Private Beck and Call

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



The summons arrived not in the form of words, but through a presence.

It began as pressure in the air—subtle, oppressive, deliberate. Like the sensation one feels when being watched from a great height, though no eyes could be found. The academy was quiet that hour, its bloodstained stones simmering in their ancient heat, as if the very planet held its breath. Those who walked the halls felt the shift and gave it no voice, for all knew the gravity of her name now: Darth Virelia.

She had claimed the title in silence, not spectacle.

No proclamation. No ceremony.

Only the aftermath.

Her command carried without need for sound. No heralds. No scribes. The acolytes and masters alike had learned to read the signs: the sudden absence of a rival, the flicker in the dark, the way a name vanished from records as if it had never belonged to a living being. Those who mattered learned quickly.

And now one of them—Tavis Ordel—was summoned.

No one saw the figure approach. They only heard the footsteps as they echoed once down the academy's side corridor—once, but endlessly. Rhythmic. Measured. Sovereign. Every click of her taloned boots against obsidian was its own kind of omen. The thick silence of the academy parted before her, not with fear, but with anticipation.

The side training chamber was already waiting.

It had not been used in years. Carved into the side of the Academy's understructure, it was meant not for sparring, but for private instruction. No observation decks. No consoles. Only one ring—obsidian, ancient, and circular—embedded with faintly glowing runes. The Force was thick here, the kind that pooled in corners like blood left too long uncleaned.

Virelia stood at its center.

She did not wait like a master anticipating obedience, nor a beast awaiting prey. She waited like a sculptor—calm, calculating, serene in her cruelty.

The armor she wore—Tyrant's Embrace—shone faintly beneath the minimal lighting, refracting the glow of violet torches lining the walls. Her presence filled the room before she spoke a word. Her hood was raised, her mask affixed. No part of her flesh was visible, and yet she radiated sensual menace, elegance twisted into something divine and unbearable.

The six slanted violet eyes of her helm glowed with unblinking hunger.

Then, she moved—not forward, not back, but around. A slow, prowling circle inside the ring. Her cape drifted behind her like smoke. When she finally stopped, the central crystal in her breastplate gave a single pulse of amethyst light, like the slow heartbeat of some mechanical god.

She raised a hand. Taloned fingers flexed.

The door opened on its own.

And she waited again.

There was no greeting. No pleasantries. Only the summons—felt in the bones, not heard in the ears. And when Tavis arrived, she would not find a teacher.

She would find her reckoning.

Her voice, when it came, rolled like heat from sun-scorched stone.

"Enter."

It was not a request.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

"Chit." The curse was near inaudible as Tavis scowled at the extra line of ink that cut through her notes, her being mid line when the summons washed over her like a tidal wave.

The sensation was unfamiliar and yet dreadfully so, caressing the back of her skull in a way that left no doubt of its origin. Already, she could imagine the whispered voice lying quietly in her mind begin to rouse. She shuddered to imagine how it would feel like to one without mental defenses.

She squinted at the parchment before her, trying her damnedest to ignore the beckoning call and recall what she'd previously been writing. She was in the midst of an exam, after all. That had to take priority. For her cover, for her lodging. Always, would she be beholden to multiple masters. Yet the sensation was ever present, gnawing at her focus until the exam was less a question of finding the remaining answers herself and letting her gaze wander to the parchment around her. If she couldn't make it through, her fellow acolytes could at least get her started in the right direction, regardless of whether or not they were aware of the role they played.

Returning to her quarters with the exam's conclusion, a single sealed letter confirmed her suspicions. She somehow needed to look I to replacing the door's lock and there was no mistaking who the summoner was. Just as there was no question whether or not she could ignore the sensation entirely. A shudder ran down her spine as again she could imagine that voice in her head jostling, a reminder not to tary.

Leaving the study materials behind, with a resigned sigh she parted from the quarters, following the beacon to a chamber she hasn't visited before. The door opened before she had a chance to reach for it. Her boots almost seemed to move on their own when she was bade entry.

Taking in the armored figure before her, she raised the physical summons between two fingers. "You called."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



The air within the chamber did not merely shift with Tavis' entrance—it responded. The subtle distortion of power that had lingered in anticipation rippled, as if the room itself exhaled at her arrival. Every rune in the obsidian floor gave the faintest flicker—subtle, like something ancient recognizing prey.

Virelia did not move. Not yet.

Her gaze—six violet slits of eerie, inhuman symmetry—remained fixed on the girl with the quiet defiance. That voice, small and simple—You called—was bold in its restraint. But the Sith Lord did not acknowledge it with anger. She preferred silence to shallow praise. And what mattered was not what Tavis said aloud, but what moved behind her eyes.

"You came," Virelia said at last, her voice like silk catching on blades. She tilted her helm just slightly, enough to shift the shadows around her hood. "Good, it would of been such a shame..."

Another pause. Calculated. Languid. Lethal.

"You've begun to change."

The words came with a smooth inevitability, as if Virelia were not speaking of a choice but a chemical reaction—unstoppable, preordained.

"You walk more deliberately. You no longer flinch at being watched. You've stopped checking over your shoulder in the hallways. And you carry yourself like someone contemplating ownership of the world, rather than hiding from it."

Her taloned fingers curled, flexing at her sides, one claw dragging almost thoughtfully across the blackened edge of her breastplate. She took a step forward—measured, liquid, predatory. The segmented plates of her armor whispered against one another like scaled serpents nesting beneath her skin.

"Tell me, Tavis Ordel." Her tone dipped into something dangerously close to affectionate—just enough to unbalance the line between praise and provocation. "What did you learn... from the basin?"

Another step. She entered the ring now, standing fully in its circle of power. The door sealed behind Tavis with an audible hiss, though neither of them moved to acknowledge it.

"What remains of you after surrender?"

She circled now. Slowly. Always slowly. The cape behind her dragged faint trails of shadow across the runes, which pulsed faintly in reaction. Virelia's presence was not simply Force-wrought; it was ritualized—every movement an invocation, every silence a test.

