First Reply In The Ruins Of Power

[Miasmær]

Location: The ruins of Exegol
Mood: [X]
​

Miasmær hovered in the weightlessness of space. Below her a small atmosphere generator and atmosphere shield generator rested on one the pieces of the destroyed planet, creating her haven in the void of space. Her eyes were closed as she hovered, back straight, her feet crossed beneath her, and hands firmly grasping knees as she meditated in the void. Around her drifted pieces of a destroyed planet and the ghosts of those tied to the destroyed Exegol. This world was once a beacon to the dark side, a powerful focus for the force. But now? Now it drifted in a billion tiny pieces.

Bathing in the dark side of the force she would take a deep breath, focusing on the cracked red kyber crystal hung about her neck. She had taken it from them, her master. She had killed them mere days before. At the mere idea of them she felt her rage bubbling within her, but she did not dismiss it. Rather she dwelled on the rage, let it soak into her flesh and bones, to permeate her being. She had known he would try to kill her, she had been prepared, she had won in the end.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion."

She would whisper aloud, taking a deep breath as a hundred tiny metallic pieces all around her would animate into motion. Each would congregate into a ball before her, writhing and twitching like the rage she felt deep in her core.

"Through passion, I gain strength."

The pieces would begin to organize: magnetic stabilizing rings, energy modulation circuits, power field conductors, power vortex rings, blade emitter shrouds, ring tuning flanges, and every other piece of lightsabers she had acquired.

"Through strength, I gain power."

She reached out to each piece with the force. Feeling them, their weight, material composition, durability. She tested them, against the inner rage that boiled like a volcano within her soul. And slowly pieces would begin to float away, rejected from the writhing orb of metallic pieces.

"Through power, I gain victory."

Only a few pieces remain now, the rest a debris cloud orbiting her two or three meters away. Slowly the pieces she had chosen would begin to align as she would begin to assemble them together. The cracked crystal hanging around her neck would slowly hover away from her as if called by a magnet, before the leather bindings would unwind and the kyber crystal, glowing bright red with hate, would float towards the assembled mass of pieces.

As she would reach out her hand she would finish the mantra, wrapping a finger around the saber with every other word.

"Through victory, my chains are broken. The force shall free me."

The saber would spark to life, a beam of crackling red energy illuminating the darkness of the void. Her eyes would open, staring down with cold interest on the device she had created. A saber of her own design. Her Weapon.

 

[Serina Calis]

"The force shall free me."

Tag - Miasmær



Between the ruptured bones of Exegol and the silence of the void, something stirred. Not the wreckage—though the shards of that blighted world drifted like cosmic ash—but something deeper. Older. Hungrier.

The Dark Side coiled in on itself, folding layers of gravity and malice like silk around an obsidian blade. It was not simply the absence of life here. It was the perfection of its conclusion.

And through this graveyard of failed empires and extinct gods came a ship.
Not large. Not armed in the conventional sense. But wrapped in shadow, hidden within folds of warped emissions and false gravimetric echoes. Its form seemed to bleed out of existence rather than occupy it, a predator among corpses. It did not announce itself with engines or lights. It arrived like a thought—dangerous, precise, and inevitable.

It was her.

The ship ceased all movement less than a kilometer from the hovering figure. No announcement. No communications. Just the hiss of a pressurized airlock cycling once, followed by the barest flicker of distortion as something moved through the void. No suit. No tether. Just the silhouette of a woman—tall, statuesque, coiled in sleek layers of matte black armor that seemed to drink the stars. Her cloak trailed behind her like ink in water. Her hair, bound back in a severe braid, gleamed like the blade of a scalpel.

And her eyes—those terrible violet eyes—shone like twin nebulae, not with fury, but with calculation.

She stopped less than thirty meters away, drifting to a halt like she had commanded inertia to forget her. A force ghost would have trembled in her presence.

Serina Calis said nothing.

She watched.

The woman before her had summoned death and shaped it into a weapon. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Quite literally—the kyber was cracked. Splintered through violence. The bond severed in blood. It had murdered her master, fed on that final moment like a serpent swallowing its own history, and forged herself in the afterbirth.

Good.

The galaxy had too few who understood what power demanded.

And yet…

Serina saw the flaws as easily as she saw the beauty.

The meditation posture—aesthetic, but indulgent.
The theatrics—the mantra, the floating pieces, the recitation—well-staged, but hollow at its core.
A performance, yes. But for whom?

Rage radiated off Miasmær in waves. A volcanic, uncontrolled burn. And yet, despite all of it, despite the cracked crystal, the lit saber, the gravity of her birth, she was still looking. Still reaching. Still waiting for the world to give her meaning.

