"Mandalore the Ultimate," Mother Talzin said, fixing Max Vizsla with a steady gaze, "it is not that I force those young sisters who still carry light within them to undergo shadow magick. They come to me of their own will. They ask for my help. They ask to be remade."
"And the success rate?" Max asked.
After a moment of silence, Mother Talzin replied, "I can inform the young sisters in my clan who still incline toward the light of your offer, and let them choose for themselves whether they wish to go with you."
"This is the Way." Max gave a slight bow of thanks. "Mother Talzin, I ask one more thing: please make it clear to those young women that going with me does not make them traitors to the Nightsisters."
"Those who leave with me will become Dathomir's envoys to Bespin. They will serve as a bridge of friendship between the Nightsisters and the warriors of Mandalore. They will always be free to return to Dathomir and rejoin the Nightsister family whenever they wish—and I will never stand in their way."
"Good. Very good." Mother Talzin nodded. "May that friendship endure."
While they spoke, the C-9979 freighter that had departed from the Golden Dragon battlecarrier—loaded with the two thousand blasters—had already landed in the clearing outside the village. At the same time, the Nightsisters brought in Rulai Ventress's keepsakes and Asajj Ventress's cord blood.
"Chris." Max beckoned with one hand. "Come on. Let's go help move the weapons."
"Yes, Chief."
Whether it was the Bespin Mandalorian armed forces or Mother Talzin's Nightsister clan, neither side truly lacked two extra pairs of hands to move crates of blasters.
Max used the excuse of hauling weapons to leave the stone tower for two reasons. First, it signaled to Mother Talzin that he had no intention of prying into the mysteries of shadow magick. Second, he was getting hungry and meant to grab something to eat aboard the C-9979.
By the time Max and Christopher Wren had eaten their fill and returned to the village—each carrying a crate of tibanna gas canisters on one shoulder—Mother Talzin had already used shadow magick to pinpoint the exact location of Rattatak.
"Mandalore the Ultimate, you have greatly altered the course of Asajj Ventress's fate."
"Yes." Max nodded. "The cry for help I heard from Asajj Ventress came from the future. The moment I resolved to change that wretched future, her cry vanished."
"I had thought it was the Force guiding you to save her."
"It was." Max nodded again. "Just as it was the Force that guided me to save your son."
"Ordinarily, when a Force-sensitive glimpses the future, the Force guides them toward it. Not away from it. Not toward changing it, as you do."
"The futures I have changed are hardly limited to this one." Max smiled. "I believe the Force shows me those tragic futures precisely so that I may go and overturn them."
"Mandalore the Ultimate, you seem..." Mother Talzin paused, choosing her words. "Not to revere fate in the slightest."
"There is no fear; there is power." Max slowly clenched his right fist. "Fate ought to rest in one's own hands."
"It seems to me you intend to hold more than your own fate in those hands."
Max did not answer directly.
"I am the heart of the Force. All things are the will of the Force."
Mother Talzin studied him in silence for quite some time before speaking again.
"There are three young sisters willing to go with you to Bespin. They are waiting at the entrance to the village. You may take them whenever you wish."
"What is this?" Even with his helmet on, Max instinctively arched a brow. "Are you showing me the door?"
"What is this?" Mother Talzin shot back, lifting her own brow. "Were you hoping to stay the night? Ours is a matriarchal people. The sisters here prefer to take the dominant role. Can you accept that?"
"Chris." Max gestured for Christopher Wren to step outside and stand watch.
"Mandalore the Ultimate," Mother Talzin said, frowning, "please do not make such jokes."
"Hm?" Max spread both hands. "What are you talking about? What are you imagining? Please do not joke with me like that."
Realizing she had read far too much into it, Mother Talzin's aged face colored slightly. She waved a hand and dismissed the attendants around her as well.
"What is it you wish to say?"
"I want to speak with you about that very matter—this order of women over men."
The line of Mother Talzin's brow, which had only just eased, tightened once more.
"Mandalore the Ultimate, this is one of our sacred traditions and part of our culture. I would ask you not to judge it lightly."
"And if solving that problem could help you unify Dathomir and become the Great Mother of all Dathomir's sons and daughters?"
Mother Talzin narrowed her eyes.
Seeing that, Max pressed on.
"Mother Talzin, you have already sensed your son's strength, have you not? Within your clan, only you and Elder Old Daka are stronger than he is."
"Mandalore the Ultimate, how do you know of Elder Old Daka?"
"Elder Old Daka does not know me."
After that brief reply, Max continued.
"Master Eeth Koth, a current member of the Jedi High Council, is a male Zabrak. And if nothing unexpected happens, within ten years Master Agen Kolar will also take a seat on the High Council. He too is a male Zabrak."
"You even know the future composition of the Jedi High Council?"
This time Max merely smiled and said nothing.
"Your son Maul was once a Sith Lord. Eeth Koth and Agen Kolar are among the Jedi Order's finest. Their lives and achievements prove how exceptional male Zabraks can be in the ways of the Force—no less gifted than their female kin among the Nightsisters and other Dathomiri clans."
"And what of it?" Mother Talzin countered.
"Mother Talzin." Max raised his right index finger for emphasis. "Free the male thralls, and you free your labor force. You free your fighting strength."
"If you allow the Nightbrothers to study shadow magick—or any other Force discipline—and let them become warriors instead of mere servants, then both the number of warriors in your clan and its overall combat strength will rise dramatically."
Mother Talzin shook her head, unconvinced.
"If I do that, the sisters within the clan may object."
"And if you do it," Max replied, "what will the Nightbrothers bound to the other Nightsister clans think? What about the male thralls of the Blue Coral Divers, the Singing Mountain Clan, and the Howling Crag? Might they not come to see you as the one rightful Great Mother over all?"
"That..."
Mother Talzin trailed off and fell into thought.
PS: Among the Nightsisters, young women must awaken and subdue the being that sleeps in the depths of Dathomir's sacred pools—the Sleeper. Only after taking part of its body, boiling it together with other ingredients in the pool's waters to create the Water of Life, and drinking it, can they formally become Nightsisters.
If they cannot fully surrender themselves to the dark side, they cannot bend the Sleeper to their will—and thus cannot pass the trial to become true members of the Nightsisters.
PPS: In current canon, official material places Old Daka above Mother Talzin in raw power, despite the rather abrupt way Old Daka dies in The Clone Wars.
In the older Legends continuity, the mightiest of the Nightsisters was Gethzerion. During the Galactic Empire's conquest of Dathomir, Darth Sidious sensed both her presence and the extent of her mastery of the Force—and chose to withdraw rather than confront her.
This story will not be introducing Gethzerion.
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