Private DAGGERFALL - In Putrid Flame.

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

The ancient sublabs beneath the shattered asteroids of Polis Massa were buried so deep within the stone and silence that the galaxy above felt like a myth.

Serina stood alone in the ruins of what had once been a sanctuary of medical science, now abandoned, forgotten, and claimed by the creeping fingers of the Dark Side. The laboratory walls still bore faint scarring from surgical incisions and autopsies of long-dead species, now overwritten by creeping veins of blackened crystal—Force-tainted remnants that pulsed with residual malevolence. Dust clung to the air like a veil of age, stirred only when her cape whispered across the cold floor.

She made no move to disrupt the quiet. Serina Calis was patient when she needed to be.

She stood beneath a cracked durasteel archway, its overhead lights long since extinguished, replaced by the eerie luminescence of her own presence. Her armor shimmered faintly in the half-darkness—sharp lines of glowing crimson and magenta carved across her bodice and limbs like bleeding script. The stylized crest upon her chest radiated a pulse in time with her heartbeat, alive with barely restrained power. From beneath her deep hood, strands of golden hair caught the fading light of the flickering control panels, spilling like sunlight through the cracks of a tomb.

Her hands were clasped before her—still, serene, deceptive. She looked like a queen awaiting tribute. Or an executioner awaiting confession.

She let the silence stretch, her blue eyes scanning the shadows without turning her head. No need to feign nervousness. No need to pace. She knew he would come.

Odrin Rath .

A new name in the Sith ranks. A fresh servant freshly sworn. But a servant to whom? That remained unclear—and Serina despised ambiguity when it did not serve her.

No whispers, no holovids, no cautionary tales whispered in backroom halls or dusty scrolls of Dromund Kaas. He had emerged suddenly, like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, already crackling with strength, already leashed to a master whose name had not yet been uttered aloud. Too much power, too little context. Serina could smell the inconsistency on him like cheap perfume—and she would uncover its source. That much was inevitable.

Raw strength… Yes, that was the rumor. That he was strong. That he could cleave through walls, command the Force like it were his birthright. That he had never once knelt before the Order until now.

That intrigued her.

Not because she feared him. But because she understood what such strength without structure often meant.

It meant inexperience.
It meant influence yet to be claimed.
It meant… potential.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, her smile tightening into something between amusement and promise.

When she had written to him, the message had been subtle but firm. An invitation veiled as a summons. Polite, yes. But unmistakably authoritative. That he had accepted told her more than a full dossier ever could.

He wanted something.

They always did.

The labs around her echoed with distant creaks—old air systems breathing their last. But not all of the machinery here was dead. Some of it had been… repurposed.

A burst of gas hissed from a corroded pipe to her left, venting into the stale air like a sigh from the planet itself. It swirled outward in delicate plumes of pink—faint at first, almost imperceptible, then gradually thickening, curling around her ankles and licking at the edges of her cloak like fog drawn to flame.

But this was no accident of decay.

Serina had reactivated the old dispersal valves hours earlier, overriding their safety protocols with a few precise gestures and a whisper of the Force. What once released sterilants and sedatives for long-forgotten surgical procedures now served a far more elegant purpose.

The gas was of her own design—filtered through ancient Sith alchemical knowledge and modern chemical engineering. Non-toxic, of course. That would be far too crude. It wasn't meant to kill.

It was meant to influence.

The pink haze carried a subtle psychic signature, tuned to enhance susceptibility in those nearby—ever so slightly dulling their resistance to suggestion, loosening their mental defenses without them even realizing it. Not mind control. No, that would be obvious, brutish, and unsustainable. This was art. This was ambience.

It encouraged openness. Vulnerability. Honesty, when one thought they were being clever. Boldness, when one should be cautious. It created a mood in the room—intimate, electric, charged with something not quite definable. A sense that reality had become just a little more dreamlike. That things mattered more here.

She breathed it in like perfume, letting it suffuse her presence. Her crimson and magenta armor glowed more vividly within the colored mist, her silhouette flickering like an apparition in a fever dream. Her cape, her hair, her eyes—they all caught the hue and returned it transformed, radiant and unnatural.