Serina had no such confusion.

She was the meaning.

She drifted closer now, unhurried, silent. As though physics itself deferred to her pace. Her fingers did not twitch. She did not draw a weapon. She did not threaten.

She simply watched.

And as she came within fifteen meters, her presence began to press—subtle at first, like a pressure drop before a storm, then more insistent, until the very fabric of the Force around them began to ripple. The ghosts of Exegol screamed, unheard, as if recoiling from her shadow. Even the crystal at Miasmær's neck dimmed momentarily, flickering under a greater gravity.

The saber in her hand sparked. Not in defiance. In uncertainty.

Still, Serina said nothing.

Her gaze swept over the weapon—not with admiration, not with judgment, but with dissection. She saw the chosen parts, the interplay of modulation circuits and emitter shrouds. She traced the invisible welds in the Force, saw where the alignment had slipped a half-micron, where the emotional resonance of the cracked kyber crystal might destabilize under strain. Brilliant. Reckless. Crude.

And then, finally, her eyes lifted.

Locked onto Miasmær's own.

It was not a stare. It was an autopsy.

And only then, after an unbearable silence stretched so tight it might tear the stars in half, did Serina speak.

Her voice was not loud. It did not need to be. It cut through the vacuum as if space itself bent to carry her words:

"What does the code mean to you, young one?"

That was all.

 

[Miasmær]

Location: The ruins of Exegol
Tags: Serina Calis
Mood: [X]
​

As she stared down at the flickering light of the saber, only one thought crossed her mind: she didn't feel different. It would take her a second to process this, a shred of terror leaking into the maelstrom of rage. She had killed her master with their own blade, taken the crystal for herself, spent months finding the perfect equipment for this ritual in the presence of dark and terrible history. She had expected more... she had expected something. To speak such hollowed words in this defiled place, to forge her weapon surrounded with the presences of the sith lords of old, surely that had to mean something. Had they rejected her?

Nothing changed. She quieted the fear beginning to lurk in her soul, snuffed it out as one might a candle as she would take a deep breath of recycled air. With the doubt gone, the imperfection quieted, she felt something. A presence. She would close her eyes again, trying to focus her mind on it, to interpret it, to identify it. It was getting closer. She felt them, the presence within the force, fleeing. Pushed back by the presence as it approached. What power was this? What had she drawn to her? The rage would once again be tainted, pride gripping her heart triumphantly as her eyes opened again, ready to meet this presence.

Yet the pride was short lived. The grasping hand recoiling in fear like a serpent at the sight before Miasmær. The woman may have been smaller than Miasmær but there was no doubt in her mind that she was no threat to this stranger. Power radiated from them like nothing Miasmær had even conceived of, accented by the poise of the woman as she observed the light saber Miasmær held in one hand. It took everything she had not to flinch, though she doubted she could hide anything from the red-haired stranger. It felt like with so much as a dispassionate stare Miasmær was laid bare before her, dissected into her component parts to be studied and picked apart.

Their eyes met.

Every muscle in Miasmær's body tensed, the response of prey who has spotted their hunter. She felt the need to scramble, to fight, to gnash and claw and tear her way to freedom from the imprisonment of that gaze. Yet she resisted, she instead slowly lifted the saber to point at the stranger in the void. While the bubble of air gave the illusion of safety, the saber was the only thing close to safety Miasmær had.

She spoke, and Miasmær's blood turned cold.

It would take her a moment to process, to understand what had been said. Then, with as much confidence as she could muster she would answer. Her voice a quiet but controlled rhythm in contrast against the terror and rage within.

"It is truth."​

 

[Serina Calis]

"The force shall free me."

Tag - Miasmær



The blade pointed at her, and Serina did not move.

She remained suspended in the vacuum like a judge carved from onyx and purpose. Her cloak fluttered not in wind, but in the eddies of the Force as it coiled around her—an event horizon in human form. The saber's crimson glow barely reached her skin before dimming, its wrath dwarfed by the cold and exquisite authority that emanated from her very breathless presence. It was not that Serina Calis ignored the weapon aimed at her.

It was that she denied its significance.

The silence between them lingered, not empty but taut, as though the galaxy had paused to lean in. Around them, the shattered remnants of Exegol wheeled slowly in the void, ancient temples pulverized into dust, warships cracked like bones. Every echo of the old Sith Order—their ambitions, their rituals, their monuments—drifted now as irrelevance. And still, in the midst of it, this girl—Miasmær—dared to speak truth with trembling hands and untested resolve.

"It is truth."

That was what she had said. A fragile offering. A confession. An answer.

Serina tilted her head by a fraction—barely perceptible, but absolute.

