Private Balanced on a Knife's Edge

[Madelyn Lowe]

Balanced on a Knife's Edge
Ministry of Order Regional Headquarters,
Tropis, Varonat
Darth Virelia

​

Outside the palatial Government Offices on Tropis, dark clouds scudding across the horizon masked the last light of the setting sun and cast the vast jungle surrounding the capital into gloom. They heralded the coming of the wet season to the region, which would bring months of torrential rains and stifling wet heat that would leave visitors soaked in a sheen of unabating sweat, but merely made the locals' skin shine. Inside, Madelyn sat at a desk on the highest floor of the offices, wondering if her guest was at this very moment relishing the climate controlled interior of the Mimistry's regional headquarters, regaining her composure, evaporating the perspiration from her brow. She didn't doubt it.

Madelyn spun the highbacked leather chair back around to face the door, keying the desk's interface with a manicured finger, the almond nail depressing a small blue button as she cleared her throat.

"Send her up." said Madelyn. A crackle of static answered her. She did not require verbal confirmation, secure in the knowledge that her Ministry security officers were at this moment relieving Governor Calis of her obvious weapons, though no doubt she would keep plenty of others concealed. That was no matter either. Madelyn was sure the young woman would see no opportunity to use them and live. That, Madelyn had decided, was the most effective approach, to lure Calis out of her rat warren and into Madelyn's own territory. Still, the girl had made her mark by being unpredictable, so as an added measure of security, her loyal agent observed them through the many fish eye lenses of the building's security system. She spared a glance to one of the cameras in the corner, where no doubt Allyson Locke was observing them at this very moment. One last acknowledgement, before the mask of authority slipped over Madelyn again.

At last, the chime of the turbolift alerted her to Serina's arrival. Ever the diplomat, Madelyn even deigned to rise and walk to the door of the office to welcome the girl inside.

"Governor Calis." said Madelyn pleasantly. "Thank you for answering my invitation." The invitation, which had been personally delivered to the asteroid belt the woman called home a few days prior, had been curt.

'Governor Calis,' it had read, 'recent events have moved me to the decision that you and I must at last meet properly. Please allow me to host you at the Ministry offices on Varonat, where I call home, at your convenience.' Then simply, 'I look forward to your response.'

The decision had been Serina's to make, but Madelyn had figured she would bite. All that she knew of Calis indicated she was the wheeling and dealing type, eager to snap up opportunities to further her influence in the Empire, and, Madelyn suspected, attend to some personal grievances. Serina had recieved a rather impolite dressing down from Madelyn in front of her peers, an incident Madelyn was increasingly beginning to regret, for it had seemingly spurred on the girl's nipping at her agents heels, and perhaps even contributed to the incident on Saijo, the concerning details of which Locke had carefully laid out for the Minister.

This then, was an opportunity for the both of them to solve a potential problem.

Madelyn lead Serina to take her place at the desk across from Madelyn, where a simple and delicate tea set had been laid out with a small pitcher of blue-tinged milk. Behind her, a sluggish creature with yellow tinged skin and two sets of reptilian eyes clung to a gnarled tree limb and regarded the pair of them with disinterest. The lizard was unremarkable compared to most of Varonat's jungle speciments, but the transplanted species was special, and Serina had no doubt felt its presence the moment she had crossed the threshold, cutting off her connection to the Force itself.

"Please, sit." said Madelyn, sliding into her desk chair. She had provided Serina one of similar granduer, so the girl would not feel diminished. In fact, save for a datapad placed carefully in front of her, Madelyn's desk was arranged in perfect symmetry. "I wonder." said Madelyn. "If you have an idea of why I have asked you here?" She gave Calis a signficant look. "It is no matter if you do not." said Madelyn. "I can inform you. I do not believe in games when it comes to... Serious matters."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe



The turbolift had been quiet—eerily so. But then, Varonat was a quiet world. Too quiet. Even its storms were soft-mouthed, like a lover murmuring threats.

Serina Calis stood motionless as the lift ascended, cloaked in silence, one gloved hand lightly resting on the neck of a slender, matte-black wine carrier shaped like a bolt round. She had selected the vintage with intent: Chandrilan Red, deep and deliberate, cultivated under conditions of stress—just like her. The gift was not a peace offering. It was a reminder that she gave on her own terms.

She wore black, naturally, but not out of vanity or cliché. The fitted tunic was asymmetrical and sharp as a razor's edge, overlaid with fine threadbare armorweave so delicate it whispered as she moved. Beneath the collar, the faint sheen of her exosuit's spinal interface caught the light. The collarbone up was pure artistry: pale skin, perfect posture, and eyes like polished obsidian, so still they could reflect a storm without ever being moved by it.

She hadn't forgotten. Not the insults. Not the forum. Not the smirk that had accompanied Madelyn Lowe's public rebukes at the Free Trade Council.

That had been the moment.

The moment when Serina stopped seeing Madelyn as a bureaucratic obstacle and started seeing her as a future enemy. Or something worse—a potential tool. And now, here she was, finally summoned.

Baited, more like. But bait only works on something that wants. And Serina wanted.

Everything.

She had not come to repay the insult. She had come to redefine the context in which it had been made.

The lift chimed.

The doors parted.

Madelyn greeted her with the air of someone in control. That was fine. Let her feel it.

Serina smiled, faintly, and returned a shallow, precise bow. It was a gesture stripped of all humility—just the shape of deference, without its substance.

"Minister Lowe." Her voice was as smooth as cut stone. "Your invitation was... timely."

She did not hand over the wine yet. Let the gift wait. Like a dagger untouched on the table.

Inside the office, the air was crisp and breathable, a welcome change from the soup of the jungle outside. She walked slowly, eyes absorbing every detail: the symmetrical desk, the beast coiled in the corner, the tea set with its hint of formality. Everything meant something. Especially the presence of the ysalamir.

She felt it as soon as she passed the threshold.

A tear in her soul.

The Force bled from her body like air from a punctured lung. It hit her not just spiritually—but viscerally. Her back straightened too quickly. Her composure cracked in a microexpression—a falter of the lips, a blink just a fraction too long.

There was nothing in her chest.

No thrum. No pulse. No rhythm.

Just sudden, bone-deep absence.

Her body instinctively betrayed her, her fingers clenching the edge of the offered chair. She sat, and the moment she did, the hollow ache became unmistakable. It was not fear. It was not even pain. It was silence.

And in her case, silence was death.

She moved. Just slightly—her chair dragging a half-inch backward as she repositioned. The gesture was subtle, controlled, but unmistakable to any trained observer. Distance. An inch bringing her back to life. One inch less in Madelyn Lowe's domain.

Then, slowly, her hand reached into the sleek wine carrier. She placed the bottle between them like a declaration.

"Chandrilan Red. Harvested during the wildfires of 873. It's said the smoke got into the vines, made the tannins sharper." She gestured to it with an open palm, but never once looked at the wine itself. Only at Madelyn.

"Some things only reveal their value under pressure."

Her voice was calm, but her eyes were not. They flickered with restrained offense, controlled but not forgotten. There was no need to re-litigate the Free Trade Council. That would be small.

Instead, Serina turned her gaze to the creature in the corner. Let silence rule for a beat too long.

Then:

"You're clever to keep one here." She referenced the ysalamir, but she was referring to Allyson Locke and both of them knew it. "Useful, when properly kept on a leash."

Finally, she looked back to Madelyn, smile returning in the cold geometry of her face.

"You want something," she said softly, almost admiringly. "And you're hoping I listen."

