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?"

 

[Kirie]

Who could that be at this hour?

With Darth Virelia

Kirie had the distinct impression that Virelia was not only removing her hood and mask to show Kirie that she still bore her human face, but also to demonstrate that she was interested in her. Why else was she staring so intently? For what other reason would Virelia be circling her like a shark? The reveal of her sharp features did not fill Kirie with the relief of seeing an old acquaintance. Instead, it made her more keenly aware that she was being assessed.

For what exactly, it was hard to say. Virelia had never been known for her transparency, but Kirie knew enough to suspect Virelia was probing at her potential for exploitation, her viability as a vehicle for access to, and influence over, Quinn Varanin. It was a fact of her life that was burdensome at times, but she was growing used to it. In Virelia's case, it was that made sense to her. The idea that Virelia was interested in Kirie for any reason innate to her didn't seem likely.

Serina was close now, close enough to see the thrumming of the purple threads of light that rippled across her armour like sickly veins. There was nothing hostile about her body language, and yet even her proximity carried a sense of threat.

Kirie's eyes widened at press of cold armourweave against her cheek, then her browbone. So surprised was she by the gentle, almost soothing touch that she merely stared with her wide dark eyes frozen with her mouth slightly open in an expression of surprise. Standing so close, the cloying scent of flowers rolling off Virelia made Kirie's head spin, and left her sick to her stomach when she was released.

"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?"

'I'm not going to tell you that.' Kirie signed, a little more defensively than she'd wanted. 'Like I said. I'm a private person.' She tilted her head up, expression neutral but her gaze sparking with quiet defiance.

And Serina moved closer again.

She had been expecting something like this, another touch, but Kirie still flinched when Virelia placed a hand on her shoulder. Her shoulders leapt up and she jerked backwards, muscles coiled with tension, as she felt the warmth of Virelia's skin on her own. Then she leaned close, and Kirie felt the hot breath on her ear.

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

The hairs on the back of Kirie's neck stood up and gooseflesh rose on her arms. Suddenly, she was a slave girl again, hopelessly alone with a god. One she wouldn't survive this time. Kirie stepped back, breaking the circuit of their contact. This time, she wore her displeasure more clearly on her face.

'Remember, Lady Virelia.' signed Kirie. 'I am not yours to touch.'

Kirie composed herself and smoothed some wrinkles out of her tunic that did not actually budge. She let out a held breath and turned towards the door, posture stiff.

'I will get the tea.'

Without waiting for Serina's response Kirie stalked out of the room, retreating to the relative sanctuary of the kitchen as she loaded the teapot with heaping spoonfuls of the strongest black tea they had. It would make a strong brew close to the kind Virelia had so lyrically requested.

She returned a few minutes later to the drawing room, slightly calmer and with a tray in hand bearing an ornate metal teapot, a pair of ornate duraporcelein cups, a bowl of sugar cubes and a pitcher of blue milk. Kirie set it down on the table and looked to Serina, her servant's mask back in place again.

'Shall we sit while we wait, milady, or would you prefer I retired?'

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie


Virelia leaned back into the chair as if she had always belonged there, one leg elegantly crossed over the other, the segmented skirts of Tyrant's Embrace shifting in soft, serpentine arcs. Her helm still rested in the corner of the couch beside her, the pale curve of her cheek catching the lamplight, the hair pulled back in its disciplined crown. She watched Kirie with the patience of a chessmaster who had already seen every possible outcome—and was simply curious which route her opponent would take.

The silence was deliberate. She let it sit between them like a coiled serpent. Only when Kirie's hands were fully free of the tray, only when the teapot's steam had begun to curl and fade into the air, did Virelia speak.

"You think," she began, voice low and languid, "that if I wanted to use you to reach Quinn, we would be having this conversation at all."

The statement hung there, not as a question but as a dismantling of an assumption. Her eyes, bright with that molten violet glow even without the helm, locked to Kirie's.

"Know this, I am nothing but honest..." she began.

"If that were my aim, pet, we wouldn't be sitting here alone. I wouldn't be wasting precious moments on tea, or words, or…" Her lips curved faintly, suggestively. "…proximity. The manipulation you're worried about would already be done. Quinn would be the one brewing my tea while you watched from the corner, wondering when you became invisible again."

