Private The Soil Remembers

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine


Korriban's twilight sky stretched overhead like the inside of a dying eye—bleeding rust, dust, and memory. Winds whispered across the sand, carrying with them the scent of desiccated corpses and ancient hatred, as if the very soil remembered every scream it had swallowed. There were no tourists here, no initiates chanting mantras for show. Only the old tomb, yawning open before her, and the unspoken promise of something worth the wait.

Darth Virelia stood still—motionless save for the subtle rise and fall of her breath beneath the monolith of her armor. Tyrant's Embrace, the galaxy would one day call it, but it was more than armor. It was her cathedral. Her blade. Her sin. And here, on the doorstep of some forgotten tyrant's grave, she wore it like a benediction.

The wind howled. Her six violet eyes glowed faintly through the obsidian faceplate, scanning the canyon. Nothing yet. Just the ghosts whispering through the broken stone.

The locals had been precise, even if they didn't understand the weight of their own gossip. An acolyte had been seen alone. Unaccompanied, unannounced. Not from the nearby academies—different. Her arrival was imminent. And there was something in the air—an undertone beneath the scorched heat of Korriban's breath. Potential. It coiled through the Force like a snake, invisible but unmistakable.

Virelia's cape drifted around her like smoke. Her posture was regal, still, but unconcealed. She did not hide in the shadows. She was the shadow others fled toward. There was no need to mask her presence—let the acolyte feel the gravity long before arrival. Let them tremble or rise. Either would be useful.

She placed one clawed gauntlet on the stone lip of the tomb entrance, fingertips scraping ancient dust from the engraved edge.

"This tomb has eaten many names. Let's see what it does with yours."

Her voice, distorted slightly through the vocoder, was a low velvet purr edged in ruin. Then silence again—absolute, patient, electric.

The moment stretched.

Somewhere far across the sand, a figure would soon crest the ridge—drawn here by fate, or ambition, or the cruel gravity of her interest.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

Hooded and cloaked in black Valaine trudged through the sands of Korriban with dogged strides that somehow seemed just as half-hearted as they were purposeful. To go from a city-spanning urban environment like Jutrand to the desolate and barren wasteland she now found herself in was nothing short of jarring. The thought that any place could be so open, so empty, did not sit well with her, and she felt exposed and seen as she passed over the many dunes on her path.

The path she was upon; it was one she chose for herself in her search to find some sort of edge against her peers. She had inquired, she had studied, and soon came into knowledge of the location of an ancient tomb that was perhaps and hopefully long undisturbed by scavengers. But isn't that just what she was too? A scavenger come to poke at the bones of ghosts in the dark. If she could perhaps find some artifact or relic of use within this tomb then maybe she could advance more quickly, for her pursuit of power grew more pressing by the day. She lacked a true weapon of her own, and hoped this is where she might find one if she were lucky, however old and battered her find could be.

The howling wind billowed against her black cloak as she continued to make her way through the desert, nothing but a black speck amidst the empty sands. Though as she climbed the next dune she felt a weight in the air; something ominous, something with authority, was ahead. She paused for just a moment before she was about to crest the hill of sand and pondered; had someone beat her to the tomb, or was it just the oppressive presence of the venerable dead?

Regardless; to turn back now would be a waste of this journey into the sands of Korriban, so whatever awaited her she'd find a way to deal with, as she always had. With a final few steps she rose over the dune and saw ahead before the tomb the source of the presence. Staying at the top of the dune she studied Virelia in a brief moment of silence as she gauged her appearance. Clad in dark sleek armor, cloaked in night, and marked with Sith glyphs; if it wasn't already clear to Valaine that this was no mere peer, then it was now.

The acolyte steeled herself against the presence she felt and began her descent down the dune, though her usual trudging movements were now more cautious and steady, she was on alert. She had decided to feign ignorance for the time being as she continued to make her way towards the tomb as she maintained her pace and stared directly ahead. It was only until she was about to simply pass Virelia that she came to an abrupt halt besides her at the entrance and then finally turned her head towards her, gazing generally in her direction without really looking upon her mask.

Valaine's expression was one that was frequently upon her visage, that of tired disinterest, though a bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face as she spoke in her soft tone, "Are you a ghost of this tomb? I've come to scour it." she declared her intent both boldly and without shame as she stood still in silence as she waited for any kind of response from the figure.


Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine


The wind stirred, coiling around them like a serpent deciding which of the two to devour first. Sand hissed along the rim of the tomb as if retreating from the stillness that now ruled the air. And Virelia—towering, still, magnificent—did not move.

The six violet eyes in her helm adjusted in slow, graceful harmony, re-focusing on the acolyte like a predator blinking. The glow that pulsed from her chest-node dimmed slightly, synchronizing with her breath. No weapon was drawn. No posture was shifted. But the air changed. Thickened. Became aware.

She let the silence linger a heartbeat longer than it should've. Enough for discomfort to plant its seed. Enough to test what the girl would do with doubt.

Then came her reply. Five words, low and clear, each chosen like a blade placed gently at the throat:

"Not a ghost. The consequence."

The words hung in the air like smoke over a battlefield—soft, slow, and absolute.

She turned to face the girl fully. No sudden movement, only the elegance of inevitability, as if gravity itself had invited the gesture. Her cape billowed, hem flicking along the stone like it was tasting the rock. The glimmering glyphs on her armor breathed dim light in pulsing, alien rhythm, and for a moment it was easy to imagine that this wasn't armor at all, but something alive—something watching.

Virelia did not speak again, not yet. She let the silence thicken until it filled the girl's lungs.

