Dark Lady of the Sith - Notes: Darth Maul’s introduction to the story has been made much more suggestive toward Nadia’s future. I’m just playing around with ideas here at the moment, but the notes below are the skeleton of what I hope to make the final version of Maul’s ‘seduction’, almost, of Nadia.

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Nadia held out her hand and brushed her fingertips over the transparasteel window. She shuddered, withdrawing fast as a shot of pure coldness rushed through her veins. As she exhaled, she watched her breath form an icy haze before her, and she felt her body come up in goosebumps, her every hair standing on end. Dropping her lightsabre and rubbing her arms forcefully, she stepped around the room, warily watching the darkened corners and listening for the slightest sound. All was quiet. She knew it was a cliché, but it really was too quiet.

She found herself walking round in a small, disorientated circle. Something was in the shadows, she knew it with all her heart, something else was here. No… someone else.

“Who’s there?” she asked into the void. Her voice resonated against the walls, which spoke of there being none but her in the room. But she knew otherwise - her brain was telling her so.

“Show yourself!” she cried, back-stepping onto her ‘sabre hilt and tumbling with an ungraceful thud to the floor.

The air shifted. It sniggered.

Nadia felt affronted by this quiet yet sinister gesture; “Come out, I said!” she yelled. Again, her voice only echoed alone in the darkness. No response came.

She sighed, closing her eyes, and giving herself to the darkness; in her mind’s eye, things were foggy, but she saw the room as though through a medium other than that of sight. Everything came in terms of shadow and movement, all grey, though some of lighter hues than others. And a dark grey figure walked around her - nay, he prowled, pacing like some wild animal, some carnivore teasing and tiring his prey.

‘His’ - she’d already given the thing a gender. Sighing another time, she tightened her closed eyelids and endeavoured to see this thing in a clearer light, to make him legible to her mind’s eye. He evaded this. He knew how to, suggesting that he was, or had been, a creature of the Force, a being trained in some form of Jedi arts, particularly in evasion.

“Please,” she pleaded, “Come into the light.”

This might sound ludicrous to any person who saw the room, for it was dark, illuminated by nothing but the city’s streetlamps, and by the passing glare of headlights amongst the traffic. But the entity knew exactly what she meant.

/I need your help/ it whispered.

Nadia gasped, the word hitting her like a cold wave of water. Her eyes shot open and she scrambled to her feet, shivering all over as she felt the creature close the gap between them. Had he been corporeal, he would have brushed her with his arm. Despite this, she could feel something akin to breath on the back of her neck, but it was a chill breath, something that only made her heart burst into speed with a cold pop.

“Who are you?” she stuttered, rubbing her arms more vigorously and looking all the time both left and right, checking for some sign other than that within her mind of the presence of another. The room betrayed none of this to her.

/I am your friend/

She almost laughed - wouldn’t it just say that?

“Tell me more,” she went on.

/You shall be the chain. The Sith needs you/

Nadia shuddered another time - the Sith needed her? But how could it? Her very existence shattered its age-old rule of only two ever existing; she symbolised a slur and disrespect for its rules, nothing other, and definitely not its strengthening and re-forging.

“It doesn’t need me,” she whispered.

/It does. You believe that Darth Vader found you by sheer accident?/

She swallowed, “Accidents happen…”

/They do not/ it insisted.

Nadia gasped as she felt a grip, not physical but otherworldly, take her by her arms, clutching her as a man would grab one from behind and hold one helpless toward him.

The absurdity of there being nothing there just didn’t register with the adolescent girl. She knew there was something there, be it of another plain than that of the living, and either way, it was plenty alive enough for her.

/Nothing happens by accident/ the spectre went on.

Nadia felt her breathing accelerate, her every breath emerging swiftly and hoarsely from her lips; she tried to release herself from the hold of the entity, but she could not.

/I need you/

“What for?”

/You are the chain. You shall be instrumental to our continuation/

“I don’t understand!”

/The Chosen One will bring balance, but he will not save us/

“What are you talking about?”

/You shall be the one to save us. You shall give us life once more. And I shall help you along the way. We shall do it together/

“Who are you?”

His hands ran up to massage her neck, and she choked on the coldness as she felt invisible lips press against her nape; /I am your Master/

And with that, he was gone. The room suddenly came back to reality with a thud and Nadia fell forward onto her hands and knees. Gasping for air, she felt as though she’d just awoken from a bad dream and it took her a moment to convince herself that it had, indeed, just happened. None of what he had said made sense, though, even after several moments thought.

She sat back in a corner, hugging her lightsabre hilt to her chest out of sheer comfort. Idly, she touched her hand to her neck and pondered on exactly what it had all meant.