 

[Madelyn Lowe]

Surprise flickered across Madelyn's features at Calis' reaction to the Ysalimir. Her brow crinkled in thought. She wondered if she was more like to those grim shades that lingered in the darkest corners of the Malsheem, persisting only through their manipulation of the Force and their unrelenting spite. Was Serina like this already? A dead thing inhabiting the body of a girl. The thought disturbed her, but how else to explain the way she had drawn her chair back? Not just in reproach or shock, but as if the very air had been withdrawn from her lungs.

"Are you alright, Ms Calis?" asked Madelyn. "I can have the creature removed if it would make you more... Comfortable?" She doubted Serina would allow such a moment of weakness to be exploited. No doubt she would continue to hover at the edge of its sphere of influence, toes peeking over the precipice of whatever abyss awaited her if she got too close.

"My..." said Madelyn, examining the bottle and peering down at the label. "This is a fine bottle." Her fingers drummed the table and Madelyn trailed off, apparently trying to recall something. "873... Mmm. I was an Alliance Senator then, back before they tightened the leash on their officials." Madelyn keyed the console on her desk distractedly, and a moment later a young man in a fitted suit with a high collar scraping his chin entered wordlessly, a tray laden with glasswear perched on the outstretched fingers of his gloved hand. Madelyn hummed and selected a decanter and a pair of glasses, only sparing Serina a glance once the crimson liquid was airing. In a few minutes, she would pour, but only once she was sure the libation was ready.

"Useful, when properly kept on a leash."

A single plucked brow arched at the snide remark, it's implied meaning not lost on Madelyn. She briefly considered whether she should address it somehow, but the meeting had scarcely begun, and rising to Serina's cattiness risked derailing it completely. No, better to let it lie. She'd had that she ignored it anyway.

"Yes." said Madelyn, her voice neutral, as if they were discussing the weather. "It pays to be careful." Again, the insistent question of why Calis had reacted so severely to the creature. Madelyn was missing something, and she hated that feeling.

The wine was ready, and Madelyn retrieved the decanter and poured them each a glass, Serina first, then her. She lifted the glass to her nose and swirled it around, inhaling deeply, before taking a sip and swishing it about, swallowing with relish.

"Perhaps you are on to something, Governor." said Madelyn, smiling. "About pressure." Her verdant gaze affixed the girl. "Do you feel under pressure, Ms Calis?" If Serina knew the half of the trouble she was in, she expected she'd admit as much. If Madelyn occupied Serina's position, she was sure she'd be quite unable to sleep at night.

But she was not like Serina Calis. Not at all.

"You want something,"
"And you're hoping I listen."

"Quite correct." affirmed Madelyn. "What I want is for you to listen, to carefully consider my words, and for you to fall in line."

Madelyn anticipated her results would be mixed. But really she was offering Calis a mercy here. She just had to make her see it.

"I am in possession of undeniable evidence that, to put it mildly, you have committed a slate of seditious acts against the Empire, culminating in the bombardment of Saijo, an act you orchestrated." There was no real accusation in Madelyn's tone, only a statement of fact.

"Now, typically I do not censure the activities of the Sith, be they in the interests of the Empire or not. However, your actions have crossed a... Personal line." She let the syllables hang, gazing across the desk, trying to gauge the young woman's reaction. "You brazenly burn a world and beg the Sith to answer, you solicit Allyson Locke, my agent, try to turn her against the cause, and you dare someone try and stop you." Madelyn leaned forward. "Well, Serina, your pleas for attention have been answered."

The setting sun had finally slipped away entirely, the feeble light that had struggled through the storm clouds fading to gloom. Thunder sounded in the distance, and lamps gently flared to life around the room, dispersing the darkness that had descended.

"If you had stuck to your lane, I might never have spared you another thought. You would remain the ambitious young Governor I had the displeasure of rebuking on Terminus."

Madelyn sighed, clearly irritated.

"You have been messing with my agent, which means you have been messing with me. So the whole mess of you is now my problem."

"Will you continue to be my problem, Serina?"

Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe



The wine was exquisite, and Serina tasted it as such, though she did not react. No sigh of delight, no nod of approval—only the gentle tilt of the glass and the slow roll of crimson across the tongue. A scholar of taste might have noted the aftertones of smoke and charred fruit, the tannins bruised just enough to hold complexity without bitterness. But Serina Calis was not here for indulgence. She drank only to create contrast—for what she would become when the mask slipped back on.

Madelyn spoke, and Serina listened. Eyes level. Posture composed. She offered no rebuttal to the list of her sins, made no effort to correct the phrasing of "seditious acts" or the implication of emotional volatility. She let it all wash over her like the jungle rain she'd passed through on her way to the Ministry—soaking, yes, but ultimately beneath her.

Fall in line. A beautiful phrase. So simple. So fucking stupid.

She could feel the void pressing against her still, dull and constant like a second heartbeat—an un-heartbeat—reminding her that she was only minutes removed from suffocation. The ysalamir still pulsed its dead zone into the air, just far enough away to keep her from collapse, just close enough to remind her that she needed the Force to exist. The ache was steady now, part of her rhythm. She had found her balance at the edge of annihilation.

Madelyn's righteousness intrigued her. There was power in her clarity—cold, legalistic, but determined. She wasn't a fool, nor some sentimental idealist hoping to reform the Sith Empire into something virtuous. No, Minister Lowe saw it for what it was: a machine. Brutal. Lawless. And yet still capable of threatening those who mistook chaos for opportunity.

But Madelyn's mistake was in assuming Serina was one of those. That Serina was a saboteur who didn't know where the real power lay. That she wanted to be heard, that Saijo was a tantrum rather than a thesis.

No, Serina hadn't bombarded Saijo to be seen. She had bombarded it because no one else would.

Let others write their manifestos in blood—she wrote hers in silence, ash, and policy reform.

What were the words that she said to Darth Strosius that fateful day?

Ahh...

"And most importantly, watch what I don't do. Because what I withhold will tell you more than any speech I could give."

She took another sip, slow as the dusk outside. It was almost intimate now, the storm's hush wrapping the building in a velvet threat. She didn't look at Madelyn as she placed the glass back down. Her eyes moved instead to the creature in the corner again—the ysalamir. A lizard, arguably more important than Minister Lowe, yet a nothing thing. And yet it ruled the room. Not by its will, but by its function.

It had no idea what power it held.

No idea what power it was bearing witness to.

Nor, Serina suspected, did Madelyn.

Then her gaze returned, steady and unblinking.

She wondered what kind of wounded dog, no, that was giving her too much credit... What kind of troglodyte the Minister truly was. One who used strength to impose order, or one who mistook leverage for sovereignty or legacy for security? The latter were always the first to fall.

Darth Fury and his burning backwater of a fortress were, not-so-living proof.

The desk between them was too perfect. Too symmetrical. A simulacrum of order, not the real thing. Real order was not balance. It was domination. Gravity was not fair. It simply was.

Serina folded one leg over the other, slow and deliberate. Not because it was comfortable, but because it was a choreography. Her hand came to rest against the edge of the glass, fingers splayed like talons idle on a perch. Then she tilted her head, just slightly, letting a faint reflection of the overhead light pass through her obsidian eyes.

She had allowed Madelyn her opening monologue. The great scolding. The indictment. The proclamation of imperial responsibility. And now the question.

Will you continue to be my problem, Serina?

Silence hung for a moment. Not awkward. Not hesitant. Surgical. The thought was instant.

Problems are only threats you lack the courage to weaponize.

But is was just that, a thought.

The silence stretched on, undisturbed but for the slow, deliberate tapping of Serina's fingers against the arm of her chair—a measured rhythm, more executioner's metronome than idle gesture. Her gaze held Madelyn's with unflinching precision. She wasn't thinking.

