Private Ashes of Permission

[Darth Virelia]

"Let it be known."

Tags - Taeli Raaf



The stars outside the shuttle's viewport were silent—fixed, cold, and apathetic. Much like the woman watching them.

Darth Virelia sat alone at the apex of her private cabin, cocooned in the ambient hum of cloaked systems and life support, shrouded by curtains of obsidian cloth that diffused the sterile white light into dim violet glow. Her hands were clasped behind her back in perfect stillness, and yet the air around her pulsed with restrained violence. Even within the vacuum-sealed sanctum of her ship, the Force twisted in tight coils, pressing in on the frame, whispering against the walls.

She was not afraid. But she was angry.

Sluis Van.

The name tasted like rust.

It was not the planet that brought bile to her tongue, but the woman awaiting her there. Darth Arcanix. One of the three Dark Councillors. A historian dressed as an ruler, a scholar who wore supremacy like perfume—light and cloying, until it strangled. Virelia had once admired the idea of her. Had once thought that perhaps Arcanix could be… not a mentor, never that, but a necessary star to sling her orbit around until she was strong enough to collapse it.

That illusion died long ago.

It died on Polis Massa, when Arcanix arrived uninvited, cloaked in lectures and clinical superiority, dispensing her "lesson" like a judge breaking a child's toy to make a point. Virelia remembered that moment too clearly. The slow ruin of her plans. The careful condescension. The implication that Virelia had done all this work, all for nothing.

It had died again, more recently, aboard the Darklight. In front of the Third Legion. In front of her own subordinates.

She hadn't snapped.

Not then.

Because Virelia did not snap. She sculpted. She buried. She refined.

And now, she returned—not to grovel, but to bend. Just slightly. Just enough. Because the game required it.

Arcanix's support was not necessary to win the Velgrath. But it was necessary to end it before the others realized it had already begun.

The cabin lights dimmed again as the shuttle approached the orbital platform. Sluis Van was a bastion of industrial sprawl—rust-streaked rings of orbital docks tethered to the planet by skeins of traffic, like synthetic veins choking a dying world. There was no grandeur here. No majesty. Just function, mass, utility. That was why Arcanix chose it.

Not for its power.

But for its proximty to the Velgrath.

The perfect place for a queen to hold court behind iron veils.

Virelia rose.

Her armor shifted with her—Tyrant's Embrace unfolding from repose into silhouette. Taloned boots hissed against the plasteel floor. Her cape flared slightly behind her as if in protest. The helm sealed into place with a magnetic click, violet eyes igniting like open wounds in the dark.

Before she stepped toward the airlock, she paused.

She looked into the mirrored obsidian of the viewport. Saw not a woman—but an inevitability. She let the hate rise. Let it bloom, quietly, like a dark flower in her throat. But she did not allow it to break her stance.

A compromise. A sacrifice. Not of pride—but of tempo.

The hatch hissed open. The ramp extended into shadow. And Darth Virelia descended—not as a challenger, but as a shadow collapsing the light ahead of it.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

Sluis Van
Darth Virelia
​

As the initial stages of the Velgrath proceeded, the Lady of Secrets had continued to remain back at its starting point... after a trip back home to ensure her wife had survived the initial time she was away and to make sure the bonds between the Sith and the Commonwealth remained intact. New negotiations were planned for the vassalization agreement and the terms within it, but that summit wasn't scheduled quite yet. Reports had continued to come to her about the progress on Sluis Van's restoration and the salvaging operations underway to clear out the hulks from the battle with the Alliance and the Sith Empire reclaiming the world following the Planeshift, along with status reports from those vying for power with their assigned fleets in the Velgrath.

Public order had mostly been restored, between the local security forces and her own troopers and legionaries from the Zero Legion, with some prisoners having been transferred into her personal custody. The operations of the shipyards had been restored to roughly 50% functionality, with many of the yards currently assigned to repair damage done to Velgrath participating fleets. She had made the planet a neutral zone for the participants and their fleets to repair and reprovision and had begun thinking about offering what her grandson would call side quests for the participants to earn rewards from her if they met the conditions she set forth. But that was still in the back of her mind, forefront was the message she had received requesting a meeting from Serina Calis or Darth Virelia as the Sith name she had claimed.

There was a certain desire for a pettiness to match what she had experienced during her sojourn to Polis Massa to begin the girl's education in the functioning of the Empire as it was, not as she desired it to be, and then what had occurred when she had arrived at Ryoone. But she had refrained from having Sluis Van Flight Command run her in circles, and for the Sluissi, it would have been far longer given their proclivity for detail and the slow progression to make sure everything was done correctly. No, the young girl would find an escort waiting for her, six soldiers garbed in the knightly armor of the Order of Arcane Syn's soldiers along with an officer to direct the Sith to where the Lady of Secrets was waiting for her.

Instead of being directed to the command center for the orbital, or even a viewing platform to regard the planet below, the younger woman would be brought to a chamber within the center of the orbital, away from the administrative side of things, to where the Lady of Secrets was working. She wouldn't greet Serina at first, or even really acknowledge her presence of that of the officer that would announce their arrival, as she was weaving streamers of blood and pure dark side energies of purples and black, visceral in their utter wrongness, around one of the Sluissi that had been transferred into her custody. They had been a rebel on the planet below, striving to keep the surviving Sluissi out of the hands of the Empire... and he had failed. His own people had turned on him when Darth Arcanix had arrived and begun her restoration of order.