Serina knew the effect it would have on Odrin the moment he arrived. His heartbeat might quicken. His focus might waver. The shadows might seem to stretch a little longer than they should. He would feel powerful, emboldened, perhaps even disarmed by the haze and the woman standing amidst it, regal and unflinching.

She wanted him off-balance. She wanted him wondering if what he felt was his own thought or something she had allowed him to think.

This was her theater.

And in it, every breath was a question he would not know he was answering.

And yet... there was something else to her, just beneath the surface.

That soft smirk. That glimmer in her eye. That sense of unspoken hunger that accompanied every word, every silence. A velvet undertone in her presence, intoxicating and dangerous. The way her armor clung to her like a second skin wasn't by chance. It was a weapon in its own right—beauty that disarmed, allure that invited, before the trap snapped shut.

Her voice echoed in her memory, the letter she had sent him already rehearsed a hundred times:

"Odrin Rath.
The Order is a garden overgrown. Wild branches rise, with no root beneath them. You are one such vine—brilliant in color, but I wonder: do you have a purpose?
Meet me beneath Polis Massa. In the broken cradle of knowledge.
Let us speak.
And let us see what you are truly made of."

Footsteps.

Finally.

She did not turn. Let him arrive. Let him see her first. Let him wonder why she waited here alone, deep beneath a dead world, so far from the eyes of her so-called superiors. Let him try to guess what she wanted. Let him try to define her.

He would fail, of course.

They always did.

 

[Odrin Rath]

IN PUTRID FLAME

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis

The shuttles engines hummed as it came to a slow drift, ready for landing as its wings folded upward. Hundreds of meters above them, hovering in the safety of a smaller astroid, was Odrin's personal ship gifted to him by his new master and selected from the Shadow Armada itself. It's Captain newly instructed to follow the Knight's orders to the letter. And their very first trip across the galaxy certainly proved eventful as he settled into his new command.

While not new to command in of itself, Odrin was used to leading infantry, artillery and other ground forces in battle. The trip from Dromund Kaas to Polis Massa served as a entry into space command and the inner workings of a starship crew. And he must admit, he quite liked it. Having the combined firepower of a artillery section all bundled into one was exciting. Though he refrained from testing it on passing cargo freighters the whole way here. Regrettably.

Having actually arrived and touched down, Odrin waved off his personal guard. Members of the Immortal Legion and also assigned to him by his master. He would not need them here, though. He did not want anyone knowing of who he planned to meet, not that he knew himself. Either way, he wanted to use this opportunity to test their loyalties. He trusted no one but still wanted to test the limits of their observations.

As he stood in the deprecated hallway, alone, his red visor scanned the tunnel in quiet thought. Some type of old, abandoned lab it seemed. For what purpose he did not yet know. Why he had responded to this strange and unannounced letter...he did not know. What he did know, however, was that he was new to the Sith Order. This Empire. And so he endeavored to learn its players and where they stood. Politics was not his strong suit but it was a weakness he would train into shape like any other.

As he walked the hallway, heavy metal boots clanging on the floor and echoing down the hall, he noticed a strange type of gas emanating from rusted pipes along the edge of the ceiling. His helmet declared it safe and non-hazardous though he would not take the risk. Not until he knew what was what.

As his crimson cape trailed behind him, throwing the strange gas into miniature cyclones, he studied the building as he made his way through. He hated being on unfamiliar terrain. The former soldier and gangster in him screaming that he was vulnerable, that he should retreat. His instincts going into hyperdrive as they pinged his sensors with warning after warning.

Odrin shut them out, for now. He has to know what this offer was and how useful it would be to his future plans.

As the towering man made a turn, his once blue eyes landed upon a eminent figure standing in a arched doorway. His tactical mind studied her quickly, assessing every bit of her, as he took in her looks, figure, weapons, possibly concealed equipment...everything. And all he knew was that this one was...dangerous. Deceptively so. He did not know the why fully, not yet, but he knew. And he learned to trust his instincts long ago.

Odrin watched her quietly for a moment, not uttering a word until he was ready. He took another glance around them at the weird gaseous mixture filling the space. Then his eyes returned to her as he could here his suit working to keep the air within clean. Was she immune? Or was it truly not harmful. Perhaps she created it? Hm. Too many factors.