She was waiting.

Waiting for the silence to fracture. For the moment to beg for her voice.

Then, finally, Serina Calis spoke. Not to respond.

To redefine.

"Problems only exist when power is contested."

She didn't smile.

"I'm not here to be your problem, Minister, but you and I both know I'll rise either way."

She didn't blink.

"All you're choosing is whether that ascent happens with your name on the invitation… or under the weight of your resistance."

She just watched, waiting for Madelyn to realize the implication: there was no end to the ambition of Serina Calis.

There was only hunger.

 

[Madelyn Lowe]

"Problems only exist when power is contested."

"I'm not here to be your problem, Minister, but you and I both know I'll rise either way."

Madelyn's eyes narrowed at the words. Hatred bloomed across her face before it was replaced by mere disapproval. Contested power. Her ascent. Madelyn had heard that before. Witnessed the posturing of a dozen lords and ladies who spoke of their inevitable rise to absolute power. It was rarely worth even the slightest consideration. Traitors got themselves killed, power players either burned themselves out or interwove with the fabric of the Empire, becoming loyalists in the process. But, Serina was different. Capable, unpredictable, hungry. Dangerous. A threat that the highest echelons of the Empire were beginning to notice, and one Madelyn was increasingly convinced needed to be eliminated.

"You know, Governor. I think you're right."

The Sith-Imperial schism had occurred two decades before Serina was born. Madelyn wondered if the girl had ever studied it. The history of the previous Sith Empire spoke of what happens when unchecked ambition is allowed to fester, when power is contested. The very fabric of the state had become unraveled. The Emperor's authority defied, the natural hierarchy unbalanced. Inevitably, it lead to war.

The New Imperials were long gone now, of course. Their leaders tended to die young. An empire of dead men. But, they did teach her something valuable in their short tenure. After she saw Bastion burning, after she was returned to her cell to be beaten again, she'd realised that if Madelyn was ever in the same position again, this ambition, this idealism, had to be cut out before it had a chance to spread. That was the job of the Ministry of Order at its core, more than justice or jails or law. The elimination of disruptors, of rebels, of would-be sovereigns.

"Even the tallest, most brilliant flower must be decapitated. In its rising it disrupts the order of the bed. All must be brought to level." Emerald eyes affixed azure ones. Her words were recited as if they were from some long forgotten text, but the threat within was clear enough. That was it then. They both, in as many words, had promised to destroy the other if they stood in the way. But Serina was just a girl. Madelyn was a survivor. She had been called a bug, a snake, a skulking thing, always slipping away from damnation to live another day. But she was alive. Everyone else was gone and she was still here. Serina Calis would not upend that, not if she had a million years to attempt it. Maybe she would. Madelyn no longer aged and the girl seemed unliving. Somehow, she didn't think the Dark Jedi would last that long though.

"All you're choosing is whether that ascent happens with your name on the invitation… or under the weight of your resistance."

"Crippling a world. Trying to kill an agent of the Empire in the process, and then make a turncoat of her after I plucked her away." cooed Madelyn. "Spreading your traitorous words far and wide to anyone who will listen." She had drawn very close to Serina now, leaning forward slightly over the desk, knowing that for whatever reason, Serina couldn't stand to meet her in the middle, over the edge of the invisible bubble of nullification. "And you aren't even a Sith, not really."

"I have no authority over you right now, Serina." said Madelyn. "Your place in the Sith Order protects you." The Ministry's jurisdiction was far reaching, but only to those judged to be outside the ranks of the Order itself. She could not lay charges upon a Sith, not even an acolyte. But like she had said, Serina was barely Sith, and there were always ways around these things. Not that she would ever feel safe with Serina Calis plotting away in some prison facility somewhere. No, better to strive for a more permanent solution. "Imagine though, if I were to start calling for your excommunication from the Order, your removal from your Governorship, an investigation into your crimes. What then? I can't imagine there would be swathe of notable Sith rushing to your defense. They know what kind of person you are, and I rarely use my influence in such an overt manner. They would listen."

Madelyn leaned back in the chair, hands steepled, looking at Serina over the tops of her fingers. She wondered what Allyson thought of their conversation, if she was scared Madelyn was endangering herself. She had heard the reports of how the pair's last meeting had ended. But she needed to see it for herself, to confirm Serina Calis was a sick animal, a rogue creature that needed euthanizing.

"So I would very kindly suggest you stop meddling with my interests."

Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe



The silence, this time, was no accident.

Serina let it stretch, unbroken and deliberate, even as Madelyn's words twisted the air like a garrote pulled taut. Most would have reacted—flinched, retorted, struck back with venom or pride. But Serina Calis simply watched her. Sipped her wine. Tilted her head just slightly as if observing a particularly rare specimen in a display cage. There was no smugness. Just curiosity, and a patient, sharpened focus.

Madelyn didn't realize what she had given her. Not just power, but data.

And Serina adored data.

The Minister had spoken at length. Far more than she expected. Far more than she needed to. And with every word, Serina could feel the cracks widening—hairline fractures in a fortress built on the illusion of institutional permanence. There was fear there. And something even more desperate.

Possession.

"You aren't even a Sith, not really."

That had been the most telling. Not a condemnation. A revelation.

And so she sat, hands folded now in her lap, wine forgotten, and let the quiet do what the Force once had—fill the room with pressure.

Because it was not Serina who needed to speak.

It was Madelyn who needed to prove.

Then, out of the silence.

"Are you quite done, Minister?"

Her gaze was unwavering. Not hostile. Not warm. Just fixed, as if measuring the weight of Madelyn's soul in grams. And beneath that stare was a calculus—ruthless, clinical, predatory. The mind of a woman for whom cruelty was never reactive. It was simply an option.

Madelyn had shown her cards. Every fear, every insecurity, every lie she told herself to sleep at night. That she was in control. That she was necessary. That her enemies were threats because they were dangerous, not because they were right.

Then Serina finally moved.

A subtle, surgical shift forward. Just an inch. Just enough to imply gravity.

And when she spoke, her voice was quiet. Not the hush of conspiracy, but the restraint of someone who didn't need to raise her voice to destroy.

"Minister, you forget your station. You serve under the Emperor, what is his, is not what is yours."

"Besides, your use of the word my was... enlightening."

Her words came one by one, precise as a blade entering flesh without resistance.

"My interests. My order. My agent."

Emphasis on the word agent, she tilted her head slightly again. Not in condescension—calibration.

"That is the weakness you built your power upon. You've mistaken surveillance for sovereignty. Possession for authority. And now, with every breath, you tighten the leash around your own throat."

She let it sink in. Every syllable. Every silence that followed.

"But even your agent kneels to the Emperor, not you, Madelyn Lowe."

Then, without pause:

"The Force does not belong to you, Minister Lowe. Nor does the Empire. Nor, in truth, does Allyson Locke."

Her voice was still respectful. Uncomfortably so. It made the words worse.

"You have spent decades constructing systems to give the illusion that nothing moves without your sanction. Yet the Force moves. And so I do. And neither of us have ever asked your permission."

Another pause. And now, a shift in tone.

Not aggression. Not arrogance.

Something more frightening.

Pity.

"The truth, Minister, is this: you are a failure in all regards."

"Experience, after all, must eventually be weighed not just in years served, but in the capacity to adapt to a galaxy that shifts with every breath."

The words struck like a knife drawn across silk. They were the same as Serina's vote for the appointment of Madelyn to Governor.

She remembers it, line for line.

