Private I R O N B O R N

[Domina Prime]

​

"You Can See God When I Take My Mask Off"

Darth Virelia ​

The commander's jaw tightened, his eyes locked onto the xeno across the table. The holoscreens flickered, one showing Domina in a smoke-filled ruin dragging a wounded trooper by the scruff of his armor, another of her silhouette wreathed in fire, axe raised as bodies lay in heaps at her feet. Images meant to intimidate most, but she only grinned at them like old trophies.

"You think you can stroll into my station, light up a cigar, and play the warlord at my table, Prime?" Sullivan muttered, fingers drumming against the datapad. "We're not some Outer Rim raider pack, and we don't bend knee to outsiders."

Domina's five eyes swiveled to him, two blinking slow, the others narrowing to insectile slits. Her azure claws clicked deliberately on the tabletop-clack…clack…clack. A rhythm like a death march.

"Whose 'playing'? This look like a GAME to you? Prime is not asking you to bend knee, little soldier." She leaned forward, voice low, every word drawn like a blade across glass. "This One is asking you to make war more…interesting."

She flicked her claws at the holoscreens, dismissing the blood and fire with the same casualness one would swat away a fly.

"You and yours are killers. Cutthroats. Pirates with fleets. This One knows what that life costs—the constant scavenging, the little wars that end with nothing but broken hulls and fewer mouths to feed. But with Prime? With Ha'rangir?" She tapped her chestplate, the beskar catching the sun streaming through the station's glass panes. "There is plunder. There is blood. There is…purpose."

The commander smirked, leaning back, testing her like he'd test the bite of a vibroblade. "And what do the Mandalorians get, exactly, out of cozying up with a colony of 'cutthroats'?"

Domina bared her teeth in something between a smile and a snarl, smoke curling from her mandibles.

"Fodder that enjoys dying," she purred impishly. "Screaming lunatics in rust-bucket ships who will throw themselves into fire for the promise of slaughter. A tide to drown our enemies in. Your people win glory. Mine win the war. And everyone gets to feast on the wreckage together."

Sullivan stared at her for a long moment, then leaned forward, datapad lowering. "You're either insane, or you're the only sane one in the room."

Her segmented jaw clicked, laughter spilling out like broken glass.

"Both, Commander~." She tipped her glass toward him in mock salute, feet still planted brazenly on his desk. "So…what shall it be? Will you drink with me…or will this come down to YOU against ME?"

Sullivan didn't flinch beneath her grin, though his men behind him stiffened. Two soldiers by the door gripped their blasters a little tighter, unsure whether to shoot or bow. The Commander leaned back in his chair, lips curling faintly as though testing her patience.

"Brutal...But you paint it pretty, Prime," he said, tone sharp. "But my people don't kneel to gods. We've made our living in the cracks between empires, raiding the weak, selling our steel. What's to say your war isn't just another leash around our necks?"

Domina's head tilted, a predator's twitch. Her claws traced the rim of her glass, a slow screech of talon against crystal. Her five eyes gleamed with reflected starlight as the sun's rays poured through the station windows and haloed her armored silhouette.

"Leash?" she hissed, voice swelling, filling the chamber. "No, little soldier. Not leash. Revelation."

Her tail curled around the chair as she rose, towering over the table, her shadow swallowing the commander whole. Azure fire bled from her scales, licking faintly across her frame, and her segmented jaw rattled with a sound like distant drums.

"My god does not chain," she growled, her voice thrumming like a war chant, "He consumes! He devours the fat of weak stars and drinks the marrow of dying worlds. He burns the heavens into feast and song. And those who march beneath His banner..." She jabbed a claw against her chestplate with a resounding CLANG. "They are given three gifts: gold to line their coffers, glory to carve their names into the bones of time, and godblood to wash their lips in the sweetest wine of victory."

The holoscreens above flickered with war-footage still, but somehow her words made the carnage there look smaller—insignificant compared to the fire that seemed to radiate off her in waves. The soldiers by the door lowered their eyes without thinking, like lesser beasts before an apex predator.

Sullivan, to his credit, didn't cower. His hand pressed flat on the datapad, knuckles white, as he leaned into her storm. "That sounds a lot like worship, Prime. You expect my fleets to fight and die not for profit, but for your god?"

Dima bent low, claws spread across the table, her mandibles clattering as the embers around her pulsed hotter.

"Not worship," she whispered, her voice reverent and savage in equal measure. "Participation...in something greater than yourselves~"

Then she slammed her claw down with a crack that split the metal table, sending sparks skittering.

