Private The Garden of False Equilibrium

[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre

The moons above Ansion hung swollen with moisture, their pale light filtering through the half-shattered dome of the derelict observatory. Shards of transparency glass clung to its upper edge like jagged teeth, and beyond them, the sky bled crimson where the ion storms stirred at the horizon. It was supposed to be a neutral site—abandoned during the Clone Wars and left untouched ever since. A relic. A wound sealed in rust.

Serina Calis walked its perimeter in slow, deliberate silence.

Her cloak dragged behind her like the trailing veil of a widow who had outlived too many funerals to still bother weeping. Beneath it, the lacquered blue-black of her armor glinted with subtle edges. Her exposed collarbone shimmered faintly with moisture—dew, or sweat, or something more primal. The air was hot. Too hot for comfort. She liked it.

Her steps were whisper-silent, the click of her boots muted against the ruined marble floor. There was a rhythm to her pace—a careful orchestration of movement designed not to echo but to linger. Like a perfume. Like a poison.

She had not chosen this location by chance.

Everything here had a function.

The observatory itself was built as a temple to curiosity—a place where truth had once been gazed upon through lenses of ground crystal, charted in sterile reports, and fed into the Republic's academic engines. She could still feel the ghosts of that hunger—intellects that thought they could dissect the stars with math, that believed the Force to be a subject of classification. They had all been so sure of themselves.

Now all that remained was dust, decay, and the distant electric hum of a predator's sky.

Her tongue wet the inside of her lower lip slowly, contemplatively.

A Jedi was coming.

She did not know which one.

She had not asked.

The message had been simple. A falsified transmission intercepted by several systems, seemingly from a disbanded Resistance cell asking for aid. Refugees. A surviving child. Some report of an artifact. It didn't matter. The bait was irrelevant. The Jedi had responded.

That was enough.

She stood at the center of the chamber now, ringed by empty chairs—broken stone benches, half-toppled, as if a debate had once ended in fire. Her fingers brushed against the lip of a podium long since scorched, and she allowed herself to smile faintly.

There would be no debate here. Only understanding. And ruin.

The Force coiled around her like a serpent asleep in the sun—content, but not tame. She reached out with it—not pressing, not probing. Just present. A pressure in the atmosphere. A weight in the mind. The taste of something metallic on the tongue before blood even reaches the surface.

A shadow flickered across the dome's fractured roof. The wind had shifted.

She turned her head, just slightly.

A figure entered the ruined observatory—tall, lean, with olive skin kissed by moonlight, and eyes like ocean frost. Blue on blue. Her armor was modest. Her steps were disciplined. But Serina saw it in the way her limbs held tension like a coiled dancer refusing to perform. Controlled. Wound tight. Trained far too hard not to break eventually.

Serina didn't move.

Didn't speak.

She simply watched the Jedi enter.

And smiled.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

The ionic storms on Ansion could be deadly.

More and more frequently - given the current tumultuous, collective nature of the galaxy - it went without fail that either tourists or new settlers found their ships suddenly yanked from the ozone layer and pulled down to the plains. In an effort to circumvent more tragedies, the Alliance had recently started routine patrols through the Mid Rim.

In most cases, that amounted to a very dull trip. But, as with all things involving her - Farris’ first patrol was an anomaly.

Her dark nails had glinted under the starlight that pierced through her fighter’s canopy. Her blue eyes narrowed.

A survivor. A woman who had survived the crash and now lay trapped in the rubble, her voice choked from smoke as the wheat fields around her burned.

“Help me….please—!” she had whispered.

There had even been sharp thrusts within the Force - her dying agony floundering around in the continuous hum of the Force, disturbing it like hands slapping the surface of an ocean. It had been real.

But as she pressed her engines through the atmosphere and honed in on the distress signal, her mind extended in a thousand directions thirty meters down, her eyebrows had drawn tightly together, creasing the bridge of her nose and nudging her lips into a slight frown.

She did not see smoke, or fire. The fields remained intact, their yellow blades waving in the hot wind as a storm gathered on the horizon.

Indeed, the storm was beginning - but it wasn’t here yet. And certainly it was not currently wild enough to pull a ship from the sky.

Farris spotted a nearby structure - a downed observatory, one that could not have been built by the native tribes that traveled on the plains. This one had been built by a government - all steel and glass, and abandoned a long time ago.