"Did the dream make you weep?" she asked, voice lower now, velvet over bone. "Did it show you something you longed for? Or something you feared?"

Her voice shifted from side to side as she moved around Tavis, never staying behind or before her for long—always present, never touchable. Like the whisper that had begun nesting in Tavis' mind.

"And remember, obedience has its rewards, apprentice..."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

The brief glow of the runes gave Tavis pause. Was this another trap within architecture, meant to devour more of her? The avoly- no, apprentice, drew her boot over a section, with intent to break the circle. Her nose scrunched when doing so confirmed the runes were set into the floor. Unsurprising, though far from ideal.

A shiver ran down her spine as Virelia's voice trailed off. There was a part of her that heard the knife's edge in her words and promptly made plans to disappear. But they were long past that point. And the urge, while present, clung like a spider's web rather than a thick blanket. Present, but a nuisance more than anything. Ignorable.

Tavis' head cocked to the side as Virelia noted the ways she'd apparently changed. Some of it was true, she'd largely stopped looking over her shoulder or shy away from being observed. She was half tempted to point out exposure was also to thank. In the academy, the unknowns were lessening and so too was her fear of her lies being exposed. If the administration hadn't outed her yet, surely doing so now would only affect their reputation.

"And you're wearing armor, here of all places." The armor itself wasn't too out of the ordinary, but the helmet? That was different. It made her harder to read, harder to hear. Perhaps that was intentional, to make her pay extra attention to whatever Virelia had to say, to cling to every word, every movement, like there could be a puzzle hidden beneath the surface.

It was a testament to the changes she was put through that Tavis didn't flinch when the door slid closed or that her pulse didn't quicken in trepidation once Virelia began to circle her. Emerald eyes zeroed in on the faint pulses as the cloak drifted along runes, though she dared not move her head as it left her peripheral.

"There was nothing to weep for," she answered slowly, the words measured not out of a lie but in testing the answer for herself as she was saying it. "The basin, that ritual, revealed a weakness that shouldn't have been allowed to fester as long as it had." Like how she shouldn't have been overwhelmed by a touch, or so easily swayed by the idea of being held. No, if she were to become all Virelia said she'd mold her to be and more she'd have to learn to not be so affected by either. As for if that was a longing or fear specifically that she'd been plagued with, well, perhaps it was best not to unpack that.

A dark brow rose slowly. "What sort of rewards?" She wondered. And with it, a more pertinent question - What sort of punishments for disobedience?

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



The breath Virelia took was silent, but the air responded as if drawn to her lungs—heat thickening, tension rising. For a moment, she said nothing. Her six eyes regarded Tavis through the black mirror of her helm, each glowing facet reflecting a slightly different angle of the girl before her. Hunter's vision. God's vision. Architect's vision.

Then, slowly, she tilted her head—not like a human assessing another's answer, but like a serpent listening to the rhythm of prey's pulse.

"There was nothing to weep for," Virelia repeated, voice low and indulgent, as if savoring the flavor of the lie. "No ache for the dream? No trembling under the weight of your name? No hunger to be chosen again... and again... and again?"

She stepped forward.

Not in haste, but in inevitability.

The runes beneath her feet lit with subtle pulses—one, two, three—each echoing the slow rhythm of her breath. She moved like she was possessed by intention. And in truth, she was. She had long since burned away impulse. All that remained was will.

"Tavis," she said, softer now, drawing out the syllables as though testing them against her tongue. "You mistake me."

One gauntleted hand lifted, index and middle finger drifting through the air as if tracing the curvature of a thought unspoken.

"I am not disappointed that the basin hurt you. I wanted it to hurt you. That's the point of a crucible. But to insist you emerged untouched?" The fingers curled. "That's the last lie I will tolerate in this chamber."

She stopped again. Now close. So close.

A breath separated them—no more. Her voice dropped lower, lower still, until it was only for Tavis. A secret made heat.

"It is not weakness to long. It is weakness to pretend you don't."

The crystal embedded in her chestplate pulsed—once. The violet light of the room shifted with it. Briefly, every flickering torch flared a brighter hue, casting their shadows taller. Deeper. Her presence suffused the room like mist made from memory and command.

"And yes," Virelia whispered, "I wore this armor for you."

She lifted one clawed hand—just enough to let it hover near Tavis' shoulder. Not touching. Not yet. The threat was not in violence. It was in permission.

"I wanted you to see the shape of power. To know the weight of inevitability. And to realize, in your bones, how far you still are from earning it."

Then her hand dropped again. Her voice did not.

"You ask about rewards, apprentice?" Her head tilted again, but this time with amusement that brushed the edge of cruelty. "I offer many."

She stepped behind Tavis. Voice wrapping around her like silk soaked in wine.

"Knowledge... unbound by doctrine."

A slow circle.

"Power... divorced from chains."

Another.

"Permission... to shed the burden of your past self."

She was in front again. Always orbiting. Always returning.

"Touch, when you earn it. My hand on your shoulder. My voice in your thoughts. The kind of attention the galaxy never gave you until I decided you existed."

Then her voice dipped again, sudden and intimate.

"Devotion."

A beat passed. Two. Her six eyes locked on the girl beneath her influence.

"Not mine to you. Yours to me."

Her presence did not crush—it coiled. Seductive, precise, terrifying in its patience. She did not need to strike. She did not need to demand. Every word was a step down a slope that felt warm underfoot... until it dropped off into worship.

"And as for punishment?" she asked, the question rolling from her tongue like the memory of pleasure. "You should pray I never need to teach you that lesson."

Then she extended her arm. Fingers outstretched. The gesture, too, was a test.

"Prove yourself. Or kneel and beg for another chance."

Virelia did not wait for Tavis' answer.

The lesson had already begun.

Her arm, still extended, bent at the elbow with surgical grace as she turned her palm inward—facing herself. Then she clenched her hand into a fist.