And then—motion. Slow, sensual, and deliberate. Like the shifting of tectonic plates beneath a city asleep. One step forward. Her left hand raised, not in defense, not in peace, but in invitation. Fingers curled slightly, as though grasping an invisible thread that only she could see. Her eyes never left Miasmær. That violet gaze was relentless, dissecting not with hatred, but hunger. A curiosity. A cruelty.

"You believe that," Serina said at last, voice as smooth as oiled silk, "and yet you are afraid of it."

The line came not as a statement but as revelation—stripped of all cruelty, all judgment, all theatrics. It was surgical. Honest.

There was no need to raise her voice. In the Force, her words weighed like gravestones.

Serina drifted closer now, slowly closing the distance between them like an ice shelf collapsing into a sea of blood. Her body language was relaxed, yet coiled. She moved like a serpent in zero-g, effortless and unhurried, not needing to prove herself. She had already won the moment Miasmær raised that blade.

She simply hadn't told her yet.

The saber still hummed. Serina's gaze flicked toward it once, not in fear but in curiosity, as one might observe a wounded animal's attempt at a final bite. Then back to Miasmær.

"You call it truth," she continued, each word falling like polished obsidian, "but you still hope it will love you back."

That was the wound, wasn't it? The ache behind the ritual. Behind the defiance. Behind the death of her master and the binding of a cracked kyber crystal. Miasmær didn't want to become the truth. She wanted it to embrace her. To validate her. She wanted the Code to anoint her ascension.

Serina's expression—until now impassive—shifted just barely into something more dangerous.

Amusement.

Not mocking. But intimate. Sensual.

"You still want to be chosen," she said, barely above a whisper. "But power doesn't choose."

Now she was within reach. Within striking distance. And still she had not drawn a weapon. Her presence alone—magnificent, precise, seductive—was the only weapon required. The Force around her thickened, not with violence but temptation. Every syllable, every breath was an unraveling thread from which Miasmær's certainty might hang.

She reached out now—not for the saber, but for the cracked red kyber crystal itself. Just a whisper of the Force. Enough to make it hum. Not pull it away, not break it—just remind it whose gravity now dominated the battlefield.

"It shatters you. And you call that clarity."

A pause. And Serina smiled then—not warmly, not cruelly. Hungrily. The smile of a sculptor seeing the shape in the marble. Or a wolf recognizing a rival cub with blood still wet on its paws.

"You are close, young one. So close. But not yet dangerous."

Her fingers—gloved in that impossibly matte armor, fingertips gleaming with a subtle microcurrent—rose, hovered a breath's width from the saber's tip. It flickered again. Not from fear, not from malfunction, but as if acknowledging a predator had entered the ecosystem.

She stepped past the blade then. Past it. Not a threat. A coronation.

And now her voice, low and intimate, curled into the very bones of the girl who had summoned her unknowingly with blood and failure.

"Come with me."

And with that, she turned her back to Miasmær.

It was not dismissal.

It was permission.

The Force rippled. Something vast and old and dangerous turned its eye away from the broken world and toward a different ruin. Not Exegol.

Miasmær.

And Serina? She hovered there with her back exposed, her silhouette sharp against the void, wrapped in absolute composure. Not because she believed Miasmær wouldn't strike her down—

—but because it didn't matter if she did.

Power didn't flinch. Power didn't ask.
Power offered.

And watched who would take the risk to reach for it.

 

[Miasmær]

Location: The ruins of Exegol
Tags: Serina Calis
Mood: [X]
​

Miasmær's wide void-black eyes focused on that outstretched hand haloed by the ruins of a dead world. As it had been raised towards her she had felt the instinct to recoil, to pull away as one does from a roaring flame. Yet now she stared at it, an invitation. Her eyes would flicker up to meet the violet gaze of the stranger. Every instinct told her that if she were to take that hand, it would be as if she had stepped into a rancor's maw. Yet accompanying that predatory glare came a cut far more devastating than any lightsaber: the truth.

The words cut through her in a wave as her skin prickled and shivered in the aftermath. She had been laid bare so completely to this woman that Miasmær felt naked, felt vulnerable. The woman began to push forward in the void as if to prove her point. Miasmær could only shift the saber so that it continued to face her, a meagre defense against an encroaching doom. Fear had defined Miasmær for so long. Fear in the depths of the slave-pits. Fear after being blind folded and dragged to the arena, not knowing if she could even win the upcoming battle. Fear as her master had bought her and revealed dark truths. And now terror as one far more powerful than Miasmær's now dead master was observing the blade threatening her as if it was nothing more than a plaything for children.

It was the most powerful weapon Miasmær had ever had, and it was nothing to her. She spoke again.