She could still feel the woman’s distress, although it had diminished quickly in the last few minutes. It was eminating from the observatory….Farris wondered if perhaps she had been injured, and limped inside to die peacefully in there.

But what had happened to her?

She became more and more confused as she climbed from her fighter and began to stalk through the wheat field, cutting a path through overgrown weeds and prickly vines to find a way into the building.

But she tempered her confusion and concealed it. If she failed to treat this victim - if she was already too late - she would need to project absolute calm to soothe her in her final moments.

But she kept one hand at her waist as she found a half-downed door and stepped one boot into the structure, pushing aside a vine with her outstretched fingers. Her other fingers closed around the lightsaber at her belt. There was some danger here, and she needed only to find it.

An animal perhaps? Lurking in the decrepit nest it had found out here on the plains?

And then, just like that, the woman and her distress was gone. Sucked away like flower petals blown away on the wind.

She was replaced by something so dark, so….coiled…still…expectant…that it took her breath away momentarily.

Her fingers closed decisively around her lightsaber and she crept forward on legs that instantly became poised to throw herself through the air.

The dark side was here.

And then, as she moved into a large atrium where the light of Ansion's dusk poured shadows through holes in the ceiling, she stopped moving.

A figure was waiting for her at the podium. A human woman, sure - but not in any distress. She was waiting calmly, a slight smirk riding beneath her own blue eyes, her hair carefully curled into the black depths of her hood.

A trap—!

Farris allowed her nostrils to flare wide for a moment, the only giveaway of her rising frustration. She would piece together how this woman had lured her here later.


Right now, there was a threat, and she needed to be removed, not spoken to.

So Farris said nothing, and began to circle slowly to the right, finally removing her lightsaber but not igniting it.

Her eyes stayed on those of this…dark sider. Whether she was a Sith would be revealed shortly.

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



She moved like a blade.

Not a weapon yet drawn, but one suspended in perfect tension—razor-edge hovering in the air between decision and disaster. Serina watched the Jedi's entry not with surprise or alarm, but with the same gaze one might cast upon a predator stepping into the boundaries of one's domain. Curiosity. Calculation. Admiration laced with anticipation.

She had not expected beauty—not this kind of beauty, not this cold, controlled aesthetic carved into flesh and motion.

The Mirialan's steps were too precise for desperation, her breath too controlled for panic. And yet, something trembled under the surface. Something old. Something restrained. Her eyes moved like searchlights sweeping through fog, but Serina felt no real confusion behind them. No—she had already accepted the danger. She simply hadn't decided how personal it was yet.

Good.

Serina turned her head by a single degree. Just enough to track the slow circling.

No words passed between them. There was no need. The illusion had already served its purpose. The woman's pain, her gasping voice, her manufactured anguish—that had been a whisper carried on the wind, a candle flickering in the dark. And this one, this Jedi, had come like a moth dressed as a knife.

Her eyes were exquisite.

A shade of ice made to look like intent. Not fire, not fury. Conviction.

But conviction was not incorruptible. In fact, Serina found it far easier to break than hope.

Hope resisted. Hope clung.

Conviction only needed to be reframed.

Her own posture did not change. Still as a tombstone, arms relaxed, weight evenly placed, face open—almost serene. Her robes whispered faintly as the storm winds twisted through the cracks in the walls. Her hood had fallen back just slightly, revealing the carefully woven braids that curled behind one ear, framing the porcelain angles of her cheekbone.

She tilted her chin upward just slightly, as if to offer her throat.

Not a sign of surrender.

A dare.

The air between them vibrated with tension, the hum of electricity beginning to build in the bones of the ruin, teased forth by the gathering storm. The glass dome above them reflected the dying sky—molten gold smeared into blood. It painted both their forms in shadow and light, twin silhouettes locked in a pose older than any Jedi temple or Sith tomb:

The watchful.

And the watching.

A flick of motion—there, the lightsaber withdrawn, but not lit.

Serina's lips curved.

Not a smile.

An invitation.

Because she had already seen it—the slight dilation in the Mirialan's pupils as she entered the atrium. The moment when the carefully balanced Force around her had wavered. Not in fear. In recognition.

The darkness here was not invasive. It had not lunged at her.

It had welcomed her.

And something in this woman, this cold sentinel in blue and black, had hesitated—not out of ignorance, but out of memory. A part of her had tasted this before.

Serina exhaled slowly, deliberately, through her nose. No sound. Just presence.

