Private Diarch’s Courtesy

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



The stars above Bastion did not twinkle. They watched—silent, cold, unblinking—like sentinels waiting for the next name to carve itself into history.

And from the void between them, she came.

The shuttle that descended through Bastion's upper atmosphere bore no markings. No escort. No heraldry save the shape of inevitability itself. A sleek wedge of obsidian and silver, matte-plated and mute, it did not announce itself to planetary control so much as it presented itself—its codes clearing every layer of security with pre-authorized precision. No fanfare. No threat. Simply presence. The kind that bypassed ceremony because it had already been decided it would be received.

Inside, Darth Virelia stood at the center of her private cabin, spine straight, hands folded neatly behind her back as the vessel shuddered slightly with final descent.

She was clad not for war, but for gravity.

Tyrant's Embrace shimmered beneath her high-collared travel cloak, hood drawn over her helm. Her silhouette was blade-perfect—symmetrical, severe, beautiful in the way of a glacier moments before the crack. Even here, among dark metal walls and ambient red lighting, she felt like the only real thing aboard the ship. A pressure point around which matter folded.

Her gaze—sixfold and glowing through the helm's forward lenses—fixed on the growing skyline of Rellik and Reign's capital from the viewport. It had changed since she'd last seen it, and yet the bones remained familiar: loyalist bastions carved from old Imperial ideals, recontextualized through a more pragmatic lens. Bastion had not bowed to nostalgia. Nor had Rellik.

That was why she'd come.

She didn't need another fanatic. She needed a sovereign. A peer.

Two years had passed since the Rakatan AI on Dantooine. Since the last time she and Rellik had stood back-to-back beneath a fractured sky, with data constructs screaming like spirits and lightning boiling the air around them. He had seen her then—before the title, before the armor, before the galaxy began to shift beneath her shadow. He had seen Serina.

Now he would meet Darth Virelia.

Not as a stranger, but as something worse: a memory evolved beyond recognition.

The landing struts deployed with a resonant hiss. A final tremor ran through the ship's spine. And then, silence.

Virelia stepped toward the ramp.

The air outside was cool, dry, and heavy with the scent of ionization. She descended with stately poise, the synthetic cape flowing behind her like a shadow given will. She had sent no entourage. No apprentices. No bodyguards. Only a single message days ago—encrypted, brief, unmistakably hers:

"Two years, Rellik. I believe that's long enough."

Now she came to collect on the bond forged in that crucible.

But this wasn't a reunion. It was a calculation.

The Velgrath had begun. The Fourth Legion loomed. And if Bastion aligned—quietly, cleanly, precisely—it would never be known as a supporter.

Only as to accept the inevitable.

Virelia paused at the foot of the shuttle's ramp. Let them see her. Let them feel it in their lungs—that subtle ache behind the eyes, the one that whispered:

You are in the presence of the future. Adapt. Or be rewritten.

She waited, helm tilting slightly, like a queen greeting the battlefield.

Let Rellik come. Let the conversation begin.

The war was already halfway over.

 

[Diarch Rellik]

Here, within the shadow of the Crucible's monolithic spire, even silence had weight. The towering obsidian archways of the private landing entrance stood flanked by two Preservers, still as statues. Robed in order to their standing in the force. One in deep crimson and obsidian armor stood horizontally to another in white with gold trim. Their helms were featureless, emotionless. They had trained their whole lives to become more than sentinels. They were the soul of the Brotherhood, tempered into steel.

Rellik had requested the landing to be directly into the Crucibles hanger for this reason. He had read the report that Serina was at Serenno. Read the reports on her rise through the Sith order. Although he believed they were on amicable terms for the most part, they were still... equals. A hard ranking to get within the mind of the Diarch for those that belong to the "Sith" and "Jedi" dogma's. He would not hide behind his guards or walls but he did not want any zealots of Serina's new rank to cause a galactic incident. Better to catch and release, like a wild animal.

- Nodding to the two guards the doors hissed open and the man stepped unto the hangar landing bay. Seeing her again in all of her viper like glory.

