First Reply A Brutal Return to Form

[Eira Dyn]

Location: Tatooine
Attire: Black tanktop and leather trousers
Equipment: Vibro-daggers, blaster pistol and a vibro-sword
Tag: Open

The blood dripped from Eira's hands as she stared down the man who had bumped into her on the way back to her table. He refused to apologise and even called her darling. It was the darling that sent Eira feral, her body went into action without her mind even realising what she was doing. Punches were crashing into the stranger's face with the full power of the Force behind her actions. It meant that it only took a couple hits before the face was a bloody mess that was completely unrecognisable and Eira stood over him looking like the feral animal that she had leaned into when travelling to this wasteland of a planet.

However, she was technically here on a mission. There was a target of some kind around. A bounty that Eira could collect on and it was a chance to put her skills back into use after her long break from active training and being on missions. So she had decided to look the part of a random bounty hunter at work, temporary tattoos adorned her one arm and held the attitude of someone not to be crossed. Storming back to her table, she took her glass and drank the beer in a long gulp. Her piercing, feral red eyes staring out around the bar as she could tell the mood had shifted from being jovial to fear. Eira drank in the fear just as heavily as she drank in the beer. It was far more pleasant to her palate as well. Fear was a tool she could use to empower herself so controlling the mood of the bar, it improved her abilities.

The target of her hunt was meant to be close by and Eira was keen to see if she could spot them before they realised that she was here for them. A chance to hunt and feel confident in returning to Quinn a better Sith acolyte, apprentice, than she had been before. One worthy of her Master's lessons and attention. The last thing Eira ever wanted to be was a waste of someone's time, especially someone like the princess. A waste of Quinn Varanin 's time was basically a death sentence and that was something Eira would very much like to avoid. Instead, she saw this as a chance to make a bold step back as a Sith ready for action. Ready to be the feral beast that only Quinn could keep in check.

That made Eira smirk as she drank.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello there, Eira."

Tags - Eira Dyn


The doors to the bar did not open.

They peeled.

Like the jaws of some forgotten leviathan forced open by unseen hands, the reinforced durasteel split inward and shrieked across the floor, sparks stuttering into the shadows. Conversation died. Music collapsed into silence. Every head turned—some instinctive, others involuntary—as if summoned by a gravity that had no business existing in so lowborn a place.

And then—she entered.

A silhouette of pure dominion crossed the threshold, framed by flickering light and choking smoke. The armor was the first thing that struck them—Tyrant's Embrace—not worn, but inhabited, as though the bar had been invaded by a specter of conquest itself. Gloss-black plates flowed across her figure like obsidian ink, every curve honed to a razored edge, every line a sermon in supremacy. It was impossible to tell where woman ended and war began.

Six violet eyes blazed from the featureless mask like the gaze of a god insect dreaming in nightmare geometry. They moved independently, glimmering with unreadable awareness. People did not see her—they felt her, like a knife against the throat of the galaxy.

She did not walk. She glided. Her movement was frictionless and slow, not lazy—sovereign. The way predators moved when no one dared run.

Around the room, several mercenaries rose, quietly but immediately—hers. Unspoken allegiance shimmered in the air like heat distortion. One man slid his drink aside and nodded, a subtle mark in some secret language. Another casually adjusted the clasp on his blaster holster, not as a threat, but as a gesture of etiquette. Virelia had arrived. The room was no longer public. It was hers.

She moved past the bloodied body on the floor without pause.

Her helm turned once toward the pulped corpse, then away again with mechanical disinterest, like an artist glancing at a half-finished sketch. One of her taloned fingers twitched ever so slightly, perhaps making note. Perhaps filing a consequence. Perhaps savoring.

She made her way to the center of the bar.

Not a throne, not a dais—but presence alone gave the illusion. Patrons instinctively shifted back to create space, though none were told to. Her split cape dragged behind her like molten nightfall, whispering across the floor in sibilant strokes. She stopped.

Then she looked at Eira.

There was no recognition in those insectile eyes—none. Only scrutiny. The kind that stripped away tattoos, disguises, bravado. The kind that saw you at the bottom of the sea and wondered what weight had sent you sinking.

There was something in the air between them.

Not Force lightning. Not violence. Not yet. But something… tight. Electric. Intimate in the way only shared darkness can be. Virelia stood in silence, her helm cocked ever so slightly to one side, as if parsing a puzzle she didn't remember assembling.

Then, softly—too softly—the voice came. Modulated through the armor, it was velvet wrapped around a vibroblade:

"Someone's forgotten their leash."

