Private Come, Little Ghost...

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor


There was a silence beneath Korriban that did not belong to the natural world.

The kind of silence that breathes.

That listens.

The crypt had not been disturbed in centuries—not truly. Not since before the Academy rose above it like a crown of thorns. Records of its existence had been purged from the archives generations ago, not out of secrecy, but superstition. A chamber of stone and shadow sealed beneath blood and time, tucked deep into the roots of the jagged cliffs upon which Sith acolytes now killed and bled and dreamed of glory.

And now… the silence was broken.

A low hum reverberated through the air like a beast yawning in its slumber. The iron doors to the crypt had groaned open just hours ago, pulled by unseen hands. The hall beyond stretched like a throat into darkness—lined with faded murals, broken shrines, and cracked statues of forgotten lords whose names were now little more than ash in the wind.

At the heart of it stood Serina Calis.

She was perfectly still—so still she could have been mistaken for one of the statues. Clad in black robes cut to accentuate every curve and every knife-edge of her poise, she stood before a long-dead altar beneath a crumbling archway where ancient glyphs bled red with the light of her lantern. The only illumination came from that singular, floating orb of pale amber flame—a flickering sun suspended above her gloved palm, casting a seductive glow across the chamber. Her saber was at her hip, untouched. It was not power she needed to arm herself with today. It was presence.

The crypt was a theatre, and she was the stage, the performance, and the trap door all at once.

She waited alone, but she was never lonely.

The stone behind her pulsed faintly with life—not the Force, not exactly, but something older, deeper. Whispers curled through the corridors like incense, too faint to hear, too loud to ignore. The very air seemed to press against the skin with intimate intent. Every breath tasted of dust, rot, and distant longing.

Serina exhaled slowly, her lips curling into a faint, knowing smile.

She had left the summons in Tavis Ordel's quarters earlier that day—unsigned, save for a black wax seal bearing no sigil. Just a single, carefully inked line:

"Come beneath, little ghost. If you still wish to be seen."

The passage would be difficult to find for anyone else. And yet, Serina had no doubt Tavis would find her way here. Not because of desperation. Not even curiosity.

But because she needed to.

Serina knew the signs well. She had read it in the way Tavis recoiled from attention but leaned into power. In the way she watched rooms the way Serina herself used to—like an orphan watching for the next master, wondering whether to kneel or run.

And Serina had offered her a third option.

Now it was time to see if the girl had the nerve to take it.

A soft breeze stirred her cloak, though no air flowed in this far underground. She did not react. She didn't need to. She was already where she belonged.

She turned her head slightly toward the stone arch behind her, knowing Tavis would enter through it soon.

And when she did… she would not find a mentor.

She would find a mirror.

Serina was not here to teach. She was here to reveal.

A soft click echoed down the passage—the sound of careful footsteps against ancient stone. Her smile widened, just slightly. Not victorious. Not yet. But the moment a mouse entered the labyrinth, the game began.

She raised her hand, letting the lantern orb lift higher. Shadows danced along the ancient carvings—depictions of Sith long forgotten in poses of agony and ecstasy. Their stories were illegible, but Serina didn't need to read them. She understood them.

It was always the same. Want. Take. Break. Corrupt.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG:

Tavis wanted to ignore the summons.

After their first meeting, she had almost entertained trying to forget the name 'Serina Calis'. Almost. A part of her had been tempted by the idea of doing so, of never giving Calis the satisfaction of knowing that introduction had resonated with her target. Yet that meeting has drawn forth too much of herself for Adean to write it off as simply a chance encounter. And catching glimpses of the other Sith in more public arenas had told her the problem wasn't going to simply fade away into obscurity on its own.

Maybe I like being a ghost, she'd argued with herself, searching for reasons to turn the invitation on its head. I don't need to be seen.

Later on that morning, she noticed her name had been removed from a signup sheet for a specialized lesson. No, not removed, written over as if her borrowed name hadn't been there to begin with. She still attended the lesson, of course. No one batted an eye when the offending acolyte didn't show. One of his cohorts mentioned he'd seemed off after a meal. How very unfortunate for him.

It wasn't the first time such a thing had occurred. In the beginning, Adean didn't mind. It meant less work for her in a time when she was taking on entirely too much with her multitude of borrowed names. But more recently, and begrudgingly so, it was starting to wear on her. But that? That was a small matter. Surely, she could handle it herself, given time.

She tried to go to sleep that night, leaving the summons atop her waste bin. After some time lying there, she realized that she'd forgotten to take off her boots. Still, she lay there, convinced that had she gotten up, her legs would've moved on their own.

...​

'Beneath' was such an incredibly vague direction, one Adean would've been at a loss for had the summons come from any other individual. Despite only getting a glimpse of it, the image of hidden passageways had burned itself into her mind. Adean had tried to find that image again. She'd tried scouring the academy's network, even slipping onto a faculty-restricted terminal to try and locate Serina's devices and files remotely. She'd also looked at what hallways she could access, which ones were restricted, and just how stringent that restriction actually was. Needless to say, for one as ghostly as her, the restrictions didn't mean too terribly much.

The route she found that night wasn't by smarts or a map, but rather a feeling. In hindsight, had she been committed to ignoring the summons, she should've used that feeling to know exactly where not to go. Yet, the pathway called out to her like a siren's song. About midway through, some of the turns and corners breathed familiarity, echoes of what she managed to remember from the brief glimpse she'd gotten.

At the threshold of the crypt, Adean paused, recognizing it as a point of no return. She could still go back to bed, maybe even stop by the infirmary along the way to ensure some form of sleep would find her. And yet, she couldn't find it in her to turn back around. My room is compromised, she reasoned with herself. There's no telling what punishment I'd receive for ignoring a Governor's summons.

With a steeled gaze and tempered gate, Tavis stepped into the crypt. Her tunic was more form-fitting than the one she'd worn to their initial meeting, one more similar to the ones she'd use to parade under the guise of a Zambrano. The lightsaber she'd won out of desperation, not interest, hung at her side as if it were a badge meant to prove she was more than a spectre that clung to the coattails of others.

Emerald eyes, dark under the shadows of night, took in the orb-lit scenes as more light slowly shone down on them, a brow raising at their displays. "I sincerely hope this isn't a class on art theory," she said aloud, knowing full well that this meeting would be anything but, and yet refusing to acknowledge her theories on its purpose. Whatever was to transpire here, it wouldn't be by her instigating.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



The crypt responded to Tavis's voice with silence.

But it was not the passive kind.

It was watching her.

The moment she stepped past the threshold, the air changed. Heavier. Wetter. The stillness felt like breath held far too long. Not stagnant—expectant. The walls, carved with long-faded runes and reliefs of Sith lords in states of triumph and torment, seemed to press in slightly as if eager to see her reaction. To measure her. And far ahead, like a lighthouse in a sea of shadow, floated the only flame in the dark.

Serina Calis stood beneath it like a figure from myth—one caught mid-ascension, or perhaps mid-fall.

The floating orb of amber light hovered above her open palm, casting her in an impossible blend of warmth and menace. Her long, form-hugging robes shimmered subtly with every slow movement, the fabric as dark as the tomb around her and yet alive with red-silver thread that caught the flickering flame like veins beneath skin. Her hair was pinned back in a severe twist, emphasizing the exposed line of her throat and collarbone. Her saber remained untouched at her hip, an accessory, not a crutch.

