Private Surprise?

[Darth Virelia]

"A contract of blood and sin."

Tags - Adelle Bastiel

Virelia did not answer right away. The roar of the approaching shuttle filled the chamber, vibrating through the durasteel floor and setting faint ripples in the pools of blood around their boots. Her hair stirred in the artificial wind, pale strands catching the violet gleam of her crystal until it looked as though light and shadow were trying to claim her in equal measure.

She stood there for a long moment—motionless, watching Adelle fit the helmet back over her head, listening to the change in her voice when the vocoder came alive again. It was a small thing, that flicker of synthetic roughness, yet it marked the return of distance, of armor, of everything human being sealed away once more.

The faintest ghost of a smile touched Virelia's lips—so slight it might have been imagined.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

The words were simple, unembellished, but they carried weight. Not gratitude for pity, nor acknowledgment of hope, but the rare sincerity of someone who had long forgotten how to say them and mean them both.

She turned her gaze toward the tunnel as the shuttle's light broke through, painting the chamber in stark white. The crystal in her chest pulsed once, brighter, before fading again to its steady rhythm. Her face was unreadable now—calm, austere, distant. The moment of shared vulnerability folded neatly away behind layers of composure as though it had never been there.

She didn't look at Adelle again as the ramp descended, sending a rush of cold air through the room. Her voice remained silent, her posture perfect—still as a statue carved from the idea of resolve.

The crew didn't speak when they entered; no one ever did around her. They knew better. The hum of the engines swallowed every trace of sound until only the pulse of machinery and the faint echo of her last words lingered in the space they'd shared.

When she finally moved, it was with the precision of inevitability. She stepped past the crate, the hum of its stolen power following her, and onto the ramp.

She did not look back.

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

"Thank you," she said quietly.

Those were words Adelle hadn't expected to hear, not from Virelia. Adelle watched her curiously as the shuttle landed with thunderous sound that seemed to rattle the entire asteroid. She hadn't put her insectile-eyed helm back on but Adelle could feel a mask being put on all the same. There was a twinge of sadness--the end of something quiet and soft, something without the weight of having to struggle through life. Whoever Virelia had been during their conversation was gone: her posture commanded the room as she led the crate onto the shuttle, her crew as silent as servants.

Adelle waited and watched the shuttle lift off again, backing out into the void and accelerating rapidly. Something uneasy settled in her chest, something dangerous to entertain: She had liked talking to that version of Virelia, the one that wasn't a Dark Sider hells-bent on control. Adelle clicked her tongue and sighed. She strode over to the terminals and trawled through what passed for a manifest or inventory log for pirates. Might as well see if they had any useful cargo she could ferry back to Mando space.

The conflicts with the Diarchy were creating quite a few foundlings.



Darth Virelia