Chapter Text
Maul slowly paces the office of his latest target, keeping his unwavering stare on the man. Myfu Draiven. The kind of underworld scum that has positioned himself as royalty in his backwater community, a big fish in a tiny pond. A man who has been a little too certain of his own importance to Maul's cause. Today he'll learn that information held hostage leads to information forcibly extracted and the erstwhile negotiator finding himself without pulse.
"It's true that we can't read the books, but we don't need you for that. We just met the person who will do it for us," Maul says, enjoying the growing fear in his target's face.
"Niri? She'll never help you."
Maul is intrigued by the confidence in the man's voice. He's talking about the slave they just met, the woman who has kept his books for years and knows the cipher. She'd come in with the timid air of one who had long ago learned the safest way to exist. Her eyes down, her manner smooth and pleasing and self contained. Pretty, with a thick braid of golden curls down to her hips. Her attire was the gauzy fabric of a pleasure slave, and the way the man had pulled her close by her arm to speak to her—the way her body had suppressed a flinch—suggested that he certainly didn't hesitate to touch her.
He'd called her Niri. It means 'golden' in the language they speak on this dirtball.
She's the only one who can read the cipher, besides Draiven. In Maul's experience, slaves are loyal exactly as long as it's in their own benefit. Perhaps this one has been well kept, granted little freedoms and dignities. She'd looked clean and fed, at least. And if he hadn't felt her closely guarded revulsion in the force, Maul might have believed the smooth, pleasing 'happy to serve' attitude she projected. Perhaps that's what's causing this scumbag to so confidently say that there's no benefit to taking her.
Perhaps he's as deluded as every other slave owner. Maul'd put his credits on that one.
"How sure are you? Let's find out."
The Mandos stay with Draiven while Maul wanders off down the hall, and finds the spiral staircase that leads into the cool cellar. People live partially underground in this brutally hot climate, the cellar feels like a relief.
The underground is exactly as tastelessly opulent as Draiven's style had suggested, richly draped in expensive fabric, with fake pillars lining the round hallway. There's two fancy arches leading into gaudily decorated hallways, and one plain little door. He tries the latter.
The first room seems to be some kind of administrative workspace. There's a holopad that's still switched on and a hastily abandoned ledger. He suspects that the woman had been working there until she heard him come down the steps. Has Draiven put the fear of Maul into her or is this merely based on how he looks? That isn't usually a disadvantage, but if he's to convince her to help them...
He reaches out with the force and finds her in the last space down the short hallway.
It's… a bedroom, though that's being generous. There's a lock on the outside, and the walls and floor are bare hewn stone. There's a bed with blankets and a small open chest with possessions and not much else. To the back an alcove that might lead to a fresher. If there's some kind of preferential treatment here worthy of loyalty, Maul hasn't seen it yet.
She's back there, not breathing.
Maul enjoys inspiring fear in his enemies, but he doesn't care for it from bystanders, and certainly not from slaves. He pitches his voice low and calm.
"I know you're in here."
She does a credible job pretending that she just happened to be in the fresher, not hiding from him, even though he can practically sense her stomach clenching with fear.
"Did… did my Master send you?" she asks quietly.
Maul thinks about the lock on the outside of the door and grimaces with distaste at the understanding of what she expects from a guest of her master coming down here.
"No."
He'd expected that to be reassuring, but it's the opposite. Her breath hitches. They're off script and she has no idea what he wants. He can feel an achy buzz in his temples from the panic rolling off of her. When he steps deeper into the space she seems to instinctively take the opening and darts toward the door.
It's no effort at all to arrest her momentum with the force and then use it to pin her front against a wall, keeping her there with her cheek against the rough stone as he approaches.
Her wild panting tightens into something fast and flat when he leans against the wall next to her, deliberately not touching her but in her line of sight. He's barely keeping her there with the force now, she's just too frozen to move.
"Your... master, up there," he says with a sneer at the title, "sounds very sure that you'll stay loyal to him and not help us translate his books."
Her eyes widen in surprise.
"Haven't seen anything that would explain his confidence, really."
She blinks at him mutely, and Maul accepts that he's not going to get anything out of her. He had hoped to convince her, but it doesn't look like that's an option.
"Draiven's not going to survive this. You could." He has no intention of killing her unless she makes it necessary, but she doesn't need to know that right now. He really does need her help for translating the ledgers.
He can sense her anxious calculation. Staying loyal to a losing party can easily be a death sentence. But showing yourself a disloyal slave can be just as dangerous; not much value to those, for a prospective new owner.
Suspecting that an answer might not come, Maul doesn't wait her out. They don't have time for this.
"Either way, you're coming with me," he says, wrapping his hand around her bare bicep and steering her toward the door. There's a sort of relief to her, as if not having to make a decision is the better option here. He summons the small box with personal things and pushes it into her arms. She moves stiffly, her limbs tight with fear, but he gets her up the spiral steps.
It's tempting to parade her in front of Draiven, make clear that they are going to be reading his books one way or another. The Mandos are carrying thick stacks of ledgers out to the ship. A nice note for the man to die on.