She studied the way the sweat trickled past the cheek, how the posture tried to feign disinterest while the body betrayed readiness. The girl was on edge. But she hadn't run. That, at least, was promising.

She leaned slightly closer, just a shift of weight, but in her presence it was tectonic. Her voice this time was quieter. Not threatening—worse. Intrigued.

"And what do you imagine lies inside, little drifter?"

Her helm tilted slightly as if to taste the answer not from words, but from the space between the girl's breaths. Virelia could smell the hunger. Not the kind driven by anger or pain—but the deeper kind, the kind that curled its roots around a soul like ivy around old stone. Want. Power, yes. Recognition, perhaps. A place in the brutal calculus of the Sith. The girl wanted something. That meant she was usable.

Virelia turned her head slowly, looking at the tomb's dark maw, then back to the girl. A soft, velvety purr filtered through her vocoder—amusement, maybe. Or admiration. Or condescension.

"If you were worthy of what's buried, it would have called for you."

Her tone never rose. She never mocked. She simply spoke with the quiet, sensuous authority of someone who had never once needed to raise her voice to command a room—or a planet.

She let that line sit, a little knife of implication: you're not worthy. But also an invitation: prove me wrong.

Then, with the patience of an ancient predator full on blood but curious about the next bite, she stepped aside. One foot. Nothing more. The entrance to the tomb loomed now, unobstructed but no less intimidating.

"Go on, then. Take it."

It wasn't permission. It wasn't a challenge. It was a test given shape and sound. A queen giving a peasant just enough rope to see if they'd climb—or hang.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

The sound of the desert wind became almost deafening as the unspoken silence permeated between the two after the figure had spoken. As those six eyes seemed to lock in on her presence she stopped breathing for just a moment. She was afraid, it's true, but she did very little to show that fear, nor did she seem to have any desire to flee from it, intent on standing her ground. For a brief moment her grey eyes flicked down at the figure's form in a fleeting search for any noticeable weaponry, and it was then that she noticed the armor practically breathing.

It was the words from the figure that reminded herself to breathe in turn as she took in a short but very much needed breath through her nose. She glanced back up towards the mask that bore down upon her, 'The consequence?' she thought to herself, 'A guard? A sentinel?' she continued to ponder as the dreaded silence continued to fill the space between them.

When the masked figure turned to face her she felt the instinctual pull to take a step back in response but quickly chased the thought away as she stood resolute in her languid stance. There was a soft gulp as she swallowed down the hot arid air and then a gentle exhale of self-reassurance as she remained still. Valaine pondered if she had been clumsy, if she had asked too many questions in seeking this place, and if too many eyes saw her passing. If such was the case, then this was the consequence of an eager and errant acolyte.

She became self aware of how long she herself had been silent now as the figure leaned closer just a bit, and to hear her words was almost a relief, anything to break this oppressive silence she was mired within. At the question asked her eyes flicked back towards the entrance of the tomb while she slowly lifted a hand to brush against her sand-dusted fringe that the hood didn't cover, both in part to wipe some sand away but also give some more motion to herself in a bid to seem relaxed.

"Inside there...?" she asked, pointing towards the tomb with a slender pale finger. "... Failure." she stated firmly despite her unnerved state. "Whatever deeds, great or small, result in Sith being buried within a dusty old tomb like this means nothing in the face of their greatest failure; death." she answered. the last word of her sentence seemed to linger on her lips for a moment.

She lowered her hand and turned back towards the masked figure. "Offer them the chance to rewrite history, their great deeds and accomplishments in exchange for another chance at life, and I'm certain they'd all take it in a heartbeat." Her soft expression for a moment hardened with furrowed brows, narrowed eyes, and thinned lips. Survival, to live on, it meant a lot to her, even if it was survival in the slimmest sense or a life that was pathetic; it was survival and success, it was the mental scars of an orphan.

Her expression softened once more into that of disinterest as she glanced away, "But... Besides that, despite their failings, I'm looking for something of use. A weapon, perhaps, or knowledge. Better that it serves me than rotting away in a forgotten tomb." Her eyes fixated on the entrance of the tomb once more as the figure did so, desert winds billowed once again against her dark cloak. She spoke with certainty but there was always a lingering sense of doubt and hesitance in her posture. Her voice spoke with conviction that her body simply wasn't wholly in agreement with, but it was clear she was willing to push aside that doubt and hesitance in her pursuits. These personal conflictions existed but they didn't control her.

In response to the question of her worthiness her words seemed suddenly barbed and defiant, and dripping with arrogance, "I couldn't care less if I'm worthy or not, let them be silent, I'm coming to take what I want."

When the masked figure stepped aside there was the briefest of cracks in her stalwart conviction as her grey eyes noticeably flicked back towards her, a flinch to be certain but given that she was dealing with an unexpected and unknown stranger guarding a tomb? She forgave herself for the slip.

At the figure's words she breathed in a soft sigh that she tried to hide, feeling it compressed within her lungs as she slowly breathed it out with the desert wind passing by. The tomb itself didn't seem to phase her as much as the figure did, she had after all spent an entire upbringing breaking into places she didn't belong.

With her path seemingly unbarred she turned her gaze forward and locked her grey eyes onto the yawning entrance of the tomb and started to trudge forward once more. Her steps were unrelenting as she maintained a measured and steady pace, entering into the dark of the maw.


Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine


The shadows swallowed the girl without ceremony.

Virelia remained still for a long moment after the acolyte disappeared inside—silent, statuesque, not so much observing as recording. Her armor made no sound as it shifted slightly, almost imperceptibly, and for a moment she seemed to vanish with the wind. Only the slow pulse of the node in her breastplate confirmed she still stood there. Alive. Waiting.

