Private Cloaked Dealings

[Darth Virelia]

"In the cover of darkness."

Tags - Adriana Fortemps

The room was deliberately dark. Not pitch-black, but shadowed in the way that suggested choice rather than neglect. Curtains had been drawn against Fondor's skyline, and only a few dim wall sconces were left burning, their low amber glow catching on steel trim and the faint silver embroidery at the hem of her cloak. Darth Virelia sat without moving, a figure carved from patience and will, one gauntleted hand curled over the armrest of the chair.

The Senate house had given her a private backroom—discreet, barely furnished, and far removed from the echoing chambers where the rhetoric of politicians rose and fell in endless tides. A chamber meant for waiting, or perhaps for conspiracies. Fitting.

Virelia sipped once from the glass beside her, savoring the sharp mineral tang of Fondorian wine. It was not pleasure she sought in the drink, but rhythm—the measured cadence of control. Every small act was ritual, each gesture an anchor. Even here, among enemies cloaked in civility, she could remain the axis around which others turned.

Her intelligence web had brought her a name. Adriana Fortemps. Senator of the Galactic Alliance. Yet her agents whispered otherwise. The woman's habits aligned too closely with hidden movements in the Dark. Sith, they suspected.

Virelia did not know if the suspicion was truth, or merely wishful patterns stitched into shadows. But she would test it herself. If Fortemps was indeed of the Dark, then this meeting could become more than diplomacy. It could be the opening chord of an alliance—an understanding forged not in loyalty, but in recognition of strength.

The silence of the room pressed close, thick enough that Virelia could hear her own breathing, slow and steady behind the carved mask resting on the table before her. She did not wear the Tyrant's Embrace here. Fondor was no battlefield. Instead she was robed, hooded, her presence restrained but undeniable, coiled in the Force like a storm biding its time.

She leaned back, lips curving faintly as she considered the balance of risk. If Fortemps was Sith, she would already know the danger of revealing herself to one such as Virelia. If she was not, then tonight would either end in silence—or in ruin.

The latch of the door clicked, soft but distinct. Light from the corridor lanced across the floor, then died as the door shut again. A silhouette framed itself in the room, the Senator at last.

Virelia did not rise. She let the pause stretch, filled with shadow and expectation, until her voice uncoiled low and deliberate:

"Senator Fortemps. At last. Do sit. We have much to discuss… and much more to uncover."

 

[Adriana Fortemps]

// Aide Fortemps //
// Focus // Senatorial Residence // Darth Virelia //

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---

Yet another long dragged out day of bureaucracy and signing papers. Despite the shuffling of the Alliance in the face of new leadership and the Galactic Empire, there was no shortage of background legalities and information that need be tended and balanced. It had always been the Echani's specialty, of course, even in her past the woman had preferred the delicate balance of information to the blatancy of war.

Returning to the spotlight of the galaxy had been a necessary part of securing her future, and as the scales tipped in the Alliance, the benefits to pushing herself forwards were hard to deny. Relief barely justified her sore shoulders as she exit the turbo lift, ready for the day to end. At least no matter who won, a spot in the Alliance's cabinet would be guaranteed.

There was excitement in the air of the Galaxy, and Adriana could no longer sit on the sidelines.

Perhaps it was exhaustion from the day, or the fact she hadn't exercised her abilities in the force in many years, but a strange sensation brushed the spine of the Senator. If Adriana had been as powerful as her former life, then the woman might have been able to notice the signature suffocating her domicile.

A hand gently pulled open the door, throwing her bag full of datapads and ledgers to the side. Next she removed her jacket and heels, laying them softly at the entrance as she planned for some tea and a nice long shower.

But fate held other plans for the woman apparently.

Old sensations raged in her chest as the familiar feeling of darkness crawled over Adriana, the intoxication and fear that came with such energies infecting her. The senator's stomach twist as her eyes finally met the shadowed figure that took a seat across the room, yet from who words flowed like silk.

"Senator Fortemps. At last. Do sit. We have much to discuss… and much more to uncover."

The Echani's movements slowed as her eyes sharpening towards the figure, surveying the situation that unfolded before her. There was a confidence to the Sith in front of her, one that made everything uncertain. If she was an assassin, then presenting herself meant that it didn't matter if Adriana knew the strike was coming or not. Perhaps a rival politicians hired muscle, only here to intimidate and keep her away from the spotlight.