Miasmær had shaped that fear, taken ahold of it and burned it to fuel her rage. So desperately she had wanted power, for it to embrace her. And it hadn't.

The woman's expression changed, and once again Miasmær felt her skin crawl while her breath quickened. The saber in her hand, now less than a meter from the woman's chest, wavered. The crackling pulsating beam of plasma and hatred flickered and danced for her as she spoke, peeling layer after layer away from Miasmær's soul. Already Miasmær felt doubt filling her mind. Her master's teachings, what if they were false? What if Miasmær had not even known the true nature of the creed and the greater power aligned with it. How much had they been keeping from her?

Miasmær would slowly feel the saber begin to lower as the woman spoke again, moving around it as the blade seemed to quiet in its rage. She was enthralled by this woman, by the power, by the beauty, by the promise of more than anything she could do by herself.

"Come with me."
​

Those words wrapped their seductive claws around Miasmær as the woman would turn away. The danger was monumental. Miasmær would be stepping into a world she had only just barely began to understand with a creature that could, at any moment, completely and utterly destroy her. Miasmær would like to believe that she was a rational person, one who put great thought into her decisions. Yet as she reached out a hand and with the force pulled her helmet and suit to her, there was no deeper thought than a need to understand, to be powerful, to follow this woman to learn anything she can before escaping her inevitable doom. There is no thought of safety as the saber was deactivated, there is no thought of alternatives as the suit was pulled over her ceremonial garb, and there is barely a thought of the inevitable future betrayel as the helmet hissed in technological obedience as the suit sealed itself.

And then, she would leave that shattered piece of Exegol behind, stepping into the void to follow the woman.

 

[Serina Calis]

"The force shall free me."

Tag - Miasmær



The sound of the saber deactivating was insignificant, but Serina heard it.
She always heard surrender, even when disguised as curiosity.

Her back remained turned, posture elegant and predatory, like a noblewoman surveying the aftermath of a conquered world. Miasmær was behind her now—armored, helmeted, obedient not by command, but by something far deeper. The leash wasn't made of words. It never was. It was made of revelation, of subtle truths that struck deeper than pain. Serina hadn't seduced her with promises. She hadn't needed to. She had simply told the truth.

And the truth had hollowed the girl.

The silence in the void was total, yet Serina moved as though a symphony played just beneath perception. She gestured forward with two fingers, not even turning her head. From the darkness behind her, her vessel responded like a beast obeying its handler. It wasn't large or majestic—it was intentionally mundane. A Theta-class shuttle, old but refurbished, matte black and bristling with subtle sensor masts and reinforced thruster coils. A military courier, standard and forgettable. As if even the stars would be tricked into overlooking it.

The ramp lowered with a slow hiss.

Still, Serina did not look back.

She led.

The stars hung jagged above them, broken by the scattering of Exegol's bones. Serina floated forward with zero hesitation, her motion controlled by microbursts of telekinetic nudges—no wires, no boots, no artificial propulsion. Just her will, guided by decades of mastery and absence of fear. She stepped through the flickering mag-field at the threshold of the shuttle ramp, her cloak brushing softly against the atmosphere curtain. It did not ripple—it accepted her. Like all things did, eventually.

Inside, the shuttle's interior was spartan but sterile. Blackened durasteel, red accent lighting, a single long bench on each side, and a small raised platform toward the cockpit with control terminals and encrypted communication units. It smelled faintly of ozone, lubricant, and cold. A soldier's ship. Functional. Unapologetic.

And in that space—so dull, so quiet—Serina Calis sat with all the grandeur of a Sith Empress.

She lowered herself onto the bench without breaking eye contact, now that Miasmær had followed her inside. The field shimmered closed behind her, sealing them from the void. Gravity returned. Subtle inertial dampeners adjusted for comfort. The lighting flickered to a darker hue—Serina had adjusted it with the Force before even entering. She preferred dimness. It let the truth shine more clearly in others' eyes.

Miasmær stood across from her, armor still sealed, helmet still on. A barrier. A shield. A delay of the inevitable.

Serina said nothing.

She simply gestured with one finger to the seat across from her.

Sit.

She didn't need to voice it. There was no need to command what gravity already compelled.

And once the girl obeyed—because they always did—Serina's eyes narrowed. Not with aggression. Not with anger. But focus. The kind that flayed the soul. Her gaze pinned Miasmær in place with the same precision as a scalpel pressed to a nerve.

"You know what you are," she said finally, voice smooth as breath on silk. "But you do not yet know what you can be."

That was it.

That was the only kindness she would offer tonight.

