Private A Soft Voice Calling

[Miasmær]

Location: Rhand
​

Miasmær trudged onwards through the darkened lands of the accursed planet, black cloak pulled tightly around her shoulders to shelter her from the cold. No wind moved the fabric that engulfed her form, the cloak blending her into the black texture of the landscape. There had been no wind since she arrived, and there would be no wind when she left. This region of the planet was rich in the force, it saturated all things; from the black moss and gray trees to the poisonous vapor bubbling up out of thermal pools. She strayed away from these latter landmarks, sticking to the valley's cliffed edge as her boots ground moss and gravel beneath her every stride. Pausing under a large outcropping of stone she would gaze about the valley, her pitch black eyes well adjusted to the darkness and picking out the tiny signs of life which flittered to and fro amidst this cursed place.

From her cloak she would retrieve her holocommunicator, the purple light illuminating her in the only color of the valley as the message played again; a simple hologram of a hand beckoning to her. The message had come with coordinates, and Miasmær had followed. It had not taken her long to deduce who the hand had belonged to; the armor was too familiar.

She walked slowly onward after stashing the communicator, the cloak pulled tightly around her wounded shoulder which was only just starting to heal after her most recent trip to Loovria; Lextalionis' kyber crystal still hung from a pendent about her neck, though obscured by the cloak as to not give her position away. The pain of her injuries only pushed her forwards, creeping along the cavern as her mind raced to determine what was to come. Nearby her servants would be waiting, stashed aboard the Maw's Hunger cloaked somewhere above her. She doubted slug throwers in the hands of a few ex-gladiators would help her too much if this was a proper ambush orchestrated by one of Lextalionis' old allies, but they were better than nothing and they would learn to be better. If this was some half-assed attempt by some apprentice or underling to get revenge, or simply to kill one who fled Sith Order space, she felt even in her current state they would be dealt with swiftly.

And if this was the real deal..?

She did not assume as much, did not even hope. She had grown since last seeing her master, had started to pull the reins of her own destiny rather than hand them to another. Yet when one's master called...

Finally she would arrive at the coordinates; the mouth of a cave. The rock formations loomed before her like colossal fangs, and the darkness within was supernatural in its pitch. Within she felt the thrum of the Dark Side, power concentrated long ago for some dark purpose. Slowly she would push her way past two of the more impressive canines of this colossal maw, her boots meeting hard stone as she entered into the black. From her chest she would procure the kyber crystal, the red light it provides more than enough to illuminate a few feet in front of her as she slowly descended into the depths of this place. Whatever was here, Miasmær knew she could not ignore it.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The potential for good sadly, is outweighed by the need to do evil."

- Miasmær

How miserably far had the galaxy fallen?

Dark skies loomed, foreboding, over the heir of the Calis line. They heralded the fate of what had transpired in her absence—great agony, sweeter than any nectar, flowing through the galaxy and seeping into this insignificant rock. The stench infested the lifeless ground, settled and festered in the murky waters, and infected the very air she was forced to endure.

It was a shame she could not reach out and taste it. A greater shame, truly, that such hindrances would not last for long. But the latter would inflict agony upon the wider galaxy, something the Tyrant Queen was not particularly concerned with. On this forsaken rock lay the key to her freedom—to once again feel the heart that pounded in her chest. The seal the old fool at the shrine had inflicted upon her would be wrenched apart and broken, so that she might once more feel the world as she once had.

The agony. The suffering. The insignificant mewling of the deranged masses she so eagerly sought to ruin again.

She would have it all.

But all good—or terribly dark—things must come from somewhere. As the Tyrant planned to reach into her own heart, so too must she reach into the core of this planet, searching for the prophetic thing she believed would finally free her. A simple manuscript, as far as she knew, that would break whatever unknowable force held her from her might and power.

And so she ventured downward… into depths none could ever conceive of.

--

The ruin was something to behold—an archetypal beauty that, to the Dark Queen, existed only in paintings or dreams: the cradle of fallen giants. Civilizations long past, forgotten by those of today, who once dreamed greater, built grander, and sought far more than the detritus their descendants now clung to. Glory and pride were invested even in a simple entrance; devotion was carved into every pillar and sculpture. They said one must be careful not to fixate on the past.

