#HELP ISSA I'M FERAL OVER HIM.

[sl-walker]

I only hesitate because I'm not super familiar with your AUs yet! Sometime I really will read All of It, I just don't know where to start!! Anyway, um, that said ... is Savage in any of them? Because I'd like to see two of him and Savage: gift exchange and baking Christmas cookies. Probably Savage is baking them and Maul is helping, for whatever value of "help" inspires you, LOL

I always recommend Witness me first because it’s sort of my ‘prime’ verse, and really, you can read it in order.  If you prefer lighter fare, sort of fluffy and sweet you can also read Taking Flight in order.  ( @shadowmaat and @doorsclosingslowly are also authors in that series.)  And while GoT:A doesn’t have nearly the audience, it’s pretty dear to my heart because I love how comparatively stable and such that he is in that one.  It’s more scattered, but it’s here.  Really, though, if you’re serious about wanting to read, just start at the beginning of Witness me and see where the mood takes you. XD

That being said, in the future after Gambit, Savage is around in Taking Flight (there’s quite some time before he makes it into Witness me), so!  Without further ado, have some brotherly fluff and a lot of Maul introspection.

Apparently, Nightbrothers on Dathomir had holidays.

Maul hadn’t known that; he wasn’t raised there and had no memory of the place, but he had two brothers and with every day that passed since they had come into his life, he grew closer to them.  Slowly, he got used to the mere concept of having blood family; it was such a foreign thing at first that he had a hard time figuring out how to relate to it, but as time went on, he was getting-- better at it, he thought.

It wasn’t easy; Savage had known nothing but Dathomir from birth.  He had no real understanding of the wider world than that, and it often showed.  More than once, Maul caught him trying so very hard to catch up and grasp such a wide galaxy, so much wider than one village and the surrounding areas on one back-water world, and it was-- it was hard watching Savage struggle with it.  He was intelligent enough, it wasn’t that; he just wasn’t raised like Maul was.  He was grown when he left Dathomir to try to save his little brother; even if Maul had spent his first seven years (or six) on Mustafar, isolated and alone, he was educated in how big the universe was, at least.

For Savage, though, it was gods and goddesses; it was Nightsisters and disappearing males and the quiet terror of the day he was chosen.  It was hunting and raising children.  It was fighting, and weighing his worth on his ability to provide and protect.

 It was a strange thing, for Maul to go between small children in the creche and an older brother, tall and rangy and only now really starting to lose the hollowed-out features of a hard-bitten life in favor of something more filled-out and healthy, because the children and Savage had a common innocence, a lack of sophistication, no matter how bright and clever they were.  But where the children would grow into it, Savage had to go backwards to learn, and it was a struggle for everyone.

Maul did what he could, and in this case, it meant celebrating a Dathomirian holiday; a day set aside for families, be they chosen (as they often had to be for Nightbrothers, shattered down the middle and isolated and stolen) or by blood.  Savage had hesitantly tried to explain it for him, talking of obscure hunts by moonlight and torch-flowers, and about making sweet biscuits from roots which could only be dug up once a year to go with their kills.  Maul couldn’t quite grasp it, but he wanted to be there and do something with it, and maybe if he did, it would give his big brother one more thing to help him feel more at home on Coruscant.

It was likely to end up as much an exchange in cultures as it was a celebration.

Savage had insisted fervently that Maul didn’t need to bring a gift, even though gifts were supposed to be exchanged, but Maul didn’t want to turn up empty handed.  So, he requisitioned a zhaboka; Iridonian in origin, but a weapon zabraks had an affinity for, and when he got the plain double-bladed weapon, he sat for many hours across a few nights carving into the wooden handle, allowing the Force to guide his carving knife.  When it was finished, he rubbed black stain into the abstract, elegant patterns, then a lighter stain over the untouched wood, and finished it the night before with a clearcoat to protect the work.

On one end, under the blade, he tied two coverts he pulled, much to Obi’s concern -- it hurt some, but not terribly, not worse than being stung by a fly -- with leather and hoped the present would be well-received.

(Feral’s gift was much easier; with Issa’s help, he had Bloodclaw Killgore, who was Bloodfang’s little brother and with just as many felt teeth.)

“I wasn’t able to get the same kind of flour and roots,” Savage said, fretting before Maul was even through the door all the way.  On the small counter were supplies and a baking sheet, and it looked like Feral had been helping, given the little prints everywhere.  Then Savage stopped for a moment, looking wide-eyed at the wrapped gifts Maul had brought. “You didn’t have to,” he said, not in accusation, but in apparent anxiety.

“I wanted to,” Maul replied, then oof’d as Feral ran into his legs and hugged them fiercely.  He grinned down at his little brother, reaching around himself with his wing since his arms were full, and brushing it across the tiny Nightbrother’s back. “Can I help bake?”

Savage looked a little worried, though also oddly pleased at the same time. Maul idly wondered (not for the first time) at their genetic differences, because Feral seemed to share some common features with Maul, facially, but Savage’s eyes especially were so different from both of theirs; striking, shifting color in different lighting, and elegantly shaped.  Though, Maul and Savage shared almost identical horn patterns.

“I can try to teach you.  It will be harder with the different ingredients.”  Savage gingerly took the wrapped presents away from Maul to set with the other ones in the corner of the room.  Once he had, Maul picked Feral up and held him against a hip, following Savage over to the counter.

Once they got into the rhythm of it, though, like most things it got easier.  Maul had to work one-handedly, but Feral more than made up for it, helping roll the dough into balls with his small hands.  The results were a sheet full of uneven cookie-like objects, but once they were baking, something in Savage’s face seemed to settle and he looked nearly comfortable, with the smell of food cooking in the air and the lower lighting in the room and the three of them together.

Maybe a little more like he felt at home.

(If @doorsclosingslowly wants to continue this, I am down for it. XD  Since Savage is really more Anton’s muse.  Speaking of, Anton, if I screw anything up, God, let me know.)