Private Lessons Unasked

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka oft watched the stars. In days of yore, mystics and scryers would look to the stars to piece together the vast potentiality of the future: she thought to highly of herself to lower herself to such meager superstitions, the machinations of prophets and seers was the death of power after all. Yet she looked regardless, for today, potentiality flowed like water once again. As it so often did when living in the ordered chaos of Sithdom.

And who else to be within the centerfold of the maelstrom than Darth Virelia

She who was boundlessly capable of digging herself into a hole with the other Sith that flooded the Empire through some bout or the next. Such a thing was secondary in Lirka's mind - the quibbling of Dark Siders was a constant that pestered at the back of her mind, no, today things of far greater import had transpired. They involved herself this time. An Imperator, and her Arch-Commandant. Two necks sharing the same noose, now dubbed "Storm Riders". Enemies. Associates. Brawling forces of unshakable belief now trapped under the same banner.

And just as she had on Calladene, Lirka saved the girl from herself once more. Unasked, of course. For the Once-Sephi rarely asked permission to do what was necessary to perpetuate the Dark Path - the mess on Ryoone had put a target on both of their heads, but it was the fiery disregard for the powers-that-be from the Arch-Commandant that had forced Lirka's hand in sticking out her neck for the girl once more.

The endless oddity of dancing between disdain and tolerance, to perhaps something more. The Once-Sephi moved like the flipping of a coin, though rarely did she work unexplained. She enjoyed talking too much. It made sense once the summons came for Calis, beckoning the girl to one of Darklight's many observation decks. A place where, through black crystalline glass, the stars shimmered brighter than ever before on any of the other Sith-Imperial vessels. None shined brighter than the ever-close inferno they called Firefist, Companion Besh, the target of conquest the duo would one day descend upon.

It was a summons not dissimilar to their bout on Anoth. Yet in a brief time, so much had changed. The Ministry of Order seemed far away, a world had burned, futures marred, a Legion born, the very Galaxy itself had been sundered.

Now, here they were again. Aboard this vessel that, for now, would bind their fates till success or death.

Just like before, Lirka would wait, and she would see. She understood the girl well enough, she would set the tempo. Yet Lirka would not be pushed to violence this time, such a thing was unbefitting of their station. And besides...

Leaning back into her seat, her helmet clicked back onto her head as the chemical slurry that vaguely resembled neutron-pixie surged through her. There was much to discuss today after all, it paid to open one's mind when sitting atop the precipice. Today would, for better or worse, certainly be an enlightening experience.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Aftermath."

Tags - Lirka Ka



The summons was expected.

Of course it was.

It didn't even register as a surprise when it came through. Not after Ryoone. Not after the council. Not after Serina had nearly torn herself apart just holding in the magnitude of her hatred. It came in silence, with no preamble, no ceremony. Just coordinates. A hallway number. A deck designation. A subtle suggestion from the ship's AI routing her path without asking. Of course it was her.

Only Lirka would wait for her like this.

Only Lirka could.

The walk was slow. Not out of reluctance—but precision. Every step she took through the polished, obsidian-stitched corridors of the Darklight was deliberate, soundless despite the armored weight she carried. Her newly recalibrated grav-boots had been adjusted to leave no echo, no tremor, no sign of her presence. A warlord in whisper. That suited her. She didn't want to be seen right now. Not after them. Not after that.

Her mask remained in place. A seamless, sculpted faceplate of stormglass and silver-black alloy, split only by the still-shattered hexagonal eye on the right. It hadn't been repaired. She could have. Easily. Her engineers had begged.

She left it.

Let them all see it.

Let them remember what she had done. What she had become.

The corridor wound into one of the ship's protruding fins, where the curvature of the hull stretched outward in a long, transparent arc of alchemized crystal. A viewing bay. One of the only places aboard where the stars dared intrude on the Sith bastion's internal gloom. Stars. Cold, bright, endless. Mocking.

And Companion Besh, that burning thing of fire and promise, loomed on the horizon like a crown set ablaze.

Lirka was already there. Of course she was.

