Private Land Of Shadow

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The surface of Malachor V was a ruinous labyrinth of basalt canyons and half-buried catacombs, a graveyard where the very soil bled with memory. The world never stopped whispering—ash winds carried echoes of detonations that had scarred its mantle centuries ago, and the ground itself seemed brittle with the weight of a wound that never healed. Darth Virelia walked through it like a shadow given form, her pace neither hurried nor idle, every stride a calculation. Tyrant's Embrace clung to her like a second skin, its silent plates catching the pale light of Malachor's fractured sky, its violet glyphs pulsing faintly in rhythm with her measured breath. She did not walk as a pilgrim to a holy place. She walked as a sovereign reclaiming what was already hers.

She had come in search of relics—the detritus of Sith who once believed themselves immortal, their artifacts buried deep in the planet's scarred crust. The Dark Side here was not subtle, not patient. It pressed against her like a tide, testing the edges of her mind, promising power with every inhalation of the ash-laden air. It was a familiar pressure, and she welcomed it. It reminded her that even worlds could be broken, but not her.

Halfway along a ridge, she slowed. Something tugged at her senses. Not a relic, not stone, not memory—a presence. Faint, unrefined, but alive. Her helm turned, violet eyes slitting to sharp facets, scanning the gloom. Across a ravine lay the outline of something incongruous in Malachor's desolation: the skeletal remains of a campsite. Canvas fluttered faintly, staked against the wind. A cooking dish glimmered faintly with residue. A lantern burned low, too careful to be accident. And yet… no bodies. No movements.

Her fingers flexed, talons whispering against each other as she tested the air. The Force confirmed what sight and sound denied: a single presence, coiled near the edge of the camp, trying to hide, unpracticed. Young. The aura was turbulent, storming with hunger and confusion in equal measure. Not yet disciplined. Not yet dangerous. But the spark of the Dark Side was there, and it burned bright.

Her cape whispered as she descended from the ridge. The armor moved as though alive, each step deliberate, a predator's prowl softened by the whisper-silence of engineered plates. She could feel the eyes of the unseen apprentice struggling against her presence, like an insect caught in a web, aware of the hunter but unable to flee. She let the tension build with each approach, her pace steady, inevitable, never faltering.

The campfire cracked, brittle and nervous. Her six violet eyes caught its reflection, scattering it into insectile shards of mirrored flame. The young one could feel her now—an inevitability drawing closer, cloaked in dread and desire alike.

Virelia crossed the last stretch of blackened stone and stepped into the circle of firelight. Her armor pulsed once, runes whispering as if to announce her arrival. She said nothing. She only approached.

 

[Ydris]

“Who… who are you?”

Ydris’ voice was raspy with disuse. The past few weeks had not been kind to her. Since the total collapse of the power base of the Darth who had controlled her life since toddlerhood, in one way or another, she had been adrift. The Apprentice she had served had tricked her into a small escape shuttle before she’d known what was happening, and by the time she’d heard the Imperial Forces calling for their immediate surrender on the Holo, they had already been crashing towards the surface of Malachor V.

Ydris hadn’t seen him since. Upon awakening within the flaming wreckage of the craft, she was alone. Maybe he had left her for dead. Maybe he had thought to come back and loot her for supplies after the fire had burned out. In the end, it mattered not. For the first time Ydris could remember, she was well and truly alone.

Growing up within the walls of an extremely regimented compound alongside dozens of her peers had not left much room for privacy. Indeed, the candidates in the pilot program had been monitored all hours of the day and night. After “graduation”, she had been shipped off to serve upon an Imperial vessel. A mobile city, where quarters were tight, and some shift was always, always awake.

Isolation did not sit well with Ydris. She was used to having betters to impress, superiors to serve. Minds from which to glance the lay of the land; words, deeds, and intentions from which to glean truth from lies. Out here, in the barren wastes, she had no such ‘comforts’, cold as they were. Here, Ydris was forced to reckon with only herself. She did not enjoy such intense reflections. Usually, she preferred to leave the thinking to others. So, she just stopped thinking.

