Private Dumplings Under Chandeliers

[Darth Virelia]

"Really going to give this a chance?"

Tags - Zee Caromed




Virelia sat on a curved obsidian bench built into the rear bulkhead of the vessel, her legs crossed with regal ease, motionless except for the slow, deliberate rise and fall of her breath.

Wrapped in Tyrant's Embrace, she did not appear seated so much as enthroned. The armor moved with her breath, subtle pulses of violet light shimmering through the crystalline node at her chest—alive, as if it too awaited direction. The six insectile eyes of her mask cast a faint glow against the shuttle walls, eerie and elegant, watching every screen and reflection with languid, inhuman patience.

The interior...

Clean black lines framed soft underlighting in hues of plum and indigo. A narrow wine shelf extended from the side wall, recessed behind a polished transparisteel case, stocked only with selections older than most planets. A velvet-lined console tray sat folded open beside her, holding a decanter of dark fruit brandy, a single curved glass, and a hand-written note from a sommelier on Polis Massa who'd once sworn an oath never to pour for Sith.

He'd poured for her. Under the thread of gunpoint.

To be completely fair, she was drunk.

She had been sitting there for exactly seven minutes and twelve seconds. She waited. And while she waited, she imagined.

Would he come armed again, just in case? Of course. Brave men didn't stop preparing just because they'd survived once. Would he dress up? Would he fidget? Would he blush if she offered wine? Or would he keep that quiet, measured calm that made him so damn interesting to her?

The thought made her smile—just slightly, with a kind of anticipation.

She had not removed her helm. There was a kind of performance in waiting masked. A test. A temptation. What kind of man arrives to a rendezvous with a creature like this and dares to treat her like a woman?

Her voice—when she finally spoke, softly into the shuttle's internal comms—was low and curved, like silk slipping off a blade.

"Open the ramp. Let him choose the direction."

The ship hissed in response, and a slow, patient stream of city-smog air curled inward through the extending boarding ramp. Polis-lit shadows cast bars of neon across her armor. She made no move to rise.

Not yet.

 

[Zee Caromed]

Zee was, to a casual observer, not much of a Mandalorian. Anyone who thought that hadn't seen him prepare for an event where he didn't know or have control of all of the variables in play, though. He'd sworn the Resol'nare, he tended to his duties and obligations as he understood them. He was a child of both of his parents - the Witchknight juggernaut as well as the ever-armored Alor of Caromed. As that latter figure would have insisted (and factually had herself), Zalke prepared for his date as thuroughly as he would going into battle.

Was the event on her ship or were they expected to go elsewhere? He'd assumed Virelia had a plan, but if not he'd made reservations at the finest restaurant in the Talinn district.
Would he need to be just as able to defend himself as he'd had before? Of course he would. He had less space to stash weapons, though. So he kept his lightsaber in a clutch and openly wore his beskar'ika at his hip.
How did you serve while also tending the constraints of the Six Actions? His clan crest painted expertly on his nails, aforementioned beskar'ika, and his trusty Lotek'k jacket. And, of course, the fetching meditation crystal necklace Braze had so thoughtfully gotten for him. He'd done the nails himself, but he'd gotten a professional for this hair and makeup for once.

Keeping in mind that Darth Virelia had expressed a disdain for the working-class aesthetics that Zee normally surrounded himself with, he had dressed appropriately and arrived chauffeured by armored luxury speeder. After all, Zalke was one of the two children of the head of his clan, and the only one to bear the clan's name - his pedigree was without question, and it honored his family to display their wealth and influence from time to time.

Zee stepped out of the speeder once the door had been opened for him. Wearing a sleek designer evening dress he'd comissioned a few weeks ago under his lotek'k jacket, the svelte nurse took the extended ramp as an invitation aboard and acted accordingly. Strappy heels clicking, he ascended fearlessly into the belly of Virelia's ship.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Really going to give this a chance?"

Tags - Zee Caromed




She heard the click of his heels before she saw him.

Virelia liked that.

She remained seated, the obsidian bench cradling her form like a throne, the low violet lighting casting long shadows across her armor. Tyrant's Embrace caught the light as if it had swallowed stars and refused to give them back. Her helm turned incrementally as he approached, each of her six glowing eyes narrowing and refocusing like apertures.

Then she rose.

She moved with inhuman smoothness, the armor unfolding with serpentine grace, each plate whispering against the next like an apex predator stretching after a nap. Her cape flowed behind her like living smoke, the crimson underlayers catching the shuttle's ambient glow with each measured stride.