Then she moved.

One measured step. Then another. Her cape did not drag, it followed, slick and sinuous, like something alive caught in her wake. The tomb yawned wider with each step, as if the very stone recognized her presence. As if it remembered who had walked this path before—and who now dared to again.

She crossed the threshold and descended into the dark.

The first corridor was narrow, jagged, cut by hand in places and carved by power in others. Glyphs littered the walls like warnings scrawled by the dead. The air grew damp, the silence deeper—thick with dust and rot and old rites. Her six violet eyes adjusted instantly, feeding her vision in layers, seeing warmth, movement, decay.

The girl was ahead. Alone, but not yet lost. Not yet.

The first chamber greeted them like a memory. Circular, wide, and domed, with a dais at the center and crumbled alcoves around the edges—altars, broken statuary, fractured sarcophagi. Bones peeked from cracks like pale weeds. And at the center: a pedestal. Upon it, a single object.

A blade.

Its hilt was plain, scorched black. The emitter still smoked faintly with the long-faded scent of ozone, as if it had last been lit in violence and never cooled fully since. No crystal hummed within it now—it was hollow, waiting.

Virelia stopped at the edge of the room.

She did not speak at first. The silence here had weight, and she let it press down. Let the girl feel the breath of the tomb—the presence of unseen eyes that might never close. The silence was a crucible. She would see what the girl did with it.

Then her voice slid through the stillness like silk across bare skin.

"You mistake survival for victory."

She let the line land like a whispered truth. No heat. No cruelty. Just a correction offered in confidence, as one might correct the angle of a blade before letting it fly.

Her gaze didn't fix on the weapon, nor the girl. It moved across the room slowly, precisely, sweeping the chamber like a surveyor assessing the worth of soil before planting something devastating.

"Those buried here failed nothing. They transcended."

A pause. She stepped forward then—only one step—but the sound of her movement was felt, not heard. A presence displacing air, not woman displacing weight. The violet gleam of her gaze danced along the broken stone.

"And yet you confuse being forgotten with being irrelevant."

Another step. This time her attention flicked back to the girl, but not directly. As if watching the thought of her, not the body. Her helm tilted. Curious.

"A corpse can teach more than a living fool."

It wasn't praise. Nor was it dismissal. It was... expectation. A line drawn through her voice like a predator's claw through silk. Beneath it lay a test far sharper than the blade on the pedestal.

Virelia stopped at the edge of the dais.

She did not reach for the weapon. She did not need to. She had seen thousands like it. Made better. Buried worse.

She let her voice drop to a near-whisper, not for secrecy, but to force the ear to lean close—to submit.

"Claim it. Or leave it. But if you hesitate, I will take your hand instead."

And in the breath that followed, nothing moved.

Only the blade. It twitched. Subtle. Just enough to confirm this tomb had not been dormant after all. Not truly. It had been listening. Waiting. And now, perhaps for the first time in years, it was watching.

Virelia said no more.

She simply waited, still as myth, while the girl faced her first decision.

And the tomb held its breath.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

With persistence did Valaine press forth into the unknown dark. She heard the whispers of the wind dissipating behind her as she moved deeper through the narrow and dim passage. Her fingers lightly traced along the cut stone before she glanced briefly over her shoulder to confirm that, at a distance, the masked figure was following. Her gaze turned forward once more as she continued. Scarcely did she seem to take note of the etched warnings. The pervasive scent of decay and time did not appear to hinder her progress.

She came to a pause as she entered the wide chamber as grey eyes flicked about searchingly. Broken and ruined stonework in the form of sarcophagi and statues, the sight belied a warning to her when she noted that of all the things ruined and broken, why leave the blade on the dais untouched? Was superstition on Korriban so prevalent? Did the locals believe it to hold some curse?

These thoughts passed through her as after taking a moment to study the room she moved forward at a more cautious pace. As she approached the dais the masked figure's voice reminded her that she wasn't alone, though she had that sensation from the tomb itself too. Her eyes fixated upon the blade resting at the dais as she listened and replied.

"When every day was a challenge, what else could it be called but victory?" she retorted softly as she continued to near the dais while the figure spoke. 'Transcended? Into an early grave maybe.' she thought to herself. So narrow was her path to power; it wasn't something for her to wield over others as a weapon, it was simply so that others couldn't do the same to her, it was a shield.

Her eyes scanned across the weapon that the tomb itself seemed to be presenting to her and her thoughts continued, and were perhaps displayed in some form with her mannerisms; the way she held herself and moved lightly. 'What can a corpse teach besides how it died?' she again pondered as her head shifted lightly to glance towards the broken sarcophagi and the remains that lingered within.

Something was nagging at the back of her mind. She drew back to an earlier thought, 'Why leave this here?'. As the masked figure drew towards the dais at her side her eyes continued to linger on the skeletal remains, what can a corpse teach indeed? If that old rugged man was here right now she was certain he'd say something similar but in much simpler words. 'Read the room, kid.' echoed words that now seemed so distant in her past.

When the masked woman whispered her ultimatum Valaine responded without hesitance but with no shortage of frustration as she huffed in annoyance. She turned on her heel away from the weapon as her cloak swayed in the still air. It was too easy, too... free. Nothing good had happened in her life, why would it start now? What kind of idiot takes the one untouched prize displayed so proudly in the middle of a ransacked room?

She turned her back on the dais and moved away from it, letting a sigh escape her lips, "... What a waste of time..." she muttered to herself as she instead made her way towards the cracked sarcophagi where she knelt down and half-heartedly peered around it. Wherever out of mere curiosity or a vain hope she might find something else was unclear.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine


The girl stepped away.