Even now he could see the forge-light on her skin, flickering from times long past. The natural pose she struck that was both inviting and poisonous. He glanced at the weapon on her back. The same one she forged before him.

"Serina Calis." he said first, just to watch the name echo off her new silence. "Your presence always preludes significance. For what do I owe the honor of this visit." Finishing his words with a small bow that moved his cloak out of the way to show he was at least armed with his saber Conviction. "Your new armor looks as expected. Beautiful and powerful. I hear there is a new name that goes along with it." Flashing her a devilish smile similar to ones he did so long ago after she sliced sentinel droids in half with ease.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



The Crucible's air was heavier than she remembered.

Not in atmosphere, but in meaning.

As the twin Preservers parted and the obsidian doors hissed open, Darth Virelia remained perfectly still atop the shuttle ramp, framed in shadow like a statue come to mock divinity. The crimson and gold of the guards did not intimidate her. They were beautiful, certainly—sculpted devotion encased in purpose—but they were not meant for her. They were meant for what others assumed she might bring.

She brought nothing.

She was enough.

Her head turned slightly as the man emerged—Rellik. Still taller than most, still clad in that weather-worn elegance of a sovereign who didn't need to posture. His saber, exposed by a courteous shift of the cloak, was less threat and more punctuation: I remember who you are. Do you remember who I've become?

Then he spoke her name.

"Serina Calis."

And just like that, the illusion cracked. Just for a heartbeat. The name curled through the air like smoke through glass—anachronistic, misfit, intimate. She let it echo, let it linger, a knowing silence pressing behind it like breath on skin.

Then she descended.

Each step was soundless—taloned boots whispering over durasteel with the restraint of a predator that chose not to pounce. Her cape coiled in slow waves behind her, tendrils of synthweave mimicking the hush of approaching thunder.

She stopped a polite distance from him.

And then—slowly—her helm disengaged with a soft hiss. Six violet eyes folded closed, segmenting backward into her armored collar until only her true face remained.

Golden hair coiled in deliberate waves down one side of her cheek. Her skin, pale and impossibly smooth, caught the forge-light just as he'd remembered—but now with a sharper gleam. Sculpted by will. Hardened by evolution.

And her eyes.

Blue suns ringed in violet. Lit from within by the storm she now was.

She smiled—subtle, curved, deliberate. Not the warmth of a friend. The smile of a woman who knew what her smile did.

"Diarch Rellik," she said softly, her voice silk layered over command. "You wear time well. Fewer rulers can say the same. They fade. You... concentrate."

She stepped closer, one pace only. Enough to show trust. Enough to violate every security doctrine written since the Clone Wars.

"And I do appreciate the directness," she continued, tilting her head. "It would have been so easy to hide behind titles or courtiers. But you came yourself. That tells me this is still the man I met on Dantooine, not some myth hollowed out by duty."

Her gaze slid briefly toward his saber.

"Conviction," she murmured. "Still carried at the hip, rather than the back. Still unignited. A statement. One I understand."

Her smile grew—knife-sharp, almost teasing now.

"Yes," she said. "There is a new name. One I took, not inherited. One I crafted, as I once did that blade you remember."

She turned slightly, allowing him to see the haft of Ebon Requiem, mounted across her spine like an unspoken sentence.

"I am Darth Virelia now."

Pause. Breath. Not arrogance—invitation.

"But it pleases me that you remember who I was. Not many do."
Her tone dipped—cool, cultured, laced with heat. "Fewer still are allowed to speak that name without consequence."

Another beat of silence. Then:

"As to the honor of this visit?" Her eyes glinted like sunrise on a scalpel.

"I've come to speak of inevitability. Of order, of ambition, of wars not yet declared… and of how Bastion might help shape their ending."

A faint smile curved her lips. "Privately. Without zealots. Without ceremony. Just us."

She inclined her head in rare courtesy—earned, not given.

"After all... no one else alive knows what we both saw that day in the ruins of Dantooine."
Then, gently—licentiously, and with a wicked softness that knew the effect it carried:

"Would you walk with me, Rellik?"

