Private Heretics in Harmony

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



There were few places in the galaxy that felt as raw as Echnos.

The planet greeted her not with warmth, but with warning — tectonic sighs and the thunder of broken crust beneath her ship's descent. Above the horizon, jagged spires clawed at a sky painted in bruised reds and bleeding golds, as if the world itself bled for purpose. Darth Virelia stood at the viewport of her vessel, arms loosely folded behind her back, posture regal, almost serene — a sculpture of calculated stillness. She drank in the sight not with awe, but with a predator's patience.

"She still rules from the wound," she murmured to herself. "Of course she does."

Echnos had always reflected its mistress well. Beautiful. Severe. Trapped in a constant, volcanic state of becoming. It was fitting, almost poetic, that Darth Anathemous — that half-remembered ghost from a more idealistic time — would make her throne here, amidst heat and fracture, dreaming of redemption through fire.

Virelia exhaled slowly through her nose, tongue brushing the back of her teeth as a private thought coiled through her. It tasted of venom, sweet and familiar.

She was here for business. For the future. For the illusion of unity.

Tyrant's Embrace adorned her like a second skin—sinuous, monolithic, and merciless. It moved with her, not as attire, but as extension. The armor did not cling to beauty; it imposed it. Liquid obsidian sculpted into ridged symmetry, the suit carved her silhouette into something divine and inhuman. A sovereign's armor, made not to protect, but to remind others what power should look like. The heavy matte-black hood cast her helm into shadow, from which six glowing violet eyes regarded the world with insectile awareness. There was no face—only the mirrored void.

Each movement she made whispered against silence. Plates flowed. Her breath moved the ancient glyphs etched across her torso, glowing faintly with the pulse of something other—not blood, but will. Identity made manifest. Ritual forged in terror.

"Darth Anathemous," she said at last, voice distorted through the helm—low, smooth, metallic, intimate. "It has been… too long."

She didn't bow. She didn't need to. The armor was its own declaration. A long pause followed. She let it stretch. Let it hurt.

"Shall we speak of tomorrows, then?" she offered, the faintest curl behind the words.

The cape whispered. The glyphs glowed. And her gaze—sixfold, violet, unblinking—never left the woman ahead.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

She did rule from the wound, just not in the way most thought.

Even now vestiges of the Phobis device lingered in the cracks, even if the whispers had finally faded.

This city was still ruled by fear, just not of it's ruler. Anathemous had been surprisingly kind to them. The hospitals were clean, and fair. Orphanages were not so packed as they once were, and if Serina were paying attention on her way in then perhaps she'd noticed how clean their clothes were, how well fed. Too much to rule out that it was not only the economy to thank. They were still imperial citizens, the factories still dominated the upper levels of this indoor city, managed crime still existing in the lower levels as they were expanded deeper into the world's crust, but relatively speaking? They were cared for in a way.

No it was fear of the outside which kept them in line. Of the other lords and what they'd done to win this city, of losing what they'd gained to them or the Alliance again.

And there, at the head of it all, Anathemous stood in her office, arms folded behind her back.

Were she not Sith, she might've been picturesque of the noble ruler she wished to be. Her body was clad in the Emperor's darksteel evocative of ancient knights, bulging Exo-muscle adding only a little to the woman's strong figure. She wore no fancy dress of blackened silk this time, not for Serina. Some may think it insulting, but she'd known Serina to wear plate of her own in many formal gatherings, and the fact she bedecked herself in kind was a sign of respect.

Or that she acknowledged some threat, in her own way.

Instead it were the expensive furs worn about her broad shoulders, and aurodium chain which bound them, that spoke of the immense wealth between her ever gloved fingertips. This was more her speed.

Ever the warrior still, even if her office smelt of Nlorna flower perfume these days.

And the lingering scent of a disposed cigarra.

"...Darth Virelia." she answered after some time.

Golden eyes were slowly torn from the barren wastes outside the window, regarding the woman over her shoulder. They were brighter than before, still her own but... the dark side had taken to her more deeply of late.

Even so, her force signature was hidden for now.

"Tomorrows."

"Do you speak of the Velgrath?"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The door shut behind her with a hiss that echoed like a blade sliding into flesh.

Virelia entered without ceremony—her presence was ceremony enough. The light from the overhead fixtures caught on the curved ridges of Tyrant's Embrace, casting warped reflections of her helm across the polished obsidian walls. Six violet eyes flickered with slow pulses of light, registering Anathemous' posture, her tone, her scent—cataloging everything in silence.

The city outside still trembled, in ways subtle and visible. Not with terror, no. Not now. The architecture had grown thicker, more defensive. She'd noticed it from orbit, long before the approach. Reinforced domes. Heat exhausts integrated into housing towers. A careful threading of necessity and kindness. She had even seen a child smile, a clean shirt clutched in tiny fingers, eating something hot. Her stride had not faltered, but she had noticed.

She filed that detail away like a weapon.

Anathemous stood poised like a statue cast from ancient flame—strong, armored, draped in wealth that didn't quite conceal the warrior beneath. Not decadence, not here. A projection. Not unlike her own.

The only difference was that Virelia's mask had six eyes.

Virelia stopped six paces from the desk, angled just so that the pale light gleamed down her carapaced form, her segmented cape pooling behind her in elegant folds of synthetic shadow. She tilted her helm just slightly. An acknowledgment. Not quite deference.