Serina stopped at the threshold.

For a moment, she didn't move. Just stood. One black figure in the silhouette of another. Like the shadow of a storm watching its progenitor.

The moment stretched.

And then she entered.

She said nothing at first, only stepping into the vast chamber with the soundless presence of a predator. The doors shut behind her with a muted sigh. There was no retinue, no Knights, no aides. She had dismissed them all. She did not want them to see this.

She did not want anyone to see this.

Her eye—the one still bared—did not waver from Lirka's form.

A thousand thoughts screamed through her, but none escaped.

The silence, however, was not empty.

It was heavy.

Like the hush before a knife slips between ribs.

Like the intake of breath before a war begins.

Like the mourning silence that comes after you realize you were never going to be saved.

Serina crossed the room slowly, coming to stand a meter to Lirka's side, looking out the vast viewport. Her hands remained clasped behind her back. The cape of her armor whispered faintly as it settled. Her voice—when it came—was not the one she had used in the meeting.

It was colder.

Lower.

Tired in a way that refused to admit exhaustion.

"Did you enjoy the performance?" she asked flatly.

She didn't look at her. Not yet.

"The courtly slap. The kneeling. The way my voice caught just before the idiot Councilor dragged me back down like a whipped dog." She exhaled through her nose, sharp and bitter. "I'm sure you enjoyed the moment. It made everyone feel very dignified."

The stars beyond them flared brighter, or perhaps that was only her vision narrowing. Companion Besh shimmered in the distance, a fire she could never reach.

Finally, she turned her head just enough for her ruined lens to face the Imperator fully. The glowing violet eye was still there—less furious than before, but no less unrelenting. There was no gentleness in it. Only the hunger of a thing too intelligent to break, and too proud to ever beg.

"Did you?"

For a second, her voice almost cracked. Almost.

She swallowed it whole.

Another breath.

Serina stepped forward now, just slightly, standing side by side with the Imperator before that endless void of stars. She didn't reach for her. Didn't lean in. But there was something fragile hanging in the air between them.

Not affection. Not trust.

But recognition.

She tilted her chin slightly upward.

A long silence.

Then, quietly, with a voice like razorwire softened only by the ache it took to wrap it in silk:

"I'll fix it. All of it. Firefist. The maps. The mission. The tithes. Everything."

Her eye dimmed slightly. A pulse of weariness.

"I'll make them eat the shame they tried to drown me in."

She looked down now. Into her own reflection in the black glass. She didn't like what she saw.

She inhaled deeply.

"…I'm still here."

At last, she turned her body fully toward Lirka, standing tall, unbowed, and bleeding dignity from every fractured edge.

"If you still want me."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Spice flowed through the monster's veins like another Ichor, each passing moment her mind began to work faster, faster. Possibilities flashed in front of her and Lirka Ka got to enjoy her game of picking out what was real, and what was mere hallucination. Thoughts born of insight, or thoughts born of chemical imbalances. It comforted her, in the way that such mental anarchy could only comfort a being so engrossed in madness as herself. It would certainly make the possibilities of new annoyances from dear S Serina Calis much more...palpable.

It all happened much as the Once-Sephi expected. She arrivedd in silence. Her mind flashed the prospect of murder done in the shadow of Firefist - she cast the thought aside. Hallucination. A worthless potentiality - she would have vented Calis by now if she wanted her dead. The girl had much to go on the path, much more chaos to inflict upon reality. She was lucky in that regard, Lirka supposed. Even if her guiding, albeit forceful, hand had interjected a handful of times.

Lirka Ka answered, and perhaps in a way most unexpected.

"Not particularly."

Lirka's sort of spectacles were certainly a bit more...bloody. She certainly didn't have any particular love for the Councilors, they got in the way of things when she wanted to do her dark deeds quickly and efficiently: legality be damned. There was wisdom in humiliation though, perhaps some of it would be imparted upon the girl, perhaps it would simply have stoked her flames even higher. It mattered little. Lirka got what she wanted either way.

“It happened because it needed to. Appeasement. Little more.”