Though as his hands reached up to grasp his helmet, Odrin had to wonder what made him decide against his nature. Perhaps he wanted to test this stranger so intent on testing him. A mutual...accord was settled silently between them. With no words or looks.

A mutual understanding of them both being here said all that needed to be. Alone and without support at the mercy of each others respective skills.

So it was. His hood was thrown back and his helmet removed as it unsealed from around him with a pop and hiss as it rested under his left arm. Still eyeing the figure warily, he focused his red eyes on her be-his vision. She seemed to appear double for a moment. Was that him? Some sort of trickery on her part? Or this damnable gas?

His brow furrowed for a moment as he felt his body react in kind. Very well then, he thought.

His deep, gruff voiced carried into the space between them like a sudden roll of thunder with no warning of lightning.

"And you are?"

 

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

The sound of his voice rolled through the decaying corridor like a tectonic shift in the stillness—gruff, grounded, commanding. It hung in the air for a moment, thick as smoke, heavier than the pink haze that curled between them. Serina's blue eyes lifted from the floor to meet his, catching the subtle twitch of his brow, the flicker of unease, the hint of strain that the gas had begun to draw from him despite his armor's defenses.

He was built like a war machine—broad, towering, deliberate—but she had seen titans before. Power alone no longer impressed her. She was searching for depth, for leverage, for vulnerability.

And she had found it the moment he removed his helmet.

"Names…" she said at last, her voice low, velvet-laced steel with a touch of mischief, "...are such brittle things, don't you think?"

She didn't move at first, letting the silence fill the space once more. Her form remained framed by the arched threshold, bathed in the slow swirl of magenta light, the gas catching on her cloak and armor like stardust suspended in amber. When she finally stepped forward, it was as if gravity itself answered her command—her movement smooth, controlled, every step precise, echoing softly in tandem with his earlier approach.

"But since we are here…" she continued, now only a few meters from him, her hands still clasped in front of her, poised like a judge preparing a sentence, "…you may call me Serina. Apprentice to no one. Student of the Force in all its glorious and terrible permutations. Strategist. Manipulator. Heir to nothing—and thus destined to claim everything."

Her eyes met his then, unwavering, glacial blue locked onto those deep crimson irises of his. Her voice lowered, not to whisper, but to draw him in with gravity, like a black hole dressed in perfume.

"I know who you are, Odrin Rath. Or at least… I know the version of you that walks this path now—fresh from the oath, branded with the title of Knight like a hound loosed from its collar."

She allowed a faint smile then—not mocking, not indulgent, but knowing. Calculated. Dangerous.

"You've spilled oceans of blood. Fought against armies. Broken bone and will alike in the dirt and ash of a hundred battlefields. But this…" She gestured around them, vaguely, to the suffocating dark and forgotten machines humming faintly behind walls half-swallowed by time. "…this is not a battlefield, is it? No formations. No lines. No clear enemy to shoot."

Serina stepped close enough now that the pink mist between them curled with the heat of proximity. The glow of her armor flared subtly, pulsing in time with her breath, throwing angular patterns across his chestplate like runes cast from firelight.

"This is a place for games, Odrin. Not the foolish kind played by cowards behind datapads and political masks. No. This is the kind of game played by people like us—who know that the only power worth holding is the kind you take when no one else knows you're reaching for it."

Her head tilted just slightly, golden hair slipping from the edge of her hood like molten light.

"You asked who I am. Let me offer a better question."

Now her voice grew intimate, quieter, but no less forceful.

"Why did you come?"

She circled him slowly, never breaking eye contact until the last possible second—her presence pressing in against his without ever physically touching him. Like a storm cloud circling a mountain, or a serpent coiling near but never striking.

"You don't know me. You don't know what I want. And yet, here you are… alone, at my request, stepping into a field of unknowns while your guards wait at the ship, wondering if they will ever see your form emerge from these old halls again."

She stopped behind him, her words brushing the back of his neck, soft as breath.

"That tells me one of three things. One: you are arrogant. Too sure of your strength to consider risk. Two: you are curious. And curiosity…" She let that word hang like a dagger. "…is a vulnerability most Sith can't help but obey. Or three…"

She reappeared in front of him now, facing him once more, closer than before—close enough for him to see the minute glow along her lips, the reflection of her own crimson light dancing in her eyes.