Her voice, when it came, was a textured silk—low, resonant, metallic from the helm's modulator, yet unmistakably intimate. Every syllable bore intention.

"Among other things."

The air felt close. Perfume lingered beneath the scent of steel and scorched air. She tasted the Nlorna flower on her tongue, remembered the way its extract dulled the edge of most poisons. Clever. Elegant.

A moment passed, indulgently long. Then—

"You've built something… persistent."

"They obey not because they are broken, but because they are, invested."

There was no sarcasm. No smile. Just that slight tilt of the head, that too-calm stillness that suggested both compliment and interrogation. Her tone threaded the needle between admiration and warning, as if to say: I see what you've done.

She moved again—one step, two—each silent, gliding motion belying the weight of the armor. Her fingers flexed slightly, talons clicking faintly as if savoring the feel of the air. She let herself drift sideways, not circling but coiling, approaching the edge of the desk without quite claiming it. A serpent measuring a flame.

Her gaze, unseen behind the helm, traced Anathemous in full now. Perfect.

"The Velgrath is a storm. It's not meant to be won, not truly. Not by anyone."

"But it can be… tamed."

The way she said tamed felt like pressure behind the teeth. Not threat. Not even desire. Something more deliberate. A promise of inevitability. Virelia's voice had a way of burrowing beneath language. A heat that lingered long after the words had passed.

She circled once, slowly, boots whispering against the polished floor. Not predatory, not quite, but surgical. She was not here to dominate this woman—not yet, domination would come to all in time. But she would not yield either. This, like all things, would be a negotiation carved in silk and steel.

At last, she stopped to face Anathemous directly. The glow of her armor pulsed once, subtly, as though answering some unspoken rhythm. The glyphs across her chest shifted, unreadable but undeniably active.

"You and I know the truth, don't we?"

"That change is a body. And every body needs organs—systems that move in rhythm. With vision. With intent."

Another pause. She let that linger. Let Anathemous breathe in the weight of that implication.

This was not flattery. It was placement. She was offering a role, not a leash.

They could tear the galaxy open again—not for glory, but design.

"I've no interest in ruling another ruin. But I could make something worth surviving… with the right blood to pump through it."

There it was. No threat. No seduction. Just conviction, encased in a sovereign's shell, delivered with the certainty of a woman who did not lie.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Serina inched ever closer.

The young Darth spared her helm a glance, it's crimson visage reflecting her own from upon a bookshelf in the corner. Kaila did not need it though, despite having chosen to wear the rest of her armor today. The lord of Polis Massa made her intentions clear, even if first strained through metaphor.

Kaila allowed her to continue invading her space, because she knew she'd every means to evict her if necessary.

"You know the strangest thing?" she chuckled bitterly.

The young Darth turned her gaze outward again, over the ever expanding network of trenches and bunkers.

"I used to pride myself on loyalty."

"Me."

She never raised her voice, but her gaze had sharpened on the gray skies outside.

"My fellow apprentices however taught me an important lesson; that one must strike first or risk betrayal. So I got good at killing Sith. My own kind, over and over."

"I promised myself that would change, after the coup."

Kaila's reflection smiled bitterly.

"Don't you think that's a reputation I want to shed...?"

She turned but briefly to look Serina in the eye, but it wasn't Serina anymore. It was that damned spider. And so she merely sighed, facing the window again. Whatever was happening behind her mask of composure, it was bitter. It was worn, like a scar reopened and it bled negativity into the force even it's exact nature remained a mystery.

"If you've come to do business, Virelia, we will do business."

"But leave me out of your plot."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The silence stretched, not uncomfortable, but purposeful. Virelia let it thicken like smoke in a sealed chamber.

The truth was simple: Anathemous was tired of being used.

Virelia understood that better than most.

She did not speak immediately. Instead, she stepped closer with measured grace—silent, unhurried, inevitable. Tyrant's Embrace whispered against itself as she moved, armored plates shifting with organic precision, the glowing veins of glyphs pulsing like breath. Her presence, already heavy, darkened the air between them. But it did not suffocate. Not yet. She let Anathemous feel the proximity—feel the choice she had not made yet.

And still, she did not touch her.

She simply stood there, just to Anathemous' right, letting the woman keep her eyes on the trenches and the grey horizon beyond. There was respect in that. Or perhaps calculated mercy. After all, Anathemous had already chosen not to look at her. So Virelia gave her what she claimed to want: space.

But not distance.

"Do you know why spiders weave?" Virelia said softly, her voice low and velvet-slick, distorted gently through her helm. "Not to trap prey. Not really."

"They weave to connect—to sense movement. To feel the world's vibrations through tension."

She let the words settle, uncoiling them slowly, letting the metaphor breathe. It wasn't condescension. It was an offering. A shared language. Not from pity, but caution. Respect.

"I don't want to stop you, Anathemous," she continued, and this time, her tone sharpened. Not cruel, but deliberate. "I want to know when you move."

That was her third line. She let it hang in the air like a blade suspended by silk.

She turned now, slowly, to stand beside her—shoulder to shoulder with the young Darth, both of them facing the endless trenches outside. From this angle, the two armored silhouettes might have seemed almost alike: dark, poised, regal.

"You've earned your scars," she said at last, quieter now. "They are not a disqualification. They're your credentials."

That was her fourth. Not comfort. Not praise. Recognition. A statement of record, spoken like fact.

The Force stirred faintly at that. Not a push, not a pull—just an acknowledgment. Something in Virelia's presence relented, subtly. The tension in the room shifted, like a key clicking into place without unlocking the door.

