Private Clawed Interests

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival


The desert.

It murmured in the heat and hissed in the wind—centuries of bones ground to sand beneath a sky so wide it mocked all gods. In the distance, the twin suns hung low and spectral, bleeding pale light over the grave of suns past. Tatooine, barren and brazen, reeked of the forgotten and the desperate.

Perfect.

She moved like shadow through the sandstone alleys of Mos Ila, cloaked in nothing but darkness and desire. No guards. No escort. No fanfare. Only a mirage's grace and a killer's patience. The heat kissed her armored silhouette—Tyrant's Embrace—with dry reverence, and even the dust dared not cling to her violet-lit path. Her helmet was nowhere in sight. Tonight, her face was her weapon.

The locals didn't know who she was.
But they felt her.

Heads turned. Voices hushed. Every eye became averted instinct. Mothers pulled children from doorways. Drunks sobered. Even the lowliest pickpocket knew—this woman didn't belong to the world. She ruled in the space between them.

And yet… she did not strike.

Not yet.

Darth Virelia paused at the edge of a merchant's canopy, her fingers trailing across sun-bleached silks as if tasting the threads of fate itself. Her eyes—those bladed, neon amethysts—scanned the crowd without urgency. She wasn't hunting in the traditional sense.

No.

Reina was here. She could feel her—an old note in the Force, sharp and familiar, dulled only slightly by pain.

No matter how far the girl ran, she carried Virelia inside her now. A spark. A bruise.

And tonight, the desert would remember.

She entered a rundown cantina, all oil-lamps and smoke. It reeked of sweat and spice. Her presence did not disturb the patrons so much as smother them. Conversations choked off mid-sentence. Music faltered. Every eye drifted, then fell. One man spilled his drink without noticing. Another left his own game of sabacc still half-won.

Virelia did not look at them. She moved to the bar, leaned forward—slowly—and whispered something to the Twi'lek behind it.

A name.

A scar.

A scent she hadn't forgotten.

When she smiled, it wasn't for the barman. It was for Reina.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Tattooine
Tags: Darth Virelia


Something was wrong. Reina didn't know exactly what it was...but there was some kind of darkness on the wind. She only had her fears confirmed when Alexis had returned to the ship, talking about how there was some kind of strange woman who had walked through the town. The description Alexis gave only confirmed to Reina her fears...This wasn't going to go well. What reason could She have for being here, if it wasn't for Reina? Perhaps it was somewhat egotistical of Reina to assume that Serina was here for her...but she couldn't think of anything else this backwards planet had that the Sith would want. There was a small part of her that insisted they should escape. Alexis had nearly fixed the hyperdrive, they could just leave. But...the people could be in danger. Reina was already failing her duties as a Jedi by being stuck here...

"...I'm going to head out to town for a bit. I'll be back later. Send me a message when you're done."

"You sure Raini? Is this about our fight? I know you didn't mean it."

"No, no. I just...need some air. I'll be fine. Look, I'm leaving my lightsaber here."

The red-head plastered a fake smile across her face as she waved Pequod in front of her sister's eyes before chucking it onto one of the tables on the ship. She stepped out of the ship and slowly started to make her way through the town. In the past, she might have prepared to fight Serina...but there was too much of a chance for civilians to get hurt. Or for Serina to find someway to manipulate the public to help her, so that Reina would have to fight the innocent herself. And so she had left most of her weapons behind. Only being left with her blaster and her leg. It was going to be difficult. The choice she was potentially going to have to make.

Was it answers she was looking for? No. Reina had all the answers she needed now. She didn't need anything else from Serina. Not anymore. And so Reina steadied her breathing. Going off the lessons Valery had taught her to shield her mind. She wouldn't be able to protect everything from Serina, but Reina could focus on protecting all of the important things. Before she entered the cantina, Reina took off her commlink, throwing it down onto the ground before stomping her boot down atop of it. No way of letting Alexis know what was going on. By the time she knew something was wrong, whatever was about to happen would have happened. The red-head rested her hand atop of her blaster handle as she wandered into the cantina for a moment, letting her eyes travel until she focused on who she was looking for.

