Private Weathered Corruption

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The wind along the Valley of the Dark Lords never truly stopped. It whispered through the shattered red stone, curling across the jagged ridges like a thing alive, dragging with it the taste of dust and forgotten blood. Darth Virelia stood at the foot of one of the tombs, where the carved façade of some long-dead sovereign rose out of the canyon wall like a broken crown. The face was half-eroded, its once-perfect lines now a ruin, but the weight of its presence had not lessened. Time only deepened the silence here, the kind that pressed down on the lungs and demanded reverence—or surrender.

She did neither.

Virelia stood motionless in the shadow of the archway, her halberd resting upright at her side, its obsidian haft gleaming faintly where violet light caught the edge. A slow exhale curled from her lips. She had chosen this place deliberately, not simply because it was where the acolytes gathered for their endless trials, but because the tomb itself was honest in its cruelty. The ancient Sith who lay entombed here had not sought to be loved or remembered. Only obeyed. The acolyte she awaited would learn that lesson, one way or another.

The valley below was alive with small sounds—shuffling steps of initiates carrying torches, the hiss of stone disturbed, the faint crackle of distant lightning storms trapped in the chasm walls. Virelia ignored them. Her attention was fixed, inward and outward both, tracing the lines of the Force that seeped from the tomb's threshold. The presence was fetid, hollow, yet strangely eager, like a predator starved of prey. It clawed faintly at her mind, tasting her, testing her. She allowed it. What better welcome than the touch of a thing that knew only hunger? It reminded her of herself.

Her armor bore no dust despite the storm's efforts. The runes etched along its pauldrons pulsed faintly, answering the tomb's low resonance with their own steady rhythm. Her hood was drawn, but not to conceal. Her face was calm, deliberate, violet eyes glimmering with that neon sheen that betrayed neither patience nor impatience, only inevitability.

The acolyte was late, or perhaps only slow. She allowed the anticipation to build in the stone around her, in the gnawing Force that hungered for fresh fear. It mattered little. When the child arrived, Virelia would know what was real beneath their mask. Fear. Hunger. Defiance. All of it could be sharpened, stripped, or broken. That was why she had agreed to meet them here, in the valley's open air rather than the safety of a temple cell. Acolytes trained best when the dust of their ancestors was under their nails, and when the shadows of those who failed stared down from the cliffs.

A faint shift in the current of the valley caught her attention. Not sight, not sound, but the ripple of presence that betrayed a footfall far off, still winding its way toward her.

At last.

Virelia's grip tightened, slow, deliberate, on the halberd. She did not move. She wanted the acolyte to see her exactly as she was: waiting, unbothered, inevitable.

 

[Carisma Rostu]

​

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

The arrogance of the young Sith was debacle, a miserable intelligence that stood overlooking the sands; the Valley of the Sith Lords where those swirling energies engulfed the Sith. She was not late; she chose her deposition by a proxy of her desire. Proudly she stood, caustic eyes overlooking the tombs, her innocence deep throating the energy of the Dark Side. Those tombs, those laid to rest in fashion of celebration was growing tiresome; they died, she stood living, promptly like a monster over ravaged tombs.

Sadly, she believed triggered was nothing of importance, outside a lesson. The deathly air of the Dark Side fumigated over and around her; the energy of the Dark Side impertinently born into her, the genetics from her parents sowed her life into a world of indifference; a product of misguided love. She felt the other, the power radiating like falling black rain, but she shrugged it off. Her travels to this point were uneventful, minus the severed head of a Hississ in hand; a monster meeting another monster, and she held staunch. Survival at all costs, it was the Sith mantra. Weakness....putrid.

And she kneeled, putting that training blade to her side, cusping a handful of sand to her mouth, breathing in the red sand of history. How many Sith, before and after, walked through these valleys? How many tombs of those historic Lords and Ladies have been molested? Dead, taught int the Academies? Rising up, her eyes spied the malignant tumor, the one who thought she could shape her. Oh, how the Sith thought of power.

And she smiled at this enigma.....then Carisma snarled.

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The girl's snarl rolled across the valley like the growl of a starving hound, raw and without polish. Virelia did not flinch. She let it wash over her, let the arrogance breathe for what it was: a mask worn far too soon, lacquered over flesh that had not yet learned what it meant to bleed.

Virelia's lips curved, slow, deliberate, a smile carved out of ice and promise. She did not move toward the acolyte, nor retreat into the tomb's shadow. She let the space between them remain charged, a cord strung taut with expectation. Her voice, when it came, was low velvet—dark silk unraveling, meant to be touched.

"Beautiful," she said, as if the word were not praise but a diagnosis. "The way you bare your teeth, as though you've already conquered the valley. As though you've taken every name carved into these stones and crushed them under your heel." A faint chuckle, like glass breaking softly. "But the sand on your tongue tastes the same as theirs, does it not? The taste of ash. Of inevitability."

Her violet eyes shimmered, catching what little light bled down from the fractured sky. They drank in the acolyte—the blade laid aside, the hississ's head still clutched like a trophy, the defiance that stood straighter than her spine. Virelia let the sight linger in silence long enough to make it unbearable, then tilted her head with feline elegance.