She didn't smile at Tavis's jest.

Not right away.

The tension between them was thick, taut like a drawn bow. She waited, letting the humor twist into silence and settle at their feet like ash. Then—

"Art theory," Serina echoed, voice rich and unhurried, echoing subtly through the crypt. "No. That's for the naive. The weak. The kind who gaze at beauty and think it safe."

She let the orb rise higher now, slowly rotating above them both. As it did, it revealed more of the chamber. The obsidian basin. The six empty plinths. The carvings that now clearly depicted ancient rituals—Sith apprentices stripped bare and bound, not in chains, but in oaths. Scripts of power inked on their skin. Some wept. Others smiled.

"And you…" Her eyes swept over Tavis slowly. Meticulously. Taking in the more deliberate outfit, the blade at her side, the stance that didn't quite fit the ghost she'd met before.

"You came dressed as someone else tonight."

The words weren't accusatory. They weren't even suspicious. Just observant. A scalpel laid gently across the skin of illusion, not deep enough to cut. Not yet.

Serina stepped forward, boots barely making sound against the polished stone. She did not stalk, did not prowl. She glided—as if the crypt itself stepped aside for her. As if gravity bent for her poise.

"I thought you might not come," she admitted, her tone thoughtful. "But not because you lack courage."

Her head tilted, just a touch. A predator's curiosity.

"Because you're clever. Because you know I've already begun to peel at you. Strip away what the others don't even see. And that, my little ghost, is far more dangerous than any saber."

She circled her now, just once. A single orbit. Not invasive. Intimate.

"But you came anyway."

A faint smile—sharp and small—touched her lips as she returned to face Tavis, stopping only a foot away. Not too close. Not yet. But enough for her scent—spice, faint ozone, old paper—to linger just beyond breath.

"And you came changed."

The words coiled in the space between them, heavier than praise, sharper than critique. Serina's gaze didn't roam this time. It locked onto Tavis's eyes and stayed there, as if trying to excavate her soul through pure stillness.

"You asked me—last time—what came after interest."

She raised her hand.

The basin responded.

A low chime rang through the chamber—not mechanical, but felt in the bones. The pedestal before the basin shimmered, and suddenly a projection bloomed above it. A flickering image of Korriban's academy, but not as it existed now. Older. Cruder. Purer.

The image zoomed through walls and chambers—down, down, through collapsed tunnels and forbidden thresholds—until it reached the base of the academy's foundations. This crypt. Long before the academy swallowed it whole.

"Welcome to what remains of The Ashen Throne."

Serina turned back to face her, face now blank of seduction or warmth. All poise. All power.

"This crypt was once the seat of an alternate path. One not sanctioned by the Dark Council. One that operated in whispers and knives, not lightning and bellowing threats. A school beneath the school. A mirror in shadow. Here, they forged the ones who ruled those who ruled."

She stepped closer now, slow and unrelenting, her words quieter now.

"This is where Sith were taught to corrupt, not merely to conquer. Where masks were not worn to deceive, but to survive long enough to rule."

And now… only a breath apart.

"You belong here."

Her words struck like a pulse in the air.

"You don't need to kill ten students in a ring for someone to notice you. You already have them watching. You don't crave the crown. Not yet. But you are smart enough to build the neck that holds it."

Her gloved hand rose again, open-palmed.

"This is your chance. To learn the real game."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

The weight of the air around her would have been overwhelming had Adean not gone forward with the expectation of scrutiny. Even so, she was an overabundance of humidity away from being completely miserable once she crossed over the threshold. It'd be just her luck to look like a drowned rat, robes clinging and hair all over the place. Hardly the image she'd want to present.

Yet that would not be the case this time, at least not in this immediate procession. Robes loosely cinched about an already thin figure granted a silhouette to suggest athleticism more than support the real deal. The stiffened fabric of the outer robe added an extra layer of dimension with the way it pointed her shoulders. Dark gauze wrapped around her forearms and across the palms, leaving her fingers, which continued to look like they hadn't seen a day of hard labor, exposed. There was no added embroidery or embellishment to make the garments especially pop - she was still a nobody after all, with the funds to prove it. Just clean, fitted, functional. Hair that just barely caressed her shoulders was left down, save for the strands that lined her face, pulled back behind her to keep the rest of it back as well.

Her face remained a stone as Serina began to speak, eyes only briefly scanning over the carvings above, refusing to give the more shocking scenes a reaction. They might've held clues, things to expect from whatever the other woman was planning, or they might've been just set pieces to keep her on her toes. Either reason was perfectly valid, as were a collection of other reasons. Yet, Adean was resolute that so long as her nerve remained, she would not give Serina the satisfaction of catching her off guard any more than she could help.

"I'd be a fool to ignore the summons of a Governor," she answered with a cool neutrality, as if by acknowledging the more literal influence Serina held over her would deprive her of the other, more figurative and vastly more perplexing influence she had wrought. A part of her felt compelled to turn to watch as she was circled, yet that urge was overruled.

A single brow rose at the smile she was met with, feet remaining planted as the distance between the two shrank. It wasn't too close, not yet, and yet Adean found herself breathing lightly through her mouth more than her nose. Another precaution to avoid falling as hard as she did at their first meeting. "Have I?" She asked, even the level of which her voice rose to end in a question was carefully controlled. "Or have I merely woken up?"

It was much harder to measure her reaction to the projection. Secrets lined the walls, lost to time yet somehow rediscovered now in a pale imitation. She couldn't help but wonder if the entire projection was so incredibly detailed, or if it was designed only to reflect the specific path it displayed. Nevertheless, she wanted to see more.

As Serina spoke, Tavis couldn't help but catch the difference in tone from their previous exchange. Lacking in warmth even as the distance closed, her words were a strange contrast from the sweet promises she'd tempted Adean with before. No, more than tempted. Had she not looked at Adean with pity towards the end, she might've been swept up in Serina's machinations right then and there rather than looking to turn them on their heads.

Yet this felt more genuine, more real than anything that had been said before. Only a breath apart, Serina's alluring pull felt secondary to the story she wove. Tavis considered the hand before her, her own almost twitching to accept the offer. Yet she had committed to an image, to not getting swept up immediately in the other's gravity. Instead, her head tilted to the side, hand raising to her chin in a show of contemplation.

"Why do you always wear gloves?"

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



The question hung in the crypt like incense smoke—frivolous on the surface, light, unexpected.

But Serina did not flinch.

No sudden blink. No snort of derision. No amused glance to imply that the inquiry was beneath her, or ill-timed. Her hand remained suspended in the air, open and waiting, the firelight tracing the gleam of the leather against her skin. A pause followed, pregnant with intent. As if she were deciding whether Tavis's deflection was insolent, strategic… or just clever enough to entertain.

Then she lowered her hand—gracefully, deliberately—until her fingers came to rest against her own jawline, gloved fingertips ghosting the edge of her chin, lips, and cheek. The movement was sensual in the way a serpent coils around itself—not suggestive, but intimate. Contained.

"Because," she said at last, voice low and liquid, "some truths aren't meant to be touched directly."

