Private A Chance Encounter

[Darth Virelia]

"Shadows and Vines."

Tags - Naestra

Nathema was trying to remember how to be alive.

Vines rehearsed their hunger along basalt ribs; leaves sweated dutifully; a choir of insects clicked in clean, mechanical time. It was a costume of wilderness, draped over a body that had once been hollowed out and left to cool. The Force lay here like a shallow tide, ebbing before it reached her ankles. She felt the lack as one feels the missing tooth—tongue, curiosity, pleasure.

Darth Virelia moved alone beneath the canopy, a purple shadow stitched with chrome. Tyrant's Embrace drank the heat from her skin and returned it in slow, possessive pulses. No escort, no drones, no whispering counsel—only the soft rasp of leaves on armor and the patient metronome of her breath.

She did not hurry. Predators do not hurry. She paused at a buttress root and ran gloved fingers over the lichen's velvet, pinching a frond until it bruised green on black. The scent was clean and false. "You're pretty," she told the jungle, the way one tells a liar their makeup is flawless. "But I like you better honest."

She tasted a drop of condensation from her knuckle, rolled it across her tongue, and smiled at the bitterness. Engineered alkaloids. Someone had tutored this place to perform. Good. Performance implies direction; direction implies nerve. Find the nerve, and a world learns to obey.

She climbed a basalt shoulder, boots finding memory in the stone. From the ridge the forest opened like a parted throat. Below, a blackwater ribbon slid without a voice, its surface cast in the mirror of creepers. Beyond it: a crescent sink, glassed by old fury—obsidian poured and frozen in a single breath. Steam sighed from hairline fractures. The air vibrated with the restrained groan of heat wanting sky.

Virelia's eyes—violet, cool, hungry—mapped quietly. River for clandestine ingress; ridge for overwatch; sink for the heart. The glass would carry sound away; the vents would drink exhaust; the jungle would play chaperone and swear she saw nothing. Line of approach here. Kill funnel there. Egress under fire three ways, all narrow, all cruel.

She descended, enjoying the way the brush made room for her. At the basin's lip she knelt and pressed a palm to the obsidian. Heat rose in disciplined pulses, like a patient throat waiting for instruction. She closed her eyes and counted: seven beats, pause, three; a staccato rhythm of chambers below. Caves. Chimneys. A buried room that wanted to be a secret.

 

[Naestra]

Naestra had come to this once cursed planet against the advice of everyone else she knew. It was an evil place, steeped so far in the dark side that it would drive any Jedi mad. Even though the force had returned and life was coming back to the planet, it was still no place for a Jedi, especially one who had only limited skill in defending themselves.

Of course… this hardly mattered. There was much that could be learned from this place. Most likely there would be artifacts hidden away in catacombs, tombs and temples that needed extraction, study and to be locked away where no one could use them for ill. But with Nathema being Nathema, Naestra naturally chose to go alone. She wouldn’t ask anyone to come with her when they all urged her to not go, they were likely wiser than she and she wouldn’t drag them into her curiosity.

She had landed on the planet only a few hours ago, her ship parked in a rocky clearing beside a river, with ready access to the more interesting surroundings. She hadn’t chosen this landing site at random either. She had a gut feeling that there was something interesting to find there, and so she had trusted her feelings and landed in that spot. She’d spent the first hour or so simply reviewing topographical data to find out precisely where things were. And her attention was caught by a particular mountain nearby. The topographical scans suggested that there was an extensive network of caves inside of it. However, these caves seemed too extensive and too close to the surface to be natural.

And so she made way for the mountain and its internal structures to investigate. The force wouldn’t have lead her here if there was nothing to find.

Naestra was an oddity among Jedi. She was good spirited and excitable, so there was a pep in her step that never truly left. The fact that she never left home unarmored made this scene a little strange to view, a woman clad in plated armor imbued with the force to grant it protection against more dangers grinning chipperly as she made her way to whatever new discovery she was about to make was a sight that few expected. Especially since she also carried with her a rather large weapon that did not seem like it would be used by a Jedi. A halberd of Silvery metal was used as a walking stick to help her traverse less agreeable terrain.

She began to ascend the mountain she had identified. Evading branches and scaling steep inclines on her way up. Not knowing what awaited her at the zenith, but excited to see what was there.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Shadows and Vines."