Supplies were scavenged from ruins and the eventually-extinguished ship. A crude camp was built. The shelter was amateurish, and the fire pit lumpy and uneven. Her trainers in the Darth’s compound had seen fit to teach their students basic survival skills, but they had never given them the opportunity to practice them in any kind of realistic scenario. So Ydris’ skills were sloppy, childish, and disorganized.

Ydris was a hunter of men, not beasts. Her first attempts at killing her meals were embarrassing to anyone who had ever learned to tread quietly in pursuit of wild prey. Yet, through her suffering, she learned. Failures turned to success, but that only led to the next problem: skinning and preparing the meat.

In Ydris’ boot was a dagger meant for “emergencies”, and the young woman could think of no more apt description than that for what she had been forced to endure. Her first few attempts at butchery ended so badly that she was only able to salvage a scant few morsels of meat. However, it did teach her a valuable lesson. Frustrated with her failure, Ydris had left the mangled corpse not far from her campfire before retiring to her ramshackle shelter. As a result, scavengers came in the night. And so began the cycle of Ydris making a kill, and leaving the leftovers out as bait to attract her next.

The result was a success when it came to efficient hunting methods, but made for a rather grim picture. As time passed, the area around Ydris’ campsite became a boneyard. Having salvaged an atmospheric dehumidifier from the ship to satisfy her hydration needs, Ydris had needed to do nothing but wait for her meals to come for her.

So it was that the great Virelia passed through a field of hollow corpses in various states of decay in order to reach the meager light by which Ydris sat. The young woman had her weapons on hand, eager to make the kill for her next meal on what was surely another of the endless line of foolish beasts who came to cannibalize their fallen fellows only to end up in the belly of a Sith.

Yet it was not another meal that came forth. No such helpless prey. It was one of the greatest hunters in the Galaxy, preparing to ensnare Ydris in her own inescapable trap. The young woman did not know it yet, but her life was about to change forever.

Blinking out into the darkness, all Ydris could do was stare at the hypnotic pattern of glowing purple eyes as she waited for whatever answer would come from the being lurking in the Dark.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The wind whispered through the ribcage of a ruin, scattering ash into the firelight. Virelia stood at its edge, her armor a cathedral of shadow and light, every violet rune pulsing in cadence with her slow, predatory breath. The question hung in the air like a plea, like confession. Who are you?

The six eyes of her mask glimmered, shifting as though to study every shiver of the young woman's body. She let the silence stretch, oppressive and deliberate, until the very act of waiting became a punishment. Then, when the fire threatened to die in its own anticipation, her voice poured out of the helm—low, velvet-dark, and resonant with promise.

"Names are chains, little one. Some bind you to the past, some to your own illusions, some to me." She drifted forward, the plates of her armor whispering like scales sliding over stone. The firelight broke against her mirrored face, fracturing into violet shards that danced across Ydris's skin. "But since you ask…" Her clawed gauntlet rose, not in threat but in slow, elegant poise, as though conducting an orchestra only she could hear. "I am Darth Virelia. Sovereign of silence. Mistress of inevitability. And I…" She paused, tilting her head, her voice lowering into something almost intimate. "I am what you have been hungering for, even when you did not have words for it."

Her steps circled Ydris, measured and close enough that the edges of her cape brushed the girl's legs, a kiss of shadow against skin. The fire cracked again, scattering sparks, but it was her presence that stole the air. "You have lived like carrion here. Alone. Clawing for scraps, gnawing bone, playing at survival." Her talons flexed, tracing the air as though outlining the broken little camp. "But that is not what you were born for. You are no scavenger."

Virelia's helm lowered until its mirrored face hovered inches from Ydris's own. The violet facets of her eyes flared, a hypnotic insectile shimmer, reflecting back the hollow desperation in the girl's gaze. "You are a weapon that has not yet been claimed. You are hunger without a master. And hunger without direction, little one…" Her voice turned to a silken hiss. "…rots."

Her claw brushed against Ydris's jaw, just enough pressure to remind her that the talon could pierce if it wished. But instead of harm, the touch lingered—caressing, deliberate, almost tender. "Do you feel it? The way the Dark coils between us?" The crystalline node in her chest pulsed brighter, bathing them both in violet glow. "It does not want you to be alone. It never did. It brought me to you."