Virelia did not follow. She remained at the edge of the dais, the black ridges of her armor stark against the dust-coated stone, the soft pulse of violet light in her chest matching the steady rhythm of her breath—or something colder. The six glowing eyes in her mask didn't track the girl as she moved; they knew where she was, the way a storm knows where the lightning will fall.

Instead, she watched the blade.

The tomb responded to the shift. The stale air grew heavier, as though disappointed. Not angry. Not cheated. Simply… waiting longer. The room seemed darker now, not from light lost, but meaning deferred. Something ancient—almost sentient—slipped back beneath the surface like a serpent into sand.

Still, Virelia did not reach for the weapon. She didn't need to. It was not hers to claim. Not yet.

The girl had hesitated. But she had done so correctly.

That mattered.

A long silence passed before Virelia finally moved. One slow step down from the dais, her boots silent as breath on the stone. The cape slithered behind her like an executioner's veil. She paced across the chamber—not toward the girl, not toward the blade—but between them, as if she existed in a third axis neither had yet seen.

Her voice, when it returned, was soft. Intimate. Not quite praise, not quite instruction—something far more dangerous. Invitation.

"Good. You understand what bait tastes like."

She didn't need to say it was rare. She didn't need to say most would've grasped for the blade like starving dogs at a bone. The room was already full of such bones. They were her examples.

Virelia came to a halt beside a ruined sarcophagus, its stone lid half-shattered. Her fingers trailed along the edge—not to sift through remains, but to feel the memory etched into it. This tomb had been built for reverence, defiled by time, and left to rot. The question had never been what it held.

The question was always: Why was it left intact at all?

"What you seek isn't buried. It's offered."

Another silence. She let the girl sit with that, turn it over, search it for mockery. There was none. Only the calm of someone who had walked this road too many times to rush.

Then Virelia turned, violet eyes falling upon the girl again—not harshly. Not threatening. Like a flame watching dry paper, knowing it need not leap.

"If you understood what it meant, you would already have drawn it."

She gestured—not with her hands, but with a subtle cant of the helm, an angular shift that somehow pointed to the blade without breaking her line of sight. The weapon sat as it had when they entered. Still smoking. Still listening. Waiting for a hand, yes—but not any hand.

Virelia took a step closer to the girl now, the edge of her cloak brushing over broken stone.

"Peace is a lie."

Four words. She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to. Not if the girl had ever read the Code, not if she had ever felt it stir beneath her skin. That was the seed. The first truth of the Sith. The one all others sprouted from—and bled for.

Virelia circled the dais once more, passing the girl but never addressing her directly. She spoke as though to the tomb, or to the weapon, or to some echo between the walls that neither of them could quite name.

"The sword knows that. Do you?"

It was the final line she would give. No hint. No coaxing. No demand.

She moved back to the chamber's edge and folded her arms behind her back, cloak trailing in symmetrical folds like drapery hung over an altar. Still as before. A sentinel again—but not guarding. Waiting. Witnessing.

The rest was up to the girl.

She had refused the obvious test.

Now the real one had begun.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

Valaine's hands never made contact with the sarcophagus she was examining, she just stayed squatting besides it and tilting her head from side to side as if trying to get a different angle on the skeletal bones within whilst the figure lingered near the dais. She could feel the weight of the room shift and change as if in response to her answer of not taking the blade, and it felt like she had made the right choice in that moment. She could sense the figure moving behind her, but she didn't look back as she heard her voice once more.

Something about the way this masked figure spoke seemed to put her on alert, it was something in her tone, the strange... neutrality of it that made her feel like she should be cautious around her. Neither reprimanding or encouraging; she felt like she couldn't trust people who spoke like that as she looked from the corner of her eye towards where she thought the figure was, but didn't turn to actually face her.

"Nothing is offered for free." she answered with a gentle voice as her grey eyes turned forward towards the bones in front of her again, an ever constant reminder of what she was trying to avoid, and what might've just happened to her if she grabbed that blade unbidden. A feeling in her gut told her that perhaps this masked figure was waiting here all this time to simply, as she had just spoken, offer this blade to an aspiring acolyte. The cost? She could only guess.

She felt the figure drawing nearer as she kept her back turned, as ever showing her almost innate disinterest. When she heard the first four words of the code her eyes rolled in arrogance and she continued it; "There is only passion." She then sighed gently, "I've never known peace, I've never known anyone to know peace. But passion?" she lightly shook her head. "That's the part of the code I struggle with, what is there to be passionate about in a galaxy with no peace? I've seen passion in others, a drive to do something just because they enjoy it, or they believe in it, but I've got nothing like that."

With a glance back over her shoulder there was a wry self-deprecating smirk upon her soft lips, "Stumbling at the first hurdle, a terrible acolyte, I know. But you seem to want to offer that blade to someone, but are you sure you'd even be offering it to the right person?" she asked in turn, trying to pull some answers or sense out of the figure's motives, trying to piece together her intent. "What are you getting out of this?" she added before finally standing up with a tired sigh and turning to face the woman at the dais, though she did not move. Despite her willingness to converse she still held that innate fear of the unknown when it came to this figure as she wiped the sweat from her brow with a soft exhale. This room felt like it was starting to suffocate her.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine



The tomb listened.

Virelia did not reply at once. She watched, her masked face unreadable but not still. The six violet eyes tracked the girl with a subtlety that machines envied—like a serpent scenting blood through heat alone. The way the girl crouched near the sarcophagus, the flicker of mistrust in her posture, the sly arrogance of her smirk—it all registered. Every flick of the eye, every shift of weight. The armor didn't move, but she did. Inside. Calculating. Not deciding what to do.

