Private Heretics in Harmony

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



Virelia did not stop her.

She allowed the hand to rise. Allowed it to press against her own, to peel it from pale skin flushed with buried heat. She allowed the push. Allowed the distance. Even as the gap widened, she did not move to close it—not yet. Her body remained still, poised, patient.

Because it wasn't rejection.
It was resistance.

And resistance was far more useful than surrender.

She watched Kaila step away with the slow grace of a creature testing its cage. Not fleeing. Not retreating. Merely confirming that the bars were real. And Virelia smiled again—softly this time, without cruelty, without even triumph. Just that slow, knowing curve of lips that said:

Yes. Struggle. I like it when you struggle.

Kaila had pulled away, yes—but she had touched her first. Had invited her in, opened her wounds, offered her truths like bruised fruit plucked from branches already breaking. And Virelia? She had tasted it.

Now she simply let it ripen.

The Sith Lord stepped forward once, not aggressively, but with intent. Her movement was slow and fluid—predatory without threat. Every plate of Tyrant's Embrace whispered softly, as though the armor itself shared her hunger.

She stopped at the edge of Kaila's shadow.

Close enough to loom. Far enough to invite.

"Then I will earn it."

Spoken like a vow, but with the cadence of inevitability.

Not placation. Not remorse. She offered no apology. Virelia didn't beg. She didn't chase.

She orchestrated.

And Kaila's every tremble, every tear, every push was another string being plucked in her web.

Her eyes—those molten violets—never once left the woman now turned away. Not when she reached her desk. Not when her voice, shaking and bitter, tossed that final shard:

"I was fond of the illusion."

Virelia tilted her head—slow, feline, amused.

"You wont needed illusions with me, Kaila, as I take all of you, so shall you take all of me."

Razor-sharp, velvet-wrapped. A cut of intimate precision.

She took a step forward—not closing the gap entirely, but enough to let her voice come just behind the girl's shoulder. No touch. Just breath.

Just presence.

"But if you miss it, I'll make you a new one."

Teasing. Commanding. Laced with dark generosity.

Her tone curled like incense smoke—slow, licentious, uncoiling in the still air between them. She knew the depth of Kaila's hurt, but she did not flinch from it. She honored it by using it—transforming it into something beautiful, something useful.

"One that only I can take apart."

She let that linger in the silence. Let it wrap around Kaila's spine like a new kind of pressure.

Dominion of the heart was far more lasting.

And then… she smiled. Subtle. Soft.

She knew what was happening here. Knew exactly what part of Kaila had turned away. And what part hadn't.

Because even in defiance, she had kept her voice low. Kept her hand gentle. Kept the flame alive. And Virelia? She would let her believe she still had a choice.

That was part of the game.

She reached out now—not to touch, not yet—but to ghost her fingers once more through the air, tracing proximity, not skin. And in that near-contact, she whispered:

"But I promise you, Kaila… you do not want that."

Then she stepped back, just enough to deny what might have followed.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Earn it.

Now there was a thought.

Kaila had spent too long chasing dreams that left her behind, let in too many women too soon, without testing their convictions first. It had seen her abandoned and mourning time and time again.

It would be nice, she thought, to make someone work for it.

Prove themselves, prove how far they'd go to make her theirs.

See it through to the end.

Kaila slumped back in her hover-chair, armor rustling, the tiresome weight of metal bones sinking the repulsorfield a few inches. Virelia followed of course, she assumed as much. So too did she assume the woman would be ordered out of her office soon.

But now she was unsure.

She kept talking, like the devil on her shoulder, whispering in her ear still. All the while Kaila fumbled through the desk drawer for her cigarras. Fiora, the expensive stuff. The calming stuff.

"But if you miss it, I'll make you a new one."

Though she never looked at directly, her head began to tilt in her direction, as though to listen closely.

Curiously, she did not take a lighter. The pyromancer never needed one, all she had to do was pull those gloves off, and yet... she hesitated. Her finger was hooked just under the glove, motionless, unsure about something.

Virelia was so close again, she'd have seen if Kaila chose to remove those gloves she always wore.

She kept that smile in the corner her eye, until was gone.

"Then you'd best get building."

Kaila sighed, glancing tiredly over her armored shoulders.

She held the cigarra out, delicately between two fingers.

"Got a light?"

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The request was simple. Disarming, even.

"Got a light?"

But Virelia knew better than to mistake simplicity for insignificance.

