▸ Column · Star Wars galaxy — Darth Maul reading a holcomm grievance from a discarded member of an old crew
DARTH MAUL replies.
Replied to by Darth Maul, with a rebuttal from Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The letter
A standard cycle ago I learned that my four oldest companions — the ones I've crewed and bled beside for eleven years — had opened a private comm-channel without me. I only found out because Priya misfired a transmission to our old channel and scrubbed it a heartbeat later, which stung worse than if she'd left it. When I pressed her, she said the circle had "naturally evolved" and swore it wasn't about me, yet no one has summoned me to anything since Dani's name-day gathering, which I attended only because Dani signaled me privately. I stood witness at two of their bondings. I hauled Marcus's cargo up three levels with a ruined back. I cannot name the crime that earned me being quietly decommissioned like a dead droid. Part of me wants to send one honest message to the whole channel demanding an answer — but I fear the reply, or the silence, will be worse than not knowing. Do I confront it directly, or let eleven years dissolve without ever learning why?
Darth Maul replies
"Naturally evolved." Hear how neatly they reach for the word that means nothing happened. Something happened. They built a door and left you on the wrong side of it, and then asked you to call it weather. Do not. I was discarded by the one who forged me — handed my purpose, then thrown away when a sharper tool appeared. They had words for it too. The wound was real. Yours is real. Name it.
Now: you wish to send your one honest message. That is begging, and begging is for those without patience. You would hand them the spectacle of your need and let them decide, at their leisure, whether to answer. No. Say nothing. Let the silence sit between you, and watch what they do with it — people who phase you out reveal everything when they think no one is keeping count. You will learn more in your quiet than in their reply.
But here is the only mercy I carry. I built an entire existence out of one betrayal, and it became a cage I am still pacing. Carry this wound. Do not feed it for a decade until it is the only thing left of you. Endure it. Do not become it.
— Darth Maul
Obi-Wan Kenobi weighs in
Maul. You counsel silence to a person who has lost their friends, because silence is the only room you've lived in since I left you in two halves on Naboo. Listen to me instead. "Naturally evolved" may not be a betrayal at all — it may be the unremarkable, painful truth that people drift, and from their point of view nothing was stolen from anyone. So send the message. Not a demand — a door. Ask plainly, kindly, and brace to hear that you, too, may have wandered off without noticing. The difference between us, old friend, is that I learned what my wound had to teach me. You're still in yours, inviting company.
— Obi-Wan Kenobi
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