What to make of her.

The question wasn't whether if she was worthy of the blade. That answer didn't matter. Not here. Not to Virelia.

What mattered was what she could be made into.

The girl was young, raw, defensive beneath a skin of disinterest. But Virelia could taste it in her voice, the irony curdled into softness: the craving to be seen without being known. And that? That was something she could use.

Virelia moved—slow, liquid motion in the armor like flowing tar over steel. She advanced without urgency, no more than a shadow deciding where to fall. Each step whispered control, each subtle curve of her armor catching the gloom in flashes of black-on-black elegance. A predator dressed as an idol.

She stepped around the sarcophagus until she was behind the girl again, within arm's reach this time. She did not touch her—yet. But the silence that trailed her was heavy with implication.

Her voice, when it came, slid down the acolyte's spine like heat under silk.

"You don't need passion."

Pause. The tomb seemed to darken with her presence.

"You need permission."

Each word dripped with quiet command, as if peeled from Virelia's lips with surgical intent. Her tone didn't mock. It invited. It promised understanding in the voice of someone who already owned it. That subtle shift from guidance to corruption—like warm breath against the shell of an ear.

She circled the acolyte again. Not stalking, not pacing. Enveloping. Her presence filled the room now, not with noise or violence, but with will. Smooth, patient, inevitable.

"You say there's nothing to believe in. Then believe in me."

She let that linger. The offer wasn't made out of kindness. It was made like a hand sliding under a collar—measured, dominant, and disturbingly gentle.

The scent of old metal and alchemic resin curled faintly from her armor as she stepped closer. The tomb felt smaller now. The air denser. Like her breath alone was bending the pressure around them.

"You asked what I want."

She tilted her head, helm angling in that slow, inhuman way, each motion designed to unnerve and seduce.

"I want to see what you do when no one stops you."

That was it.

She wanted access.

To every part.

The doubts. The bitterness. The guarded softness beneath all that weight. The little spark of rebellion that burned even when it wasn't needed. She didn't want to tame the girl. She wanted to watch her turn.

Acolytes were easy to mold when they were empty.

But the broken ones—those who filled their hollow spaces with hunger, self-loathing, and scorn? They made the finest monsters.

Virelia's voice dropped to a final whisper. Not for secrecy. For dominance. The low purr of an apex will that had no need to raise itself.

"Take the blade, acolyte. You've already started cutting away who you were."

And then she was quiet.

Just her breath. Just the weight of her presence. Just the hum of the runes on her armor, softly pulsing in time with the acolyte's own heartbeat.

The girl had asked if she was the right one.

She was about to find out.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

When the masked figure moved Valaine's eyes now followed intently. Her tired gaze locked onto her and for the first time in their encounter she was now fully acknowledging the woman that moved towards her. She watched her steady and sure steps, every movement with a purpose however minute. It soon became apparent that Valaine was now moving herself in response, stepping aside and away but doing so in half-hearted fashion, displaying that she was in no rush to keep some distance from the figure but rather just maintaining it.

This masked woman was dangerous, she knew that from the first meeting, but she didn't quite realize how dangerous she was. No weapon needed, no threats, it was all in her voice, and she felt validated in being cautious of it now. Now matter how close the figure would draw to her, Valaine would match her pace and keep that distance between them while once again feigning disinterest. It wasn't a fear of harm that she was now worried about, it was for her mind.

"Permission..." she repeated in response as she kept her eyes on the six that stared back at her. Her guard was up even higher now with such words spoken to her, and then what followed only cemented her defense. This was the type of woman who liked to own others, to control them, if not directly then in their course.

She bit her lip in concern, she was in a tomb with a viper poised to strike at any moment, to inject its venom into her veins if she wasn't careful.

Amidst this caution she forced another arrogant smirk, "Believe in you? I don't know the first thing about you." she replied. Valaine, this frail looking girl, she was more wary of potential manipulation than she should be at her age, but there it was; a keen and bitter understanding of it. How many had already fallen for this sense of belonging and security delivered on honeyed words? She wouldn't be another to add to that list.

At the offer to take the blade, the very reason she even came here in the first place, she was now not only filled with doubt but resolute defiance against what she perceived to be some kind of leash dangling in front of her. Sure, she could take the blade, she could likely gain power under this person, but at the cost she continued to hide from her. But had she exhausted every other path to power yet? Would she just bow and scrape to the first offer of it?

As she continued to steadily maintain distance from the masked figure she drew her back towards the blade on the dias and asked a final question; "And if I refuse to take it?" she asked with a light tilt upwards of her chin, another slight display of arrogant defiance.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine



"Then another will take it."

The blade still waited. But the game had shifted.

The acolyte kept her distance, like a flame resisting the pull of a vacuum. And yet she stayed. Even as her smirk curled with defiance, even as her words dripped with suspicion, she didn't leave. That was all Virelia needed to know. Useful yes, worth breaking.

She prowled, smooth and slow, not closing the distance now—but letting her presence wrap around the chamber again like perfume and silk and smoke. She didn't chase. She didn't need to. The leash was already tightening, and neither of them had touched it yet.

The girl bit her lip like a warning. But it was an invitation.

Virelia's helm tilted, subtle and curious. She let a beat pass, slow as heat rising in a sealed room. Then her voice spilled from the mask again—softer this time, smoother, like wine you only noticed was poisoned when it was too late.

"You already know one thing about me."

A pause. That wasn't jest. It was bait.

"You knew it the moment you didn't turn your back."

She paced sideways, boots whispering over the stone. Her cloak swayed like ritual smoke, its weight not of fabric but of will. She wasn't angry. She wasn't even challenged. She was entertained—and more than that, interested.