Then, she turned her head just slightly, gaze tilting back toward Anathemous—not confrontational, not yet—but enough to remind her that she was not being spoken to by some hollow shade in the dark.

"You're not the only one who's killed her kind."

That was the fifth. A quiet confession, buried like a knife in silk.

Virelia had murdered allies, siblings, lovers. All in the name of survival. Of purpose. Not because she enjoyed it. But because they stood in the way. Sith who could not evolve were simply matter waiting to be reshaped. She did not hate them. She refined them.

She let the moment breathe again, then took one final step forward, her boots whispering against the floor as she moved to stand between Anathemous and the window.

Not blocking her view. But offering a new one.

And when she spoke again, her voice was colder now—iron wrapped in velvet, patient and clear.

"But unlike them, I don't intend to die for the old way."

That was the sixth. The only one that mattered.

She held still for a moment, framed by the grey light and the endless trenches, the artificial war-machine pulsing beyond them. She could feel Anathemous' uncertainty. The fracture. The flicker of potential not yet extinguished. She would not stoke it with sentiment. That would be an insult. She would give her what no Sith ever gave freely: clarity.

And choice.

She turned, at last, to go—slow, deliberate, as if trusting Anathemous not to strike her back. And beneath her helm, she smiled. Not triumph. Not hunger.

Just inevitability.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Serina's voice had always been dangerous.

Sweet, gentle, with a hint of danger mixed into a venomous cocktail.

Kaila would never admit it aloud nor allow her face to betray such thoughts, but it was the kind of voice she'd fallen for so many times. But that meant she'd heard it all before, picked up on it's hidden meanings, sniffed out temptation.

So why was she letting the spider whisper so close?

"You've earned your scars," she said at last, quieter now. "They are not a disqualification. They're your credentials."

Ah. there it is.

She quirked a brow, allowed herself to look at her in the corner of her eye.

Though her signature in the force was kept purposefully blurred, small even, their time apart would make the visual corruption all the more visible by contrast; her eyes glowed fiercely in this overcast lighting, more so now than ever before. She wondered if Serina had changed beneath that mask too.

It was the closest thing to intimacy they'd shared since Ando.

And even that was soured by what Anathemous assumed to be a veiled threat of sorts. Her eyes found the trenches again, features pulled in that forcible neutrality she'd always worn, feeling almost natural now.

Serina stepped between her and the window then, forced her to look.

Which frakking eye was she supposed to focus on?

She said something, something that would have perked the governor's ears a long time ago, were it spoken from different lips. Or lips at all. And then she tried to move, tried leave again.



* thump *


Gloved fingers were splayed against the glass in an instant. Serina had no way of predicting it, no precognition could warn of her, no future command her, not while she remained branded.

Kaila made no vibrations in the web.

Her Exo-muscled arm was teasingly close, almost between the crook of Serina's neck and the curve of her shoulder.

She wanted to play games? fine. but Anathemous only knew one way to play; her own.

The blonde leaned in, just enough to invade the girl's space without ever touching, to fog her mask with the slow, tense exhale to follow. When she spoke at last her voice was soft, quiet, intimate in all those ways Serina knew and yet so expectant.

"Speak plainly, Virelia."

"What do you ask of me?"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



For a moment—just a moment—the air changed.

Not from the closeness. Not from the breath that ghosted across her helm and fogged the edges of the obsidian mask. Not even from the interruption itself, sudden and silent as it was. Virelia did not flinch.

But something in the Force stilled.

It was the quiet between lightning and thunder. The moment the needle hovers above the skin, and the body braces for pain.

The gloved hand on the glass was no threat. The proximity? Expected. Calculated, even. And the exhale—oh, that was familiar. The heat of it. The weight of it. The dare of it. It reminded Virelia of another night, another room, when bodies moved like shadows and loyalty had meant something more intimate than oaths.

Corruptive, powerful, dangerous nights.

Virelia did not turn to face her immediately. She let Kaila lean in—let her have the illusion of pressure. Of closeness. Let her imagine that she had claimed some small victory in closing the space between them. Because Virelia knew: in proximity, most things grew weaker. Flesh faltered. Voices cracked. Motives blurred.

This was her art, the art of corruption.

She turned only when it served her, slow and fluid, her body pivoting just enough for her helm to meet Anathemous' gaze. Six violet eyes gleamed in the low light, fanned in symmetrical patterns across the mask, each one glinting with uncanny awareness. There was no mouth. No expression. Only the endless reflection of Anathemous' own eyes mirrored back at her. Like looking into a godless cathedral made of her own doubts.

"You know I never speak plainly."

That was her first line—gentle, teasing, but immutable.

The words came like a caress with a scalpel beneath it. Virelia's voice was low, smoother now, silkier. She modulated it subtly—just enough to sink into the narrow space between threat and temptation. To coax, not demand. To seduce clarity from the fog.

She took a step forward, not away. Into the crook of Anathemous' poised arm, brushing close enough that the fabric of her segmented cape caught on the edge of the blonde's vambrace. Still no touch. Still no contact. But all the illusion of it. All the pressure of a moment almost breaking.

She wanted her to feel it.

"But since you insist…"

That was the second. A gift, thinly veiled as obedience.

The glyphs across her armor pulsed once—slow, steady, resonant. Not glowing with power, but purpose. Like a heartbeat that did not require blood. Her hands remained at her sides. Open. Relaxed. Her posture casual—but never unguarded. She could strike, yes, but more importantly: she didn't need to.