"...I should have known you'd be here."​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival



The scent hit her before the voice did.

Not sweat. Not dust.
Not the tang of cheap Tatooine liquor clinging to splintered mugs and broken men.

No. This was older. Deeper.

A quiet fury veiled behind restraint. The bitter sharpness of pride boiled down into resolve. The subtle, citrus-clean edge of desperation—fresh enough to hide behind but not so clever as to escape her.

Reina.

Virelia didn't turn immediately. She sipped the dregs of something warm and nameless, its taste irrelevant. It had been served in silence the moment she asked her question—no credits required, just the price of presence. Her lips lingered on the rim of the glass, smearing violet against the grainy ceramic. Slow. Measured. A gesture more ritual than indulgence.

"…I should have known you'd be here."

That voice. Still a bit too bright. Still hers.

Virelia smiled.

It was a small thing—barely there—but it curved like a blade drawn slowly free of its sheath. She rose from the stool with predatory grace, turning only once Reina had fully entered the light. No armor hissed. No weapons clanked. Even Tyrant's Embrace seemed to soften around her, reshaping into suggestion rather than declaration. A walking myth disguised as a woman.

"You did know," she murmured, voice like silk dragged across teeth. "But you came anyway."

She stepped forward—just once. Not enough to threaten, only to fill the space. To let the cantina remember its silence. The crowd behind them had become statues. A room of prisoners voluntarily holding their breath. Only the fans overhead moved, spinning lazily through the heavy air.

Reina looked older. Not in years. But in wear.

Virelia drank in the angles of her—the curve of the jaw that once clenched in defiance, the lines beneath the eyes carved by sleepless nights and impossible choices. The leg was still prosthetic, though new. The weapon—was gone.

Curious.

"You've shed some of your symbols," Virelia mused, circling half a step, her voice low and oddly reverent. "You've come dressed not to fight… but to surrender."

She said it without mockery. Without even heat. Just precision. Like an anatomist identifying organs.

But her eyes said something different.

They burned with recognition. Not pity. Not rage. Something far more intimate. The kind of memory that lingers on fingertips. A whispered promise never fulfilled.

"I wonder," she said, brushing a strand of her raven-dark hair behind one ear, "was it the guilt that brought you out tonight? Or the hope?"

No answer came. None was required. Reina's stance was steady, but the tension lived in her shoulder, her fingers, the subtle twitch of muscle near her jaw.

Virelia's gaze fell on Reina's hand, still near the blaster.

An offering.

Or a warning.

She stepped forward again.

This time, closer.

One pace. No more. Enough to share breath.

"You don't have to reach for it," she said softly, eyes flicking to the blaster. "I'm not here to take. Not yet."

The Force coiled around her like a velvet rope—simmering, restrained, crackling just beneath the skin. She did not press. Not yet. Let Reina step into the trap herself. Let her make the choice that would damn her.

It always worked better when they chose.

She smiled wider.

Then stepped back.

Not as retreat.

But as invitation.

"Walk with me," she said at last. "You've run so far, Reina. You deserve a moment to breathe."

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Tatooine
Tags: Darth Virelia

"Why I'm here isn't important for you to know. You don't need to know."

Reina said rather simply. There wasn't any sense of the friendliness that Reina used to have towards Serina. None of that misguided fondness. She knew not to let her guard down against the Sith. She had wasted enough of her energy on trying to believe in Serina now. That belief was gone, fully and utterly. It was exactly that lack of belief which was why Reina didn't come in lightsaber blazing. In the past, Reina would have believed that Serina wouldn't take advantage of the people around them and threaten them, but Reina knew the truth. Nothing was too much for Serina to get what she wanted. Reina knew, because that's what she had been like.

"Stay where you are."

