the dizzying wave of relief which overtook you as he returned the weapon to his belt. The room slanted, and when the tilting cleared, you found you were almost doubled over. Your arms were resting on your legs, your head hanging low, and Maul still hadn’t moved. That put his head almost directly above yours.

Maul hummed, the casual cadence of it jarring. He leaned closer to you, close enough to your ear to make you shudder when he spoke.

“I would suggest bearing this knowledge in mind,” he said softly.

“Okay,” you gasped, “okay, I will. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

When he said nothing further, you wondered if you had managed to appease him. Only for him to take your jaw in one hand and place the other on the back of your head, forcing you to face him. Your froze in his grasp, finding him far too close for you liking. You were acutely aware of how easy it would be for him to manually snap your neck, perhaps if he was bored of continually using the Force instead.

“Do not forget why you are here. And do not forget that I will not give you a second chance.”

You tried to nod, only to find that whilst his grip didn’t hurt, he was holding you completely and utterly still with ease.

“I understand,” you whispered instead.

Maul scrutinised you a minute longer. Then, he released you and departed from your space so unexpectedly that you almost felt dizzy again. He stood, towering over you, and you shot to your feet to match him with such ungainly speed that you knocked your chair backwards onto the ground. Maul barely spared it a glance. You fumbled to stand it back up again, trying to avoid turning your back on the Zabrak, but –

“Leave it,” Maul commanded, only continuing once you faced him again. “Return to what you were doing, and consider your next actions with supreme caution.”

You nodded, perhaps apologised again, or thanked him for letting you go. You had no idea. All you knew was that you practically ran to your quarters to catch your breath – to hide, you could at least admit to yourself – and try to come to terms with how close you had just been to losing your life. Your car was long forgotten. But there was something even more important than that, which you wouldn’t even admit to yourself. You needed to come to terms with the fact that Maul had already given you a second chance today. He could have killed you, should have even, strategically, when the Mandalorians had first brought you to him.

You knew him well enough to know that he didn’t give that opportunity to anyone, for any reason.

So why were you still breathing?

-