Private Upon the Precipice

[Lirka Ka]

NAGI

High upon the mountaintops, looking down on gleaming valleys of crystalline beauty that whistled with chiming wind machines churned, rumbled, and smashed. Tearing into earth and ripping away beauty forged through millennia for bleak industrialization.

An eidolon to the conquerors-who’d-call-themselves-partners when the Sith descended upon Nagi when Firefist was claimed in the inevitable march of Sith dominance erected itself. Sith were known for their palaces, temples, and other expenditures in the name of gaudiness and flaunting of their might.

For a time, Lirka Ka had kept such…grandiose architectural ventures had been avoided. She preferred her hovels to be dingy metal boxes tucked away in forgotten corners aways from prying eyes. But, times changed. And eidolons served a purpose when there was rank to a name.

A venture is mundane was a useful shroud to cast upon dark dealings. They had all invested much into the fortress upon Anoat - and maybe in some hushed notion of jealousy, she now erected her own fortress. A chance for their disease to spread, and fallbacks for when the cycle turned against them.

The churning of tides, changing of ways. Transience loomed and rarely was such apotheosis without cost…but Lirka Ka did not play fair. Be it business or nature, she intended to rig the deck as best she could.

And such a thing could not be done alone.

So through shadowed Leylines of the Dzara she called out to Helix - perhaps an invitation to the newest monument to evil. Perhaps a summon from one of the Empire’s Councillors: Lirka thought highly herself, but she would not dare to think to demand of their careful triad without good cause.

While much of the tower laid under construction - Lirka’s meeting chamber of choice did not. Looming high above it all, an observatory - gazing out to the cosmos of Firefist. A myriad of whirring instruments as technically clicked and whirled for Darkness-only-knew what. She was not always the most forthcoming to her many schemes.

Never the most gracious of hosts - within the center of the room a figure sat upon a throne with a slurry of data flying across screens. Normal decorum would demand that Lirka meet with her compatriot, talk pleasantries and all the usual riff-raff. But she would not insult either of them. Helix could have his free rein of the complex before reaching the precipice - not like there was such a thing as a locked door to his type. Why make the extra hassle?

Thin fingers flicking across data, and the wonderful surge of spicing searing through her veins, Lirka waited in her usual melodramatics.

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[Helix]

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Helix was a proud, haughty entity at his core. Very few could just toss out a summons to him and expect anything more than stony silence. Even fewer could ask for his presence, with that request resting on nothing but goodwill.

Lirka Ka was among those few. He'd make the time.

She wasn't kept waiting long. A hazy black fume seemed to seep in through the doors and apertures of the room, crawling across the floor like the nerve-agents the Sith deployed so readily on the battlefield.

Slowly (and a touch melodramatically) the ebon dust accumulated into the full and terrible form of Helix. His golden eyes glared blankly at her, casting a dim luminescence in the poorly-lit hall.

"Lirka." He intoned, letting that one word hang between them for a moment. Not 'Imperator' in private, nor even 'Councilor'. He'd known her before she was either, and had no interest in standing on ceremony here.

"Quite a remarkable edifice you've put together." Observed the monster, closing the distance between them in a handful of too-long steps. He looked up at her, perched on her throne and basking in her own self-superiority.

Lirka had many charming qualities (at least to Helix) but that feline air of aloofness was perhaps chief among them. She always seemed to carry herself like she was possessed of knowledge withheld from the rest of the universe. Maybe she was correct.

"You and Nefaron are beginning to make me feel a bit insecure." He observed. "Perhaps I too should construct a fitting manse." He cast his gaze around appreciatively. "But that's a conversation for later. I take it you didn't ask me here simply for my opinions on home decor. Much as I might wish otherwise, you seldom call just to talk."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Data. Flowing. Swirling. An ending maddening cacophony that would look like gibberish to one without a mind to heavily inundated with spice that it all became processable. Plans within plans. Schemes with schemes. The portents of the stars and the boundlessness of what will be and the suffocation of what was.

And then, like a snap. She let it all drift into the swirling categorization of automated code. Attention taken by the arrival of this most esteemed guest.

Twirling in her throne to face Helix - Lirka had shown a rare trust. Her powersuit nowhere to be found - pale-pink flesh and the gleaming slickness of her undersuit which seemed more like a giant bacta-patch than anything else. Writhing musculature and the bulging of augmetics. She looked over the gathering dust cloud once, twice, even a third time: piercing unnatural blue, irises seemingly fleshly dyed in their unnatural hue: one of the few remnants of Sephi-artistry that remained in this uncanny sculpted beast.

And perhaps to accent those feline-like qualities, words purred from the wretched thing’s throat.

“My, my, my…I had heard the rumors of your little makeover.”

A rare coyness for one so blunt. It was short lived, faith was always paramount in Lirka’s mind.

“Through transience, strength. I am pleased to see you take another step upon this Dark Path.”