The floor answered.

A tremor rippled outward from the center of the obsidian ring, low and rumbling like breath caught beneath the crust of a dying world. The runes flared—not violently, but deliberately. Each sigil igniting one by one, clockwise, in a rhythm that mirrored a heart not yet broken in. The temperature dropped. The torches sputtered. The Force itself recoiled for a moment… then twisted into something heavier.

"Lesson one," Virelia said, her voice now cool and sharp as the edge of a needle. "You cannot afford to posture. You will not survive by pretending."

She moved—not walked, moved—across the ring with a grace that should have belonged to a dancer but instead wore the skin of something predatory. Her taloned boots never scuffed the stone. Her cape never lagged. She was elegance made unnatural.

She raised her left hand. Two fingers extended. The Force cracked forward like a whip—not to harm, but to pressure. A sudden weight pressing down upon Tavis' shoulders, calibrated to the ounce. Enough to stagger her stance, to challenge her balance, but not to break her.

Not yet.

"Show me how strong you've become, not how strong you wish to appear."

Another step.

"Tell me," she continued, her voice vibrating with restrained power, "what you felt when I took your mind. Not what you thought. Not what you rationalized afterward. What did your instincts scream in that moment when your identity began to slip away?"

Her helm tilted just enough to bring the full, gleaming array of six violet eyes into view—no longer passive, but alive, hunting, hungry.

"Because if you cannot name your fear, you cannot command it."

She didn't wait for the answer this time either.

With a snap of her gauntleted fingers, the air shimmered—and a training saber leapt from the rack at the far wall, arcing through the air with precision to land at Tavis' feet. It hummed softly, inert for now, as if waiting to be justified.

"You will not leave this chamber until I see the shape of your power. I want to know what you've hidden, what you've repressed, what you loathe to admit lives inside you."

Her voice was low now, coaxing, smooth as sin.

"That anger. That shame. That memory you would carve from your skin if only you could find the blade. Give it to me. All of it. And if you do, if you truly show me what you are beneath your mask…"

A beat. Her hand hovered in the air—fingers outstretched again, though this time her palm pointed downward, toward the runes. They flickered in rhythm with her words.

"…then I will begin shaping you into something worthy of my time."

Her tone grew almost curious.

"Or will you flinch? Will you cower and feed me only fragments, as if I cannot already taste your potential bleeding from the cracks?"

"I do love the broken ones."

Another step forward—now only a breath's space between them again.

"Pick up the blade, Tavis. Show me whether you came here to learn… or to fail. Show me if there's anything left in you that dares to become mine."

The violet crystal in her breastplate pulsed again. Once.

The lesson had begun.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

"I think you and I have a different definition of what's worth weeping over." Tavis' brow furrowed, confusion claiming her countenance before she could school it to something neutral, controlled. The softness of Virelia's voice when she said her name - and it sounded different than when others had said it. More fitting, more correct. - left Tavis with half the mind to shrink away as if she were a child about to be scolded.

What lie had she told? What she was before, what she still was now, was weak. The basin had proven that. What else it'd done was fuzzy, dreamlike. To think too hard on it was to encourage some of that fuzz to return, something Tavis bat away with a shudder. "I didn't tell a lie there," she said quietly, almost anticipating retaliation.

The distance between them practically non-existent, Tavis could feel the heat crept in her face as Virelia's voice dropped. "It's also weakness to be ruled by longing, I think." It didn't escape her notice that the heat was significantly lessened when she wasn't actually face to face. A mask was nothing, could be anyone.

Tavis had to wonder if that was the real reason Virelia remained armored, and masked. She wasn't so bold as to think any longing was mutual (no, that thought would spell ruin quicker than any other). Rather, she wondered if the mask was a protection just as much as it was a symbol of power. If the abyss stared back, so too did the mirror.

It was almost a relief to be circled again. There was less expectation to respond, only listen. And the rewards mentioned, knowledge...power...touch... they all held their appeal. The voice in her head was still a cause of discomfort, a mistakenly invited guest in a noggin already at capacity. But when it had whispered, it was like a warm blanket, a guiding hand.

The mention of devotion and the beats of silenced that followed nearly saw the color return to her cheeks before clarification saw a return of the creases in her forehead. "How is that reward?"

Tavis dropped into a more mobile position when the tremors started, nearly bolting when the runes started glowing in earnest, kept in place when Virelia spoke once more. Was it just a lesson or actually a ritual? Or both? The sudden pressure on her shoulders caused her to whirl about, no longer at ease (or as at ease as she could be) with being circled.

"Like my skull was about to burst. Like I had to be anyone else than who I wa-am." Why the past tense? Surely she hadn't changed that much already. She'd been drowning in that basin and clung to what lifeboat she could find. The sweet relief of reframed memories hadn't just been due to their content but the respite they offered from having her very existence challenged. Nevermind the confusion. Nevermind the heavy sigh she'd still hear every now and then, so familiar yet unplaceable.

You're already in my head, the words just barely remained thoughts locked away by her teeth. What could I show you that you can't already access yourself? Was this a ploy for further surrender? A trick to get her to open the door to another ritual? The way the runes glew with each word would certainly support that theory.

Or, perhaps, there was something in her head that Virelia couldn't get into. Now wouldn't that be interesting.

She was too close to safely grab the weapon at her feet. Perhaps Serina expected her to call it to her hand like she'd seen others do before? She had done it before, in another role, but only under emergent circumstances. The same went for most of her experiences with the elusive Force. Always by instinct, never by design.

Instead, she wedged her arms between the two, seeking to physically push her instructor away. She made a point not to make any contact with her hands, especially not her palms, lest a vision of the armor in action or even worse, another attack on her identity, distract her. Avoid the color, stick to the metal. While hardly built for combat, the training she'd undergone at both academies ensured she wouldn't snap like a twig, even if the more physical classes saw the most of her ghost like tendencies. Ideally, the unexpected approach would also work in her favor.