"When your warriors die in the fire, their names are sung in the feast-halls of the void. When your ships fall, their wrecks are added to the monuments of flame. Your dead will live forever, Commander. That is more than credits, more than contracts. That is eternity."

Silence. The soldiers shifted uneasily. The air smelled faintly of ozone, like the moment before a lightning strike.

Sullivan stared at her, the faintest grin twitching at the edge of his lips. "…Gold, glory, godblood." He tasted the words, testing them like a vintage drink.

Dima's grin widened, fangs bared, eyes blazing. "A trinity no true warrior can resist."

For a long moment, the two locked eyes across the ruined table, firelight reflecting in the void beyond the glass.

Then Sullivan chuckled low, shaking his head. "You are mad, Prime. Completely mad. But…" He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. "I'll admit—there's a certain appeal to madness."

The xenos laughter rang out sharp and triumphant, a hunter's bark echoing across the chamber.

"Then drink with Prime, Commander. And let us carve your people's saga into the stars~" She opened her arms wide, gesturing him closer with her four arms opened wide as if inviting the mane into a dangerously sharp embrace.

Oh how her gods would sing~

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hunt them down."

Tags - Domina Prime

The room was all heat and aftertaste when she arrived—ozone, split metal, the faint perfume of daring lingering in the air. Darth Virelia did not claim the space; she allowed it to notice her. She crossed the threshold like a rumor in silk, lacquered plates drinking the light rather than flashing it back, violet along the seams pulsing with a patient, private rhythm. She did not glance at the décor, the damage, or the witnesses. She let her gaze land where it belonged.

On Prime.

Virelia stopped a comfortable arm's length away, turned slightly so the meeting felt like a confidence rather than a challenge. One gloved hand set a small, slate-black chit on the table—no flourish, just gravity. Her smile was the kind that said she knew the ending and liked how they got there.

"You're beautiful," she said, as if stating the temperature of the room. Her eyes traveled Prime with unapologetic leisure and an expert's pleasure, returning to meet five without blinking. "Not the easy kind. The kind that happens when purpose catches fire." A beat, warm as an exhale. "Virelia, I will honour you by keeping this brief."

She didn't explain the name. Her attention never wavered, the rest of the world edited out of the frame with a quiet cruelty that felt like luxury.

"I'd like to take a walk," she went on, tone casual, almost conversational. "There's a woman who's mistaken paperwork for power. Corporate courier. Pretty smile, ugly spine. She's been buying absolutions with other people's blood and thinks signatures outrun consequences." The chit on the table caught a thin ribbon of light; an index—routes, faces, doors that opened when someone clever knocked twice. "I'm going to close her tab tonight."

Virelia inclined her head the slightest fraction, as if admiring a private joke they now shared. "Come hunt with me. I'll keep the night quiet while you make it loud." The promise was velvet but there was iron under it. "Clean or bloody..." A pause that invited invention. "I'm a generous judge of what that might be."

She let silence stretch just long enough to feel like silk drawn over skin, then eased it with a low, amused hum. "Just the simple test of whether we enjoy moving in the same direction. If we do, we keep walking. If we don't…" She made a small, elegant gesture as if dusting chalk from her fingers. "We call it a beautifully spent evening."

Virelia turned as if to leave, offering Prime the gift of pursuit instead of pressure. Over her shoulder, voice low enough to belong only to two predators and the night between them, she added, "Say yes, and I'll let you choose whether she runs or begs." A small, decadent mercy; a leash disguised as courtesy.

"Shall we?"

 

[Domina Prime]

​

ᛖᚳ ᚠᛁᛚ ᛋᚣᚾᚪ ᚦᛖᚱ ᛖᛁᛏ ᚠᚪᚷᚱᛏ

Darth Virelia​

The chamber still reeked of ozone and molten alloy when the Sithling came spiraling in like some kind of dark cosmic storm rupturing the very room she lounged within. Dima, however, seemed the only one wholly unbothered, snatching a bottle of fine refreshments from the table before the trembling caused it to tinker off the edge. She had already sprawled back into her chair, taloned raptor-like legs propped upon the wreckage of the table, the teeth along her cheeks and mandibles twitching faintly in idle satisfaction. Her five eyes tracked the newcomer's every movement...not quite threateningly, but with a kind of enthralled delight, like a child watching fireworks unfold overhead.

When Virelia's words spilled into the air low, measured, sweet as venom- Dima's chest clattered with a sound like half-swallowed laughter. The compliment, the invitation, the daring bluntness of it all made her giddy, made the predator in her thrash like a schoolgirl at her first war-dance! Her claws tapped wildly against her thigh, a battle-drum given to nervous amusement~

"Good lord, By the forges!" she muttered under her breath, but loud enough for Sullivan and the guards to hear. "See? She gets it, she looks like she knows how to have FUN."