 

[Diarch Rellik]

He let the silence between them stretch a moment longer, watching as her helm withdrew, unveiling the woman behind the storm. Serina was gone, but what remained was sharpened from the same ore. She hadn't broken. She’d evolved. And she wanted him to know it.

Good.

He gave a soft smirk at her compliment. It was nice knowing the wearing of war had not pulled his figure to much.

"Likewise, I have heard many rumors and read many reports. It's nice to see you in the flesh. Your legend proceeds you but you are never far behind. Constantly molding it to your will."

When her gaze shifted to his blade his smirk turned into a full smile. A boyish one that knows he is silly at times. “I always did like using my fists,” voice cheery with memory.

There was no apology in it. Just fact. Humor layered over history.

“Darth Virelia,” he said lightly, as if gently tasting the name. "I would have no doubts you would seize it yourself. Such is your style." he smiled at her. Knowing the game she played and enjoying returning it.

"Come"

He turned slightly, motioning with two fingers, not a command, but an invitation and began to walk to the exit of the platform. Into the greater folds of the crucible.

The doors behind them closed with a loud clunk.

Their boots fell into step upon the obsidian pathway inlaid with subdued sigils, phrases from lost philosophies etched between steel-framed glass that looked down into training arenas. On either side, towering doors remained shut, wards quietly humming behind them.

"Ignore the students, they are accustomed to the dark. Perhaps, not so much to your power in it."

He looked forward. An open door was before them that led to a staircase leading up the Crucibles main spire. At the top of it were thick wooden doors with the Diarchy emblem etched into them. Two figures - apparently Reign and Rellik stood back to back with their sabers in the air. The same way they stood as they declared themselves to the galaxy.

“Welcome to the chamber of the High Council. Where we may speak in private. It's walls have met many sith, but you will be the first of your kind to enter here."

The words were a compliment. To Serina's uniqueness among her peers.

Then his gaze finally cut toward her, piercing, curious.

“So, you have come as a molder of fate. As we had been so long ago. To share in ambition, glory, and the inevitability of wars to come."

His smile didn’t return, but the edge in his voice did. His tone sharpening as he moved to the side. Showing a war table that showed Diarchy forces amassing at the Galactic Alliances border.

"What did you have in mind?"

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



Darth Virelia stepped into the chamber like a reflection slipping into water—silent, seamless, and absolutely certain she belonged.

The doors clunked closed behind them. The past was shut out.

She did not immediately answer his question. Instead, she paced slowly around the chamber's edge, the segmented plates of her skirt swaying with each deliberate stride. Her gaze lingered—not on the war table just yet, but on the mural carved into the heavy wood of the doors. Reign and Rellik, sabers raised in defiance. A moment immortalized.

She let the silence work. Not out of hesitation, but art.

Then, her voice came—a rich contralto, smooth and intimate.

"A beautiful depiction," she said. "Two sovereigns, back to back. Blade to blade. Not ruling over, but with. No court. No throne. Just the promise of shared defiance."

Her fingers brushed over the edge of the war table now, a faint click of clawed gauntlets on steel.

"You always did understand that titles mean nothing unless earned through struggle. That survival is not the highest virtue—authorship is."

Now she looked up at him, eyes smoldering gold and violet.

"I'm not here to preach the new Sith doctrine. That, as you know, is a contradiction in terms."

She circled the table once—slowly, like a storm charting its path across old ground.

"I know what happened at Serenno. I know the blood was real, and the scars even more so. I also know the Diarchy has not forgotten."

Her tone remained respectful, but the edges glittered—soft steel, wrapped in velvet.

"So let me make this clear."

She stopped, directly across from him now, hands folded neatly behind her back, posture regal.

"I have no interest in dragging Bastion—or the Diarchy—into another proxy war for the amusement of weaker Sith."
Her head tilted, hair catching the chamber's dim light like molten wire.
"I know how carefully you've walked the line since the Battle of Serenno. The balance you've kept. The price you've paid to avoid being swallowed by our… excesses."

A pause. Then she leaned slightly forward—not threatening, but conspiratorial. Intimate.

"I'm not asking for your allegiance."

Her smile returned—subtle, confident, laced with sin.

"I'm offering relevance."