Her eyes slid to meet Tavis's—not with heat this time, but with a cold kind of curiosity. Dissecting. Peering through. The kind of look given to someone who asked an unexpectedly correct question, like a codebreaker who'd stumbled upon the first glyph in a sequence that no one else could read.

"These gloves were made for me by a weaver of flesh and shadow," she continued, now speaking not to seduce, but to reveal. "An alchemist who understood that there are some hands not meant to hold, but to command. Some things the skin is too honest to touch."

Her hand fell back to her side, but she took a step forward—narrowing the distance once more, closing the breath between them until the hem of her cloak kissed the stone just beside Tavis's boot.

"I wear gloves because I know what happens when I take them off."

Another step. Another breath gone.

"I wear gloves because I am not here to comfort."

And then her voice dropped even further, dipped in reverence and rot.

"I wear gloves… because I know what I've done."

The flame above flared with her words, casting deep shadows across her face—warping her features into the suggestion of something far older, far more patient, than the title of Governor implied. For a moment, she didn't look like a woman at all, but the idea of one. The weapon of one. A force designed not to win battles—but to win souls.

Her gaze lingered on Tavis for a beat, as if daring her to ask a second question. Then, like the snap of a silk ribbon, the intensity cracked. Her posture shifted. She turned, not away—but aside—reclaiming the space between them as hers again. Not retreating. Reclaiming.

"You see," she said, voice resuming its usual rhythm—poised, controlled, nearly bored—"most Sith want to rule from the throne. I want to rule the things that make thrones. That dictate which hands are allowed to sit there. That make everyone else dance while thinking it was their idea."

She stepped past the basin again, gloved fingers trailing briefly across its edge—not fondly, but commandingly, as though she owned not just the stone, but the history it carried. The crypt felt darker now. Or perhaps it had always been this dark, and the illusion of flame had simply distracted from it.

"Tavis," she said, her tone softening, but only in pitch—not in meaning.

"You think I brought you here to tempt you."

She turned again to face her.

"Not entirely."

Her voice grew still.

"I brought you here… to see if you would dare to choose."

Her eyes narrowed—slits of burning garnet.

"To see if you understood the difference between becoming… and obeying."

A moment passed between them. The crypt had stopped whispering. Even the murals seemed to lean in. Something about this exchange felt wrong to be witnessed—even by the dead.

Serina folded her hands now, one over the other, just below her waist. Regal. Reserved. She stood not as a seductress now—but as a monarch.

"But you asked about the gloves."

Her lips twitched again—no real smile, just the ghost of one. But the eyes… the eyes were alive.

"So let me tell you one last thing."

She stepped forward again, slower this time, closer now than ever before—close enough that her voice did not echo. Close enough that her words felt like breath against the neck, not sound through the air.

"I once took them off for someone," she said, voice almost a sigh. "Not out of lust. Not out of trust. But because I wanted to see what it would feel like… to touch something without claiming it."

She didn't blink.

"They screamed."

And then she leaned in, just enough to whisper—not threatening, not flirtatious. Inevitable.

"So you tell me, little ghost… what are you afraid of touching?"

She lingered there.

And then, just like before, withdrew—leaving nothing but the echo of what might have been, what still could be.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

The detail had lingered on Adean's mind since their first meeting. That cool, almost clinical feeling of leather that had grasped her chin like she were a creature for appraisal had lived on like a phantom in her memory along with the words that had accompanied it. It'd struck her as strange to operate with such intensity and yet maintain that barrier. As a power play, especially to a lone acolyte far below her, it made sense. But then Adean kept noticing the gloves.

Adean wasn't initially one for touch herself, perhaps that was what got her to notice to begin with. For such a wallflower, a 'little ghost', she'd grown accustomed to the passing brush of shoulders in passing and nothing more. Anything else, especially anything with an inkling of intention, was analyzed again and again. Like an animal grabbed by the scruff, she'd often found herself frozen in place by a hand on her shoulder, more easily ushered along.

And so, she'd started to weaponize her own touch. A hand on the forearm of someone about to snap, the answers to a problem pulled from a textbook by the feel of past students writing and erasing their work. There were secrets to be pulled from the inanimate, thoughts and feelings to disrupt in the living. She doubted, quite sincerely, that she'd have the same results hidden behind gloves.

Unable to completely maintain her mask of calm collection, a portion of Tavis' cheek found itself caught between her teeth as Serina peered at her. Had she made an accidental breakthrough? Or had her question, perfectly genuine in nature, been taken for a time-wasting jest? As Serina began to speak, her thoughts leaned toward the former, but once the advancements continued, anxiety started to lean toward the latter.

For two so similar in age, even in height, the difference in presence was staggering. Adean already knew that, but was made only more aware as the distance between them became millimeters. Under different circumstances, had Serina gotten this close with the same energy she'd brought to their first meeting, Adean's thoughts would've been hard pressed to go anywhere beyond being hyper aware of how she was about eye level with the other's lips. The thought still crossed her mind, but was left forgotten in the face of secrets revealed.

The shadows cast down on Serina's face caught in Adean's throat, uncertain if she'd caught a trick of the light or a revelation that the woman before her was worlds beyond what she presented as. She opened her mouth a fraction, a follow-up question, 'And what is it you've done?' lay flat on her tongue, unwilling to be spoken.

She should've taken refuge in the distance regained, in the return to a voice more familiar. Yet, it almost hurt to catch the faintest twinge of bored inflection, like she'd disappointed one she'd desperately wanted to impre-no, she didn't care about that. She couldn't care about that. It would only lead to her own ruin.

Another thought crossed her mind, watching as gloved fingers traced the edge of the basin, the ritualistic nature of it all bringing back memories of the texts she'd scoured in her mad dash of learning all she could of the Sith before she got too deep into pretending to be one. The term transferance drifted to the forefront of her mind. A thought that, if it had any true foundation, meant that she was in very real danger.

Tavis' eyes widened as she was addressed, no longer holding fast to the mask of stone she'd tried so hard to concoct. Though it wasn't fear that shown in those orbs of emerald. They still held that mirror-like quality, reflecting only a fraction of what turmoil must've existed within Adean (Surely turmoil was there, right? Even if she could no longer feel it.). They were wide, awake, and reactive to whatever stimulus was thrown her way.

"So tell me accepting your offer outright wouldn't have just been obeying." The words were a gamble, she knew that. She was testing tempers just as much as she was pulling at the strings of words of someone who could likely obliterate her without a second thought. And no one would think any the wiser.

As Serina moved into her space again, Adean had half the mind to finally, finally retreat. And yet her legs didn't move, too enthralled by sweet knowledge. The dizzying buzz that corroded her thoughts in the other moments her personal space had been so invaded was silent. In retrospect, Adean had to wonder if she had been possessed by something in that moment.

The notion of whether or not Serina's story was true didn't cross Tavis' mind. With the gravity of the situation, the intensity of which she answered, it was either such a hard swing of a bluff - the kind you use to hide your most undoing weakness - or there was a truth to it. And even if there was truth in the tale, there was no telling just what other intricacies factored in. It was better, Adean thought (or rather, didn't think), to just act.

"That's just it, isn't it? What is there for a ghost to fear, let alone to touch? Other ghosts, perhaps."

