Dominion Shape of Power || SO Dominion of Maya Kovel

[Darth Nefaron]

TAGS: Lirka Ka

Lirka Ka was a false prophet.

But they were the most useful.
​

Ka had been raised up to Imperator over the objection of many minor Lords who complained of tradition and precedence. Yet Nefaron had been a keen supporter, naturally as a result of the accursed pact forged between the three Dread Lords of the Dzara, but there was more to it than simple obligation. Nefaron was always scheming, always hunting for a new vector for the great tide of darkness to spread across the galaxy, and Lirka Ka would carry forth a faith so black and unforgiving that entire worlds would succumb to the primordial darkness.

Yet it would be Nefaron's will, not the Imperators, that chained the galaxy forever.
​

"Indeed, our Empire sits upon a knife's edge. We may gorge ourselves on the pathetic border worlds of the Alliance, but we need true conflict to sustain the fragile unity we maintain."

A blast of lightning leaped from the Corpse Lord's fingers, crashing into a group of milita who had attempted to charge the pair of would-be tyrants. They writhed in pain on the ground as Nefaron allowed their suffering to continue, at least long enough for his Legionaries to arrive with slave collars and great chains to bind them together. Ka had been correct, the slaves taken today would not survive a week on Anaot, but in the end there suffering would be all that mattered.

"More importantly, the Jedi remain. Scattered as they are, the unification of a new Order within the High Republic cannot be allowed to stand. As long as the Jedi remain, our power will always be threatened."

The Corpse Lord looked on as his forces took a bounty of slaves and what little valuables that this world could offer. While the slaughter was enticing, Ka's words had Nefaron contemplating future plans, even as another world burned around them. The High Republic, once considered little more than a nuisance, had grown into the predominant servant of the light, surrounded by a sea of tyrants and darkness. Former Alliance worlds practically flocked to join the Republic, despite the efforts of the Sith to swallow them up before that could happen. While they had existed in an uncomfortable stalemate for some time, perhaps it was time to turn the Sith towards a new enemy?

"The High Republic. They are the true foe, one that we cannot allow to expand any further. We will need war if we plan to succeed, but we cannot press the Sith into a war they might well lose, at least not before we are ready. No doubt the Empress and her council will seek to expand our grasp to these worlds, but it will be slow. The more they attempt to impose our version of order upon them, the more they shall slip through our grasp."

A thunderous explosion rang out as a large tower nearby gave way under the power of sustained bombardment, the people hiding within crying out before being forever silenced as the structure collapsed around them. As morbid as it was, this gave Darth Nefaron an idea, one he was certain his colleague would agree with.

"We must bleed them, Ka. Bring fire to their worlds, enslave millions. Mere conquest will not suffice; we must show the galaxy that any attempt to build true opposition against us will only result in ruin. Yet there are Sith among us who must be guided to this course, for they are too weak to walk such a path."

The slaughter before them was one thing.

But the scale Nefaron spoke of would leave hundreds of billions dead.

Or confined to the chains of slavery. ​

 

[Lirka Ka]

TAGS: Darth Nefaron

There were many factoids that built up existence within Sithdom, paramount of them was the ephemeral nature of alliance - there existed a fair understanding within the black hearts of the truly wicked that at any point your ally was to become your enemy. Certainly Lirka Ka lived her life under a mantra of "the blade in your back, and the blade by your side are one-in-the-same." Paranoia served one well when surrounded by fiends.

Understanding that reached out to the other members of the Dread Triad as well - she was under no illusion that Darth Nefaron looked upon her with any great fondness. All things in this Galaxy were tools to be used to an end, so they would use each other for now. Upstarts and troublemakers were useful, they bred strife, and strife bred strength. It was a very careful ecosystem that evil found itself in, the lethargy of the well-secured, the turbulent rise of those who sought to take what those before them had built: and at the wayside, the truest perpetuators of suffering were the Great Enablers who pushed the cycle along. The latter is the pantheon that Lirka strove to join, and was all the more reason why she allowed Nefaron's revolutionary prattle to continue on. To flex the powers of Jutrand and the Throne to see an upstart stifled would've been a miserable fate indeed.

