Video; un: darkness (Forward dated to March 3rd)

[survivalthroughhate]

[Maul looks as serious as he's ever been and at first he doesn't seem like he wants to speak. It takes Venge giving him a very hard headbutt to give him the impetus to start talking. There's a pensive quality to his voice like he's been practicing what he wants to say in his head but still isn't sure if he's gotten it quite right yet.]

I was in Deerington for over a year and a half. Including the time here in Trench, that is now over two years spent away from my home galaxy. That can change a person no matter how resistant one is to it. Some of you have been right. I have been acting like an unrepentant monster. [Which might be one of the hardest things for Maul to ever admit publicly. Everyone here knows getting him to admit when he's wrong is like pulling teeth.] But I've had a great deal of time to think and have come to the conclusion that I don't want to be that anymore. It is not a decision I make lightly or one that I was forced into by anyone. I think that has been the crux of why I have been faltering in my attempts. No one can make me become a better person. That has to come from within. So I'm going to prove the ones that have stuck by me right and show their eternal faith in me has been warranted. I never would have even gotten this far or come to this decision without them. To that end, I am making you all an offer which will be good from now until this city collapses into dust like Deerington did.

I swear by everyone here I told dear-- [And that's how one can tell he's dead serious about this. Maul would never make a vow he doesn't fully intend to keep.] --I will protect almost any and all of you against any monster that ever threatens your life. No questions asked, I will simply be there to defend you from danger. Just contact me and ask. It is that simple. All I seem to be good for is death and destruction, so I am going to channel that in a positive manner. There are a few exceptions to this, of course, but I'm sure you already know who you are. I'm making a change for the better but I'm not a saint and I do hold grudges. This doesn't apply to any conflicts that involve other Sleepers. I'm not getting involved in your petty squabbles. But anything inhuman which threatens your life will be dealt with in a swift manner, of that you can be assured.

[He goes to turn off his Omni when he adds on almost as an afterthought.]

Oh, and my offer to use my powers to get you to sleep or pull corruption out of your mind also still stand.

[Maul pauses and thinks of adding on something more but he's afraid he might dig himself into a hole he can't get out of if he does so. Instead, the Sith Lord just ends the feed a bit abruptly right there.]

Comments

[survivalthroughhate]

[Maul's eyes narrow at Kenobi's words. Looks like he's really going for the jugular today. And it's working, every sentence hitting Maul in the hearts right where it hurts.]

Then we both have our faults, don't we? You fail to save everyone you love, even now, and I let everyone I love down.

[jedies]

I didn't fail. You murdered them. My weakness isn't compounded by that, but the fact that you looked helpless people in the eye and drove a sword into their backs. Or when you lined them up in a row, tied their hands and cut them down for me to watch.

Your capacity for pain, your ability to put down those who were weaker than you is not and has never been my failure.

[ his voice doesn't drop an octave, nor does it lose its cadence. it does not burn and it does not chill. he doesn't need righteousness and he doesn't need maul's pain.

because obi-wan has the truth. ]

[survivalthroughhate]

What do you want me to say? That I am sorry for all of it? I'm not. Because it got me what I wanted at the time and that was to see you suffer. I killed others to see you in pain and was glad for it. I don't regret my actions when they get me to the goal I set out towards.

[Which is essentially why he's figuring it's time for a change now. His actions as of late have not gotten him what he wanted and that is the difference for Maul.]

You've always been good. But never good enough. All that you do, all that both of us ever end up doing, it all comes to nothing in the end. We both fail in whatever we set out to do.

[jedies]

[ what do you want me to say? and it got me what I wanted at the time are the true emblems of the dark. shortcuts, excuses. roads paved with dust. and while obi-wan could still wait and see, a line was crossed with anakin. ]

Perhaps.

[ a long beat. the force awaits. ]

And yet the difference is you cannot forget me. You cannot let go.

But I will.

[ now his voice drops slightly. ]

In any future, in any moment we meet, in any end you seek, I will look at you and I will see a stranger. I will forget you. I will remove your existence from myself.

[survivalthroughhate]

[How could he have ever fallen in love with this man? (And yet, even now, part of him still feels that conflict of wanting to be near to him, to see that particular smile on his face. He tamps that part down for right now.) Hatred is easier, as it has always been and Obi-Wan is definitely making it easy for him right now.]

Interesting words. But the follow-through may be harder than you think.

[If only because the Force seems to delight in tossing them together. He keeps only the fury on his face, never letting anything else like the hurt that simmers below rise up to the surface.]

[jedies]

Oh, I can assure you.

It is not a matter of the mind.

[ with that, the connection closes. ]