It was not a question. It was not even an accusation. It was a judgment. A test. The kind that invited a name, an explanation, a challenge. A leash could mean anything. A master. A purpose. A lie you told yourself to stay calm. The kind of thing only a Sith might sniff out like blood in the wind.

To be seen by Virelia was never passive. It was not remembrance that gave weight—it was relevance. And right now, Eira had relevance. The corpse on the floor. The fear in the room. The storm in her aura.

The helmet tilted again. A long pause. And then—

"I like the scent of chaos. But it's rarely so pretty."

There was a ripple through the mercenaries at that—subtle, knowing. Half amusement, half warning. Virelia didn't dole out compliments. She invested them. Used them like seeds. And when she called you pretty, it wasn't flirtation. It was claim.

A clawed finger traced the edge of a glass left on a nearby table. The liquid inside curdled and froze instantly as her aura passed near, flash-chilled by proximity to whatever dark alchemy moved beneath her armor's heart-core. Sith glyphs shimmered faintly to life across her breastplate—old words. Older than language. Words that didn't mean power, but replaced it.

Without looking away from Eira, she finally spoke again, this time lower. Hungrier.

"I wonder what brings you out so far?"

Silence.

Then, motion. Slow, deliberate. Her gauntlet reached up, hovered before her helm—and then clicked. A release valve hissed. The mask split vertically down the center and began to unfold in six petal-like segments, peeling backward and revealing her face for the first time:

Impossibly smooth skin, pale as star-bleached bone. High cheekbones, surgically perfect symmetry. Eyes like molten amethysts—not glowing, but lit from within by something unnatural. Her lips parted slightly, a trace of breath curling in the cold air between them. She smiled.

Not warmth. Not cruelty.

But possession.

 

[Eira Dyn]

Location: Tatooine
Attire: Black tanktop and leather trousers
Equipment: Vibro-daggers, blaster pistol and a vibro-sword
Tag: Darth Virelia

The tension in the air shifted its weight, not targeting the body that Eira had left on the ground nor was it focused on feral assassin that was drinking alone at her table. It shifted towards a new being that entered the room. One that made efforts to demonstrate the power, the danger they posed as they entered the room. Attempts to remind all who crossed their paths the dangers that would be faced in doing so. Eira ignored such displays, she was far too oblivious to such actions since it was bravado wrapped around insecurities. Eira could sense the other being moving closer to her, she paused from her drinking and let out a sigh.

Distractions were never something she was keen on exploring when she was on a mission, there was a target here for her to hunt and she refused to let them escape her grasp.

However, the distraction continued to come closer, continued to make their presence felt and then stood before Eira. The acolyte made no attempts to look up or to stand and bow. She was continuing to look forward then the comment came from the insect mask, Eira let out another sigh, placing her glass down. She rubbed her lips with the back of her bloodied fist, smearing blood across her lower face. The acolyte laughed dryly, "I think you mistake this bar for some freak club, try the next building over if you want people on leashes." Eira commented with a voice dripping with a sarcastic edge.

A snort escaped Eira as a compliment was gifted to her, "surely if you wanted to flirt with me, you can do better than simply stating how pretty I am." The red eyes flickered away from the scanning around to look over up the Sith. Smirk danced around her lips as Eira looked up, "oh, six eyes... going for a creepy insect humanoid look?" Gesture over in the Sith woman's general direction.

When asked about her reasoning for being here, Eira raised the glass of nearly empty beer. "Can't a girl enjoy a beer?" Raising it back to her lips and drinking the rest of it. Placing the glass back down on the table, "here to get some sun? Being that pale can't be good for you." Eira joked, avoiding answering the question. Revealing too much information would give whoever this was the chance to steal Eira's target as their own kill and Eira would never allow that to happen.

Breathing in deeply, Eira studied the face a little longer, trying to remember if she had seen it before. Nothing jumped to her mind immediately which made sense or explain the small nag that she recognised this person. Then the door opened, her eyes flickered away from the Sith to the person entering. Not the target... A shame but Eira relaxed a little more, she could allow for a little more distraction until the target pops up.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello there, Eira."

Tags - Eira Dyn


The pause that followed was exquisite.

Not empty.

Not hesitant.

Measured.

Darth Virelia—formerly Serina Calis—did not react. She absorbed. She recorded. Her violet eyes, alight beneath a pale, surgically perfect brow, did not blink. They simply watched, with a stillness that made even the lights above seem nervous, their flicker oddly irregular now, as if second-guessing their illumination.

Eira had spoken.

She had joked.

