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​

 

[Lirka Ka]

There was a certain spectacle that came with a Dark Lord of the Sith. Lirka knew it well at this point, lived it for many years. There was something to be feared in it, yes. Yet such a feeling was founded in simple survivalism, it was not the easiest thing in the world to predict the moods of men playing as gods.

Today, Lirka Ka did not show fear. Politics demanded as such, politics gave her a quaint shield she had been lacking before. Metal cried, doors peeled open with effortless force. All she could do? Slowly, but surely, turn to acknowledge. Her amusement well hidden beneath that helmet marred by the eternal father’s touch. Though faintly did it trickle out from her modulator, oft there was a certain coyness to the way the Once-Sephi danced.

“It is not often I make it to the Holy Worlds. I considered the Lord of Dromund Kaas may have had interest in my appearance.”

Insolent and Lirka Ka were synonymous words. He approached, and her slit lenses flickered in studying gaze. The brand beneath her helm writhed, itched within the presence of a Dyarch. She paid it little mind now, the sensation had grown dull in the long cycles since she had been conjoined in her marriage of flesh and blood to the eternal father.

It was true. At the end of the day, Lirka Ka was a monster all on her lonesome. A slinking scuttling thing, her shadow was a silent thing. A thing of War Marshal's, Bankers, Serpents, and Princesses. She was loud, boisterous, murderous brute. All a veneer to hide the work she did in the dark places of the Galaxy, as she slowly but surely tried to etch out the future she so desired. A future of the transcendent survivors.

"Indeed. The newest of the Imperators, its been quite the sight. Already things scurry in my wake, coveting the favor of a Legion from the Empire itself in microcosm. They wish the allegiance from one of the three in their many plots and schemes..."

There was a grin beneath that helmet, it was undeniable. It was not often one allowed themselves to grin in the presence of such evil, but Lirka Ka held no fear today. She was too important alive, so much would slip between their fingers were the Legion to fall to one of her successors so soon.

"Loyalty is the most amusing farce of the Sith. What I possess, is a legion of mongrels. I but need to point them in the right direction, as I have done, as I will do. Yet - you are wise, the longer I succeed, the more the Kainate will succeed as well."

Then, firefist. It was a tantalizing prospect, a vast unknowable variable that oozed potentiality. It would be hers, in due time. She merely needed to probe and to wait till the swift strike would come, and Firefist claimed for the Sith - and herself. She let a shrug, and spouted off some mantra from her nonsensical faith as she so often did.

"It is but the way of things. Primordial Darkness claims the unworthy in due time, always. You need not remind me of the cosmic truths, Dyarch. I do concur, let us speak. I come offering myself once more, with the understanding that there are...other prospects, for my Storm Rider's allegiance. We dabble in the calculus of power and politics now, Lord."

It was bold, but Lirka felt more than enabled to be bold these days.

 

[Darth Prazutis]

The silence that followed Lirka's final word could drown worlds. It was pregnant, thick with a tension that coiled tighter rather than exploded, folding in on itself deeper and deeper. It was a quiet that pressed down like a crushing hand around the throat of the chamber itself. Darth Prazutis didn't move. He didn't laugh at her audacity. He did not scowl at her insolence. All the Dark Lord of the Sith did to respond at first was simply watch the woman. But in that gaze? Worlds burned. The armor of Qâzjiin'vraal gave a low, groaning exhale, as if stirred by something ancient and dissatisfied within. Faint cracks of red light spiderwebbed across the floor beneath him, runes awakening, stirred by the weight of unspoken consequence.

Even the hololithic display behind him dimmed, the Firefist campaign fading into a background murmur as the Dark Lord stepped forward once more. "You wear boldness like perfume." Prazutis said, his voice low, smooth as drawn razors, "Its scent unmistakable…but temporary." He let the words linger a moment, then moved, each step came with a booming fall of slow, unstoppable momentum. Each step was a punctuation, a dark drumbeat beneath the surface of her posture, her mask, her certainty.


"You speak of mongrels and storms...of cosmic truths and veiled allegiances. You adorn your words with clever turns and smirking grace, hoping, perhaps, that I will see the theater and not the threadbare stage beneath." Now he stood beside her, not across, not opposite, but close. Too close. The kind of proximity no one chose. Not unless they were certain they could kill you before you exhaled. "But I know what you are, Lirka Ka. Beneath the armor. Beneath the grin. Beneath it all."

The Shadow Hand tilted his head slightly. "You are not wrong." A pause. "You are useful, efficient even." He turned away again, as if deciding the weight of his presence had made the point without need for any demonstration. The war-table brightened once more, campaign vectors crawling like veins across the map. "But understand this. Usefulness in the Kainate is not a shield. It is a collar. One you may fashion into a crown, yes…but only if you remember who fastens it." The room grew colder. Around them, the Nexus seemed to constrict, dark pylons thrumming with latent command.