She unfolded from the chair with a measured, liquid grace, her cape dragging in a whisper across the floor as she closed the distance between them. With that same inevitability as a tide that has already claimed the shore.

"I came here for her," Virelia continued, her tone shifting—softer now, not gentle but deliberate in its intimacy. "And then I saw you. And I realised something: I didn't want her company as much as I wanted yours."

She let that settle. Watched how it landed.

"There is something in your posture, in the tension you wear like a cloak, that speaks of survival—not the kind handed down by protection or privilege, but the kind forged in the dark, when no one else comes. I have seen it before."

Virelia's hand rose—not to touch, not this time—but to point faintly toward the rain-smeared window, the sprawl of Jutrand beyond.

"I have an apprentice." she said, and now her voice carried a strange, weighty cadence. "She came from the slave pits of Loovria. Not the clean, political slavery that the empires pretend to regulate. I mean the pits beneath the cities, deep in the stone, where people vanish for decades and return only as corpses. She had nothing left but rage and obedience, and now…" A small smile. "Now she is more dangerous than most Lords I've met."

She took a step closer—not circling this time, but closing in from the front, forcing Kirie to hold her gaze or look away.

"She has freed thousands from those pits since," she went on. "I know every gate, every tunnel, every buyer and seller in that world. It is a game we play better than anyone. And I think—" here she leaned in slightly, just enough for the scent of her to brush Kirie's senses again, warm and intoxicating, "—that you could help me play it better."

The weight of the offer was not in her words but in the way she said you. As though it were less a proposal and more a revelation.

"You know the tells," Virelia said softly. "You know the way they talk, the way they hide, the way they break. You could walk through their markets and be invisible until you chose not to be. That's a talent I can't teach. And that's why I want you."

Her expression shifted—just slightly—into something warmer. Almost reassuring.

"I'm not asking for loyalty to me. Not yet." That word—yet—was like the slow press of a blade into silk. "I'm asking for a chance to do something with you that matters. Something that might just make the girl you once were… proud."

She stepped back finally, giving Kirie the space she had been starving for since the moment the Sith had entered. But even at a distance, the pull of her presence didn't loosen.

"I would like to think Quinn would approve," Virelia said at last, and there was almost a softness in it. "But even if she didn't… that wouldn't stop me from asking you."

The teapot between them hissed faintly as steam escaped the spout. Virelia reached for a cup at last, but did not break her gaze from Kirie.

"So," she said, pouring the dark, fragrant liquid into the porcelain with a precision that made the act feel like ritual, "will you drink with me… or send me away?"

 

[Kirie]

Who could that be at this hour?
With Darth Virelia

​

Quinn would be the one brewing my tea while you watched from the corner, wondering when you became invisible again."

Kirie's eyes widened in shock, at Virelia's bluntness, at her audacity, her arrogance. It hit her like a slap in the face, until her rational brain reminder her how the Sith regarded her. Kirie was a pet, a plaything, and when she remembered how insignificant she was in Virelia's eyes, her anger dissolved. What replaced it was cold hard dread. A stone that settled in her stomach.

Virelia's answer was illuminating, but another question lingered in her mind, still. Beyond the ploys to get at Quinn, there was something else that the Sith who knew her always pushed.

Why did they always want her to be something more?

Maybe it was something innate to the Lords of the Sith, or practitioners of Darkness in general. That innate desire to corrupt, to mould the people beneath them into a more pleasing form. Maybe it was that once they acquiesced, most freshly-minted Acolytes remained firmly wedged under the thumb of the master who taught them.

Was that Serina's desire then, to control her? To make Kirie her own? Undoubtedly, but that didn't explain why everyone seemed to target her specifically. Take away the horrors Kirie had suffered and she was entirely unexceptional. What did they see that she didn't? Quinn and Kaila had spoken before of fate, but Kirie did not feel guided by unseen hands, moreso dragged slowly into the webs of a dozen lurking creatures.

'Why me, then?' Kirie asked, unable to veil her suspicion. 'We both know the Empire is brimming with slaves. Surely you know a dozen others who could do this for you.'

