"Mandalore the Ultimate."
"Mother Talzin."
"Thank you for extending your hand to us," Mother Talzin said, bowing deeply and solemnly. "You saved my son from a living hell and made it possible for mother and son to be reunited."
"No need for formalities." Max Vizsla strode forward and gently raised Mother Talzin with both hands. "I am the heart of the Force. All things are the will of the Force."
In the later timeline of the original canon, during the Clone Wars, even Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi—member of the Jedi High Council—had to be escorted into the village at bowpoint by Nightsisters wielding energy bows when he came to Dathomir with the Chosen One, Anakin, to seek an audience with Mother Talzin. This time, Talzin had come out personally to greet Max before he even entered the village. That alone showed him considerable respect.
"Layer upon layer of peaks, wild and magnificent," Max said with a sigh of admiration. "Dathomir truly is a world of remarkable beauty."
"Yeah, yeah," Mori the Senran said, nodding vigorously. "A whole lot prettier than Lotho Minor, that's for sure."
In 40 BBY, Darth Sidious forcibly took fourteen-year-old Maul from Mother Talzin's side. From that day until now, mother and son had not seen one another for eleven years.
Now that they had finally been reunited, there was naturally far more to say than could be spoken in a few moments.
After the welcoming ceremony ended, Mother Talzin arranged for several Nightsisters to escort Max, Christopher Wren, and Mori to a stone tower where they could rest for a while. She herself left with Maul to speak privately as mother and son.
With nothing pressing to do, Max took his time admiring the scenery of Dathomir.
"Do droids appreciate scenery too?" one young Nightsister asked curiously.
"Hah—this is armor. We're not droids."
Max was amused, but he had no intention of removing his helmet. So long as he remained on Dathomir, he would not take it off.
After a while, another Nightsister entered and invited the three of them to lunch.
"Mori, you go ahead," Max said, waving a hand. "Chris and I have already eaten."
Mori was a careful sort—careful for a serpent, at least. At that, he quickly shook his head.
"No, no, no. I'm not hungry either. I'll stay here with you two."
Some time later, Mother Talzin arrived with Maul at her side.
"Mandalore the Ultimate."
"Mother Talzin."
"Is Your Excellency afraid we might tamper with the food?"
"Yes."
Max's blunt reply left Mother Talzin momentarily speechless. After a stretch of silence, she chose to be equally direct.
"Mandalore the Ultimate, you brought Maul back to me, and for that I am deeply grateful. Within the limits of my power, I will grant you three favors, freely given. You may name them now, or at any time in the future."
"Mother Talzin." Max inclined his head respectfully. "I know my excessive caution is discourteous and no doubt offensive. If you mind it, then Mr. Wren and I can leave Dathomir at once. But if you are gracious enough to overlook it, then I would very much like to speak with you at greater length."
"Hmph." Mother Talzin let out a cold snort. "I do not mind, so long as your own stomach does not."
"Mother Talzin, the armed forces of Mandalore can provide support. We can help you and your clan establish a commanding position among the Nightsisters, then a commanding position among the Witches of Dathomir as a whole, and in the end unify all of Dathomir."
Dathomir was steeped in dark side power, and that power had nourished many different witch clans. Among them, the strongest were the Nightsisters, the Blue Coral Divers Clan, the Singing Mountain Clan, and the Howling Crag Clan.
Although Mother Talzin styled herself leader of the Nightsisters, in reality the clan she commanded was only one branch of the Nightsisters as a whole—much as the Children of the Watch had once been only one branch of Death Watch.
"And in return," Mother Talzin asked, fixing Max with her gaze, "what do you seek?"
"You are too weak as you are now. I want a strong ally." Max raised his right index finger for emphasis. "Only by unifying the planet, ending the struggle between the witch factions, and bringing all the witches of Dathomir together can the Witches of Dathomir—and Dathomir itself—have any kind of future worth speaking of."
Mother Talzin's expression darkened at once. Her pride was plainly stung.
"We are weak?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice.
"If you were stronger, Darth Sidious would never have dared to snatch away the son of a Great Mother by force. Would he?"
No metaphor was needed. As Mother Talzin glared at Max, green fire quite literally flared in her eyes.
"Mother..."
At Maul's voice, Talzin drew several deep breaths before finally mastering her temper.
"The Sith will answer for his crimes," she said. "Of that, I promise you."
"And only by becoming stronger will you be able to judge Darth Sidious." Max tapped a hand against his own chest. "I can make Dathomir stronger."
Max's plan was simple: build education on Dathomir and raise the witches' scientific literacy.
"Science?" Mother Talzin thought she had misheard. "Mandalore the Ultimate, the strength of the Nightsisters—the strength of the Witches of Dathomir—comes from magick, from the dark side of the Force."
"Mother Talzin, you have spent years studying the mysteries of magick, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Then use science to analyze magick."
Max proceeded to bring out the whole system he had borrowed from another world—the method of using scientific principles and procedures to study sorcery—and began, quite shamelessly, to evangelize it to Mother Talzin.
When he spoke of the three key elements and four principles of experimental design, Mother Talzin found much to agree with and nodded repeatedly.
But when Max wandered into mathematical tools such as functions, differentials, and integrals, Mother Talzin's eyes lost focus and she stared at him in growing bewilderment.
"Science is a system of knowledge that correctly reflects the essential nature and laws of objective reality," Max concluded. "It takes existing facts as its object of study and objective evidence as its foundation and point of departure. In terms of content, it is a true reflection of the essence and inherent laws of the things that exist."
"All right, all right." Mother Talzin waved both hands in surrender. "Enough. Stop. My head is already spinning. Are you certain this would even work?"
Max thought it very likely that it would—but he could not say so with absolute certainty.
Still, even if applying science to the study of magick proved unworkable in this galaxy, it would do Max no harm.
Expanding education, on the other hand, would unquestionably help. Of that, Max was absolutely certain. Illiterates did not fly starfighters. If Dathomir could produce a generation of literate, educated witches and then send them on to flight academies for further training, the result would be a corps of Force-sensitive starfighter pilots—and that alone would be a tremendous gain.
"Take me to your firing range." Max pointed toward the energy bows carried by the Nightsisters. "I will show you what kind of power can be achieved when science and the Force are joined together."
PS: By the time of the Clone Wars, Mother Talzin had already unified the various Nightsister clans and become the supreme leader of the Nightsisters.
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