Her talon trailed down, leaving the ghost of sensation across Ydris's throat. Then Virelia straightened, towering, sovereign, inevitable. "Rise from the ashes of this wreck, girl. Speak your name to me. And perhaps, if it pleases me, you will never be alone again."

 

[Ydris]

Ydris sat frozen, enraptured at the vision of dark elegance unfolding before her. The young woman could practically taste the darkness hovering in the air. Past experience would demand she prepare to fight for her life. Yet, in this moment, she did not even think to raise a weapon. Instead, she drank down the words spoken like a dehydrated man lost in the desert being offered water for the first time in days. Her pulse raced, heartbeat thundering in her chest. Was this a dream? An apparition?

The words were such pretty ones, the velveteen aura of darkness surrounding her like a cocoon so sweetly tempting. The strange woman before her was saying and revealing little, yet giving Ydris the answers she never knew her hardened heart longed for. It was… almost too good to be true.
Maybe… maybe she was dreaming. Maybe she had eaten a creature infected with an unknown disease, and was hallucinating this angel of darkness as a final mercy before she died. Would it really be so bad if this was how it ended?


No. Whatever was happening, it was very, very real. The preternatural instincts she had honed to a razor’s edge to survive and thrive the machinations of her childhood were singing and screaming two important things: one, this person was very, very real -and two, that they were more powerful than every other darksider she had ever met, combined.

Ydris took a shaky breath, trying to master her body and mind. Yet, the humming, anticipatory excitement refused to yield, no matter how hard she willed it. Her power, her being, her very soul seemed to be drawn towards this Darth Virelia , serving her whims rather than Ydris’ own. Like iron filings drawn towards a magnet, Ydris could do nothing but obey.

Quaking with longing, almost against her will, Ydris rose to her feet. (She would follow the order given, despite something deep inside her saying she should instead be prostrating herself on the ground beneath a being such as the one who had found her in her darkest hour and offered salvation.)

“I am called Ydris, My Lady, and I ask only this; what must I do to shed this wretched skin and be reborn in a way that pleases you?”

Ydris knew not from whence the words had come, but even as she spoke them, they felt like nothing more or less than her own utter truth. She had lived her life thus far only to survive. Never believing in anything other than the desire to live just that little bit longer. Serving nothing and no-one so much as her own selfish desire. Now, she wanted more. She wanted to be more. And this woman, this Dark goddess, was offering her a chance to do so. Ydris would do anything, be anything, to make the hazy future the figure hinted at a reality. The hunger in her bones to serve and matter demanded nothing less.

Ydris, as the Dark Lady had said, was a weapon. She would happily be reforged into any shape her wielder desired, so long as she was allowed to remain at her side. She would surrender completely to whatever changes may come, and do so with a smile. For, as long as there was someone shaping her in their image, she would never, ever be alone. Or, without purpose.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The fire cracked, sending a rush of sparks spiraling between them like fleeting stars. Virelia's helm tilted slightly as Ydris rose, the violet shards of her eyes narrowing into slits of predatory focus. The girl's trembling, the way her voice quavered between fear and hunger, was no secret. It poured from her like incense. The Dark Lady did not need to read her mind—her body was a book, her voice a confession.

Virelia let the silence hold, savoring the sight of the girl's obedience, before the purr of her voice slipped free of the faceless helm. "Ydris," she whispered, tasting the name like wine, letting it linger as though it belonged to her already. "You rise as commanded, and you ask not for mercy, not for safety—but to be remade." Her tone curled around the word, decadent, possessive. "That pleases me greatly."

She moved closer, her cape whispering across the bone-littered ground. The crystalline node in her breastplate pulsed brighter, casting a violet glow across Ydris's upturned face. One clawed finger traced the edge of her jaw, slow and deliberate, tilting her chin higher. The talon could pierce; instead, it caressed. "Look at you. A weapon abandoned, yet still sharp. A flame left smoldering, yet you burn for me now. Do you feel how inevitable this is? The Dark brought me to your fire, and it brought you to your knees in spirit long before your body rose to greet me."