Clinical. Such was what times demanded when the military got involved, the politicking of war was far different than the politicking of Sith existence. Lirka knew it well. It was a life she had lived for many years. Politics became results - power, prestige, it all depended on quick, cheap, effective results.

Fix. It was an amusing word - did Lirka really trust her to fix much? Not particularly. Though she had been pleasantly surprised before in her long life, sometimes people had that way of doing the things they analytics least expected them to.

“I expect nothing less, Arch-Commandant.”

That was their duty after all. She had stuck her neck out some to keep the girl where she was - if she couldn’t do that duty? Well…maybe it was a venture most foolish. She had decently high hopes for her, at least to some extent. Lirka did not live under the delusion that a Sith would ever really do what Lirka needed them to. A self serving lot, ultimately.

“You are still here, because I bid it so. I saved you, Serina Calis. Just like I did on Calladene.”

And there it was, finally a mention of the brutal, heartbreaking debacle. Where Lirka Ka had struck her mark - one that would never truly be healed, for reality itself had been forced along the path she had chosen for the girl.

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Aftermath."

Tags - Lirka Ka



The words came not like blades—but like weights.

Each one, pressed onto her spine.

"I saved you."

Serina Calis didn't flinch.

She felt it, yes. The truth of it. The unbearable, humiliating, infuriating truth of it. Calladene.

And now—here she stood. Again. Because Lirka bid it so.

Serina's hands twitched behind her back. Not from weakness. From need. The desire to act, to seize, to shape. But she did not move. Not yet.

Her posture straightened. Slightly. A sovereign's poise restored like something sacred.

The glow in her exposed eye dimmed, narrowed, refined—not rage, not yet—but focus. A controlled burn where once there had been wildfire. Her voice came at last, low and steady, with the predatory cadence of a woman who had remembered exactly who she was.

"And I let you."

It wasn't defiance. Not truly. It was something far worse.

Intimacy.

The bitter acknowledgment that in the darkest hour of her trial, she had allowed someone else's hand to steady the blade. Not out of loyalty. Not out of trust. But because it had served her survival.

"You didn't stop me from falling," she continued, eye flickering in the low light. "You just made sure I landed where you wanted me."

She turned toward Lirka now, full-bodied, graceful in the way serpents are graceful just before they strike. Her stance was less formal now—less military. More herself. All curve and intellect and calculated dominance.

"If I'm yours, Imperator…" she said, tasting the word like it was sweet and rotten both, "…then don't pretend I'm still some half-blind fool grasping at a throne I don't understand."

She took a step closer.

"You wanted an Arch-Commandant, not a shadow of the girl you pulled out of that archive."

Another step. The polished floor glinted beneath her.

"Then let me be her."

The fire returned. Slowly. Seductively. Not sexual—but Sithly. That dreadful magnetism she carried when she remembered the texture of control. The way her voice could slide through weakness like a whisper through silk.

"You did save me," she said softly. "And I hated you for it."

Her eye glowed brighter. Her smile was not a smile at all—just the ghost of one, the suggestion of something darkly divine beginning to take shape again.

"I still do."

A pause.

"And I suspect that pleases you."

Because of course it did. That was the game, wasn't it?

The sculptor shaping pain into something useful.

The soldier reforging ruin into a weapon.

Lirka Ka had not spared her out of mercy. She had forged her from collapse.

And Serina Calis—Mistress of the Dark—was not done being sharpened.

"I'll bring you your worlds," she whispered, her voice rich and cruel and absolutely alive now. "I'll burn paths through the void and leave monuments in our wake. I'll make Firefist look back in fear when they whisper of the storm that came riding out of the Blackwall."

She tilted her head, strands of synthetic cloth trailing like banners in the dim light.

"I'll deliver you a victory so immense the Council will pray you keep me."

Another step. Closer now.

"But I want my leash off, Lirka."

There was no demand in her tone. No plea.

Only expectation.

"You didn't save me to keep me on my knees."