She saw the hesitation before it was hidden. The moment the glove's edge caught between gloved fingers and intent—held there, stilled, as if waiting for permission that Kaila refused to ask for. As if one pull might unleash something neither of them could put back in the dark.

How curious.
How delicious.

Virelia took her time answering. She didn't snatch the cigarra, didn't rush to obey like some sycophant flattered by proximity. No—she approached like she always did: deliberately. Like a sovereign drawn to blood in the water. Her boots made no sound, her armor whispered softly, like silk wound too tight, as she came to stand just behind the chair.

Close again. Too close. By design.

The reflection of Kaila's armor shimmered faintly in the blackened curves of Tyrant's Embrace, warped and stretched by curvature, a visual metaphor of what Virelia intended to do to the woman inside it. There was no mistaking the intimacy of the gesture—one warrior sharing a smoke with another.

But Virelia wasn't here to share.

She was here to possess.

Her voice, when it came, was velvet-draped iron.

"I don't light what I can't claim."

She let it hang. Let the meaning seep in through the cracks.

Then she stepped around the chair—slowly—her hand brushing over the high backrest as she circled. She didn't break Kaila's line of sight but entered it at the edge, so the woman had to choose whether to keep watching her.

She stopped just to the left, half-crouching—not to make herself small, never that—but to bring herself level with Kaila's seated posture. A mirror, of sorts. Her eyes, molten violet, scanned the other woman's face with clinical attention. She could smell the tension, the sweat, the barely-restrained exhaustion.

She basked in it.

Her hand rose—unhurried, elegant—and with two clawed fingers, she plucked the cigarra gently from between Kaila's fingers. She did not break eye contact.

"But I suppose I could make an exception."

Second line. A tease. A surrender. A lie.

She lifted it to her lips—not to smoke, but to feel the shape of something recently hers. To hold it just long enough that it meant something when she returned it.

Then her fingers snapped once, and a faint, hissing spark flared to life above her upturned palm. It wasn't fire—not truly. Not from kindling or plasma. It was will. A narrow filament of heat focused to a point so precise it defied science. Her control over it was flawless.

With the same hand, she lit the end of the cigarra, letting it smolder just long enough to catch. Her other hand never touched Kaila. Not yet.

She offered it back—held loosely between two talons now retracted, her fingers bare, long and elegant, the skin cool and unmarred. She didn't push it toward her. She held it just out of reach.

A test.

A game.

"Take it from me."

Her gaze sharpened slightly—not hard, but focused. Like she was waiting to see whether Kaila would lean forward, would close the distance again, even after all the breathless warnings and defiant words.

Because that's what this moment was about—not smoke. Not the cigarra. Control.

If Kaila reached for it, she'd be yielding. Just enough.

And Virelia knew exactly how to take more.

Her voice lowered again, now barely above a whisper, but steeped in promise.

"And remember what it tastes like."

She'd tasted Kaila's mouth not long ago. Kissed her like a conquest, not a lover. Now she was offering the next step: memory embedded in ritual, even in a vice. Let her inhale Virelia's heat from the tip of something burning. Let her consume her one breath at a time.

Let her choose to be devoured.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

She could feel her there, just out of sight.

Kaila did not realize it in this moment but she was every bit the ruler on her little throne, and Virelia was every bit the infectious thing she'd promise. The young Darth reclined in her seat as though daring Virelia, a challenge, but not one to win. I see you, she thought, I know what you're doing.

But she blind to the bigger picture.

Defiance, surrender, they were quickly becoming just part of the game to her.

Could she win? not quite, but she could make her work for it.

A victory in of itself.

She spared her but a glance and no more, not until her cigarra was so gingerly taken.

"But I suppose I could make an exception."

And in that moment, for the first time since Virelia had entered the room, soft lips twitched at the corner in the barest hint of a smile. Unknowing, perhaps, that these words were the first brick in an illusion she had requested of her own volition.

The way she held her cigarra to her lips was a good touch, although it reminded her so very much of Rinea .

And she was no Bodr'ine'ako.

But she played the game well in other ways.

"Take it from me."
"And remember what it tastes like."

Glossy lips pursed, and Kaila was still for a moment.

She wondered what would happen if she did, where this was all going within the next few minutes. hours. today. But what of tomorrow? Virelia wanted all of her, but she needed to be reminded what that entailed. That she wasn't getting only the parts that could be controlled, because a small part of her, no matter her methods, would always run wild.

So Kaila looked her in the eye, and despite that hesitation, she dared to lean forward.