She circled Ydris again, slow, indulgent, the way a predator savors its claim before the first bite. Each step was precise, deliberate, the weight of inevitability in motion. "You ask how to shed your wretched skin. But it is not skin I wish you to shed. It is doubt. It is weakness. It is the pathetic clinging to survival for its own sake." Her voice deepened, silken steel. "You will not merely live a little longer under me. You will matter. You will become more than hunger—you will become hunger's hand, hunger's teeth."

Virelia stopped behind Ydris, her talons ghosting along the girl's shoulder, down the length of her arm. The touch was light, electrifying in its restraint. "And in return, you will belong to me. Not in passing, not in part. Entirely. Utterly. Body, will, soul. You will be remade not in the galaxy's image, but in mine."

Her voice lowered, intimate, licentious, curling into Ydris's ear like a lover's murmur. "This is what it means to please me: to let go of the child who lived for scraps, and to awaken as something forged, shaped, desired. The galaxy will tremble at you—not as Ydris the lost, but as Ydris, mine."

Virelia withdrew just enough that the firelight returned, violet eyes glimmering from her mask. Her talon lifted Ydris's chin once more, commanding her gaze upward. "Do you accept this? To be claimed, reforged, and made whole beneath my hand? Speak it. I want to hear the truth in your own mouth."

The violet glow pulsed once, steady as a heartbeat. "Give yourself to me."

 

[Ydris]

Ydris licked her lips, the raw lightning in her veins at having pleased the being before her a wholly unfamiliar sensation, but one she was already becoming addicted to. She looked into the half-dozen glowing eyes on a featureless mask, and swore she could feel an approving gaze looking back. As she breathed, Ydris could feel the aura of darkness that was emanating from Virelia steeping into her lungs. She breathed deep and reveled in it for a moment. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter. The way it seemed to hum in anticipation… the woman was right. This meeting was nothing less than Dark Providence.

“Mercy and safety are things that do not exist. They are fantasies for those not strong enough to claim their own place. I would never ask for such delusions.” scoffed Ydris, her scorn for such concepts breaking through her awed countenance. “I will not be counted amongst such fools.”

With that, the young woman squared her shoulders and brought her right hand up to her heart. Flames danced at her heels, low and unstoked, casting long shadows into the already pitch-dark night. Beasts lurked in the blackness beyond, their howls and hisses echoing off the canyon walls in an uneasy symphony that would send shivers up the spine of lesser beings. But, those that heard it were Sith, and this place, a world bent to their will. Even so, the poisoned soul of Malachor V itself seemed to be holding its breath, titanic attention turning one lazy eye to see what the girl who had torn a messy, bloody swathe across it to survive would decide.

Where other beings may quaver, Ydris stood firm. After all, this was exactly where she belonged. All nervousness fled, all doubt draining until only determination remained. She would not, could not falter. It wasn’t even a choice. This was what Ydris had been born and made for. This was the purpose for which she had been forged. No longer would she suffer the disgrace of being wielded by clumsy, inept masters. Now, she would serve this fae being of dark beauty and deadly grace. The nexus of darkness surrounding them would become Ydris’ ally, a fellow tool held in the delicate embrace of the one who would command them both to do her bidding. At Darth Virelia ‘s command, she would achieve greatness.


“I accept what you offer, My Lady, body, will, and soul. My very being is yours to command. I will not falter, and I will remain your loyal blade until my dying breath -and ever after. Take me into your fold, guide me as you will, for I am already yours.”

And with those words, Ydris sealed her fate- as well as those of countless others whom she would hunt, kill, or destroy at her new Mistress’ bidding.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The words hung in the air like a sacrifice placed upon an altar. Ydris's vow was not timid, nor half-hearted—it struck with the sharpness of a blade offered hilt-first. Darth Virelia let the silence coil around it, savoring the taste of submission like a rare vintage. Her six violet eyes shimmered, glimmering with approval that needed no expression, no mortal softness.