Mocked.

Dismissed.

And the room, though silent, felt it. That sense of every soul within the bar holding their breath—not out of fear for Eira, but because they'd seen this script before. Not this exact one, perhaps, but the rhythm of it. A challenge offered not in strength, but in irreverence.

In ignorance.

Virelia's taloned fingers curled slightly in the air beside her, the sound of faint metal-on-metal brushing as though death itself were folding its arms. She took one step closer—not to intimidate, but to claim space. It was not dominance she sought.

It was clarity.

She leaned down slightly, not enough to stoop—Virelia never stooped—but just enough to reduce the distance. Close enough that Eira could feel the cold radiating from her armor, the absence of life where warmth should have been. Close enough that she could smell the faint trace of ozone and incense, like a cathedral built atop a power core.

Her voice came like a razor drawn from silk.

"You're not clever."

Just that.

Not a correction. Not an insult. A fact. Delivered with no malice, no heat—merely a statement, unburdened by explanation. A sovereign observation from a woman who had burned planets and broken gods, who dissected behavior as one might chart gravity: dispassionately. Irrefutably.

She tilted her head again. That same insectile motion, as if adjusting the angle of predation.

"You speak like someone with time."

The corners of her lips twitched, faintly—not a smile, but a suggestion. An echo of amusement so cold it bordered on post-mortem.

Then her eyes tracked—just for a heartbeat—past Eira. To the mercenaries. One of them nodded once. The smallest tilt of his chin. Nothing more. Virelia didn't return the gesture. She didn't need to. A language had passed between them, one more ancient than words.

And then, she spoke again.

Four words, low and surgical:

"You're on my hunt."

The weight of it struck like a thrown chain. No metaphor. No riddle. No double-meaning cloaked in poetic flair. It was the truth, flayed and laid bare.

Eira was not alone here.

Eira was not in control.

And whatever bounty had drawn her into this den, whatever prey she believed herself to be stalking—Virelia had already scented the blood.

She didn't reach for a weapon.

She didn't raise her voice.

She simply reached up, one hand ghosting through the air like a gesture half-remembered from some long-dead opera—and slowly plucked a single strand of blood from Eira's cheek. Not a smear. Not a wipe. A single drop, hovered perfectly between the talons of her gauntlet.

She examined it with far more attention than she had granted Eira's sarcasm.

"This isn't yours."

Another fact. Another condemnation. No follow-up required.

She let the drop fall.

It hit the floor like a chime.

Then, a final step forward. Closer now. Almost face to face.

"You think teeth make you a predator."

A long breath. Her voice dipped low, too low, a whispered intimacy meant only for Eira's ears.

"But I've taught beasts like you what it means to kneel."

The heat of her breath did not warm—it chilled. Something in the Force around her began to contract, pulling space tighter around the two women, like a vacuum had taken hold of the air between them. The light above Eira dimmed, just slightly. Just enough.

And then Virelia stood straight again.

The full, glacial height of her. Six violet eyes open now. Not watching.

Judging.

"You have three choices."

Her tone changed. Colder than void.

"Show some common decency."

"Kneel."

"Or watch me take your throat and your kill."

There was no threat in her voice.

There was no need.

Virelia never threatened. She orchestrated. Her words were not warnings—they were timelines. Spoken with the surety of someone who had collapsed futures before and would do so again, without joy, without hesitation.

Her gaze dropped once to Eira's empty glass.

Then slowly returned to her eyes.

"Beer won't help you. And neither will feigning ignorance."

 

[Eira Dyn]

Location: Tatooine
Attire: Black tanktop and leather trousers
Equipment: Vibro-daggers, blaster pistol and a vibro-sword
Tag: Darth Virelia

"Am I not?"

Eira inflected her voice to be surprised at the notion that she was not smart. The bigger issue was whether she cared about what this Sith thought about her or not. And in Eira's case, she did not care. The names of those whose opinion she cared about, those she could name instantly. They were names that she noted early on in her training. "That is such a shame, I was sure that I was going to be a brilliant tech head genius." Eira mourned the loss of her false dreams.

Shrugging her shoulders, "who says I don't?" Eira could sense the tones of the bar, that some of those where were working for this Sith but that did not faze Eira again. Plenty of mercenaries worked for whoever they deemed the better pay or the more dangerous threat to their lives. Tapping the glass, she grinned, "I mean who comes to a cantina and not have time to kill?" Eira added as she gestured to the bar that she demanded another beer.