"Saijo happened under your watch."
"Darth Nefaron, under your watch."
"Every crate smuggled, every murder left unsolved, every whisper of disloyalty carried on the tongues of those you claim to govern—all under your watch."

Her voice remained cold. Level. Not accusing. Just... noting the inevitable.

"You sit atop a crumbling mountain and call yourself its architect."

Her fingers finally moved, one hand brushing the stem of her glass again, idly, not lifting it—merely touching it, as if to remind the room that even beauty could be a weapon when held correctly.

Then came the final turn. The slow, daggered twist.

"And Allyson..."

A long silence followed the name. The kind of silence meant to press, to unseat, to linger.

"You can say she belongs to you. And she may even say it back. But we both know... you cannot own what you love."

Her eyes flicked upward—not gloating. Not cruel.

Inevitable.

Then came the question. Delivered like a surgeon's whisper.

"Tell me, Madelyn..."
"If you're in control..."
"Why are you the one unravelling in front of me now? On your own world, in your own palace?"

She leaned back again, posture perfect, glass untouched, presence undeniable.

"Corruption. Minister."

Serina did not blink. The room felt suspended in amber—still, dense, and absolute. Only the faint rumble of thunder in the distance betrayed the passage of time. Her voice, when it came again, was softer than before. Reflective. And in that softness there was something dreadful. Not malice. Not rage. But a truth spoken without adornment.

"You hate me," she said simply. "Not because I'm dangerous. Not because I've broken your rules. You've survived dangerous people before. You've written rules specifically to be broken when convenient. No, what unsettles you, Madelyn, is that I am the one thing your machinery of order can never contain."

Her eyes were merciless now—not angry, but dissecting. As though she were cataloguing a flaw in a design. Her voice deepened, not in volume but in gravity.

"I am not chaos. I am not rebellion. You know how to handle those. They are loud. Predictable. They burn themselves out. What I am... is corruption. The slow, beautiful decay that begins at the moment of perfection. The quiet breath behind the throne. The compromise that turns into doctrine. The simple 20 credits that somebody pays to not have their ship stolen in docking. I am what happens after order. I don't challenge the rules, Madelyn. I write new ones in the same font."

There was no triumph in her tone, no cruel twist of a knife. Just inevitability. Serina didn't need to assert her superiority. She had already become the consequence of Madelyn's entire life's work. A mirror image—reversed, not opposite. Madelyn represented order. Serina represented what happens when order festers in its own silence.

"You enforce structure, but I erode meaning. You believe in systems. I believe in narratives. You wield consequence, I wield interpretation. And in every empire, in every bureaucracy, in every holy project meant to last ten thousand years—my kind always wins."

She reached for the wine glass, not to drink, but simply to hold it, the way a conductor might lift a baton at the close of a symphony. The blood-dark liquid caught the light as she turned it in her hand, idly, unconcerned, a woman secure in the knowledge that the war was already over—the corpse just hadn't cooled.

"You hate me," she repeated, this time almost wistfully, "because you recognize me. Because somewhere in the unlit corridors of your mind, you remember that corruption isn't some rot from without. It comes from within. From the very heart of systems. From the people who learn how to use the machine better than it was ever meant to be used."
She leaned forward—not much. Just enough to close the space between implication and truth.

"I don't destroy the Empire. I perfect it."

There was finality in the words. Not a boast. Not even a threat.

A diagnosis.

"Order, is the fortress. But I am the mold in its foundations. It cannot defeat me. It can only become me."

Her gaze lingered a moment longer, letting the silence return once more. Letting Madelyn sit in it. Feel the weight of all she had built settling into entropy.

Then, with the barest whisper of breath, as if commenting on the weather, Serina murmured:

"You are compromised, Minister, I saw it in the statue, where corruption has already left it's mark."

A long silence.

"I believe we are finished here, Lowe. Unless you have anything more, enlightening..."

 

[Madelyn Lowe]

"Are you quite done, Minister?"

Madelyn stiffened, reacting despite her efforts to maintain some cool. How long had it been, since someone had addressed her with such audacity? Years, certainly. She was surprised how shocking it was, how it made the heavy dark feeling in her gut-ever bubbling-rise into her throat. Serina was making Madelyn angry, and she hadn't been angry in a long time. Surely, of all the talents to have, the ability to immediately piss off anyone she met was going to get Calis into trouble. But, as her mother had always told her. 'The Lowe's rose above.' A catch-all phrase, to mark their successes, and to say that they would always take the high road, even when denigrated.

Madelyn could have followed her mother's advice and allowed the comment to slide, but still, the girl pressed, either having sensed some subtle give in Madelyn's demeanor or merely grown disinterested enough in the conversation to unload the rest of her vitriol and bring it to a decisive end. The Governor of Polis Massa had not been forthcoming in their meeting up to this point, but now she spoke, and her words struck as viciously as if she was striking blows with her fists.

"Minister, you forget your station. You serve under the Emperor, what is his, is not what is yours."

"I serve the Emperor." said Madelyn flatly. "So does Locke. The only one of us who doesn't is you." That was at least partially true. Madelyn was a Kainite, first and foremost, and Allyson was predominantly loyal to her. But, compared to Serina Calis, the two of them were practically oath-sworn knights.

Madelyn felt her anger rising, her patience thinning, and something else she hadn't felt in a long while creeping up as well: fear. Of what Calis might do, of the threat she posed to Allyson, to the life she was carving out for herself, for the precious few things she had finally convinced her damaged heart to care about. The more Serina spoke, the worse it got.

"But even your agent kneels to the Emperor, not you, Madelyn Lowe."

Falsehoods. Assumptions. Was she lying to try and throw Madelyn off balance, or deranged enough to believe her own version of reality?

"The truth, Minister, is this: you are a failure in all regards."

A failure? She had a career spanning three times Serina's lifetime, but Serina saw only the impact of her own inexorable creep to power, Madelyn's apathy to it, and now her failure to stop it. She had to stop it.

"You can say she belongs to you. And she may even say it back. But we both know... you cannot own what you love."

Serina believed only in ownership, only in the eternal war of taking everything you could get your hands on, and letting everything else burn lest it be taken by someone else.

"Corruption. Minister."

She was a monster, the decay of the last Empire somehow made corporeal, a dark entity wearing the flesh of a girl, the imitation deflating the moment the influence of the Force was lifted. She was pestilence. She was sickness.

"Order, is the fortress. But I am the mold in its foundations. It cannot defeat me. It can only become me."

Madelyn was struck by a vision that appeared in her mind with the words, driving all other thoughts away, announcing itself like the tolling of a bell. In the images of devastation in her mind Madelyn realised something. If she allowed Serina Calis to hatch her plots and play her games, she would burn down everything, starting with the one person in the Galaxy she still cared about.

A cold determination settled within her. No doubt Serina had sensed the rising emotion within her, but now she would feel the settling of Madelyn's thoughts, the quiet understanding of what she had to do. For herself, for the sake of the Empire she called home, and for Allyson.

"You are compromised, Minister, I saw it in the statue, where corruption has already left it's mark."

"Has it?" Asked Madelyn. "Let me show you something." She rose from the chair more shakily than she'd have liked. Serina's words seemed to have had their desired affect, for the energy running through Madelyn's body made her legs tremble, and she no longer saw the girl as an annoyance, or as a meddler. No, she was a monster. Still, Madelyn put on a neutral expression and stalked to the window, giving Serina just enough room to tow the line of the ysalimir's influence, so the pair of them could stand on either side of it, looking towards the statue.