She paused long enough for it to sting. For Anathemous to question, even for half a second, whether the answer would come at all.

Then—

"I want your voice at my table. I want your mind in my machine."

Third and fourth—delivered in sequence like paired strikes. One direct. One possessive.

There was no beg, no flattery. No delusion of shared purpose or cheap alliance. Virelia didn't offer positions. She offered inevitabilities. She made space in the future and named those worthy of it.

But she knew Anathemous. Knew the scars and the silence and the quiet war between wanting to be seen and refusing to be known.

So she paused once more. Let the weight of it settle. Then spoke her final line, voice like honey poured over a slow blade:

"What do you, desire?"

She did not smile. She didn't have to.

The Force around her remained still, coiled, obedient. The web did not shudder. Not yet. But it was aware now. Aware of Anathemous' presence. Of the potential ripple she represented.

Serina, Virelia—spider, sovereign, sovereign-spider—stood perfectly poised in that intimate space and offered no threat.

Only clarity.

The window still waited behind her. The trenches still smoked. The world still turned.

But this room was no longer part of it.

This was a different battlefield now. And Virelia had just drawn the first, slow, delicious line in the sand.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Silk ghosted along captured beskar.

it wasn't quite what she wanted, but it was close. Serina teased that touch as though dangling a carrot.

But she teased other things too. Powerful things that Anathemous did not wish to acknowledge, but Kaila knew to be a dangerous weakness;

Want.

Kaila swallowed.

And she hated herself for it.

Freckled cheeks creased with the tightening of her jaw, watching Serina move the pieces in real time. Were this another time, this would have been so much easier. Were Serina not filling a space left empty by her, they'd not be standing here like this at all. Did she know...?

"What do you, desire?"

Silence strangled the air between them.

She watched her own eyes narrow six fold as the realization struck that Serina was turning her move back on her now. She was no Rinea , hadn't mastered that particular brand of subtlety yet, but the girl was better than she remembered.

"I seek..."

Kaila closed her eyes for but a moment, let her head hang, then glanced over her shoulder.

"Something you cannot provide."

When she faced her again, she did so with a frown. It was a look of acceptance, but not quite defeat. Anathemous had a mission still, convictions for some unknowable purpose. But she accepted that it would always be her burden.

A deep breath, a release of tension.

Only to replace it with a new one.

"There is something."

Kaila doubled down. Her other hand came up, more slowly than before but nevertheless did it take the same bold position as the last, hovering just above the opposite shoulder as she placed her fingers to the chill glass.

Her brow raised expectantly, curious how far she could take this game.

How invested Serina could be.


"I want to look you in the eye when we speak."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



Virelia stilled, utterly.

Not in hesitation, not in weakness—no, there was no such thing left in her—but in mastery. Her body, encased in the liquid obsidian of Tyrant's Embrace, became monolithic. The only movement was the slow flicker of violet eyes across her helm, the sixfold constellation watching Kaila's face from six different angles, all converging on the same conclusion.

So. She wanted.

And now she was asking.

That, in itself, was the real revelation. Not the words, not the touch—hovering, tempting, carefully measured to challenge dominance without breaking it—but the request. In a room that pulsed with veiled aggression and unresolved memory, this was something else. Not surrender.

Permission.

Virelia tilted her head slightly, the motion subtle and animalistic. One slow pivot of those mirrored eyes—like a hunter deciding whether to lunge, or indulge. And in that moment, beneath the mask, Serina Calis smiled. A small thing. Not triumph. Not cruelty.

Satisfaction.

Kaila was reaching out with both hands now—metaphorically, spiritually, literally. Not to grasp power. To grasp her.

The Force between them had become tight as wire. Not explosive. Tensile. The air felt like silk pulled taut, shimmering with the heat of two minds too alike to ever coexist peacefully… and too bound in reflection to ever truly separate.

Virelia raised one hand.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

The armor moved like flowing metal, her gauntlet whispering as it lifted—not to block, not to deny, but to answer. Two taloned fingers reached toward the side of her helm, finding the hidden seams nestled beneath ritual stitching and armored ridges. A soft click.

Then another.

And another.

With the quiet care of a surgeon and lover, she unsealed the mask.

It did not hiss, did not break with theatrics. It simply loosened. She lifted it away with her other hand, letting the shadows fall away from her face like petals from a dissected flower.

Her face was unchanged.

And yet, entirely changed.

Serina Calis stood revealed—flawless, composed, untouched by time but carved by purpose. Flowing with long, blonde hair, to the surprise of the confines of her mask, her expression was calm, her eyes violet but glowing now, stripped of refracted multiplicity, narrowed slightly as if appraising a specimen or reading a scripture too sacred to speak aloud.

Not cruel. Not cold.

Intimate.

"You still know how to ask beautifully."

That was her first line. A compliment. A fact. Spoken with such ease it might have been passed off as casual.

She let Kaila see her. Truly see her. Not the spider. Not the mask. The woman. The will behind the armor. The precision behind the seduction.

She stepped forward again, and this time the distance vanished. No brush, no tease—only presence. Close enough that the mirrored curve of the mask still in her hand caught both their reflections, side by side in the glass. Two sovereigns. Two scars.

Her voice came softer now, warmer, without modulation—but not stripped of its power. Only its distance.

"What I cannot give you doesn't frighten me."