There was no smile. No praise. No celebration for the girl's survival or forged weapon. Those were steps. Stumbles, even. Power was not a saber. Power was not rage. Power was not belief.

Power was proof.

Serina reached up, unfastening the seal of her own collar. Her cloak unhooked with a gentle magnetic hiss, pooling around her like shadow incarnate. She reclined slightly, eyes never leaving Miasmær, allowing herself to lounge in a way that felt almost sacrilegious in the context of Sith austerity. But there was purpose in it. Always purpose. Every angle of her body was calculated—dominant, alluring, serpentine. She was not stiff like the old Sith. She breathed power with ease, with comfort.

Corruption, after all, was most effective when it felt like seduction.

From the cockpit came a quiet chime. Serina's gaze flicked up.

"Bring us to Polis Massa," she called, cool and unhurried. "Dark Approach Lane. Theta override."

The voice of the pilot, a grizzled clone with a burn-scarred jaw, crackled back through the internal comms. "Yes, Governor."

And that was all.

The shuttle began to hum beneath them as it pulled away from Exegol's remnants. Engines lit like coals on a long-dead fire, and the stars outside the viewports began to shift. A final look at the corpse of a false world—then the jump to hyperspace.

The void turned to blue fire.

Serina leaned forward just a fraction, resting her elbows against her knees. Her posture was relaxed, but her voice was not. It was the voice of a knife pressed just behind the heart.

"Your were taught you the Sith Code. But were not taught how to use it."

There was no question in the statement. No need for affirmation. She was simply stating the crime of the dead.

"You believed that victory would set you free." Her eyes gleamed. "And yet you still beg meaning from it like a starving thing."

She let that linger. Let the guilt fester like a bruise. Her words were not angry—they were intimate. Like the whisper of a lover in the dark. But they cut.

Then she extended her hand—not as before, not with a gesture of recruitment, but with an open palm between them. Waiting.

"Take it off," she said. "I want to see your face when you finally understand."

A challenge, yes. A demand, perhaps. But more than that: an opportunity. To step beyond the rites. Beyond the rage. To shed the mask—not for safety, but for surrender.

Serina was not here to destroy her.

She was here to corrupt her.

And corruption began with choice.

 

[Miasmær]

Location: The ruins of Exegol
Tags: Serina Calis
Mood: [X]
​

Miasmær drifted through the shattered remains and dust of the once mighty world, the thrusters attached to her back and belt occasionally blasting tiny jets of air to move her in the direction she wished. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of the shuttle, austere and still in the void. Yet onward she was carried by her curiosity, by her desire for more.

Hesitating at the ramp's edge Miasmær would stare into the craft, taking in its interior. It was so different than the ship she had stole, or the monestary she had destroyed. Gone were indications of wealth and power, ancient relics of bygone civilizations, or slaves ready to answer your every whim. Instead, as Miasmær pushed into the craft, all that would meet her was cold durasteel. Her attention momentarily flickers to the sensors' display of her suit, the air was breathable. No toxins lingered here, a relief.

When her eyes raised again she would watch Serina sit on one of the benches. Their eyes locked, Miasmær would tense before breaking eye contact and following Serina's finger with her gaze. Unsurely she would step further into the craft, settling on the far bench with her hands on her knees.

Her knuckles whitened as she subconsciously gripped herself for support as the stranger spoke. She felt chastisement in her words, a subtle but firm implication of a perceived folly. Such a rebuke caused her insides to coil; she should reject her, lash out in defense, prove she was powerful. Yet she remained still, channeling her anxieties into beginning to trace a figure eight on her knee. The repetitive action helped ground her, helped her focus on the woman's words.

Yet her focus would quickly be drawn elsewhere. The stranger's shoulders, her neck, her hips, the relaxation in her pose, but Miasmær strayed from her eyes. There was danger there, danger waiting to devour her. Danger that quickly presented itself as the clone began to move the ship.

Instantly Miasmær became aware of just how vulnerable she was. No longer was it a hypothetical, a series of events that might happen. Instead she really was leaving her things behind, being taken away to Sith Order space on the other side of the galaxy. Her breath quickened slightly against her attempts to control it, her eyes shot momentarily between the clone and the woman as if trying to find some hidden plot... not that it would need to be hidden. She watched as the dust and bones of a dead world vanished into a brilliant flash of blue, before slowly, unsurely, turning her gaze back to Serina.

She spoke again. Softy sultry words that wormed their way into Miasmær's heart and mind.

Slowly Miasmær reached up and grabbed the helmet, a cheap in-expensive thing she had taken from the now destroyed monestary. With a pneumatic hiss and unsure hands the helmet was removed, crimson head-tails sliding out to frame the curious alien face which watched for any sign of betrayel. The helmet would be placed on her lap, both hands resting on it as if the security it could provide in a moment's notice would provide some modicum of protection.