There was certainly much here to fixate upon.

It confused her how such beauty could ever be surrendered to shadow and decay. Where was the landmark's reverence? The caretakers? The visitors standing in awe of such might and innovation? Why had the galaxy allowed these ruins to be forgotten? If it were only to ensure that Virelia would be the one to behold them, she might have been almost thankful—but history was too steeped in injustice to mistake this for recompense.

Instead, she arrived at the same conclusion she often reached about herself:

That forgotten works of beauty are not claimed by darkness alone, rather they are abandoned to it—victims of ignorance, of the avarice and weakness of men, rather than any righteous grief of a galaxy disillusioned with its own people.

--

Deeper and deeper she descended into the ruin.

The darkness was broken only by intermittent neon-green strips of light, marking the proper path through the facility. Nothing had yet attempted to bar her progress. She assumed any ancient security systems had long since decayed—or, perhaps more troubling still, there had never been any at all.

That possibility unsettled her far more.

Purple clashed with green as each measured footstep carried her closer to the end of the corridor. Along the walls hung a series of paintings, each depicting landscapes or battles of ancient calamity. They seemed to correspond to locations scattered across the planet's surface—perhaps from an age long before they had branded the world with its infamous name: Rhand.

At last, she reached the end of the hall. A singular door stood between the Queen and her prize. Across its surface lay an ancient inscription, forgotten in speech but not in knowledge. For the learned Exile, its meaning was unmistakable.

A grave, terrible warning.

Her six violet lenses scanned each character slowly, reverently even, as though indulging the architects of this forgotten sanctum their final courtesy. They had believed this place would endure. That their words would carry weight forever. That whatever lay beyond this door would remain untouched by decay or time.

How quaint.

--

There it was.

A simple manuscript—nothing more. It hovered above the podium as though it were something greater than ink etched onto fragile parchment. As though it were a transcendental decree: that her soul would remain shackled, that her core would remain untouchable, that the world she once knew was lost to her forever.

She would not be denied her birth right.

For a long moment, she did not move. Six violet lenses regarded the manuscript in silence, their glow reflecting faintly against the polished stone. The air around it felt heavier, charged with something old and watchful, as if the ruin itself held its breath in anticipation.

A lesser being might have hesitated. Might have questioned whether the seal placed upon her at the shrine was deserved. Whether the severance from her power had been some cosmic correction—an act of balance.

Virelia did not believe in balance.

She stepped forward, the echo of her boots reverberating through the chamber like a declaration of war. Whatever force had bound her would be broken. Whatever hand had presumed to humble her would be reminded of its place.

Her clawed hand rose slowly toward the hovering text.

"Woe," she murmured, her mechanical voice low and steady, "for my will is now to be law."

And she reached to claim it.

--

To feel the absence of one's own heart again. To know you are an irredeemable monster—one who has committed unspeakable atrocities, cost countless lives, burned, killed, and lied her way across the galaxy—only to have it all stripped away by those she believed had earned their stations through nepotism or cowardice.

It was a petty revenge.

Yet to its mistress, it felt like a burning summons for blood.

The Force returned to her, a swirling, intoxicating dominion over the darkest currents of the galaxy. The hunger to subjugate. To corrupt. To dominate. To ensure that her will was the will—that the darkness, in all its terrible forms, remembered who its Tyrant truly was.

Power flooded her veins like molten fire. The manuscript shuddered beneath her grasp, ancient ink flaring briefly with a sickly light before guttering out. Whatever seal had been imposed upon her soul splintered—torn apart with violent finality.

Her dark heart pounded. A drumbeat of conquest, ready to once more reach out to a galaxy in desperate need of, adjustment...

The chamber trembled. Dust sifted from the ceiling in soft cascades. The neon-green strips along the walls flickered erratically as if the facility itself struggled to contain the resurgence. Virelia inhaled slowly, savoring the sensation—the sharp clarity of connection, the whispering currents coiling obediently at her command. She knew what her next move would be: to rebuild, piece by deliberate piece, what had been taken from her—what had been stolen.