Sardonic humour attempted to cover Adriana's nervousness, the nature of the words lost as the Echani made her way to the chair.
Either way, there was no point in not playing along.

"You sit there enjoying my wine as I undress from a day of work, seems to me you've uncovered plenty." Sardonic humour attempted to cover Adriana's nervousness, the nature of the words lost as the Echani made her way to the chair. "You've caught me off-guard, I would have thought myself beneath the notice of your kind."

Pulling the chair out of the table, Adriana tried to look past the darkness and the hood to her opposite and find the face that lay behind them. In her years, the silver-haired woman had known many capable of exerting such strength in the force, but the girl that emanate them wasn't familiar to her.

"Far be it from me to deny one of a conversation, I suppose." Taking her seat, the Echani stayed wary of the movements from the girl across her. "What can the Senator of Froswythe do for you, my dear?"

 

[Darth Virelia]

"In the cover of darkness."

Tags - Adriana Fortemps

The darkness was content to breathe with her. She did not rush into words, nor did she bristle at the Senator's sardonic quip. Instead, Darth Virelia allowed silence to linger, a still pool into which Adriana's voice had fallen, leaving ripples that stretched far longer than they ought to. Only after that tension had pressed itself taut between them did the Sith incline her head slightly, hood shadowing the faintest curve of her lips.

"Your wine," she said at last, her tone soft and deliberate, "is surprisingly refined."

She let the words settle like smoke, heavy but intangible, offering nothing to grip. Her hand lifted briefly, the stem of the glass catching the amber light, before she placed it down without taking another sip.

"You wear exhaustion well, Senator." Virelia leaned back, her eyes never leaving Adriana's. "But you wear calculation better."

The compliment could have been genuine. Or it could have been a blade hidden in velvet, a probe at the Senator's defenses. Virelia's voice betrayed nothing, just a silken weight that might as well have been a whisper through the air.

Her gloved fingers traced the edge of the armrest, a small movement, deliberate enough to seem like punctuation. Then, again, silence. It pressed harder this time. Virelia studied the Echani across from her with patient gravity, violet eyes catching faint fire in the dim. She wanted Adriana to feel the scrutiny, the sensation of being measured, every line of her face compared against secrets still unseen.

"You know," Virelia finally continued, "very few in the Alliance notice the currents that truly move beneath the surface. Fewer still admit they can feel them." A pause, lips curving faintly. "But you… you sense them."

Simply observation, spoken with the same composure as one might remark on the weather. She folded her hands lightly in her lap, the gesture elegant, her posture unyielding.

"Names, titles, offices—these are convenient veils. Senator. Sith. Enemy. Ally." Her gaze narrowed by a fraction, though her voice remained smooth. "They mean little. What matters is what one does… once the veil is lifted."

Virelia let that statement hang between them like a suspended blade. She did not push further. Instead, she leaned back again, as though perfectly at ease in the room she had stolen, perfectly at ease in the presence of a wary Echani who was not used to being unsettled in her own domain.

For a long moment she said nothing, her expression unreadable. Then, quietly, almost warmly:

"Tell me, Adriana Fortemps… when last did you look beneath your own veil?"

The Sith's words landed like a question, but her tone was closer to an invitation. An open door, framed in shadows, waiting for the Senator to decide if she would step through.

 

[Adriana Fortemps]

// Aide Fortemps //
// Focus // Senatorial Residence // Darth Virelia //

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The Echani sat quietly as the woman across from her spoke, noting the tone that she spoke with. Not an assassin clearly, that much alone did something to relieve the senator's worries. Still, there was no guarantees that she was safe, whoever this was that sat across her knew more than she should.

The comment on the wine fell away to silence, a prodding at the security of her house failing that couldn't be addressed. The touch anxiety that the senator felt could be sensed, but there would be no acknowledgement of it across the woman's face. She knew better than to blink when death looked her way.

Even beneath the hood, Adriana could feel herself being observed by the Sith. She didn't shy away from the scrutinisation, instead Virelia would find a woman confident in her own skin and the masks that she herself wore.

"It seems you know me well, you have me at a disadvantage." All the prodding against the Echani's identity was clear. This woman knew who she truly was, the veil of a Senator being lifted delicately by the Sith's lithe fingers. "And yet, you say all this like the veil is ever intended to be lifted, like there is truly a face that lives behind them, yearning for light."