She drank him in.

The evening dress was exquisite—sleek, tailored, designed to command attention without begging for it. But it was the contrast that intrigued her. The jacket, the saber clutch, the shimmering crystal at his throat—it wasn't posturing. It was framing. He had arrived prepared not to impress, but to match her. To meet power with presence.

And his nails...

Finally, she spoke. Her voice poured from behind the helm like velvet mixed with static, rich and crackling with layered tones. Sultry.

"You clean up beautifully, Zee."

She circled him slowly, each step a soft thunder of intention on the shuttle floor. Her fingers, still sheathed in clawed phrik, hovered just above his shoulder as she passed—not quite touching.

"Nails. Designer evening wear under that jacket. A meditation crystal, of all things, nestled right at the throat."

She leaned in slightly, voice dipping.

"You're dressed like temptation and legacy rolled into silk."

Then—click—her helmet released with a hiss of pressure. The six violet eyes flickered out. The plates retracted with a mechanical whisper.

And Serina Calis—Darth Virelia—looked upon him with her own eyes at last.

Bare-faced, bare-necked, a half-smile teasing the corner of her lips.

Her hair was up—precise, coiled into an elegant knot at the crown of her head, leaving her throat bare.

"You didn't just try," she said, stepping into his space fully now, her voice rich with pleasure. "You succeeded."

She reached out, brushing one clawed fingertip along the crystal necklace—not yanking, not testing, just acknowledging.

"And you arrived like a prince, not a servant. That's important."

She looked him in the eyes.

"So tell me, my darling Mandalorian… have you plans to bring me somewhere decadent and dangerous, or am I pouring the wine here and making you talk?"

 

[Zee Caromed]

Zee was mentally confronted with the plausible scenario where he'd showned up in his beskar'gam to pick her up, and they'd gone out to dinner in full armor both. Maybe done a bit of light dancing. Clack clack clack all during the waltz. It took all of his willpower to not burst into laughter. He sublimated the desire into a satisfied smirk - one that was perhaps a bit too like a smile for the cthulu-skin jacket and red lipstick to entirely disguise.

"I'm glad I have your approval." Zee replied honestly as she examined the necklace Braze had given him. If the proximity of the Sith bothered him at all, he gave no indication. He didn't flinch, he didn't pull away. She had the advantage in armor and in height, but that didn't bother Zee. If she'd wanted to kill him, it'd have happened down in that cave. "I read somewhere that the best way to show someone you respect them is to prepare for their presence and value their time. So that's what I've done."

A mischievous smirk as Zee glanced away, trying not to grin. "I don't want you to think I'm all chipped formica counters and dusty caves, after all." He chuckled.

"So tell me, my darling Mandalorian… have you plans to bring me somewhere decadent and dangerous, or am I pouring the wine here and making you talk?"

"As tempting as that proposition is - and how eager I am to drink a Sith under the table - I do have a reservation prepared if you're interested." Zee promised, his wrist twisting to vaguely indicate towards the way he'd come. Though his evening dress and heels couldn't be more different from the ripped jeans and combat boots he'd worn on their excursion into darkness, Zee's demeanor wasn't measurably. His gestures still oscillated between 'dainty and careful' and 'relaxed and confident' without much consistency. Less that he was caught between two extremes and more that - like a Besalisk passing things between two sets of arms - he was so comfortable being either that he gave no thought to how he moved moment-to-moment. "There's an armored car outside ready to take us to a reserved table at Liliana's, if you're interested. If not..."

Zee reached up and drummed his nails softly down Virelia's armored wrist, a small waterfall of click-click-click. "We stay here and I ruthlessly judge the pedigree of wine you feel I'm worth." The Mandalorian teased. "Your call. My Lord."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Really going to give this a chance?"

Tags - Zee Caromed




Virelia's lips parted—just slightly—as his nails drummed their playful rhythm along her armored wrist.

Click. Click. Click.

The sound was delicate. Innocuous.

But there was something obscenely intimate about it, wasn't there? Not the touch itself—barely even contact—but the audacity to trace a line down the Tyrant's Embrace like it was lacquered silk instead of forged sovereign death. No fear. No hesitation. Just finesse.

She liked finesse.

Her smile sharpened.

"Liliana's," she repeated, letting the name roll over her tongue like a vintage she wasn't sure she trusted. "That could mean anything."