The soldiers glanced at one another uneasily, but Dima was already swept up, chittering in delight at the audacity of the Sith's approach. She reclined further, pressing the back of her wrist dramatically against her brow as though overcome by swooning.

"Gold, glory, and now- godblood courtship?!" she sang, voice ringing half in jest, half in marvel. Her feet shifted atop the table's edge as though she were a war-princess awaiting more offerings. Her five eyes narrowed in exaggerated appraisal, drinking in Virelia's poised stride and unapologetic gaze.

"Ohhh, this is just DELICIOUS! Sweet as honey smoked meats mnfhm. Oh yes~" she teased, segmenting mandibles rattling with laughter. "So then, do you even know what you've done, little Sithling? This feels like the overture to a WARDATE."

She clicked her claws together sharply, like cymbals marking the rhythm of her amusement. The air thickened with her manic glee.

As Virelia turned to leave, dangling the hunt as bait, Dima rose halfway from her chair- then suddenly leaned back again, feigning weakness, the picture of melodrama! Her clawed hand beckoned lazily, five eyes glowing with anticipation!

"No, no, don't you dare fade just yet!" she crooned, voice thick with wicked pleasure. "Come back, drench me in more of it! Lay it on until I drown! Praise Prime, Sithling, and perhaps- perhaps! This one consider your invitation~"

The guards shuffled very nervously, Sullivan muttered a curse, but Dimas laughter rang high and bright, her mirth as terrifying as it was intoxicating.

"Now, go on," she urged, claws curling forward like a lady offering her hand to a fine gentleman during a grand ball! Sweeping her hair behind her long, radar-like ears girlishly as she bit her lip and rattled her tail in invitation. "Slather me in your honeyed tongue before I decide whether to carve your quarry… or you. You do look like you'd be fun to cross blades with...much more fun than one i know to be prey...so much fun going after the hunters. Even ones as deliciously sweet as yourself~" She whistled and gestued her forward, walking forward a few feet JUST to meet her half way. "Buuuuuuut, this one could be swayed...with just a little more sweetness. Juuuuuuuuust a bit~" She gestured with her lower pair of hands just the amount. The space between them starting in inches and quickly ballooning wider with each passing millisecond.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hunt them down."

Tags - Domina Prime

Virelia stopped mid-turn like a dancer catching herself on the edge of a spin, amusement lighting her eyes. She came back only a step—close enough to make the air between them a promise, far enough that Prime would have to cross a little hunger to touch. "Careful," she said, voice low, intimate. "I don't drench, not yet. I dose. Sweetness is a controlled substance, and you'll take it on prescription."

Her gaze mapped Prime with leisurely precision, as if measuring where to press to make music. "You are a gorgeous calamity," she allowed, the compliment clean and expensive. "But sugar without discipline spoils." A gloved fingertip traced a small circle in the air between them—never landing, drawing a boundary like a sigil. "Earn, then taste. That's how we make it last."

She tapped the slate chit with a knuckle. It chimed. "The courier is leaving Pier Sixteen in twenty-two minutes. Two escorts, civilian skins; they think their smiles make them invisible. She carries one old habit that will kill her: she double-checks a door after she locks it." Virelia's smile warmed, wicked and approving. "We'll give her a door."

Her tone never rose; it deepened, coaxing. "Three proofs for three kisses of reward." The last word purred like velvet over a blade. "One: patience. You shadow, you let the fear soak. Hunt with your brain before you feed your claws. Two: brutality. I want to send a message with this kill. Three: obedience—mine, for the length of this song. I say left, you don't ask why. I say stop, you freeze between breaths." A beat, kind. "After, you can do as you please."

Prime's melodrama earned a slow, indulgent smile. Virelia took another half-step, close enough for scent—smoke, metal, something wild—to mix with her own: warm spice and storm. Her breath skimmed Prime's cheek without touching. "You want me to lay it on until you drown?" she murmured, sin threaded through reason. "Bring me the courier's last lie still trembling on her lips. Place it in my hand without anyone noticing it left hers. Then I'll decide how sweet to be." The promise hung, darkly opulent. "Maybe I praise. Maybe I bite. Maybe I tell you to kneel and drink from my palm until your mandibles rattle." She let the image linger, then smiled, cruel and kind. "I am very creative, very fun."

Her glove lifted, hovering beside Prime's jaw, refusing contact by a whisper. Denial as gift. "Earn it. Make me proud. Make me hungry." She let her gaze drop—invitational, assessing—then rise with a conspirator's spark. "And if you're very good, when the night is finished, I'll show you what my gratitude does to beautiful monsters."