"You came here because you are hungry," she continued, voice tightening into a whisper that carried despite the winds. "Not for food, not for water, but for someone to notice you. To chain your chaos into something sharp enough to matter. You think the Dark Side has already claimed you—yet I see it still gnawing at your bones, not yet satisfied, not yet whole."

The halberd's haft shifted lightly in her hand, more caress than grip, a gesture that made the weapon less a tool of war and more a promise of intimacy. She leaned forward slightly, lips parting with something close to invitation.

"You could kneel to the ghosts of this valley. You could mouth their names, breathe in their dust, pretend their strength is yours. Or—" Her smile deepened, licentious, cruel, "—you could kneel to me, here and now, and let me show you what it means to be more than bones waiting for a tomb. I do not promise safety. I do not promise affection. What I offer is worse, and sweeter."

The air around her thrummed, not from a deliberate push of the Force but from the weight of her presence, steady and inevitable. She straightened, letting the tomb's shadow stretch long at her back, her silhouette framed like a sovereign's statue.

"Tell me, little storm," Virelia breathed, violet eyes locked unblinking on the acolyte. "Do you crave to be unmade and remade? Or will you cling to your pride until it rots you from within?"

 

[Carisma Rostu]

Location: Vallley of the Sith Lords
Gear: Whatever

"Hungry," came her reply through slightly pursed lips as Carisma relaxed the fingers on her hand, letting the severed head to drop silently upon the sand, where in mere seconds would be claimed by those tiny carnivores living underneath. "Such a simple word, this hungry. A word that holds several outlining attachments, and yet as Sith, I am always hungry, craving sadistically for knowledge. That is my food, my water, the substance that will eventually transform me into something far greater than my darkest dreams and desires."

"I don't think the Dark side has already claimed me, I am of the Dark Side...born into it since birth, and yes, it's always gnawing and gnashing at my bones, seeping into my very essence; consuming, corrupting, and most importantly, always reshaping me. But you are right, what fun would it be if I denied myself to be unraveled and restitched into perfection. Only a blind fool would fail to perceive what is being presented to outstretched hands."

Carisma could feel the powerful energy radiating off this enigma, it was all together a different sensation from those Sith Masters, where theirs seemed more predatorial while this individual's tasted differently. A new flavor? Perhaps. More importantly, this creature was offering her a chance to teach her, as a mentor or a Master even. But kneel, that was something Carisma could not do. She was defiant by nature, suffering many painful reprimands from the academy teachers for this. However, each scar cast upon her both physically and mentally only strengthened her resolve to surpass them, to one day be the one holding the whips and hot irons; brandishing upon them the pleasures she held for them from fuming vengeful memories.

"For now, I will accept the proposal to learn from you. However, my prideful nature forbids me to kneel before anyone in a manner of subjection."

Darth Virelia

 

[Darth Virelia]

"To be, or not to be."

Tags - Carisma Rostu

The girl's words curled into the air like incense—arrogant, fragrant with defiance, but intoxicating all the same. Virelia let the corners of her mouth tilt upward, violet eyes narrowing in deliberate, feline amusement. She let silence linger, let the valley hold its breath while Carisma's refusal hung raw between them. Then, without a word, she turned from the acolyte and strode into the tomb.

The shadow swallowed her first, then the violet gleam of her armor's runes, until she was little more than a voice echoing from the stone. "Pride," she called, her tone velvet stretched taut over steel. "You wear it as others wear chains. Every scar you cling to, every refusal to kneel—it is not strength, child. It is a leash you fasten to your own neck."

Her halberd's haft clicked against the stone floor, each measured step a rhythm of inevitability. The tomb's air was heavy, choked with centuries of death and devotion. The carved walls shimmered faintly with mineral veins, their faint glow catching on the steel curve of her smile as she turned her head just enough for the girl to see her profile.

"You mistake kneeling for subjection," Virelia continued, the syllables dripping with licentious pleasure. "It is not. It is alignment. To kneel is to place yourself within the current of inevitability, to let the river carve you into something sharper, harder, more inevitable. Defy it if you wish—thrash, scream, flail—but the water does not break. You will."

She pressed her palm to the stone wall, fingers tracing the outline of an ancient carving half-lost to time. "This tomb," she purred, "is littered with the bones of those who believed as you do. That defiance was freedom. That scars were proof of power. Look where it led them. Their names reduced to dust, their lessons feeding dogs and scavengers." She tilted her head, voice dropping to a sultry whisper that nonetheless carried to the girl at the threshold. "But those who knelt, those who surrendered to something greater, they live on—in me, in you, in every breath that shudders through this valley."

She turned then, her silhouette framed by the jagged arch of the inner sanctum. The violet light in her eyes burned brighter, their glow a seductive promise, equal parts hunger and inevitability. "You claim hunger. You claim knowledge is your sustenance. Then feed, little storm. Step into the tomb, and I will show you how to drink until your bones crack beneath the weight of it."

Her lips curved into something obscene and intimate, a smile meant to seduce as much as to terrify. She let the halberd's butt kiss the stone with a resonant strike, echoing like a heartbeat through the cavern.

"But remember this: you may refuse to kneel before me. I will not demand it. Not yet. But every word, every glance, every lesson… each will bind you tighter than the knees you refuse to bend. You will kneel, whether your body does or not. And when you realize that, it will already be far too late."

She turned again and walked deeper into the tomb, her voice lingering like perfume in the red dust.

"Come."