Dangerous. Honest. Dominant.

She leaned in, just enough for the illusion of threat, but gave none. Let Kaila feel the power, but not the pressure. This was a choice. It had always been a choice. It will always be a choice.

"But I offer what no other ever will..."

A blade wrapped in velvet.

She let the silence hang again. Let Kaila process. Let her see that this wasn't a manipulation. It was an invitation. And, perhaps, a warning.

She reached out slowly with her free hand, the claws of her gauntlet retracted into smooth fingers now, and rested the tips—not the whole hand, just the tips—on Kaila's own where it met the glass. Not gripping. Just… present. Real. A pressure point in a web of a thousand threads.

And then, the final blow—gentle, deliberate, finishing the thread she'd spun from the start:

"Would you want to find out?"

The mask in her hand gleamed. But her eyes never left Kaila's.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

This was beginning to feel real.

It was never supposed to feel real.

Virelia gently removed her mask, and at long last, Serina looked back at her. She'd seen her face before, wearing that smug look 'round the table, aboard the Darklight, but she'd become this distant thing—a concept—loosely associated with the woman she once knew.

For just a fleeting moment, she saw her friend, one she'd not seen since Ando.

Though she'd changed, that was always the catch. She could not see herself in those blue eyes anymore, they shone a brilliant violet that Kaila would have thought familiar if she did believe herself the last true Force Walker.

They were pretty, in an ominous sort of way.

Maybe it was the Vahla in her, that was so inclined to such inhuman features.

"It's... been a long time, Serina."

Not that they'd ever seen so close before. She remembered that slight flirtatious tension when they first met, how she'd ignored it because she belonged to another woman.

Now the intimacy felt just as conflicting, only for new reasons.

"You still know how to ask beautifully."

Her brows rose the barest inch.

Something about the word "ask" felt humiliating to the Sith. pet-like.

It didn't matter, Serina stepped forward, taking command of her little game and her thoughts.

It wasn't until their fingertips touched that Kaila realized she'd dug her own grave, and it was getting hard to see out of it.

The line which determined who was using who had been crossed and she was no longer sure which side she was on or if Anathemous pulled one way whilst Kaila pulled in the other. Her freckled features didn't show any sign, merely that contemplative stare, but she was frightened. She was putting herself in a position to be hurt by the girl who'd already abandoned her once and it scared her.

"Would you want to find out?"

But she had to know. She was a seeker, that was her curse, she had to know.

"Show me." she breathed.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The words hung there like incense—light, fragrant, but unmistakably dangerous.

"Show me."

Serina did not move at first.

She didn't need to.

Kaila had already surrendered more than she realized. The admission, though whispered, was a seismic shift beneath the surface of this exchange. It was the moment when tension crystallized into inevitability. The moment when the seeker stopped standing at the edge of the labyrinth… and stepped inside.

Virelia's violet eyes narrowed, a breath's width, the subtlest flicker of knowing satisfaction blooming in their depths. She did not gloat. She did not glee. There was no need to mark victory when the pieces fell exactly as they were placed. She had not forced Kaila to open the door—she had architected the conditions under which she would.

A slow exhale passed through Serina's lips, barely audible, more shift than sound.

And then, she moved.

Not swiftly. Not hungrily. With control.

The motion was so smooth it seemed preordained—like a blade sliding into silk. She brought the hand still holding her helm down to her side, letting it rest weightlessly against her thigh. The mirrored curve of its black surface caught the subtle glow of their shared standoff, casting twisted reflections of both women—warped, mythic, unfinished.

Her other hand, the one that had touched Kaila's at the glass, lifted once more.

But this time it did not stop at the fingertips.

She let her fingers trail—delicately, deliberately—up the younger woman's wrist, over the edge of the vambrace, toward the inner crook of her elbow. Not seductive. Not just that. It was clinical and reverent in equal measure, like inspecting a priceless relic… or claiming one.

She was not taking permission.

She was verifying it had already been given.

"Then don't flinch."

Soft, commanding, and devoid of doubt.

Not a request. A challenge. A contract.

She continued the touch only as far as the arm allowed, then pulled her hand away—not quickly, but with a finality that made its absence sting. She watched Kaila closely now, more than just her posture, more than her body.

She was watching the will inside the armor.

The fractures beneath the command. The pieces no one else had the patience—or precision—to see clearly.

"You wanted the spider."

A blade's edge smoothed with honey. Honest. Cruel. Irrefutable.

She allowed herself a single step around Kaila's side—just enough to trail the line of her figure, to let her voice come not from in front of her but behind, off her shoulder, ghosting like a presence half-remembered in dreams. The Force around her pressed in subtly, weaving around the room like silk through fingers. She wasn't overwhelming Kaila. She was surrounding her. Cocooning her in silken inevitability.

"You wanted something real."

Whispered against her ear like a sin shared at confession.

Her breath lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary before she shifted again, drifting back into Kaila's view, her violet gaze piercing, all warmth eclipsed by sovereign fire.

The edge of her voice returned now—cool, crystalline, the cold brilliance of a star, not to burn, but to illuminate.

"So I'll give you truth."

The promise. The sentence.

"Once you see me, truly, you don't get to look away."

There it was. The Rubicon.

No kiss. No overt claim. No violence, no seduction loud enough to fill the silence. Just dominion, unspoken but unmistakable.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

She couldn't feel her touch.

But Kaila could feel the pressure.