As soon as Serina took a step forward, Reina's hand gripped around her blaster and silently pulling it from its holster. She wasn't going to fire off a blast right now, but it was more of a statement. That Reina wasn't just going to be passive to letting Serina into her personal space. Not anymore. Even now, Reina was shielding her mind as well as she could with the Force. Surrender was the wrong word to use. At least in Reina's eyes. It was more...of a sacrifice. Jedi were meant to sacrifice themselves. It was in the job description. Reina might have been a bad Jedi, but she wasn't going to risk the innocent people in the tavern getting hurt just because Reina kicked up a fuss.

"I'll walk with you. But only if you promise not to hurt any of the people here."

Maybe she was still a bit foolish. Believing that Serina wouldn't lie to Reina and actually make a promise. But it was what Reina needed to hear right now. It was why she was walking down this path of self-sacrifice in a way. The path of being a Jedi. She wasn't a proper Jedi. Nowhere near it. She didn't have the pacifistic tendencies, or the patience, but she was willing to go through pain for others. She could feel the Force curling around Serina either way. It was surreal to see how much more aware she was to all of this. Either way, she kept the Force flowing through herself, trying to keep herself focused. Reina wasn't going to let her guard down, no matter what.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival



The blaster made no sound as it left its holster, but the room shifted. Like prey sensing the presence of something that had moved too quickly. The bar's old ceiling fan creaked as if in protest, and the lights flickered once—not from power loss, but something subtler. Quieter. A shiver in the air.

Virelia stopped mid-step.

Not because of the weapon. Not because she felt threatened. But because she had already won.

She studied Reina's grip for a moment—steady, practiced. Not fearful. Not reckless. That was new. That was earned. She admired it the way a sculptor might admire a chisel mark on a statue once broken and now reassembled with imperfect hands.

There was no friendliness in Reina's voice. No warmth. Not even that aching residue of hope Virelia had once so delighted in scraping raw.

Good.

Hope was messy. Desperation was useful.

She did not press closer. Instead, she let the moment settle. Let the weight of restraint fold in on itself, like heat coiling back into embers. She could have crushed the weapon in Reina's hand from across the room, snapped the arm at the elbow, turned her own trigger into a betrayal. But that would miss the point.

She wanted this. The tension. The vigilance. The near-murderous silence bristling in Reina's muscles.

She had come for a fight. Just not the kind with weapons.

Virelia exhaled—not in exasperation, but amusement. And then she turned slightly, angling her body away. Not submission. Invitation. An elegant curve of posture, not unlike a dancer tracing the edge of a stage.

Reina's words still clung to the air.

"I'll walk with you. But only if you promise not to hurt any of the people here."

A childish request. Or a noble one.

Depending on how long you planned to live.

Virelia's smile was slow, indulgent. "Of course," she said gently, "You always did like rules, little shield."

She waited. Gave Reina time to process the non-answer. To interpret it. Every word Virelia gave her was a puzzle box—never locked, never open. Always waiting to be solved incorrectly.

Then she stepped toward the door, slow and graceful, letting the distance between them remain. She didn't need proximity to control. That was for amateurs and beasts.

Let Reina think she had earned this space.

Let her cling to it.

They emerged into the night air like ink spilled onto parchment. The sky had deepened to bruised violet, and the sands beyond the town shimmered beneath moonlight like glass dust. A few beggars had taken shelter beneath tarps in the alley. One whispered a prayer as Virelia passed. Another choked and turned away.

Still, she said nothing at first.

Let Reina simmer.

Let her reach the boiling point on her own.

Only when the sounds of the cantina had faded entirely behind them did Virelia break the silence, her tone soft and casual—like an old friend commenting on the weather.

"Did you know," she began, "the brain can't tell the difference between memory and imagination? To it, the past and the dream are identical."

She turned her head slightly, watching Reina from the corner of her eye. There was no cruelty there—just curiosity. The kind you gave to a fascinating specimen that had survived dissection and still tried to sing.

"The dreams about me…" Virelia continued, voice syrup-thick, "do you think they're memory?"

She left it hanging.

Not a taunt. Not an accusation. An echo. One Reina could try to ignore, but not forget. And certainly not stop from feeling.