Following the attempt to create an opening, her boot pushed the saber aside, with the goal being to keep her in the least compromising, most mobile position, to take up the weapon.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



Virelia did not resist the push.

Not because she could not—but because she wanted to feel it. That small surge of defiance. The tension of skin trying not to touch hers. The pressure of a student who still hadn't learned that force alone would never move her. Tavis' forearms met the armor of Tyrant's Embrace with an audible clang, and though the Sith Lord yielded a single half-step, it was as if she allowed it—like a queen humoring a child's tantrum.

The motion earned a sound from her. Not a growl. Not a hiss.

A laugh.

Low. Quiet. Perfectly sculpted.

"You think you can gain distance," she murmured, almost fond. "You still believe there is a safe space between us to retreat into. A pocket of air you can claim as your own."

She advanced.

Not rushed—reclaimed. The space Tavis had cleared was gone in less than a second. Virelia flowed forward like liquid heat, her six violet eyes glowing brighter, casting fractal shadows across the acolyte's face. Even now, even after the push, she did not raise her hand. She didn't need to.

"The moment you entered the ring, you belonged to me," she whispered. "Every breath, every tremor in your spine, every half-formed rebellion behind your eyes. All of it."

Her helm tilted down slightly, fixating on the acolyte's hands as they hovered close—but not touching. There was restraint there. Fear. And… desire.

"I see you still fear what will happen if you touch me." A pause. Then, lilting, dark: "You should."

The crystal in her chestplate pulsed again—thump. The runes along the ring responded, this time not just with light but with a faint vibration. Not enough to throw off footing—but enough to unsettle. To remind. This place listened to her.

"I could remake you with a kiss. With a whisper. And you know it."

And yet still, she didn't strike.

Instead, Virelia stepped sideways, circling again, not just physically—but emotionally. She stalked Tavis' psyche with every syllable, peeling back doubt and self-perception like layers of silk.

"You ask how devotion is a reward?" Her voice was velvet now, smoky and dark. "Because it frees you from choice. It removes the burden of indecision. It lets you serve, purely, perfectly, without the agony of wondering who you are supposed to become."

Another slow step.

"Do you know what freedom really feels like, Tavis?"

She stopped behind her this time.

"It feels like certainty. Like the silence in your mind when all other voices are gone but mine."

Her words trickled down Tavis' spine like warm wax.

"And you crave it. You wouldn't be here if you didn't. You would have run. Or failed to hear the summons. Or pretended you never felt the basin inside you. But you came."

Then, finally, the edge of her hand lifted.

And touched.

Just a fingertip.

It grazed the nape of Tavis' neck—not enough to hurt. Not enough to claim. Just enough to ignite. A single point of contact that crackled through the Force like a flint spark in dry grass. There was no pain. Just heat. A warmth that dared to become pleasure, promised bliss in surrender, laced with something much deeper:

Purpose.

"You are meant to be someone else. Something else. You just haven't let me finish carving you yet."

The pressure at her neck vanished as Virelia turned, her presence lingering like perfume. She didn't press. Not this time.

"Pick up the blade."

It was not a command. It was an invitation. And in her voice, honeyed ruin.

"Fight me, if you still think resistance is strength. Or fall to your knees, if you're ready for truth. But do not stand there trembling behind borrowed walls, believing they'll keep me out."

A pause.

Then, with licentious cruelty wrapped in velvet silk:

"They won't."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

Tavis couldn't help the bristle at the laugh, though she didn't expect much more. She'd take what ground she could get and found herself stumbling back when it was gone just as quickly. She expected retaliation, and was perplexed when that wasn't the case.

She hadn't feared touching Virelia before. In fact, she'd been the one to practically demand touching skin over glove. A part of her had to have wondered what would have happened had she not made that insistence - would she have been remotely as affected? It was too late to know now.

"I could remake you with a kiss. With a whisper. And you know it."

Somehow, she believed most of that.

There was a weight in her mind being peeled back and shifted around. It was a strange sensation, not painful but disconcerting, uncomfortable. Like a cup on the cusp of overflowing.

"Freedom from choice...and nothing to fall back on in the inevitable betrayal," it was as if she had to fight through a fog to keep the thoughts in order above the peeling of her psyche and the velveteen voice. Betrayal was a part of the Sith way. Adean had learned that quickly when she first joined the Sith. No matter how obedient she was, how much she could endear herself to another, surely it was coming.

The fingertip along her neck could've been a knife. Her shoulders drew back, sharp, somewhere between bracing against another surely more deadly touch and ensuring room for another. No, it was mostly the former, resolute in the understanding that whatever heat resonated from the gloved contact wasn't real.

Because if it was real, she was making an even bigger mistake.

Dropping to a knee, she pressed a palm to the ground, nearly jerking the limb just as quickly as contact was made as it surged with stimulus. It nearly burned to touch the runes that resonated beneath, visions flashing over her vision of what they'd done, what they'd witnessed.

The training blade still at her feet, Tavis instead reached for the real blade that had become a perpetual set piece on her belt, as much as she loathed it. She activated the hilt, its emitter facing straight down into the obsidian flooring, right into the center rune before drawing it back to capture more runes in its line of destruction. Tavis could feel her fingers threaten to begin shaking, fearing whatever repercussions she might've wrought on herself, but also knowing she wouldn't have forgiven herself for not at least trying (assuming she had any self left after this).

"If you're so intent on remaking me, do it. But save the rituals."

Returning the saber to her belt, she took up the training saber, limbs feeling light after what she'd just done, almost as if she'd been possessed by another.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



Virelia did not stop the ritual.

It stopped for her.

The moment the real saber pierced the runes, the entire ring shuddered—not with violence, but recognition. Sparks of violet energy surged upward, catching fire in the air with a hiss that did not scream pain, but praise. The glyphs did not crack. They yielded. They shimmered like lovers startled from slumber, flaring once, then subsiding with a low, harmonic hum. It wasn't a rejection.