Her hands were the most sensitive, ever gloved, but unarmored. Serina's wandering hands found Exo-muscle after, tightly bound coils of wrapped Nylasteel and hydraulic tubing. To the touch, It wasn't so different from the marble skin beneath, but it did not react the same.

The touched, but didn't. Always something between them.

Her arms slowly slipped, and dropped to her side when Serina pulled away.

Things had not gone the way she feared they might, and that was as much a mercy as it was bitter agony.

Golden eyes followed violet as the spider circled her, stopping just out of her sight to speak again. Steadily the force became... different. Not a threat but still a display, she felt it all around her. Kaila's presence however remained small, tightly bound. tempting as it was to let loose and show her what Anathemous really was now, this was not a threat for her to push against.

"You wanted something real."

Whispered against her ear like a sin shared at confession.

Kaila... shuddered, and shut her eyes.

They remained that way longer than usual, keeping the thoughts behind them to herself.

When she opened them again, it was a look of defeated acceptance which marked her features. She really was letting Serina walk back into her life, she'd accepted that now. Not the whole of it, Kaila would always have many secrets of her own, but she was giving the girl a chance. That was more than most got.

What would they become in the end? she did not know, and every outcome she imagined was frightening in it's own way.

"I..."

But Kaila had never been one to accept inevitability. Never accept her fate.

Never again.

She'd walk into this with both eyes open, because she needed to know every step before she took it.

"I need to know." and her tone reflected that need.

Kaila took her by the wrist. Not forcefully, not even firmly, just a show of that need. Finally she looked Virelia right in the eye, worry plain to see.

"Would you truly challenge the Emperor? the Empress?"

The last was whispered, as though it were the most traitorous thought of all;

"Quinn's ascension?"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



Virelia did not recoil.

She allowed the touch—Kaila's fingers at her wrist—to linger unchallenged, though her body language remained unchanged. Still. Poised. Dominant. She did not flinch. She did not lean in. She let Kaila reach, because that was the shape of power Serina offered: never taken, only provoked.

Her skin was warm beneath the armor's seam, the contact point just above her gauntlet where obsidian ridges gave way to soft, flawless flesh. And yet it was the tone of Kaila's voice that drew her attention more than the touch. Not the words. Not even the names. But the need. That echoing, aching desire to know what could not be known—what shouldn't be known—and yet must.

"Would you truly challenge the Emperor?"

That word—truly—was where the weight lay.

And Serina heard it like a bell ringing in a quiet cathedral.

Virelia's gaze did not flicker. Not once. She held Kaila's eyes—violet to gold—until the silence became unbearable. Until it became intimate.

Then she moved.

Slowly, but decisively, Serina brought her free hand to Kaila's, gently curling her long fingers around the one that held her wrist. Not restraining it. Not guiding it. Cradling it. As if it were precious. As if she might kiss it—but didn't.

Instead, she simply held it there, their hands entangled between plates of armor and exposed skin, while she stepped in again—closer than before. The gap between them vanished like a lie exposed. Her breath ghosted against Kaila's cheek. Her voice came in just above a whisper, warm and sultry and dangerous.

"I don't challenge thrones, Kaila."

Quiet. Seductive. Deceptively simple.

"I corrupt them. Infect them, wrap them in my silk and venom and make them mine."

Sharper. A truth dropped like a shard of glass.

She let that cut between them, then softened again—deliberately so. Her thumb traced the edge of Kaila's knuckle, the gesture strangely gentle for a woman so often mistaken for myth. Not out of affection. Out of precision.

She did not flinch at the name Quinn, but she honored its gravity. That thread had weight—too much to tug recklessly. And while Serina did not know the full shape of what had passed between them, she knew heartbreak. She knew how to maneuver around its edges like a lover navigating old wounds.

"If she is meant to rule… she will."

Inevitable. Irrefutable. She let it stand not as a threat, but a judgment.

Not of Quinn. Of the system. Of rule itself.

She stepped in one final inch, their foreheads nearly aligned now. Her violet eyes bored into Kaila's, molten with intensity but never cruelty. Only possession. Only power.

She did not ask Kaila to agree. She didn't need her to.

"Tell me, what do you desire? Should I take her place? Should I construct something new?""

Then came silence again—but now it was charged. Magnetic. Between them stretched a hundred futures.

But only one would be chosen.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

There was no space left to invade.

It was all but conquered.

Kaila lifted her chin, not quite inviting, not quite recoiling. She didn't know how to respond anymore, Serina turned the game back on her like a mirror, and though she planned to continue playing, the young Darth had long since realized the number of pieces that would be sacrificed to do so.

Because Virelia always played to win.

"I don't challenge thrones, Kaila."

Quiet. Seductive. Deceptively simple.

"I corrupt them. Infect them, wrap them in my silk and venom and make them mine."

And Kaila could not foresee a future where they both win.

"If she is meant to rule… she will."

Because they were playing different games.

Her brows furrowed, realizing then that Serina had chosen a long term strategy. Corrupt, influence, worm her way into the heads of rulers until their minds were one and the same. That was a dangerous admission. But it was clever, she'd dissuaded Kaila's concerns of violent intent while not quite absolving herself of potential.

Kaila did not wish to see the Princess influenced, she still believed the echani's ideals were not unlike her own.

But neither did she believe Serina needed to change this, to benefit from her rule.

And yet...

"Tell me, what do you desire? Should I take her place? Should I construct something new?""

Kaila froze.