 

[Serina Calis]

"The force shall free me."

Tag - Miasmær



The hiss of the helmet releasing was soft, but in the chamber of the shuttle it echoed like thunder. A small sound, yet monumental.

Serina watched every motion—every twitch of Miasmær's fingers, every subtle hesitation in the neck as the helmet was lifted free. It was not the act itself that interested her. It was the surrender it represented. The mask was gone now. The last artifact of pretense laid in her lap like a discarded offering. She could see the lekku, the tightness around the eyes, the involuntary tremor in the throat when breath met uncertainty. A warrior's defiance still lingered—but it had softened. Diluted.

Good. Clay softened best when warmed by fear.

Serina remained still for several heartbeats. Watching.

She made no immediate reply, gave no sign of approval or threat. She simply let the tension stretch, let it breathe. She had learned long ago that silence—proper silence—was more terrifying than any weapon. In silence, the mind filled in the blanks. In silence, the truth of someone was exposed.

Then, finally, Serina moved.

It was subtle: a shifting of her posture, one leg crossed over the other with feline grace. Her fingers laced loosely across her knee, the dark armor whispering as it adjusted to her body like a second skin. She leaned forward, just slightly—no threat, no attack—only pressure. Coiled, sensuous, coiling pressure. As if the air between them had thickened, and now only Serina could breathe it.

"That's better," she said at last.

Her voice was low, velvet wrapped around iron. There was no triumph in it—no gloating. Just certainty. The kind of certainty that rewrote other people's definitions of control.

"You should never lie to me."

She let that linger.

Then, her eyes darkened slightly, lashes lowering into a gaze that was half-command, half-caress. Her voice dropped with it—quieter now. Not whispering, but intimate. Like a conversation that could only exist when the rest of the galaxy had been stripped away.

"Now…"

One gloved hand rose, fingers extended, graceful and utterly still. She did not reach toward Miasmær—yet. But her presence did. It slithered across the air like a promise. Or a leash.

"…Tell me your story."

The words were not barked. Not demanded. They were invited. Offered with the softness of silk sliding against bare skin, but underneath, the steel was undeniable. This was not a question.

It was a summons.

Serina's eyes never left her. In them, Miasmær would see no pity, no sympathy—only investment. Cold, calculating, and total. She was not interested in the facts of Miasmær's past. She was interested in the fractures. In the pressure points. In where the girl had bled, had begged, had been molded.

Because that was where power lived.

"I don't want a resume," Serina said, her voice smooth and silken, yet pulsing with quiet malice. "I want the pain. I want the moments that broke you. The ones you don't tell anyone. I want to hear the truth about what you were before you started pretending to be a weapon."

She leaned in farther now, eyes locked like predator to prey—except there was no rush to the kill. No hunger to end.

Just… appetite.

"Because I see you. You want power. Not to destroy, not to avenge. Not even to lead. You want power so you're never forgotten again."

Her lips curled—not in cruelty, but something darker. Appreciation.

Desire.

"You want to matter. To someone. Even if it means becoming a monster."

Her voice dipped to a razor whisper now.

"I can give you that."

The words weren't a promise. They were a drug.

And Serina—serpent, sovereign, seductress—waited like the universe itself had paused to listen. Not for facts.

But for confession.

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Hyperspace
Tags: Serina Calis
Mood: [X]
​

Miasmær wouldn't relax, but there was a certain relief of tension as the stranger didn't attack her. She would refuse to allow herself to feel comfortable, to fall that far into the web. With a straight back and a consciously maintained posture she would maintain the woman's gaze as she spoke honeyed words.

"I-"

she'd hesitate.

'You should never lie to me' rung in her mind as she formulated those dark repressed parts of herself into a story, a story she had so actively tried to ignore, to forget, to suppress.

"I, and every child my age, was dragged from the slave-pits of Loovria on a day like any other. We huddled together in that dark place for hours before the first of us was taken. Then another. Then another. Occasionally one would come back, hiding in the shadows from our attempts to help them. I didn't understand..."

She would pause again as the memories formed into images, images that slid across her memory as a slide-show of horror. The tempest inside of her was panicked. Rage and fear battled for control; to fight or to run.

"Then I was taken."

She did not expect sympathy. It had made her strong in the end, a horrific event which showed her the true nature of the galaxy.

"I beat him with a rock... it was the only weapon I could find in the mud and gravel. The wardens of the arena didn't bother to give us weapons... too prestigious they claimed. I think he was younger than me... but it was hard to tell in the end. So much of him was gone."

