Private Dark Greetings

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka Ka was a bad Kainite. Of that there was little denying, she may have flown their flag, even wore the brand upon her head. But that did little to remedy the fact that she was simply a nonbeliever; a useful nonbeliever, a non believer that - for the most part - did what was asked of them for the betterment of the cause, but the ever important fact of just how bad she was at being an obedient hound in the menagerie made it very clear why, despite her long tenure within the service of Carnifex did she never really seek out either of the Dyarchs overtly.

Yet, when the tides shifted, Lirka had little choice. There was scheming to be done, and with the newest title of Imperator - she certainly felt much safer than she had in the past. Her foulblood had melded with Carnifex's now, and at her back a fledgling legion tasked with the conquest of an entire companion Galaxy. She had grown well beyond a mere hound, perhaps that is why while in times past she skulked in the shadows of the Dyarchs. Today she approached brazenly when she arrived upon Dromund Kaas.

Of course, the Once-Sephi was far from foolish enough to actually make a summons of such mighty lords of the Sith. Yet, she was here now. The word had been sent out, a notice of her arrival to one Darth Prazutis - she had deemed what needed to proceed in the shadows of this holy world beneath the Eternal Father. She would not dare to approach him till she was mighty enough, for her love demanded it so. Instead, she had decided today was a day to dance with the portion of the duo she remained far too unfamiliar with. Prazitus had been the one Lirka had never had a chance to truly understand, he was apart of the two-that-were-one and that had been enough for her.

As she sat in the chamber that was to be her office for this briefest of stays, she mused just how much of the unspoken-kinship Carnifex had gifted upon her in their marriage extended to him as well. Certainly, his presence was a thing felt even with him distant. Dromund Kaas was his world, and its oppressive energies radiated even for a force dead freak like herself - one merely needed to look out upon the skyline and see the machinations of the Kainate made flesh.

A grim reminder of the necessity of politicking. A new Imperator. A new legion. New potentialities flowed like wine, and where their loyalties would lay when push came to shove was an important determinator in the murderous house of sith politics. That is why she had come, after all, even with her many heretical views hidden away within her tome Lirka felt it pertinent to have the reminder out in the Galaxy of just where "Lirka Ka's side" actually fell.

Now, all she could do was wait. Be it for her own summons, or for the appearance of the dread mortarch. Anticipation grew within her withing form, for today would certainly been an enlightening one regardless of the result.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

It did not begin with a knock. There were no ceremonial footfalls of guards, no attendant scribes or klaxons to herald what approached. The Black Nexus did not sing for its master, it trembled. And it was from that trembling that Lirka Ka first felt it: a pressure blooming behind the walls of her borrowed office, low and distant at first, like tectonic plates shifting somewhere beneath her feet. Then came the sound. Not thunder. Not footsteps. But something between. The slow advance of armor that crushed air and silence alike, a sound that conjured images of a dying world's final heartbeat, drawn out, endless.

The doors didn't open. They were peeled apart, metal creaking in protest as if the chamber itself hesitated to give way to what stood beyond. He did not speak. He did not need to. The Dark Lord of the Sith entered not like a man, but like a verdict. Looming. Shrouded. The warplate of Qâzjiin'vraal exhaled steady ribbons of whispy smoke, as if the armor still smoldered from some battlefield left behind. Each rune etched into its colossal form flickered in low rhythm, pulsing with a power so dense it made the air thicker merely by proximity. Prazutis came to a halt just inside the room. The light dimmed in his shadow.

Eyes like smoldering embers locked onto Lirka Ka, and for a moment…silence returned. But this silence was not empty. It was the quiet of a predator considering whether the creature before it was prey, or something more useful. When he spoke, it was with voice like cracking fault lines. "You came without summons." It was not a rebuke. Merely a statement, one that carried a weight no less than the world that bore his name. He took one step further. The obsidian beneath his boots groaned. The chamber, dark iron veined in runes, and the familiar mosaics of previous conquests. The hum of dark technology and crimson displays cast a dim illumination amongst the shadows, even in its vast size, seemed suddenly too small for him. The lights too weak. "Others would call that insolence." Another step. Now he stood opposite her desk, though he did not sit. He simply was a monument of war, ambition, and punishment unyielded. Something carved from the bones of tyrants, slain gods, and clad in the skin of empires.

"But you are not others, are you? Our Slavemaster General." He studied her, not with suspicion, but with the same cold detachment a warlord might regard a fortress he had yet to storm. "You claim title now. Imperator. A crown without a throne. A legion without full loyalty. And a flame not your own burning in your blood." The implication was clear. Her ties to Carnifex, the mingling of bloodlines, it gave her weight. But weight could anchor, or it could crush. "You wear his shadow well." He rumbled, "But you have yet to cast your own." Prazutis turned slightly then, just enough for her to see the hololithic projection ignite behind him, an echo of the Black Nexus war table. Firefist. Red streaks clawed across it. Dozens of campaign vectors. Invasions, infiltrations, legion mobilization vectors looming in silence. "You bring a legion to heel, a monumentous boon to the Kainate. Our position grows stronger within the Empire the further yours rises." The giants gaze returned to her, sharper now. Not cruel. Not crueler than necessary. "Will you wield them, Lirka Ka? Or simply walk beside them and hope your name compels obedience?" His voice lowered.

"Because I will tell you this: Names are burned from the galaxy every day. Legions are devoured from within. And when they falter…it is not their gods who answer, but men like me. Let us speak further on the position you find yourself in, beneath the shadow of the Emperor. " The silence stretched again. He let it. Let the storm outside the Nexus moan faintly against the cyclopean construct of the Sith Citadel. Let the Kainate's might surround her, unspoken but felt.

Lirka Ka​