This time, it was she who outstretched her hand, guaze-covered palm providing a stark contrast to the pale of her fingers. Whether it was a challenge, to test if Serina's ungloved touch would really do that to a person, or an acquiescence to what was previously offered, she left up to Serina. For not even Adean knew what she was intending.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



The silence that followed was total.

Not the silence of stillness—but of the moment before the plunge. The space between lightning and thunder. Even the crypt seemed to hush itself, as if it knew something irreversible had just occurred. That something had been offered.

And Serina… moved not at all.

Her hand remained poised in the space between them, fingers open, gloved and still. The flame above swayed just enough to set the shadows into motion once more, dancing along the carved stone like spirits unchained, stirred to life by the tension blooming in the void between outstretched hands.

Serina looked down—not at Tavis's face, not at her eyes. But at the hand.

That bare, half-bandaged, trembling thing.

A challenge? A surrender? A test?

Yes.

All of them.

And Serina was ravenous for all three.

When she finally lifted her eyes again, the heat behind them had changed. Not lust, not cruelty—but something consuming. Like a force of nature deciding what part of the world to remake next.

"You don't know what you've just done," she whispered. "But you will."

And then—without ceremony, without warning—Serina removed the glove.

Not slowly. Not seductively. Not like a ritual of intimacy or trust. But with the practiced efficiency of a surgeon rolling up her sleeves before the first incision. The leather came away with a faint whisper of friction, pulled free from long fingers, palm, wrist—revealing flesh not perfectly pale, but almost too smooth. Too deliberate. Like marble that had been carved to look like skin.

And yet… it was still warm. Still alive.

Serina held her bare hand between them now, and for a single breath, she looked at it—not with sentiment, but acknowledgment. The weapon had been unsheathed. And as her gaze lifted back to Tavis, her voice came low and level—no performance now. This wasn't theatre. It was truth.

"This hand has killed more than just bodies," she murmured. "It has turned sisters against brothers. Pulled secrets from minds still screaming. Written doctrines that toppled worlds."

And still—she reached forward.

But she didn't grab Tavis's offered hand.

No.

She brushed it. Just the fingers. Bare skin to bare skin.

A light contact—like the first note of a symphony drawn from the strings of a haunted instrument.

And the moment it happened, everything changed.

It wasn't pain. Not exactly. It wasn't even fear. Not in the conventional sense. It was recognition—deep, guttural, bone-deep knowing that Serina Calis was not simply a woman. Not simply a Sith.

She was an infection.

Her presence rushed in like heat against the ribs, crawling up the back of the spine, seeping into the marrow. Not through brute Force—she did not overwhelm with power. She trespassed with intention. With elegance. With seduction. She did not take from Tavis.

She replaced.

And in that contact, something of her was left behind. A whisper that would not be silenced. A thought not quite her own. A part of her voice that would sound just a little too much like Serina's when she next spoke aloud.

And still, her voice came, soft, curling like smoke through the gaps in Tavis's mind.

"You mistake fear for absence," she said, eyes locked to the contact point between them. "You think the ghost has nothing to lose, because she has nothing to touch. But that is the lie."

Her hand slid now—up the palm, across the wrist, not gripping, just tracing. Deliberate. Slow. The gesture of someone drawing a map across someone else's nerves.

"Ghosts," she whispered, "fear becoming real."

She took a step closer.

"Because once you are real, you can be hurt. You can be known. You can be changed."

The whisper became a breath. Not hot. Not cold. But alive. Right there. Inches from the shell of Tavis's ear.

"I'm going to make you real, Tavis Ordel."

She pulled back, just enough to look her in the eyes again.

"To the galaxy, you'll still be a name. A face. A file on some forgotten roster."

Her fingers released now, gliding away like the tide. But the contact was not undone. It still lingered. Like a memory not fully formed.

"But in here…" Serina gestured—first to the crypt, then to herself.

"You'll be mine."

Not in body. Not in blood.

In ideology. In thought. In the architecture of self.

That was Serina's art. Not to conquer bodies. Not even to claim souls.

But to build a voice in the head that never stopped whispering.

"I will teach you to unmake others with words alone. To walk into rooms where others scream and weep and fall to their knees—and you will never need to lift a hand."

Her eyes shone in the amber light now—twin stars burning behind smoke.

"I will teach you how to slip between lies and truths until not even you know which mask you're wearing."

And now—finally—her smile returned. Not sweet. Not cruel. Just… inevitable.

"But first…"

She stepped back again. Turned. Returned to the basin.

"Step in."

The fire above flared white-hot for a single breath, then dimmed again.

"This is not a lesson."

She looked back over her shoulder.

"It's a transformation."

Her hand flexed once.

Still bare.

Still waiting.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

"That is the point of learning, no?" It wasn't confidence that Adean spoke with, not really. She had made this bed by extending her arm; she couldn't well take it back.

When fingers met, Adean anticipated a rush of pain, terror, something. She waited for the proverbial boot to drop with clenched teeth. A moment passed, and she looked up to Serina's eyes with a raised brow.

Then it hit her.

'Hit' wasn't the right word. No, for Adean had more mental defenses than the virtue of being a living mirror. The very blood in her veins, the genes in her being, saw the Epicanthix more rapt with confusion than anything. The whisper wasn't quite a whisper; it was muffled, like it was broadcast on a frequency in between holonet channels.

But that in between? The introduction of a second, or at least half a second, voice into a head that had only known one occupant? That hurt. The sort of pain that resonated somewhere among her brain, her ears, and her teeth. Dull yet bordering on sharp, impossible to ignore.

That voice, that infection, was caught between two veritable defenses, one a mirror suctioned by water, the other a Faraday cage Adean never knew she had a key to. It was grating, ever-present, and only made louder as Serina spoke.

"-_ - fear - - -- -- ghost -_ --__touch- -- --lie." Slowly, painfully, words were parsed out of the muffled oblivion. The hand that drifted away from her skin, onto the thin wrappings of gauze, gave a point of movement she could concentrate on. Her legs trembled, balance became questionable as the pressure in her ears reached a fever pitch. Adean found herself leaning in as Serina took a step closer. Was it comfort she sought? No, well, maybe. Though not of the bedside manner or kind words variety. Something to ground herself while rot wriggled and writhed in her head like roaches.

And just when she was sure something was about to snap, something within her found that key, that which kept her mind locked away from observers. In a stupid, desperate decision, she had no choice but to open the cage and let the infection in.

"I'm going to make you real, Tavis Ordel." The words shouldn't have made her relieved. Rather, they should've done the opposite. And yet, they were words she could actually hear, and they resonated in her skull. Adean's eyes were wide and wild, coming back from somewhere far away. She just barely bit back a comment of spilled truth, 'Tavis Ordel died long ago.'

Even now, with a voice not her own whispering in her mind like a gentle caress, she would not - could not - drop the charade. The false name, plucked from a bully bleeding on a greenhouse floor, fed to the carnivorous plants. Fear had once compelled her never to doff an identity without another to don. Now, she clung white-knuckled to the names as she pulled the strings around her.

And Serina could help her further that goal.

When did that become a goal?​

She closed her eyes, teeth grit as slowly but surely, the pain rescinded, spiked a fraction more, and faded further into background noise. It was almost an out-of-body experience, still lightheaded by a mind now too big for its skull. That whisper nestled further into her head, the words "You'll be mine." reverberating as if to assure her it was a good thing. No, an inevitable thing.