A small, delicate tap of the clawed gauntlet against her wrist activated the concealed transmitter beneath the armor. A muted pulse of violet light blinked once in acknowledgment.

The first piece was already in motion.

--

Click. Click. Click.

The delicate echo of measured footsteps carried through the cavern. An unmistakable cadence.

Step by step, violet light began to pierce the suffocating dark, seeping through moss-slick stone and ancient shadow. It did not flicker like Miasmær's kyber glow. It was steady, almost regal, as though the darkness itself were parting to allow it passage.

The temperature seemed to drop.

The red light from Miasmær's crystal trembled faintly against the cavern walls as another hue joined it—violet, sharp and invasive. The two colors clashed across stone and bone-like formations, casting jagged silhouettes that stretched and twisted into monstrous shapes.

Metal shifted softly.

From deep within the bowels of the cave she emerged—armor of obsidian and living violet veins, metal and torment fused into a single unholy cage. The six-eyed mask regarded the intrusion in crimson with predatory stillness. Whatever seal had once bound her was gone; the air around her hummed with restrained violence, the Dark Side coiling tight beneath the surface like a storm refusing to break.

Each step forward carried weight—the Force itself in flux as it recoiled and surged in equal measure, drawn toward her like iron to a lodestone. Loose pebbles skittered across the stone floor without being touched. Fine cracks spider-webbed along the cavern walls as if the rock resented bearing witness.

Miasmær would feel it.

Recognition.

The silence stretched until it threatened to snap. Closer.

The violet glow illuminated the red crystal fully now, then the hand that held it, then the wounded shoulder beneath the cloak. Six lenses fixed upon her former apprentice with surgical intensity, drinking in every detail—the healing scar tissue, the tension in her stance, the defiance that had once been nurtured… and nearly extinguished.

The cave seemed smaller.

The distance between them dwindled to only a handful of paces. Violet and crimson light fused into a violent spectrum between their bodies, neither retreating.

The Force throbbed.

And then, at last, the Tyrant Queen spoke.

"You came."

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Rhand
​

She would pause a second, the reflective surface of her obsidian eyes reflecting red and violet as she would stare quietly at Virelia. The familiar pressure of Virelia's presence in the force pushed on Miasmær's mind, a concerningly comfortable sensation. Miasmær's face, stern and unemotional would shift only slightly as her eyes would look over the Tyrant Queen, taking in all the details as if expecting this to be some attempt at illusion or subterfuge, but ultimately she would find herself satisfied.

"What test is this? To dissapear into the dark only to summon me to this... place?" She spoke with forced restraint, a hint of bitterness bubbling beneath her words as her hand holding the kyber crystal would lower, casting her upper torso and face into only faintly illuminated violet shadow. She made no move for her saber, no desire to threaten or posture. It was pointless, she knew. She had grown, but not by much. Her time as an independent acolyte was filled with far more mistake than successes, more time spent cultivating an environment to grow rather than actually grow. Only recently had she been able to experiment and push herself, supported as she was by the Bloody Hand. Organizing what little power base she actually could muster into the cult had perhaps been one of her greatest challenges.

"Things are... different now. Do you expect me to bow?" Once again she contained herself. Betrayed. She had felt that way for months and it had only fueled her rage.

"Do you expect me to whimper and beg?" she would continue, her tone shifting as the rage would begin to seep through the cracks in her defenses

"To kneel and hope you take me back? After you and all your minions vanished like mist in an open air lock?" She would grit her teeth, realizing this outburst was only a sign of weakness. An admittance to how much she had valued her master's tutelage, her time, her attention. With a shaky breath Miasmær would suppress her rage, forcing it back into her core and push her face back into its steely pose, even if her head would tilt up slightly in defiance.

She would remain silent, clearly wanting to say more but struggling to find a way to do so without giving in to that feeling of betrayal. Ultumately, when she did speak, it would be a simple and blunt:

"Speak."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The potential for good sadly, is outweighed by the need to do evil."

