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.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

Domina Prime

---

One moment, Scherezade had been on the bloodied sand and the next, strangers were picking her up, lifting her to her feet and escorting her out of there. She couldn't put it into words, but she suddenly felt all the games' psychological warfare in a very tangible manner as dirty and stinky became clean and cool. She hated it when Mandos did certain things right.

Inside the room, no one had to tell Scherezade twice that she could eat. Almost immediately did she go for the platters, mixing various fruits (of which only some, she recognized) and meats (all of which she did) and eating with open glee. Let anyone who wanted to watch. They had fought hard, they deserved food as gift. Heck, as sacrifice.

The woman who had been sitting on top of them was speaking. Scherezade looked at her, eyes slightly narrowed. She knew the woman ran the show on this little piece of rock, but unfortunately, she hadn't made a proper effort to dig deeper. But she was a Mandalorian Queen, or Goddess, or something like that, which in turn meant that Scherezade did not like her at all.

Others drank, but the Sithling did not. Mostly, because she was a former alcoholic who knew better. One drink was too much, two wasn't enough, and all of that. Still, she grabbed a fruit that looked like an orange, squeezed it into a glass, and toasted so much after every one else that it wasn't even being fashionably late.

When the woman focused her attention on Scherezade, she stayed silent. Her muscles were on edge, ready to start the fight if the Mandalorians would initiate it. Part of her hoped they would, this food was too damn good for these lowlife bottom feeders.

But sure. Gods. Whatever. Sherezade deWinter was had several strong Sith blood lines running through her veins, and at least two of them had ancestors that were considered Gods by any measure. Other forms of religion had never really impressed her, and would it be correct to say one was godless when Great-Great-Great-Granny-Goddess occasionally stopped by for lunch?

So when the others did their hailing, all she did was shovel some more of the meats into her mouth. The girl had always had an appetite.

When she swallowed her mouthful and finally looked up at the big woman again, tilting her head with lazy amusement. "So ummm," she said, voice cutting through the dying echoes of the crowd. "Is this where you tell them what they've really won?" The grin that followed was pure mischief, full of promise. She could play at reverence, sure, but she'd never been good at pretending for too long.

 

[Domina Prime]

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

Ark of Ha'rangir

Scherezade deWinter​

Dima's laughter rolled through the coliseum like thunder. It was low and dangerous, warm as the forge fires that fed her soul. The sound made a few of the gladiators stilling mid-bite, uncertain if it was amusement or a warning, but Scherezade's grin only widened, feeding off the challenge.

"Ohh, she's got teeth, this one," Dima purred, voice carrying easily over the long tables as she rose from her throne of iron and bone. The massive seat groaned as she stood, the heat radiating off her skin flickering like a torchlight. "I like that."

The Warpriest descended the dais with the heavy, echoing weight of a predator that knew no fear of prey. She stopped near the edge of the table where the Sithling sat, folding one pair of her arms as the other reached for a pitcher of rich crimson mead. She poured it into her own chalice, then raised it high.

"What they have won? isn't it obvious?" she began, her tone booming with a priestess' authority, "They've won the favor of the gods...which means they won the favor of Prime. And prime rewards them with privileges of power, plunder, and pleasure~" She cooed, knowing that if they continued to preform. That they would be showered in lavish gifts, praise and feast...and over time when they converted to the faith, they would be rewarded with so much more.

She looked down at Scherezade then, a grin creeping back to her lips, sharp and wolfish. "But you already know that, don't you? You reek of it, purpose and defiance, knotted together in a creature too stubborn to kneel and too proud to die. I've met your kind before. Hell...i AM your kind~" Her eyes glinted as if remembering distant battles. "They usually end up as my finest soldiers...or my favorite prey."

Her words hung there, not as a threat, but a promise.

Dima leaned forward, one of her lower hands reaching out to brush her claws along the table's edge beside Scherezade's plate, not touching her, but close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off her skin. "As for what you've won, little flame?" she said, voice dipping low, intimate and dark. "You've won my curiosity. And that, child, is far more dangerous than any prize in this pit."

She stood straight again, turning her gaze back to the gathered gladiators, her voice filling the hall once more:

"You feast tonight as victors of the flesh! But remember, each of you are but iron yet to be forged. The true test awaits beyond the arena. The Ark hungers for warriors who can burn bright enough to be seen by the gods. If you can endure that...then the galaxy itself will bow to you."

Her chalice rose higher, the liquid within glowing faintly from the firelight. "To the blooded, the bold, and the broken who rise again! To the Prime-born and the god-forged!"

The crowd roared back, slamming fists to tables and raising their cups.

Dima's eyes, however, remained on Scherezade. Amused, intrigued, and predatory all at once.

"Eat well, little godspawn," she murmured under her breath, a smirk curling her lips.

But all small things had to start somewhere. And in the coliseum, even the unlikeliest of champions can arise to be something mythic. But only under the guidance of Prime. Speaker of gods will. She may not have been a god. But she was the closest thing to it. And anyone else trying to claim that title could meet her in the field of fire and tell her she was wrong. And for all the so called 'gods' strutting around these days. Ain't a single one got the nerve to look into the eyes of Prime and tell her she was wrong. And until that day, they would always continue to be second rate.

They wanna be gods?

Then they need Primes karking blessing~