Her hand rose—not high, not forcefully, just enough to let the backs of her fingers drift across the podium in front of her, collecting a line of ancient dust that broke apart like ash beneath her touch.

She brought it to her lips.

Tasted it.

And waited.

Because there was a story in this Jedi.

Not just the stiffness in her shoulders, or the scars tucked neatly beneath armor.

But in the way she refused to speak.

That silence wasn't discipline. It was defiance. And defiance, Serina knew well, was always the last defense of the guilty.

What had she done?

No. The better question was: what had she survived?

There was trauma in this one. Not weakness—Serina didn't indulge in such common illusions. Trauma wasn't weakness. It was architecture. The foundation of identities forged in blood, or fire, or failure.

And trauma, like all architecture, could be unmade—if you knew where to push.

She didn't speak.

Words were for prey.

And this one hadn't decided if she was predator or victim yet.

So Serina stood in silence, hands now resting lightly on the edges of the podium, her gaze holding Farris like a ribbon wrapped around the hilt of a dagger.

She would wait.

The storm outside would build.

And inside this temple of shattered logic, something older than war would begin to bloom—quiet as rot.

What are you, really? She thought, as her smile curved just faintly deeper.

A warrior?

A survivor?

Or just another lost girl who had been trained to kill the part of herself that still felt?

No sound came.

Only the slow, circling predator in blue armor, and the smell of ozone as lightning danced across the sky.

The silence stretched again.

And Serina—

Serina was enjoying herself.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

The woman did not attack. Well, at least not in the physical sense of the word.

One of Farris’ eyebrows arched in slight confusion as the thin, pale fingers of her trapper glided up the podium, sweeping up dust in a deliberate drag and then bringing them to her lips.

Then Farris gasped, her teeth shining beneath dark lips, as the distance between them suddenly stretched to an obscene degree, and darkness abruptly shrouded the edges of her vision, as if she were looking through a keyhole as the woman’s eyes passed over her.

What are you, really?

Her voice whispered like rain on the roof, scattering in from above and then burrowing into her mind from a hundred different directions.

A warrior….survivor?

Or just another lost girl….?

Farris tried to find her footing in the roiling sea of darkness that the Sith- and she was certainly a Sith, that much was evident - but it was like dragging her feet through quicksand.

She raised one of her arms in defense and grimaced as the woman’s presence slipped into her psyche as easily as water would roll under a door.

There were flashes - distant memories of a time before she was a Jedi - that escaped from her mind, summoned to the front of her cortex as if the Sith had beckoned with her fingers.

In all of them, Farris held an electric whip, which she threw before her with practiced indifference - and there were people below her, their eyes wide as the whip came to meet them, in slow motion, it seemed.

“Work!” she screamed, as the whip split apart skin, tore open clothing, or left shiny white scars on thin arms and wrists.

Her voice echoed through Kessel’s muddy sky.

But then - grabbing hold of her training - Farris fought to remember who she actually was. She gritted her teeth and tried to push the Sith out of her mind.

“I am a Jedi!” she said out loud, her eyebrows meeting as she panted. The lightsaber in her right hand burst to life, the scent of ozone growing as the blade cast violet shadows in the atrium.

She leapt forward on muscular legs, sailing through the air and bringing the saberstaff up past her ear as she prepared to slash downward, releasing a cry of frustration, aware that the Sith had drawn something out of her.

“Haaagh—!”

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



The atrium trembled.

Not from the clash of bodies, not yet—but from the sudden cry of identity that rang out like a temple bell in the void.

"I am a Jedi!"

The words cut through the charged air, sharp and desperate. Serina felt the Force ripple with it, not as a wave of purity—but as a scream from someone cornered in their own mind. Her smile, slow and dusky, faltered for just a moment. Not out of fear.

Out of interest.

She had heard her.

That wasn't common. Her thoughts—her prods, her whispers—were not thrown like stones, but slipped in like silk between cracks in the armor. Few caught them. Fewer still had the presence of mind to reject them. And yet this one—whoever she was—had felt the intrusion. She'd wrestled it. Named herself aloud in defiance of it.

Serina's eyes flared, not in surprise, but in approval.

How rare it was to find something not already hollowed out.

The lightsaber ignited with a furious hiss, its violet blade painting the marble in strokes of twilight and fury. Serina took in the hue—violet, not blue. The middle path. The crack between purity and passion.

Ah.

That explained so much.

