Private I Don't Break Chains

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie


Jutrand.

The skies above the city wept silver mist as the shuttle descended. Wide avenues flared with neon veins and bureaucratic spires that reached like talons into the stormlit dark, refracting the lights of power and secrecy alike. The landing pad belonged to no one—not publicly, at least—but the tower it crowned was familiar. Private. Quiet. Gated by trust. And by Quinn.

Darth Virelia stepped down into the rain.

The downpour beaded and streaked across the obsidian plates of Tyrant's Embrace, flowing like mercury over the sculpted violence of her armor. Her footsteps were silent as ruin, boots gliding across permacrete with predatory restraint. No entourage. No fanfare. Only the faint, crystalline pulse of the violet node at her chest, steady as a heartbeat, alien as a reactor core. The hood draped over her helm like a shroud, its threads catching light like whispered curses. The violet glow of her six insectile eyes cut through the dark with imperious clarity.

The door recognized her, of course.

The interior opened like a memory. No guards. No weapons drawn. Just the delicate imprint of a woman who Virelia still held respect for.

She moved through the space without haste.

Her fingers, claw-tipped and precise, trailed across the edge of a counter. Across a data slate left locked. A glass—finished—still bearing the rim-mark of lips she recognized instantly. Her posture never shifted, but her voice broke the silence.

"Of course you're not here."

There was no anger in it. No disappointment. Merely a kind of curiosity wrapped in affection. She sounded like a woman reading a riddle whose answer she already knew, savoring the cadence more than the solution.

She had arrived early.

She turned her head toward the seating alcove. A chair sat slightly out of place—left that way by someone too tired to notice or someone who meant to return. Virelia stepped beside it and lowered herself onto the cushion with a smooth, measured grace, the segmented plates of her armor hissing softly as they flexed. Her talons laced together atop one knee.

"Sorry Quinn." Virelia mused aloud, not to the room, but to Quinn, wherever she was. "Time to think of some sort of house invasion apology."

 

[Kirie]

Who could that be at this hour?
With Darth Virelia

Someone was watching from the landing. Ever since the door had opened and let in the visitor, dark eyes had peered out from the dim, observing the charcoal armour with its lines of poisonous-looking purple. Watching the way she carried herself with the utmost confidence, even when she was entering another's domain, tilting her head as she spoke aloud to nobody, or, maybe to her?

Kirie knew who she was, of course. She would have known even if she had not been personally been familiar with her. These days, all the Sith and their ilk knew of Darth Virelia. She was someone Kirie had met only a handful of times, back when she was still early in her ascent to prominence, when she was known as Serina Calis. In each of her interactions, Kirie had been left with the distinct impression that she was acting from behind a mask. That, and the whispered rumours that had filtered through circles of palatial servants and staff, made Kirie dread her presence. And now, she was here with her, alone.

Lady Virelia was Quinn's friend though, and she supposed as her Handmaiden it fell to her to make her stay comfortable while she waited for Quinn to call back to the house. Kirie stepped out of the shadowed landing and into the warmth of the entrance hall's lamplight.

In her dark servants clothes, Kirie seemed very small, blending into the background and the other house staff that hovered around. No doubt if she wasn't already known to Serina she'd be rather forgettable, even with the marks adorning her body. But, she was known, and she wasn't sure if Virelia understood the depth of her relationship with Quinn, but it was possible, and that put Kirie on her guard.

Kirie made her way down the stairs and gave a small respectful bow in greeting. From behind her, the miniature protocol droid, silently summoned, floated down from the second floor and took its place at her shoulder.

'Hello, Lady Virelia.' Kirie signed, as formally as she could. 'I apologise, the Princess has been delayed at the Academy. Could I get you a tea while you wait?'

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie


Virelia did not rise.

Her gaze turned slowly, fluidly, the six violet eyes of her helm angling toward the soft tread of feet and the presence that had lingered just long enough to be polite. The armor whispered against itself as she shifted, talons unweaving from one another, her posture not defensive but deliberate—relaxed in a way only the truly dangerous could afford. The glow from her chestnode flickered subtly, pulsing once like a breath held and released.

Kirie.

It had been some time since she'd seen the girl. The shadows of memory lingered faintly, Zinder—Quinn's introductions, a flicker of expression behind formal courtesies, the subdued sharpness of a woman trained to vanish behind silk and ritual. But Virelia never forgot a face. Especially not one with eyes like that—wide, weary, searching for a purpose beyond servitude, beyond survival.

She tilted her helm, as if to regard Kirie more directly. It was not a gesture of threat, nor one of superiority. It was interest. Attention. The kind that unsettled.

"You've grown," she said at last, voice modulated through the helm like molten glass—smooth, low, and wicked with implication.

Then silence again.