Her eyes opened, green dull in comparison to the stars they met. Almost beyond her notice, her legs carried her to the ledge of the basin. Fingers, still feeling the gliding phantom of where Serina's fingers had traced, ran over the basin's edge like she'd witness Serina do before, as if contemplating the move she was bound to make. But before she did use it's edge to swing her legs into it's depth, those fingers searched for runes, tried to pull secrets out of the obsidian. What was about to transpire, what would be left behind, if Serina herself had gone through this before, anything she could gather. The iconography, being bound in oath, was far from encouraging. But what choice did she have, really?

"You can have Tavis," the words held a place between confused and clear, the perfect concoction for acquiescence. But also very intentional, though their meaning was buried under a mine kept intentionally blank.

You can have Tavis.

They weren't mine to possess to begin with.​

But you cannot have me.​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



The crypt felt alive.

As Adean stepped toward the basin, the chamber responded—not with sound, but with sensation. A shift in the pressure of the air. A faint warmth crawling over the nape of the neck. A deepening of the shadows along the walls. The six empty pedestals seemed to lean inward by some trick of perspective, eager witnesses to the rite. Or perhaps… participants.

Serina did not move.

She watched.

A queen at court. A sculptor at the first break of chisel against stone.

Tavis Ordel was dying.

And something else was being born.

That was the moment Serina knew.

Not in the way of spies or sliced data. Not by investigation, not even by the dark whispers that sometimes licked at her mind in moments of heightened clarity. No—she felt it, the same way she felt the change in one's breath before they lied. The name didn't fit. The lie didn't breathe like the girl did. The tension behind the voice, the seams in her soul—Tavis Ordel was a garment. Worn too well. Stitched with blood. But still a garment.

She didn't know what lived beneath it.

Yet.

But she would.

Soon.

"I can have Tavis," Serina repeated, the words low, smooth—not mocking, but accepting. Devouring. She tasted the name now like wine offered by a rival: poisoned, delicious, unforgettable.

"Tavis is yours to give. And mine to perfect."

Her bare hand flexed once, and the fire above them flared—not with fury, but with purpose, illuminating the carved walls in fuller detail. Scenes of acolytes with masks bound to their faces. Of shadows being poured into bodies like wine into goblets. Of Sith becoming something more than Sith. Something else.

Serina stepped forward again, bare hand folding behind her back now, her other still gloved. She left the infection behind her in Adean's skull, like a hook sunken in meat—not yanked, not yet, but anchored.

The girl trembled beneath it and still stepped forward.

And Serina adored her for it.

"You were not ready for me," she said, circling the basin now, letting her voice trail just behind Adean's shoulders, a breath late, like the whisper of a ghost catching up to a sinner. "You thought you could play at being invisible. At being overlooked."

She passed behind her.

"And yet, here you are."

She passed in front.

"Already remembered."

Serina stopped, just beside the basin. Her fingers trailed over the rim once more, mimicking the girl's motion—two parallels, mirror-images locked in a moment of impending transcendence.

"You think I seek to possess," she said, voice so quiet now it required leaning in to hear. "I don't seek, I do."

Her gaze fell to Adean's hands, then slowly climbed—arms, shoulders, throat, chin. She took her in like a tailor takes measurements. Like an artist assessing the curve of a marble block before the first hammer blow.

"I'm going to shape Tavis into a mask so flawless, so resplendent in darkness and influence, that not even you will remember where the lie ends. I will dress her in elegance and ruin, feed her on seduction and strategy, and send her into the heart of power like a blade no one sees until it's too late."

Her voice was not boastful.

It was religious.

"Because you—whatever name you buried—are too afraid to live."

She stepped closer again, voice pressing like fingertips under the chin.

"But Tavis is brave."

Her eyes flickered, alight with something almost loving. Almost.

"And mine."

Then Serina stepped back—not in retreat, but in ritual. She moved to the other side of the basin now, facing Adean through the curved, obsidian ring like a mirror turned sideways. The flame orb above them descended just slightly, washing them both in golden glow.

Serina raised her gloved hand and pressed it, fingers splayed, against the surface of the basin.

It responded.

A dull vibration ran through the stone, audible only to the bones. The carvings along the rim shimmered faintly. A resonance—half-sound, half-thought—thrummed in the air between them.

A voice, not Serina's, whispered along the edge of the mind. Old Sith. A language of oath and offering. It did not ask. It expected.

She leaned over the basin.

And then Serina's voice, softer than ever, but laced with steel:

"This is the moment you give me permission."

The silence after was profound.

Not empty. Full.

And Serina let it hang, let it wrap around Adean like silk cords—every breath she took tightening the knot.

This was not coercion. This was consent.

Corruption offered not as violation, but as elevation.

The most intimate manipulation of all.

Her smile returned, but it was not kind. It was not cruel. It was consecrated.

"Step in."

Her eyes glowed.

"I will build you from this lie you wear."

A pause. Then the promise:

"And one day, even the Force will kneel to your deception."

The voice in Adean's head stirred again—quieter now, no longer jarring, but welcoming, like the warmth of a flame that begged to be touched. And Serina said nothing more. She simply waited, hand pressed to the stone, her eyes unblinking, unwavering.

A silent sentinel of corruption and rebirth. The shaper. The corrupter. The godsmith. She stood with all the patience of inevitability, poised not as a teacher, but as the sculptor before the marble learns its true name. She was waiting—for Adean to take the oath, to surrender the name she wore and embrace the one Serina would carve into her.

Waiting for the moment her newest student would truly stare into the abyss. And when she did…

Serina would already be there, staring back.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

Adean wasn't certain if it was relief that she should've felt with the acceptance, or dread wrapped in gossamer at the promise of perfection. The carved images above hardly inspired confidence, only further supporting her theory, her fear, that she was walking into a ritual of possession.

Circled once more, the whispered words reached her ears somewhere between gloating and cold facts. She had half a mind to refute them, wanted to, but the words and will were beyond her. As Serina's fingers drifted over the edge of the basin, like her own, it briefly occurred to her to question if this wasn't a dream after all, and an incredibly lucid one at that.

A flash of something - a sensation, a memory - pulled Adean from the wandering thought as her fingers that hadn't felt the corruption of Serina's ungloved hand found an imperfection within the obsidian basin, sending a spasm up her arm. The gasp it drew from Adean could be easily mistaken for a response to the promises laid out before her. Promises that very much sounded like threats under Serina's appraising gaze. She ran her fingers over the space again, trying to recreate the sensation yet finding it out of reach. The Force was cruel in that way, giving her glimpses of possibility then dashing them away as if they were never there to begin with.

"Because you—whatever name you buried—are too afraid to live."

She opened her mouth this time, a soft "That's not-" cut off by the distance between them closing once more. The voice around her exuded pressure enough one could mistake it for contact, though Adean knew it was little more than a suggestion in comparison to reality. What stopped her interruption was the look in Serina's eyes, the almost reverence that culminated in the word, 'mine'.