She turned back toward the viewport now, eye catching the shimmering fire of Companion Besh beyond. Her reflection hovered faintly in the glass—half-woman, half-dark side, all fury made flesh.

And then, quietly:

"You wanted to see what I'd become."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka knew it would hurt. She wanted it to, it was so often a shameful thing to be saved. This was a gaggle of murderers that ate the weakest of themselves alive at the moment said weakness became apparent. To be saved was to invite another's hand to pull you up from the stumble, to invite the notion that you were not strong enough to stand on your own two feet.

Perhaps that is why Lirka Ka thrashed as she did, Carnifex had saved her many moons ago. She had plenty of ground she needed to make up for that shame. As Darth Virelia spoke, Lirka did not deign to even turn from her window to look at the girl yet. She would push, stroke the flame some, see if the Arch-Commandant would lash out again.

Then, not fury, but that bizarre intimacy of murderers. Lirka had felt it before, long ago, when her spawn still walked the Galaxy as mirrors of her dark image. To guide was never a one-way exchange; it defeated the purpose if the hand forced one to go where they needed to be. It certainly could be strong at times to prevent great failure, but without consent? A guiding hand was all but useless, Lirka could bring the worthy souls of this Galaxy to the font, but if they wished to drink? That all depended on themselves.

A low airy chuckle escaped the Once Sephi's lips

"Of course I did, Girl-Who-Calls-Herself-Weaver. We are Sith after all. We do not help out of the goodness of our hearts."

She had gotten brazen with it recently, and why shouldn't she? What made Lirka Ka any less Sith than the rest of them? Once, the two had called themselves outsiders. A Dark Jedi, and the monstrous Sephi that would never be Sith. As time trudged forward, the lines had blurred. They had brawled on Anoth at the start of Lirka's ponderings, and now, well. She had realized just what being a Sith meant.

Slowly, Lirka Ka turned. The grin on her face was pleasantly hidden beneath the marred form of her helm. Good.

"Sometimes, it is hard to tell. You are the simplest book to read, and yet so much lies beneath those pages. Just waiting to be coaxed out. Though I do not think to pretend, I would not do you such a disservice. I think you are young, not half-blind. I think you chafe under the position given to you, for what greater curse is there than to be below another? I believe in time, you will think to sabotage me. To undermine the work of the Third's Imperator so that this seat will lie vacant."

Lirka did not speak with malice; she spoke in the cold calculus of a droid instead. Perhaps she had been spending too much time with the newly promoted War Marshal. Then, something resembling humor oozed out. The Spice was doing its work evidently.

"I think you are not stupid enough to act on it. Do I want an Arch-Commandant? Irrelevant. The Emperor wants one. We share this noose, Serina Calis. They call it a promotion, but it is a test. We succeed, or we both hang. A curious prospect, isn't it?"

Lirka leaned back some, emanating a rare relaxation that seemed infinitely unbecoming of the woman who carried at least seven different shivs hidden within those many armored plates.

"What do I want though? I want you, a better you. As I want for all things. To see the worthy rise up through the muck of suffering, and you have most certainly suffered greatly Serina Calis. I want that fool I pulled from Calladene blinded by petty notions of love, desire, and want dead, and something better in her place."

Her grin only widen at the notion of hate. Hate was good. Hate was useful. To many, hate was powerful.

"Hate me, love me. Pleasure, displeasure. It is an irrelevancy; duty is all that matters today. We have been given a task, to tame, to spread, to be the ones who ride the storm of a new age."

She listened to her, it didn't matter who quietly she spoke. Those knife-blade ears heard plenty. She was certainly pleased by the prospect, even if she didn't think hellfire and brimstone was the most effective way to persecute the crusade given to them. They needed worlds for the days to come, when that day came, when the crown would pick another head.

And then she laughed and spoke, a voice that was soft. Almost a mother's cadence, as if she were speaking to one of her many clones she called "children".