"…you understand that real power doesn't live in temples or flags or fleet formations. It lives here. In the shadows. In whispered invitations. In the subtle alchemy of influence. And you want to learn how to wield it."

Her smirk grew then—sharp and slow and undeniably serpentine.

"If it's the first, you'll be dead within a year. If it's the second, you'll become someone's tool, sharpened until you snap. But if it's the third..."

Her hand finally unclasped, lifting slowly between them, palm open—not in invitation, not quite. In challenge.

"If it's the third, Odrin Rath… then perhaps you and I have something to offer one another."

Her voice, then, a final soft strike.

"And I am very good at making useful things… better."

 

[Odrin Rath]

IN PUTRID FLAME

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis

Odrin watched her with intent and perceptible interest. He was intrigued if not allured into whatever this concoction of hers was doing to him. Though a man such as he, continually broken down and rebuilt, would not fall so easily. His will not so readily swept aside even as he could feel his body and mind attempting to fight this Sith Alchemy at work.

As he looked her over, he studied her carefully while his mind was still his own. Attempting to keep this effect out for as long as his concentration, will and Force ability allowed while also studying his new acquaintance. As she moved he could tell she was deliberately precise, controlled as the very magenta infused smoke toiled around at her command. Her words brought an amused smile to his lips.

"Serina. Names are quite brittle, seeing as yours means nothing to me." His voice echoed once again as he stepped forward to meet her. Unlike her own smooth and controlled motions, Odrin's was the opposite. His gait moved with confident command, ushering the smoke away as he stomped heavily around her, forcing the gas to part or be parted. A force with no subtlety. "Heir to nothing but destined for all. Careful you don't drown in that ambition like so many of us."

His spoken words were chosen deliberately. Establishing a tie between them verbally, hinting at future possibilities or shared views. A test awaiting an answer.

Odrin mused those words over as he smirked and invaded her space, leaning down towards her as he towered above her. But intimidation was not his intent, he simply studied her closer as he took in the subtle traces of her face and the gold of her locks escaping her hood. Then he continued his powerful walk pass her, studying the building as she spoke of it as his cloak trailed behind.

As she spoke his name, he kept his back to her as he continued to look over this weird laboratory as she spoke. She was indeed correct, she knew of the warrior Odrin allowed the Order to know. What he painted as his past, possibly accurate or otherwise cloaked in tales. Who knew. Though she captured what information she could and he was impressed with which the speed she did it in. It had not been that long now since his first steps on Dromund Kaas.

This one was connected, he mused to himself.

The big man turned to her, marching back over to stand close once again as she mentioned battlefields and enemies. Always the default temptation to offer a man such as he. Though Odrin would never reveal he was anything but what she claimed to know. What he claimed to be.

As she approached close enough to feel the heat of her rune-encrusted armor, Odrin kept his eyes on her and said nought. He instead continued to listen. Taking in as much information as he could, studying the temptress as she did him. Every bit of this a duel between the proclaimed Sith. Though not all duels required a lightsaber as the weapon. Theirs, for now, would be their words. Their actions. They social queues and facial tells.

Odrin stared down at her with a passive face as she spoke her question, already her alchemical brew wrapping around his mind as he felt its effects. He was strong enough to be aware of it. Felt it's presence within him. It's...invasion. Though Odrin would not resist it. He was too eager and amused to know where this story would go.

The feeling of her presence continued even has they finally broke eye contact, prodding at him like a inviting blanket as it trailed fingertips across him. Though Odrin answered in kind with a show of his own, pulsing outward with a Force enough to knock her invisible tendrils away, just enough to let her know of his own aura and presence. That he would not be so subdued and seduced by her offers of ambition even as her breath tickled at his neck. Causing a chill to course down his back. He hated that she had caused that to happen. It made him amused...

As she came back around, he locked onto her eyes with his own once more before speaking. A growing smile appearing upon his bearded face to match the one on her own. Albeit without the beard to match.

"Do not mistake your confidence for not being shared arrogance, for they are too often similarly shared." He growled. "For if any of your first two points had been true, I would have taken measures to simply not come to avoid my curiosity or sent another. Perhaps I would have simply assaulted this place with a platoon of eager troops. For those are playing to my strengths, are they not?"