"Yours," she tested the word on her tongue, brow furrowing at the implications it drew forth. The idea of ownership saw her nose scrunch in distaste, yet the promise of influence, of power, of having a guide in an order that'd just as rather watch her sink than swim all had kept her from rejecting outright. Those promises had kept her within Serina's gravity long enough to wear away at suspicion, not dismissing it entirely, but almost convincing Adean that whatever machinations she'd come across could be handled. The devil you know.

A language Adean only caught the barest hints of rippled through her consciousness, again muffled to a mind not meant to be accessed. If not for the faint vibrations, the resonance in the air, she might not have realized it was there. And then Serina's voice, soft enough that Adean had to strain over the basin and its faint rumblings to hear.

"This is the moment you give me permission."

It was almost cruel, after all that had come before, to place the final step on her. The weight of the moment was heavy, even with the knowledge that permission was being granted for a lie, a facade, not the reality that still held fast in her mind. It was still too close to home, too vulnerable.

Her grip tightened on the edge of the basin, stabilizing herself as she swung her legs over, ignoring the tremor that threatened to take over as she moved to the center. That voice that had warmed its way into her head was awake once more, saccharine in its siren's song. Perhaps that was the final nail in the proverbial coffin. Perhaps if it still hurt, she would've held fast to her senses, her autonomy. Instead, she withdrew a shaky, uncertain breath, exhaling with a confidence befitting a liar so adept as her.

"I accept."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



The moment the words left Adean's lips, everything changed.

"I accept."

Two words, quiet and trembling, yet they cut through the crypt like a blade. The fire above flared—not in violence, but in ecstasy—as if the very air had been waiting, breath held in anticipation of her surrender. The amber glow deepened to a wine-dark red, the flickering flame casting shadows that no longer danced, but knelt. As though even the dead who once ruled these halls recognized the significance of what had just been spoken.

Serina did not move immediately. She stood still as a statue, hand still pressed against the obsidian basin, her back to Adean.

But within her—within her—a storm was brewing.

It was done.

Not the ritual. Not the transformation.

The permission.

That which mattered most.

Not because Serina required it out of etiquette. No, she was no respecter of consent in the trivial, flesh-bound sense. But true corruption, beautiful domination, could not be imposed. It had to be invited. That was what made it lasting. That was what made it complete. A parasite never lasted. But a symbiote? A thought planted in fertile soil? A whisper invited through the door?

It could thrive forever.

And now… Serina had her.

Slowly, she turned—her movements unhurried, precise, deliberate—as though every inch of her poise was a blade being drawn from a sheath. The shadows danced across her face in worship, rendering her expression half-statue, half-goddess, and fully, terribly real.

She stepped forward once, then again, until she stood at the edge of the basin, looking down at the figure inside it—small, trembling, and utterly magnificent in her frailty. There was no triumph in Serina's gaze. No gloating. No pity. What gleamed behind her crimson-ringed eyes was something far worse.

Possessive purpose.

"You've taken the first step," she said softly, as if afraid to disturb the silence that had congealed around them. "And now the world you knew will never accept you again."

She reached into the basin, not with both hands—just the gloved one. She extended it not in mercy, but in ceremony. A gesture of initiation. Of binding.

"This basin," she continued, voice echoing in the stone like the reverberation of drums deep in the earth, "is more than stone. It was hewn from the spine of a Leviathan slain in ancient times. Burned in dark fire. Quenched in the blood of three apprentices who dared betray their master. Its purpose is simple."

Her eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped to a near-whisper—intimate and awful.

"It devours who you were. Slowly, viscerally."

She held the hand there, suspended, waiting. Just as before.

"But it leaves room for what comes next."

The symbols carved into the interior of the basin pulsed faintly, as if responding to her words. The vibration returned, stronger now, and this time felt in the gut. The ancient voice—the one not Serina's—whispered again, but this time it didn't need translating. It bypassed the mind entirely, resonating directly against the bones, the spine, the blood.

Submit. Become. Obey. Ascend.

Serina tilted her head slightly, studying Adean—not as a student, not as a rival, not even as prey.

As raw material.

"I will unmake you," she said, with the calm, loving certainty of a sculptor addressing marble. "Not because you are flawed—but because you were shaped by fools. Weak things. Systems that never asked you who you wanted to be—only what you were allowed to become."

She extended her hand further now, close enough that all Adean had to do was lift hers. One motion. That was all.

"I will build in you a weapon so beautiful that even those who recognize it will beg to be cut."

The fire flared again, casting her face in full clarity. The elegance. The calm. The intent.

"I will not give you power. I will give you presence. I will teach you to breathe in a room and make others forget their gods."

Another pause. Another breathless silence.

"You will learn how to speak and have empires listen. How to touch and leave ruin behind. How to wield affection like a poison and secrets like blades."

She smiled now, and it was not warm. But it was true.

"And when you are finished, little ghost, even you will no longer remember the name you buried."

The whisper in Adean's mind grew louder—not as a scream, but as a heartbeat. It was no longer an intrusion. It was a companion. The phantom weight of Serina's voice now lived in the hollow spaces of her psyche.

A shaping presence.

A slow caress.

A hook set deep.

Serina's hand remained outstretched, unwavering.

"Submit, my apprentice." she said.

Not a threat.

Not a command.

A prophecy.

Her eyes locked with Adean's.

"Take my hand."

The fire flared one last time.

"And be reborn."

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

With the words came a rush of regret but also adrenaline, though whether for good or for ill remained to be seen. She was stepping into an unknown, by her own volition at that, a choice the Adean mere months ago would've shriveled at the thought of. The look in Serina's eyes, one that brought back the resounding word, "Mine," should've sparked unease. It would've in any other settings, she theorized. But rather than feeling the pressures of such possession, here it felt almost comforting.

A part of her feared the day there was no 'almost'.

A brow, far more delicate than before, rose as she above describes the function of the basin. A spark of panic, muted, though by the additional whispers in her skull or by scepticism it was impossible to say, rang in her head. "It devours slowly, yet you offer a hand out so quickly?"

She didn't have time to contemplate the contradiction further. The vibrations hit her in her very core, in her bones, in her teeth.

A part of her, a part Adean hadn't met yet - or maybe she has once, in a dream - wanted to scream. To rage against the dimming light as it was corralled into a far recess, locked away. Whether or not that recess was a platter for the basin to feast upon or an unconscious defense, it was impossible to say. Adean simply heard the words being instilled upon her, not quite melding with two of them though her inherit resistance to them was diminishing slowly but surely.

A whim of a notion crossed Adean's mind to, rather than take the hand offered, rest her head against its palm. It was getting rather heavy in that noggin of hers, trying to keep track of what was supposedly happening and what would happen in the future. Did she believe any of it? No...maybe...she wasn't sure. But she was certain Serina did, to an extent. But what was believable and what was feasible opened another can of considerations, another weight added to an already overfilled mind. And why bother with more weight, more anxiety, when there was someone right here so eager to - care? No, even in this state, she knew that was far from reality - guide her?

Despite the confusion, the ceremony of the moment, the word 'apprentice' did bring fourth a sense of relief. So this wasn't a matter of possession, at least not yet. Not yet was something she could work with.