Tags - Naestra

Nathema was all rehearsal and no pulse, and Virelia loved an audience.

She felt the bright presence climbing before she saw the figure: a clean bell of light shaking dust from the Force's rafters. Rare, here. Reckless, too. The mountain's obsidian ribs carried the footfalls upward—measured, cheerful, armored. A halberd tapped rock like a metronome. Delightful. A Jedi in plate with a polearm: ceremonial, idiosyncratic, inconveniently charming.

Virelia slid along the basalt ridge without a sound. Tyrant's Embrace drank the heat from her skin and returned it in slow, possessive waves. She let her presence dim, a violet ember muffled in velvet. At a notch where two plates of glassed stone met, she leaned one hip and watched the stranger break through the fan of ferns below.

"Alone?" Her voice unfurled from the shadows, modulator turned down to a purr. "That's either bravery or a fool's game. I'm partial to both."

The helm tilted. Six lenses caught the thin, fake sunlight. "Strange choice of walking stick, bright one. Most Jedi prefer something that hums."

Virelia smiled behind the mask; she liked the way the halberd's haft slid through the gauntlet, the way curiosity edged out fear. That, more than steel, was how people died—or lived long enough to be interesting.

She stepped into view, close enough for the stranger to taste ozone and the slow perfume of lubricants and cold metal. Up close, Nathema's counterfeit flora painted a ruinous stained glass across her armor.

A pause, indulgent. "I prefer halberds."

Virelia's eyes cooled, amused. "Relax. If I wanted to courtship-dance with electricity, we'd be doing it already." Her thumb traced a lazy spiral in the dust on her thigh plate. "Give me a name, any name, and the first lie you told yourself this morning. Pay a tithe, and I'll show you where to knock."

She let the offer hang, the way a blade hangs just before it kisses skin. Then, almost kindly: "Or keep climbing blind. It's your funeral or your discovery. Both are art forms."

 

[Naestra]

Naestra continued her trek entirely oblivious to the presence of a dark order on the world. Though this couldn’t be entirely blamed on her naivety, she was on a planet still steeped in the Dark Side from its ancient wounds. Naestra was unmoved by the darkness of the planet, for now, she was here for discovery and learning. She already knew of the Dark Side’s corrosive influence, so she was able to ward it off in order to more directly learn of the history of this place, of what transpired there in the histories lost.

This was the home planet of Vitiate, if the scarce sources she had were to be believed, and that meant that there was a lot of history to be found here. And most likely a few artifacts or Holocrons that would need securing before more nefarious people could get ahold of them.

She pulled herself over the ledge of a particularly steep section of her path, and was then accosted by a stranger’s voice.

"Alone?" Her voice unfurled from the shadows, modulator turned down to a purr. "That's either bravery or a fool's game. I'm partial to both."

The helm tilted. Six lenses caught the thin, fake sunlight. "Strange choice of walking stick, bright one. Most Jedi prefer something that hums."

Naestra turned her own helmeted head to look at the source of the voice, and spied someone in black armor, and carrying a weapon… very similar to her own. She wasn’t sure if they were made the same way, but they would most definitely achieve the same purpose. It was uncommon to find any among the Jedi or Sith who used metal weapons at all, let alone polearms such as what they had selected.

A fellow eccentric.

As Vileria stepped closer to Naestra she would find Naestra to be noticeably tall, though her face was hidden beneath her own helmet, the armor she wore and the weapon were both of Sephi artistry. Sturdy and strong, but elegant and graceful in appearance. Both were of a sheening metal that had been polished to a mirror finish, and were inlaid with in a few choice places with green kyber crystals. Vileria would be able to sense that both her weapon and the armor had been crafted using Force Alchemy, making them more durable than most others that could be easily found.

Her own Ebon Requiem and Tyrant’s Embrace were likely superior still. But the quality of this Jedi’s wargear was not middling.

However any illusion that this Jedi might potentially be any threat to her was about to be utterly banished, if it even occurred to her on the first place.

Virelia's eyes cooled, amused. "Relax. If I wanted to courtship-dance with electricity, we'd be doing it already." Her thumb traced a lazy spiral in the dust on her thigh plate. "Give me a name, any name, and the first lie you told yourself this morning. Pay a tithe, and I'll show you where to knock."

