Private One Battle After Another

[Domina Prime]

I HEAR THIS VOICE KEEP ASKING ME
IS THIS MY BLOOD OR IS IT BLASHEMY?

Ark of Ha'rangir

Scherezade deWinter ​

The Ark's coliseum was an immense, spiraling amphitheater carved into the ship's mid-deck. A crucible of bloodsport where warriors from across the fleets came to test their mettle beneath her gaze. Every strike and scream was broadcast through the corridors of the ship like hymns of living metal.

From her elevated dais, Domina Prime reclined upon her throne of black iron and starstone. Around her, banners of House Prime's sigil fluttered in the exhaust winds. Below, the sands churned with combat, two gladiators locked in furious melee, their blades sparking in arcs of light.

Dima was a vision of indulgent chaos. Her armor now adorned once more, she leaned forward on one elbow, tail twitching with predatory excitement. A cup of spiced ne'tra wine dangled from one clawed hand while the other three gestured wildly as she bellowed into the vox system.

"YES! CUT HIM IN HALF! NO, NOT LIKE THAT, YOU FETHING BUFFOON-YOUR FOOTWORK! LOOK AT YOUR FOOTWORK!"

The crowd, soldiers, artisans, and acolytes alike roared with laughter. She was their god made human in moments like this. Passionate, unrestrained, loud.

"BY THE MANDA'S BONES, THAT ONE'S GOT MORE BLOOD THAN BRAINS! OH! HE'S STILL MOVING! SEE? DETERMINATION! SOMEONE GIVE THAT ONE A MEDAL BEFORE HE BLEEDS OUT!"

Her voice crackled through the speakers, rich with humor and wine. She slammed one fist into the dais, sending vibrations through the floor. When a fighter performed a particularly graceful maneuver, she stood abruptly, raising all four arms as if proclaiming divine favor.

"YES! BEAUTIFUL! A SPINNING STRIKE! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!"

She laughed uproariously, her fanged grin visible beneath the open face of her helm. The coliseum's massive holo-displays caught her image, larger than life and the warriors below fought harder under her gaze, desperate to earn her praise.

When a challenger was disarmed and dropped to one knee, bleeding but defiant, she fell silent. For a long moment, the entire arena held its breath as her voice lowered. Resonant, almost reverent.

"He kneels not in defeat, but in offering. Even broken, the will endures. That, that is what it means to live."

The crowd erupted again. Her laughter followed, triumphant and thunderous. She threw her cup aside, wine splashing across the dais as she turned to her attendants.

"Someone tell the cooks to prepare a feast! Tonight, we dine with the survivors! The dead have earned their silence~"

She leaned back, the light of the arena flickering across her mask. For once, she was at ease, radiant, monstrous, divine, and alive in every possible sense.

Here, amid blood and laughter, the Warpriest remembered that even gods were forged from joy as much as from war.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Domina Prime

---

When some people were bored, they ended up doomscrolling on the holonet all day. When some people got bored, they joined a gym and then stayed at home all day to watch stuff instead. When people got bored, they did spice, they did alcohol, they did a bunch of questionable things that ultimately didn't really affect the galaxy at large.

And then there was Scherezade.

She had been bored. All her contracts via the Black Sun had been fulfilled for the moment, she still hadn't taken on anything new, and there were no wars or drama in the 'verse that she knew of presently and wanted to hop in for the fun of it. And all of that had somehow translated into a new and different plan. It had been too long since she'd annoyed Mandalorians. A few fights had happened, but ultimately, no true challenge.

The Sithling decided that it was time to change that. Make the family proud, even if no one else would care about it. It was a long and complicated story.

It wasn't hard to find her target. She'd found the Mando Citadel, read up on what took place there that she knew those silly tuna cans would be proud of. The next step was to just travel for a bit in places she made educated guesses about until finally, she was caught.

Hauled like a slave, pretending to be one of the other slaves, the only thing they hadn't found on her were the contact lenses she'd worn, turning her glowing green eyes into a deep chocolate brown. The rest, as they say, was history. A fight here, a fight there, a really badly made sword that surprised her anyone could efficiently use with that horrible balance and dull edge. But she played the part well.

The sands were covered with mud made of blood. Final memories of those who had shed it threatened for the briefest of moments to overtake her Blood Hound senses, but she kept it under control as she kneeled with the rest of the victors. Her initial plan had been to arrange something from the inside, awaken to a morning filled with the blood of her enemies.

Instead, it appeared that she were to be invited to dinner.

