Private When Shields Shatter.

[Serina Calis]

"How many lies have they told you, how many do they tell themselves?"

Tag - Reina Daival


The lightning faded.

Not all at once. Not in a sharp collapse. It dimmed, slowly, like a bonfire denied its wind. The power that had coiled so magnificently around her wrists now withdrew, hissing in protest, curling back into her veins like snakes retreating into a nest. Her arms fell to her sides. Her posture slackened.

And for the first time in what felt like years, Serina Calis said nothing.

No cutting remark. No calculated strike. Just silence.

She stared at Reina — bloodied, staggering, burning from within not with strength, but with conviction. There was no victory to be had here. No lesson. Just two women standing in a ruin, choking on the smoke of a war they both had lost long before the first blow had ever landed.

Her eyes tracked the trembling grip Reina held on her extended saber. The pain behind the clenched jaw. The way she braced her breath like a ship bracing for impact. Serina's lips parted, just barely.

Not to speak. Just to breathe.

It was then she remembered.

The shield.

Not the one Reina held — but the one Serina had meant to give.

She had come to this planet with plans. Always with plans. To test. To study. To tempt. But beneath it all, there had been something so much simpler, so quiet that even Serina had convinced herself it was nothing more than a whim.

A phrik shield.

Custom-forged. Etched with sigils of the sea. Curved, not sharp. Not a weapon. A defense. A gift. A stupid, meaningless token. But one she'd made plans for. One she'd researched alloys for. One she had envisioned Reina holding — tall and defiant, silver saber in one hand, unbreakable shield in the other. Not as a Sith. Not as a Jedi.

Just Reina.

And now, looking at her?

Broken nose. Bleeding lip. Limbs trembling from Force affliction. And yet… still standing.

Serina's chest tightened.

She had done this.

She had reduced this.

All of her brilliance. Her elegance. Her mastery of the Force. And all she had truly managed to do was take someone who had believed in her — genuinely, stubbornly believed in her — and hurt her. Not to win. Not to protect herself.

But because Serina had needed to prove something.

She didn't even remember what anymore.

Her gaze dropped.

Her hand reached out to the sigil, opening the doors of the chamber.

"…Leave."

Her voice was soft. Hollow. A whisper torn loose from a person who had stopped remembering how to speak gently. She didn't look up. Her hands stayed limp at her sides. She didn't ignite her blade — she didn't even reach for it.

"I said go, Reina."

It wasn't a snarl. It wasn't barked. It wasn't anything at all, really.

It was surrender.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the theatrical, 'fall to your knees' kind.

Just the quiet emptiness that slips into a room when you realize you've become something you once hated.

She turned her back to Reina and walked away — not toward the exit. Toward the center of the chamber. Toward the altar she had once knelt at. Not to use it. Not to pray.

Just to sit.

Her knees folded beneath her with slow motion, every movement suddenly heavy. The armor felt wrong. The cape too suffocating. Her face tilted down to the cold stone floor as her hands rested on her thighs.

And she remembered the girl.

The one who sat here once with scraped palms and a flickering saber. The one who had cried over books no one else cared about. The one who had laughed too easily. Trusted too quickly.

Believed.

That girl wasn't gone. Not really.

Serina had told herself she'd killed her. Strangled her in the dark. Cut her throat and buried her under ritual and rage.

But no.

That girl had watched. All this time. From behind her eyes. From the inside of her ribcage. She had screamed when Serina struck out. She had begged when Serina lied. And now, she was sobbing.

Because Reina Daival had stood in front of her with blood on her face and said she still didn't regret believing.

And Serina had answered with violence.

The worst part wasn't the guilt.

It was that she didn't feel powerful anymore.

She felt pathetic.

Everything she'd told herself — about strength, about fear, about shaping people through pain — none of it felt like certainty now.

It felt like armor on a drowning woman.

She pressed her hand to the floor, felt the cold seep into her palm.

"…I'm sorry," she whispered.

Not to Reina. Not even to herself.

To the girl she had failed to kill.

Because now she'd have to finish the job.

And she didn't know if she could.

 

[Reina Daival]

Location: Underbelly of Coruscant
Tags: Serina Calis
Lightsaber - Pequod
Leg - Anchor

This...This had to be some kind of trick. To get Reina to let her guard down. It had to be. She stood for a few moments, watching as the Lightning faded. It was all she could do to keep herself standing right. Her breathing wasn't steady. Not anymore. It was ragged. Her eyes darted towards the door as they opened up. Okay. Maybe it wasn't some kind of trick. Maybe Serina was finally being honest. And then it was the final thing Serina did that proved to Reina that this was honest. She turned her back to Reina. Serina turned her back to someone wielding a weapon, ready to fight her. And so Reina finally turned off her saber.