A gesture, now, to the glowing holomap on the table. The Diarchy's forces mobilizing. The border flaring like a wound.

"War is coming. With the Alliance, perhaps. With others, certainly. The Velgrath is merely a prelude. A reshuffling of the Sith order under fire and ambition. One of us will command the Fourth Legion when it ends. And when we do…" She let the sentence dangle like perfume in the air.

"I intend for that Legion not to represent the Sith, but to redefine what the Sith are. Not zealotry. Not chaos. Something... usable. Strategic. Sympathetic—to those with clarity."

She met his gaze now, utterly composed.

"Someone will win the Velgrath. Someone will hold the leash to twenty thousand elite soldiers, black-helmed and waiting. Do you want that leash in the hands of a creature who still mistakes rage for strength? Or in mine—wielded with precision, with memory, and with a clear understanding of what was earned on Dantooine?"

Then, softer. Almost gently.

"I know what you're thinking, Rellik. You want a Sith who won't come for your throat after the banners fall."

A beat.

"I didn't come for your throat."
A whisper of smile.
"I came for your trust."

She stepped closer to the table now, eyes flicking across the holographic frontlines.

"So here's what I propose."

Her voice cooled—strategic, focused.

"Bastion makes no declaration. No endorsement. You ensure your border stays... selectively porous. Certain supply routes are overlooked. Certain troop movements ignored. No banners. No battles. Just permission, quietly given, for an exchange in arms and men to turn the tide in my favour. I know the route is long, hence why I am asking now, as to allow the time for your forces to move quietly amongst the wider galaxy."

She looked up once more, that glint of licentious charm returning like a lover's breath.

"And when I've secured the Fourth? When I have reshaped the Legion into something the Diarchy can work with rather than hide from?"

A single nod.

"You'll find my memory very, very long. And my debts... exquisite."

 

[Diarch Rellik]

Rellik didn't answer right away. Instead, he stepped toward the war table, one hand trailing along its polished edge as if weighing every figure. Passing it by, he paced slowly, casually, around the edge of the chamber, his cloak whispering against the marble that came from his childhood home on Taris. His voice when he spoke was velvet-wrapped iron.

"The Diarchy does not hide from the Sith. We rather like the King of the holy worlds and the rest of you are just far enough away from us to not be bothersome. At least members of your order came to the grand declaration. Its ironic that you all have less ignorant pride than the Alliance." He rubbed his fingers together at the mention of the alliance. As if noticing there was some filth upon them.

"Even recently you held an event for the entire galaxy. I heard several members from our bankers, chancellery and even a high councilor in Zara Saga attended. We have not had such concessions and effort from the so called peacekeepers of the galaxy. The report from Caelus Vire on his interaction with Princess Varanin was an enjoyable read." A short laugh interrupted his words, faint amusement beneath the iron.

"You've brought me something rare, Virelia. An actual defined promise of some partnership..." He paused for a moment. Gauging his counterpart. His equal. "Speak plainly. You are requesting military access to our space. I can grant you specific codes, keep them at all times or you will be annihilated before you can forge your destiny. No matter how evident it appears. You seek weaponry and manpower, you may have them. We simply need to discuss what kind. The grade of weapons is no problem, the skill of will of the manpower is another. There is no sympathy for you in these parts. The easiest route would be droids, clones, and lowlifes with weak mental states that you can forge on your one. Which would take time."

He looked at her honestly. It was no longer Rellik watching Serina glow and be beautiful within the mine of Dantooine. It was a ruler who was responsible for forty-five planets. His words carried the power to veto any chancellor, any member of the brotherhood. He was willing to accept the deal in a show of appeasement to someone he had come to share a sense of comradery in how they face the galaxy head on and mold it to their design.

"Now what I want in return, is your promise of returning my aid. I would not ask you to fight the Sith order. If it was in your benefit than fantastic. What I want is to know that when the fourth legion is yours. That there comes a day where you put their lives on the line for my wants."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



Darth Virelia did not flinch beneath the weight of Rellik's words.

She welcomed them.