The statue was illuminated by a series of beams mounted on the ground, bathing the statue in radiant light, casting lines of contrast along Allyson's stone-cut features. "It exists not just because she wanted it, not just because it proves her usefulness." Madelyn shook her head. "She is the saviour of these people. They insisted she be honoured this way." She met Serina with a cold look. "Allyson Locke is a hero. You are a destroyer. You will never hold a candle to her as long as you live."

Serina made for the exit and Madelyn held up a hand to stop her. This was it. Maybe her only chance, to cut the rot out at its source. Is this not what she had sworn to do? When she was watching the fires spread on Bastion, when she had run with her tail between her legs to the Alliance? She had told herself, if she saw it happening again, she would try to stop it.

She had to destroy her.

"You leave when I say we are done." Madelyn's voice was harsh and sharp, almost a yell. "We are not done!" Without hesitating to consider the implications of the movement, Madelyn allowed instinct to overtake her. She shoved Serina, hard, first with the intention of slamming her head into the glass window and then sideways, throwing all of her weight into the six-foot woman so that they might both topple over, and fall towards the floor beside the desk and the gnarled limb behind it, deep into the ysalimir's bubble.

"I can not allow you to live." spat Madelyn, fumbling to try and keep Calis down while desperately clawing at something by her ankle, blonde curls falling in front of her face. She just needed to keep her down long enough for the ysalimir to do its work and weaken her. Allyson would forgive her for such a brazen killing. She would understand. Finally, Madelyn's scrabbling hands retrieved the stiletto dagger from its sheath against her leg, its long silver blade catching the lamplight as they struggled. "I can not allow this rot to spread!"

Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe


Serina didn't scream.

Even as the glass slammed into the side of her face with a dull, echoing crack, even as her body was thrown with unceremonious violence into the floor beneath the grotesque, gnarled limb of the ysalamir's perch, she did not cry out. She absorbed the pain with the same detached precision she'd shown sipping wine, the same quiet grace she had used to deliver her verbal dissections. She allowed the blow, let herself fall.

There was no resistance in her at first.

Because Serina Calis had already seen this moment before it arrived.

The dagger flashed as Madelyn fumbled, breath wild, curls in her eyes, a creature cornered by its own convictions. And Serina lay beneath her, momentarily without the Force—without breath—the black star behind her ribs fluttering like a dying engine.

She could feel the ysalamir's null zone pulsing through her. Her chest constricted. Vision narrowed. Her limbs were sluggish, her corrupted blood screaming for energy it could no longer draw from the wellspring of power that had replaced her heart.

And yet, as Madelyn pinned her, as that dagger rose with trembling finality—Serina smiled.

A slow, ruinous smile.

"You fool," she whispered, low and surgical, her voice a quiet scalpel. "You're not here to protect the Empire. You're here to protect her."

Serina didn't need the Force to land a blow now. She had already struck.

Her gaze was unwavering. Blood traced down the side of her face in a single line, mixing with sweat, but her expression was pristine. Poised. Measured. Unyielding.

"You think killing me will free you from this. It won't. Because you love her." Her voice, though winded, carried with dreadful clarity. "And love, Minister Lowe... is the one thing that will always corrupt you."

Serina did not stop.

"I don't need to defeat you," she breathed. "You've already done it yourself. You built your identity on purity, on restraint, on order. And now look at you."

Her head tilted slightly, just enough to let the lamplight catch the knife between them. Her voice grew colder, more precise, every syllable a surgical strike.

"Violent. Deranged. Emotional. Dragging me into a corner, into your little null bubble, so you could end me with a weapon meant for a spy, not a governor. This isn't justice. This isn't duty. This is desperation."

Then her tone turned almost tender, in the way a predator might speak before the kill.

"You're not afraid of me because I'm a monster, Madelyn. You're afraid because I'm right. You can sense it, can't you? That you are the one unraveling. Not me. You're the one who has to force clarity, who has to stab your way back to meaning, that I have already corrupted you."

"That you are MINE."

Her hands, still pinned, did not struggle. Her body remained motionless.

But her words? They were pure movement.

"And she'll forgive you," Serina said gently, almost kindly. "That's the worst part, isn't it?"

"Allyson Locke will forgive you. She will hold your hand, tell you it was necessary, and kiss the blood from your fingers. Because that's what she does. She makes monsters beautiful. She made you bearable."

And then Serina's voice turned—soft still, but like a piano chord struck too low. Full of weight.

"But the moment she sees you... really sees you, like I do now—do you know what will die, Madelyn?"

A pause.

Her eyes, one now almost lit up in purple and the other an azure blue, pierced up into Madelyn's own.

"Your delusion."

"Because once you kill me," Serina whispered, "you'll finally see yourself. Not as a survivor. Not as a Minister. Not as the keeper of order, but as a servant of corruption."

Another pause. Soft. Measured.

"You'll see yourself as a frightened woman, strangled by the leash of her own heart, with no one left to blame."

Then Serina tilted her head toward the window—toward the statue.

"And the worst part, Minister? She'll still love you. Even then. But you'll never believe it again."

"Because, Madelyn Lowe. I was never the rot in the system."

An eerie, dramatic pause.

"It is you."

A silence fell—thick, eternal, absolute.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Madelyn Lowe //: Darth Virelia //:
//: Attire //:

In an instant, Allyson Locke was gone from the small control room. Other officials looked around trying to figure out when she had left and why. The conversation between the Minister and the Governor of Polis Massa was tense, but there was no indication that the Minister’s life was in danger. The moment the surveillance team turned back to the monitors and their questions were answered.

The young woman’s words cut sharp, precision that hadn’t been there before. Allyson tried to figure when everything had changed, when did the child mature into a monster? Questions that she didn’t have time to think about, she needed to get to the office.

As quickly as the tension had broken in the Minister’s office, Allyson was already down the hall. Her leather boots struck the ornate flooring in quick, quiet steps. Her movement was precise, emotions sharp beneath the surface as she held tightly to her composure.

Allyson had made a promise and as long as she was still breathing, she would keep it.

The strain in Madelyn’s voice and the sound of a fight echoed as Allyson neared the office door. The meeting had turned. The Force surged through her in response, and she let go of the careful restraint she’d held for so long. In an instant, the presence of a Jedi ignited across the currents of the Force, no longer hidden, no longer silent.

She needed every ounce of focus to get between Madelyn and Serina. Maybe Serina wasn’t the real threat. Maybe Allyson could handle her. But somewhere, buried beneath instinct and training, was a fear that whispered otherwise.

The door wouldn’t budge and Allyson cursed under her breath, everything that needed to go right didn’t. While the Corellian fought with the door, she could hear the muffled voices behind the door and the struggle between the two women. Dark thoughts clawed their way to the surface. She knew exactly what Serina was capable of. If a single perceived slight could drive her to burn an entire world, Allyson didn’t want to imagine what she might do to Madelyn.

Frustration surged through the spy as she stepped back. The door had stayed a problem for far too long. A swift kick tore it from its hinges. Allyson didn’t care and as she stepped in she caught the full words of the rest of the conversation.

The scene unfolded before the Corellian’s eyes, Serina’s sneer, laced with venom, and Madelyn’s desperate attempt to cut out the rot, to end it all. Allyson’s gaze fell to the blade now in the Minister’s hand.

Do it.

The thought echoed through her, cold and steady. It would end everything. Serina knew too much, far too much. With her gone, their secret, their sanctuary, would remain untouched. No more games. No more threats. Serina was the only one bold enough to challenge them so openly, so dangerously. If she disappeared, there’d be no one left to come between them.

Madelyn would be safe. Finally, completely safe.

Allyson moved before she could think. The knife in Madelyn’s hand, the coiled fury in Serina’s body language, it was clear. This wasn’t as it seemed, the sithling was only waiting to strike. With the Force freely moving through her, she stood just above Serina and as she stepped into the nullification bubble, the Force faded from her and her mind silenced.