The glove withdrew. "Window closes before shift-change," she said, back to the cool mechanics of inevitability. "We move now. You carry the noise; I erase the echoes." She tipped her head the slightest fraction, command masquerading as courtesy. "Come."

Then the faintest curve of her mouth, decadent as sin. "Prove you're worth my time, Prime. Then I'll drown you."

 

[Domina Prime]

​

ᛖᚳ ᚠᛁᛚ ᛋᚣᚾᚪ ᚦᛖᚱ ᛖᛁᛏ ᚠᚪᚷᚱᛏ

Darth Virelia​

Dima tilted her head as the words poured over her like incense. Half-listening, half already drifting into some daydream of carnage. She caught pieces she liked and let them sparkle on her senses, while the rest fell away. Praise? Her ears perked, claws twitching with glee. Discipline, obedience, patience? Her gaze slid lazily elsewhere, a predator already bored of instructions.

At last she laughed. A deep, rattling cackle that split the air, her massive frame shaking with the sound. She slapped a hand against her armored thigh hard enough to clang."Hah! Not bad, little one. Trying a bit hard though, aren't we? All that velvet and all those blades, and still-" she leaned forward, grin sharp enough to bite, "You came to Prime. And Prime cannot be controlled. Only… swayed. Gently. Briefly."

Her helm tilted, voice dropping to a conspiratorial rasp. "I kneel only for my god...or like...i dunno. For my wife or something." A pause, a grin curling cruel. "And since wife doesn't exist... god it is!"

She howled with laughter again, manic and delighted, claws curling like a storm breaking through her joy. Then, with a hiss of breath through her fangs, she exhaled, almost tender.

The Xeno stepped close, close enough for her shadow to swallow Virelia whole. One claw traced along the curve of the Sith's shoulder. Dangerous, a touch that could just as easily peel flesh as caress it. She leaned in with the intimacy of a beast choosing not to bite...for now.

"Mmm. Fine then. Prime will play since you want me SO bad." Her tongue clicked with hunger. "You made it sound too sweet not to. A hunt dressed in poetry, wrapped in sin? Hah! I'll take a taste."

But her grin twisted again, cruel as a warning bell.

"Though you should know, little godling." she purred, her voice breaking into a growl, "Prime finds no satisfaction in slaughtering unworthy prey."

And then, her tail lashed, snapping across Virelia's backside with a whip-crack that would send the Sith forward. Domina's laugh followed, thunderous and wild, echoing like war-drums down the corridor.

"Come then, mistress of metaphors! It's a date~"

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Hunt them down."

Tags - Domina Prime

Virelia took the lash like a promise, breath catching only to turn into a smile that bared no teeth. She let the momentum carry her a pace, then pivoted back into Prime's shadow until their silhouettes overlapped like a sin shared. "Good," she murmured, a whisper slick as lacquer. Two fingers hovered over the path the tail had traced—never quite touching, denial sharpened to a knife-edge. "Earn the next stroke. I collect what I mark."

—

The docks breathed cold metal and brine. Sodium lamps hissed in halos; cargo spiders and swing-cranes ticked like clocks with rusting hearts. Virelia moved as if she owned the angles: head slightly bowed, eyes working, hands empty, promise full. Ahead, Pier Sixteen's feeder lane split around a low customs gantry—and squatting in its shadow was the problem.

Eight legs, carbon-black, joints banded in ceramic white; a bulbous thorax studded with sensor pearls and a preacher's crown of antennae. Its ventral chassis bristled with twin arc-lances and a canister rack whose stenciling lied about "non-lethal restraint." The machine tracked the lane with a spider's patience and a bureaucrat's malice.

"Mm," Virelia hummed, the sound a private laugh. "Our little courier brought a chaperone with fangs."

Her gaze skimmed the lattice of catwalks, the reflection of status LEDs in oily puddles, the rhythmic blink of a roofline repeater. "Uplink on the east spine, redundant on the west. Four guard-drones asleep behind those crates; they wake loud. Courier's path threads right under that gantry in ninety seconds."

She turned her chin, violet eyes hungry and amused. "Prepare to get violent."

A fingertip drew a neat circle in the air: a kill box only she seemed to see. "I'll black the feeds, gag the repeater, and freeze the drones' hearts. When my hand lifts, you take the spider on." A breath, wicked with reward. "Bring me the courier whole and breathing terror, and I'll decide how sweet the night gets."

She started forward, voice a thread between command and caress. "Ready, Prime?"