They rang clean, edged in power not flaunted but earned—the cadence of a man who knew the worth of what he commanded and expected nothing less in return. There was no posturing here. No parading of thrones or dogma. Just two sovereign architects shaping lines on a galactic canvas—he, with forty-five worlds; she, with nothing yet claimed, and everything already bending.

As he finished, she approached the war table once more and stood across from him, her armored fingers grazing the edge of a glowing frontline. Her voice was velvet, but the blade beneath it was honed.

"Then let us speak without veils."

She nodded once—graceful, elegant, final.

"Yes. I am requesting selective military access. Not for parades. Not for occupation. For movement—clean, quiet, and unimpeded. Strategic corridors that allow me to reach when others believe I'm still elsewhere. Not power projection—power application." Her lips curved faintly.

"And I'll take the droids, clones, and half-starved brutes. I don't need sympathy, Rellik. I need obedience. Raw material. Things I can twist, mold, or discard without consequence." She tilted her head, letting the light kiss the contours of her cheek.

"You understand. Sometimes it's not about who marches behind you—just that they march when you say so."

Her voice dropped slightly in pitch, rich and slow.

"I will take only what you allow. I will ask nothing of your people unless you offer them freely. But I will turn what you give me into an army that speaks my will in silence. That serves not the Sith, not chaos… but design."

Now her tone shifted—softened. Not weaker, but more intentional. A moment of respect.

"And I will repay it."

She circled the table again, slower this time, walking not like a diplomat, but a sculptor examining a piece before the final cut. When she stood beside him, her voice dropped to just above a whisper.

"I won't insult you with conditional loyalty or vague assurances. So let me give it to you plain."

Her gaze locked with his—no challenge, no coyness. Oath.

"When the Fourth Legion is mine, and it will be mine, you will have its strength—on your terms. No allegiance. No leash. Just the unspoken understanding that one day, you will call, and I will answer. Not out of debt."

She leaned in, voice a breath over his shoulder.

"But out of respect."

A long pause followed—intimate, loaded with weight.

"Call it a pact between sovereigns," she said, stepping back with a trace of heat behind her eyes. "Not out of sentiment. Not even out of friendship."

Another pause.

"But because I remember Dantooine. And you remember what I became."

Her smile returned—calculated, dangerous, and warm all at once.

"Is that sufficient, Diarch?"

 

[Diarch Rellik]

His eyes did not waver, nor his posture shift. He stood while she spoke with his back straight and head forward. As the leader of his people he did not want to send anyone to be mulch for a Siths garden. Feed for it to grow upon. These terms though, the droids, clones, and dredges of society was acceptable. The clones purchased for this purpose would be indoctrinated into believing brutality but be limited among the other two classes of troops in comparison. This, he could allow in exchange for a strong warrior such as herself. Rellik did not really care about the fourth legion. 20k troops were not the same as having Virelia on beck and call to do battle. That, was the better part of the deal.

There was a point in time where the light upon her face, the breath upon his neck over the shoulder, and the lingering eyes would have been enough. When Virelia came close back in the day he might have reached out and tried to seal this treaty in another way. That time was many years ago now. A younger leader, It made him smirk and laugh on the inside but at the thought of heat he only could think of one person. It was for that reason he had not moved at all.

As she moved away with that tempting calculated movement, his eyes simply tracked her.

"That is sufficient. You will have your corridors. Your passage. Your raw material, your soldiers, ready to be bent or broken, as you see fit."

Than as a stone coming to life, he began to sway around the room and stood in the middle, upon the marble circle in the floor at the center.

"This is where people come to speak to us. This portion of marble here, it comes from my fathers home on Taris. All our talks of fate, destiny, forging our own path on the galaxy. It stems from the man, the house - where this marble comes from. Come here. For the last time, I meet you as Serina Calis. From now on, to me - you will be Darth Virelia, and we will be in accord. Shake my hand upon the grounds of Kakus, than we will have sealed our deal."

Rellik stuck his hand out. A final sign of the new chapter the two of them would move into together. Another leap into their own fates that they have molded for themselves.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



Virelia did not move immediately.

She let the moment breathe.