- Miasmær

Silence laid claim to the cavern where violet and red collided.

It pressed in from every side, thick and suffocating, as though the stone itself had been commanded to hold its breath. The only sound was the faint mechanical hum of Virelia's armor—soft servos adjusting, internal systems recalibrating to the volatile current flooding their mistress.

Six insectoid lenses regarded Miasmær without blinking. The last sight of many a dying foe.

They studied her not with overt cruelty, nor with warmth, but with something far more dangerous: imperial detachment edged in predatory interest. Violet light refracted across the black curves of the mask, bathing the wounded acolyte in an unspoken judgment.

For a long moment, the lenses shifted independently—minute adjustments, micro-calibrations—before aligning once more in dreadful unison.

Click.

A single step forward. Violet light intruded deeper into the red glow, swallowing it inch by inch. The kyber's illumination wavered as if responding to a greater gravitational pull. The armor was a paradox even at rest—heavy, oppressive, yet carved with an elegance that bordered on ritualistic artistry.

She did not answer.

Click.

The distance between them shrank to almost nothing. The Force thickened, not erupting outward but compressing inward, coiling like a serpent preparing to strike. Loose dust lifted from the cavern floor, suspended in a trembling halo around them.

Those words—bow, whimper, beg—had burst from her apprentice's mouth like shrapnel.

Beneath the six-eyed mask, Serina smiled.

How simple it would be. How effortless. To draw those very actions from her again—to make Miasmær bow not from fear, but from need; to make her whimper not from pain, but from the exquisite tension of devotion; to make her beg not for mercy, but for purpose. To remind her, in slow and deliberate increments, exactly where reverence belonged, beneath her.

It would be so easy to twist her again. To play. To mold. To reclaim what had once been pliant beneath her hand.

Instead, something else had taken root within the girl. Jealousy. Pride. Detachment. Anger. A burning hunger for justice—or vengeance. Justice was the more palatable word. Virelia preferred it. It allowed one to maintain dignity while sharpening the blade. After all, she had long since embraced what she was: a monster by most measures. A tyrant by design.

But how beautiful it was that her absence alone could inspire such emotion. She had vanished, and Miasmær had not withered.

She had burned.

The Force between them thickened further—taut, humming like a drawn wire ready to snap. Virelia tilted her head slightly, studying the subtle tremor in her former apprentice's jaw, the deliberate control in her breathing, the way she forced her posture into steel despite the storm beneath.

Good.

Let her feel betrayed. Let her feel abandoned. Let her feel powerful for having endured it, no matter how childish it was, because all of those feelings still revolved around one axis.

Virelia.

Click.

One last step. The violet glow consumed the last meaningful edge of red between them, their shadows merging into a single elongated silhouette against the cavern wall. Finally, Virelia's lips opened.

"So many expectations, darling..." She began, a small tsk coming from her mouth.

"I wonder—what do you suppose is meant to happen?" Her voice was smooth, almost indulgent. "That I would simply come and collect you like some relic from an ancient vault? That I would demand you bow, whimper, beg… kneel?"

A faint tilt of her head.

"How crude."

Her clawed gauntlet rose slowly, deliberately, giving Miasmær every opportunity to recoil—every opportunity to refuse. Yet it did not waver. The metal brushed lightly against her jaw, not gripping, not forcing—claiming. Guiding her face upward just enough for those six violet lenses to drink her in fully.

"You are far too beautiful to be treated so cheaply," she murmured.

She held the moment a fraction longer—stretching it, refining it—right up to the brink of unbearable tension.

"I missed you, dear apprentice."

The words fell softly, almost tenderly… and yet they carried an undisguisable weight of possession.

Her hand did not leave Miasmær's face. Instead, her touch shifted—tilting her just enough to study the minute reactions beneath the surface: the tension in her jaw, the restraint in her breath, the fragile equilibrium she fought to maintain.

Virelia's mind remained cold.

But her voice—her voice was something else entirely.

"Both your initial defiance…" she murmured, low and intimate, the words slipping between them like a blade wrapped in silk. "…and your eventual, total submission."