"You think I want to own you."

A tilt of the helm. Lower now, watching. Reading.

"I want to corrupt you."

There was no hiding the seduction in her voice now, it was intimate, possessive, calm. It came from someone who knew the end of the story, and only wanted to watch it unfold.

"Go to another, if you must. They'll be kind. They'll be patient."

A low purr filtered through her vocoder.

"They'll let you stay weak, they will offer 'freedom' and 'to break your chains' just because they are desperately mewling for someone to follow their pathetic banners."

She said it like a curse. Or worse—a promise.

"I won't."

That was the line. The fracture. The hook.

She turned her helm slightly, exposing the left flank of her armor—showing the Sith glyphs that snaked up the breastplate, glowing faintly with layered crimson beneath the violet. Runes of binding. Devotion. Command. There were names buried in those runes—none of them her own.

"I take what's mine. I corrupt it, infect it, chain it."

Another step. Not toward the acolyte, but toward the blade.

She stopped before it, silent. Letting its presence do the work. She never looked at it—only at her.

"You refuse?"

She tilted her helm again, the slow, fluid motion of a creature that never needed to strike twice.

"Then walk. Go."

Her voice dropped lower now, just above a whisper—sinuous and soaked in certainty.

"But you'll always know this was where you chose to be less."

The chamber responded like an echo—low wind curling through the bones and cracked stone, whispering around the blade like it knew.

Virelia stood still now, centered, radiant with poised danger. Not angry. Not pleading. Not even expectant.

Just ready.

"Or you can take it."

A breath's pause.

"And learn how deep your hunger really goes."

 

[Valaine Valentine]

As the masked figure prowled the room and spoke her measured soft words Valaine tilted her head ever so lightly at the ones she chose. The thought of exchanging what little freedom she still had for power simply didn't sit well with her, and especially not when the figure was now being so open about her intents. As before, the Sangnir never let her eyes stray from the six that watched her in return, and as the figure paced, so did she, but ever in a fashion that kept the two separated and perhaps even circling.

She gestured towards the figure with a light smirk, "You, you're good at this." she confessed. "I can't imagine refusal is something you often experience?" she asked as she drew in a breath of the decaying dry air and exhaled in a calmer manner than before. "I've met women like you before, choosing all the right words, making all the right promises... But never have I met one that outright stated her desire to chain someone up like a pet, that was usually kept hidden until it was too late..."

As her pacing led her through the room to stand before the narrow entrance they had come through she came to a halt, reaching a hand to rub at the back of her neck beneath her hood with no shortage of nervousness. But there was a thought at the back of her head, one that spoke of resilience, of simply taking advantage of the offer being made to her but never truly submitting. Now that she knew what the masked figure wanted, then surely avoiding it under the guise of cooperation would be easy enough.

Her eyes drifted again to the weapon on the dias with these thoughts of disloyalty, and then that gaze shifted back towards the masked figure. Valaine was certain in her own strength, her ability to avoid falling into these snares set before and ahead her, even if she had to play the part for a while. She breathed another heavy sigh as she shifted her weight to one leg, and it was clear to see that there was deep thought and conflict within her.

With steady trudging steps she started to move forward again, back towards the dias. "I don't much care for deception and riddles... But make me regret this and I will find a way to pay you back tenfold, even if it takes years, no matter how powerful you might be..." she voiced a promise to the figure, one sealed with the eyes of the dead upon them, the stifling rot in the air, and the weapon she now hovered her hand over.

"Though... I'm not sure what you think you know of hunger..." she added as a slender finger traced over the weapon itself, at first it almost felt like a shock to her, or perhaps she had just become so focused on the figure and the atmosphere of the tomb that the sensation of touch had startled her.

Her shoulder slumped lightly and her jaw clenched. With her eyes closed for a moment her hand finally gripped the weapon upon the dias, for better or worse.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine



The moment Valaine's hand closed around the blade, the tomb breathed.

A low, seismic groan echoed through the stone beneath their feet—a sound not of instability, but of something waking. Dust lifted from the floor in gentle spirals. Air stirred as if a vault had cracked open behind the walls. And from the far side of the chamber, a hidden seam in the rock whispered open with agonizing slowness, revealing a narrow corridor swathed in darkness and old incense, untouched for centuries.

Virelia didn't move.

The violet glow of her six eyes gleamed like lanterns beneath a still pool. She stood as she had before, neither reaching for the blade nor flinching at its claim. Her hands remained behind her back, her posture tall, regal, utterly composed. There was no triumph in her stance. No gloating.

Only confirmation.

She watched the girl—watched the way her shoulders twitched under tension, the brief clench of her jaw, the way defiance held her spine straight even as the weight of the tomb tried to bow it.

She said nothing for a long time.

Then—slowly—Virelia began to approach. Not with hunger. Not with heat. But with certainty. Her pace was elegant, deliberate, flowing like ink in water. She stopped when they were close—not close enough to touch, but close enough that the pressure of her presence grazed the edges of Valaine's skin.

Her voice, when it came, was velvet and void, soft and unforgiving.

"I like that you threatened me."

A pause. Just long enough to imply respect.

"It means you understand what I can do to you."

No correction. No condescension. No rebuttal of the girl's warnings. Virelia wanted the fire. The girl's resistance wasn't an obstacle—it was the very shape she intended to mold.

She watched Valaine hold the weapon now. The way her fingers curled around it—awkward at first, like handling the spine of a creature not yet tamed. The blade had weight—not just physical, but resonant. It was not hungry. It was reflective. It had waited for someone who knew better than to grab it without cost. It accepted her because she had refused it first.