Yet for all of it, she conducted herself with a certain casual air for the whole debacle upon Maya Korval. A brief gesture with her mighty machete to accentuate her words as if it were merely an extension of her body.

"One may posit that to exist is to dance upon the knife's edge."

And like a true zealot, she always had some mantra to spout. Some more annoying than others. Intentional or otherwise.

"There is little shame in savage indulgence, my grim compatriot. It lets our fellows feel mighty and reminds them of the wickedness within their hearts. Savagery upon those too scattered and disorganized to exist makes the degradation of those with...softer disposition...much simpler."

A mechanical snort of true amusement came from her now, all the more reason why the inevitable conflict between the two was a certainty once enough time had passed. Nefaron spoke like a true Dark Lord of the Sith, with all the same delusions: Lirka did respect that in him, ego indeed was another quintessential part of Sith existence. But Lirka had ascended beyond traditional belief in the great Lore-Crypts of Rhand and the swirling chaos of the dark secrets of the Unknown Regions.

With a good helping of her own delusions, of course.

"O' Lord of Anoat, the Jedi will always remain. In much the same way the Sith will remain as well. It is not so simple to wipe such a thing from the face of the Galaxy, were it so do you think I would've not wiped the Mandalorian scourge from the face of the universe when I sat upon my war-throne? A threat welcomed, with chest puffed with pride: the Jedi will come, and they will fail. For such is the only end for those enslaved by peace."

Eternal conflict. That was the universe the Primordial Darkness had beckoned into existence: but it didn't hurt to have an upper hand when all was said and done. A scared rat, backed into a corner, fought savagely indeed. But they were sloppy. The silent knives of the Dream Eaters would make sure that those who would threaten them never gained the foothold needed.

Lirka did not even deign herself to massacre the hapless yokels of this world anymore; she merely walked by the Corpse-Lord's side. The thumping of metal footfalls on the earth and the vague looming void of her being. There was no shortage of warriors to propel the massacre.

"War is good for the spirit, this is true. Ancient foes focus the minds of our fellows, and the glories of an Empire truly still unbested only propel the Sithly pride to greater heights. Win, lose, irrelevant. War is war. The fallout of defeat is the prime condition for new power to rise and the gains of our victory are just as bountiful."

A clawed hand raised, a simple gesture as Lirka tightened her open hand into a fist. It was a symbol she had used time and time again - the subtle simplicity of the open hand, and the fury of the closed fist.

"And yet, Lord of Anoat. Do not forget who sits upon that Council. This campaign was not crafted for mere vanity and propulsion of rightful claim to the Galaxy. We do not need loyal worlds, the heart of this Empire has already been formed within the south, and its needs have been met by allowing the plebeians to rot. You who wishes war must know the value of a bulwark, no? When the flame goes alight - the Darkness shall be there to suffocate them from more angles than they could ever predict."

For all her "kindness", she knew political flexing was an important matter when push came to shove. For all of her brutish zealotry, Lirka Ka still stood within some of the highest offices the Empire had to offer - and the flexing of her will would be felt in the ripples.

That brief knife's edge dissolved as quickly as it came, a reminder did not need to be drawn out. Cold calculus followed - his proposition was reasonable enough. Certainly, there were a handful of lords who would follow.

"Carefully applied genocide applied to key worlds of import. Not unlike what I had concocted here today. Devastation can be amplified - we merely need a few holes within the Blackwall, and the Galaxy will recoil in disgust. Massacres rarely breed compliance. But when those who would resist lose...certainly we will get somewhere. Won't we?"

The guiding hand. Lirka understood it well. For she was a mother to things wretched and foul, who would show the Dark Path to all those willing to listen and take the first steps into that boundlessly cruel damnation.

"Propose your guidance, Nefaron. And I will posit its practicality."

Nothing like the slaughter of the innocent to backdrop the scheming of the horrid and the cruel.

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