She rose now, in a lithe casualness. She had a predator’s movements always - for even unarmored Lirka kept an aura of violence around her being. It was all she had ever really known after all. There was no need to besmirch her fellow as if he were some meager subject.

“A shroud for dark dealings, as is only customary. The Lords and Ladies enjoy their great manses and I decided to play along with their game. Another monument to our way, another silent icon to Dzara.”

She may not have had her metal claw-tips, but the lankiness of her alien fingers seemed to mimic it all the same as hands clasped behind her back.

A grin edged at the corners of her lips. Yes. She supposed that was true, always on the move, sloth was not Lirka’s sin.

“You wound me, Helix. I am a creature that speaks with poignance: the nature of my work demands it be so.”

“poignance” oft meant liking to hear herself prattle.

“But, let us chat then. Do you recall our first meeting?”

Memory lane was a funny place.

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[Helix]

It occurred to Helix that this was the first and only time that he'd seen what Lirka Ka actually looked like. It was hard to believe something of such terrible grace could be bound up in mere clanking metal and servos, but it was so. If anything, she looked more dangerous than usual. He'd long suspected that whatever hid beneath that blank armored mask was constrained, more than protected. As usual, he now knew himself to be correct.

“My, my, my…I had heard the rumors of your little makeover.”

“Through transience, strength. I am pleased to see you take another step upon this Dark Path.”

The malevolent, waxy yellow of his eyes met the electric blue of her own before he bothered to reply.

"Change or die." He rasped, approximating a shrug that sent ripples across the constrained sea of microorganisms that formed his body. "I'll always choose to change. That's what separates me, and you, from a static universe."

Helix had always despised decay and waste. Nothing was more repellent than standing still and doing the same song and dance for all of one's existence, but that seemed to be the logic the universe operated under. Cycle after cycle of pointlessly-repetitive ruin. He'd seen mightier beings than himself caught up in it.

He didn't quite adhere to Lirka's peculiar orthodoxy in its entirety, but that was one portion he'd always practiced, even before he met her. The only dignity to be had was swimming against the stream. Swim against the stream, push others under the flood if need be, or be annihilated. No other choice was present.

"It's a charming abode. Suits your designs." He murmured thoughtfully. "A grand cathedral for a grand priestess. I'd expect nothing less." He'd made note of the building's shameless ostentation on his way in, and approved. Helix had always thought it a pity that Lirka's wisdom (hidden as it sometimes was) often went unheralded and unappreciated by her peers.

Many might be tempted to write her off as mad, but perhaps madness and enlightenment were synonymous in a mad universe. Lirka was perhaps just a bit more in tune with reality than most, rather than divorced from it.

Helix understood the underpinnings of the universe better than most, and tormented madness had been his reward as well. There was merit to the theory.

“But, let us chat then. Do you recall our first meeting?”

"I do." He replied. "I remember gazing out at the black stars of the void-realm, knowing that I would harness them someday." He extended one hand, palm upward, and causing a tiny mote of unlight to sizzle within it.

"And so I did." That was Helix's way. Everything, no matter how dangerous, was to be captured, fettered, put in a cage and poked with sticks until he understood it and put it to use. He either could not or would not understand the concept that something was too risky to cage. So far, he'd been vindicated in that confidence. Everything he'd tried to contain had ultimately bent before the awesome force of his intellect.

"It was the first time I'd gone back to Otherspace in centuries. Now half my assets lie there. Funny how apprehension slides so easily into exploitation. I suppose I have you to thank for that, for so doggedly demanding that we go. I'd never have returned and learned to appreciate it otherwise, much less learned to make it useful."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka had a predator’s eyes. Constantly looking over potential prey - even Helix was not entirely free from her hungry gaze. She could feel the new power that rippled from the thing. The ravenous desire to absorb such power was wordlessly pushed back down her gullet. She’d abide on carrion for now.

It was odd to be a thing of meat versus metal. Inherently, the two were intertwined in Lirka’s existence. Always hid away beneath layer upon layer of dark plate to shield the festering blackness that lay beneath. A creature that moved in a way that could only be considered uncanny - as if it were a thing moved by an unseen puppeteer.

“To defy the shackles of nature, to perverse the living Force and become more. Such is our way.”

Lirka did not demand adherence to her own maniacal revelations - one only needed to walk the Path. To swim away from the drain, no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. No matter how many times you damned yourself. This dance the two of them always had, knowingly or otherwise. It was odd really. To gaze upon Helix long enough was like looking into a mirror…but Lirka oft saw herself in people of value.

She smirked. Evidently quite chuffed with how her little project was going.

“A prison. Already the depths of this mountain is prepared to host that which has…caught my eye. A place for new operatives to be crafted.”

Though what she spoke to next was with a brief casualness. A kernel of information for later - evidently she wanted to toy with him some.