The slow curl of her voice broke the stillness, velvet-dark and edged with delight.

"Good," she purred, each syllable dripping with satisfaction. "You give yourself without stammer, without plea. No flinching. No bargaining. You have already begun to please me."

Her talons grazed Ydris's cheek, the touch feather-light yet electrifying, a reminder that her mercy was choice, not default. The crystalline node in her chest pulsed brighter, violet glow crawling over Ydris's face like a benediction. Virelia circled her once more, cape brushing the bone-strewn ground, each step ritualistic—an act of possession in motion.

"You are mine now, Ydris. Mine to wield, mine to shape, mine to remake as I see fit." Her tone lowered, licentious and commanding, wrapping around the girl like silk and shackles both. "And if you would endure beneath me, if you would ascend through me, there are rules you will obey. Not rules of weakness, but rules of power. Three chains, forged for your neck alone."

She stopped before her, talons poised at Ydris's throat, not cutting, only hovering close enough for the pulse beneath her skin to drum against them. Her voice grew intimate, intimate enough to burn.

"First: You will surrender everything you are. No thought you keep hidden, no will you reserve for yourself. You are not a blade to be lent or borrowed—you are my weapon, and my weapon never turns against me. Your obedience will be perfect, or your ruin will be exquisite."

Her talon trailed lower, sliding down to press against the hollow of Ydris's collarbone. "Second: You will feed the Dark as you feed me. Every kill you make, every fear you inspire, every weakness you crush—you will savor it, and you will offer it to me as tribute. Your triumphs are mine. Your sins are mine. Your pleasures, too, are mine." The helm tilted, and her six eyes glowed brighter, as though savoring the taste of that word.

Her hand shifted, claws sliding down Ydris's arm until they closed around her wrist—firm, claiming, unbreakable. "Third: You will desire me above all else. Above comrades, above cause, above even your own survival. You will crave my approval as breath, and my touch as blood. Nothing else in this hollow galaxy will matter more to you than pleasing me. This is how I chain you. This is how I free you."

Virelia pulled her closer, the mirrored mask inches from Ydris's face, violet light bathing them both. Her voice fell to a silken whisper, intimate and damning: "Three rules. Three chains. Wear them with pride. For in them, you cease being lost… and become inevitable."

 

[Ydris]

“So you say, and so I answer.” stated Ydris simply. Without looking away from the glowing eyes reading her flayed-open soul, the new Apprentice raised her arms to the side and drew her hunting dagger across the back of her left hand three times. The same blade that had once carved and cleaved open the innumerable corpses littering the surrounding land now sliced into the bare flesh of their slayer. Ydris raised her wounded hand high in supplication, turning her palm towards the void-like sky so that her crimson blood rained down into the shadows caressing the dusty earth. Drip, drip, drip.

”This killing field I now dedicate in the name of Darth Virelia . Where once it stood as a testament of my will to survive, I now cast off that will and place it into the hands of the Dark Lady. May this place now stand as a monument to remember the moment she picked up her most loyal blade.”

Though the incantation was simple and crude, Ydris could feel the weight of the Dark Ritual she had just cast reverberating across the Force. Something had begun here, something sworn in blood, and before it was done, rivers of crimson succor would flow freely, released by Ydris’ blade -no, Virelia’s blade, to serve its master’s slightest whim. This Ritual was only the first of many more Ydris would dedicate to the glory of her Mistress, this she knew deep in the very bowels of the darkened soul she had just relinquished full ownership of to the very woman for whom she bled. No kill at her newly-scarred hand would ever be wasted; no death, destruction, or terror she wrought not dedicated to her Master through sacred vow. All would go to feed the Dark Lady, long may she reign. Ydris would siphon the power and very life from her Lady’s enemies so Virelia could feast. And, she would do the same with her own.

Shadows slithered across the land like hungry snakes racing towards a meal. Ink-dark splotches of blood littered the ground between two sets of war-worn boots, arranged in the vague shape of a Sith Trident. The fire, once amateurish and uneven, crackled with new vigor. It rose, hissing tongues first turning a bloody crimson, then raging ever stronger until they roared a violet-hot inferno. Energy ebbed and flowed between the two Force sensitives standing on the precipice of a blade reforged. Three cuts, three rules, three chains.