Sithspit. That wasn't fair. Food was the number one way in the 'verse to distract Scherezade from her goals. And if she was being truthful, she could do with a good meal. The slop they had tossed at them earlier was far from filling or sufficient.

So that would be the plan then. Let them wine her, let them dine her, and then take their Mando-goddess from them.

Sounded like it had the potential to be a wonderful day indeed.

 

[Domina Prime]

I HEAR THIS VOICE KEEP ASKING ME
IS THIS MY BLOOD OR IS IT BLASHEMY?

Ark of Ha'rangir

Scherezade deWinter​

The coliseum was a living thing.

Its walls howled with the echoes of a thousand deaths, its sands still drank greedily from the blood of those who came before. Above, the crowd had begun to roar. Not with the wildness of beasts, but with the disciplined rhythm of zealots offering praise to war itself. The Ark's banners fluttered high, and between the great stone arches, the sigil of Ha'rangir burned bright as if seared into the very sky.

Dima watched from her throne at the edge of the arena, her posture the image of languid authority. Her many eyes, luminous, reptilian, and unblinking, drifted over the survivors kneeling below. Her tail, long and plated like a serpent of steel, flicked across the floor with slow delight, leaving furrows in the stone. The scent of scorched metal, blood, and incense mingled in the air like a perverse perfume.

When the final cries of the crowd subsided, she rose.

The movement alone commanded silence.

Four arms extended outward in a grand, predatory gesture, two clapping together with a sound that reverberated like thunder through the hall. The Magistrates of Clan Prime entered the crucible sands at once, each adorned in black and crimson armor etched with sacred runes. They bore chains, yes, but this time their purpose was ceremonial, not cruel. The victors, those few who had survived the pit, were gathered with something almost resembling reverence.

"The worthy shall not crawl," Dima declared, her voice layered by the vox-filters of her mask, rich and resonant. "They shall rise."

The words were commandment. The victors were lifted to their feet and escorted, not dragged, from the blood-soaked floor to the ascendant terraces that spiraled upward toward the coliseum's crown. Each step took them further from the stench of death, through halls lined with war-banners and burning braziers, until at last they reached her domain—Dima's grand stage.

It was less a chamber and more a sanctum of indulgence. Tables of blackened steel groaned under the weight of roasted beasts, jugs of spiced wine, and platters of exotic fruit. The air shimmered with incense and heat. Around the room, Mandalorian Wardens and decorated warpriests watched in silence, the runes on their armor pulsing faintly with the Ark's rhythm.

Dima stood before them like a deity at the heart of her temple. When she spoke, it was not simply with voice, but with presence—the sort of gravity that made the air itself bow.

"Behold..." she purred, her tone sliding between warmth and command. "The ash that was your tomb has become your table. The chains that bound you now serve your feast."

Her tail coiled around the foot of her iron throne as she lowered herself into it with a serpentine grace. One leg crossed over the other, a hand resting upon the massive hilt of her crystal sword while another reached for the Gjallerhorn hanging at her side. She lifted it, its surface shimmering with engraved prayers, and turned it in the light before raising it high.

"To the victor..." she began, voice deepening into ritual cadence, "...the spoils. As God mandates."

The Priest mirrored her gesture, their horns and goblets raised high. The roar of approval that followed was like the breathing of the coliseum itself. Ancient, terrible, exultant.

She took a long drink, the sound of her throat working beneath the mask audible in the silence that followed. Then her gaze sharp, predatory, unrelenting...found her.

Scherezade~

Among the victors, she stood out, not in stature, but in the stillness that followed her every move. There was something deliberate in her calm, something that didn't fit with the rest of the blood-soaked champions. And Dima knew the scent of deceit the way a hound knows the scent of prey.

Her laughter, when it came, was low and amused. "You hide well, little one," she said softly, voice echoing through the chamber as though carried by unseen hands. "Among the broken and the blooded...yet you stand unbowed."

Dima leaned forward, chin resting on one of her armored palms as the other three arms gestured lazily toward the table.

"Eat. Drink. Bask in what your hands have earned. Ha'rangir cares not for the path, only the struggle." A pause. Then a faint, purring amusement colored her next words. "And perhaps, if your gods are kind, you might even survive the evening."

She raised her horn once more, eyes glinting with mirth and menace alike.

"Hail," she declared, voice booming across the chamber, "To the One True God!"

The response thundered back from every throat in the room.

And in that deafening cry, the Sithling's little masquerade had only just begun.