Maybe, Serina was speaking the truth, maybe she just really had an appreciation for the grit Kirie had demonstrated. She had survived a lot, after all. She hadn't allowed it to break her. Still, worry grated at her nerves.

Kirie's eyed followed Serina's gesture out the window, grateful to have something to break the unceasing contact of her gaze, the heavy feeling of her closeness. While Serina was turned away, Kirie took a small step backwards. Distance, breathing room that she needed.

"She came from the slave pits of Loovria. Not the clean, political slavery that the empires pretend to regulate. I mean the pits beneath the cities, deep in the stone,

'I have heard about Loovria.' Kirie signed in eventual reply, wearing a grave expression as she recalled a girl she had met with nothing but scars where her eyes had been, and only a smattering of fingers on each hand, who had told of how she had crawled from one horrific captor only to land in the waiting arms of another. The camps had been full of such stories, told in hushed voices, locked together in the pitch-dark dorms. And they were the lucky ones, who were fed, who slept in cots, whose existence was guaranteed so long as they remained fit to work and stayed in line.

For weeks after she had met the girl, whose name she could no longer recall, Kirie had found herself dreaming of a long stone slope that disappeared into darkness, the edge of which was pitted with the scrabbling of desperate fingers, and from which mournful cries echoed from far below. She shivered at the vividness of the memory.

"I would like to think Quinn would approve,"

'I think you're an optimist.' Kirie replied. Delusional, more like, but Kirie had toed the line quite enough already. Ultimately, she knew anyway that Quinn would tell Kirie it was her call. And as Kirie understood it, Virelia was a friend, if not a person Quinn entirely trusted. Weighing the risks, she was as good a person to work with as any of them. Which was to say, just like the rest of them, she was a very dangerous threat.

'I would like to help you.' Kirie began. 'But...'

'For me to do this with you, you must state plainly what you want, Lady Virelia.' Kirie knew it was more than an accomplice. She was playing at something, and the word 'yet' that slipped so silkily from Virelia's mouth was the warning that signed future danger, like a serpent whose colour marked it venomous.

'And don't bother lying. I will know.'

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie


Virelia did not answer immediately.

Her hands, long-fingered and taloned, folded together in front of her breastplate as if she were suddenly, uncharacteristically still. The violet veins of her armor pulsed softly, like some artificial heart trying to remember what rhythm flesh once kept. For a long moment she only looked at Kirie, those glimmering eyes reflecting the tea-tray's steam as though they could drink sorrow straight from the air.

And then she breathed out. A sigh that belonged to memory.

"You ask me what I want." Her voice had lost its sharpened edges, turning low and sonorous, almost confessional. "And you deserve an answer that is not the sort my kind are known for."

She turned her gaze to the window, the city's neon haze painting faint color across her pale cheek. For once, the proud Sith looked strangely human.

"I was stabbed through the chest, Kirie." She raised one gauntleted hand, talons tapping faintly against the crystalline node that pulsed where her sternum should have been. "By Jedi. In their temple. Without trial, without provocation, because they feared what I might become." Her mouth curled faintly, bitterly. "And in that moment, Grandmaster Valery Noble—yes, that Valery Noble—drove her blade through me in the Jedi Archives, while her peers watched. She thought it would end me. Instead, it remade me."

Her eyes lowered to Kirie again, and there was no cruelty in them. Only ache.

"The Darkness filled the hollow where my heart had been. It kept me alive… but it is never sated. To survive, I must feed it. And how does it feed? By dominating. By possessing. By turning others into extensions of my will." A pause. Her lips pressed into a line, and then softened. "If I don't… I die. The longer I resist, the more it claws at me. The more I feel the edges of oblivion pressing in. It is not lust alone, or some kind of delusion, Kirie—it is survival."

She closed the distance slowly, gracefully, but without menace. She stopped before Kirie, close enough that the warmth of her armor radiated like a hearth-fire.

"That is why I circle you. Why I press against your boundaries. Not because you are small, or weak, or because you are Quinn's. But because I see something in you that I rarely see in anyone anymore." Her voice tightened, as if the admission hurt. "Potential. You survived what should have broken you. You made defiance that wasn't stubborn. And the Darkness inside me—" she placed her hand softly against her chest-node, the glow brightening beneath her touch, "—it knows. It pulls me toward those who can rise higher. Because to shape you is to keep me alive. And to keep me alive is to give you more than chains—it is to give you a throne of your own making."