Ydris was now bound to Virelia, a dark pact freely formed between a lost soul and one promising salvation. In a rush of shadow and air ripped from Ydris’ lungs in something resembling the inverse of a Force Scream, all the Apprentice was, is, and could ever be flowed from her being into that of her Master. Hopes, dreams, ambitions, memories, fears, all offered up as a sacrifice to feed Virelia’s voracious hunger for Devotion, for Control. Any power Ydris may have possessed was laid down at the Darth’s feet. It was hers to command, and only hers. Ydris, the woman, would no longer have any instincts, wants, or desires of her own to follow. Only Ydris the Weapon would remain. She would heed the commands of Virelia, regardless of their contents or form.

As she stood in the roiling darkness, embraced by shadow, caressed by sharp talons, and bathed in the purple light of her rebirth, the young Apprentice came to a revelation. Ydris never wished to draw breath again unless it was filled with the Dark Lady’s titanic, shadowed Aura. Never wished to see unless it was lit by the Lady’s violet glow. She wanted only to remain by Darth Virelia ’s side; a true Weapon: loyal, sharp, and ever useful. Nothing would ever make her feel as complete.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The air trembled as the ritual bled itself into the world. Virelia stood bathed in violet flame and the acrid perfume of blood, her six mirrored eyes reflecting the inferno back into Ydris's face in a thousand distorted shards. For a long moment she did not move, did not speak. She fed. The girl's vow had been raw and imperfect, but it was soaked in conviction, steeped in hunger, and consecrated in blood. That made it perfect.

At last, the purr of her voice broke the storm-silence, wrapping around her apprentice like a velvet noose.

"Exquisite." The single word unfurled, decadent and approving. "You wound yourself, not as penance, not in despair—but as tribute. You bleed to declare yourself mine, and the Dark drinks eagerly."

Her talons ghosted down Ydris's cheek, leaving fire in their wake. The gesture was not violent; it was indulgent, erotic in its restraint. "You understand already, don't you? That pleasure and pain are not enemies, but twins. That blood is not loss, but offering. You cut yourself not to diminish, but to give. And now you are emptied of everything but me."

The crystalline node at her chest pulsed brighter, syncing with the quick beat of Ydris's heart. The bond between them deepened, each inhalation of ash-thick air tasting of inevitability. "I am pleased with you, my weapon. Very pleased. You have offered me all you are—and now I will fill you."

Her helm leaned close, inches from Ydris's lips, the violet facets of her eyes glowing with feverish intensity. "But gifts are not free. Devotion must be proven, hunger tested, loyalty tempered in trial. Words and wounds are only the beginning." Her talons traced Ydris's jaw, then slid to her throat, curling just enough to feel the fragile pulse hammering there. "It is time you show me how sharp my new blade already is."

She straightened, sovereign once more, towering above her apprentice with cape and armor whispering like a cathedral of shadow. "Beyond this canyon lies a ruin, half-swallowed by the planet's wound. Within it, something festers—an echo, a parasite, a creature birthed from the Dark Side's despair. It is imperfect, ravenous, and vile." Her tone softened, though it lost none of its weight. "You will kill it. You will carve its shrieking form open and offer me its death as your first gift."

She stepped aside, gesturing into the abyss beyond the firelight. Shadows slithered eagerly in that direction, as though the world itself strained to hear the command. "Do this not for survival, not for food, but because I desire it. Because my will demands it. That is the true meaning of service, Ydris."

Her talons curled beneath the girl's chin again, tipping her face upward, her voice dropping to a licentious murmur. "And when we return with its corpse, I will reward you. In ways that will make you ache to bleed for me again, and again, until every heartbeat is a hymn in my honor."

Her six eyes glowed like violet suns as the challenge hung between them.

"Come, apprentice. Prove you are worthy of the chains you begged me to fasten."

 

[Ydris]

The Hunt, Part 1.