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Rhand
​

"I.. I have grown. I come to you as a collegue, not a servant." she hesitated for only a second, the familiar touch of that gauntlet prickling Miasmær's skin. With that hesitation came a brief spike of longing, followed by frustration and rage as her own feelings betrayed her so easily. Certainly no sign of this betrayal had been obvious, she still stared down at Virelia with a hint of disdain as she was maneuvered by her. Yet Miasmær knew she could hide nothing from Virelia. Yet to surrender would be to give in to the betrayal of her emotions, so she would maintain her rebellion; her claim to independence.

But when was the last time Miasmær had been touched so? Her cult dare not touch her out of reverence and fear, and Miasmær had never known the affection of any real intimacy. Her body responded to those gauntlets as they did months ago. It was scarred, damaged, and in pain. Miasmær had pushed it through countless battles, suffered through countless abuse, pushed it to the absolute limit on countless occasions and the most recent event had nearly cost her a limb. The searing pain had only numbed in the subsequent days, the sensation of saber through flesh still racked her mind; her shoulder always felt too warm now. Of course her body and instincts, would betray her at the promise of something tender, something intimate, something which all creatures craved; companionship. Miasmær was disgusted by the conflict of her intellect and instincts. She had denied herself such luxuries to strengthen herself, doubly so after thinking herself abandoned by Virelia so that no other may control Miasmær as she once had.

All of Miasmær's aches softened slightly.

"And flattery will get you no where. If I desired compliments I would have stayed on my ship." A further claim to independence, a further attempt at distancing herself from Virelia.

She did not move away.

"You left me-" her voice would fluctuate only slightly in these words, this further betrayal only filling the rest with rage "and I built my own power. I took what I needed. I fought and killed and claimed what was mine. I do not need your promises or comforts."

Again she would not move away

"We can work together, we both know this. That is why I came. Together we will can survive when the Order comes for us. I may be young but even I know independent Sith do not survive long in this galaxy." A compromise, one she had only invented after deciding she would come here. A rationalization for the irrational, the intellect excusing the decisions of her instincts. It was true she had enemies in the Order, but the truth was also that she was too small to gain much notice. She had slipped away into the Covenant with little fan fair and had mostly been unaccosted. Even now she wasn't sure if she truely belonged to either faction of Sith.

"Unless you mean to finish me off yourself to earn grace. Deal with a rebellious pupil."

Once again, she would not move away.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The potential for good sadly, is outweighed by the need to do evil."

- Miasmær

It was an interesting thing to witness. A colleague?

Virelia did not recognize such a concept. Colleagues implied parity—an equality of standing that was, to her, fundamentally unacceptable. The galaxy was meant to serve her, its people included. To suggest otherwise was not merely incorrect, but absurd.

And yet… useful.

It was a revelation of perception. Miasmær had clawed her way to a height where she believed she could stand beside Virelia. That belief, flawed as it was, spoke volumes. It was a confirmation of her authority. Even in delusion, the girl had defined herself in relation to her.

That, in its own way, was charming.

She continued, now turning her thoughts to the matter of flattery. Of course she had noticed it.

Of course the independent, capable apprentice would never allow her thoughts to betray what her body so clearly revealed—that Virelia's words had already taken hold, slipping beneath discipline and defiance alike. They coiled there, subtle and insidious, reminding her of something far more dangerous than pain.

Warmth. Ownership. The quiet, undeniable truth that all lesser beings—no matter how loudly they protested—craved such things. It was their nature. Their place. To be seen. To be held. To be guided… and in return, to serve.

And yet, Miasmær had not answered the simplest question. Why had she left her ship?

If it were merely for survival, there were countless other Sith she could have turned to—figures far more entrenched in the ceaseless churn of the galaxy, far more active, far more "reliable". Virelia was none of these things. She was an exile among exiles, a radical among radicals—so singular, so aberrant, that the galaxy itself seemed to reject her existence.

No. Survival was not why she had come. She had come because no one else could offer what Virelia did. The invisible pull of a leash around the neck. The promise of structure within chaos. Ownership… warmth… command. A vision of the galaxy that did not beg to survive within it—but to reshape it entirely. What Virelia offered was inevitability.