Virelia rose with liquid grace, each armored plate shifting into place with predatory precision. The sound was soft, like silk rasping across bone. Her cape trailed in slow, weighted arcs behind her as she took a step forward—closer, but not imposing. She moved like a woman accustomed to orbiting thrones and altering gravity with her presence alone. Her head tilted again, the faintest flicker of amusement ghosting across her stance at the arrival of the protocol droid. It hovered loyally beside Kirie, unnecessary but endearing in its way.

"I know the Princess," Virelia murmured, almost to herself. "But I forget sometimes how many lives she threads together without ever seeming to tug too hard."

She turned her gaze toward the sitting room once more, gesturing faintly—delicately—with one taloned hand, as if she were inviting Kirie not just into conversation, but into an idea.

"Don't worry, your 'secret' is safe with me."

A pause. Deadly.

Virelia drifted back toward the glass wall, where rain whispered against the transparisteel and the city yawned beyond. Lights flickered like bioluminescent creatures in the deep. Her hands, still gloved in razor-fine durasteel talons, clasped loosely behind her back. Her armor gleamed with quiet menace—less like something worn, more like something grown. A second skin of dominion.

"She's changed since I first met her," Virelia said, not turning to face Kirie. "More poised. More focused. But she's not harder. Not colder. Just… refined."

There was an unmistakable fondness in her tone. Not the fondness of a lover, or a rival, or a subordinate. Something rarer. The respect of a woman who did not often extend it.

"Just like you."

She turned again—just her head—and studied Kirie's posture, her silence, her careful bearing. Virelia had always admired the quiet ones. They were so often misread. But she saw the tension in the girl's shoulders. The slight narrowing of her eyes.

Virelia approached. Close enough that the warmth of the armor's internal systems could be felt radiating in waves. Her voice lowered.

"Relax," she said. "I don't bite the help."

 

[Kirie]

Who could that be at this hour?
With Darth Virelia

Six violet eyes. Shining in the dark. Virelia looked like some monstrous beings from the old stories on Weik, the kind that were supposed to stop children wandering at night. The being that evoked murderous spirits and genetically modified beasts bared scarce resemblance to the sharp-faced blonde woman she had met a handful of times before. But, Kirie supposed, she had to be in there somewhere. Would it be better to think of Virelia that way, or as the insect that sat in front of her? People changed quickly in the Sith, Kirie was learning. More often, they were never the way they had appeared. Yes, she couldn't allow her fond memory of the evening on Naboo to cloud her judgement, or distract her from the things she had heard about Darth Virelia.

She had to be wiser, more careful than even when she was a slave on the run. Had to learn to take care of herself the way Quinn would want. That meant revealing as little as she could,fading into the background once again, and, if at all possible, avoiding interactions like the one that was happening right now.

Nothing good could come from being alone in a room with a Sith, whether she professed to be a friend of the Princess or not.

"You've grown,"

"In a sense, milady." There was more to say to that, surely. Kirie knew, or thought she knew, what Virelia was implying. Kirie looked different, acted different from the meek slave girl at the party that evening, with the accursed blood running through her veins. She was balanced now, hardened. Melancholy, but not hopeless. Damaged, but also strengthened. She had a future and was free from the watching eyes of her captors.

Kirie said none of this. It was unwise to tell Sith of such things. She was learning.

"Don't worry, your 'secret' is safe with me."

Neither was it wise to show Serina that she'd got under her skin, but, she couldn't help but shift uncomfortably and break away from Virelia's impassive gaze. Stupid, what better confirmation of the truth of it could there have been? Kirie usually had a better poker face, but the directness of it had thrown her.

'The Princess is a private person.' Kirie signed reluctantly. 'As am I, milady. It is befitting of my station.' Ah yes. Station. The so-convenient excuse to stop talking and turn her eyes to the floor. The secret to making most Sith discount her entirely. Pet of the Sith Order. Common. Harmless. Is that what Virelia saw? She hoped so. It was be better for everyone if every one of the violent psychopaths considered Kirie to be Quinn's idle distraction.

Kirie's gaze followed Virelia's many-eyed stare, looking out from the window with its commanding view. She wondered what it meant to the Sith. For her, the scene outside was misery, cruelty, drudgery. Below the skytowers of Jutrand, there was nothing but grit and rust and decay, cloaked beneath a blanket of industrial smog. To Kirie, it was a symbol of the Sith's total apathy to the political classes below them. The masses of clerks and workers and factory hands and labourers and slaves who made up the vast majority of the population, and yet may as well have been ghosts for all they mattered to any of the Sith Order's rank and file.

Outside, Kirie saw cruelty. What did Virelia see? It had to be more than just a rainy evening with blurrily lit skyscrapers to her, for she was staring with such intensity...