Ydris closed her eyes and let her jaw hang loose, like a cat scenting the air. She could practically smell the stench of corrupted darkness left to rot wafting through the windswept atmosphere. Darth Virelia was right. Where once this beast must have been twisted to a specific purpose, without proper oversight, the thing had become a mindless, hulking horror not fit to call itself a product of the Sith. Now, it was simply a problem. One that Ydris' Master had bid her to solve. So Ydris would. The death of this thing would be but the first of many cullings the Apprentice would wreak at the Dark Lady's command. It was the first step towards the decadent future Virelia had offered a starving Ydris, and the girl was nearly feral with the desperation to prove herself worthy of serving as a weapon at the Dark Lady's side. During the entire trek spent tracking the beast, failure had never once crossed her mind: it was not even an option.

Slowly Ydris crept along the shattered, shadowed rubble, the harsh lessons on stealth and survival this planet had already taught her coming into play without conscious thought. They had been carved into her marrow through hunger and blood. What was new, though, was the way the shadows all but caressed Ydris as she passed, enveloping the edge of her form and helping hide her shape in the darkness. The Dark Binding had, in some fashion, worked both ways, allowing for the vast ocean of power exuded by Virelia to find some purchase in Ydris and call her 'ally'. While nowhere near conscious, or in any way containing the enormous depth of the Darth's unity with and ironclad control of the Dark Side, Ydris had unknowingly gained something new in her devoted act. Wherever she walked, the shadows would be her friend.

It was by the power of this new ability that Ydris had been able to make the hour's hike to her destination unmolested by the ravenous beasts she had once slaughtered for her meals. They were beyond her notice, now, unimportant in the face of a task so vital as obeying her Lady's command. So, as was the nature of her new Dark Gift, she was in turn beneath theirs.

Shadows grew darker on the horizon, and Ydris knew she had finally reached her destination. Half-destroyed walls, collapsed towers, and the bared, cracked form of a once-mighty foundation. This was, of course, the very ruin of which Virelia had spoken. As she approached, Ydris felt its weight as a corrupted nexus of the Force, energies flowing erratically, though also oddly stagnant. The static-sludge-garbage scent oozed strongest here. This was the den of the beast.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The ruin loomed like a broken tooth jutting from Malachor's scarred flesh. Walls bent inward where ancient detonations had torn them open, their fractured angles forming jagged ribs around a hollowed heart of shadow. The air here was different—thick, noxious, as though the very breath of the planet resisted intrusion. And beneath it all: the stench. Rot, bile, and a corruption so potent it clung to the tongue like acid.

The silence broke with a sound halfway between a roar and a gurgle, reverberating through the cracked stone until dust cascaded down from ruined archways. Ydris would feel it before she saw it: a tidal wave of hunger, mindless but focused, a predatory intent that pressed against her chest like a weight. Then, the beast emerged.

It dragged itself from the shadows of a collapsed corridor, massive claws grinding furrows in the basalt floor. A Terentatek, but not as legend remembered. This one had been tampered with—mutated by Sith hands, twisted beyond the boundaries of its already nightmarish form. Its body was a swollen mass of sinew and plated hide, spikes jutting from shoulders and spine like jagged obsidian lances. Where its mouth should have gnashed in silence, viscous green foam poured from slavering tusks, sizzling where it struck the ground. Acid hissed in the cracks of ancient stone, leaving smoking pits in its wake.

Its eyes, small and hateful, burned with a sickly yellow glow, locked now on Ydris with murderous clarity. The beast's tusks clattered together, a sound like grinding bone, before it threw its head back and bellowed. The roar shattered the air, a concussive wave that rattled the hollow ruins, making shattered pillars tremble like reeds in a storm.

The Force itself seemed to writhe around the creature. Each step it took dragged a smear of corrupted energy behind it, a fetid trail of rot that stained the nexus deeper. Here was no tool of Sith alchemy with purpose. Here was failure given form, a weapon without a hand to guide it. Yet it still lived. Still hunted. Still killed.

Acid drooled from its jaws, each drop striking stone with a hiss like burning flesh. The ground between it and Ydris was already pitted and scarred, blackened trenches where its saliva had eaten through centuries of ruin. The beast's claws flexed, talons longer than swords, each tipped in corroded black.