And then the Jedi was airborne, her body contorting mid-leap like a dancer striking a violent crescendo. Her saberstaff swept back behind her in a perfect arc of practiced savagery, muscles coiling in elegant motion, and her cry of frustration was no longer the sound of a protector—but of something deeply, furiously personal.

Serina didn't move.

She didn't need to.

As the blade came crashing down, she stepped just far enough to the side—too far for the saber to strike, too close to give the Jedi room to reorient. The wind from the swing brushed her cheek like the tail of a comet. Her hair stirred. She did not blink.

No weapon. No defense. Just her hand, drifting upward—not to block, not to attack, but to gesture, slow and deliberate, as if to say:

You're already telling me everything I need.

And Farris was.

Serina could feel the memory, still leaking from the cracks she had slipped her fingers into.

No Jedi would react this violently, this viscerally, to a simple mental nudge—unless it had struck something rotten beneath the soil.

She turned her head slightly as the Jedi landed from her strike, and for the first time, she spoke—not with her mouth, but with her presence. Her voice finally echoed through the Force like wine poured over burning coals—dark, smooth, and seething with slow warmth.

"You screamed 'work,' didn't you?"

She turned now, slowly, to face Farris head-on. Her blue eyes were wide and unflinching. No saber. No stance. Her arms hung at her sides, body utterly relaxed, exposed, almost inviting.

But there was something coiled inside her now. The same thing that spoke through ruins. The same thing that lingered behind locked doors in dreams.

"That wasn't obedience."

"That was pleasure."

Her words were not accusation. Not mockery. They were truth, laid down like a blade between them, gleaming in the last gold rays of dusk. And then, just the faintest tilt of her head—like a lover appraising a familiar face in unfamiliar light.

"You've spent so long building walls, Jedi. And all it took was a little memory to make you scream."

Still, she did not ignite a weapon. She stepped forward. One step. And then another.

She could see the sweat on the Jedi's collarbone now.

"You are a Jedi," Serina murmured, finally aloud—her voice a low purr of velvet and iron, "but not by birth. Not by nature. No—someone decided that for you. Just as someone decided you would scream 'work.'"

Another step. Close now. Too close.

"So tell me..."

She let the words roll off her tongue slowly. Savoring it. As if tasting it fully.

"What part of you did they bury to make you say the first thing instead of the second?"

The storm outside broke then—thunder slashing the sky in half.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

She watched the violet blade arc through the air and swipe downward into empty space.

The Sith had moved already, as calmly as if she were getting up from the breakfast table.

Farris felt herself becoming more unnerved by the minute as her eyes slid up to watch the woman drift away from her. The black cloak draped down her back slithered through the dust on the stone floor, hissing as quietly as her lightsaber had.

The Sith wore armor reminiscent of her kind, certainly. But there was something very singular and…apart…about her.

Even among vipers, she was a shadow. So what, then, was she?

Farris exhaled slowly, listening carefully to her speak as sweat collected on her brow and dampened her bluish hair, attempting to cool her.

Her heart pounded in contrast to the woman’s detached voice. She was the picture of restraint - whereas Farris, the Jedi, had come completely unraveled.

"You are a Jedi," the Sith continued. “But not by birth. Not by nature.”

She drew close, close enough to reach out and touch, her eyes large and blue and unsettling.

"What part of you did they bury to make you say the first thing instead of the second?"

Farris bristled at how unbothered the woman seemed, despite a lightsaber being pointed in her face.

She blinked, raising the lightsaber to level it an arm’s reach from sinking into the woman’s chest.

“You know how to find out,” she said, her voice low and curt.

Instead of speaking aloud, again, she narrowed her eyes and sent her thoughts out before her. They were cold and still, like snow collecting on a mountainside.

What is this? Did you lure a Jedi here to kill - or to chat?

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



The violet blade hovered between them—a heartbeat away from murder.

Its hum crackled with restrained fury, casting its indigo glow across Serina's face, illuminating the high curve of her cheekbone and the almost sculptural stillness of her lips. The heat of it should have been unbearable. But Serina did not flinch.

She welcomed it. Let it bathe her skin in light and danger. It wasn't the first time she had danced with death. And it certainly wasn't the first time she had done it beautifully.

Her gaze lowered slowly, sensually, to the saber tip—so close now it cast twin shadows down the hollow of her collarbone. Then she looked back up into Farris's face with a softness that did not belong in war. It belonged somewhere private. Somewhere sinful.