Rellik stood like a monument—his hand outstretched, not in dominance, not in concession, but in recognition. The gesture bore no theatrics, no pomp. It did not demand respect—it offered it. Which, to her, was far more potent.

Her eyes dropped to the circle of marble beneath his boots.

Kakus.
The name rang faintly in her memory, distant and deliberate. Not a city—an idea. A house. A man.

She understood now. This was not merely a symbolic act.

It was ancestral.

She turned fully, pacing toward him with the same elegance she'd shown when disembarking the shuttle—predatory, measured, total. But this time, her armor felt less like a threat and more like an answer. The meeting had already gone beyond tactics and barter. What lingered now was legacy.

And legacy was the one game she played with absolute sincerity.

When she crossed the circle's threshold, her boots clicked softly on the imported stone. She looked down, just for a moment. Not out of reverence—but acknowledgment. This floor, like the man before her, had endured. There was something sacred in that.

Her eyes rose to meet his.

"Then let it be so."

She reached up—one smooth motion—and unclasped the final restraint of her gauntlet. The blackened phrik plate hissed softly as it detached from her forearm, revealing bare skin beneath. Pale, unmarred, but lined faintly with old sigils etched by alchemical rite—half faded, half glowing. Marks of rebirth. Marks of choice.

She extended her hand—unarmored, unguarded, deliberate.

"On the grounds of Kakus," she said, her voice lowered to match the gravity of the moment, "I seal this accord. Not in the name of the Sith. Not in the name of conquest. But as one sovereign to another."

Her fingers touched his—warm, human, alive. The handshake was firm, anchored, but not stiff. There was heat in it, yes—but not the kind from the past. Not the young, fleeting temptation of a forgotten Dantooine firefight, when blood and electricity filled the air and they were both still half-carved from impulse.

No. This was different.

This was the warmth of mutual consequence.

She did not smile in triumph. She smiled in completion.

"You will not regret this, Rellik," she said. "When I reshape the Fourth, they will not resemble the chaos of our predecessors. They will not chant or proselytize or paint the stars with dogma. They will be a scalpel in the dark. An empire of decision, not devotion."

She stepped a half-pace closer, her voice now lowered to something just shy of intimate.

"And when the time comes—when your enemies stand in awe of your restraint and still fall beneath your shadow—I will be there. At your side. Not because I am yours, or you are mine. But because we chose to write this chapter together."

She broke the handshake, slowly, letting the contact linger for a second longer than necessary. Not for drama—for memory.

Her armored hand reengaged with a mechanical click as she reattached the gauntlet, her silhouette once again whole.

Then, almost as an afterthought, she glanced down once more at the marble.

"I don't believe in destiny," she said softly. "But I do believe in continuity. And this—this place, this moment—it will matter. Not to the holonet. Not to the historians. But to us."

Her golden gaze lifted back to his, alive with restrained heat and brutal clarity.

"You gave me something more valuable than soldiers today. You gave me permission."

She tilted her head ever so slightly, as if marking the space between them not with flirtation, but with shared certainty.

"To act. To win. And to remember who stood beside me when the galaxy still thought it could choose its future."

She turned slightly now, cloak whispering as it followed, and gestured once—sharp, elegant, final.

"When the Velgrath ends, Rellik, the others will look around for answers. For banners. For symbols."

Her helm, still held under one arm, caught the overhead light—its six eyes glimmering like insectoid gods.

"They'll find none. Just me."

She turned her head over one shoulder, just enough to let her voice curl back toward him.

"And by then… they'll already be living in our world."

 

[Diarch Rellik]

Rellik stood still as her hand left his. He didn't speak immediately. There was no rush. For once, the silence did not demand to be filled. It deserved to linger.

He watched her reattach her gauntlet, watched the cloak fall back into place. Not as a man admiring a woman but as a ruler acknowledging the full assembly of an equal.

"Go, Darth Virelia. Take what I have given you, and make it undeniable as you are so good at doing."

He stepped aside, allowing her the way out. As she began to turn, his voice followed, lower now, with a flash of familiar irreverence beneath the polished veneer. A joke to the first time they met.