And that was something no lesser being could ever replicate.

However, Virelia supposed she could entertain the notion—finish her own apprentice here, in this cavern? What a dreary waste that would be.

No. If she were to end Miasmær, it would not be through something as crude as death. She would unmake her. Strip away every independent thought, every flicker of rebellion, until nothing remained but perfect alignment—an enthralled extension of the Tyrant Queen's will.

Death was a solution for lesser minds.

Virelia preferred her victories absolute. To crush an enemy so completely that resistance ceased not because it was beaten back, but because it no longer existed. To leave them with no recourse, no deviation, no sanctuary in their own thoughts. Eternal servitude was a far more elegant, ideal end.

And such universal talent—such cultivated ferocity—was not something to squander on spectacle. Miasmær was far more valuable alive.

"Are you so ready to accept your end, apprentice?" she asked softly. "So eager to declare yourself forfeit in my hands after proclaiming your independence?"

Her thumb moved—armored, clawed, deliberate—gliding across Miasmær's cheek with the effortless precision of someone intimately familiar with the language of touch.

"I thought you understood me better than that," she continued, voice smoothing into velvet. "Did you truly believe I would ever kill you, darling?"

She wanted her to feel it—the claim. The invisible tether tightening, not choking, simply reminding. Virelia did not lose her grip. She did not relinquish what she had cultivated.

"Would you attempt deception in my presence?" she asked quietly. "Would you lie to me… or to yourself?"

The cavern felt smaller still.

"Independence, yet the being I met so long ago still stands before me. The shell changes. The posture hardens. But when circumstances shift…" Her thumb slowed, pressing just slightly. "…so do you."

She stepped closer.

Close enough that the cool metal of her mask hovered beside Miasmær's ear, violet light bleeding across the stone behind them. Her voice dropped lower, intimate, invasive.

"You were forced into independence by absence. By necessity. That does not make it your truest nature."

A breath.

"When two diametrically opposed impulses are forced into proximity, the mind resists. It fractures. It attempts to choose."

Her voice softened further.

"But the more powerful outcome is not fracture."

A slight tilt of her helmet.

"It is synthesis."

The word lingered.

"An evolution. A refinement." Another subtle pause. "Something sharper."

Her presence in the Force coiled again—undeniable. An ever-present gravity pulling Miasmær's center of balance subtly toward her.

"You do not have to choose between rebellion and devotion," she murmured. "You can become something more defined because of both."

A fraction closer.

"And I am the one capable of guiding that evolution."

Silence.

Then, softer still—almost indulgent:

"Tell me, Miasmær… do you truly wish to stand apart from me?"

A breath against the edge of the hood.

"Truly?"

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Rhand
​

Miasmær would pause as her skin would prickle into bumps, an anticipatory shiver running down her spine. Her eyes would shift to the side, watching Virelia as a mix of half a dozen emotions warred within her in an attempt to take control. Logically she knew submission would see an exponential growth in power, impossible to achieve on her own. Part of her emotions clung to this, embracing the promise of power or the affection and belonging such an offer would bring, while other parts..

With a scream Miasmær's saber would launch from her belt into her hand, bathing the cave in a blood red glow as she would lash out with the blade toward Virelia. The screech of the saber cutting a gash through the floor to reach its target would fill the cave, a desperate attempt to create distance and strike down Miasmær's feeling of weakness. Miasmær knew Virelia had control even now. But she pushed on, going to step forward as her arm finished its crescent arc of attack to bring the blade back down on the armored figure.

Miasmær felt weak. It was infuriating how her body so quickly succumbed to these strange feelings, how it had almost knelt on instinct to show deference in some vain attempt to win affection. But she did not beg, she did not grovel, she would not submit even if Virelia would never ask her to do so in so many words. No, Virelia's words were never so direct yet they seemed to achieve the same goal. The seductive power of promises put the idea of submission into Miasmær's mind without even saying the words, without even making a demand. It was what had originally drawn her to Virelia, which had originally ensnared Miasmær. Even now she felt a horrific twisting in her gut as her instincts rejected her assault, a sin against such sweet promises and the rewards that could come with them.