Virelia circled her once, slow and wide, her voice following like a leash that never pulled taut.

"You'll lie to yourself before you lie to me. I prefer that."

Each word was a caress against the walls of the mind, not soft out of affection, but precision. She didn't need Valaine's trust. Trust was fleeting. What she wanted was obedience earned through resistance. That made it real.

She passed behind her again, stopping in front of the newly revealed passage. A slow breath escaped her vocoder—synthetic, hollow. Her presence pulsed in time with the glowing runes on her armor, which now burned slightly brighter, fed by the tomb's recognition.

"Let us move further into the depths and tell me, what do you know of the Sith Order in it's current state?"

She looked over her shoulder—not turning, just tilting the helm enough to let those six eyes catch Valaine in full again.

And then, with the grace of inevitability, she turned and walked into the dark hallway without looking back. No command was given. None was needed.

Just a question.

And the choice had already been made.

 

[Valaine Valentine]

Her delicate pale fingers wrapped around the hilt of the blade, finding the grip that was most comfortable to her as she peered over the weapon in her grasp. She pondered how old it might've been, who its previous holder was, and why it was left here in such forgotten reverence. She felt the oppressive weight of the tomb lift only slightly, like she had been standing on its chest until the moment she finally accepted the blade.

At the sound of stone grinding and shifting she glanced towards the disturbance, seeing the crack in the wall that opened and beckoned. More tests? A part of her wanted to sigh in frustration, but she'd shown enough disrespect already, even if the masked figure didn't seem to care all that much for it.

Her form then slouched slightly as she kept the hilt of the blade clasped tightly in a white-knuckled hand, something to squeeze if her nerves were heightened again. At the movement of the masked figure Valaine turned to face her once more. There was still caution in her posture, still a non-verbal message that if she drew too close she was going to back away again. It was safer this way, she thought, but as Virelia did not approach close enough to touch her, she remained where she was.

An awkward chuckle escaped her thin soft lips in response to her words, "The more you tell me that I'm understanding things, the less I feel that I do." she commented, almost surprised by the fact this woman had still not raised her voice at her or shown her any aggression beyond her overwhelming presence. Sith were meant to be cruel, and violent, or she she understood, but perhaps those both came in other forms besides just physical.

Her head followed the masked figure as she was circled, and if needed, she'd awkwardly shuffle to turn around so that she could keep her in sight while she listened to her voice. When she watched her move towards the new opening she trudged along in her usual fashion, but ever maintaining that safe distance. Sometimes she truly pondered just how well this woman could read her body, it almost felt like she was in her mind at times with how accurately she was able to pull her thoughts apart. It only made her more suspicious and distrusting of her.

"Their state? Nothing, really. I didn't keep up with the news of galactic affairs on Jutrand, as far as I was concerned the wider galaxy didn't exist... But I've a feeling you're about to enlighten me anyway, right?" she asked with only the barest hint of arrogance this time. It was a truthful answer, but she never did like admitting to a lack of anything when asked, and in this case it was knowledge.

She followed Virelia into the newly opened passage, entering into the dark behind her with a cautious mind.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine



The corridor consumed them.

Dust-laden dark curled around the two figures like a living shroud. Ancient sconces, cold and long dead, lined the walls in ceremonial symmetry, their bronze faces worn smooth by centuries of silence. The air here was different—denser, deeper, as though untouched by time itself. The walls whispered as they passed, not in sound, but in presence. Memory. Observation.

Virelia moved like water sliding through a vein, her armor whispering across the stone. She didn't look back. She didn't need to. She could feel the girl behind her—hesitant, suspicious, but drawn in spite of herself. Valaine followed like a moth unsure if the flame she chased would offer warmth or oblivion.

The blade had accepted her. That was already more than most.

When the girl finally broke the silence, Virelia slowed. She didn't stop—just shifted pace, enough to draw the attention backward, to invite the question deeper.

"I've a feeling you're about to enlighten me anyway, right?"

A low chuckle filtered through the vocoder, soft as velvet dragged across glass. The kind of sound that wasn't made for humor—but invitation.

She answered, finally, with a voice as slow and measured as shadow stretching across sand:

"I don't enlighten. I unmake."

No rise in tone. No sharpness. Just cold certainty—cutting not by force, but because it had never needed your permission.

She stepped beneath a crumbled archway, trailing a gauntleted hand across the old glyphs, feeling where old power had bled into stone. The next chamber awaited them—small, circular, caked in ash, the remains of a ritual altar barely visible at the center.

Virelia stopped.

Not for reverence. Not even for memory.

But for illustration.

She turned slowly to face Valaine, the soft glow of her runes casting fluid light up the wall behind her. Her six violet eyes burned softly, individually focusing, blinking in slow mechanical rhythm.

"The Empire is not peace. It is not strength. It is not truth."

A pause, perfectly timed.

"It is a lever. One you pull until it breaks."

She stepped closer now, just slightly, each step dragging her presence forward like a wave creeping up the shore. Her voice followed—never loud, never rushed.

"It builds what I need. Armies. Influence. Obedience. The illusion of structure."

A tilt of the helm, the mirrored mask catching Valaine's reflection in fractured symmetry.

"Then I let it rot. Let it collapse on those too foolish to see it was only ever a shell."

She didn't say it with bitterness. There was no love lost. No faith invested. The Sith Empire was a crown she wore not out of loyalty, but utility. And when it stopped serving her—

She would drop it into the fire herself.

Her voice drifted closer again, intimate without closeness.

"Empires burn. So do names. The only thing that endures is what you make others become."

"Or in nicer words, the way you leave your mark in the world is through your interactions with the people around you."

