Ten Things to Ten People

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ten Things to Ten People

[An anonymous post appears on the Folkmore network:]

Welcome to Folkmore's Ten Things to Ten People meme!

Sometimes we all have trouble saying things we really want to say to people, or feel like there are reasons we shouldn't. But getting it off your chest can be good.

- Pick ten people (or however many you want, I'm not your boss) to write brief messages to them specifically. Negative or Positive. Post them, anon, or you're really brave, attached to a screen name.
- Do not say who they are meant for.
- Everyone is free to respond, or even guess for whom the message is intended.


[[OOC: This meme is IC. Ten messages not required, that's just the traditional meme name. And, as always, memes can be game canon, if you decide you them want it to be!]]

Comments

Voice

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ahsoka Tano was one of my teachers. She taught me to be a Jedi, and always said not being a Jedi was her choice. And yes, I know about her expulsion and trial - a trial run by one of your master's lackeys. The Order should have what - not allowed one of their own suspected of mass murder to stand trial?

Don't you dare use her name to justify yourself.

Now tell me, in very small words, how the people you were raised to murder in cold blood - and did so, more than once- ruined your life.

Don't give me nonsense about being cut in half. We both know how that fight went down.

If you want to lay blame, tell me exactly what Master Jinn and Obi-Wan should done, when you attacked them.

What the Order should have done, once you made your appearance.

Voice; Private

[survivalthroughhate]

[The problem with talking to Ezra for too long is that it was impossible to bullshit him for too long. He knew Maul too well too be put off by his usual doubletalk or refusal to take responsibility for his actions.

So Maul cracked, the hurt and wounded part of him that still hadn't healed and might never coming up to the surface.]

You want to know why I hate them? Truly? Because they didn't come for me. I was a scared, hurt child screaming out into the Force hoping someone would eventually hear me. I thought those who were supposed to be good and kind, who watched over others in the galaxy, surely one of them would come to save me from the monster tormenting
me. But no one ever did.

What was I supposed to think after losing hope for years on end? I had no one left but my master and he'd done a thorough enough job brainwashing that there wasn't much left of myself either. I did what I was told and never looked back. He told me to hate the Jedi but he didn't need to. I already hated them for failing me.

[There it was. Not a terribly rational or sane response for hating the Jedi so throughly but it made sense given Maul's childhood trauma. He felt they'd failed him on a personal level and so he held onto that even now.]

Voice; Private

[ezra_of_lothal]

[Ezra is quiet for a long moment. Partly because he understands all those words together, and even the twisted logic, intellectually.

But in another way he doesn't understand at all. Eventually says, quietly-]

I truly wish that man had never had even a chance to even come near you. I really do.

But Maul. [He sighs.] It doesn't work that way. You know the Force doesn't grant omniscience or omnipotence, no matter who you are. I know it.

And you know how I know? Because for nearly eight years, when I was alone and hurting, when I had nothing, but what I stole, lied for, worked for, bled for, killed for -

No one came for me, either.

Not future you. Not Sidious and his Inquisitors. Not any of the Jedi left.

Kanan took me in because I forced him to see me. By stealing from him. And then he made the best choice he could.

[survivalthroughhate]

[There was a long silence followed by a sound like Maul was pacing around the room before he responded.]

You asked what my reasons were. I never claimed they were the most logical or sane.

[Not when Maul always looked at things from a place of emotion and usually through hatred as his go-to when sorting truth how he felt.]

At least you had a family who took you in. I had nothing for so many years and then nothing again when he took it all away from me after six short months.

[But he knew the proper person to blame there was Sidious and no one else. He paused for a moment before he went on.]

Have I ever told you about what happened to me on Damanos?

[ezra_of_lothal]

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

Master Kenobi of Trench has told Maul that once. Ezra wonders if Maul remembers. Ezra has listened that conversation and taken it deeply to heart. Repeated those words, to himself, several times.

He holds them in mind, and replies simply, softly.]

No.

[survivalthroughhate]

It is a planet that is a nexus for the Force. I thought it only to be the Dark Side at the time but now.....I am not so sure. When I ended up back in the galaxy while in Trench, I went there after a few years, looking for something that could give me more power.

[The same old story with Maul.]

In a castle there, the Dark Side took the form of three figures from my past. My brother, General Grievous, and Qui-Gon Jinn. At the time, I could not accept the message it was trying to tell me. It wanted me to know that I had to let go of the past in order to embrace my true potential for the power I craved. At the time, I could not do that. Once I got back to Trench, going through what I had up to that point, I was. But now I begin to wonder if letting go of my anger and hate meant letting go of it in more specific ways than I thought.

[Letting it go towards the Jedi as a whole went unsaid.]

[ezra_of_lothal]

Oh.

I do remember you talking about this on the network in Trench, actually. I chose not to weigh in, because you seemed happier and more at peace and while I had some questions, I didn't think you'd appreciate them and didn't want even the possibility of that conversation turning combative.

[More hesitantly - he still has questions-] I think...when you have an experience like that, occasionally examining whether you've learned everything you can from it, is wise.

[survivalthroughhate]

I’ve thought about it many times since, looking at it from different points-of-view to understand all that it was trying to tell me. It made no mistakes in taking the form of a Jedi I had once fervently hated and delighted in the death of, who I later met and learned to respect as an individual rather than a representative of the group I had been taught to hate.

If you still have questions, I think I am better able to answer them now.

[ezra_of_lothal]

[Ezra is quiet for a long moment.]

You keep saying the Dark Side showed you these things. And I don't, um. I don't quite understand what you mean by that.

[survivalthroughhate]

Damanos is a nexus for the Dark Side. It flows there almost as strongly as it does on Dathomir. There was a castle there where I could feel it most strongly of all. And when I entered it, phantoms were brought back to life as if they were really there, the dead of my past. It did not feel as if they were merely hallucinations, it felt as if they were truly there.

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ah, sorry. I really didn't mean to make it sound like I thought you hallucinated or something like that.

You, a Force sensitive in a mind set that I assume was at least....curious? Intent? Focused? Something like that? Entered a place strong in the Force. The Force showed you things about yourself, your past, possibilities. That all makes perfect sense to me.

[survivalthroughhate]

I did not think you were implying that. But I was always taught that there is nothing after death. But being there....those apparitions did not feel like nothing. There was a presence there, a feeling of life about them, even though they were dead. Ghosts brought back to life, perhaps, for a brief moment in time.

I had gone there because an old tome was said the castle held great power. But no more than that. I didn't realize what form that power was taking at the time.

[ezra_of_lothal]

I see. I was taught that since the Force is all things, life does not truly cease after death; it changes form.

And you might want to ask Luke about his experiences with ghosts.

[survivalthroughhate]

Hmmm, perhaps there is some merit to that idea. Savage and Qui-Gon certainly felt real enough to my senses. Even Grievous had some faint spark of life, twisted and unnatural as it was.

[But Maul was just plain biased in the last case, seeing as how much he hated the cyborg general for killing his mother.

The mention of Luke gave Maul some surprise.]

He’s never told me anything about that.