Tyrant Queen of Darkness
"Can I never catch a break?"
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Aiden Porte
The vaulted cellar beneath the estate dripped with condensation, beads of water racing down the carved pillars like nervous courtiers. Candles guttered in alcoves, throwing every shadow long and jagged, as though the walls themselves had teeth. Naboo was always a nice setting, especially when hidden.
She made them wait. Of course she did. A woman like her was a calendar event, not a guest.
When at last the door sighed open, Darth Virelia stepped into their little cavern theatre wrapped in the violet shimmer of her armor — Tyrant's Embrace, each plate glistening like it had been carved from midnight and welded together with prophecy. Six soft-burning lenses studied the room with slow indulgence, like a lover taking in a new conquest, violet glow trailing over every one of the gathered cutthroats, smugglers, and ladder-climbers who fancied themselves important. The way they shifted in their seats betrayed the truth. They were nervous. Hungry. Terrified.
"Please," she purred, voice lilting, distorted just enough by her mask to make the air between words vibrate. "Don't rise on my account. I wouldn't want you pulling a muscle for me. Unless, of course, it's the sort you're paid to pull." A low chuckle slid under the remark — half-mockery, half-invitation.
The crime boss at the center, a broad man with the look of a butcher's son who never outgrew his apron, cleared his throat. "You came alone?"
Virelia tilted her head, cape whispering as it swayed. "Does it look as though I require accompaniment?" A long pause. Then, teasingly: "Though I admit, I might need more muscle on my body."
A ripple of uneasy laughter went around the table. She let it hang, then moved closer, her boots striking the stone like a metronome of inevitability. Each step pulled the light toward her. Each step felt rehearsed, deliberate.
"I am here because you have something I want. And you — all of you — want something you can't have without me." She drew a lazy circle in the air with her gloved hand, as though sketching the entire room into her orbit. "Protection. Access. Power. The sort of things you whisper about after too much wine, or in the dark, when you think the walls won't gossip."
The butcher's son leaned forward, trying to recover his footing. "And what do you want, Lady…?"
Virelia stopped at the head of the table, the faint hiss of her respirator punctuating her silence. Then, with velvet suddenness, she set one hand on the table's edge and leaned down just far enough that her mask's glow filled his vision.
"My name," she said, almost tender, "is not important. What I want… is everything. But tonight, let's start smaller. Your ships. Your routes. Your loyalty. In return—" She straightened, a smile audible in her voice, "—you'll discover I'm far more generous than I look. Which is saying something, because I look magnificent."
The silence broke this time into laughter, real and uneasy both, as she claimed her seat like a queen descending to a throne that had been waiting for her all along.