Considering the hand before her, a short laugh, more at herself than anyone else, escaped her chest. "We've already gotten this far," she muttered, beginning to unwrap the gauze from one of her palms, "Why hold back now?" With the hand now fully exposed and forearm soon to follow, she extended it, next to the offered hand but with the same orientation. And there, she waited a beat, waited to see if the counteroffer would be accepted.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



Serina did not blink.

The moment Adean extended her hand—bare now, naked in its defiance and invitation alike—Serina stilled so completely that even the flickering light above seemed to pause in her wake. The shadows froze, the crypt fell breathless, and for a single heartbeat, everything in the chamber centered on the space between those two hands.

Mirroring.

Serina tilted her head, just slightly. Like a beast watching something finally come close enough to strike—not out of hunger, but from the pleasure of seeing something choose its own undoing.

"Why hold back now?" Adean had said.

Indeed.

A slow, deliberate smile unfurled across Serina's lips—not warm, not triumphant, but devastating. Like a star blooming just before it collapsed into a singularity. The kind of smile that made men betray dynasties and women burn their gods.

"You understand more than you admit," she said, voice low and coiled with dark delight. "And far less than you think."

And then, without hesitation, she took the offered hand.

Not gently.

Not violently.

Commandingly.

The moment their palms met, Serina's grip locked—not hard, but inescapable. Her bare fingers wrapped fully around Adean's, pressing skin to skin, line to line, bone to bone. There was no seduction in it now. No softness. This was ritual. This was binding. A pact not sealed with ink or blade, but with intention.

And Serina's intention was vast.

The basin responded instantly.

It did not roar. It hummed—a deep, resonant frequency that passed through the soles of their boots, through the stone, through memory itself. The carvings lining the inner walls of the basin erupted in faint red light, a pulse racing from symbol to symbol in a cascade of language too old to be spoken. The entire chamber shifted, subtly, like something ancient had stirred beneath it—and it approved.

Serina did not let go.

Instead, she leaned in, her face mere inches from Adean's. Not close enough to kiss. Close enough to possess.

"You think this spares you from being devoured?" she whispered, breath tracing along Adean's cheek like silk dragged over raw nerve. "You sweet little liar."

Her gloved hand lifted now, cupping the back of Adean's head—fingers slipping into her hair, not cruelly, but firmly. Holding. Fixing her in place.

"I devour everything I touch. But I do not destroy."

Her crimson gaze locked with the green, pinning her in place more effectively than any chain could.

"I remake."

The whisper in Adean's mind surged again—not noise now, but language. Words that had never been hers curling around her thoughts like fingers sliding into gloves. The chamber, the basin, the Force—it all receded. Not because it grew smaller, but because Serina grew larger. Her presence was total. Immaculate. A will that did not scream, but overwrote.

"You offered yourself up thinking this was apprenticeship," Serina murmured, her tone like velvet drawn over knives. "And it is."

Another heartbeat passed.

"But it is also the death of your illusions. Of your escape plans. Of your precious fragments of control."

The grip on Adean's hand tightened—not painfully, but ritualistically. A signal. A marker. This was no longer Adean deciding. This was initiation.

"You want to play a role? A mask? Then you will be the most perfect one I have ever crafted. Not because you pretend… but because you will believe."

She stepped forward, pressing just enough for Adean's back to brush against the inner curve of the basin. There was no escape. Only submission. Not in posture, not in weakness—but in inevitability.

Serina leaned closer still, her voice now inside the ear, the mind, the spine.

"I will teach you to lie so convincingly that the Force itself forgets the truth."

Her voice dropped lower.

"I will teach you to love the mask… until you weep when it's taken away."

And then—finally—she released the hand.

The basin flashed with power, sending a ripple of invisible force outward, distorting the air between them like heat rising from obsidian.

Serina stepped back, slow, graceful, as though the act itself were the closing of a spell.

She did not look away.

She simply looked.

As one would admire a painting they knew they would someday burn, just to see how brightly it would glow.

Her words came then, cold and reverent:

"It is done."

She looked to the fire above. It pulsed once. Red. Then blue. Then dimmed to a soft, watchful gold.

"You are mine now, Tavis."

The pause between the word and the breath after it was not hesitation—it was punctuation.

Serina smiled again.

Not as a woman.

But as a god who had won.

"And I will make the galaxy believe that you are their salvation… just long enough for them to worship the lie."

The basin quieted.

The crypt stilled.

Serina turned once, slowly.

And walked away from the altar.

But not without parting words, offered over her shoulder like a benediction and a blade:

"You'll sleep now. The transformation takes time. When you wake… the lie will feel a little more like home."

She vanished into the dark beyond the archway, her silhouette swallowed by the abyss.

But Adean was not alone.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

Adean had miscalculated and terribly so. Perhaps she had thought the prior exposure to Serina's ungloved hand would make her more equipped to counter more of that influence sinking into her head, tempting her to sweet obedience. Perhaps skepticism had demanded she challenge whatever power the basin was said to hold.

Whatever the reason, she would've found herself very much proven incorrect had she the wherewithal to understand what was actually happening. Instead, she fought to keep her face from reddening as Serina leaned in mere inches from her face. That endeavor was quickly forgotten as fingers slid into her hair. The bliss of contact on her scalp didn't quite dispel the very real indicator that her escape routes were diminishing.

But it was those eyes that kept her in place most of all. Rooted where she stood like a marionette as the voice in her head reinforced its strings. With her senses overwhelmed as much as they were, there was little more she could do but let that voice take root with the promise to sort it out later.

"But it is also the death of your illusions. Of your escape plans. Of your precious fragments of control."

"No-" Her brow furrowed, the ping of panic taking hold as she became suddenly aware of just how trapped she was becoming. Her free hand clambered for a weapon. Not the lightsaber-no, if she could avoid it, she'd never use it for anything more than a set piece again, but a dagger would do. The grip on her hand tightened, and Adean struggled to stay afloat, aware.

Yet once she was backed into the basin wall, the dagger slipped from her grip, forgotten. Whatever spell that had been cast upon her reclaimed its subject in full force, her reservations lost in the gravity that was Serina Calis.

When at last their hands broke off contact, Adean almost felt as if she was missing something. Her head buzzed as it tried to make sense of what just happened, information that should've caused alarm in its implications now only felt right. And, most of all, she was tired. It took a lot out of a person, having their very thoughts remade right from under them. It was only happenstance (or perhaps something bigger than them both) that saw her catching the changes in the fire. The colors had meant something. And, judging from Serina's smile, it has to be a good thing.

Adean slumped to the basin floor, her legs no longer able to hold her weight. She'd wanted out of the basin previously, but surely, that could wait, especially when the floor was so cool. Her head practically sang when she was given leave to sleep, all thoughts of a transformation passing well before they could be processed as a threat.

. . .​

Even as a child, Adean lived as a house of mirrors, a reflection of what others assumed of her, when they assumed anything. Life was uneventful, even when it wasn't. She could see it now, tucked away in a memory.

What had once been her home was now deemed a crime scene, and what belongings that weren't being kept as evidence were packed away in a suitcase. "It's okay to be sad," said a detective, awkward in their attempt to explain to a child why their parents weren't here or why there was a stain on the carpet behind them..

So she was.

"You must be so brave," a forensic specialist noted as they put away their tools, temporarily drawing the child's attention away from the voices discussing the botched robbery in the other room, not nearly as quietly as they thought they were.