The senator of Froswythe reached to the table and took the bottle of wine from the centre. Adriana poured herself a glass, her eyes unbreaking from the shadow that covered her companions face.

"You mask yourself as well, dear." A small nod towards the helmet that lay in front of her. "Have you decided yet if it's more valuable than what lays beneath?"

A lithe hand raised the glass of wine to her dark lips, taking a small sip of the maroon liquid.

"Personally? My veils are many. I wonder how many you have seen through. None of them will get you to the woman that lies beneath, I assume that is why you've come to me directly." Setting down the glass, her fingers interlaced themselves calmly as the woman held herself tall. " So I'll ask you differently this time. What may I do for you?"

The context had been presented obviously this time, an acknowledgement of respect for the research her counterpart had done. Clearly there was little reason for Adriana to pretend she didn't understand, and so she would give her answers naked. Whatever the Sith wanted from this outcome, the senator hoped would come forward. The cloaked figure held all the cards, and hopefully she would tilt her hand if the Echani showed hers.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"In the cover of darkness."

Tags - Adriana Fortemps

The Sith did not smile, but something shifted in her bearing. A faint tilt of her head, a fraction more light catching on her eyes. It was the smallest sign of approval, the kind that could be mistaken for nothing at all. She allowed Adriana's words to breathe, to sharpen the air between them, before her own voice cut through again.

"You are correct," Virelia said, each word like a pin carefully placed upon a map. "I did not come here to strip veils away. Only to see if the woman behind them is aware that she wears them."

She lifted the mask from the table with one hand, considering it with idle elegance. Not donning it, not discarding it, merely holding it as one might a coin while deciding whether to gamble. "This," she gestured faintly, "is only armor. It tells others what they should believe of me. I choose when it speaks for me, and when it does not. That is the difference between us and the rest of the galaxy, Senator. We understand that masks are not prisons, but tools."

The mask was set down again with deliberate care. Her violet gaze returned, unbroken.

"You ask what you can do for me." The Sith's voice lowered, softer, yet it carried more weight for its quietness. "That is the wrong question. The right question is what we might do for one another."

She leaned forward slightly, the first true movement of engagement since Adriana had entered the room. Her presence seemed to fill the shadows around her, not oppressive, but undeniably commanding.

"The Alliance teeters. You know this. It wears the robes of strength, yet inside, it is brittle, straining to hold against the shifting gravity of the Empire. You are clever enough to profit from that fragility, clever enough to carve yourself a place in its marrow. But fragility does not last. The wheel turns. It will break, or it will bend."

A pause, her voice sharpening by a degree.

"I offer you a hand, Senator. Discreet, invisible, but steady. My networks, my resources, my reach. In return, I seek nothing so crude as your loyalty. Only your… perspective. A voice in the chambers that shapes how the Alliance bends. You stand where I cannot. You see doors that will never open to me. Together, those doors can be nudged in directions neither of us could move alone."

Virelia allowed silence again, letting the shape of the offer take root.

"You need not answer now," she said at last, though her eyes betrayed that she expected something more than silence. "But understand: I did not choose you at random. Many could have been tested. You are here because I see the iron behind your courtesy. A Senator, yes. But also something else. Something rarer."

Her tone softened again, dangerously close to intimate.

"So, Adriana Fortemps. Shall we continue to pretend at veils? Or shall we profit from knowing what we are?"

 

[Adriana Fortemps]

// Aide Fortemps //
// Focus // Senatorial Residence // Darth Virelia //

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The Echani bit the inside of her lip, an irritation dwelling within her. Adriana had thought she was simply dealing with an assassin or simple headed power hungry Sith. What annoyed her the most about her counterpart was the fact that she was beginning to impress the senator.

"You've snuck your way into my chambers easily enough, I'm surprised the Senate is safe from your grasps." The Senator leaned forward, her face drawing close to Virelia's. "But not if you have someone else doing the reaching, I suppose." Her lilac eyes looked away, considering what the Sith proposed.

The decline of the Alliance was hard to deny, everyday the Imperials pushed further into their territory. The leadership of both the New Jedi Order and the Senate was unclear, and every day the corner of the galaxy Adriana cut out for herself became smaller.

"It is rare to meet a fellow woman of refined taste, I suppose..." Lilac orbs returned to meet Virelia as the senator's pondering came to an end. "So be it, then, let me lift my mask, and hope you enjoy what lays beneath."