It was submission.

And Virelia… laughed again.

But this time it was not cruel.

It was delighted.

"My beautiful, reckless little heretic," she murmured.

Her voice curled through the air like incense—warm, sweet, laced with something that made the lungs ache. She did not approach like a predator now. She glided. Each step forward dissolved the tension in the runes, the torches dimming in obedience. When she came to stand in front of the kneeling girl, she did not tower over her. She lowered herself, one knee kissing the floor of the ring.

The gleaming weight of Tyrant's Embrace knelt for no one.

But Virelia knelt for this.

"You chose to ruin the ritual."

Her fingers—those terrible, taloned things—did not reach for her weapon, nor raise in punishment. Instead, she lifted one gauntlet and gently, so gently, cradled Tavis' cheek.

"You defied the path I laid in stone. Cut through the legacy I placed beneath your feet. And yet, you picked up the training blade after."

A pause. A breath.

"That was not a rejection. That was an answer."

Her helm tilted, closer now. One could almost see her eyes beyond the violet glow—almost feel the heat of her mouth behind the mask. Her voice dropped to something lush and velvet and dangerous in how inviting it sounded.

"You didn't want the ritual."

She let the truth linger. Then leaned in slightly more, her voice a silk thread wound tight around the girl's spine.

"You wanted me."

Another breath—drawn this time not from lungs, but from the Force itself, as if she were inhaling the girl's doubt and exhaling command.

Virelia's other hand came up—not to strike, but to remove her helm.

Not all the way.

Just the hood, drawn back with one slow motion. Then the helm, loosened—not lifted, but shifted, revealing the smooth lower half of her face. Sculpted lips, drawn in the ghost of a smile, the faintest trace of warmth caught between dominion and affection.

She touched her forehead to Tavis'. Not harsh. Not ritualistic.

Human.

"I do not punish for defiance," she whispered. "I punish for cowardice. And you, my fractured, flickering flame—"

Her fingers trailed down the side of Tavis' face again, just enough pressure to let her feel the pads of her gloved fingers instead of the talons.

"—you are anything but a coward."

The ring around them quieted. The air grew warmer, not oppressive now, but close. The kind of heat that whispered, stay here. The torches flickered in softer hues. The violet haze receded, and for a moment, there was no Darth Virelia.

Only the woman who had chosen her.

"You fear betrayal. You should. The Sith will betray you the moment you hesitate. The galaxy will betray you the moment you show mercy. I will betray you the moment you bore me."

The words were cruel, but the voice was not.

"But until that day comes, I will see you."

Another stroke of her cheek, this time thumb brushing the bone just beneath her eye. A gesture more fitting for a lover than a master.

"I will train you. Break you, yes. Remake you. But not as they would. Not into some twisted copy of their ideals. No."

Her eyes glinted behind the half-drawn helm.

"I will make you into the only thing worth being in a galaxy this wretched—inevitable."

A beat.

Then her voice dipped, breath hot against her ear:

"And if you surrender to me… fully… if you give me everything—your fear, your shame, your name—I will give you something you've never had."

The fingers curled beneath Tavis' chin, tilting her face upward until their gazes met.

"Not safety. Not comfort."

Another lean in. A whisper shared across a breath.

"Certainty."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

This was it. There was no way she'd be getting out of the room intact, not after ruining the ritual that'd surely been meant to wipe away whatever part of her that still clung to autonomy. Either lose herself or lose her life...a truly Sith dilemma if ever there was one.

Her eyes squeezed shut as the figure approached, the adrenaline of the foolhardy decision and excitement of it actually seeming to work draining as the gravity of her choice was met with the gravity of Serina Calis. She could only hope that laugh had meant she'd earned a swift end.

She would've flinched away if not for the gentility of the hand on her cheek. Eyes snapped open, wide and wild of someone who expected one thing and received another, entirely uncertain if it was a ploy to make the repercussions all the more devastating. Or course, she didn't want the ritual. She hadn't known the replacement of identity would've been so literal. Or that saying no would've truly been an option.

Eyes narrowed just the slightest fraction at "You wanted me," the tiniest whisper of a thought suggesting she demand specification there. As a teacher, sure. But anything beyond that, anything more personal, toed and crosses the line of what was appropriate even if they were of about the same age. Virelia's words from before, "It is not weakness to long. It is weakness to pretend you don't," resurfaced with that notion. The thought lingered as the lower half of Virelia's face was revealed. Memories of the basin and it's conjured sensations, namely the phantom pressure against her lips saw her struggle to avert her gaze from the sculpted ones before her.

"I-" the uncertain beginnings of a refute died down as forehead met helm in a gesture that was easily the most vulnerable she'd seen from the Sith. She could feel a sting begin in her eyes as whispered words made declarations she well and truly didn't believe. If she was anything but a coward...explain the last several years of her life. Or how she still couldn't move even a book across a room without her life being threatened. Or-- She found herself leaning into the hand that trailed down her face, letting herself get swept up in it's comfort if only to avoid further overthinking.

It was all a lie, anyway. She knew that, logically. Hearing it from Virelia's own lips, that eventually whatever this was would end in betrayal, was almost a relief in how honest it was. Like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders with that acknowledgement, brushed aside by the thumb below her eye. The touch was just barely different from the previous ones mere moments ago and already Tavis was developing a preference.

When heat returned to Virelia's voice, she didn't feel as compelled to shy away. Her gaze that had shifted to the remaining half-drawn helm when the conversation has shifted to cowardice now slid back to those sculpted lips, as if each word was temptation anew. She was almost reluctant to obey when the fingers on her chin guided her face up.

"My name..."Her breath caught in her throat as the distance between them shrank once more, Tavis almost feeling the whispered promise brush against her cheeks. Tentatively, she rose a hand to push back Virelia's helm further, if only to actually look at her in the eyes.

"It was Adean Castor."

