"The stress fires up on occasion. Maintaining so many hidden lives comes with a cost."
"You know you are allowed to have fun, right?"
She did not want to be having this conversation. Not with an apprentice. Not in this room. Not while she was still buried beneath a mountain of work that refused to stop growing no matter how many problems she solved. How could anyone possibly understand what it was like to manage so many lives at once? Every single day required her to become someone else entirely. A different voice. A different posture. A different personality. Different morals for different people. Different masks for different worlds, and that was only the surface of it.
It was all so unbelievably exhausting.
She quickly rinsed the last of the glassware and placed it on the drying rack, continuing through the collection of matte-black dishes and crystal-clear cups that had accumulated in the sink. Even the Tyrant Queen of the Dark Court still had to wash her own damned dishes. Apparently galactic domination did not exempt one from basic kitchen maintenance.
Setting the final glass down on the bench, she turned sharply and collapsed into a nearby sofa with all the elegance of a dying nexu.
"And do what with my fun?" she asked bitterly. "Sit around reflecting on the fact that I have stabbed almost everyone I have ever known in the back? Think about the innumerable crimes I am personally responsible for that somehow keep getting bigger and bigger? Contemplate the reality that the galaxy, both socially and metaphysically, considers me an irredeemable cur?"
Malady's violet eyes—eyes Virelia herself had surgically altered—glanced down toward her mistress with visible concern. It was the worried look of someone who deeply cared for the very monster who had broken her apart and carefully rebuilt her into something else.
"To be fair," Malady replied carefully, "you are an irredeemable cur."
Virelia snarled immediately.
"I have no delusions about that. But I seem to be the one irredeemable cur in the galaxy that cannot catch a single karking break."
She was breathing heavily now, one hand dragging slowly across her face.
"Malady... just how much more do I need to sacrifice?"
For once, the apprentice did not immediately have a clever answer. She tilted her head slightly instead.
"Mistress, you know I am always here if you need—"
She was abruptly cut off.
"This is not one of those problems that can be solved with wine, terrible decisions, and several hours of highly questionable debauchery. Force knows it was never really about that in the first place."
The next words caught painfully in her throat.
"Every single person I have ever genuinely cared about—truly cared about—either ends up running away, dead, or trapped so deeply beneath manipulation, conditioning, and emotional chains that they can barely even comprehend disobeying me anymore."
Malady rolled her eyes.
"The brainwashing is fun, though."
Virelia looked genuinely horrified.
"Because, Malady, I. MADE. YOU. ENJOY. IT."
Malady immediately took a cautious step backward.
"Right. Apologies. Poor choice of phrasing."
Another long breath escaped Virelia as she forced herself back under control.
"It's fine," she muttered tiredly. "You know I do genuinely love you. I am just... frustrated. Furious, honestly. How difficult is it for an evil, self-absorbed nightmare like myself to simply have a few real friends?"
Malady rolled her eyes again.
"I think the issue may be hidden somewhere inside the phrase 'evil, self-absorbed nightmare.'"
Virelia scoffed loudly.
"Probably."
A long silence settled over the room after that.
Only the distant hum of the ventilation system and the faint dripping of water from the drying rack filled the space. For once, Darth Virelia looked small. Physically—she still occupied the room like a looming shadow wrapped in violet light—but emotionally she was worn thin. Exhausted in a way battle could never accomplish.
Malady watched her carefully. It was always strange seeing her like this.
Most people only ever saw the Tyrant Queen. The monstrous thing wrapped in obsidian armor and impossible confidence. The woman who walked into rooms like she already owned every soul inside them. They saw the speeches, the cruelty, the manipulation, the terrifying certainty.
They never saw this part. The woman sitting sideways on a sofa in loose black clothing, glaring at absolutely nothing while trying not to emotionally collapse because she had spent the last decade ruining every meaningful relationship in her life for the sake of power, survival, or some greater vision only she fully understood.
Frankly, it was a little pathetic.
Which was exactly why Malady cared.
"You know," the apprentice finally said carefully, "most people cope with stress by taking walks. Or sleeping. Maybe reading."
Virelia looked offended.
"I read."
"Military reports and forbidden alchemical manuscripts do not count as recreational reading."
"They absolutely count."
"No they don't. Last week you described the old Saijo massacre report as 'a relaxing evening.'"
Virelia pointed accusingly at her.
"The logistics section was fascinating."
Malady let out a tired sigh.
"Mistress, normal people are not supposed to unwind by reviewing casualty projections."
Virelia crossed her arms defensively.
"Well maybe normal people should raise their standards."
Then, quieter this time:
"I do not even know how to stop anymore."
That one hurt to hear. Just the simple, exhausted honesty of it.
Virelia stared blankly toward the ceiling.
"Everything is maintenance now. Every relationship. Every conversation. Every alliance. Every smile. Every threat. It all feels like balancing a tower made of transparisteel while everyone around me keeps trying to kick pieces out of the bottom."
Malady slowly sat down nearby.
"And if you stop?"
Virelia laughed softly, it was not a pleasant laugh.
"Then everything I built collapses on top of me."
The apprentice was quiet for a moment before speaking again.
"You know, for someone who constantly talks about becoming unstoppable, you spend a remarkable amount of time sounding terrified."
Virelia looked at her with tired violet eyes.
"Of course I am terrified."
Her voice tried to remain steady. It failed anyway.
"When I was first taken to the Jedi as a little girl, I used to hide beneath my bedsheets at night."
The words came slowly now, dragged up from somewhere ancient and rotting inside her.
"I remember waiting there in the dark, curled up so tightly I could barely breathe, convincing myself that if I stayed hidden long enough, somehow my parents would come for me."
A tear slowly slipped down her cheek.
"Every time the door opened, I would hold my breath. Every single time."
Her eyes unfocused, staring not at Malady, but at some distant place only she could still see.
"The footsteps would get closer. The sheets would move. Hands would pull them back and..."
She swallowed hard.
"And for just a second, every single time, I thought it would be Mother. Or Father."
Her lips trembled faintly.
"I kept thinking they had finally come to take me home."
Silence.
"They never did."
The words barely existed above a whisper.
Virelia sat perfectly still now, like even breathing had become difficult.
"So I learned to stop waiting."
Another tear followed the first.
"I learned that the dark beneath the sheets was kinder than hope was. The dark never lied to me. Never abandoned me. Never made promises it did not intend to keep."
She closed her eyes tightly.
"So I sought comfort there instead."
Another long silence, then finally, in barely more than a whisper:
"I think a part of me is still beneath those sheets, Malady."
The next breath shuddered on the way out.
"Still waiting for someone to come take her home."