"A leash? Serina Calis. I did not leave you here to have a leash. I do not believe in choking yokes, for I am but the guiding hand of the Dark Path. You are here to not squander yourself. I will see that the path is laid before you that greatness will come, if you are willing to walk the necessary steps. You once told me, upon Anoth, as we brawled in words and blade. The Sith were to be your chrysalis. An interesting notion upon further consideration, a difficult notion."

Lirka leaned forward now, attention rising. Here she went again.

"So, I offer to you some of the same old woman's wisdom I have given my daughters in the past. If you will listen."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Aftermath."

Tags - Lirka Ka



The black glass swallowed her reflection as Serina Calis stood there, not as a shadow—no, not anymore—but as a storm made flesh. Firefist burned beyond, that great cosmic wound, a beacon of conquest yet to come. But her gaze didn't linger on the stars. It drifted instead toward the Sephi's silhouette. The words still lingered, dense as incense, heavy with the scent of madness and prophecy.

Lirka Ka spoke of nooses and nooses were real—Serina had felt their choke before. Power handed down like poison chalices, laced with opportunity and obligation. But this was no lesson in humility.

This was temptation.

The serpent inside her smiled.

She didn't rush her answer. The pause was deliberate, rich with tension. Then, her voice came low, mellifluous, threaded with velvet iron and wicked knowing.

"How generous," she breathed, "that you offer wisdom before judgment."

Her steps were slow and careful, more glide than march, the way a panther might prowl the edge of a torchlit chamber. Her hands folded behind her back again, spine straight, chin just slightly lifted. Regal. Composed. Deadly.

"But let's not pretend this was ever about command. Or doctrine. Or even duty." Her head tilted slightly toward Lirka, the faintest gleam of a smile behind her words—sharp, hungry. "You didn't save me to build an officer. You did it because something in me spoke to you."

She turned then, fully now, facing the Imperator with her full frame, letting that exposed right eye glow violet against the obsidian light. One eye. One truth. One burning insight.

"You saw the same thing I did on Calladene. Beneath the dust and failure and ash. Beneath the woman who begged her gods for something to answer her pain."

Her voice dropped lower.

"You saw a predator trying to teach herself how to devour the world."

There was a sensuality in it—not flirtation, but the intimate eroticism of understanding. The shared secret of monsters that wore civilization like a second skin.

"You were right. I would sabotage you if I could. Not because I hate you. But because you exist—and I cannot help but measure myself against any star that burns brighter than me."

Her steps took her within a few paces now, the charged intimacy of close quarters radiating between them, two fission cores brushing too near ignition. "But I won't. Not now. Not yet."

The pause lingered like the breath between a confession and a kiss.

"I don't need to destroy you, Lirka. Not when I can become something so much worse for the rest of them."

A smile at last. Real. Electric.

"I will outshine you. Outthink you. Outlast you. And when they come crawling to crown me after you've burned your last holy crusade into the walls of this galaxy, it will be because I am the only one who survived every hand that tried to break me into something useful."

Then, softer, almost reverent—dangerously close to affection in tone if not in truth:

"You see it. You always have. That's what terrifies you, isn't it?"

She lifted a hand slowly, almost mockingly, and brushed a gloved fingertip across the black viewport before them, trailing a thin line of condensed breath against the heatless glass.

"I am your chrysalis, you said." A light, knowing laugh. "But you never realized—chrysalides bite back."

Another pause.

And then, eyes narrowing, tone sharpened into purpose:

"So speak, old woman. Tell me what you tell your daughters before you send them into fire. Because I am no longer content to be an egg cracked open by mercy and war."

She took one final step closer, voice barely a whisper now.

"I am hatching, Lirka Ka. And I want you to see what crawls out."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Storms were all around them now. Fledglings grew mighty in the storm of change, the storm of a new age heralded by a Legion. The literal storms that followed the Darklight when the time for arrival dawned, a dark storm cloud that beckoned forth cruel men and women that would call themselves gods. Some roared, some were silent. But their presence? An undeniable factor.