A finger lifted, aimed towards the bottle of Fondorian red as the Echani commanded it to refill the glasses of both women. It had been decades since she exerted control over the force, and yet the fluidity of the motion came back to the former Sith as readily as any skill.

"My name, as I assume you know, is Jorryn Fordyce." Her eyes sharpened as she looked back into Virelia's. "The Former Lord Inquisitor of the ninth Sith Empire until its collapse. I am no stranger to information, though I will admit that you are unfamiliar to me."

She examined the entirety of the Sith across from her, taking in the girl's form and comparing it to memory. The girl was young, presumably coming to dominance after Jorryn's exit. Tall as well, even seated Virelia stood near a head taller than her.

"If we are to be partners, then I should like to know who I am lying with." A smile took to the lips of the former Lord Inquisitor, toying at intimacy along with the Sith. "And that is what I seek if I am to help you, partnership. I am not some servant to be commanded or pet to answer to the sway of your hand."

The games of Sith dominance were familiar to Adriana, their obsession with power over one another etched into the body of the silver-haired woman. The woman across from her exerted a force that commanded, but Adriana had met with Emperors and Empresses before. She would bow no lower to this one than the ones that came before.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"In the cover of darkness."

Tags - Adriana Fortemps

The shadows around Virelia seemed to stir when the Echani spoke her true name. Not because the air moved, but because power did—slow, unseen, and intimate. The faintest smile curved her lips, a dangerous and knowing thing.

"So, Lord Inquisitor," she murmured, the syllables shaped like a caress. "I wondered which ghost would be bold enough to wear the skin of a senator."

Her voice softened further, tone sliding into something silken and heavy. She rose—not abruptly, but with the deliberate grace of a predator that knows it cannot be denied. Every motion was precise, fluid, as she stepped from shadow into the low amber light. The contrast revealed the gleam of her eyes—amethyst and molten—and the faint, predatory curl of her mouth.

"Jorryn Fordyce," Virelia continued, tasting the name like fine spice. "You mistake me, my dear. I have no wish to make you a servant." She stopped at the table's edge, one gloved hand resting on its surface, the other trailing idly along the rim of her untouched glass. "I sometimes prefer equals. Dangerous equals. Those who understand that power shared is not diminished, but multiplied."

Her gaze lowered briefly to the senator's glass, then back up. "Though I confess… I rarely meet equals who speak my language so fluently."

There was a warmth beneath her words now—an undercurrent of admiration, or perhaps temptation. The air thickened as her presence deepened, not through overt threat, but through proximity. The Force itself seemed to bend toward her voice.

"You ask who I am." She leaned closer, enough that her breath almost touched Jorryn's skin. "I am Darth Virelia. Some call me an Exile, others the Lady of the Dark Court. But titles are like masks, as we've both said. Beneath them—" she let her voice drop to a whisper "—I am hunger given reason."

Virelia circled the table slowly, the motion unhurried, conversational, yet unmistakably claiming the room. "I build empires from what others abandon. I make the broken useful. I make the lost inevitable."

When she reached Jorryn's side, she did not touch her—but the nearness itself was a kind of touch. "Partnership," she echoed, her tone almost teasing now. "That is precisely what I offer."

Her eyes lingered, violet bright in the half-dark. "You have seen empires die. You have seen Sith devour one another until only ash remained. You know, better than most, that what endures is not power taken, but power shared in sin."

Her words came slower, heavier. "Two blades drawn in parallel, not crossed. Two predators who understand that dominance can be... pleasurable when mutual."

Her hand finally lifted—hovering just beside Jorryn's cheek, not touching, but close enough to feel the warmth between them. "Tell me," she breathed, "does the thought of that not stir the part of you that the Senate's lights could never smother?"

 

[Adriana Fortemps]

// Aide Fortemps //
// Focus // Senatorial Residence // Darth Virelia //

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The breath of the Sith across the table hung low in the room, saturating the air like a thick fog. Perhaps a trick of the force, or something within the Echani's drink. No matter what the truth of the matter was, the Echani's face remained numb to the sensation. As the shadows danced to the tune of Virelia's voice, Jorryn alone sat like a stone against the current.