They reached the outskirts of Mos Ila, where buildings fell away into low dunes. A breeze picked up, catching at the edges of Virelia's cloak. Her armor gleamed softly under the twin moons, the glyphs inlaid across its surface whispering in long-dead tongues. She looked at the desert like it was a lover she had once buried.

She tilted her head back, drinking in the stars.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Tatooine
Tags: Darth Virelia

She kept the blaster out. It was better to have people's attention on the weapon they could see, than the one they couldn't. Most people would focus on the blaster held out in the open, as opposed to anything that might be hidden in the shadows. That was the game that Serina liked to play. So it's why Reina kept herself alert for something hidden. Some kind of knife hidden, ready to stab her in the back. It was also why she wouldn't let Serina get access to her back, in the metaphorical sense of course.

Serina might have been giving Reina a puzzle box for the red-head to answer, more than likely to answer incorrectly, but Reina didn't even bother to try and open it. If it had been a physical box, Reina would have tossed it off to the side, into the trash where it would never be looked at again. Because she didn't care what Serina had to say. Not anymore.

As they left the cantina, and walked past the beggers, Reina threw what little credits she had brought with her towards them. She had left most of her belongings behind in the ship with her sister. A note. The note wouldn't be read until much later. And then they walked in silence. Even when Serina spoke up to break the silence, Reina kept her mouth shut. She didn't have a retort, or some form of spite to throw in Serina's direction. Reina had moved past from the days of wasting her breath on those who weren't worth it anymore. Those who would never be worth it.

Only when they reached the edge of Mos Ila did Reina finally talk. Whilst Serina's eyes were focused on the stars, Reina's eyes were just focused on the road ahead. Because that's what she did. It was better to look at the path set before you, the road and the choices you could make, than to look up at the stars. To look at what you couldn't reach. Instead you focus on what you can see. Not the future. Not the past. It was better to be focused on the present. Even now however, she kept her hand on the blaster. It wasn't something she'd put down. Not easily at least.

"It doesn't matter. What you say. What I think. None of it matters. So don't act like it does."

Gone were the days that she would have entertained some kind of philosophical talk. No. It was all a waste of time. Of energy. Reina refuted the idea of it. There were better things she could be wasting her energy on. She could have been wasting it on Coruscant. Yet alas she was stuck here. Stuck here with her sister. Well, stuck in this exact position with Serina of all people. She could have ran, but who knows who might have been caught in the crossfire? Reina wasn't willing to risk the innocents. Strangers or otherwise. The only person she would let be hurt is herself. Like always.​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival



The credits clinked into the sand behind them.

Virelia didn't look back. The beggars scrambled in silence, just out of reach of the light. It was a kind gesture, Reina's. Generous, even. A smaller version of the grander sacrifices the girl seemed so desperate to make of herself.

A kindness that never reached her own hands.

Virelia watched—head still tilted to the stars, eyes half-lidded as if the cosmos were whispering secrets into her ear.

And Reina? Reina stared at the road, the horizon—as if all her escape routes could be found just one step farther than the one she had taken.

"It doesn't matter. What you say. What I think. None of it matters. So don't act like it does."

The words fell between them like rusted coins dropped into a wishing well long run dry.

Virelia let them rest.

Not in silence—there was no need for theatrical pauses—but in that strange stillness that followed Reina wherever she went now. She was so careful not to hope. So determined to lack the feel. So loud in her refusal to be seen.

Virelia inhaled slowly, the scent of ozone and scorched sand thick in the air. The kind of night that left the lungs dry and the soul wanting.

"Do you know what I missed most about you?" she asked softly, her first line. "It was never the idealism. That was always going to die."

She turned fully now, facing Reina—just acknowledging. A monarch addressing a rival. Or a former lover observing how much colder the sun looked after the eclipse had passed.

Her violet eyes shimmered faintly in the dark.

"It was the way you used to lie to yourself," she continued, voice as gentle as breath. "You were beautiful when you believed it."

Truth dressed in affection. The kind that never needed agreement to be real.

The blaster remained in Reina's hand. Virelia's eyes never touched it. Not because it didn't matter—it did, symbolically—but because it was only a symptom. Not the illness.