Somewhere, deep down and pushed aside, a part of her could only hope she wasn't made to immediately regret saying it aloud.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor



Virelia stilled.

Not like a predator halting its movement. Not like a beast reacting to sound. It was a sovereign stillness—total, absolute, as though the entire world had frozen around her in reverence of a single name spoken into the dark.

Adean Castor.

She did not speak.

She did not breathe.

Even the air seemed to hesitate, as if it knew what had just been given.

And then, slowly—reverently—her hand rose again. Not to strike. Not even to cradle. But to trace the space between them, just above Adean's brow, down her cheekbone, the lightest pass of knuckle to skin. The kind of gesture one reserved not for people, but relics. Sacred things.

"You said it aloud."

Her voice was velvet stretched over a knife—soft, but taut with intention.

"And you are still here."

The weight of the name was not lost on her. She rolled it across her tongue silently once, then again. Not to mock it. Not to own it—yet—but to understand it. To learn the shape of it. This was no alias. No mask. This was the blood-bound syllable that clung to the girl's soul like ivy to stone.

And she had offered it.

A tribute.

A key.

A consent.

"Adean Castor," she said again, now aloud, tasting it like a rite. "No more Tavis. No more masks. No more borrowed names and fading echoes. You gave me the truth."

Her fingers drifted to the edge of her helm once more.

And this time—she removed it.

Not slowly. Not dramatically.

Deliberately.

The hiss of release as the magnetic seal broke was quiet, but thunderous in the silence between them. She let the helm fall back into her palm and dropped it beside her onto the ring floor with a solid clink. Six violet eyes extinguished. And in their place—

Serina Calis.

Not a mask. Not a myth. A woman. And far more terrifying than the helm ever was.

Her face was beautiful, yes, but in the way fire was beautiful. Dangerous. Luminous. Sculpted from shadow and pride. Her skin bore a sheen that was neither sweat nor metal—a polished finish like marble warmed by proximity to lightning. Her violet eyes burned with quiet hunger. Not bestial. Not lustful. Something worse.

Possessive.

And she smiled.

Not a smirk. Not a leer. A smile.

And it was for her.

"For years, you've hidden it," she said, voice low, magnetic, wrapping itself around Adean's spine like a second, invisible spine. "You've bled to keep it safe. Twisted yourself around falsehoods, buried it beneath lies, wore other names like armor too heavy to bear. And now…"

She cupped her face fully now, both hands drawing in.

"…you place it in my hands."

It wasn't gloating. It was worship. But not of Adean.

Of the moment.

She leaned forward—forehead against forehead once more, but now skin to skin. No barrier. No helm. Nothing between them but breath and intent. And when she spoke, it wasn't loud. It was intimate.

"I will not make you regret it."

The vow was not gentle.

It was final.

"I will not erase you. I will not discard you. I will not leave you. I will claim you."

A pause.

"But you want that, don't you?"

Her eyes searched Adean's face—so close now that each breath she took stirred her hair. Her thumb traced the hollow beneath her jawline in a gesture that was equal parts comforting and territorial.

"You want someone to see you, even if it means being seen through. You want someone who won't shatter when you do, who won't retreat when your past claws its way back to the surface. Someone who'll still be here—right here—when the shame comes."

Her hand gripped firmer beneath her jaw.

"I am not afraid of your shame."

Another breath. Her nose brushed against the edge of Adean's. Her voice dipped again, like silk soaked in wine and ash.

"Give me the whole of you. Not the parts. Not the performative strength. All of it. Give me your spite. Your hunger. Your need. Your resentment. Give me your loyalty, and I will sculpt you into something the Sith will never dare betray."

She pulled back just enough to look into her eyes again, full gaze fixed, unflinching.

"I will brand my name into your victories. I will carve my presence into your failures. And when others speak of you, they will know—"

Her fingers laced through Adean's hair now, curling lightly at the base of her neck.

"—that you were mine first."

Then her hand fell away. And her voice sharpened just slightly—less indulgent, more commanding.

"But this is not the end of your offering. It is the beginning."

She stood again, drawing up to her full, terrible height. The armor shifted as she rose—less like plates sliding over flesh and more like something living, coiling around her to reassert her dominion.

"You have given me your name, Adean Castor."

Her voice rang now—not shouted, but resonant. The chamber itself seemed to respond to the syllables.

"And so I give you purpose."

A slow breath. Then, with no flourish, she extended a single finger and pointed to the ground at her feet.

"Kneel."

No seduction now.

No whisper.

Only the command.

"And mean it. Not as surrender. Not as defeat. But as your first act of power."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Because if you kneel to me willingly, you kneel to no one else."

Another pause. Her voice softened again.

"And I will be yours, in kind. Not your equal. Not your pet. But the force that shapes your future with intent instead of indifference."

She looked down at her, expression equal parts solemn and radiant.

"Choose, Adean. Kneel now, and I will give your name weight again. Or stand, and keep drifting toward the edge you've been dancing on your entire life."

She smiled again—beautiful, terrible, eternal.

"But you already know how that story ends."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

Tavis didn't know what she'd expected in giving that name. Well, no, she'd had a theory and admittedly a hope, bordering the edge of expectation given the lack of distance between the two of them. Perhaps the earlier declaration, the "I could remake you with a kiss. With a whisper. And you know it." had overtaken her judgement more than she'd realized.

It felt wrong to hear the name aloud in a voice other than her own. Though the name alone, she could probably get used to, especially from Serina's voice, the words that followed it lit a fuse of panic. No more Tavis? No more borrowed names? No, she needed those -

Her thoughts were momentarily placed aside a long with Virelia's helmet. She hadn't needed the reminder of the face under the helm in its entirety but she has no complaints. Not to that smile, not to that look in her eyes that promised possession, and certainly not to the hands that now shifted to cup both sides of her face.