"Ah," she whispered, her voice velvet-wrapped steel, "there she is."

Not the Jedi.

Not the defender, not the mask.

The creature behind the weapon. The one who had snarled at memory. The one whose blood still sang with something more ancient than serenity.

"You think it's power that makes me calm. That I'm untouchable. That I've 'mastered' something you're struggling with."

Her fingers moved.

Not toward her belt. Not toward a weapon. They rose instead—graceful, deliberate—to her own throat, where the lowest clasp of her cloak hung loosely fastened. She undid it with a slow roll of her thumb, exposing the pale, sculpted line of her neck and the edge of the obsidian bodice beneath.

"But I'm not hiding from anything, Jedi."

She stepped into the saber's glow now, into it—until its heat singed the leather at her breast. Still she did not recoil. Instead, her body arched subtly forward, as if to kiss the edge of oblivion.

"You are."

Her thoughts poured outward then, no longer cloaked in whispers or sleight of mind. They struck like thunder.

You've wrapped your fear in ritual. Cloaked your rage in duty. Every time you close your eyes to meditate, you're shoving her deeper down—the girl who tasted control and didn't hate it.

She smiled then—slow, curved, serpentine.

"I didn't come here to kill you."

"I came here because I was curious what you would do, if no one told you what you were allowed to be."

Her hand moved at last—not to grab, not to strike—but to reach out, hovering just above Farris's cheek, fingers poised like a sculptor before marble.

"Look how beautiful you are when you come undone."

And she meant it. Not as flattery. Not as manipulation.

As fact.

The Force between them pulsed—not a tidal wave of darkness, but something hotter, slower. A pressure behind the lips before a scream. A lover's breath before a bite.

It dragged at Farris's limbs. It coiled up her spine. Not corrupting. Calling.

"So no," she said finally, her voice a murmur like silk drawn over bare skin. "I didn't come to chat. I came to peel the Jedi off of you—like a wet dress clinging to skin. To see what lies beneath."

She leaned in.

Close enough for the saber's heat to hiss against the surface of her armor. Close enough that Farris could smell her perfume—myrrh, ash, old wood—and hear the slight change in her breathing, like a lover waiting for permission.

"And maybe…" Serina whispered, lips close enough now to brush the Jedi's cheek if she turned her head, "help you..."

 

[Farris Kettefre]

Farris watched the languid, almost appreciative motions of the Sith woman before her. She had gone from predatory to superior to gentle, and now her pale fingers hovered longingly near her cheek.

Feeling uneasy, Farris switched off her lightsaber, preventing it from burning any more into her armor than it already had. She would not attack someone who had only raised a hand to her.

But still she turned her cheek away, confused as she listened carefully to the woman’s words.

Who are you, she wondered.

And then she realized what was happening. This was a seduction. A gentle pull into the dark, where no one could see.

Back on Coruscant, many years ago, before the galaxy had turned itself on its head and changed everything - she recalled sitting in on a class taught by a group of serene old-timers who could not possibly understand her.

Sometimes, they had said, the temptation of the dark side will come quietly. It will feel good. It will feel comforting. You will not be afraid of it.

And only now did she understand what they had meant.

This woman - beautiful, apathetic but gentle, seductive - seemed to put a voice to emotions she had not embraced in a long time. She seemed to know her. Better than any Jedi Master had ever known her.

It was …disturbing…but inviting…

Farris turned her face to look at her, blue eyes shining into blue eyes.

“And suppose you peel away that duty,” she said quietly, slowly. “Without duty…there’s just…us. And we are messes.”

Her lips turned downward briefly into a wry grin that wrinkled one corner of her mouth. Her eyes were very briefly lit by amusement.

“Actually. Some of us are disasters.”

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



Serina's smile deepened—not into mockery, nor triumph, but something far more dangerous.

Recognition.

She held Farris's gaze as if she were steadying a wineglass by the stem, careful not to let it tremble, careful not to let it fall. When the Jedi turned her face toward her again, blue eyes meeting blue eyes in that suspended, vulnerable hush, Serina felt the Force between them shift—not in power, but in intimacy. The saber was gone. The mask had slipped.

And there she was.

Not the girl with the whip, not the Knight with the saber.

The woman in between. Half-made. Half-claimed.

"A disaster," Serina echoed, her voice a warm murmur, like embers under velvet, "is only frightening when you still think you can stop it."