Her hand lifted, hesitating at Kirie's cheek but not touching this time. Her control was palpable—deliberately giving Kirie the choice to lean in or to remain apart.

"I will not lie to you. I want to dominate. Entirely. To remake, body and soul. To weave. That desire is not restricted to you, it is for everyone, it is as real as the hunger that beats where my heart once lived. But… I will also tell you this." Her tone softened again, so quiet it felt like a secret. "I believe you could be extraordinary. As a woman remade into something untouchable. I want that for you as much as I want it for myself."

Her eyes lowered, lashes shadowing her gaze. "Do you think I don't envy you? That you survived without the Darkness clawing at your marrow? That you are still you despite everything? I can't even remember what that feels like. Every smile, every kindness I offer, I wonder—is it mine, or is it the Darkness trying to bind you closer so I won't starve?" Her voice cracked just faintly, like a single fissure in a perfect mask. "I don't know anymore."

For a heartbeat, Virelia looked fragile. A woman who had given up her heart for survival and found herself chained to something endless, hungry, merciless. But then she inhaled, steadied, and let a small, sad smile curl her lips.

"I am sorry, Kirie. For frightening you. For pressing too close. I don't ask you to forgive that. I only ask you to understand that when I say you matter to me, it is not flattery. It is necessity. It is hope."

She finally reached for the teacup, cradling it between clawed fingers with surprising gentleness.

"Hope," she repeated softly, almost as if testing the word on her tongue. Then she lifted her gaze back to Kirie, bright and burning even through sorrow. "Hope is a dangerous thing."

 

[Kirie]

Who could that be at this hour?
With Darth Virelia

​

Kirie blinked at Virelia, for a moment completely unable to fathom how what she was saying could possibly connect to her. But then, as she continued to speak, as if in a trance, Kirie felt she was beginning to understand. Virelia didn't act the way she did just because she lusted for power. Hers was a primordial hunger. Like Kirie's desire to eat or drink. It was strange, to think that Virelia had been stabbed through the heart when she was just a rogue Padawan. It was just as strange to think of her as another victim of the Dark, trapped here in a gilded cage, just like Kirie.

Kirie's mouth pulled down at the corners.

'The Jedi, why would they do that to you?'

Kirie's fear began to swirl and change, competing with a new emotion: pity. There was no denying that Kirie had been greatly changed by her time in the Sith, but at least if she really wanted, she could run away and never come back. Live as a farmer or a miner and try to forget her past. But where could Serina Calis go that she would not have to corrupt those around her, to feed on their passions and their ambition. Though the thought made her stomach twist with guilt, Kirie couldn't help but think of the Dark Heart as having turned Serina into a parasitic spider. Maybe it was for the best that Virelia stayed here, where her targets were at least Sith.

Well, Sith and Kirie.

"—it knows. It pulls me toward those who can rise higher. Because to shape you is to keep me alive. And to keep me alive is to give you more than chains—it is to give you a throne of your own making."

"I will not lie to you. I want to dominate. Entirely. To remake, body and soul. To weave. That desire is not restricted to you, it is for everyone, it is as real as the hunger that beats where my heart once lived. But… I will also tell you this."

"I believe you could be extraordinary. As a woman remade into something untouchable. I want that for you as much as I want it for myself."

Part of Kirie loved what she was hearing. Hadn't she laid awake beside Quinn, on those nights where she couldn't sleep, and wondered about what she could do with her potential? She imagined a future, where she could stop a fight with a wave of her hands, where enemies didn't target her not because she was protected, but because she had power in her own right. A reality where she could protect the ones she loved, heal them and alleviate their suffering, instead of watching them spiral and burn like dying stars. Maybe Virelia was right. Maybe she was special, maybe had something few others had,

And wasn't that everything she wanted? And she could feel it. A wellspring of power she had learned to feel, but held in place by a dam she couldn't breach. What could she be, if that power was unleashed?

'How?' asked Kirie before she could stop herself. Her eyes widened with fear, and then almost as quickly, panicked tears. She didn't want this. Not from Virelia. Kirie had already changed in such ugly ways, and she knew Lady Virelia would only exploit that, take it further. She had said as much herself.