She walked a slow semicircle around Reina—Simply… orbiting. A spiral of gravity. A study of tension. The Force trembled in her periphery like a held breath, but she did not reach for it.

There was no need.

She turned again toward the dunes. The sky was clearer now, less bruised. The stars blinked above like watchful insects, distant and unjudging.

"You think this ends with one of us in the dirt," she said, "but it doesn't."

Just inevitability, polished to perfection.

She looked over her shoulder, violet eyes reflecting twin pinpricks of moonlight. The wind tugged her cloak slightly, brushing it against her armor like a lover's hand reluctant to leave.

Just… contact.

She turned fully, her back now to the road ahead, to the illusion Reina clung to—the path, the now, the manageable present. Virelia faced her directly, eyes half-lidded in a look that was too calm to be mocking, too soft to be dismissed.

"You never understood that I don't destroy people," she said after a pause, almost wistful now. "I corrupt them."

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Tatooine
Tags: Darth Virelia

"Lies are pointless. Same with revenge. Vengeance."

Even as Serina's gaze turned towards Reina, the red-head didn't look away from the distance ahead of herself. A small sigh escaped her lips as Reina's expression seemed...peaceful wasn't exactly the right term to use, but accepting. Accepting of her fate. Of course, her view of her fate was going to be vastly different to Serina's...but that revelation would come later. Soon.

As Serina paced around Reina, her eyes still didn't move from where they were looking. There was nothing actually ahead of Reina, but she was imagining to herself. A life. What would have potentially happened if she had left the Jedi. If she had stayed with her sister. If she hadn't been lost at sea. Dozens of different scenarios rushed through her mind. The lives she'd never be able to experience. The lives that never had a chance of ever beginning in the first place. They were all dead.

"You're wrong. I didn't think this would end with one of us in the dirt. I can't beat you in a fight. I know that. And I know you won't kill me. You've said it yourself. You want to break me. Make me into the ideal you want."

And then she admitted it. That she corrupted. She didn't destroy. Which was fine by Reina. Destruction was her job. She destroyed the people who put the people she loved in danger. She destroyed those who she thought didn't deserve redemption. But the biggest thing of all...is that Reina destroyed herself. She knew it. She was far too destructive. She knew that what she was planning on doing was selfish. Not selfless like she wanted to believe. She wanted to go through self sacrifice for the gratification. To know that she had saved people...but in the end? It was going to be destruction all the same.

"But you've also been wrong about another thing Serina. You think I want to kill you. That I want revenge for what you've done to me. That I have some kind of...Blind Obsession with putting you into the ground. But I don't. Revenge is hollow. Pointless. If I truly wanted to kill you, I'd have brought my Lightsaber. I'd have brought some better form of weapon than this. No. The blaster isn't for you."

For a moment, Reina's voice seemed to crack. She knew she had no proper control over this situation. No way for her to get out of this without Serina getting what she wanted. And Reina never gave Serina what she wanted. She always had to be petty. Spiteful. Destroy herself before Serina could do it to her...and so Reina's grip around the blaster tightened as she took in a deep breath, a shaky breath and lifted the blaster.

She would not let Serina have her.

"It's for me."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival



The click of metal shifting beneath tension was a sacred sound.

The way a lock gives just before it breaks. Or a breath stutters before a sob. Virelia heard it with perfect clarity—of course she did. She heard it as if the blaster were raised to her temple. And in a way, it was.

Reina's voice cracked. But her will didn't.

Yet.

The girl's body was a storm held still. Fingers white around the grip. Back straight. Jaw clenched not with defiance, but acceptance. Fatigue. And in that fatigue, Virelia saw the whole shape of her: a heart worn out not by cruelty, but by its own endless struggle to remain pure in a world that rewarded nothing.

The Sith did not flinch. She didn't move to stop her—not yet. To act too soon would be to admit urgency. To show her hand.

So instead, she breathed.

Deep. Patient. Sympathetic.

And she stepped just one pace closer. Slow. Deliberate. Her voice came as the desert wind—soft, warm, and absolutely present.