The Sluissi in question was only one of several chrysalises of blood and power within the chamber, with other specimens floating in tanks of alchemical elixirs to be prepared for the experiments she was running. Once the Sluissi she was working on was fully encased, the blood crystalizing, she would finally turn to Serina. Whereas the younger Sith had garbed herself in full regalia and armor, the Dark Councilor was dressed like a scientist, complete with lab coat, albeit one that had glasses on that were inscribed with runes of the Sith language and various small creatures ambling around to provide their mistress with the elixirs and concoctions she needed for her third generation of Ravagers.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this particular meeting for, and would you prefer Serina or your Sith name for this conversation, dear?" she would ask, trailing her fingers over one arm and the other to pull any excess blood into the air and dissipate it away.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Let it be known."

Tags - Taeli Raaf



The air within the chamber was thick with rot and sorcery. Old blood, alchemical incense, the stifling musk of reagents decaying mid-transmutation. Darth Virelia let it coat her senses without flinching, stepping forward with the glacial elegance of a tide that refused to recede. The door hissed shut behind her, sealing the scent and the spectacle within.

She did not allow her eyes to linger on the writhing chrysalises. Nor on the arcane machinery. Nor even the corpse-like slowness with which Arcanix turned to greet her—performing power, as always, through delay.

Instead, she waited.

And when the Lady of Secrets finally deigned to speak—masking cruelty behind cultivated calm, and wrapping the insult in the sugar-coating of a question—Virelia bowed her head. Precisely five degrees.

"Darth Virelia will suffice, my Lady. Serina is a name for older conversations. This one, I hope, will belong to the future."

Her voice carried evenly beneath the helm—amplified into that same cold, sonorous register that bent ears without raising volume. It was carefully unthreatening. Respectful. But not submissive.

Not anymore.

"Though I am aware that you prefer to peer backward," she continued, "into bones and dust and remembered wounds, I ask your indulgence today in looking forward. I have not come to litigate the past. I have come to ensure it does not repeat."

Her gaze, six-eyed and featureless, remained locked on the elder Sith. Still, she allowed a current of something softer to filter into her voice—earnestness, perhaps, or the mimicry of it.

"The Velgrath has begun. Already the warlords sharpen themselves against the crucible you've helped to design. But a contest alone does not shape the next Imperator. It reveals. Refines. And… sometimes, selects poorly. You know this as well as I do."

She began to pace, slowly, the edges of her cape whispering across the floor like trailing ink. Not circling. Not encroaching. Merely moving—as if carrying her thoughts from orbit into landing.

"I will not insult you with appeals to legacy or flattery. You have no need of such things, and I have no interest in offering them. I did not come to impress you. I came to make use of you. And, in turn, to offer myself in utility to you."

She turned her helm slightly, violet eyes glinting like cut gemstones in shadow.

"I want the Fourth Legion."

It was not a plea. Not a demand. A simple fact spoken aloud.

"I want it not as a crown, but as an instrument. A scalpel to cut out the entropy infecting the ranks. A lever to collapse resistance before it hardens into rebellion. A signal—not just to the Sith, but to every survivor of this Empire's dissolution—that what comes next is not another reign of flame, but a system. A design. One that does not require your constant correction."

Here, she paused. Just briefly. Enough to give the silence weight.

"I know what I am to you. A complication. A deviation. An irritant you neither chose nor shaped. And I know that your... education... on Polis Massa was meant to remind me of where I stood."

Her voice tightened for just a breath.

"But I learned the lesson. Not the one you thought you taught—but a deeper one. I learned how the Empire is held together not by ideals or traditions—but by permissions. By allowances. By the patience of those like you, who decide who may rise and who must stay small."

A faint hiss as her helm's leftmost lens dilated—an artificial mimic of a human blink. It gave the impression of scrutiny without expression.

"I no longer seek permission. But I would value your alignment."

She stopped her slow stride and turned to face the Lady of Secrets directly once more.

"You know what I am becoming. You saw it before I did. That is why you feared me. That is why you tried to discipline me. But now, I offer you something rarer than obedience."

Her next words were slow. Deliberate.

"Relevance."

And then, after the silence had stretched just long enough to tremble:

"You can oppose me and shape nothing. Or you can guide me—gently—and help me shape everything. I do not require your loyalty. Only your lens."

A faint tilt of her head.

"So I ask again, my Lady… shall we speak of the future?"

 

[Taeli Raaf]

Darth Virelia
Phone Post
​

So it was to be the double mask that so many of the younger Sith seemed to prefer. She understood why they did it, even if she found it rather silly to hide behind a mask and a name when in the presence of others sharing their alignment. The goal, for most Sith wearing a mask was to ensure their actual facial expressions couldn't be seen while projecting an impenetrable, or so they believed, visage that could invoke terror or some other such emotion from those they interacted with. She never really saw the point, even when she had used a masked and helmeted armor decades ago to conceal her identity. But that had been as much as to disguise herself as she worked to undermine the First Galactic Alliance as to ensure she had freedom of movement between the Alliance and the Tenth Sith Empire territory. It had been a utility, nothing more.