It knew she was here. The scent of her blood, still fresh from the ritual, had carried like perfume across the ruin. Its massive head swung low, tusks scraping sparks from the basalt as it inhaled her scent, a guttural growl building in its throat.

Then it lunged. The ground shook as the Terentatek charged, a living avalanche of mutated muscle and acid-dripping fury, closing the distance in a heartbeat. The ruin itself seemed to howl with it, the nexus flaring in jagged resonance.

The trial had begun.

 

[Ydris]

The time for shadows was over. Now, it was only the kill. With a snarl, Ydris ignited her saber-staff, the crimson blades lighting up the darkened ruins in an eerie red glow. She charged directly at the beast, the Force flowing through her body and enhancing her speed and grace. When she reached its hulking form, could feel its burning breath hot against her face, she launched herself into the air, becoming a whirling dervish of spinning blades as she summersaulted past its thundering form. Aiming as well as she could in the chaos, Ydris slashed out at its face, hoping to blind it or end the fight quickly.

After a few heartbeats of airborne weightlessness, Ydris' heavy boots hit the pockmarked ground with a 'thud'. She had landed facing away from the beast, her breathing heavy as adrenaline and preternatural awareness flowed through her being. She listened, with body and beyond, for any sign indicating her prey's next move.


However, she had not escaped its first gambit without penalty. Her whirlwind attack had taken her dangerously close to its acid-dripping maw, and her still-bleeding hand had paid the price. She had felt her own flesh sizzle and burn even as she attempted to carve into her foe. Now, where just the trident of cuts had once stood stark against pale flesh, a jagged halo had been seared around it. The scarification resembled nothing so much as a crude recreation of the symbol of the Dark Court.

Something deep in Ydris could only feel satisfaction, despite the pain. She was now marked forevermore as a being tied to Darth Virelia . She had already bound her soul, and now the Trial her Master had set had bound her body to the Dark Lady as well. Now it was time to prove herself worthy and earn her third and final chain. In that moment, Ydris wanted for nothing so much as to succeed here and earn her right to provide succor at Virelia's side. To experience whatever boon she deemed fit to provide. With such rewards on the line, nothing and no one would stand in Ydris' way. Not even this savage echo of a beast.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Becoming mine."

Tags - Ydris

The Terentatek reeled as Ydris's crimson whirlwind carved past its face. One of her blades kissed flesh, splitting hide and drawing a gout of steaming blood that hissed where it struck the acid-scorched floor. The beast's roar shook the ruin, a thunderous cry of pain and fury. Its tusked maw snapped open and shut, acid frothed in torrents, slinging droplets like molten rain across the battlefield. Where each fell, stone hissed and cracked, the scent of burning rock mingling with the acrid stench of corruption.

It turned, ponderous but brutally swift for its size. Its claws gouged trenches in the basalt as it pivoted, yellow eyes burning with a rage that was not mindless, but personal. Her strike had wounded it, and now it wanted her not simply dead—it wanted her broken, dissolved, devoured.

The ruin itself seemed to echo its fury. Pillars trembled and collapsed under the vibration of its bellow. Shards of obsidian rained down around them, shattering into knives at her feet. The nexus swelled, its energy thickening the air into something cloying and electric, as if every breath was a draught of molten tar. Ydris would feel it trying to press against her skin, worming into her veins, daring her to bend or drown.

The Terentatek lowered its head and lunged again, this time with a cunning twist. It dragged one tusk across the floor as it charged, flinging up a fan of sizzling acid that streaked toward Ydris like a wave of green fire. Behind the curtain of hissing death came the beast itself, claws arcing in twin crescents wide enough to shear stone columns in two.

Its face was a ruin of blood and fury, her strike having scored deep across one eye. The other, however, glared with baleful hate. The beast's hide, thick as armor, gleamed wet and cracked where her saber had grazed it, proving it could be harmed—but not easily. The mutated flesh writhed around the wound, as though something beneath the skin was already trying to knit it back together.