"No," she said gently. "It's not."

Not for Reina. Not for the girl who gave too much to everyone but herself. Not for the one who still believed, deep down, that destroying herself was the only thing she could control. Not for her.

Not tonight.

Virelia's hands remained by her sides. Open. Not because she was harmless—she never was—but because she wanted Reina to feel it. The difference. The absence of violence. The promise of dominance without force.

"I would never have let anyone else say it to you," she murmured. "But you're right. You're very good at destroying things."

Her head tilted slightly. Not mockery. Study.

"You rip yourself apart far better than I ever could."

Quiet. Impossibly kind.

The words were tender. They stung because they were spoken without venom, like silk wrapping around barbed wire. Truth, but dressed in care. And Virelia meant it. In her own twisted, tragic way—she meant every word.

She took one more step.

Still slow. Still soft.

Now she was close enough that Reina could hear her breath. Smell the faint floral note of her perfume—rare, expensive, out of place in the desert. Out of place anywhere but on her.

"But you made one miscalculation," she said. "You assumed I wanted to break you just to make you mine."

The violet eyes caught moonlight again. Bright. Sharp. Endless.

"I never needed to," she whispered. "You've always been mine."

A reminder.

Her voice caressed it—low and sultry, but never licentious. This wasn't seduction. Not in the carnal sense. This was emotional erosion. Intimate, predatory mercy. Virelia could see the collapse hiding in Reina's shoulders. The tired ache pretending to be resolve.

She raised one hand—slowly, visibly. No tricks. No illusion. Just choice.

And with two fingers, she reached not for the blaster—but for Reina's wrist.

Just her wrist.

A touch so feather-light it could have been imagined.

But it was real. And it pulsed with the softest ripple of the Force—cool, not commanding. Grounding.

"I won't take it from you," she said quietly, no longer speaking in declarations. Just presence. "But you don't get to end this. Not like that. Not here. Not on a nameless patch of sand no one will remember."

Her words curled around Reina's ears like heat from a fire that would not let her freeze.

"You don't get to end your duty like this." she said finally. "Your friends still need you. They want you. Doing such a thing now is possibly the most self serving option."

There was no threat. No fire. Just her. Unshakable. Unbending. Unrelenting.

And still impossibly kind.

She didn't force the weapon down. She didn't speak again. She just stayed. Fingers touching skin. The Force touching the fragile edge of a soul too proud to cry for help.

She would wait.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Tatooine
Tags: Darth Virelia

As soon as Serina moved, Reina's finger curled around the trigger...and pulled. But nothing came out. Reina had expected to feel some kind of sharp pain in her chest. To feel some kind of pain, and then a sudden feeling of cold. But...she felt fine. The weapon hadn't went off. No matter how much Reina pulled the trigger. Nothing would come out of the pistol, as the redhead started to break down. Hyperventilating to herself as she kept pulling the trigger, jamming the barrel against herself in confusion.

------------

Meanwhile back on the ship on the other side of the settlement, Alexis twisted her hand back and forth examining the magazine of slugs she held between her fingers. The older redhead let out a sigh to herself, a tired smile flickering on her lips.

"It's a good thing I took these out of Raini's gun. With the mood she was in, she'd probably 'ave shot someone. She can get it back when she shows up."

With that, she threw herself down onto the pilot's chair of the ship and spun herself around in boredom. She hadn't made any attempt to get out of the ship. Alexis had no reason to, now that she had fixed the Hyperdrive. She was just waiting for Reina to get back so the pair could finally get out of this dirt rock of a planet...

------------

"No! No! Why do you have to be empty now?!"

The redhead was having a full break down. Especially as she felt Serina's fingers on her wrist. The ripple through the Force. It felt wrong. Tainted. Disgusting. She couldn't help herself. Reina was breaking down, piece by piece as she tried to pull her wrist away from Serina. Her plan to keep things within her own control, to take her matters into her own hands had failed her.