She tilted her head ever so slightly, like a queen surveying a piece of art she hadn't yet decided was genius or accident. "Is it a reputable institution… or the kind of place where an underdressed waiter stabs someone for mispronouncing a planet?"

A pause. Thoughtful. Calculating.

"…Because I could enjoy either."

She leaned in, just a little—only enough to breach the space between them with the scent of amber, spice, and warm iron. Her voice dropped to a velvet murmur, all shadow and seduction.

"But if this is some overly lacquered Mid-Rim fusion bistro where the staff say 'experience' instead of 'meal' and call every plate a moment…"

A beat.

"…I will set the sommelier on fire."

And yet, even as she said it, her eyes betrayed no real venom. Just interest. Deep, flickering interest.

Because the truth—the dangerous truth—was that she hadn't checked. She hadn't looked.

She could have. With a thought, she could've combed every review, hacked every table registry, studied the architectural blueprints of the kitchen staff break room. But she hadn't. She'd let him choose. She'd let Zee Caromed steer.

And now, she realized—

She wanted to see where he would take her.

She reached up, her taloned fingers ghosting along the line of his jaw, not quite touching, just tracing warmth through the air between them. "Fine," she said at last, voice honeyed and full of dangerous promise. "You've convinced me."

Her hand fell away, but the smile remained.

"I'll come see your little reservation. And if it offends my sensibilities…"

She turned, her cape trailing like smoke and stars as she moved toward the ramp.

"…then you'll owe me a private bottle of the 714 Rydell Black from Serenno's southern coast."

A glance back over her shoulder.

"And a long, unbroken gaze while I drink it."

She descended the ramp, every step graceful, deliberate, and heavy with amusement.

"Come, darling. Let's see how well you've read me."

 

[Zee Caromed]

"Trying to read someone on the first or second date is a fool's game - especially if they don't want to be easy to read." Zee replied breezily, joining Virelia as they descended from the ship. His heart was still racing a little from the trace of the jaw, from the heady feeling of having an especially affectionate knife at his throat. Heady, and a little intoxicating. Not at all unexpected or unwelcome. After all, life was about taking some risks. "The whole point is getting to know somebody, after all. What they say, what they don't say. Gathering information, building a rapport. Trying to 'read' someone comes off as trying to win at interaction - and people can sense that from a kilo away. That's diplomacy one-oh-one."

The car awaited. At no point did Zee open or hold a door - there was staff for that. Because for all the high talk about not reading somebody, you had to act on observed preferences and data. Zee had brought two men with him tonight, both heavily armed and discrete Caromed men. One to drive the speeder, and the other to act as a physical reminder of his clan's presence in the form of an entirely superflous bodyguard.

The ride to Liliana's was short, mostly because the speeder was going up as much as it was downtown. Like most ecumenopoli, Taris was built vertically - and the higher from the street you were, the further you were from the filth and pollution. The street level was a never-ending cacophony of gunfire, advertisements, groaning homeless. But up here, in the towers? Glitz and glass, lights and finery. The rarest resource on Taris was 'clean', and it all existed up here. The speeder pulled up outside of a fine dining establishment with no signage, no advertisement, simply a sturdy door and military grade bionic security.

Zee noted idly that he could faintly see his family's hospital from here, right up the 'road' about half a kilometer down the speeder-filled abyss between shimmering skyscrapers. The penthouse on the other side.

The guard let the two in without ceremony or checking, revealing the second rarest resource on Taris - wood. Zee gave Virelia a mischevious look and held his finger over his lips as they entered. On the other side, a quiet, subdued restaurant with artisanal wooden floors and an Atrisian aesthetic. The walls boasted scrolls and tapestries of fantastic make, some of them old, most of them stolen. A blindfolded woman awaited at the front counter, the only visible staff. Zee approached without word and placed a coin on the counter.

She accepted without word and motions through one of the curtains to either side, leading them deeper into the restaurant. At no point did they see or hear another soul. Nor were they seen or heard by any, save for the clicking of heels and boots - the woman from the front moved with amazing silence, her bare feet making nearly no noise.

The two were led to a private room dominated by a low, flat table in the Atrisian style. The walls were covered with hand-painted depictions of fish being caught by fishermen, fishermen being devoured by fish, both painted in a highly detailed, macabre fashion. The waitress left without a word, and only then did Zee speak. "Someone once told me that when consumption no longer informs survival, it becomes entertainment." He explained, kneeling by the table.