Her eyes fluttered closed as their foreheads met - perhaps this would be it! - brow furrowing with the vow. It sounded legitimate, she wanted it to be legitimate, but could it really be trusted? Thirty seconds ago, Adean wasn't sure she cared. The conversation had already moved on to not being left behind, to being claimed.

"But you want that, don't you?"

"Gods, yes." The admission would've caught her by surprise with how brazen it was if it had not been on the forefront of her mind the majority of this interaction. And a good deal of the encounter before that. The continued description of being claimed would apparently mean meant less and less to Tavis, her trusting that they were all good things, save for those that seemed particularly invasive. Being not only seen but seen through, acknowledging shame, giving up all of her and not just pieces all tended the flames of anxiety, all temporarily abated by the tightened grip on her jaw and the fingers that carded through her hair.

And then the contact was gone and they were back to business. Before she knew it, she was the only one kneeling with the command to do so again mere feet forward. It would be so easy to do so and maybe then, she'd receive the affection she longed for. Besides, 'kneel once, kneel to no one else' sounded like a good deal.

Her lips pursed, thoughts interrupted by that name again. "And what if I don't want that name to have weight?" Rising to her feet, she lifted a hand as if to say 'this isn't me standing to reject your proposition' (and after all, her kneeling would hardly be as meaningful if she'd already been kneeling, just sliding forward).

"Adean was no one, even less so than before I started borrowing names. No one enough they weren't even included on the death toll from Panatha, I checked." Her family had been included in the deep recesses of names that had met annihilation. Adean hadn't even seen a missing person's report from her accidental departure to justify the non inclusion. "Tavis was someone - is someone still, technically." Though force help her if the original acolyte's family ever tried to visit.

"Why would I want to go back? And then what? Forsake whatever growth I've done as Tavis? Beg the academy's forgiveness for the deception? Bank on your generosity, strategy, verbal agreement - whatever you want to call it - should they choose to retaliate?" Adean could hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears, breath quickly becoming a hot commodity as it dawned on her just how big a mistake uttering that name had been. Tavis wasn't the only name in jeopardy with that admission, and far from the most deadly one should that secret leave the room. But also, she had a life as Tavis. Or at least the start of one, slowly but surely.

"Don't make me go back, please. I can't do it."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor


Virelia did not move as Adean spoke. She simply watched.

Not like a judge passing sentence, nor like a master awaiting obedience. No—this was something different. Something older. Something truer.

She watched the storm churn behind those eyes—the same storm she had seen building since their first meeting. Panic. Shame. Identity unraveling and recoiling, like a wounded thing refusing to die. That last plea—"Don't make me go back"—struck not pity into Virelia's chest, but something far more dangerous. Recognition.

When she finally stepped forward, her movements were silent, deliberate, calm—not to disarm, but to devour gently.

Her hand lifted again—not to strike or command, but to touch. Slowly, she brought her knuckles beneath Adean's chin and tilted her head up until their eyes met. She said nothing for a long moment. She let the girl's pulse thunder. Let her mind race. Let every imagined consequence of that name thunder through her chest.

And then, at last, her voice.

Quiet. Gentle.
Final.

"You may keep the lie."

Not cruelly. Not as insult. As permission.

"You never have to be her again," she said, and this time she was not indulgent or seductive—she was gentle, a rare and devastating shift. "You can keep your masks. Your names. Every face you've ever worn. Keep them all."

She let the words settle. Let them seep down through the cracks of resistance.

"Wear Tavis to the academy. Smile like her. Bleed like her. Let the world cling to the illusion if it makes you safer."

"But, you do not lie to your mistress."

A pause. Virelia's thumb brushed along the edge of Adean's jaw—not as a claim this time, but as a reminder.

"I will know the name you breathe when you're alone."

Her voice was lower now. Darker. Slower.

"I will know who wakes screaming. I will know who aches when no one is looking. I will know the shape of the girl who crawled out of a crater and decided she deserved to keep living when the galaxy had chosen to forget her."

Her other hand rose now, pressing palm to cheek—not with force, but with weight. Comforting. Anchoring.

"You don't have to go back. You don't have to stand in the ruins and beg the dead of the basin to notice. You don't even have to use the name, if it cuts you. But you gave it to me. That truth. That burden."

Another breath. Another step closer. Their foreheads nearly touched again.

"And I will never let it be discarded again."

She drew closer, voice nearly a whisper now, curling into Adean's ear with silken gravity.

"You will bring me truth, even if you keep it hidden from the rest."

Her hand slipped down, resting gently against Adean's shoulder. She didn't grip. Didn't push. She remained—solid, certain, unyielding in her patience.

"Let the others name you whatever they need to believe. But here, between us, in these circles and these rites, in these moments when your hands shake and your soul begs not to be alone…"

Her fingers brushed up the side of Adean's neck, slow and grounding.

"You will never be anything but mine to me."

She leaned back just enough to meet her gaze again. The smile she wore now was different than before. Still possessive. Still proud. But there was a softness—like an ember shielded by hands rather than stoked by wind.

"And you will rise from this. I do not want to miss you, leave you or discard you." A pause. "I want to corrupt you, shape you, break you, until you truly understand I never leave someone, that gives me everything."

She let that linger. Let it settle in the trembling air between them like ash after fire. Then, slowly, finally, she turned from Adean. Not in dismissal—but in invitation.

Her steps were quiet as she circled back to the center of the obsidian ring, helm still left behind on the floor where she had discarded it.

There, she extended a hand—palm up. Waiting. Open.

No command this time. No demand. Her voice was steady, cool, yet rich with unspoken hunger.

"Come willingly," she said. "Not because I asked. Not because you're afraid. But because you know what I can make of you."

Her voice dropped lower. Not quieter—heavier.

"Because you want it."

Another pause. Just long enough.

"And because it will feel so good to finally submit."

She held the silence. Let it stretch, let it breathe, let the power of it settle into the marrow of the moment.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

Her breath caught in her throat as a hand caught her chin, tilting it upwards for the second time that day. It wasn't much of a tilt, height being another thing they were quite similar in. Yet another indication that in another lifetime, under different circumstances, perhaps the terms of their meetings would be vastly different.