She raised her hand again—this time with no hesitation—and gently tucked a strand of damp blue-black hair behind Farris's ear. Her touch was impossibly soft, reverent even, the kind of gesture no one had likely given her without expecting something in return.

There was a pause as Serina's thumb lingered at the hinge of her jaw, her breath cool against Farris's cheek. Her eyes drank her in—not with hunger, but with the kind of obsession reserved for rare art, or extinct creatures caught still breathing.

"But you… you're exquisite. Not despite your damage. Because of it."

She stepped to the side now, half-circling Farris like a curious satellite orbiting a planet she had never seen before. The tip of her finger brushed over the seam of the Jedi's shoulder plate, tracing the line as she moved behind her. She didn't press. She didn't push.

She invited.

"You've spent your life sculpting silence where there should have been screams. Composure where there should have been chaos. And they rewarded you with a title."

Serina's voice darkened slightly, like smoke curling under a door.

"But titles don't hold you when you're alone."

She came to a stop behind her, her chin nearly resting over Farris's shoulder now, her words whispering just beside her ear.

"You are not a Jedi. Not truly."

Her breath fluttered softly against Farris's skin.

"They taught you to fight the fire inside you. I'd teach you how to wield it."

There was no demand. No command. Serina didn't need to press her claim. The darkness she offered was not a prison. It was a mirror.

She stepped back now, slow and theatrical, letting her hand fall away from Farris's armor with the grace of a curtain lowering at the end of a performance. The atrium was quieter than before. Even the storm outside had softened for a moment, as if the galaxy itself were listening.

Serina stopped three paces away and turned back to face her fully.

Her smile faded into something more solemn. More bare.

"I didn't come here to convert you."

"I came here because I knew someone would answer the call. And I was curious…"

She tilted her head.

"If anyone out there still knew the difference between duty…"

Her eyes searched Farris's face again—searching, measuring, desiring.

"…and desire."

She let the words hang between them, rich and heavy like incense smoke curling into the cracks of the mind.

And she waited.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

Farris closed her eyes against the curious brush of the Sith woman’s finger as she tucked her hair into place.

Her resolve wavered — as if she had been trying to roll a stone far up a mountain, and now her mind was tricking her into letting it slide back down, after years of pushing.

How much easier it was to let the stone roll backward — to sink into the mud — rather than to keep her head above it.

There was a strange pang of sorrow mixed with relief. It made her scrunch her eyes up, raising her eyebrows high as if she were in pain.

The woman had hit something squarely on the head. The root of her issues.

“You are right,” she said after a long pause. Outside, the thunder tumbled, but in here…it was just the two of them. She felt as if she were sharing a truth in the dark with zero consequences. Of course, that could be the dark side pulling a fabrication, as it so often did. But maybe not….

She turned to follow the woman with her eyes as she slipped from her ear.

“I have never felt like a Jedi. I thought maybe…once. But - never,” she revealed with finality.

“But if you are a part of the Sith….and I have to guess that you are….how can I possibly trust you?”

Her thoughts turned inward, and she clenched her jaw.

And better yet, how could you trust me?

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



Serina didn't answer right away.

She let the silence settle, thick and slow as dripping honey. Let the confession hang between them, tender and raw, like skin exposed to air after a blade had passed clean through. She had felt it the moment Farris gave voice to it—that crack. That slow, painful rupture where identity had been forced to hold too much weight for too long.

"I have never felt like a Jedi."

Ah. There it was. The wound beneath all the armor. Serina exhaled softly, as if savoring it.

She turned back toward Farris with all the elegance of a dancer who had just heard her cue, letting her gaze slide over the Mirialan's face as if memorizing it—not for conquest, but for possession. This wasn't about power. Not in the way most Sith saw it. This was about ownership of truth.

"Good," she said finally, voice low, rich, edged with a smoky kind of indulgence. "Because if you had said you always felt like one, I would've been forced to pity you."

She began to approach again, slow steps echoing softly in the marble ruin, every movement liquid, designed to unsettle. Her voice dropped with each step, like silk drawn across bare skin.

"You've worn their robes. Spoke their mantras. Chased their shadows. And none of it touched the part of you that screams in the dark, does it?"

Closer now.

"That voice—your voice—has been buried beneath their creeds, their oaths. But you never forgot it."

Her fingers reached out again, more bold this time, and found Farris's hand—not with violence, not to seize, but to feel. The contact was featherlight, two fingers tracing the back of her palm. Intimate. Intentional.