She couldn't help her friends. She had been stuck here. She wasn't sure what state Coruscant was in anymore. What state any of her friends were in. They could be dead. Or worse. And Reina was stuck here. Unable to do anything but falter. She couldn't take on Serina. She couldn't escape. All Reina could do was fall down to her knees. Serina was trying to be kind. It was all wrong. So wrong. Something was broken and Reina couldn't fix it. She couldn't solve it. She had just...failed. She stayed there, on her knees, staring down at her hands as the redhead shook. She had been broken.​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hello, Reina..."

Tags - Reina Daival



The sound of the dry trigger click was sharper than any blaster crack.

And it echoed.

Not through the air, but through her. Through Reina. Through the moment. Through something deeper than the Force—something raw and human. The collapse was silent at first. The kind of silence that screamed. That choked. That shattered without sound.

Virelia did not flinch.

She stood there, poised in perfect stillness, and watched—with that maddening, impossible serenity that made her seem like a monument rather than a woman. A monument carved for someone else's grief. And as Reina's legs gave way, as she fell into herself like a sun imploding under its own gravity, Virelia lowered with her—graceful, controlled, never flinching. She sank to one knee beside her.

She didn't take the gun. She didn't need to. It was already a ruin in Reina's trembling fingers. Just another relic of a plan that had failed.

Just another piece of herself she couldn't hold together.

Virelia's hand—still warm, still gentle—slid along Reina's shoulder, the palm pressing just enough to ground, to anchor. The contact was firm. Possessive. But never cruel. It wasn't force that kept Reina still.

It was gravity.

Her presence wrapped around the girl like a dark velvet ribbon. Protective. Enclosing. Unyielding.

"Reina," Virelia murmured, voice like a sigh through silk. "Please, never do that again."

She leaned closer. Not invading. Surrounding.

"You have so much on your shoulders, so much grief and pressure."

Her tone was kind. Devastatingly kind. The sort of kindness that a serpent might show as it wraps around your limbs, tight enough to hold—but soft enough to feel like safety.

She brushed a strand of Reina's hair away from her face. Tucked it behind her ear with the reverence of a lover and the precision of a queen adjusting her crown. The girl was still trembling. Still staring at her own hands like they were strangers to her.

"You were never meant to carry all this," Virelia said, not in pity, but in certainty. "The galaxy breaks the ones who try to fix it."

She leaned in until her lips nearly grazed Reina's temple—not quite a kiss. More like a promise. A whisper that wanted to be touched.

"You've been clawing through glass for so long… you don't even know what soft feels like anymore."

Another breath passed.

Not just between them—through them.

And then Virelia moved.

She rose—not abruptly, but slowly, like a tide drawing upward—and guided Reina with her. Her hand never left the girl's shoulder. She simply lifted, like a curtain from its mourning place.

Not because Reina wanted to stand. But because she could not be allowed to remain on her knees.

"You wanted to control the pain," Virelia whispered, as Reina staggered upright. "But pain is a liar. It tells you you're alone. It tells you you deserve it. That if you suffer just a little longer, it'll all make sense."

Her free hand came up, to cup Reina's cheek, her thumb tracing the salt left by tears. That gentle, unbearable touch of intimacy that felt earned, even when it hadn't been invited.

"I won't let you believe those lies anymore."

The Force moved between them—slow and deep. A tide pulling outward. Virelia didn't dominate Reina with safety. She offered it. Wrapped in silk. In warmth. In inevitability. Her darkness was not a void. It was a home. A waiting place. A velvet prison with open doors and soft pillows.

"I am always here for you Reina." she breathed, soft and low and infinitely kind. "I won't let you hate the parts that make you special, that make me want you. No matter how much you may hate me, no matter how many times you tell me no."

She leaned in, her voice now a breath against Reina's lips.

"I will never give up on you."

"And I will love those parts for you, until you can remember how."

Her hand fell to Reina's lower back—guiding, never forcing—as she turned them slowly, letting the night breeze sweep over their skin. Her cloak fluttered like wings.

"No more ruin, little shield," she murmured. "Only rest. Only warmth. Only chains that want you happy."