Kirie never got her answer. Virelia's head turned back to face her with casual, liquid smoothness. The unblinking purple eyes regarded Kirie, boring holes into her nerves. Without her face visible,the words seemed to drip out with a sort of delay, the motion of lips no longer marrying the tilt of Virilia's head and the words flowing outward. It made her seem less natural. Less real.

"Just like you."

So she wasn't letting this go without an admission. Fine. It wasn't like Serina- No, Virelia- could talk. What was that saying? Something about houses and stones.

'To survive amongst the Sith is to be changed by them.' Kirie signed back. She hesitated then, unsure if she should continue, but the twinge of irritation at the Sith woman's words overrode her better judgement.

'It's not like you're the same as when I last saw you, Serina.'

Kirie's face fell, appalled at her own gall and shocked at how readily she had pushed back at Virelia. Thinking on it, Virelia had really been giving her an insult. So why then had she reacted like she had been called a monster? Maybe because these days, the tacit approval of the Sith was beginning to make her feel sick in the stomach. Internally, she chastised herself. Wrong approach. If she was to keep herself safe, she had to think smart, take no unnecessary risks. She was pretty sure that meant goading dangerous and famously unstable Sith Lords. She had to be more careful.

'I apologise, Darth Virelia.' Kirie added. 'What I mean is, the pace of change on this side of the Blackwall is far greater than where I grew up.'

Virelia drew closer, and Kirie forced her tense shoulders to lower, trying to make herself relax, to convince herself she was not fearful of the woman in her living room.

'Tea?' she repeated.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie


The helm tilted again—with the gentle, observant motion of a predator who had already decided not to pounce. The six violet eyes did not blink. And yet there was something in their arrangement, in their flickering sub-tones, that gave the impression of a slow, luxurious narrowing. A smile made out of light.

Virelia stepped forward, slow and steady, but not menacing. Her movements were silken, reverent even, like a woman walking through sacred ground. And to her, perhaps, Kirie was something sacred. A fragment of a past moment. A living contradiction. She remembered her clearly now—not the specifics of dress or voice, but the posture, the eyes, the way Quinn had looked at her across an evening on Naboo. She had been untouchable then. Fragile. Cloaked in someone else's power.

Now?

No. No longer cloaked. But frayed. There was steel beneath her now—but it had been hammered hard. And perhaps, cracked.

Virelia reached her at last.

"You're right," she said softly, and for once her voice came unmarred by modulation. The helm retracted with a breath of static and folding metal, vanishing into the collar of her armor with an elegant hiss.

Her face—unchanged in the worst ways. Ageless, sharp-cheeked, faintly amused. The kind of beauty that had long since stopped seeking approval, sculpted instead for influence. Blonde hair, tightly wound back. Lips slightly parted, as though every word she spoke had to be let out with care. Her skin gleamed faintly from the rain, and the scent of ozone and silk-smoke lingered on her like a perfume designed to haunt.

"You have changed. You're no longer hiding behind someone else's strength."

Her fingers—clawed, encased in black phrik, but far more precise than they had any right to be—lifted toward Kirie's face.

"Allow me."

She didn't wait for permission. The back of her hand ghosted across Kirie's cheek, light as breath, cool against the warmth of skin. Then to her temple. Her touch lingered there a moment too long, thoughtful, like one reading braille over cracked marble. She wanted to feel the girl's temperature.

"No fever," she murmured. "But too much weight behind the eyes. Not just fatigue. Not just service. Something happened."

Virelia circled behind her. She moved like a shadow might—too close, but never touching now, reading her through body language alone. When she spoke again, her voice was almost soothing.

"There's a stiffness. Not the kind that comes from training, but from holding something inside too long. Did she see it yet? Quinn?" A pause. "Or did you hide it from her too?"

It wasn't cruel. It was… disappointingly gentle. Like someone offering warmth only when they saw the cracks in your armor.

Another hand, this one bare, slipped from her gauntlet with a faint click-hiss and landed softly on Kirie's shoulder. The skin-to-skin contact was sudden, too intimate for most, but deliberate. No threat. Just presence.

"You don't have to tell me, of course. I'm not here as your inquisitor. I'm here as… well." Her voice shifted, amused. "Let's call me an observer. A terribly concerned, terribly curious observer who remembers the girl that once looked at her like she might be a myth. Now, you look like someone who's met too many myths—and survived."

She leaned in, lips near Kirie's ear.

"That's impressive, pet. Most people don't."

A beat. And then she pulled back—smoothly, gracefully—retrieving her gauntlet and refitting it with a click. She took two slow steps toward the kitchen alcove, breaking eye contact on purpose, loosening the tension in the room by the artful absence of her scrutiny.

"But yes. Tea sounds divine. Something dark, I think. Full-bodied. Steeped far too long. Like a memory that should have faded, but didn't."

She turned her head slightly, just enough for Kirie to catch the flicker of a smirk.

"I assume you know how to make it properly, hm?"