A bottle of wine had been provided, which Zee poured into two sakazuki cups. "Tonight, entertainment. Speaking softly and conversationally, we'll discuss what makes a woman beautiful. Once we've done so, a woman matching this description will arrive, and we will eat sushi." He explained as he poured. "She will, once we are done, leave. Without a hair harmed."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Really going to give this a chance?"

Tags - Zee Caromed




Virelia took the cup from his hand without breaking eye contact, the faintest curl at the edge of her mouth betraying amusement—not at the wine, not even at the ritual, but at him. The six violet points of her gaze had been replaced tonight by her own eyes, sharp and alive, and in the low light of the room they carried the same decadent weight as the rest of her.

She sipped. Slow. Deliberate. Setting the cup down with the same care she might a priceless relic.

"This is… exquisite," she said at last, the words not merely referring to the wine. Her gaze drifted around the room, taking in the painted horrors with a look that could have been admiration or hunger. "Atmosphere. Seclusion. A certain… illicit texture. You've crafted an evening, Zee, not just a meal."

Her focus returned to him, settling with the weight of a silk-wrapped chain.

"But," she added softly, her tone warm enough to make it clear the correction was indulgent, "no one else will be necessary. Not tonight. The only woman here worth describing is sitting across from you."

She leaned in slightly, resting one elbow on the low table, the posture casual only on the surface. "It will be you and I, Zee. We'll speak of beauty, but the canvas will be here—" a gesture to the space between them, "—not in the form of another player brought in to amuse us. This conversation will be ours to own."

Virelia let her gaze wander across him then, from the painted nails to the elegant fall of his dress beneath the Lotek'k jacket. "Still," she murmured, "you could have taken it further. This space? Perfect. But imagine… a floor scattered with crushed blossoms. Incense from worlds neither of us have set foot on. Musicians behind a screen, playing for our ears alone, not daring to enter our sight. A sense that we could do absolutely anything here, and the walls would conspire to keep our secrets."

Her smile deepened—half challenge, half promise. "Next time, perhaps."

She reached for the wine again, tilting it in her hand before refilling her cup. "You see, my darling Mandalorian, decadence isn't only in what is given—it's in the understanding that it could go further still. That there's always another layer waiting to be peeled away."

The cup touched her lips again, and her gaze didn't leave his as she drank. When she set it down, she said, "So. Beauty. Let's begin there. Not the soft, shallow word most people mean when they say it. Not something fragile, or harmless. True beauty has the same gravity as power. It arrests. It disarms. It takes hold of you, and suddenly you are no longer moving through the galaxy under your own momentum."

Her voice had gone quieter, lower, the kind of tone that pulled people forward without them realizing they'd leaned in. "I find beauty in certainty. In a presence that knows what it is and has no need to explain itself. In elegance sharpened by danger. In a mind that can wound as cleanly as any blade."

A small pause. Her expression softened, though it never lost its focus. "And I find beauty," she said, "in the rare person who will pour my wine with steady hands even after seeing what I am."

She let that linger in the air between them, before reaching once more for her cup. "Now," she murmured, "your turn."

 

[Zee Caromed]

Zee turned the question over in his mind a couple of times.

Was he annoyed that he'd reserved the services of three Clawdite geisha for tonight and they weren't going to be used? A little. Conversely, he'd get back the deposit he'd put on their security. So that was nice. His family had money, but Liliana's was a big ticket even for them. But there was a lesson even in this; Virelia was the sort to choose an option C when presented with A or B, even when (at least to Zee) C felt like a downgrade from both A and B. This conversation could have been had in a comfortable lounge somewhere one of them owned.

It wouldn't do to give a hasty answer. Zee ruminated for a moment, thoughtfully considering his cup of sake. He was keeping a much slower pace than she was, he noted.

"Beauty... is a clear sky." Zee eventually murmured, glancing up through his bangs. He lifted his bowl slightly towards the blonde. "Diamonds cannot shine in soil. Clouds in a blue lake. Her feet walk on every shore. She finds her way back to me."

Elements of nature. Illustrating his coming point. Tied to her eyes. Not bad for an off-the-cuff poem, but not his best work. Zee polished off his sake and refilled both of their cups with careful grace and a steady hand.

In both of their cases, probably, it would take more liquor than Liliana's had to get them compromisingly drunk. At least, this was the case for the Matukai adept - he drank for the taste, the experience, and the punctuation of it. Ceremony and structure.

