deernet | Video; un: darkness (Backdated to November 28th)

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Video; un: darkness (Backdated to November 28th)

[Maul looks very grim when he starts off the video.]

Since some of you might wonder where he is and since he had messages for me to pass along to some of you, I'm here today to tell you Wesker is dead. I killed him.

[He quickly goes on before any screeching or condemnation can start being thrown his way.]

It was not out of malice, amusement, or anger. It was an act of mercy. The zealots took him and by the time I found him he was little more than a corpse but somehow still breathing. There was no hope for his recovery.

[Maul's eyes shut for a moment, still seeing the eviscerated body lying on the table that looked more like an autopsy victim than someone still alive, lungs and heart able to be seen and still working despite all that had been done to Wesker's body by those seeking his blood.]

I'm not sure how he lasted even that long with what they did to him. I ended his suffering. Hopefully, he will be back in a short time.

[There is a private message afterwards which is only sent out to a handful of people. Vira-Lorr, Luz, Orpheus, and Ariadne.]

He asked me to pass on a message to you.

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[She's gently stroking the back of his head, not saying anything. There's not really anything to say. If he feels the desire to speak, she will be there, but she will be there regardless.]

[Maul goes still while Usagi holds him and actually falls asleep for a short amount of time. He needs to let his mind relax after dealing with the mental strain and there's no better way to do that than sleep. After his brief nap, his golden eyes open up again, and he feels ready to talk. He stretches out, some of the muscles in his back popping in protest after sleeping in the same position for so long.]

......Have you ever had to do that?

[He asks Usagi. She probably has given what Maul knows of her past. He wonders if she feels guilty over it, killing someone instead of being able to save them.]

[She thinks to all her enemies and the ones she's killed outright. She thinks of all the ones Mamoru and the girls who were twisted and contorted and what letting them live as puppets of the enemy would have meant to them.]

Yes, I have. Many times.

[She keeps gently stroking the back of his head with her thumb. She looks over to him.]

It doesn't really ever get any easier no matter how much you do it. It's not really supposed to.

Killing has always been far easier for me than anyone else. Master, he just kept having me do it over and over again until I didn't feel anything anymore when it was done. No guilt, no sadness, no compassion, just nothing at all, as if I were just the saberstaff itself. I just didn't feel at all.

[At first it had been difficult, the very first ones the hardest of all. After he'd massacred the academy he'd stayed at, Maul had laid curled up in his room on Coruscant for days. He hadn't slept, he hadn't eaten, his nightmares had been horrific. But Sidious kept sending him on assignments, making him do it again and again. Eventually, he'd lost all compassion he might have once possessed.]

I suppose since this needed to be done it was better that I did it than anyone else here.

[Others would have agonized over what happened. While Maul didn't feel good about it, he also understood it had needed to be done. To leave Wesker there to suffer a prolonged end would have been far crueler than simply ending his life was.]

I am sure he is grateful you made it quick and painless. But... I just wonder what it's doing to you. Quick and painless is... how anyone would likely want it to go, but just because you're good at it doesn't mean you should have to be the one doing it. [She took his claw into her hands, gently running her thumb along his skin.]

You aren't someone's weapon anymore.

[She looked up at him.] I don't think it's easy anymore for you, Maul. If it was, I don't even think we'd be talking about.

Usagi, normally I kill because I want to. This is the first time I have killed someone out of mercy in a very long time. [Perhaps for the first time ever. He let his hand stay there, her small thumb running across his rough, jagged claws.] It is not a good feeling but it will pass soon enough.

[That much at least is true. Maul can't hold too much about those he kills in his mind for too long or he would have gone completely crazy by now.]

This is what being in the dark means. Sometimes, you have to make the hard decisions that others cannot. It may not be easy but it is easier for me than it would be for many others here.

[Maul truly did believe that. If such a decision was to be made in town, he'd prefer to be the one to make it instead of leaving it up to those more innocent in nature and who might be affected even worse from it than he might.]