She let the offer hang, the way a blade hangs just before it kisses skin. Then, almost kindly: "Or keep climbing blind. It's your funeral or your discovery. Both are art forms."

Naestra answered the question almost cheerfully, as if Vileria were a new friend she’d just met.

“Oh, I am called Naestra. As for a lie I told myself? Um…” she stopped, bringing a finger up to rub at the chin of her helmet’s rebreather. “Probably that I wouldn’t do anything too dangerous while I was here.”

The answer was earnest and also seemingly embarrassed that she knew herself well enough to know that she would do something dangerous while here, despite telling herself that she wouldn’t.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Shadows and Vines."

Tags - Naestra

Virelia's laugh came low, velvet against the glassed stone. It wasn't cruel—it was indulgent, as though Naestra had told her a joke she hadn't realized was funny.

"You lied beautifully," she said, stepping closer until her shadow poured across the Sephi-forged armor. "Not to me. To yourself. That's the highest form of theater." Her voice slipped out from the mask like silk through a ring. "And theater is how people like us survive."

Her gaze—violet, lit like phosphor—slid down the mirrored plating, caught on the green kyber inlay, and lingered. She could feel the hum of force-alchemy woven through both armor and halberd: earnest, disciplined, not without craft. Not crude Jedi piety, either, but a touch of Sephi elegance. Worthy tools. Her Ebon Requiem still outclassed it, of course, but she could respect the intent.

With an almost dismissive ease, she tilted her own polearm, letting Ebon Requiem sink into the obsidian floor until it stood upright, abandoned for the moment. She leaned on it with one hand, posture relaxed—mocking, almost, the way Naestra had used hers for a walking stick. "You carry your secrets openly," she mused. "Armor polished to a mirror, crystal glowing in daylight. You want to be seen. Even when you think you don't."

She gestured idly to the ridge above them, where the wind combed false vines in ritual sway. "Nathema is full of dead things pretending. Pretending to be green. Pretending to be alive. Pretending to be harmless." Her tone dropped, intimate and conspiratorial. "So when something honest steps into the script—" she motioned toward Naestra with two fingers, slow and unashamed— "I notice."

Virelia's head tilted, the mask's lenses catching and fracturing the faint sunlight into a mosaic. She sounded almost conversational now, as if they were two wanderers rather than Sith and Jedi, predator and quarry. "Naestra. Pretty name. Too pretty for tomb walls, though. So tell me: is this curiosity of yours more archeology, or is it penance? Because nobody comes to this place without wanting something."

 

[Naestra]

Naestra blink in thought, confused by the accusation. Wondering what this stranger meant. Even when she said it had been to herself, she didn’t understand then either. Had she lied to herself? Thinking back she wasn’t able to remember telling herself an untruth that she knew to be untrue, aside from that one confession that she’d promised not to do anything stupid, a promise that she ultimately knew she would not keep. But she didn’t lie about that one. What was this strange woman talking about?

Naestra scratched the back of her helm sheepishly when the mirror polish on her armor was mentioned. “Yes… I’m really not one for subtlety. I share my people’s weakness for grandeur. As much as I try to remain humble, I have yet to vanquish my need to have pride in my craft. I feel that when I make something, I should make something beautiful, I should put all of myself into it, lest I make something inferior that reflects poorly on me.”

“Archeology.” Naestra said cheerily, “discovery, knowledge and learning is my greatest passion. To know is the greatest gift, to learn is the greatest skill, and I wish to learn all that there is to know and share that knowledge with all who would partake of it. And this planet has many, many secrets to share.”

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Shadows and Vines."

Tags - Naestra

Virelia regarded her in silence for a long moment, as though weighing the words on a scale that measured more than their meaning. Then her head tilted, almost feline, and a low hum slipped past her lips.

"Not subtle," she agreed, stepping close enough that the mirrored metal of Naestra's armor threw back her own silhouette in fractured shards. She let her gauntleted hand ghost just above the surface, tracing the reflection without ever quite touching it. "And yet you've wrapped that lack of subtlety in a noble wrapper—humility, craft, pride. You make beauty sound like duty. It's not a weakness, though. It's an appetite."