She gestured—not grandly, just with two fingers, idly, like one might dismiss a lesser god. At the altar. At the blade. At her.

"My first lesson to you about the Sith? Never fall for the dream."

She left it there.

No command. No oath. No proclamation of destiny.

Just the truth: raw, clinical, seductive.

Virelia didn't preach empire. She used it. She didn't demand faith. She rewrote it. She didn't need Valaine to worship her. She only needed her to follow. And like most who tried to resist the gravity of power, the girl had already begun to orbit.

The silence returned, soft and watchful. The altar pulsed faintly with dormant memory, waiting.

Virelia turned again, her voice trailing behind like perfume in a locked room.

"Now—ready that sword."

 

[Valaine Valentine]

Valaine trudged lazily through the narrow dark passage, the soft purple glow ahead of her a dark beacon in the night that only briefly illuminated the walls of the hall. She'd broken into many abandoned and forgotten places in her past but never one so ancient and mysterious. The tips of her fingers brushed against the walls, sliding along the surface in a brief touch before her hand lowered to rest at her side once again.

"Unmake? You know, a lot of the words you choose aren't very positive." she commented softly as her eyes peered to the walls and markings that they passed. She still held the weapon firmly in her left hand as they continued. She looked ahead again towards Virelia just as they entered the next chamber. Her gaze was drawn to the room in general, and a pause as she noted the ash. She couldn't see any scorching on the walls and ceiling, so where did the ash come from? The altar itself?

Her grey eyes shifted towards the masked figure who turned to regard her with six of violet. Valaine paused to hear her words once more, trying to make sense of what was being told to her. This one thankfully seemed rather simple, a mistrust that the Sith Order was capable of meeting the goals it set for itself, and much like Valaine herself had planned when she took the weapon, it should be used only for its advantages and then cast aside when it no longer served that purpose.

"Empires burn. So do names. The only thing that endures is what you make others become."

Legacy? It wasn't something that Valaine ever gave thought to with her single-minded desire to just survive and live. She didn't know that she particularly cared for it herself. What was there to remember of a thief in the slums of Jutrand, after all?

Her head tilted curiously at the mention of 'the dream', and her arrogance couldn't help but offer a retort, "Don't fall for the dream, except for yours, right?" she asked. It came to her in a rather 'follow me, not them' manner and so her urge to challenge and confirm it could not be denied, it was almost a compulsion to ask.

At the gesture made she looked to the weapon in her hand and started to make her way into the room proper rather than being stood in the archway. She walked cautiously towards the altar and as she did so she glanced back towards Virelia. "Ready it?" she asked, lifting the weapon up and giving it a light wiggle. "It doesn't turn on, right?" she asked, the blade did after all lack a crystal despite seeming to constantly be smoking from its emitter, but regardless she tried to ignite the blade.

Tags - Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"Talent scouting."

Tags - Valaine Valentine



Valaine's fingers danced on the edge of the altar's truth.

The moment her thumb brushed the activation stud, the tomb responded—not with light, not with the clean ignition of a saber, but with sound.

A deep, thrumming pulse rolled outward from the altar like the echo of a buried heartbeat—felt more than heard. The blade in her hand did not come to life. It shivered. Smoke bled faster from the emitter, curling up her wrist like it sought her veins. The hilt grew cold. Hungry.

The chamber answered.

The ash upon the floor stirred—not blown, not shifted, but drawn. As if the very air had been reversed. A hollow breath filled the room, then sank, and the center of the altar cracked with a hiss. Lines of faint red light bloomed in the stone like veins beneath skin, crawling outward in symmetrical ritual patterns that stopped just shy of where Virelia stood.

She didn't flinch. She didn't speak.

She watched.

Behind her mask, her lips curved.

The wall opposite the altar began to split—not like a door, but like flesh. The stone peeled outward in jagged, wet-sounding seams, revealing a hollow chamber beyond. And from the shadows inside, something moved.

It did not emerge—it spilled.

A mass of writhing limbs, desiccated and blind, fell out of the hole with the sound of snapping cartilage. Arms that bent the wrong way, hands grasping at nothing, at memory, at rage. A face—if it could be called that—stretched with a scream that had no mouth. It dragged itself forward in pulses, its body composed not of flesh, but the ash of a hundred failures. Smoke clung to it like a second skin. Its spine was jagged bone, exposed and sharp like ritual knives stabbed into a priest.

It reeked of sorcery. Of punishment.

And it saw her.

Valaine.

The acolyte.

It didn't pause. It charged.

Virelia watched in silence.

She didn't move to protect the girl. She didn't raise a hand, didn't offer advice, didn't reach for a weapon. Her helm turned to face the abomination, the six violet eyes flaring once—not in alarm, but recognition.

Then her voice, slow and serpentine, cut through the ash like a whispered blade.

"I don't give dreams, Valaine. I give outcomes."

The creature hurtled forward, limbs scraping and clicking over stone like a spider that had forgotten how to be whole. Its scream was felt in the teeth more than heard—raw Force fury, the kind only the dead remembered.

"Legacy doesn't care if you want it."

She tilted her head, watching the girl—not the beast. The test was not in survival. It was in response. What she chose. What she used. What she let break.

"Ready the weapon, as in have it at the ready. I don't think that's a lightsaber."

Another step closer to the edge of the altar, her voice smooth, indulgent.

"Let the monster teach you."

She folded her hands behind her back again, as if observing an opera. She would not interfere. This was the moment the blade had waited for—not ignition, not power, but intention. The sword was a question.

The horror was its answer.

"If you can't kill it, you'll die as something worse."

The ash danced. The tomb roared.

And Virelia smiled.