@Darth Virela enjoyed her pauses. Lirka was much the same, it came with the melodrama of Sith-hood. Yet, with the spice flowing through her veins...Lirka felt less compelled for the usual song and dance. It was normalcy now, an expectable outcome, a known variable the Once-Sephi would dance around just like all the other factors of potentiality that swirled around her being while within this newest of throne, in this parody of the Empire they dubbed "Storm Riders".

So Lirka did not pause, she did not wait. She merely laughed, that horrible unnatural thing that bubbled out of a mouth not made for such expression.

"Judge you? What use is that! Arcanix can judge you, the boy Malum Marr can judge you, let the quibbling politicians that forget what we are judge you. If I am to judge, I am to be an arbitrator, as if you have committed some crime. I do not see a criminal before me, it is as I told our dear councilors. Am I to scorn for something as quintessential to our ways as mere ego? It is a humorous notion, of devils wishing to play as angels."

Besdies, Lirka knew plenty well Serina Calis wouldn't listen to any judgement she doled out - so why waste the breath? Enablers are who made the Galaxy churn, warp, and evolve new evil. So...Lirka Ka would walk in the shadow of the Eternal-Father she loved so deeply, and would enable as much as she could muster.

Her grin stayed wide beneath that helm, amused, pleased, humor radiated from her being...or perhaps that was merely the spice that sent her various muscle wads into spasms,

"I like to believe many things are multifaceted. Rarely are we so simple - I did not know you would become my officer when I pulled you from your...human foolishness...on Calladene. I saw many things, a microcosm of myself, I saw weakness, yet perhaps most potently of all. I saw wasted potentiality, and I do so hate to be wasteful."

Perception. A fickle thing. A thing that was clouded by experience, Serina Calis may have seen one thing, Lirka another. In the swirl of Calladene's chaos, they may have seen so many things in a flash. Yet, ever the liar, Lirka Ka for once was honest. She did see a sliver of herself in the girl - perhaps that is why she tolerated her, or loathed her so much (depending on the day, of course). Yet despite her own narcissism and general enjoyement of things that reminded her of herself, Lirka believed heavily in the analyitics of potentiality. It was her duty to sift out of the worthy from the weak after all, set them on the right path like a good Mother of scuttling things should.

"Doctrine, duty, faith? Perhaps all three were there, perhaps not. I have never been coy about it, Serina Calis. I see a woman before me that could walk the Dark Path, if she so wished it. You may scoff at the notion, laugh at it even, but it matters not. I see as I see. Today, you may not see the steps, but in the future? Well...I was a pleasantly young 140 standard years when I first saw it."

Much like on Calladene, Lirka remained remarkably casual. Unthreatened, Lirka was a paranoid monster that fought shadows and invisible assassins for the simple reason of that what she did not know? She did not tolerate. Now? After their bouts from Korriban, to Anoth, to Calladene, to this observation deck aboard Darklight? Serina Calis, Darth Virela, was something Lirka Ka knew.

She raised a brief hand in peace, a slow nod of her head. Then, a shrug. Well. At least two liars were being honest with each other.

"I hold you no ill will for such a thing. I'd have done much the same, it is the nature of Sith kind to sabotage and destroy. To shame you for that would be no different than shaming a hound for hunting, or a rat for scavenging."

She paused now though. More for punchline than dramatic effect this go around though.

"It is quaint to see you can look beyond mere animalistic instinct though. There is little to be gained from sabotage here, your skill at making messes is better suited towards those outside our borders rather than this Legion you shall, for a brief time, call home."

Lirka was reminded of the ego of Sith. She should have been insulted, but why should she? It was the nature of the Endless Struggle to fight to become better than your fellows. If anything, it only reminded Lirka of how humorously close her Arch-Commandant sat to the ways of the Transcendant - even if she'd never admit it. Or perhaps...Lirka Ka had enough hallucinogenics in her to see exactly what she wanted to see.

"Terrify me? Please, my young Arch-Commandant. Lirka Ka fears little. You do not fall into the category, what I see in you is why I tolerate you...eccentric way of speaking after all."

A challenge? Maybe. Though to Lirka, it was more of a reminder. Two bullies had been slapped in a room together, and the imbalance of power was less than either needed to truly leer over the other. She leaned back again, relaxed. She continued on - utterly undaunted.