Her eyes would drift to the floor of the shuttle, unfocused and viewing scenes long past.

"I thought it would be difficult. I thought, when it would be my turn, I wouldn't be able to do it..." Her eyes would look up again, locking with Serina's

"I hit him before they even commanded us to.. I was on top of him before they had even shut the gates. Bitting, hitting, grasping for anything around me I could use to hurt him."

Images of the boy flooded her mind, his tear filled cries and voice cracking under the pain and desperation of forcing words out, trying to negotiate with her, echoed in ehr mind.

"When they let me back in the room. I just sat, in silence like rest. The darkness helped hide the blood, helped me pretend it didn't happen... In the end there were only nine of us left, all sitting in that room. None of us looked at each other, none of us wanted to admit we'd kill each other."

She'd struggle to pull herself together, to maintain composure. Her master had only alluded to the horrors she had endured, they had never asked her to relive them. Loovria was long gone, and Miasmær had hoped to leave it as a distant unimportant memory. A memory she would outgrow. Yet here she was trying to justify herself.

"I learned quickly there was no point in pretending. They liked that most about me, my willingness. Every fight was a spectacle, the more brutal the better. I think..." she would pause again, as if making a connection in her past she had never recognized "I think even then I knew the truth. I knew power was all that mattered. Power to kill, to command others, to control your destiny. I was weak, they were strong, so I couldn't stop them. I did more than fight, I did not waste away in the pits like so many others... I worked, I practiced, I shaped myself to be more than just a fighter. I think that's why my master chose me, in the end."

She would take a deep breath before adding dismissively "I know very little about them." she'd only known what they wanted her to know.

"They took me to a monastery, a tiny station hidden in the void. They wanted me to be a weapon, a blade they could point at their enemies who would kill without question. But they made the mistake of showing their weakness. I knew they would grow scared of me. They were a scared child in a dark room hoping I'd do their killing for them." she'd glance down at the saber on her belt and the crystal which had killed its master.

"They had their... habits... I had their favorite pet put a toxin in their drink, then I used their own saber to remove their head. Only one other soul left that station with me, though I don't know where they are now."

She fell quiet again. It had been easy to bring herself to do it, little more thought went into deciding to kill her master than what tea she might have for a meal. It was if she had just been pushed through the gladiator's gate for the first time again..

 

[Serina Calis]

"The force shall free me."

Tag - Miasmær



Serina did not speak.

Not immediately. Not while the words came raw from Miasmær's mouth, dredged up from places too long buried. She sat still, sculpted like a figure of obsidian and midnight, a creature designed not to comfort, but to consume. Her gaze never wavered. Violet eyes locked on the alien girl's face as if memorizing each fracture as it formed.

Not with pity. Not even curiosity.

But with ownership.

Every flicker of pain, every trembling syllable, every breath that caught just before release—it was a blueprint. And Serina read it the way one reads the weak points of a fortress wall.

When Miasmær spoke of the boy in the pit, Serina's head tilted ever so slightly. Not in horror. But approval. Subtle. Calculated. She marked that moment—the moment the girl had learned to stop waiting for permission.

The truth of her was so much more than Serina had hoped.

And yet, she waited until the story finished—until the girl was quiet again, her breath ragged but hidden behind a façade of dismissive composure. Until the silence wrapped around them like a closing tomb. Until even the hum of the shuttle faded from conscious thought.

Only then did Serina move.

It began with her eyes. The way they narrowed, like blades drawing together. Then the slow, deliberate uncrossing of her legs as she leaned forward, resting her gloved hands on her knees. She was all smooth elegance, but there was something deeper—predatory. A lioness crouched not to pounce, but to see.

Her voice, when it came, was not loud.

It was intimate.

"You didn't kill your master in that station."

The words cut with perfect calm.

"You killed him the moment you learned to bite through flesh with your own teeth."

No judgment. No reverence. Just truth, stripped of illusion. And then a pause, so long it might have belonged to someone trying to comfort.

But Serina did not comfort.

Her next words slid like silk against bare skin—dangerous, indulgent, undeniable.

"You were born in blood, in a pit of children. And every person who ever held power over you has felt you chewing on their leash since that day."

She rose to her feet slowly.

The motion was soundless. Imposing. Like a dark sun rising into a sky that had forgotten color.

"And now you're here. With me."

She took a step forward—not rushed, not aggressive, but inevitable. Each step like the closing of a door behind Miasmær, one after another, until there was no escape but forward.

"You know why I asked for your story?"

Her fingers—those long, slender digits clad in black synthleather—drifted to the edge of the bench where Miasmær sat, brushing the durasteel not a meter from the girl's thigh. The ship was quiet. Even the stars outside the viewport had blurred into lines. They were alone in the galaxy now.