The woman is walking along quietly, eyes on the floor. Shut down. It might feel like the safest option right now to passively undergo what is happening, to not be made to make decisions. The simpler he makes this on her, the more likely she can be convinced to assist. That means not confronting her with her master.
He walks her to the ship just outside and lightly pushes her toward a crate in the cargo bay with a quiet "Sit." Then a Mando calls for his attention and he almost immediately forgets about her. They are blowing up the mansion with Draiven inside. The Mandos know their shit. They've made sure to get down into the far corners of the underground spaces so there'll be nothing left.
Once everybody is back aboard they take off, and Maul is in the cockpit while they hoover and observe the explosion. Then he stays for a while to discuss their find and their course of action from here. It's only when somebody expresses hope that their new guest can supply the translations they need that he remembers he left her back there a while ago. He should probably go check on her.
She's where he left her, which is unsurprising, but she's exactly where and how he left her, surrounded by the Mandos, who are ignoring her. She's still and small and with her eyes lowered. Her presence in the force is a dull, shut down thing with a frantic tremor of worry and uncertainty hidden deep underneath. He's glad of that; no matter how much she wants to be resigned to whatever happens to her, there's clearly a part of her that still cares.
Somebody has given her a half cloak. It's probably not doing much for her in terms of warmth in the chilly ship, but at least she's not quite so exposed in that flimsy scrap of cloth.
When he comes closer, she glances up at him. There's a scrape on her cheekbone from when he pressed her against the wall earlier. The way she folds her hands in her lap and bends her head seems to be some kind of formal acknowledgement, something drilled into her.
Maul sighs inwardly. It makes him uneasy to realise that she assumes he's her new master, but here in the crowded cargo bay doesn't seem like the right moment to get into it. Her hands are white, even the way they're clasped together can't hide that they're shaking.
This will require patience. He is not a patient man.
"Niri."
He feels some kind of distaste from her at the name, but outwardly she only gives that little head bend again, her eyes somewhere around his feet.
"That's what he called you. Is that how you want to be known?" Names are important. "Or is there another name you prefer."
She wavers for a long moment, and then—
"Dunèth, my Lord."
"Maul."
"My Lord Maul," she says smoothly, and curse it, that was not what he meant, but he decides to leave it. One thing at a time.
"Stand up a moment, Dunèth."
She stands immediately, legs long and bare. The half cloak barely falls to mid-thigh.
Maul shrugs out of his outer robes and sweeps them around her shoulders, settling them on her smaller frame. Even over top of the Mando cloak she's practically swallowed by the heavy cloth of his robes, the hem on the floor. Her hands come up to clutch it closed, and he quirks an involuntary grin.
"Better. We'll find you clothes when we get to base in a couple of hours."
"Thank you, my Lord."
He goes back to her after they've landed and the Mandos have carried off the ledgers and headed off to their own quarters. She's still in her spot on the cargo crate. The achy buzz in his temples is also still there, though he seems to have at least established that he's not randomly going to hurt her just for the hell of it. Her anxiety seems to have moved on to the fear of doing something wrong. She's waiting for him to set the rules and expectations.
He is beginning to wonder if he might have been better off bringing Draiven. It would certainly have meant less worry that his guest would starve unless explicitly told it's okay to take food from the kitchen.
"You're free," he tells her bluntly. "Not a slave anymore."
She takes that news without much of a reaction.
"I need your help with the ledgers," he says. "If you'll stay a few weeks to help, I'll get you to a good planet afterward with some money to get you started."
She nods in passive acceptance, and he belatedly realises that from her point of view, it's inadvisable to rejoice at this kind of news. Never know if it'll offend the Master and get the offer retracted, after all. A promise of freedom means very little.
He gestures her along out of the ship and into the base, points her to a room with a cot, shows her the kitchen. Somebody has already left a stack of clothes and a pair of boots on the table as he'd requested.
"We're not rationed. Take what you need," he points to the pantry. It's mostly rat bars, but there are plenty of them. "Anything else you need, ask for it."
He can tell there's something, so he waits for it.
"M-may I have scissors?"
"Would a knife do?"
She nods timidly, and he presents her with his boot knife. No hesitation about handing her a blade—she could never touch him even if she wanted to, and she doesn't. And she doesn't seem the kind of desperate he'd worry about arming. She seems detachedly curious if anything.
She accepts the blade and then with a quick motion reaches back for her thick braid and slices it clean off.
She braces herself as the braid falls to the ground in thick coils, and Maul suddenly understands this was a test. As a slave her hair had been important. Draiven had clearly valued it. Niri. Golden. If Maul had been planning to sell her on, cutting it would have decreased the price he could ask.
If she's free, if she's not a slave, her hair doesn't matter.
She'd expected to be stopped. And if not stopped, punished. Now she's frozen, unsure where to go from here.
"If you save that braid, I'm sure somebody would give you good credits for it," he says, pointedly leaving the room. Fuck, some Coreworld wigmaker would probably give his right arm for it. He looks back just before he rounds the corner. "Ask one of the Mandos to borrow their clippers if you want to get rid of the rest."