This wasn't just about rule. The princess had left a vacuum and it seemed Serina was offering to fill it. It made her stomach knot, it made brought heat to her blood and stilled her breath.

Her lips pursed, twitched with words that never quite made it.

"I corrupt them. Infect them, wrap them in my silk and venom and make them mine."

She thought about those words again. About how, though she sat no throne, she too was wrapped in silk now, could taste the venom on the air.

She wasn't ready to dedicate herself to another woman, not like that, never again.

But maybe, for awhile, they could pretend?

Their armor clinked together and their breath mixed. Her other hand came up, to Serina's waist. Softly up her back, taking a gentle handful of her cloak.

And finally, with the faintest quiver, she spoke;

"...something new."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



It was all but spoken.
The surrender behind the syllables.
The invitation laced in trembling restraint.

"...something new."

The words quivered like a prayer offered in the space between conviction and collapse.

And Serina Calis—Darth Virelia—took them like an oath.

She did not rush. She did not seize. Control, after all, was not asserted by force. It was accepted. Welcomed. Invited with trembling hands, even when those hands didn't yet know what they'd grasped.

Kaila's fingers curled into her cloak, soft and unsure, a gentle plea dressed as a gesture. Her other hand still lingered against Virelia's wrist, now pinned between them like the final barrier of choice. And Virelia? She made no move to break away. She let it happen. Let her feel the weight of what she'd just given.

Because corruption, real corruption, was never violent. It was intimate.

Virelia leaned in with calculated grace—never brushing lips, never forcing touch—just shifting the air between them. Her hand rose to Kaila's waist in mirrored reply, fingers sliding just beneath the edge of her armor to press lightly, commandingly, against the curve of her spine. It wasn't about flesh. It was about message.

I have you.

Her voice came low, velvet-thick, laced with heat and finality. Every word was coiled silk.

"Then give yourself to the becoming."

Not a suggestion. A beginning.

Kaila's body was fire beneath armor, flickering with tension and need. Not just need for touch—but for definition. For a future to walk into that didn't already carry Quinn's shadow. Serina had seen this kind of grief before—had used it before. The space left behind by love was cavernous, echoing, starving. And if you whispered into it long enough…

You could make yourself holy.

Her thumb began a slow, idle stroke at the base of Kaila's spine. No more than a circle. No less than a brand.

"Give yourself to the venom."

Smooth as poison.

She saw how tightly the girl held herself—how the softness of her touch betrayed the iron of her conviction. She was resisting change with every breath, and yet here she stood, offering herself to it.

Not because she trusted Virelia.

But because there was no one else who understood how to wield power like desire.

Virelia's eyes narrowed—not in threat, but focus. Her hand trailed up, slowly, following the line of Kaila's spine to the nape of her neck. She let her fingers rest there. A hold without pressure. A promise of possession, not pain.

"It will be the sweetest corruption you will ever taste."

Not metaphor. Prophecy.

She did not wait for permission—she had already been given it. In trembling breath. In wandering hands. In the admission of need disguised as curiosity. And Serina would honor it in the only way she knew how.

Her breath ghosted past the girl's cheek, her next words coiling into her ear like a velvet noose.

"And you will learn how beautiful ruin can be."

Sin dressed as sacrament.

The Force around them tightened—not violent, not loud. It purred. A thousand threads drawn gently together, whispering promises beneath the surface of armor and memory. Her presence blanketed the space now, not heavy, but absolute. There would be no leaving this unchanged. There would be no walking away without carrying something of Virelia inside her.

And then—she moved.

Not tentative. Not testing. Claiming. Serina closed the last fraction of distance between them and took Kaila's mouth with her own—commanding, slow, precise. A kiss not of affection, but of possession. One that curled fingers into fabric and told the body beneath it: you belong to me now.

Her hand at Kaila's spine pulled her flush with the obsidian armor. Her lips molded against hers with velvet pressure, not rushed, not soft—sovereign. Like tasting prophecy. Like sealing something ancient and inevitable with heat.

When she parted, it was by her own decision, only by inches, her breath still brushing Kaila's lips as violet eyes held gold in molten dominion.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Give yourself.

She hated those words, because she loved them.

Somewhere deep down she knew that after so many heartbreaks and betrayals, all she wanted... was to be wanted. To belong somewhere, somehow, not because she forced her presence to be acknowledged, but because she was invited.

And she would do horrible things to taste it.

She already had.

But could Serina—Virelia—keep up that illusion long enough to believe?

Her touch was gentle not somehow firm, traveling up Kaila's sculpted back, up muscles that were too tightly bound, that were so close to snapping. Then she felt that faintest pressure on her a neck she did not even know was being bared until the spider had wrapped herself around.

She wore an open frown.

Not with disappointment, not exactly. It were as though gazing into the eyes of a spice addict; someone who knew what they were about to do would surely kill them in the end.

But knowing they couldn't stop.

"It will be the sweetest corruption you will ever taste."

"And you will learn how beautiful ruin can be."

Kaila shivered.

Silk was crushed between her fingers and Obsidian scraped gently against Darksteel, but no longer did she resist change—frightening—unpredictable change. She hardly moved at all, save for the way her cuirass bobbed up and down a bit faster than before. The way her eyes shook dangerously close to tears, then slowly shut. Their kiss was so gentle but so firm, a promise. One she prayed this time would be kept.

In the end she gave in, made Serina tear her lips away as though to say that possession went both ways.