Serina's presence pressed again—not like a hammer, but a slow, steady weight on the soul. Like gravity choosing a new center.

"Because now I own it."

Her voice dropped into a whisper so soft it brushed the ear like a kiss.

"That pain. That memory. That first kill. It's mine now."

Her hand moved—slowly, purposefully—and rested on Miasmær's cheek. Not forceful. Not cruel.

But claiming.

"You told me the truth. You stripped yourself bare. That's the first real strength you've ever shown."

She let the silence hang for a moment, her gloved fingers brushing the edge of a crimson lekku as if testing the texture of her new prize.

"And it will be the last weakness you're allowed to have."

Serina knelt now—one knee to the floor, level with the girl's gaze. Not in reverence. But to seal something.

"You are not a weapon. Not yet. Weapons are tools. You are a cause. Raw and trembling, yes—but growing. That monastery was a scabbard, child. It was meant to keep you safe. But I am not here to sheathe you."

She leaned in until her breath was warm against Miasmær's lips.

"I am here to sharpen you."

And then she pulled back—not with hesitation, but precision. Like a needle leaving skin.

The Force quivered between them, a thin current of something deeper than lust, darker than loyalty. It was recognition. A wound seeing its reflection in another. A forge recognizing what belonged within its fire.

Serina stood once more, voice regaining its regal smoothness.

"You will follow me to Polis Massa. You will rest, feed, learn. And then you will be broken down again, piece by piece—until nothing remains but what I choose to keep."

She turned to walk back toward the forward section of the shuttle.

But before she passed out of view, she glanced back.

And said, with a smile that could ruin kingdoms:

"Thank you… for the gift."

 

[Miasmær]

Location: Hyperspace
Tags: Serina Calis
Mood: [X]
​

Miasmær was silent, the silence of introspection and long forgotten dread. Her soul had been laid bare, it was as if she had torn away at her own flesh and pried the ribs apart for this woman to grab Miasmær's heart. She could feel it still, the slickness of blood on her hands. The sensation always returned when she thought back on her past life, a steady reminder of death wrought in a desire to survive.

Pulled from her moments of introspection Miasmær would watch the stranger lean in and she would listen with rhythmic forcibly controlled breath as she was addressed. It was difficult to sit still, to show a mirage of strength, even more so when every instinct told her to shrink back as the woman stood. With each step forwards Miasmær felt colder.

Her eyes drifted to the stranger's hand on the bench, her heart beginning to race. For a split second ideas of diversions hitherto denied to Miasmær drifted across her mind, enjoyable illusions further strengthened by the soft whisper which caressed her ears. As synthleather touched her cheek Miasmær almost melted into it, the first time in so long anyone had touched her without trying to kill her. Miasmær knew if this had been anyone else they wouldn't have been given the chance to touch her, that this was an interrogation. But as a hand brushed against her lekku and Miasmær's spine tingled and skin bumped in response she lost any desire to resist.

Miasmær's eyes met the woman's, large black voids as dark as night brimming with emotion locking gazes with the piercing blue eyes of her interrogator. The smell of her filled Miasmær's nose, the breath warm on her lips, her body shivering in response as she listened intently to the woman's proclamation. She was almost dissapointed when Serina pulled away.

As Miasmær received her new orders she would watch the woman leave, pausing only to thank Miasmær for her honesty. It would take a second to find a reply, to find the right words, to think of what this had become. Ultimately, Miasmær would follow old instincts, instincts that felt like they belonged here.

"You're welcome... Master."
​

The words left her lips as they had done for another before. Obedient, earnest, and perhaps slightly unsure if they were the correct words to use.

Sitting alone in the shuttle Miasmær would watch the floor, her mind racing through the possibilities of what she was stepping into. Power, she had found it and it was intoxicating. Why look through old ruins of the dead when this had come to offer her so much more. The chance to be reforged, to stop being weak. Finally she could be shaped into what she knew she could be.

Miasmær knew not how fast this shuttle was, or how long the trip to Polis Massa would take. Perhaps it would be looked down upon, chastized, but Miasmær found her body heavy, tired. She had spent so long preparing for today, too many sleepless nights.

Her back felt cold against the spartan steel of the bench as she laid down, one arm resting on her stomach while the other pressed between her side and the wall. Staring up at the ceiling Miasmær could feel the saber at her side, the one thing she had fought so hard for and finally acquired. She could feel the potential in her future, the power all around her. But the Sith Order? She knew so little about it and its functions. What would a society of killers look like? How could she hope to survive there?

By knowing her place, she realized.

And for now, that place was here.