Private Arrangements.

[Darth Virelia]

"Let me be very clear."

Tags - Mela Sartha


The Calis Residence did not rise. It loomed.

A monolithic sprawl of ancient stone and blackened durasteel, the estate was older than many governments still standing. Chandrilan ivy crept along its eastern wall like hungry fingers trying to soften its angles, but the edifice remained an affront to the gentle egalitarianism of the world it sat upon. The air around it always seemed a little cooler, the shadows a little longer. And tonight, they were oppressive.

Serina Calis sat alone in the Solar Chamber, the highest room in the estate, where light was meant to cascade through ceiling-high panes of transparisteel and bathe the chamber in gold. But night had fallen hours ago, and she had left the lights dim. Only the hearth's glow flickered against obsidian-veined walls, its warmth failing to reach her.

She waited.

One leg crossed elegantly over the other, she reclined in a chair carved from the bones of a felucian bone-drake—hunted by an ancestor whose name she did not bother to remember. Her attire was a meticulous arrangement of black silks threaded with hints of crimson and deep bronze, woven to resemble the veins of the dragon on their crest. A subtle reminder of House Calis' creed, etched into every inch of her presence:

HEARKEN OUR WORDS, OR BEFALL TO OUR WHIM.

The words were not simply a motto. They were a warning.

A glass of Amarenthine vintage, older than the last three senators combined, rested untouched beside her. She had tasted it once when the bottle was first unsealed—sharp, dry, and bitter enough to be appropriate.

Her expression was unreadable, sculpted by years of hiding knives behind smiles and smiles behind silences. Her eyes, however—those glacial fragments of violet—were fixed on the double doors of dark wood and durasteel that led into the chamber. They had not opened. Not yet. But they would. The Senator was coming.

The new representative of Chandrila.

A free spirit.

Serina detested free will.

She leaned back, fingertips steepled beneath her chin. Around her, the chamber breathed its history: ancient banners of faded gold and crimson whispered from the rafters in unseen drafts. Books bound in leather and blood lined every wall, shelves untouched by dust. At the heart of the room, the floor was inlaid with the crest of House Calis—obsidian dragon on scarlet stone—staring up like a predator beneath a frozen lake.

This was no drawing room. This was a crucible.

And tonight, she would see what the Senator was made of.

It was not mere courtesy that brought this representative to her gates. Serina had summoned them. Disguised as a polite invitation, yes—delivered through proper channels, with all the grace that nobility demanded. But no one declined a summons from House Calis, not if they intended to remain relevant. Not if they knew the weight of the House's name, and what debts Chandrila quietly owed its surviving noble bloodline.

Not debts of honor. Or even capital.

No.

Debts of leverage.

Centuries of covert patronage. Electoral donations to campaigns that needed just enough to topple a rival. The quiet silencing of scandals. The acquisition of failing industries, only to be restored under "public trusts" funded by House Calis-controlled conglomerates. There wasn't a corner of Chandrila's economic or political infrastructure that didn't, in some small part, bleed into the House's vast and patient network.

And now there was a new Senator. Newly elected. Untested. Unproven.

Serina would test them.

She had spent the last three days reading every word the Senator had ever spoken in public. Analyzed every speech for deviations in cadence. Reviewed security footage of their voting patterns—not just what they chose, but how they hesitated, when they blinked, where their gaze lingered. She knew what they thought they wanted. What they believed themselves to be.

It would be so much more rewarding to peel that away.

The silence broke.

Bootsteps echoed in the hallway beyond the door. The rhythm was steady, but not practiced. There was a pause outside the doors.

She allowed it.

Let them stand there and wonder whether she knew they had arrived.

She always knew.

With a flick of her hand, the doors began to open on hidden servomotors. A low hiss, a mechanical exhale, like a creature reluctantly permitting entry into its sanctum.

She rose with slow, coiled elegance.

No words yet. No gesture of welcome. Just that gaze—cold, patient, predatory.

As the doors parted and the Senator entered the chamber, Serina Calis was no longer simply the de facto leader of House Calis.

She was the dragon in the dark.

And the Senator had stepped into her den.

 

[Mela Sartha]

"Senator Sartha, you cannot ignore an invitation like this."

"I'm an elected representative of my homeworld, Rin, I should be able to ignore whoever the hell I want."

"If I may be so bold, madam, if you wish to continue in your position, you must answer the call of the Calises. They're dug so deep into Chandrilan nobility that-"

"Yes, I know, they're the richest and the most prideful and have the most blue blood. These people hate me as it is. There's nothing to be gained from this.

"Which is exactly why you must go and try to mend bridges."

It had seemed like a sensible idea at the time. As she approached the ominous estate, Mela vowed she'd never let some aide who was barely out of her diapers tell her what to do with ther time. Her entire career, from law practice to electoral campaign, had been spent in opposition to families like this. They were the past; the cancer that kept feeding on Chandrila and tethered it to an ancient and misguided past. That's what Mela said in private. Her public statements tended to be a lot more guarded.