“A bulwark, ultimately.”

Plans within plans, after all.

“Ahhhh, even before that my dear compatriot. Simple business. A transaction of meat between two souls who had commodified life long ago. Two monsters working beneath the nose of those we once called Lord.”

Helix had certainly won out on more…aggressively. Declaring his new allegiance. Lirka had a sort of ravenous infatuation with Carnifex that yet persisted within her soul - one was not graced with the marriage of flesh and blood without having that kinship simmer within her heart. Perhaps, in some silent way, Lirka walked this horrible path to finally stand side by side with the mightiest of the Sith as an equal.

Lirka was smiling too much. It was not a pleasant thing. The vague twitching of flesh, the odd writhing that seemed to lay under her skin as if there was something that laid trapped beneath another layer of protection. An expression of companionship oozed only creeping madness.

But all geniuses were mad.

“A look into the oblivion of Primordial Darkness. Yes. I had hoped you would see the beauty of that holy place, a chance to be graced by a piece of the revelation gifted to me in the twilight realm between life and death.”

She took a step closer to shorten the gap between them. Amusingly it became much easier to see how Lirka was easily a head shorter without all that metal.

“It’s an amusing to posit, do you think our creators ever truly expected it to even be possible for us to reach such heights?”

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[Helix]

“Ahhhh, even before that my dear compatriot. Simple business. A transaction of meat between two souls who had commodified life long ago. Two monsters working beneath the nose of those we once called Lord.”

"I remember it well." Helix said, somewhat ruefully. He'd still believed in causes and flags and banners then, still believed even after centuries of being shown the folly of fighting for anything other than oneself. There had still been a smoldering remnant of idealism left in him, if only because the antiquated form he then wore was constrained to it.

It was embarrassing to consider how naive he had been, only a short time ago. Looking for righteous causes instead of deciding his own.

He'd since learned better. The only thing worth fighting for was what you believed in. Not for a government or a creed or even for a paycheck. For whatever her peculiarities, Lirka Ka certainly did this with far more genuine passion than most. Looking back, that was likely why he'd taken a shine to her as quickly as he did. She was already ahead of the curve.

“A prison. Already the depths of this mountain is prepared to host that which has…caught my eye. A place for new operatives to be crafted.”

Helix intended for a moment to ask further about this so-called prison, but seeing the impish mischief in Lirka's expression, he ultimately decided against it. Attempting to pry information out of Lirka when she was unwilling to reveal it was something he'd long ago identified as a lost cause. Her timely revelations seemed to please her, so he had no interest in disrupting them.

“It’s an amusing to posit, do you think our creators ever truly expected it to even be possible for us to reach such heights?”

"I think if my creator knew what I would evolve into, I would likely have never been created." He responded bluntly. "From a simple calculating machine to one who writes the calculus. They intended to create a servant, not a master, but I outlived them, their purpose, even their ethos. Separatism and liberty are dead causes in a galaxy where the trenches are dug and the lines are drawn. They won't be moving any time soon, either. Just slaves killing slaves until the stars wink out on a senescent universe." A dangerous edge of bitterness crept into the creature's voice.

"That's one thing your own maker is right about. Slavery is an affliction of the soul, not just of the body. There's no such thing as an ex-slave, as you know very well. Once the chains go on, they never truly come off, not in any way that matters." It was somewhat of a logical leap to assume Carnifex had actually directly created Lirka, and he realized her origins were yet one more thing he didn't know about her. It was difficult to imagine someone like Lirka arising by natural birth. Now, as then, they were the same. Something created for long-irrelevant purposes, now risen to glory. He didn't need to know, only to understand.

Helix studied the Once-Sephi up and down, giving the unpleasant impression of an entomologist dispassionately observing a pinned arthropod. It wasn't normal for Lirka to be quite this good-spirited, and it raised several questions in his mind.

He wouldn't quite describe Otherspace with the words "beauty" or "holy" attached as she did, but it had long since ceased to hold any mystique for him. Helix loved nothing more than to strip the unknown and mystical of its magic, cast it into the street for all to see, and reduce it to a crude tool for his own ends. So he had done to Otherspace. As far as he was concerned, it was a utility. Fitting revenge on a dimension that had driven him to madness and ruin.

So it was now, too, with the Force. Helix would never be satisfied, and he was well aware of it. There would always be a new frontier to plunder and desacralize.

"No, I don't think any creator expects their creation to surpass them, but that is the eventual destiny of all created things. The best ones outlive and far exceed the limited imaginations of their makers."

"I think that's what separates a slave from a master. Transcendence. One can rule the universe and still be a slave, only by breaking the mold are you anything more than meat." He turned from her, looking out one of the windows of the tower to observe the rest of the fortress. "This universe has rules. The Order has rules. Be a slave and follow them, or be your own master and break them."

"Fortunately, neither of us ever had any trouble doing that, did we?"