It occurred to her as she stared up with wide eyed terror that there was only one way to ensure her secret was safe. Her hand had drifted to her lightsaber once they were too close for visibility to work against her. The cool metal roused her from the thoughts of murder, just as much a wakeup call as the gentle words that reached her ears almost simultaneously.

Permission...What an odd thing to need for her own name. And yet had she had it not 30 seconds earlier, she would've knelt before Virelia the moment she'd received that command. Logically, distantly, she knew this 180 from breaking down her deception to allowing it to continue was playing further into Virelia's hands. Still, each caress of her chin, each grounding pressure on her neck, saw that at least in the moment she didn't care if she was being played.

Something in the back of her head twitched at the word 'mistress' brushed aside by the thumb on her jaw. Her reservations with that word could be tackled later, when she wasn't in the midst having her identity broken down and re-established. Had an embrace been offered, she would've sank into it willingly, offering no resistance to the sweet promises that washed over her ears or the grounding touches that eventually steadied her panicked heartbeat.

And then distance, not as cold as before. Also unlike previous exchanges, Adean didn't find herself scrambling to reclaim her thoughts or a semblance of dignity. Her legs moved on their own accord, uncontested as they approached the offered hand, though her brow furrowed at the notion of returning to the center of the circle. Was this another ritual? After she'd fought against the previous one? Yet Serina had yet to tell her a lie, at least one she could blatantly identify. And if the Sith's continual persual had told her anything, the interest was genuine.

Even if it wasn't the same level of interest Adean had.

Steeling the nerves that perked up as she approached the center of the ring, the nerves that shrank away from any commitment beyond the spur of the moment 'yes and,' for once it was her who closed the distance between the two. "Betrayal comes for us all. Like you said, it's what we do." Her hands shook as one hovered over the extended palm, the other rising for her to be the one to frame Serina's face this time. "But make me regret this, and I won't be the only ghost here. One way or another, I'll find a way."

She tried to let that linger, a callback to what Virelia had said shortly before returning to the center of the room. But that summoned fire would only last so long, especially when she was fully convinced submission would ended be so good.

Face softening, expression returning to more of a deer in headlights, she let that hovering hand descend, sliding into the offered palm. Almost subconsciously she found herself leaning forward, anticipating that standing on her own two feet would become a challenge.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"From where we last left off..."

Tags - Adean Castor


Virelia's fingers curled around Adean's the moment their hands met—slowly, purposefully. Not just a clasp. Not merely contact. Possession. Her palm was warm, unnervingly so, not from heat but from intention, from the gravity of her will made flesh. Her grip said what her voice did not:

You are mine. And I will not let you fall.

When Adean's hand rose to her cheek—tentative, reverent, almost daring—Virelia let her. She didn't flinch. She didn't smirk. She didn't even blink.

She tilted into it.

As if to say, yes, you may touch your fate.

The threat from Adean, soft as it was, hovered in the air between them like smoke from an extinguished match. "One way or another, I'll find a way," she'd said, fierce even in her trembling. The ghost of defiance. The ghost of the girl she used to be.

Virelia smiled. Not indulgently. Not cruelly. Proudly.

"Good," she murmured, voice velvet over stone. "I would rather see you haunted than hollow."

Her other hand rose—this time to cradle the one framing her face. She turned slightly, just enough to press a kiss to the center of Adean's palm. Deliberate. Intimate. Claiming. The contact was brief but searing, as if something unseen had passed between them in that moment—an invisible brand, not burned into flesh, but into the truth between them.

"And you're wrong," she said next, voice low, rich with restrained fire. "I told you betrayal comes for all, yes."

Then her gaze shifted—subtle, but sharp. Her six violet eyes narrowed, their gleam no longer soft, but dangerous with conviction.

"But I am not Sith."

The air changed when she said it. Not a flare of anger. Not a rejection of the title. It was colder than that. Quieter.

"I wear the mask when I must. I speak the words when the Order listens. But I will never say the last lines of their creed with honesty."

Her hands slid—one from palm to wrist, the other from cheek to jaw—as she stepped forward again, brushing her body close to Adean's with intimate proximity, without touching anything else at all. Her breath was a storm just barely restrained behind her lips. Her voice dropped to a whisper of silk and steel.

"Through victory, my chains are broken." She spoke the words not with reverence, but disgust—like they were a heresy against her truth.

"No."

"I love chains."

Her voice licked against Adean's skin now, close, hot, gentle in its ferocity.

"I do not break them. I do not free others. I wind them tighter. I gild them in devotion. I lace them with want so deep it becomes need—need so deep it becomes identity."

She leaned in—forehead to forehead again, just as before—but now her voice was a possession in itself.

"I do not seek freedom. I create gravity. I forge orbits. And I will wrap those chains around your throat so sweetly you'll thank me for the suffocation."

There was no cruelty in it. No sadism. Just certainty. Virelia was a truth, not a torment. A conclusion, not a question.

"And you will never be abandoned," she whispered. "Because I do not want what breaks free. I want what stays."

Her hand released Adean's jaw just long enough to trail down the line of her throat, to press lightly against her sternum, right over the fast-pounding heart she'd already claimed.

"I want what kneels and rises. What shudders and still returns. What fights—and chooses me anyway."

Then, gently—so gently it should not have felt as commanding as it did—she tugged Adean closer by the hand still laced in hers.

"No one else gets that name," she murmured. "Not Tavis. Not the academy. Not the Order. They can have the liar. The survivor. The girl in the graveyard."

Another heartbeat. Another breath.

"I get the truth."

The distance between them vanished.

Their foreheads pressed again, slower this time. Her breath ghosted over Adean's lips—but she didn't kiss her. Not yet. Not now. She withheld, and in that restraint was a deeper possession than touch.

"Do you..." she whispered, "Need some time?"