The saber would streak the air horizontally in front of her, before Miasmær would step forward again with an outstretched hand. With all her might she would shape the force to her will, reaching out to grab and choke her master. Yet the more she grabbed for it, the more desperate she became, the more the force slipped through her fingers like sand.

"You make such promises.. I.." She would struggle to find her words, a dozen different complaints and pleas stumbling over each other in her mind "I do not need you!" A truth, she did not.

But did Miasmær want her.

That, was a different answer.

One Miasmær feared admitting.

Already Miasmær's personal myth making was coming undone. A masterless acolyte, uncovering the true will of the Force uncorrupted by bureaucracy and the petty squabbling of little Sith lords. Strong and capable in the force, independent, a true sith who took what she wanted.

So she would strike again, her saber striking out as she would lunge in an attempt to impale Virelia. A vain attempt to take what she wanted, a refusal to believe she would have to be given anything. Miasmær was strong and the strong were not given anything.

They took what they could.

That was the nature of strength.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The potential for good sadly, is outweighed by the need to do evil."

- Miasmær

Miasmær struck with considerable strength, seeking to cut down her former mistress—to end the pain, to silence truths too horrific to face, perhaps even to divert the galaxy from its prophesied end. Any one of those could serve as justification. Any one of them could be reason enough to destroy the monster standing before her.

A monster of six eyes. Of no heart. Of honeyed words.

It was in vain.

The red blade met the terrible carapace of the Tyrant Queen—and the phrik beneath the obsidian sheen denied it even the dignity of a scorch. The saber screamed against unyielding metal, sparks hissing uselessly across the cavern floor. Force and fury alike reached for Virelia, desperate and unfocused, but neither found purchase. No tightening grip closed around her throat. No lethal thrust ever came close to threatening her.

As with so many before, the effort to rid the galaxy of Virelia amounted to nothing.

Desperate words spilled from the fractured apprentice before her. Denial wrapped itself around what was plainly true; defiance strained against a desire she could not extinguish. To Virelia, it was almost pitiable.

This was how she must once have appeared to Taeli Raaf —and to the other Sith of the Order. A desperate, squirming creature trying to prove herself not to the galaxy, but to her own soul. The nature of a being who was nothing to those above her, scrambling to fit in. To belong.

She only wanted to belong.

Virelia felt a flicker of something—recognition. She pitied the girl. In a distant way, she pitied herself as well. She understood precisely what Miasmær was thinking, what she wanted, what she craved.

The very same things Virelia had always sought.

A reason to exist. A justification for why she mattered in a broken, soulless galaxy.

"Mia…"

Her voice softened—not weakened, but tempered—like silk laid over steel. It wrapped around the name with familiarity, with deliberate intimacy.

"It's going to be all right," she murmured. "You are going to be safe."

Virelia remembered. She remembered the lessons learned long ago—pain and pleasure coaxing truth from stubborn lips. Beneath ambition, beneath fury, beneath proclamations of independence and broken chains, there had always been something simpler.

Safety.

The hunger for it. The desperation for it.

Miasmær's declarations of freedom—of strength, of self-made power—had always been forged from that same core instinct. To ensure no one could ever cage her again. To ensure no one could ever make her relive the vulnerabilities of her early years.

Virelia understood. She also understood the paradox.

Freedom and safety were not complementary pursuits. They pulled against one another like opposing tides. Freedom allowed risk. It invited danger. Safety, true safety, required containment. Structure. Boundaries.

A leash.

"I would never allow anything to harm you that you could not bear," Virelia continued softly. "I would never permit you to cast off one leash only to have another slipped around your throat by lesser hands."

Her gauntleted hand rose again—to cradle the side of Miasmær's face with slow, inevitable certainty.

"I would never let you go."

Then, at last, the words she had been waiting to speak:

"You are mine."

A pause.

"And you want to be."