"And you ask if you can trust me." Her smile curved. Dark. Gentle. Infuriating.

"Darling, I never asked you to."

She leaned in, close enough that her words danced across Farris's lips like the edge of breath before a kiss. Her eyes were wide, endless, devouring.

"Trust is a Jedi word. Something to be earned, measured, bestowed."

"What I offer is simpler."

Her hand slid higher now, over Farris's wrist, her touch warm, grounding. Tempting. Real.

"I offer recognition."

"You are not broken." Her thumb circled the edge of Farris's palm slowly, tracing the lines of a weapon too elegant to admit it wanted to be used.

"You are unfinished."

She stepped into the space between them fully, claiming it. Not forcing. Not demanding. Present. As if her nearness itself was a truth. A consequence. A temptation finally made flesh.

"And as for your question…" she whispered, lashes lowering just slightly, "…how could I trust you?"

"Because I see what you are beneath the robes."

A pause. Her lips tilted up, almost shyly. Almost reverently.

"And I've always been drawn to disasters."

And with that, her lips came closer—not to kiss, but to hover just near the corner of Farris's mouth, the distance small enough to feel each other's tremble. It was a line neither had to cross.

But Serina—

Serina had already crossed a far more dangerous one.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

Farris hardly moved as she drew slowly closer. She listened to her words, a small part of her aware that it was mostly a seduction into a darkness she had abandoned a long time ago. But maybe…quite possibly…there was a hint of real somewhere in there.


As always, it was impossible to be certain.


She opened her palm in response to the Oman’s fingers tracing the lines of her olive skin, enjoying the first intimate touch she had encountered from someone in a long, long time. Her breathing slowed to nearly a stop, and her eyes dropped to watch the woman’s hands.

Then when she moved closer, her lips sharing the same air as Farris, it was she who opened her mouth and closed her eyes, pressing into this strange woman she did not know, one hand moving up to grip her by the shoulder, over the black cape.

She gave away the kiss for a multitude of reasons, and not for one in particular. There was a human part of her that had not experienced this sort of connection in a long time, and then there was the darker part of her that was lost and confused, and searching for a buoy in the water.

Either way, she was aware that things were changing, and there was no going back now.

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



Serina did not flinch when the kiss came, though she almost certainly nearly did. Kisses did not come to the Sith regularly, but in a bold move...

She received it.

Not hungrily. Not as a conquest or a prize claimed.

But with a slow, devastating grace—like the closing of a ritual, like the final breath before something sacred collapses into something profane.

Farris's mouth met hers, and for a suspended second—longer than thunder, shorter than eternity—their bodies were quiet. The world was quiet. Only the whisper of fingertips and the soft pressure of lips remained between them. And in that space, Serina felt it.

Not desire.

Permission.

Her hand rose from the back of Farris's wrist, drifting with unhurried sensuality along her forearm, the barest whisper of pressure, until her palm cradled the Mirialan's jaw—thumb brushing the delicate hinge of it as she deepened the kiss, just slightly. Enough to say: I know.

The cape shifted beneath Farris's grip. Serina's body leaned into her—not entirely, not greedily. But present. Responsive. Her armor was warm now, heat rising from where the lightsaber had grazed her, but she didn't feel it. Her awareness was narrowed to the taste of lips that trembled just slightly and the hand that gripped her shoulder as if holding on to something slipping away.

You've done it, she thought. You finally let go.

It was message much to herself as it was about the current state of the room.

When the kiss broke, Serina remained close.

Her breath still shared the same air.

Their foreheads nearly touched now, and her eyes opened lazily, luxuriously, scanning the lines of Farris's face as if committing every one to memory. There was no victory in her expression.

Only an unbearable softness.

A silence that tasted like midnight.

"There," she murmured. Her voice was hoarse now, not from strain, but from truth. "Now you've said more than any words ever could."

Her thumb brushed across Farris's lower lip. Not possessively. Reverently. As if something had been revealed, not taken.

"They made you deny your instincts."

"I just asked you to listen to them."

She stepped back now—barely. Enough to release the tension, but not the intimacy. Her fingers trailed down Farris's arm like a whisper, until she let the Jedi's hand fall back to her side.

"You think this changes everything."

She smiled again—sadly this time. Gently.

"It reveals what was always there."

She turned her back then, walking a few steps across the ruined atrium, her cloak trailing behind her like the edge of a wave. She stood beneath the ragged opening in the dome, where the storm above had split the sky in jagged, molten light.