"There will be time in the future to discuss chrysalides and our similarities to them. I do certainly see you pupating, Serina Calis, the woman-who-calls-herself-weaver. And I would be loathe to miss what comes out, it may even break one of my hearts."

Lirka returned none of the girl's sharpness. She merely held out her hands. One, an open palm. The other, a fist.

"The hand. The fist. All things in the politicking of power in these Empires we find ourselves in, are determined by hands, and fists. You, Serina Calis?"

Lirka slowly, steadily, closed her open hand into a fist.

"Wield two fists. That is why I needed to allow the councilor to swat you like a disobedient schoolgirl. Life is long, oh so long. There is a power in the hand, in the unassuming things of the Galaxy. It hurts, to bow the head, but I have a saying I rather enjoy you see? The blade at your side, is the blade in your back. You strike to loud, my dear Arch-Commandant. You draw too many eyes to yourself, the mess on Saijo drew the eyes of Arcanix upon you, and with it the old hag's idiotic thrashings. I preach many things, yet know this most of all, the guiding hand of Lirka Ka preaches the power of slow, silent, patience most of all."

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Aftermath."

Tags - Lirka Ka



She didn't speak.

Not yet.

Silence, for Serina Calis, had always been a tactical thing—never a retreat. A practiced stillness, the stillness of a mind in ceaseless motion, calculating permutations behind the cold, glimmering lens of her visor. She stood with posture sharp enough to carve obsidian. Her hands, ungloved, hung loose at her sides. Her shoulders were squared, relaxed—but her spine? That was iron. Reforged.

She let Lirka speak.

Let the spice-drenched war-priestess ramble in that serpentine wisdom of hers, letting her laugh like some rusted god too old to feel fear and too mad to know silence. And Serina listened. As she always did.

That was the thing about her, wasn't it?

She heard everything.

When Lirka invoked Calladene, she didn't twitch. When she spoke of ego, of rat instincts and council slappings, Serina didn't break her poise. And when she closed her hand into that fist, into that looming metaphor of Empire and control and the brutal simplicity of domination, Serina Calis did not respond in kind.

Not with her voice.

But with her eyes.

Or rather, with one.

That same singular eye—exposed through the right lens of her helmet, still cracked slightly from her earlier outburst—glowed with the faintest pulse of violet fire. No rage this time. No lightning. Just something far more dangerous.

Conviction.

The storm was still there. But it had been chained. Tamed. Filed into the shape of ambition. A hurricane behind sealed glass.

When Lirka finished, the silence lingered. Heavy. Not with deference, but gravity. And then, finally, Serina moved.

She approached without threat. No prowling gait. No martial parade. Just precision.

Her heels echoed softly in the observation deck's hush, her silhouette a column of elegance in shadow-black. She walked until she stood exactly beside Lirka—not before her, not behind. Beside her.

Still, she did not speak.

She simply turned her head slowly, letting that one exposed eye sweep across the starscape, the galaxy rippling in distant light beyond the hull. Firefist loomed like a myth not yet written. Destiny incarnate. She studied it for a long, quiet moment, then brought her gaze down, to the Darklight's glistening reflection in the glass below. A warship. A temple. A stage.

Only then did her hand rise.

She lifted her right hand—slow, elegant—and placed it gently, gently, over the spot where Lirka's clenched fist remained, looming. A soft touch. Two fingers only. Not dominance. Not challenge.

Disagreement.

And understanding.

She held that contact for three seconds, and then withdrew her hand.

Not a word was needed.

She didn't linger.

Her footsteps echoed once more as she stepped back, her gaze still forward, posture untouched. One last glance returned to Lirka—not in challenge, nor plea, nor defiance.

But in clarity.

She would not kneel. She would not soften. She would not scurry quietly behind the throne. She would fight for the Third, for now, obey Lirka's directives, for now.

But.

Serina Calis—Darth Virelia—was done pretending to be anyone's hidden dagger.

Let them all watch her blade rise.