And as they stared into one another's eyes when it was all over, heated breaths mixing in the recycled air between them, Kaila knew there was no going back. She'd lost the game, this one, at least.

Virelia had her.

For the moment.

With a shaky breath, Kaila's hand departed the woman's wrist, tracing a gentle path up her armored sleeve. Up the inner arm, ghosting dangerously where arm and chest met. Instead that soft glove found it's way to her shoulder, where pauldron ends and neck begins.

And just when it seemed she might mirror Virelia's movements, Exo-muscle groaned under hydraulic pressure, and Kaila gripped her shoulder firmly. Her eyes never separated from hers, there was still that hint of something more behind them, but they sharpened quickly.

"Do you remember the feast..." she said shakily, urgently.

"When you approached me in disguise, do you remember what you told me?"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



There was a sound—small, imperceptible, almost tender—as Virelia exhaled through her nose.

Not annoyance.

Not amusement.

Recognition.

She did not pull back, not immediately. Her breath remained mingled with Kaila's, slow and scented with the chemical purity of recycled air and something darker, something floral and metallic and hers. Her helmet was gone now, discarded somewhere behind them, and her gaze was exposed: sharp, glimmering, aware. She had the eyes of someone who did not blink unless she wanted you to feel it.

Kaila's grip tightened—fingers wrapped in armored mesh pressing into the ridged shoulder of Tyrant's Embrace. A final anchor. A plea in the shape of defiance.

Virelia allowed it. She rewarded it. Not with retreat. Not with kindness. But with attention—the full weight of her gaze narrowed and fixed, now focused solely on Kaila. No battlefield, no plan, no future.

Just her.

And that voice—smooth and sin-wrapped, dipped in velvet and venom—answered with surgical timing:

"Yes."

One word. Enough to draw a line back through time, to the feast, the masks, the glances that lasted a second too long. She did not hesitate. She never did.

"I told you Serina Calis was dead."

Her tone didn't carry cruelty. No satisfaction. Only certainty.

She tilted her head slightly, the gesture feline, deliberate, her short silver hair catching the light as if she'd been sculpted from it. Her breath warmed the space between them.

"You didn't believe me, not in the way you think."

She let that settle.

Kaila's eyes held the last remnants of resistance—flickers of old light buried under new shadows, the impossible war between what was and what was done. And still she asked. Still she needed something to hold on to. One last thread to grasp before she went willingly into the dark.

And Virelia knew.

This was the moment Kaila was trying to rescue herself.

To use memory as leverage. To speak truth to the spell and shatter it with her voice.

How quaint.

How endearing.

So Virelia stepped forward—only slightly—but it was enough to press them together again, armor and exosuit whispering against one another, intimate in the way violence and love so often shared the same language. Her hand—cool and clawed, yet somehow gentle—rose to cradle Kaila's jaw, her thumb brushing beneath her eye, catching the glint of moisture not yet fallen.

"You hope for Serina."

A pause. The breath between a caress and a verdict.

"But you desire Virelia."

That was the knife. She didn't twist it. She inserted it—softly, deeply, where it could never be pulled free again.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Virelia didn't seem to fear where this was going.

Kaila did not care. This wasn't about instilling fear, just awareness.

They held one another's gaze, one in recognition, the other in anticipation, but so too did they hold their tongues for a time. That's what she was after really, feeding of the attention, because even for the briefest moment it forced Serina to look at her like something more than a Dejarik piece.

Only it didn't last long, that was exactly the issue.

She answered the question, finally, but followed it with a riddle that Kaila hadn't the time nor energy to solve right now.

Virelia was trying to reel her back in, but she didn't need to. The thread was already at it's end, she had Kaila. Virelia only failed to realize the full extent of what she'd stolen.

When she approached to take Kaila by her freckled cheek, she leaned into her touch. All the while keeping up the intensity of her gaze from the corner of her eye. Virelia would feel the way her skin creased as muscle tightened around her metal jaw, gloved in skin that had always been unnaturally smooth for a warrior-sorceress.

So too did her hold on Virelia.

Not her shoulder. The hand gripping her silken cloak forced their body's closer than even the spider had intended, pressing them together almost possessively.

Her eyes were brighter now, aggressive in their own way as self imposed restraints began to snap. The air was becoming chill as Anathemous began to show where Kaila had once fought for control. It felt as though something truly ancient stood before her now, not alone, but beside or perhaps even within the already powerful and stormy presence of the woman Serina once knew.

And they kept growing.

Slowly, one by one, the presence of ancient things made themselves known but not visible.

She wasn't just that girl anymore. She was a walking graveyard.

And it was pulling Virelia in.

Anathemous embraced her tightly, the weight of metal bones secured as she wrapped her arms around the lord of Polis Massa just as she had done on Ando, but with a distinct grip that promised reward and warning both.

If she wanted Kaila, she would have her.

All of her. not just the parts she wanted, the parts that were easy.

"I was already mourning one friend that day," she whispered into her ear.

"Slain on Dorvalla while I was trapped on Echnos, besieged."



"Serina broke me."

Her voice fought through grit teeth, quiet, but unforgiving, as though every word could have been a scream.

Then for just a moment, the silent scream became a silent cry. A crack.

"Nobody saw it but I lost control. I did things I can't take back and I have to live with it. Because of you."

And finally; steel.

"So I will give Virelia a chance."

"And the promise I once made Malum; If you fuck me over, know that vengeance is my sustenance. And I am prepared to spend more than one lifetime to feed that hunger."

​