And she spoke again—this time not to seduce, not to pry.

To invite.

"You can leave if you like. Climb back into your robes. Fly home. They'll never know what happened here."

A pause.

Then:

"Or you can stay. And I'll show you what it feels like to finally stop running from yourself."

She turned her head slightly.

But not all the way.

Not yet.

And she waited—bare-shouldered, stormlit, and utterly certain.

Because whether Farris stayed or fled—

The stone had already begun to roll back down the mountain.

And Serina would be there when it hit the bottom.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

Farris watched her move away. Her head was still spinning, the energy between them rippling through the Force and as impossible to deny as the storm out on the plains.

She stood quietly, absorbing what the Sith had said. She had revealed what was always inside…it was probably for the best it was revealed now, rather than later.

She stood watching this mysterious figure pause in the archway, leaving behind the scattered readouts and files the Old Republic had once collected, only for it all to turn to dust.

Farris debated inwardly, folding her fingers together carefully while she closed her eyes in meditation.

It was true that a new path had been laid down…and it would be a mistake not to see where it led…but there were still things left to finish on Coruscant.

It was only fair that she let the Council know her decision. She thought of Master Valery Noble and the other familiar faces of the Temple. What would they do? It was impossible to say.

“There are…things I must do first. A life to say goodbye to….and a new one to start.”

She removed a very small, very silver object from her belt and used the Force to float the comm unit toward the Sith Lord.


“I will contact you on that channel when I’m….prepared,” she said, looking up to find the blue eyes under the hood.

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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[Darth Virelia]

"Hard choices require hard minds."

Tags - Farris Kettefre



Serina turned slowly—deliberately—as if time itself had bent to give her the final word.

The silver comm unit hovered toward her, its soft gleam catching the dim light that pooled from the storm-wracked heavens above. She let it float in the air between them for a breath longer than necessary, watching the way it trembled in Farris's Force grip. The gesture was clean, restrained. Disciplined.

But the energy beneath it?

Deliciously disobedient.

With two fingers, she plucked the device from the air—graceful, effortless—as though accepting a gift that had already belonged to her. She didn't look at it. Her eyes were fixed on Farris.

Eyes like slow-cut sapphires in shadow.

"Prepared," she repeated, as if tasting the word. Her lips curled in a slow, decadent smile. "That sounds so… formal. Almost quaint."

She stepped forward once more, her movements unhurried, entirely unguarded. The space between them hummed with potential again—like a lover returning to bed before the sheets had gone cold.

"You'll find," she murmured, "that there is no such thing as preparation for what waits at the edge of yourself. Not for the honest things. Not for the hungry ones."

She turned the comm unit over in her hand, fingers caressing its metallic edge with idle affection—like she was already replaying the sound of Farris's voice whispering through it, late at night, uncertain but no longer restrained.

"But I admire the sentiment," she said, voice warm and thick as spiced wine. "You always were trying to do things the 'right' way… even now, when you've kissed the mouth of the storm."

Her smile sharpened, just slightly. A flicker of teeth. A promise.

"Tell them goodbye. Or don't."

"They'll never be able to name what's changed in you when you return. Not if you wear the right face. Not if you touch them with hands that still look like a Jedi's."

She stepped closer again—close enough for her breath to brush Farris's cheek as she leaned in.

"But they'll feel it."

"They'll feel me in you."

And then, with the utmost gentleness, she tucked the comm unit into her own belt. A ritual sealed. A vow unspoken, but understood.

She turned once more toward the open archway, her cloak catching the wind like a second skin. She paused at the threshold, head half-turned over her shoulder.

"Don't keep me waiting too long, little violet."

The pet name slithered from her lips like silk dropped on stone—beautiful, unnecessary, and utterly binding.

And then she was gone, stepping into the storm without fear, without haste.

The darkness did not swallow her.

It parted for her.

As if it had been waiting all this time.

 

[Farris Kettefre]

​

Little violet.

Farris allowed herself a wry smile at the nickname. Then she was gone — before she could catch her name in full, with the Force only whispering hints at what her name could be.

And yet…she had given her a pet name, it seemed.

Farris slipped from the observatory in silence, thinking of her flight back to Coruscant. There were things she had to say to Master Valery Noble .

OUTFIT: Jedi Armor | TAG:| Darth Virelia EQUIPMENT: Saberstaff

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