Something darker flickered behind Allyson’s hazel eyes as she stood over the fallen Governor of Polis Massa, her boot brushing against the outstretched fingers of the blonde girl’s hand. Positioning herself between Serina and the Minister, she spoke without hesitation.

“Madelyn, I’ll handle her.”

The words were firm, devoid of the usual softness she reserved for the woman. It was a tone Madelyn had never heard from her before.

Her gaze remained fixed on Serina. Even within the nullification field, Allyson could see the toll it was taking on her,the pain hollowing out her features, a desperation just beneath the surface. She recognized it. She’d seen it once before. The absence of the Force wasn’t just a weakness for the girl, it seemed to hurt. Was it an addiction? Or something far worse?

Regardless, Allyson didn’t move. If Serina tried to stand, she’d let her, let her crawl free of the lizard’s influence. But if this was going to escalate, if violence was inevitable, then Allyson would make damn sure she was the one Serina had to go through.

"You want her? You go through me."

 

[Madelyn Lowe]

Every word that tumbled out of Serina's mouth convinced Madelyn of her decision. She longer spoke in terms of the Empire, but about Allyson, of the weakness that Madelyn's fondness for her created. Serina spoke of how it left her vulnerable, not just to some general threat, but to her, to the threat of corruption she posed.

"Violent. Deranged. Emotional. Dragging me into a corner, into your little null bubble, so you could end me with a weapon meant for a spy, not a governor. This isn't justice. This isn't duty. This is desperation."

"This is a mercy, Calis!" Madelyn snarled. "I could make you beg for the knife."

But Serina went on, unperturbed, not even trying to shake Madelyn off, as if this was what she'd wanted. For the first time since she had tackled Serina, Madelyn felt her anger flicker, doubt competing with it, threatening to extinguish the flame that kept Calis pinned to the floor, the knife in Madelyn's hand. Madelyn's head was spinning, and the frantic energy of the moment wasn't helping. It was hard enough to focus on Calis through the sound of blood pounding in her ears, and her words were slippery, full of double meanings and hard to focus on, and Serina seemingly didn't even stop to breathe.

"You will never have her, as long as I am alive you will not."

She tried to ignore the implications of the girl's words, that she was rotten from within, a thing she had suspected and feared since she evening she had emerged from the Genesis Pool and excised her lesser half; That Serina's death would be the thing to finally reveal the truth of her relationship with Allyson, a truth she couldn't face; and the idea that Serina, who should have been a minor peon, had defeated her before she had even stepped into the room.

Madelyn shook her head in disgust. If it weren't for her unshakeable pride, she might have been convinced. As it was, she was content with killing the girl and leaving the whole matter open to debate.

"And the worst part, Minister? She'll still love you. Even then. But you'll never believe it again."

"Because, Madelyn Lowe. I was never the rot in the system."

"It is you."

"What are you?" Madelyn whispered, holding the blade to Serina's throat, its blade glinting wickedly, but leaving enough room for her to breathe and speak.

Madelyn asked the question with genuine, horrified fascination. It had become abundantly clear that whoever Serina Calis had been, the disgraced Jedi twice-slain that had been recorded on her file, was long gone. What was left was a purer, more elemental thing. Corruption incarnate, as Serina had said. For the first time, Madelyn found herself believing her.

Strangely, the realisation stirred a long forgotten memory from her childhood to rise to the surface. On Varonat, it had been tradition for youths to attend an execution of dissidents in their first year at the Imperial Academy. Madelyn remembered the one she had witnessed vividly. A dozen rebels had been arrested following an attack on a First Order convoy passing through the outskirts of Edgefields. The attack was a success, but the rebels had not accounted for the landspeeder laden with munitions that was trailing the convoy, and the subsequent blast had levelled the entire neighbourhood. Madelyn remembered watching the holovids of the incident. So much senseless destruction.

The perpetrators had been executed by electro-guillotine, and watching their headless bodies twitch Madelyn had remembered thinking that the whole thing had been pointless. Their terror spree had been ended with one blow. All of the bodies and bloodshed ultimately counted for nothing once the leaders of the movement were dead. Suddenly, Madelyn was brought back to the present. Serina below her, the knife in her hands. The whole thing had only taken milliseconds, but it had filled her with renewed conviction. She knew what she had to do.

Cut the head off the snake, just like they had the rebels when she was a child.

She loathed the idea of performing such a grisly act with Allyson there to observe it, but what choice had Serina left her? Maybe, there was a more merciful way to put down the monster that Serina had become, but there was only one grisly method she knew would work: decapitation. She would split the girl in twain, releasing whatever shade resided in the girl's body, and burn it for good measure. Nasty business, especially without a guillotine. The knife would be messy, and that was regretful, if only because she knew Allyson would be seeing the violence that lurked beneath Madelyn's veneer of pragmatism. She hoped she wouldn't think less of her.

"I'm sorry Serina." Madelyn whispered, a tinge of regret turning her voice into a low whine. She wouldn't meet the girl's eyes as she spoke, but she held her fast, not that Serina resisted any. "I have to cut out the corruption at it's source."

Madelyn leaned forward. She heard the door rattling, and then smashing inward. Madelyn didn't look, but she knew she was running out of time.

"Good-bye, Serina Calis." said Madelyn. She had just began to press the knife into Serina's neck, its blade kissing the skin and finding purchase, when she became aware of a presence above her, a voice ringing out, shattering Madelyn's concentration.

“Madelyn, I’ll handle her.”

Madelyn's grip on the knife faltered, and she withdrew slightly, the superficial wound on Serina's neck beading with crimson. Madelyn considered driving the blade into the girl's windpipe anyway, but she decided not to. She trusted Allyson, and Allyson trusted her. That was not to be trifled with. Madelyn would let her handle it.

Suddenly shaking, Madelyn rose to her feet, leaning on Allyson for support. She pursed her lips at her agent, unsure what she had in mind, but simply said.

"Alright. She's all yours."

Madelyn narrowed her eyes at Serina, and, unloading the last of her anger, she spat, smiling with satisfaction as the gob of spittle landed on the girl's cheek. The knife clattered to the ground and Madelyn stepped behind Allyson, leaving Serina to her.

Darth Virelia | Allyson Locke ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe Allyson Locke


Serina Calis did not move.

Not at first.

The knife had faltered just inches from her throat, but its intention still lingered in the air like a shriek that hadn't yet faded. The sting of the blade's edge was tangible—just enough to break skin, just enough to prove that Madelyn had meant it.

A single thread of blood ran slowly down the line of her neck, graceful as ink. Another droplet clung to the base of her throat, catching the light like a ruby set in pale skin. The spittle that had followed—flung with more rage than reason—hung just as boldly on her cheek, a glistening mark of insult meant to humiliate, to soil, to reclaim control.

But Serina did nothing.

No gasp. No flinch. No expression of pain or protest.

The woman who had, moments ago, been marked for death lay there as if she were observing it from elsewhere—disconnected, immutable, inevitable.

She had not fought back.

And that, more than anything, had undone the Minister.

Madelyn's retreat, her knife abandoned, her body sagging behind Allyson like a marionette with snapped strings, had sealed the moment. The rage was gone. The control—illusion though it was—lay in shards on the polished floor beside her.

Still, Serina remained unmoving.

Seconds passed. Long, stretched-out, punishing seconds.

The silence swelled around her like a storm tide, thick with the tension of unmade decisions. The ysalamir's nullification bubble still blanketed her like a shroud. The Force did not sing in her veins. There was no power humming beneath her skin, no whispered guidance of visions or dread. Only silence. True, pure silence.

