"Mother, would you call this Mandalore the Ultimate truly selfless?"
Watching the C-9979 freighter rise into the sky, Maul turned and asked Mother Talzin at his side.
"Selfless? Hmph." Talzin dismissed the idea with open scorn. "I have never met anyone more selfish."
"Ah?"
"What you see as selflessness is only the surface. An illusion, if you prefer." As she spoke, green fire flashed in Mother Talzin's eyes. "Max Vizsla sees Dathomir as his property. He sees the whole galaxy as his property. That is why he strikes you as selfless."
"Is... is that really so?"
"He goes on and on about 'the will of the Force is my will,' but in truth, he has simply mistaken his own will for the will of the Force." Staring at the point of light vanishing in the distance, Mother Talzin narrowed her eyes. "He means to unify the galaxy and bring balance to the Force."
"Will he succeed?" Maul asked.
Mother Talzin drew back her gaze, turned to look at her eldest son, and countered with a question of her own.
"Do you wish to help him?"
Maul shook his head.
"I don't know."
"Then think instead about how to unite the Nightsisters and the Nightbrothers—how to forge them into one people, the Children of the Night."
"Yes, Mother."
"First, we must secure Old Daka's support. Only then..."
...
"Shiri," Max asked curiously aboard the Golden Dragon battlecarrier, "is that on your hip a lightsaber or a lightwhip?"
"Ah—it's a lightwhip." The slightly nervous young woman hurriedly unfastened it from her belt. "Would you like me to ignite it for you?"
"If you would."
Max smiled and gestured with one hand.
Snap-hiss.
Former Nightsister initiate Shiri pressed the activator and flicked her wrist. A lash of energy burst from the hilt like a striking serpent, crimson as blood.
At the sight of it, Max frowned.
"Why is it red?"
"Huh?" Shiri blinked in surprise. "Nightsister lightwhips are all red."
"That's right, all of them are red." // "Yeah, exactly." The other two former Nightsister initiates, Burli and Daisha, nodded in quick agreement.
"But you, Shiri—and the two of you as well—clearly lean toward the light side of the Force." Snap-hiss. As he spoke, Max ignited his own yellow lightsaber. "Like this. A kyber crystal should resonate with you and take on colors like yellow, blue, green, and so on. It should not turn red. Red belongs to the dark side."
"Ohhh." Shiri's face lit with understanding. "Mandalore the Ultimate, I didn't make this lightwhip. My mother made it and gave it to me. She was a true Nightsister, one who had fully embraced the dark. She crafted it specially for me, hoping it would guide me into the embrace of the Night."
"I see." Max nodded. "Then tell me, Shiri—can you use it well?"
"Of course I can!"
The girl settled into her stance, snapped her arm forward, and deftly spun the lash into a clean flourish.
"Though sometimes," she added, "it feels like the whip doesn't quite listen to me."
"I can fix that."
"Really? Really?!" Shiri cried, excitement bursting out of her.
"Really." Max nodded. "But it may change the color of the lightwhip. Can you accept that?"
"What color would it become?"
"Most likely white."
Snap-hiss. "Then please, do it." Shiri deactivated the lightwhip, hurried over, and offered it to Max with both hands.
Max accepted it and sat down cross-legged on the spot. This time, he did not recite a sutra. Instead, he softly began to hum Schubert's Lullaby.
"Sleep now, sleep now, my dear little one,
Mother's hands are gently rocking you..."
...
"Sleep now, sleep now, my dear little one..."
After singing it through twenty times, Max opened his eyes and sent the lightwhip floating back to Shiri with the Force.
"Try igniting it again."
He smiled and gestured for her to do so.
Snap-hiss.
"Wow!"
The pure white lash drew a chorus of astonished cries from the trio of former initiates.
"Mandalore the Ultimate!" Daisha stared at Max with shining, starstruck eyes. "So you can use magick too?"
Burli immediately followed with, "Can you teach us magick?"
"The three of us can't learn Nightsister magick," Shiri added. "The elders said it's because we aren't dark enough, not pure enough. Mandalore the Ultimate, could you teach us light-side magick instead? Please?"
Magick?
After a moment's thought, Max roughly understood what the girls meant. They had mistaken his singing for the kind of incantation the Nightsisters chanted when they worked their spells.
When he purified and healed red kyber crystals, what truly mattered was his intention and the light side of the Force. Whether it was the Heart Sutra or Schubert's Lullaby had been incidental.
So what about the Nightsisters' incantations?
If spellcasting without spoken incantations were possible, it would drastically shorten the time needed to work their magick and greatly enhance their combat effectiveness.
"Do you still remember the Nightsisters' chants, gestures, and the rest of it?" Max asked the three former initiates.
"We do, we do."
"We were the most diligent of our generation."
"That's right! No one remembers them better than we do!"
"All right, then. Try teaching me Nightsister shadow magick. Unlike the three of you, I train in both light and dark. Once I learn it, I'll see whether I can transform it into a light-side form—and then I'll teach that to you."
"Will that really work?" Shiri asked, half doubtful.
"It should." Max gave an example. "The Sith have a very powerful Force technique—Force lightning. The Jedi, in turn, developed a light-side counterpart from the same foundation: Electric Judgment. If that can be done with a Force technique, I see no reason magick could not be adapted as well."
"But you're a man..." Burli said, unconvinced. "I've never seen a Nightbrother use shadow magick."
An involuntary shiver ran through Max.
Let's hope I don't have to become some bizarre once-in-an-age exception to make this work, he thought.
"No matter, no matter." Max waved it off. "Let's just try it first."
"All right, then. Do you want to start learning right now?"
"Why not? Teach me the simplest one first."
PS: In Legends, there were indeed cases where kyber crystals resonated with light-side Force-users and still appeared red, and there are also records of Jedi using red lightsabers over extended periods.
In Legends, the so-called Flower of the Jedi, Aayla Secura, once used a red lightsaber.
In current canon, there are no known cases of kyber crystals resonating red for light-side Force-users, nor of Jedi using red lightsabers for any meaningful length of time.
PPS: Electric Judgment is a light-side Force technique from Legends and has not yet been restored to current canon. The author is taking selective liberties here. Both Master Plo Koon and Luke Skywalker were known for wielding Electric Judgment.
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