'Wait.' Kirie added. 'Pretend I didn't say that. I don't want to know. I don't want a throne.'

Kirie's shoulders slumped.

'Like you said, hope is a dangerous thing.'

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Unexpected Greetings."

Tags - Kirie



Virelia did not move at first.

She simply watched Kirie, head tilted in that serpentine way of hers, six violet eyes shimmering faintly where the helm still rested at her side. The human face she wore now softened, shadows shifting across her sharp features like the afterimage of fire. She did not laugh at the contradiction in Kirie's words—did not mock her for reaching out only to recoil. Instead, she looked almost reverent.

"You asked," Virelia said at last, her tone slow, deliberate, like one unraveling silk thread by thread. "And that means something. You asked because somewhere—behind fear, behind defiance, behind that aching little word 'hope'—you want to know. You always did."

Her hand lifted, fingers curved loosely as though weighing an invisible sphere. The violet veins of her armor pulsed brighter, casting faint reflections on Kirie's cheeks.

"You say pretend you didn't. But we both know the truth—questions cannot be unasked. That is the cruelest law of desire. Once you imagine the trhone, it lingers, even if you curse yourself for dreaming."

She stepped closer, slow and purposeful, until the faint perfume of ozone and incense clung to the space between them. Her voice dropped, warm and cutting all at once. "I do not offer thrones because I believe everyone deserves one. I offer them to those who would sit upon them without crumbling. And you, Kirie… you have already been broken, and still you stand. That makes you stronger than most of my kind who were born to palaces."

Her hand extended—not to seize, not to force—but to hover just shy of Kirie's chin. The choice was hers whether to lean forward or not.

"You think I am a parasite," she said softly, eyes never leaving Kirie's. "You are not wrong. The Darkness gnaws at me. It needs me to bind, to own, to consume. And yet, have you considered this: every chain I weave can be a ladder. Every touch I claim can be a gift. I do not want to diminish you. I want to build you into something so untouchable that even Quinn will look at you differently."

Her lips curled faintly—neither cruel nor mocking, but with a strange, heavy fondness.

"You think I am dangerous. And I am. But dangerous things are not only to be feared. Sometimes they are to be used. Harnessed. Made yours. Just as you would drink fire if it could warm you through the worst night of winter."

Virelia finally lowered her hand, but her presence did not recede. If anything, it pressed heavier in the silence, like velvet wrapped around steel.

"You asked 'how,' and I will answer: you open. You allow me in. You let the dam crack. You stop resisting what has already marked you." Her tone was soothing, coaxing, as if describing the inevitability of sleep. "Do you imagine Quinn kept you close only because she pitied you? No. She sees it too. All of us do. That power waiting inside you, begging to be touched. You cannot bury it, Kirie. You can only choose who helps you unseal it."

She leaned in now, her breath warm against the shell of Kirie's ear.

"Do you trust the ones who only pretend to be safe? Or do you trust the one who bares her hunger openly, who admits she will bind you because binding you keeps her alive? I am honest about my chains. That makes them stronger… and it makes them yours, too."

Pulling back, Virelia's expression was no longer cruel nor even sorrowful. It was strangely gentle, in the way a storm looks beautiful when you stop running from it.

"Hope is dangerous," she admitted, her voice nearly a whisper. "But so is love. So is power. So is surviving when you weren't meant to. Everything worth touching is dangerous. That is the lesson the Jedi tried to stab out of me, and failed. And that is the lesson I would give you—not in a temple, not in a cage, but here, where you can still choose."

She finally seated herself again, smooth and deliberate, folding her long legs and resting one taloned hand across her knee. The other lifted the teacup, and she drank deeply, eyes never leaving Kirie's.

"You think you don't want a throne. That's fine." She set the cup down with a quiet clink. "But one day, when you find yourself craving more than survival, when you want to shape the galaxy instead of shrinking within it… you'll remember I offered."

Virelia smiled faintly then—not triumphant, not mocking. Almost sad. Almost hopeful.

"And when you do," she said, voice like silk drawn tight, "I will still be here. Waiting. Chains in one hand… and a crown in the other."