It felt like dying.

It was so close to death.

And still—she endured.

Then, slowly, methodically, she moved.

Not like a wounded thing. Not like prey spared. But like a sovereign rising from an unwanted prayer.

First, her fingers flexed—testing.

Then she rolled one shoulder back, pain flashing briefly across her expression like lightning behind a veil. She pressed her palm to the floor, gloved fingers spreading against the warm stone. Her other hand braced lightly on the shattered glass panel beside her, and inch by inch, Serina Calis stood.

She rose with no drama. No desperate gasp. No theatrical flourish. Only the unspoken declaration of someone who would not remain beneath anyone. Ever.

Blood still traced her neck. Spit still clung to her cheek. She did not wipe either away.

Because to do so would be to acknowledge them.

And Serina Calis acknowledged no one's authority but her own.

Her eyes did not seek Madelyn. They dismissed her, discarded her, as if the Minister's last words and feeble violence were already dust on a forgotten archive shelf. It was not victory. It was irrelevance.

But she did look at Allyson.

And when she did, everything in the room changed.

Their eyes met, and in that space between gazes was a war with no field. Just truth. Serina didn't speak. She didn't need to. Her expression conveyed everything: the betrayal, the understanding, the ache of something unsaid, and the contempt for what had just been allowed to happen.

Yet beneath all that—beneath the ruin and wreckage of this moment—there was something more frightening than anger.

There was affection.

It lived behind her gaze like a dying star, collapsing inward, doomed to consume itself, but still radiating heat. Still real.

She walked.

Each step was deliberate. Measured. The gait of someone walking away not from defeat, but from irrelevance.

The weight of the ysalamir still dragged against her, thinning her breath and bruising her posture, but she made no show of it. The blood on her throat, the spittle on her cheek, the stillness in her limbs—they became adornments, icons of what she had just endured without raising a hand in defense.

As she passed Allyson, she slowed—just enough to brush a phantom distance from her side.

A moment. A breath. A pause. Nothing spoken.

But it was there.

A conversation that existed only in silence.

Then she walked on.

Past the broken door. Past the cracked marble and splintered frame. Her boots echoed now with a cold, hollow rhythm. No Force to mask her sound, no cloak of silence or shadow to carry her away. She moved like a procession of one. A dirge for something that had never been allowed to live.

She didn't look back.

Not at Madelyn. Not at Allyson. Not at the statue bathing in false light. Not at the ruin she had left behind. Not at the ysalamir field she had finally left, the Force returning to her like a breath not taken in a thousand years.

She had already seen everything she needed.

Let them argue about what she was—monster, martyr, manipulator.

Serina Calis didn't need to explain herself.

Because soon enough, the entire Empire would be forced to.

 

[Allyson Locke]

//: Madelyn Lowe //: Darth Virelia //:
//: Attire //:

Allyson hated this.

She hated the uncertainty of Serina Calis. She hated that there was no plan, no concept of how she functioned. Allyson couldn't anticipate her next move or what was going on in her mind. The spy, at this moment, was helpless and lost. Her composure didn't change, but her eyes continued to watch and try to read the Governor. Something in her movement, in her face, had to give way to what she was thinking.

There were too many possibilities, and Allyson hated them all.

She felt Madelyn's weight against her and held steady, allowing the woman to take a safer place behind. It was the uncertainty that saved Serina Calis in that office. Allyson didn't know if striking the woman down now would further put Madelyn in danger or if killing her would release some horror that would terrorize Varonat. Too many things ran through the Corellian's mind as she just watched.

Their eyes finally met. Serina's expression softened, whether with pity or some misplaced affection; it was hard to tell. But Allyson's gaze held no warmth in return, only ice. Whatever trace of sympathy Allyson once felt was gone. Serina had kept pushing, prodding at the one thing Allyson had warned her to leave untouched. But instead of backing down, the Sithling had treated it like a challenge.

Now, she was about to learn what it meant to earn the full ire of the Corellian.

Allyson brought her hand to her ear the moment that Serina had crossed the threshold of the office. <Keep an eye on her, and ensure she leaves without causing any problems. Let her leave; I'll deal with her my own way.>

The radio chirped back with several responses, all meaning the same thing. Despite Allyson's desire to put her down, Serina was allowed to leave for now. What was important was that Calis' blood was not on Madelyn's - at least Allyson was able to spare her the problems that would have followed.

Allyson turned, her gaze settling on Madelyn. Even with her composure intact, the cracks were subtle but real. Whatever Serina had said, it had cut deep. Allyson's expression softened, instinctively wanting to reach for her, ground her, and ensure she was still whole.

But not yet. Not with eyes still watching.

Their sanctuary, the secret world they'd built, quiet and untouched, had to stay that way. Serina Calis was already proof of what happened when anyone came too close.

And she would be dealt with accordingly.

Erased, forgotten. Just another shadow plucked from the galaxy, gone before anyone remembered her name.

Allyson stepped out of the nullification bubble and exhaled slowly, the Force slipping back into her like breath after drowning. The faint hum of security systems flickered across her senses, each feed alive momentarily before she silenced them. One by one, the surveillance went dark.

The room stilled. Allyson moved without sound to Madelyn and pulled her into a firm, protective embrace.

"She's gone," Allyson whispered, voice low against her ear. "I'll handle it quietly, my way. I won't let her get close to you again."

She leaned back just enough to brush a tender kiss on the corner of Madelyn's lips.

"She'll vanish…just another soul swallowed by the shadows."

 

[Madelyn Lowe]

Outside the penthouse office, the storm had finally rolled in, blocking the last of the fading light and smothering the city below in a deluge of monsoon rains. With them came forks of lightning that reached like fingers from the walls of cloud. Even through the insulated glass, the heavy boom of thunder could be heard, and the closer strikes shook the polished floor beneath their feet.

Serina Calis walked out without another word, reclaiming the silence she had weaponised in the opening of their meeting. She had been beaten, spat on, cut and nearly killed, but somehow it still felt like Madelyn's loss. Serina Calis had struggled her way to standing, and walked out with her head held high. She hadn't even lifted a finger against Madelyn, and despite that, or maybe because of it, Serina had lived to plot another day. The whole thing disgusted her.

Madelyn knew Allyson had good reason to intervene. As her temperature cooled and the rage bubbling in her gut eased a little, she could see that. But that didn't stop her from wishing she had killed the girl when she'd had the chance. Maybe seeing Serina drown in her own blood would have made up for the embarassment this meeting had been. Madelyn tried to hold on to some of that defiance. She had been so easily goaded, so threatened by what Serina represented, and the vulnerability that Madelyn didn't know how to account for. What could she do but act, when the life she had built was so directly threatened? What could she do but react on instinct when it was Allyson's life on the line too?

Madelyn pinched the bridge of her nose and leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window, a few paces from the smear where she had smashed Serina's head against the glass. What a mess she had created. Not just for herself, but for Allyson too. She had intended the day to be a lesson, an opportunity to put the problem of Calis behind them. Instead, she could have only made it worse. Even Madelyn knew enough about Serina to realise that the evening's events would only embolden her, providing a sick sort of justification to her games.

Fine then, let them be enemies. When the time came, she would be prepared. She would crush Serina under her boot. The girl would fall beneath her, and she would never interfere with Madelyn's life again.