But when she reached out, her hand was unseen.

The cigarra hovered away from Virelia with unmatched precision, rotating to slide between the young Darth's waiting lips without ever lifting a finger. She took a long, satisfied drag, and when she exhaled smoke away from Virelia she did so through a cracked grin.

Because she'd found a way to play the game that entertained her.

By making Virelia chase what she wanted for a change.

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The cigarra never touched her fingers.

It was a clever move—elegant, even. Subtle sorcery wrapped in insolence, dressed in the illusion of distance. And Virelia let it happen.

Let Kaila show her that small defiance. Let her inhale the fire without contact, exhale with smug satisfaction, and smile.

Yes.

Let her think she had turned the game around.

Virelia stood still, a blackened sculpture of sovereign grace, watching the smoke curl in the dim air between them like the tail of a serpent. Her expression barely changed. No flicker of offense, no snap of tension. Only the glint in her violet eyes shifted—sharpened slightly. Tightened with something closer to amusement.

Not the kind one shares with a peer.

The kind a predator reserves for clever prey.

She tilted her head, slow, deliberate, that molten gaze narrowing ever so slightly as if scrutinizing a jewel not yet appraised.

Ah, she thought. So she wants to be chased.

Virelia could have reached out. Could have taken the cigarra again, plucked it from Kaila's lips, made her earn it in return.

But that would've been the wrong tempo.

No—control wasn't about matching speed. It was about dictating it.

Instead, she stepped forward—one smooth motion, the whisper of her armor brushing the chair's edge as she came to stand directly beside her.

Not across from her.

Over her.

Not to intimidate. To frame her.

Kaila sat like a queen in her hovering throne, reclined, exhaling smoke like the ruler of a lesser empire. But Virelia stood above her like a star about to collapse—poised, elegant, inescapable.

She reached down—not to touch, but to trail two fingers along the air just past Kaila's shoulder, not even brushing the armor, but letting the presence be felt. Her voice came low, decadent and slow:

"You want me to work for you?"

She circled slowly behind the chair, hand never touching, only tracing through space—through temperature and silence—like a whisper made of movement. A loop. A binding.

Then she bent low, just over Kaila's left side, close enough that her breath could ghost across the other woman's ear as the scent of smoke, metal, and something faintly floral wafted back toward her.

"You want me to chase?"

Closer. Intimate.

And then her voice dipped to a purr—not angry, not rushed, but interested.

"Then you'd better run, little Darth."

There was no mocking tone. No contempt. Only that subtle coil of desire, restraint, and play. Because Virelia knew something:

When a spider chases, it's not to catch.

It's to entangle.

And Kaila—sorceress, soldier, sovereign—was already wrapped in silk.

Virelia moved around her again, her finger trailing along the outer edge of the chair now, tracing the backrest like one might run a nail over a lover's spine. She didn't lean in. She didn't touch her again.

She simply stayed close.

Always just out of reach.

She stopped in front of her now, standing tall, a shadow sculpted in black and violet, gaze burning down into golden eyes still glinting with challenge. She tilted her head again, just slightly, as if appreciating the rebellion, not correcting it.

She was in no rush.

She'd already won. The longer Kaila danced, the deeper the thread would bury.

"For when I catch you… I won't ask nicely."

There it was.

No demand. No threat.

Just certainty. Velvet-wrapped and venom-laced.

And still, she did not touch.

Because every inch of distance she left behind… would ache.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Virelia may have dictated the speed.

But Kaila knew she had influenced the tempo.

She didn't look at the spider looming over her, wouldn't give her the satisfaction just yet. Instead she indulged her nasty little habit, savored her victory while it lasted and that ghost of a smile remained.

Her silken opponent continued to move, to tease touch which never came as her claws cut through the smoke. Kaila knew she'd grow to hate it eventually in this moment she didn't budge, just kept her eyes forward, let tobac and fleeting satisfaction circulate in her core.

It was not until she felt hot breath in her ear that Kaila acknowledged her.

"Then you'd better run, little Darth."

She took a deep breath, savoring the strange mixture of scents and that tone.

Interest.

Now Virelia wanted to chase, she had her attention, not just her acknowledgement, and something about it delighted the young Darth in a way she did not think possible. Not of Virelia, at least.

She closed her eyes, and when they opened again, the woman was in front of her.

"For when I catch you… I won't ask nicely."

Kaila... smirked.

She put one foot up on the desk not far from Virelia, then crossed one synthatex wrapped leg over the other.