Blinking, Eira shrugged her shoulders, "are you sure? The target didn't look as pale as you when I saw it." Playing into the idea that she was as dumb as Darth Virelia saw her as. It was easier to succeed against an opponent when they underestimated the skills she had. "The blood? Nope, it's from the dead guy over there." Eira thrusted her thumb over to the dead body on the ground. Eira was not fazed about someone else chasing her target, that happened all the time. They probably weren't usually as powerful as this Sith was before her but if she let anyone intimidate her away from a target then Eira never stood a chance progressing anywhere as a Sith.

The lean further into Eira's personal space, it only drew an amused grin on Eira's lips, "oh... if you made them kneel then they were never a beast like me." Eira giggled, "prey have teeth too. So who knows, you might be more prey than predator, just without realising it." Eira tilted her head back to Darth Virelia with a shrug of her shoulders.

Eira had her hand on a dagger, shifting it into position ready to strike. Just in case this Sith decided that they were going to get too bold.

Then the threat came in hard. The tone might not be there but the words were chosen in a way that Eira could not take it as anything but a threat. Eira rose slowly to her feet, letting out a disappointing sigh. "Well, now you have gone and ruin the vibes of this lovely cantina and the threats you were throwing out here. Dangerous when you don't know who I am or whose wrath you will conjure in trying to kill me or even successfully kill me." She was not sure who she was speaking with but Eira had not thrown threats against their lives and she was more than happy to let this Sith walk away.

"Am I feigning ignorance or am I not clever?" Using the Force to place her glass on the bar counter and then pulling the newly poured glass of beer towards her. "I might drop the bounty if you were to ask nicely, but you also know that bounties are a first come, first paid system. And I like getting paid." Sure people could demand exclusive rights or intimidate others into refusing to hunt, but Eira was not one to be taken off the hunt once she had set her mind to it.

And she was determined to come back to Quinn showing herself to be a success and ready to jump back into the training.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello there, Eira."

Tags - Eira Dyn



The cantina breathed in silence.

No music. No laughter. No motion beyond the faint, high-frequency hum of lights trying not to flicker. No one reached for a weapon. No one dared pour another drink.

And in the center of it all, Darth Virelia did not move.

Not at first.

She simply watched Eira with a gaze so still it bordered on inhuman. Like a machine considering whether a specimen had any further data to yield before it was burned and discarded. The eyes on her helm—six cold, angular facets of amethyst light—remained fixed.

Then, with surgical precision, her voice returned.

Low.

Even.

Deadly.

"You are very fortunate."

Her words floated out without rhythm or ornament. No rise, no fall. Monotone death.

"You do not understand how small you are."

She stepped closer again. Not with anger. Not with cruelty. Just inevitability. Like the closing of a vault.

Because now—now—the recognition had returned.

A slow turn of the mind's oldest gears.

Virelia remembered.

Rakata Prime.

And now here she was again.

Still wild. Still unmoored.

Still not kneeling.

Virelia reached up—not toward Eira—but to her own face. The mask clicked shut again with a soft, insectoid clatter, like a predator hiding its fangs behind lacquered steel.

The voice that emerged now was filtered. Distant.

"You walk like you're alone. You're not."

A pause.

"You speak like no one will hear. I did."

Another pause. Her eyes narrowed into slits of violet flame.

"And you act like Quinn taught you nothing."

That name—Quinn. It landed like a hammer. The temperature in the room dropped, perceptibly.

The mercenaries shifted slightly, finally understanding what this was.

Who this was.

Virelia's voice was colder now. Sharper.

"You think wrath makes you powerful. But it makes you predictable."

She leaned in again, this time slower. Deliberate. Letting Eira feel the full, whispering weight of her presence—not merely in the Force, but in the shape of the room around her. The air itself folding in subtle deference.

"If you ever raise your blade at me—think carefully. Because the moment you try…"

She didn't finish the sentence.

She didn't have to.

Her claws hovered near Eira's jaw, close enough to catch the faint warmth of breath—but she didn't strike. No need. Not yet.

Instead, she tilted her head once more.

Then—finally—her tone shifted.

Slightly.

The ice in her voice melted—not into warmth, but into something far more dangerous: kindness.

The kind a volcano gives before it swallows a city whole.

"I knew you. Once. You were smaller."

A pause. Then, with the faintest trace of wicked amusement:

"Somehow more irritating."

The helm retracted again, unfolding in slow, deliberate petals until Serina Calis's face returned—beautiful, radiant, her expression unreadable.

But her eyes now glimmered with something Eira would recognize:

Recognition.

Not fondness. Not friendship.

But something colder. Something ancient.