The moment the sound of Serina's footsteps had faded down the hall, Madelyn bent over double, two clenched fists pressing against her forehead as she let out a frustrated scream, her teeth clenched. Allyson was circling the room, doing something with the cameras, the sensors. Madelyn was barely aware of it. Teeth still gritted she grabbed the half empty wine bottle and hurled it at the wall, causing it to shatter in a spray of deep purple liquid. She stared at the droplets a moment before turning away, shaking her head. Despite Madelyn's attempts to hold on to her anger, she felt it giving way to hopelessness. Her throat was tight, and she made it about halfway across the room to Allyson before her knees gave way and she slid to the floor.

"She's gone,"

"I'll handle it quietly, my way. I won't let her get close to you again."

"She'll vanish…just another soul swallowed by the shadows."

Madelyn nodded, but she was unconvinced.

"I think I might have spoiled our best chance. I'm sorry."

Madelyn felt Allyson's arms wrap around her, tenderness dulling the hollow ache in her chest. Strangely, it caused her to wonder if that was what caused Serina to act the way she did. It must be awful, thought Madelyn, to be an empty, dead thing, craving the warmth of others but unable to resist breaking them.

Serina had left unbroken, but she had also left alone.

Madelyn didn't want to think about Serina. She leaned into Allyson instead, protesting the plotting the talk of weakness and corruption, by returning the soft brush of Allyson's lips, and surrendering herself to her embrace, letting the fear and the hurt wash out of her. Her muscles went limp. If Allyson recognised the strangled mewling sound right away, Madelyn didn't know, but the tears and the wracking sobs that followed were unmistakable. She cried quick, hard, and ugly, face pressed into Allyson's shoulder as her body trembled with emotion she was so used to keeping locked away. Grief of all kinds poured from her, starting with the failures of the evening and spiralling out to her empty life, her losses and the dark future. There was only one spot of brightness, a light that lead her to pull her head up after only a minute or two, wiping the snot from her nose and swiping at her reddened eyes. She kissed Allyson in silent thanks.

"It's late." said Madelyn quietly. "Let's go home."

Allyson Locke | Darth Virelia ​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Maybe I need to do Saijo 2."

Tag - Madelyn Lowe Allyson Locke


The rain fell like judgment.

By the time Serina reached the outer steps of the Ministry's vast administrative palace, the downpour had become a deluge. It washed over the marble facade in great sheets, hammering the stone streets of Tropis and silencing the neon din of its nightlife. The city, normally a chorus of voices and soft industrial hum, had gone quiet beneath the monsoon sky—as if it, too, had borne witness to something unspeakable behind those sealed doors.

Her boots struck the pavement with muted force, each step steady and unbroken. The wound at her neck had slowed, now diluted and indistinguishable from the water soaking her hair and shoulders. Blood and rain ran together into the high collar of her coat, disappearing against the dark fabric.

She did not rush.

There was no reason to.

She passed under archways and between flickering lampposts, their light distorted by the cascading water. No one stopped her. The streets were empty, cleared for the storm, or perhaps for her. There were eyes on her—of that she was certain—but none dared approach. Her security detail lingered at a distance, uncertain whether she wanted to be escorted or abandoned.

She wanted both.

Above her, the statue of Allyson Locke still stood illuminated in white-gold light, made regal by the rain that coursed over its carved features. Serina paused beneath it. Just for a breath.

She looked up.

The face was idealized. Heroic. A vision of something that could be trusted, followed, adored.

And, Serina realized, something Madelyn would kill for.

Lightning cracked overhead, and in the flash, she caught her own reflection in the puddle pooling at the base of the statue—a blurred figure of shadow and blood and ruin, cast beneath the marble pedestal of someone who had already won the war for hearts.

She looked down at that reflection.

She didn't recognize it.

Her fingers, trembling faintly, rose to her cheek. The spit had washed away. The blood had been claimed by the rain. All that remained was the sting. Not physical. Existential.

She had been right. She had dominated the encounter. She had pulled Madelyn Lowe apart without ever lifting her hand. She had won.

And yet.

There was no satisfaction. No triumph. Only a hollowness deeper than the throat of space. A cold, aching quiet where vindication should have lived.

Because somewhere in that room, something had looked back at her.

Not Madelyn.

Not even Allyson.

Herself.

And for a brief, terrifying moment, Serina had seen what she might become—what she already was—through their eyes. Not the shaper of empire. Not the harbinger of reform.

But a wound.

A void that dressed itself in vision and called it order.

She moved on.

The shuttle bay was several blocks away, and she chose not to call it forward. She needed the walk. Needed the penance. With each step, the city blurred further around her. The storm swallowed sound. Her body throbbed with fatigue and suppressed adrenaline, the aftermath of being cut off from the Force still dragging behind her like a phantom limb.

She would not let it show. Not here. Not ever again.

Even alone, her spine stayed straight, her steps composed. She was still a Governor. Still a power in the Empire. Still the woman who had walked into the lair of a serpent and made it coil back into the shadows.

But she felt the cold now.

And not just on her skin.

She felt it inside.

Somewhere beneath her ribs, where a heart should have been, the pain was worse now. The ysalamir had been removed, but the absence it created lingered, like air not yet drawn. Her limbs obeyed her. Her mind sharpened again. But that ache—the ache of being less than whole—clung to her like a second skin.

She had no one to tell.

She had no one at all.

There was no one waiting in her shuttle. No lover to wrap arms around her and say, You're still here. No loyal confidant to hand her a datapad and ask how she would like to retaliate. There was only the echo of her own breathing and the slow patter of water pooling at the entrance ramp as she stepped aboard.

She paused at the threshold. The scent of metal. Fuel. Recycled air.

Polis Massa. Home.

And it felt like a tomb.

Serina reached into her coat. Pulled free a small cloth and began wiping her face. Not the blood. Not the spit. That was already gone. But the expression. The softness that had flickered when she looked at Allyson. The weariness that had begun to show in the corners of her mouth. She scrubbed it all away until the face staring back at her in the ship's interior glass was clean again.

Untouched.

Unfeeling.

Unyielding.

She stepped out of her boots, water squelching softly against the deck. Then she peeled off the soaked coat, exposing the skin-tight weave beneath, still humming with weak electrical pulses as her body fought to stabilize itself.

She looked down at her bare hands.

They had been still the entire time.

She could have struck Madelyn. Crushed her against the glass. Broken the room in two. She could have destroyed her and dealt with the political fallout after.

But she hadn't.

Not because she was afraid.

Because she had never needed to.

She had held every card, every breath, every beat of Madelyn's spiraling unraveling. And she'd let it play out to its final note. She hadn't resisted the blade because she was weak.

She had allowed it because she was in control.

The political consequences would have been severe—too severe for her plans at this stage. The game required patience. Her influence was still rising, but it was not yet complete. She needed the Sith to see her not as a risk, but as an asset. As something too valuable to discard.

A dead Madelyn Lowe would not accomplish that.

But a broken one?

That would.

Serina moved to the command console. Her fingers danced across the interface, entering encrypted commands, rerouting her destination. She wasn't going back to Polis Massa just yet. There were people she needed to speak with. Quietly. Carefully. The shape of the Empire was shifting, and after tonight, her place in it had become far more... clarified.

A mirror had been placed before her.

And she had not turned away.

She had looked.

Serina Calis stood in the silence of her vessel, alone. And finally—finally—she let the grief crawl up from her spine and coil in her throat.

But it did not escape.

She buried it deep.

Buried it beneath the memory of Allyson's eyes, colder than she'd ever seen them.

Buried it beneath the echo of Madelyn's sobs, proof of how easily even the strongest broke when they loved something too much.

Buried it beneath the knowledge that one day—soon—she would not walk away from these confrontations.

She would stand victorious in them.

Completely.

Utterly.

Alone.