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Rhand
​

Miasmær raged, the blade leaving the obsidian carapace and cleaving into the walls, severing stagmites into scorched stumps, leaving behind smoking gashes in the floor. It did not last, ultimately her legs would give out and Miasmær would fall to her knees. A hiss and vanishing of light dimmed the room as her saber deactivated, laying on the ground next to her as she was once again only lit by the dim light of a crimson kyber crystal around her neck. Her fingers twitched as she balled them up, sitting back and resting her quivering fists on her knees as her eyes would close and head keen back as if facing the heavens.

The room would be silent for only a few moments, Miasmær's ragged breath slowly softening as she fought to pull her emotions back into her core; to dim the fire, to return the boil to its usual barely noticable simmer. Freedom was slipping through her fingers and every instinct told her to fight, run, kill. But with every breath she took those instincts were buried deep within. She knew this would not last. She had no idea what she was doing, no allies, no fortress to retreat to. All she had between her and the terrors of the galaxy was a saber and a few dozen barely trained ex-slaves. She mind as well just turn herself in to the first bounty hunter, sith lord, or jedi who came looking for her.

Yet Virelia had always offered more. Safety, power, knowledge. How could she ever have sought to run from this? From the intimacy of her mistress' attention.

Her fists would twitch a final time; the dying impulses of a dream being strangled in Miasmær's mind.

"I-" she would hesitate, her eyes slowly opening to look up at Virelia "I am sorry.. mistress. This is unbecoming of an apprentice."

Embarassment flooded her mind, shame at her little tantrum and shame at having rejected the one who had given her so much in such a short period of time.

"I have a ship.. and a small force dedicated to my command. They are yours to utilize as you see fit."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"The potential for good sadly, is outweighed by the need to do evil."

- Miasmær

Silence itself was the voice Virelia chose.

There was no triumphant declaration, no arrogant claim of victory. No confirmation, no chastisement, no praise, nor the faintly pleasant hum of a winner. The only sound permitted to occupy the cavern was the uneven rhythm of Miasmær's breathing. Let her feel the weight of the next words before they were spoken. Let her choose.

Only without interruption could submission become complete.

Six violet lenses gleamed unflinching in the dark as the red blade of the lightsaber hissed out, plunging the cavern into shadow once more. Virelia watched her—watched as Miasmær struggled again and again to reconcile the truth she resisted with the truth her body yearned for.

Then it came.

"I am sorry… mistress. This is unbecoming of an apprentice."

The admission was beautiful in its finality. Terrible in its clarity. In moments like this, the distinction between who someone had been upon entering and who Virelia required them to become simply… dissolved. Ideas once clung to were softened, reshaped, or discarded altogether in favor of something more aligned—more useful.

There were only two words that passed silently through the Tyrant Queen's mind.

Good girl.

Instead, what emerged from her vocoder was measured and refined.

"No need for apologies, apprentice. You were confused. That is all."

She listened as her reinstated apprentice surrendered not only pride, but the fragile scaffolding she had built in Virelia's absence. As Miasmær spoke, Virelia extended her will and pulled the fallen lightsaber smoothly into her metallic grasp. One lens tilted downward to inspect the weapon; the other five remained fixed upon her apprentice.

There was a certain pleasure in reclamation.

"I will make good use of the followers you so diligently acquired," she continued calmly. "As well as the ship. However, an apprentice of the Tyrant Queen is not meant to resemble the common rabble of Jedi and Sith."

She extended the saber toward Miasmær, her clawed grip rotating with deliberate care until the hilt rested level upon her open palm. An offering—without indignity. Without forcing her to bend.

"You will not be armed with inferior instruments fashioned by the wider galaxy," she said. "Project VESPER has exceeded even my expectations. The shadow factory will see you properly equipped… properly suited."

A faint tilt of her helmet.

"You will look far prettier in purple."

A low, distorted chuckle slipped through the vocoder.

"How dearly I missed you, apprentice. How wonderful it is that you are back where you belong."

Even through the mask, even beneath the armor, it would not have taken insight to sense the breadth of her smile. It was then she would probe her apprentice once more.

"What is it that you desire from my tutelage, darling?"