Expectation.

"Quinn is a friend of mine."

She let that hang.

No elaboration. No qualification. Just truth—weaponized.

"She teaches. She doesn't breed fools."

Another pause. Then, slower:

"You insult her. You insult me."

Her hand lowered at last.

And finally—finally—she gave Eira something that resembled leniency.

But it came with iron thorns.

"So I'll give you one."

Her eyes didn't blink.

"One chance."

Her tone darkened—not louder, but heavier. Each word a weight, an anchor dropped into the soul.

"You lower your head."

"You lower your voice."

"You lower your eyes."

Her gaze burned now—not hot, but piercing. Something ancient moved beneath her skin. The Force around her trembled, coiled. Not wild—tuned. Like an instrument held just before the first note of a dirge.

"Or I will teach you respect."

She let that linger.

Then added, so softly it might have been a caress:

"And I won't need to raise a finger."

 

[Eira Dyn]

Location: Tatooine
Attire: Black tanktop and leather trousers
Equipment: Vibro-daggers, blaster pistol and a vibro-sword
Tag: Darth Virelia

Shrugging her shoulders, "maybe... Or maybe I know how far I will grow so what you see now is not who I will end up being for when words are not the things we will exchange." Eira stated in a cool tone, there was a fight potentially brewing but Eira was not foolish enough to believe it was one she would win. Might be make the other woman realise how far away from being a goddess she was, possibly, but dying and all you achieve is that. Not worth it. Not even a little in Eira's mind.

But that was Eira's thinking, she had stood before Carnifex, someone significantly strong than anyone standing in this room and thought about the amusing notion of making him fearfully aware of how mortal he still was. It was something she thought about when these Sith Lords made speeches and acted in manners where they saw themselves as beings higher than those around them. It was probably how she would act one day but for now, she just allowed herself to chuckle at the ideas that she could make them for a split second think about death being far closer than they would like it to be. Perhaps that is what made her enjoy becoming an assassin, was the idea she could see the acceptance, the fear of death in the eyes of someone as they passed.

Made easier when using knives and blades over other more conventional weapons.

The mention of Quinn caught Eira off guard, it was someone who knew her Master. Someone who seemed to now know her, or at least presumed to know Eira. However, Eira did not flicker her eyes in surprise. Just holding the gaze, studying the face as she searched her mind for who this could be. There had been a lot of fleeting faces that Eira had met, those that she had once held in disregard or now viewed as insignificant because they did not pose a threat or rise to her challenge. Plenty of people she had fleeting romances with. This face did not seem to be one that Eira remember from those moments. Not initially. But the gnawing grew in her mind as she lingered on the face in her mind as it hid behind the mask once again.

Eira laughed, "the day I raise my blade against you, that is the day you meet death." There was no threat in Eira's voice, it was an acknowledgement that the day Eira viewed herself ready to strike at this Sith was the day she was going to kill her. Eira did not lift her blade to someone without knowing it would be a fight she would win. There was no worth in fighting something she could not kill. Eira gained nothing from it. "So, perhaps you should be aware of that fact. Safety now, is not safety guaranteed."

The acolyte still held a bite with her words when she wanted to use them.

"At least I've grown. I feared I would be too short all my life." Another stupid comment but her mind lingered on memories of sand... Not desert sand like Tatooine or Jakku. No... A beach... There was walking... Talking. Too much talking... Studying an opponent with her making false claims about Eira...

"Ah... Serina. Serina Calis..." The name finally pulled itself to the foreground as the other Sith presented her face once again. It made Eira chuckle, there was clearly a difference in how the other woman was now. Strength and conviction behind the voice that had been lacking before. Eira saw this more an equal exchange of blows than one that felt more one sided in Eira's favour back on Rakata Prime.

However, she did not falter and Eira did not obey the demands of Serina once they were stated, "if Quinn feels insulted by my actions, then she will tell me that herself. I do not accept you speaking on her behalf on how she would see this exchange." If Quinn told her later to offer apologise and ask for forgiveness then she would, no matter how begrudgingly she would do it. But Eira did not take another at her word that she knew Quinn better than Eira and she knew how Quinn would see the matter.

Especially since Serina would very likely give a biased view on the exchange, not that Eira wouldn't do the same, but biased views twist things from the truth. "You can attack me all you want, but that will not teach me to respect you. It will teach me how to kill you in the future." Eira stated boldly, information on an opponent was everything and the more she knew of Serina's powers, the more she was going to be the deadly threat that sliced her pretty throat before she knew Eira was even on the same world.