So she was.

Eventually, her aunt got there. A thin, cold hand wrapped around Adean's shoulders to guide her out the door of that home one final time. "You're going to be alright, Tavis." That voice was familiar, welcoming, one that was practically ingrained in the base of her skull.

So she wa-

No, that wasn't right. Was it?​

The child's brow furrowed. That wasn't her name. Or maybe it was? It sounded both right and not, fitting and too snug, like there was something else just beyond her peripheral she couldn't quite bring herself to look for. She didn't have much time to linger on the thought, either, her aunt turning back upon realizing she'd stopped in her tracks. "Come, Tavis, there's nothing else here but ghosts."

That made sense; there was no point in lingering. With nary a glance back at her old home, she followed that voice out from the memory, letting the shadowed silhouette of her aunt (it was shrouded the entire time, right?) keep a guiding hand on her shoulder or running through her hair. That name would come up again. Tavis this and Tavis that. But so too would another name, a whisper even further in the recesses of her being, just quiet enough to be questioned. Adean.

And above the acolyte's sleeping form, the fire flickered a brief green before settling back to its warm gold.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Deep, into the waiting dark."

Tag - Adean Castor



She lay curled in the basin like something molted and left behind—a girl whose soul had been lifted out of her body and reshaped, then gently returned still pliable, still warm, still unaware of how altered it had become.

Serina stood above her with one gloved hand pressed lightly to the obsidian rim, the other resting against the small of her back in a posture that was both martial and maternal. Her eyes, still burning with that terrible gilded light, never left the sleeping form of her new apprentice.

Acolyte. Subject. Creature.

Property.

She had seen it in the fire—the flicker of green.

A hint of the truth bleeding through the lie.

Serina smiled, but it wasn't the cruel, amused thing that so often curled her lips. No, this was something quieter. Hungrier. An artist admiring the first strokes of pigment on a new canvas. The basin had accepted the offering, and the fire had marked her. The voice had taken root. The infection was not only seeded, it was welcomed. A name would come later. Names were small things. Unimportant.

"I could break you here, you know," she said softly, not to the girl but to the chamber itself. As if it might object. "Snap whatever little threads still stitch her together and leave something obedient. Easy."

The crypt did not answer, but the fire twisted once more. That flicker again—green, but buried. Still hiding.

Still her.

Serina crouched at the basin's edge, her heels balanced perfectly, like some poised and inhuman predator. She traced her fingers through the sleeping girl's hair, gentle and slow, then down the line of her cheek. She marveled at how soft she was. Not physically. Spiritually. Like a pressure-treated orchid waiting to bloom poison.

"Not yet," Serina murmured, voice smooth and liquid with a treacherous kind of mercy. "You're still dreaming. Still tasting what it's like to be held instead of cast aside. To be chosen."

Her gloved fingers returned to her side. She did not remove the glove again.

Not yet.

There was no need.

Tavis was already halfway into the spiral, and the spiral was Serina's. Every whisper she now heard would remind her of that moment, of Serina's breath across her face, of the hand threading into her hair and the pressure against her lips that left behind something more than touch: ownership.

She would awaken changed. That much was certain. Not as a broken thing, no, but as something finally unmade in the right way.

The real magic hadn't been in the basin or the ancient fire, nor in the ritual incantation humming beneath the stone. It had been in the suggestion. The permission. The invitation. The moment Tavis Ordel, lie though she was, looked Serina in the eyes and offered herself up with the final words: I accept.

That was when the reprogramming began.

That was when the parasite gained roots.

That was when her mind ceased to be a fortress and instead became a throne waiting to be claimed.

"I don't need to know your name yet," Serina whispered, her words like silk threads winding themselves into the air, into the girl's ears even in sleep. "You'll tell me when you're ready, after all..."

"I always wait for permission."

She stood then, slow and elegant, allowing her silhouette to loom tall over the basin. Her cloak settled into place behind her with a sigh like wings folding shut. Her voice dropped to that low, intimate register again, the one that belonged to secrets and subjugation.

"Rest, my little shade. Sleep while the world still has meaning to you. In the morning, I'll teach you how to steal meaning from everyone else. I will teach you to be perfect, to have a life far greater than the universe deemed to hand you."

She turned from the basin at last, her back to the crypt and the spellbound girl within. The light of the fire followed her briefly, stretching long shadows across the walls—the carvings above twisted and grew, flickering in the golden flame until they seemed to shift.

One of them now bore her likeness. A figure robed and terrible, with arms outstretched as the kneeling shape beneath her offered up their face like a sacrifice.

She would not wake her.

No, not tonight.

Tonight, Tavis Ordel would sleep, and the true name—hidden and gasping—would dream of herself.

And Serina would walk the long path back to the surface, her pace slow, her smile constant.

The forging was not yet complete. But the metal had been melted. The first blow struck. The mold filled with potential.

Now the actual teaching could begin.

And Serina Calis had no intention of letting her apprentice forget what it felt like to be shaped by her hand.

 

[Adean Castor]

TAG: Darth Virelia

The world had not been kind to Adean. Calling it cruel would have been an overstatement, but kindness didn't play a role in a lifetime of rotten luck and fortunate happenstance. Yet in this fabricated version, it seemed that detail was missed, intentionally so. Where she had once thrived in neglect, Adean couldn't help but raise a brow at attentiveness. It was wrong. Not bad, but wrong.

Her brow furrowed in the waking world, too, only to smooth as gloved fingers ran down her cheek, as if the beginnings of a nightmare, or of waking up, had ceased by the contact alone.

"You're still dreaming. Still tasting what it's like to be held instead of cast aside. To be chosen."

The whispers continued where the actual words had left off, coaxing her to remain calm and content as the dream continued. Memories themselves went untampered yet were narrated in a new frame. With each whisper, a reminder. The tingle of nerves from fingers running through her hair, an unfamiliar yet welcomed pressure against her lips.

If this was what it was like to be held, to be chosen, then perhaps it wasn't so bad after all.

While she'd remembered the basin was meant to devour who she was, especially over time, those whispered platitudes and phantom affection kept that detail far from the forefront of her resting mind. And so, she would dream, she would forget, and just as forgetting would start to rouse her from the dream, another whisper, another tide of promise would pull her back under. The occasional green flicker of flame began to look more and more chartreuse.

Forgetting wasn't quite accurate - the word was seldom a part of Adean's vocabulary - rather, more and more bits and pieces of her, the real her, were compartmentalized. Tucked away like one puts old clothes in an attic.

More whispered words from above slid into her ears, another mention of her name, her real name. A feeling, cold yet distant, pooled in her gut. Like for whatever reason, giving that name would spell the end of something.

An idea to warm up to, the whisper-aided thought crept into her mind. It couldn't be that bad, not rest without that name feels like this. No, no, it couldn't be that bad. Perhaps she'd tell Serina the name in the morning. Perhaps she'd be rewarded for it, too.

A heavy sigh interrupted the train of thought, a voice that was hers yet also different. Deeper, more controlled, disdain thick in even just an exhale of air. Tavis wasn't the only identity Adean hid behind. The other, more reserved in nature, was more deeply ingrained than Tavis had ever been. And now acted as a line of defense in preserving what remained of the original. Not out of care, no, but out of their own self-preservation.