"I think that someone can only be truly beautiful when they're free to be themselves." Zee explained. "We all bury who we are beneath what we have to do, or who we have to be to survive the day-to-day. For some people, that means a day job that crushes the spirit. For some, it's not being able to survive without a complicated medical apparatus. Sometimes, it just means living with the scars of things done to you."

Carefully cradling his cup in a spire of fingernails, Zee considered the clear fluid with slightly narrowed, red eyes. "Taris has a beautiful sunrise. The natural atmosphere, the remnants of pollution in places, add whispy hues like a watercolor artist enhancing the twilight with streaks of bold color. A star that shines slightly dimmer than most draws the moment out, turning what'd be a moment on some planets into a long affair. At just the right angle, when the lights are low and the weather agrees, the sunrise breaking over Tallin sends a blanket of glittering lights across the city. A visible line of glass normally lit by neon shining with natural light. I like to think of it as the city getting dressed in the morning light, pulling on stockings in the quiet to prepare for a new day."

"Most people who live on this planet, the overwhelming majority of souls to be born and die on Taris will never see it." Zee explained quietly. "It's only visible if you're far above the street level, away from the smog and grime. Down there? The idea of a 'Taris Sunrise' would be a cruel joke, a dry observation about a world lit in the same contrasts of rain-slick grime and the flickering of sterile corporate billboards. And why should they care about sunrises and color, anyway? Some of them can't afford to have the lungs they were born with, some of them spend their entire lives struggling to put hand to mouth. Birth to death, only able to spare the slightest recrimination upwards at the lot the Force has arranged for them."

Zee set his bowl down on the table, leaning his elbow to match Virelia's frank posture. "How many brilliant minds, world-shaking performers, disease-slaying physicians has the Galaxy lost, simply because they had the misfortune to be born down there?" He asked intently. "I've spent my life failing to make a dent in that problem, but I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I lose sleep over it."

"I believe that beauty is freedom. Beauty is being able to pick and choose, beauty is having the freedom to lean in or walk away without fear." Zee explained. "A person can only be beautiful when they're unfettered, happy, and doing what they love doing."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Really going to give this a chance?"

Tags - Zee Caromed




Virelia listened, chin resting against the rim of her palm, violet eyes drinking him in as he spoke of sunrises and freedom, of stained skies and unspoiled possibility. His words came like careful brushstrokes on parchment—slow, measured, reverent. He painted beauty as liberation. Beauty as the breath between burdens. Beauty as the rare, unshackled moment when a soul could just be.

She let him finish. She even let the silence linger after, as though she were savoring the taste of his philosophy like a complex vintage. And then, when her smile finally returned, it was indulgent—soft, warm, but threaded with something darker.

"Freedom," she murmured. Her hand curled slowly around the stem of her cup, tilting it between her fingers as though it were the globe of a world. "And why wouldn't you?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly, gleaming with an almost conspiratorial amusement. "But the truth is, freedom is vulgar. Freedom is chaos dressed in the garb of virtue. Give people freedom, and what do they do with it? They squander it. They turn sunrise into routine, possibility into drudgery, potential into waste. Most will never climb above the grime, as you said. They can't. They won't."

She leaned closer now, her voice dipping to something low and velvet-rich. "But give them chains… chains that are elegant, invisible, desirable… and suddenly they shine. Bind a soul, and you force it to grow within the shape you design. That shape—my shape—is beauty."

Her fingers released the cup and reached across the table, claws tracing the rim of his bowl but never touching his hand. "I find beauty in control. In taking a mind that believes itself free, and showing it that true perfection only comes under the weight of my will. A flower in the wild may be lovely, yes—but a flower trained to climb the trellis I provide, to bloom in the direction I demand? That is unforgettable."

Virelia reclined back slightly, her cape whispering against the wooden floor, eyes never leaving him. Her lips curved, sensuous and merciless all at once. "Beauty is not freedom, Zalke Caromed. Beauty is inevitability. It is when the body surrenders to hands that shape it. When the soul yields to a presence stronger than itself. When choice is not abolished, but corrupted into something they crave to be made by me. That moment when passion becomes obedience—that is when they are most beautiful."

She lifted her cup then, sipping again, gaze locked firmly on him over the rim. Her tone, when she spoke again, was licentious silk wrapped around sharpened steel.

"You would see beauty in the city dressing itself for the day. I would see beauty in undressing it, peeling away its layers, until it stands bare and trembling in my grasp. I would call that art. I would call that mine."

The cup touched the table with a soft click.

"Freedom is fleeting. Control… control is inevitable."