Mela was lead through the estate towards the chamber, at the highest point of the Calis Residence. The building felt like it would never end as her heels clicked on the polished stonework and plush carpeting. Every room she walked through cost more than she'd made in a lifetime of her legal work, and she hadn't been cheap to hire either. An intimidation tactic? Most certainly. Unfortunately, Mela felt it starting to work. This was just not her place. It was almost as if the wealth that oozed from every molecule of the Residence was whispering to her, insisting she was nothing but an upstart, a failure... an insect.

Entering the Solar Chamber, Mela's eyes struggled to adjust to the dark. Flickers of light fell on her, highlighting the simple lines of her dark coat. The trademark suit beneath, of course, cut simply in dark blues and blacks. Every inch the professional, down to her moderately expensive shoes. The hearth-light fell on her pale skin, casting her in a sickly pallor. The fire didn't even begin to suggest warmth.

With a hesitant few steps, Senator Sartha approached and stood before everything she had campaigned against.

"Lady Calis," Mela said, with a polite bow of her head, "Senator Mela Sartha. I must thank you for your invitation. I've never been lucky enough to see the inside of the Calis Residence before."

Though I most certainly have seen it from afar, wishing I had a missle or two to target at it.

"I find myself intrigued at your invitation, though naturally as your representative in the Alliance Senate, I am available for all Chandrilas to register their opinions." She followed that with a wide, mostly natural smile.

Darth Virelia​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Let me be very clear."

Tags - Mela Sartha


The chamber's silence after Mela Sartha's arrival was thick and deliberate. The hearth crackled softly in its ancient basin, the only sound besides the distant hum of Chandrilan winds pressing faintly against the glass. The firelight danced across Serina's silhouette but did not soften it—it merely emphasized the elegant severity of her posture, the precision of her movements, and the austere cut of her robes as she regarded the Senator.

She had not risen to greet her immediately. She let the moment draw out—one breath longer than was comfortable. Then one more. Not as a show of power, but a demonstration of restraint. Of patience. Of the inevitability of gravity.

Serina Calis stood with the grace of someone who had rehearsed every element of presentation, down to the angle of her chin and the exact moment her shadow would fall across the floor's dragon sigil as she stepped forward. Her boots made no sound as they glided across the onyx-tiled chamber—boots that, unlike Mela's practical heels, had never walked a courtroom, but had pressed upon graves.

"Mmm."

The sound left her as a purr of acknowledgement. It wasn't a word, but a reaction. An assessment wrapped in velvet. She stopped exactly one meter away from Mela Sartha—close enough to unsettle, far enough to preserve deniability.

"You are taller than I expected," Serina said, voice quiet and tonally smooth, as if her words were diffusing through some unseen silk veil. "Or perhaps simply more... present than the profiles suggested."

There was a trace of a smile—not amusement, but the kind of subtle pleasure that comes from watching a bird you thought too frightened finally perch within arm's reach. She turned slightly, gesturing with a slow sweep of her fingers toward one of the seats opposite her own near the hearth.

"Please. Sit. I don't intend to devour you."

That faint smile remained, untouched by sincerity, untouched by cruelty—just perfectly poised, like everything else about her. She herself did not sit immediately. Instead, she circled toward her own seat, never turning her back on the Senator, as though the moment required choreography rather than simple social nicety.

When Serina finally lowered herself into her chair, it was with a gliding, liquid grace that spoke more of performance than relaxation. One leg crossed elegantly over the other, her long fingers resting on the arm of her seat with featherlight stillness.

The silence after Mela's formal thank-you stretched again. Serina studied her. Not stared. Not leered. Studied.

"You flatter this house by arriving in person. Chandrila's elected star." Her words were wrapped in honey, but there was an acidity that lingered beneath, like wine spiked with something that left the tongue dry. "And a lawyer too. That's what I find most… alluring."

She exhaled, not a sigh, but a breath shaped like amusement.

"You must forgive the decor. Ancestral homes have an unfortunate way of freezing time, even when their owners don't share the sentiment."

Her eyes briefly flicked to the stone dragon inlaid at the center of the room's floor. Then back to Mela.

She finally leaned forward just enough to rest her elbow lightly on the chair's armrest, her hand rising to support her chin, index finger just touching her cheek.

"I admire ambition, Senator. It's a rare mineral on this planet. Usually too brittle. Or too soft. You strike me as something… sharper."

A beat passed.

"Which is precisely why I wished to meet."

She didn't ask a question. Didn't offer clarification. She simply was, as if her presence itself demanded Mela's participation in some unspoken ritual.

And then, abruptly, Serina's tone shifted—a slow modulation toward something quieter. Intimate. Almost conspiratorial.

"You see… the Alliance is a machine that eats people like you. Either by assimilation, or exhaustion. And I suspect you don't intend to be digested quite so easily." A tilt of her lips, as if pleased by the very idea.

She leaned back, posture fluid as ever, but the glint in her eyes turned sharper—like a scalpel just before the first incision.

"You want Chandrila to change. I want it to endure. These aren't as different as they appear."

For the first time, her tone dipped ever so slightly—like she was letting something slip through a tightly drawn curtain.

"I am not my brother. I am not my father. I have no interest in playing the tired roles your predecessors projected onto this estate. I have no desire to dominate a world already choking on its own pride."