She circled slowly, boots rasping against stone. Her voice stayed level, conversational, but each word carried the unhurried confidence of someone accustomed to being listened to. "Your people's weakness, you call it. I'd call it honesty. You want to be seen. You want the world to recognize you when it looks at the gleam of your armor, or the curve of your weapon. That's not vanity, Naestra. That's instinct. You put yourself into your creations because you hope someone will see you in them. You're hungry to be understood."

Virelia's helm turned, violet lenses catching Naestra's gaze through the visor slit. "And that is why I called it a lie. Because you promised yourself safety when everything about you—the polish, the grandeur, the halberd held high—screams that you came here to be seen by danger. You don't climb Nathema's mountains to bury secrets. You climb them so the galaxy can't bury you."

Ebon Requiem shifted lazily in her hand, blade gleaming in the half-light as though in echo of Naestra's own weapon. Yet there was no aggression in the movement, only a languid grace. "Archeology," she repeated, tasting the word as though it were a flavor. "Yes. The polite, respectable word. Knowledge, learning, catalogues and scrolls. But discovery?" She leaned in, voice dropping into something warm and licentious. "Discovery is always licentious. It's desire clothed in the language of scholarship. To peel back layers. To uncover what was meant to stay hidden. To touch what resists being touched, and make it yield. That's what you hunger for."

She drew back with a casual shrug, tone light again. "And there is no shame in that. I've walked this galaxy long enough to know every creed—Jedi, Sith, noble, scholar—they all drape appetite in different robes. You call it learning, I call it conquest. The shape is different, the hunger is the same."

Her free hand gestured toward the ridge, where the seam of obsidian concealed the hidden passage she had found earlier. "This planet has secrets, yes. But they won't surrender themselves to cheerful catalogues and tidy lessons. They want to be courted, pressured, seduced. They want someone to demand they give themselves up."

The helm tilted, the faintest smile audible even without her lips visible. "So, Naestra—will you keep playing the part of the dutiful scholar? Or will you admit that your heart beats faster when you feel the stone resist you, and faster still when it breaks?"

 

[Naestra]

The mirror polish of Naestra’s armor provided a near perfect reflection, only marred by the contours of the armor’s curves bending the face that stared back at Virelia in the shining metal. The only other thing to break up the reflections were the etchings along the edges of the plates and the fluting in choice places to make the armor less perfectly uniform, and create a more technically impressive, and technically stronger, armor. Lastly were the liner crystals laid into the armor, these however were not purely cosmetic, as much like they would power a lightsaber, these crystals were used as focusing points for the force to flow through the metal and provide it with the durability that it needed to be far more than just an ornamentation or show piece.

The halberd was likewise made, for both elegance and war. It was far slenderer than Ebon Requiem. Clearly meant to allow the wielder to move the weapon with speed, sacrificing some of its heft and thereby the crushing power of its blows to achieve that goal. It would serve its purpose just fine, and was by no means nonfunctional, it would simply pack less punch in exchange for delivering its strikes with greater speed and giving its wielder greater control over it than it would with a heavier blade.

Still the weapon was elegant and exquisitely crafted. Naestra had taken immense care in the making of the weapon. The etchings of Sephi script on the blade following a simple root pattern along the various blades. If Virelia could read Sephi writing she would be able to read it as a poem, one that was surprisingly lengthy but the contents of which instructed that it be wielded with wisdom and restraint. A very Jedi thing to do.

Baestra herself found herself growing uncomfortable with the observations of her newly met acquaintance. The idea that she could be doing this not because of the innocent pursuit of knowledge and self betterment, but rather for conquest or… dominance… it was an appalling thought. But she was a thinker, and had a very bad habit of doubting her convictions far too easily. Immediately she began thinking along these lines, trying to discern if what Virelia had said could be true.

Naestra shook her head, running through her calming mantras and focusing her mind on her center. She was a scholar, she had some odd preferences for a Jedi, she knew this. But she was not a conqueror, she didn’t seek control, and while she did grow excited at a good mystery that didn’t give its secrets up easily, she never got any sense of dominion in that way.

“Even if I grow excited at a good mystery, I am no conqueror. I am a scholar, I wish only to learn all I can, and to share that knowledge freely with all who want to learn what I know.” She said resolutely, though not altogether sure she was right. “That is the truth. I seek no conquest or dominance over anything. Even if I were to want it, it would never be enough and I would sacrifice my peace for it. A price that is far too high.”

Darth Virelia