"Would you like a walk back to your shuttle. Or perhaps, do you need a ride?" He knew she did not need to be walked. She did not need a ride back to whatever hell hole of Sith space she came from. He simply wanted to tease her again the same way he did when they left the tomb on Dantooine.

He scratched the back of his head just like before, the smallest smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"You know. For old times' sake."

He tilted his head, eyes gleaming with that same dry amusement he wore the first time when the tomb was still collapsing, and her legend was just beginning to sharpen. The first time they parted ways.

Then he gestured lightly toward the hallway leading back to the private hangar of the crucible. Ready to let her go, confident in what they had created today. His face still with a boyish smirk and enjoying the moment.

"It has been great to see you again Virelia. May you prosper and change the galaxy. My agents will be in touch with the recourses you have requested... Reach out to me again sometime. So we may change the fate of the galaxy again."

Now, he stood. Ready to say goodbye to her again. Perhaps to see her soon, or again several years.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Credits, oh credits..."

Tag - Diarch Rellik



She did not turn right away.

The invitation—joking, familiar, intimate in that old sardonic way—hung in the air between them like the scent of smoke after fire. Serina Calis would have laughed outright, perhaps. Might have teased back, flirted, thrown something sharp and pretty just to hear him parry it. But Serina was gone now, distilled into the woman who turned slowly, deliberately, as if time itself bowed before her exit.

But when she faced him again—helm under her arm, golden hair catching the chamber's subtle glow—her smile was genuine.

Not warm. But real.

"Do I need a ride?" she asked, voice low, velveted, amused. "No, Rellik. But you already knew that."

She stepped toward him again—not to renegotiate, not to linger, but to anchor the moment. To make her final words count.

"You always did know how to walk the line between irreverent and regal. I suppose that's why I liked you."

Her gaze softened—not weakness, but precision. Intention.

"And why I still do."

She let the silence rest for half a heartbeat, her eyes scanning his face—not to read it, but to remember it. As he was now. Ruler. Survivor. Sovereign. Still irrepressibly him.

Then she spoke again, this time with the sharp grace of a leader invoking the future—not merely hinting at it, but declaring it.

"When the Fourth is mine—when the Velgrath is not simply won, but finished—I'll call for more than just agents and corridors."

She paused a breath.

"I'll call for you. And Reign."

A tilt of her chin, regal and unshaken.

"We three. No diplomats. No ministers. No courtiers. Just us. A summit of intention. Not a pact. Not a coalition. A design."

She approached him until they stood again upon the same marble where their accord had been sealed. She didn't offer her hand this time—there was no need. It had already been done. But her voice lowered to just above a whisper, the way one might speak in a confession or an invocation.

"Do you know why I chose to come to you first?" she asked.

Not rhetorically.

She waited.

Then answered herself.

"Because you understand what most Sith never will. That strength isn't proved by victory—it's measured by what remains after the fire. You've held this Diarchy together while half the galaxy tried to pull it apart. You adapted. You endured. You evolved."

Her words were edged with admiration, but never subservience. Equals, yes. But only because she allowed that word to mean something.

"I don't want a banner. I don't want territory. I want minds I trust to see past the theater of war. And in you and Reign, I see that."

She straightened now, the full height of her figure casting elongated shadows against the room's sigil-lit stone.

"Once the Legion answers to me, we three will sit down. With maps. With plans. With vision. Not to seize what remains of the galaxy—"

Her smile turned sharp again.

"But to determine what shape it should take."

She gestured lightly, respectfully, toward the chamber doors—toward the spire and hangar beyond.

"I'll walk myself. But I'll remember the offer."

Then she turned fully, pacing back toward the corridor with the same predatory grace she had entered with, though now something heavier trailed in her wake—not just armor and cape, but intent.

She stopped at the threshold, pausing just long enough for her voice to carry clearly without raising it.

"It was good to see you again, Rellik. It reminded me that not every path taken away from power ends in loss. Some become spires."

Her eyes flicked once over her shoulder, that same old sin glittering just faintly behind her gaze.

"And I think next time, we'll both be wearing crowns."

With that, Darth Virelia—Serina no more—strode into the crucible's lightless corridor, the black whisper of her cape the only sound that remained.