"The Senate has no use for ghosts, the shambling of their bodies alone guide's its dance." For all the bodies of the Senate chamber, many were content to fade into the background. But the truth of the matter was that no matter how insignificant and vacuous their power, they were tools that could be shaped and played to the tune of a speech. The power that lay in their influence answering to whomsoever gave them the most attention. "Flesh is made to be worn and discarded, one day too this suit of meat shall be ill-fitting for me. But for now, to lead the waltz is all that I crave."

The expression remained stoic as the Sith spoke of partnership, of mutual benefit and the ways that they may serve one another. The words caressed the Echani's ears softly, though their intent deafened upon them. Too often she had worked with Sith only for the delicate balance of friendship to stagnate and decay such benevolence.

"I am no such fool to be convinced that power had ever been intended to share, it is a chain just like any other, wrapped loosely around our throats." Passion took the lilac eyes of the senator as she regarded the Sith, a hand lightly swirling the maroon liquid that lay in her cup. "What I seek in a partner is simply to give one another a hand on the leash, and know that to pull upon it would be to suffocate yourself."

The Echani sat unmoving, the smirk stained upon her lips unwavering as Virelia drew near enough to touch. A warmth radiated from the Sith as she drew close, but its malevolent nature raised the skin upon Jorryn as she drew closer. "Dominance and pleasure..." A wicked smile took the dark lips of the former Lord Inquisitor as she raised to stand near the Sith. "Ever the forte of the Sith. Yet remaining but simple tools in the arsenal of such creatures, an averseness to such sweetness and delicacy that open doors domination could never."

Their faces remained mere breaths away from one another, the Echani not shying away from the intimate distance.

"The only beings made to be dominated are those that do little to justify their existence in the galaxy, in that we may see one another truthfully." The difference in their stature was clear, and yet the Echani's pale gaze met her counterpart's violet orbs without flickering away once. "The Senate could never smother the parts of me that seek such joys, but the pleasure of having a hand around the neck of those that never realised it's grasp is far more exhilarating than any force a violent grip could muster."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"In the cover of darkness."

Tags - Adriana Fortemps

The room seemed to grow smaller around them. Shadows pooled closer to the pair, as if the air itself understood that something intimate and dangerous was unfolding — the slow, intelligent intertwining of two predators who recognized their own reflections.

Virelia's violet eyes half-lidded as she regarded the Echani, the faintest curve of her mouth betraying something between amusement and intrigue. She did not step back. Nor did she reach out. She let their closeness hang suspended — a knife's edge of control.

"How eloquently you describe the leash," she murmured, voice low and even, a scholar's tone made intimate by proximity. "A chain, yes… but you forget that chains can bind two throats as easily as one. In tension, they hold each other upright. In slackness, both fall."

Her words were slow, deliberate, woven with thought rather than impulse. There was no heat in them — only precision, and that made them all the more disarming.

"You call the flesh a suit, and you are right. It decays. It lies. But the mind that wears it — that is the true weapon. You and I both learned that long before the galaxy crowned us with titles. We do not crave to be obeyed, Jorryn Fordyce. We crave to be understood."

The Dark Jedi moved at last — not away, but in a subtle circle, forcing the Echani to turn slightly with her to maintain eye contact. Every motion was a lesson in patience. "Domination is such a crude word," Virelia continued softly. "It satisfies the unlearned because it is simple. A hand at the throat, a scream, a silence. But corruption…" she let the word linger, "…that is artistry. The true pleasure lies not in crushing a will, but in teaching it to crave your guidance."

Her gloved hand lifted, almost brushing Jorryn's shoulder, then withdrew before contact could be made — the denial itself more intimate than a touch.

"You are correct to mistrust partnership," Virelia went on. "Most Sith would promise union and deliver only servitude. But I offer alignment — our interests woven together, not fused. A dance, as you say. We pull the galaxy's strings in concert. And if one hand tightens too far…" Her eyes gleamed, predatory and bright, "…then we learn precisely how far the other will go to keep the tension alive."

For the first time, her tone dipped toward warmth. "I think you will find, Senator, that I prefer my equals strong, my playthings broken."

She turned slightly, walking past her, letting her voice trail over the Echani's shoulder. "You spoke of the waltz. Tell me, then — when the music ends, when the partners bow and the audience fades, who remains? The one who led?" A small pause. "Or the one who let herself be led — and made her believe she had won?"

She looked back, smiling faintly — an expression that did not reach her eyes, yet promised a hundred unspoken calculations behind it.

"I believe, Jorryn, that we could make the galaxy dance until its legs give out."