You're losing sight of what's important Maul. You're feeling it at all. You literally just said you're used to not feeling anything all from killing. But here you are, lingering on it, focusing on it. Don't you see what a giant step that is, even if it's a painful one?

You don't need to tell me what it means to be in the dark. [She is the moon, she knows exactly what it means to be in the dark, to function only in it.] Or to make hard decisions. [She's made plenty of those too.] I'm just saying you don't have to be the one to do it anymore.

I don't like this step. Not at all.

[He says in a childish and sulky tone. He can't help it, his mind is so mixed up right now he can't tell if this is a step forward or back in the path he's been treading.]

It is still better I did it than anyone else. Can you imagine what would have happened if one of the younger Sleepers found him like that? Had to be the one to end his life? No, if there is a person to be held responsible for killing someone, it may as well be me.

You're not really SUPPOSED to like this step, Maul. Because consider what it USED to be for you.

Killing was easy for you, stupidly easy. But, it's SUPPOSED to be hard. Taking a life, you SHOULD pause and really think, have you gone through every avenue you can before you take a life.

That's the point.

So you may not like it, but you're not supposed to like it. [She knows that there are people in Trench who would think she's stupidly naive for believing this, for making it so "black and white." Except those who know better know she can and has killed, she likely will again, and she's done it without any hesitation. But that doesn't change that it should be difficult, that it shouldn't be something as simple as breathing.]

.......I never had to learn that lesson before. My master didn't want me to learn. Weapons weren't supposed to consider those lives they ended and he taught me how to kill like it was a reflex.

[It really is for Maul, that instinctive desire to end a life when he needs to make a decision on how to proceed in a situation. Sidious had taught Maul how to kill and taught him how to not care about it from the time he was five years old. To learn the importance to feel something when he killed wasn't something Maul has ever been exposed to before. It made him feel uncomfortable, a new emotion forming that he couldn't quite name.]

You're not a weapon anymore. [She offered easily enough, as if that would explain everything because, well, it did.]

It takes time to unlearn it, but the most important thing to remember is that you are more than he wanted you to be. You are beyond his control now. You are not a weapon... or a monster.

[No matter how much Maul loved to relish in the act of it sometimes.]

It's still hard to remember that sometimes.

[Maul says quietly. Much as he doesn't want to see himself as only a weapon or a monster, it is an easy mindset to fall into, something that he may not enjoy but which he wears like an old familiar shirt.]

So many years of being one are not so easily undone.

I know.

[She smiles, gently.]

I know that too.

[She's infinitely more patient than people give her credit for.]

You know that. It doesn't always feel like others do. They expect a miracle to have occurred in two years, for me to have somehow developed a conscience and compassion for all beings in that time, despite us living in hell the entire time fighting for survival as well.

[Maul learning how to be better would have been difficult in a perfectly normal, mundane town, let alone being a Sleeper kept as a plaything for the Pthumerians in the two towns. He sighs heavily, leaning into Usagi's touch.]

I suppose this counts. I don't like learning this step but it is something after all.

Baby steps are still movement. [Even if Maul usually follows progress with MILES of backtracking.] Just look at how far you've come already.

[She smiles a bit bigger.]

So stubborn, Maulrus.

Isn't progress supposed to feel....good?

[Cause this doesn't feel very nice at all and he's feeling seven different ways at once, none of them really positive.

He can't quite bring himself to smile back but his eyes soften up.]

Always and to the very end.

Not caring is easy. Loving other people, caring about other people, has weight.

You're only now properly feeling it.

I still don't like it.

[Maul says contrarily. Then he sighs and turns to look at Usagi.]

Will you stay with me for the rest of the day?

Yes, of course, I will. [She smiles gently.] I'm happy to be here for you.

Thank you, Usagi.

[Having the solid presence of one of his best friends around was enough to keep him grounded and remind him this was a good step even if it didn't feel like it.]

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Video; un: darkness (Backdated to November 28th)

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