And then she raised her chin as if answering a challenge, speaking with a defiance that had since turned playful;

"I'll be waiting."

​

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Negotiations."

Tags - Kaila Irons



The smirk. The leg lifted. The deliberate, languid defiance.

"I'll be waiting."

Ah, there it was.

The challenge dressed as invitation.

And Darth Virelia—drank it in like wine grown from poison roots.

She didn't smile in return. That wasn't her game. Kaila had played her hand—beautifully, seductively—and now it was Virelia's turn to respond not with flirtation, but sovereignty.

She stepped forward without pause, without ceremony. Closed the gap in a single breath. The sudden proximity was pressure, not violence. Heat. Power. Intention.

She didn't ask.

She arrived.

Virelia's right hand rose—not swiftly, but with impossible elegance—and she placed her fingers lightly around Kaila's throat. Not squeezing. Never squeezing. Just resting. Just claiming.

The contact was cool, her touch calculated to the millimeter. Her thumb rested beneath the jawline, her palm pressed just enough to remind the woman seated before her what it meant to tempt a creature who didn't take what was offered—she rewrote it.

No tighter than a collar.
No gentler than a leash.

"Good girl."

Her voice poured into Kaila's ears like molten silk. There was no mockery in it. No triumph. Just acceptance. The satisfaction of a ruler watching a subject bow—not in obedience, but in fascination.

"Because when I come for you…"

A breath against skin.
A storm behind the horizon.

Virelia bent lower—her violet eyes locked to Kaila's gold with a gaze that refused to blink, refused to look away. Her nose nearly brushed hers, and then—slowly, mercilessly—she leaned in.

Closer.

Closer.

Her lips hovered a breath's width away from Kaila's. A kiss on the precipice, so close the heat of it could be felt, but never claimed. Not yet. Virelia's breath ghosted across her mouth—smoke and spice, promise and danger. The hunger was there, open and coiled.

But she would not give.

She would only offer.

And then her voice, velvet-wrapped and razor-edged:

"You'll beg me not to be gentle."

There was no smile.
Only certainty.

She pulled away.

Not fast. Not suddenly. She rose with the same calm command as a sovereign turning from a kneeling petitioner. Her hand left Kaila's throat without drag, without cruelty—just the memory of touch where skin had warmed beneath it. The echo of what might have been.

That was her weapon.

Not pain.

Absence.

She turned her back without hesitation, began walking toward the door without another glance. Her posture unhurried, regal, her cape whispering behind her like a curtain of silk and secrets.

And then, as she reached the threshold, she paused.

A breath.

Then the door slid shut behind her.

And the silence she left in her wake was louder than thunder.

 

[Kaila Irons]

Wearing: Armor
Tag: Darth Virelia

Kaila swallowed.

And Virelia felt every muscle, in the palm of her hand.

Her teeth ground reflexibly, eyes widened, overwhelmed, they drank in the spider's, and she poured relentlessly over her. It was the first time in a very long while that she'd taken Serina—whoever she was now—seriously. Maybe she wasn't that girl floundering at the table on Terminus anymore.

In fact it was the first time she truly considered that the order was short one Darth since then.

And his killer had her by the throat.

But Virelia would do no such thing, not here, not now. The danger she presented had never been physical, and yet it was one of the most terrifying she'd felt.

"Good girl."

She... should have punched her before it ever came to this.

This was humiliating. but against her better judgement, the ever proud Darth Anathemous did nothing about it. It made her feel vile, defenseless. Because somewhere deep down, Kaila was indeed fascinated.

And then she walked away.

Virelia let her go and turned away as though clocking out of a job well done.

She tracked her movements, still wearing that almost horrified expression, watching her stand there back turned for what felt like an eternity until finally the door shut—

And she breathed again.

Kaila waited until she felt her presence in the force grow distant, using that time to recover her breath. All the while, gloved fingers gently rubbed at her throat.

Her lips twisted bitterly and suddenly she stood, pushing off the desk.

The office door locked with a flick of her wrist.

She marched to the bookshelf and snatched from it the helm she'd been glancing at earlier, turned it over, and ripped out the Electrobug she'd hidden the very moment Virelia entered her airspace. Then came her glove, tossed to the floor in a hurry, exposing blackened fingertips to an empty room.

Which began to glow white hot as she crushed the bug in her fist.

Virelia had not been so self-incriminating as she had hoped.

And there was no way she'd let the world listen to what transpired.

Never.

~Fin~

​