Expressions could just as easily be read by body language, by what was said and left unsaid. She had been raised on Lorrd and taught their Kinetic language by her adoptive father, taught how to read a body as well as any Echani could, and taken acting classes to learn how to school your face and body to whatever you wanted it to say, even if it was a lie, an act, or genuine.

So as Serina began her pitch, it became apparent to her that indeed the lesson she had been hoping to get across to the younger woman had been lost on her. A lecture hadn't worked, nor had public humiliation and chastisement. If anything, it would seem the girl's narcissism and ego had only grown... a small ever so slight tilt to her head would come as she considered that. Perhaps in of itself was the act, the lie Serina told herself to keep herself going and striving far too quickly, to dismiss the past so readily. Carrying on as she was, burning as bright as she was, the burn out would be equally devastating when the inevitable caught up to her. She needed to get to the root, to understand the young woman before her claiming that she had feared what she was becoming in a far deeper manner than before... and she would need to show her examples.

The Fourth for reflection then.

"My dear Virelia, if you were an irritant or deviation, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she replied once the girl finished the initial statement of intent. "Nor, as a correction, do I fear what you're becoming because I have seen this many times before and many times likely to come. I disciplined you because you did something you weren't supposed to, and I let you off easy for that because I wanted you... to think."

A soft sigh would escape her as she removed the glasses she wore, slipping them into her lab coat's pocket.

"I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding occurring here, perhaps a crossing of meaning that I feel needs to be addressed. You believe that I merely look to the past and not forward, but that is incorrect. I look to the past as a foundation to build upon, because the future is dictated by what came before. The galaxy can't evolve, a Sith can't grow, the future can't be discussed until that is confronted and accepted. Perhaps that is why you have been rushing hither and thither, selling everything and anything to get the support you need. Braxus said it was an interesting conversation."

She would turn her gaze to one of the familiars within the laboratory, a silent command sent to it. It ambled away and returned a moment later with a crystalline geode filled with a silvery liquid, that it would then mutely hold it up in offer to Serina. Another would ambled over with a similar geode filled with the same silvery potion that Taeli would promptly drink herself.

"Remove your helmet and armor, drink it, and then we can get started. Once we are done, we can then discuss your desire for the Fourth... but this is my first price."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Let it be known."

Tags - Taeli Raaf



For a long moment, Darth Virelia said nothing.

Silence pooled between them—not empty, but dense. Thoughtful. Measured. Within the helm, she stood still as stone, her breathing low and quiet. No motion betrayed what flared behind the six violet lenses.

But she understood what had just been said.

Not just the lesson. The trap. The test.

Braxus.

That was a name she had never heard before. Not formally. Not whispered, not recorded. But in the cadence of Arcanix's delivery—in the casual flick of implication, the way it followed her mention of conversation—Virelia heard it. Felt it click into place like a blade locking into a hilt.

Darth Prazutis.

Of course he had been watching.

Of course he had been speaking to Arcanix.

And of course, the price of the Fourth would be confession, of a sort.

Very slowly, her gloved fingers lifted to the clasp at her collarbone. The hiss of magnetic seals disengaging echoed like the unsheathing of a sword in a burial chamber. Her helm lifted first, cradled in both hands, and the moment it was removed the air in the room seemed to shift—cooler, sharper, like a curtain falling.

Ice-blue eyes met Arcanix's gaze. Unflinching. Hollowed by restraint.

Her face was pale, elegant, and grim. Her mouth held neither defiance nor surrender—just silence, and a certain melancholy that had never seen the light. Long, gold-white hair spilled free in waves, somehow intact, as if it had never been confined at all. It settled along the shoulders of her cuirass with unnatural softness.

She set the helm on a nearby pedestal and began to remove the rest.

Piece by piece, Tyrant's Embrace unwound itself from her frame. She disassembled it like a ritual—not with reverence, but with precision. The corset unlatched. The vambraces hissed. The plated skirt came loose and folded into itself, reduced to silk-lined steel. When she was done, she stood in a sleeveless, tightly-fitted underlayer of charcoal synthmesh—functional, unadorned, and human.

And that was perhaps the most unnerving thing of all.

To see the inevitability stripped down to something quiet. Almost small.

She stepped forward and took the offered geode from the creature's hands. Her fingers trembled only once—barely perceptible—as she raised it.

Her gaze did not leave Arcanix's.

"I will allow this." she said softly.

And that was the first truth.

Not concession. Not alliance. But permission.

"I hate this," she added, almost gently. "You. This room. What this is. But I will give you the chance."

She exhaled through her nose—slowly, tightly. As if purging poison.

"For the Fourth. For the hopes and dreams of a young girl."

And then she drank.

The liquid was neither warm nor cold. It was memory. Metal. Mourning. It slid down her throat like light drawn through wire, and settled behind her breastbone like something waiting.

When she lowered the geode, her hand closed into a fist.