The very air, once thick with tension, now hummed with purpose. Not bluster. Not dominance. Direction. "You have chosen to place yourself here." Prazutis continued, gesturing across the sector. "To march beneath our banner. To carve out power in the name of our Eternal Father. That earns you more than mercy. It earns you investment." He looked to her once more, but this time, his gaze was warmer, not soft, but sharp with a different edge. "I do not invest lightly." He brought up a fresh projection: a theater of war, somewhere far in the galactic fringe, unmarked, hidden even from Imperial eyes. Flashes of movement, fortresses, rituals, things not yet born. "Then let us speak of where your Storm Riders shall strike. Where the banners of the Empire will expand, and where the mantle of Eternal Rule will descend upon the unwashed masses waiting for dominion." He stepped back into the shadows, his presence not retreating but spreading, as if the very walls had been listening. "Now speak, Lirka Ka. Tell me where your fires will burn next, and I will show you where the galaxy cracks beneath our will. The mantle of Imperator only strengthens the Kainate's position within the Empire, it tightens our grip like a noose around the echelons of power, rooting us deep enough that none can tear us out."

Lirka Ka ​

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka had become used to silence. Sith did not speak like normal people, it was simply beneath them. Words were power, blades clashing and the poignant pauses that came before the counter blow. It was a quaint bit of culture, one that the Once-Sephi had come to enjoy. Most people would have shirked at such grim silence from the likes of Darth Prazutis - Lirka Ka was not most people.

Let the giant, the second lord of the Kainate, let worlds burn in his gaze. Lirka Ka was no stranger to worlds aflame.

There was a strange degree of casualness from the madwoman, especially odd considering the two had met very rarely in her long tenure among the Sith. She did not chuckle, to invite disrespect was far from her intent.

“Do you blame me, Lord? Is it not the bold that define the future? Theatrics, perhaps. For such is the nature of politics - would you prefer bluntness, Dyarch? Lirka Ka is plenty capable of either.”

It was simple habit to dance around power, as much as she enjoyed the crude simplicity of words and intent. She was a child of Thustra somewhere within all those armored plates, all things were art. The art of politicking had just been one form she had been allowed to indulge in during these many long years.

It was an amusing notion, speaking to one of the few with access to the many layers of classified files about what exactly was Lirka Ka. Yet did anyone know what laid within the brain? The Once Sephi wasn’t certain, in the end: she wasn’t sure if particularly mattered either.

It was equally quaint to be reminded her use. Lirka did pride herself on despite the fact she was an ultimately self serving monstrosity - she was damn good at her job. She let it be her turn for silence now, let the mighty speak of collars and chains. Lirka Ka may have been a slave once, perhaps she still was. Or perhaps…she was more free than ever before. It was simple potentiality. A question unspoken, and one avoided. For the Kainites? She’d vastly prefer them to believe her the relatively-obedient lash.

“But of course, I owe my life to the Dyarchy after all.”

In both a metaphorical and literal sense - she was thankful, in her own way. Scornful, in a way much more familiar. Yet it was an exchange at the end of the day, they enabled her, she would enable them. Such was the poisonous nature of Sithdom.

“Indeed, I am here. Upon Dromund Kaas. We who share the blood of the Father, serve under the banner. And I am pleased such a thing is worthy of your investment, Lord. Indeed, many a serpent coils to see what they can gain from Lirka Ka.”

She would not state her newest of prospective enablers so openly, but, well…context clues never hurt anymore. The war never really ended for Lirka Ka, after all.

She focused upon the holographic display now, that little splotch of space for her shattermarch. The very future of the Sith, in that swirling mass they called Firefist.

“Firefist, while the primary target. Can not be engaged easily for risk of uninformed deployment - to that end, the Third focuses upon the reclamation of worlds lost to the planeshift. At its core, a simple notion I am certain you can agree. Yet, we enter where it is less simple.”

Sometimes, the matters of campaigns happened off the battlefield. The shadow hand got her attention now instead of potential of Firefist.

“Ultimately, Darklight is under primary control of the Eternalist Church and that damnable Typhojem machine. Our fundamental mission, as ordained by the Emperor, is to spread the word of the church and Eternalist faith. While the two are of course linked, our ability to inject Sith culture upon those unwashed masses is of biased account.”

Theater has quickly turned to cold calculation far more befitting of a droid. No wonder her and the War Marshal got on so well.

“Hope is not lost of course, for the Storm Riders to be a vector for Eternal Rule. You speak of investment, one such investment will need to be one of culture if I am to do my part of the equation. Preachers, believers, those that will stay behind after we move on expand the faith through capability of word rather than force of muscle. Far from a lofty ask, for we are in no short supply of zealots.”

There was no rule against the holy sorts following after them, Lirka made very sure to note the loopholes of her position. Like the mechanical preaching of the Eternalists be subsumed by the good word of the Father - if they were capable enough.

“Yet I require certain…assurances for such a thing.”

It was not often one was willing to wheel and deal with the Dark Lords of the Sith. But such matters were rarely not tit for tat, to whatever extent.