She had been told to leave. But Reina was still stubborn. She'd leave on her own accord. Not because she was told to. Reina still had something to do anyway. She hobbled over towards Serina, her walking gait ever so slightly restricted by the fact that her fake foot had been destroyed in the battle and as Serina knelt down, Reina reached out. With no frustration, or anger, or aggression intended for it. She just rested her hand atop Serina's shoulder gently.

"...I still want to see you in the Light some day Serina. I need to take you to a Light Side shrine some day."

Once again. That small implication. Promise. Serina had hurt Reina. She had put cracks in the woman's heart, but Reina still stubbornly had faith in her. Always. Even when she shouldn't. Even when each lesson she had experienced from Serina should have taught her otherwise. It was the one thing she couldn't learn. It was a hopeless cause. But...Reina held out hope. She had realised there was Light even in the hardest to reach places in the Galaxy. Everest had helped open her eyes, and Reina hoped one day she could do the same for Serina.

"...Now if you don't mind me...I need to get back to the Temple before I collapse down in the Lower Levels."

An attempt at humour. She just left at that, leaving Serina with just a soft squeeze on her shoulder. Maybe she should have stayed. She had said that she wouldn't run away...but she wasn't running. She was walking. She had not broken. She had not collapsed. She was proud of herself, even if by all intentions, she should have been dead. Serina hadn't seen her as a true threat. Something that needed to be put down. She still had a heart. It was thanks to that heart that Reina was still alive....but if she had went against any other Sith, she'd be dead or worse.

Either way, she carried on. Making that slow ascension out of the Darkness of the Lower Levels and back into the Upper Levels. Step by step, ragged breath by ragged breath. Reina would need to find some way to keep this a secret from Everest. She could not risk having Serina and Everest come to blows. Because whilst she'd more than likely side with the Light, side with Everest...A part of Reina would die from that choice. She made her way, all the way to the Temple...Back to her dorm...where she collapsed. Letting the exhaustion and pain finally get the better of her as she slumped onto the bed, half of herself sprawled along the floor and the other half resting against the bed...​

 

[Serina Calis]

"How many lies have they told you, how many do they tell themselves?"

Tag - Reina Daival


She didn't look back when Reina placed the hand on her shoulder.

Not because she didn't care — but because she couldn't. Her throat had closed. Her chest was stone. She remained still beneath that gentle, impossible touch, letting the moment press into her like a brand. It would leave a scar.

It should have been a wound. She should've struck. She should've whispered a final lesson. But instead, she let Reina speak. Let her make her vow. Let her say the words no one else ever had the stupidity — the kindness — to say.

"I still want to see you in the Light some day, Serina."

For a breath, Serina closed her eyes.

And in that breath, she saw her.

The girl. The real one. Not a mask, not a lie, not a clever imitation stitched together with spite and trauma. The child. Hunched in this same confessional. Skin pale and streaked with tears, biting her tongue until it bled to keep from crying louder. That girl had knelt right here and made a promise.

That she would never feel that small again.
That she would burn the heavens before she ever let herself be this helpless again.
That she would kill the part of her that trusted.
The part of her that loved.
The part of her that believed.

But she never finished the job.

She thought she had. Thought she'd carved the softness out. That she had drowned that girl in ritual and wrath. That she'd poured molten phrik over her bones and forged the woman she was now. Serina Calis. Shadow-clad. Cold-hearted. Untouchable.

But that girl hadn't died.

She had hidden.

And when Reina said she still believed in her — after all the pain, after all the lightning, after Serina had tried to break her — that girl moved. Not a scream. Not a cry for mercy.

She just… reached out. From the dark. From the corners of Serina's soul. And she smiled.

And Serina hated her for it.

Because that smile was the last chain.

And Serina had come too far. She had bled too much. She had become everything she was now by refusing to feel this. Refusing to hurt like this. Refusing to hope like this.

She waited until Reina's footsteps faded. Until the quiet settled back into the shrine like dust on old stone.

Then she stood.

Slowly.

Mechanically.

Every movement of her armored frame felt like moving a corpse.

She turned her eyes to the altar — not in reverence, but remembrance. The ancient etchings didn't glow for her this time. No Force tremor. No ghostly voices.

Just stone.

Still. Waiting.

And she whispered to it, not with malice, not with fury.

Just resolve.

"I'll come back soon. And I'll do what I should've done all those years ago."

She stepped down from the altar.

Her cape dragged behind her like a funeral shroud.

She didn't look back. Not at the place she had knelt. Not at the ghost in her chest.

She walked into the dark.