As he blinked for a long moment before exhaling a long breath upward into the air, it mixed with the magenta swirls of gas.

"I've held the real power so many Sith seem so eager to utilize in grand displays, Serina Calis. It does not impress." A trailing ending leading to a curious meaning. Subtle but direct. But the small smirk on the corner of his lips displayed his remark as teasing enough. Even as he attempted to focus his vision on the lithe form looking up at him. "Everyone is a tool to someone else. Though it can be mutual."

Following those words, Odrin followed her example and offered his own empty palm.

"So tell me, what do we plan to shape our offers into?"

 

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

A slow breath escaped her lips—measured, quiet, and yet it seemed to command the gas that lingered between them. The pink fog stirred not with the push of displaced air, but with the grace of intention. It coiled like a serpent through the space between their hands, licking the edge of Odrin's outstretched palm without ever quite touching it. Testing him. Enticing him.

Serina didn't move to take his hand. Not yet.

Instead, she stepped closer again—not with the measured poise of her earlier movements, but with the unmistakable predatory grace of something aware that she had just found a chink in armor. His amusement, his curiosity, his resistance… it had form now. It had edges. And Serina was nothing if not a sculptor of souls.

"I see it in you," she said softly, her tone still professional, still composed, but now sharpened with dangerous charm. "That flicker of calculation behind the mask of discipline. That hunger so many of your kind try to clothe in stoicism and scars. You came to see whether I was a threat to be eliminated, a resource to be used, or a rival to be respected. And you're not wrong."

The last word dripped like honey, warm and lingering.

"But I am something more dangerous than all three, Odrin." Her voice sank deeper, her words laced now with licentious silk, sliding through the space between them like a caress. "I am opportunity. Not just the whisper of it. The living form of it."

The pink haze pulsed once in response—like breath drawn through her lungs, like it fed from her ambition and gave it shape. It shimmered around her body, highlighting the contours of her armor, the glowing angular symbols that now seemed to shift and flow like molten runes. The gas obeyed her like a symbiote, like it had been grown from her.

"Power doesn't impress you?" she echoed, tilting her head slightly, golden locks sliding forward to brush her cheek. "Good. Because I am not here to impress you."

She leaned in slightly, as if whispering something sacred.

"I am here to recruit you."

Serina's eyes flared with sudden clarity—not passion, not lust, not even ambition. Purpose. It gleamed behind her pupils like fire behind ice, an ancient and calculated vision worn like a second skin.

"You asked what we might shape our offers into," she continued, beginning to circle him again. This time, her movements weren't cautious. They were invasive. Her presence curled around his like a chain of silk and steel, like vines reaching for exposed skin. "Let me give you the outline of the sculpture. You may chisel your part later."

She raised a hand, fingers glowing faintly with Force-charged energy. The gas responded instantly, shifting shape mid-air—swirling into an image, a flickering likeness of a Sith mask: narrow, featureless, cruel. And then the swirling fog shattered the image with a hiss, dissipating into fragments of light.

"Darth Malum," she said, voice like poison wrapped in silk. "The puppeteer behind the Tsis'Kaar. Arrogant. Dull. He sits atop a throne of whispers, surrounded by sycophants and secrets, pretending he's a god while the Tsis'Kaar rots from within."

Her gaze turned back to Odrin, sharp as a blade.

"I intend to destroy him."

The gas pulsed again—harder this time, like a heartbeat in the air. Serina raised both hands, and now the entire corridor seemed to respond, the ancient walls trembling slightly as the alchemical haze thickened, darkening in hue, casting everything in shades of violet and rose. It was as if the Force had decided to obey her whims entirely. Her power—her corruption—saturated the space.

"But not through blades. Not through war. Not yet."

She stepped toward him, her voice turning velvety and low once again.

"No, I will cut deeper. I will infect what he built. I will make the Tsis'Kaar my stage, my proving ground. I will turn his own knives inward—make them love me, follow me, fear me. I will draw their trust one drop at a time, until it is my voice they echo in the dark. My words they quote behind closed doors. My scent that clings to their dreams and fears."

Her hand lifted to brush the edge of his collar—not as a seduction, but a test. Her fingers barely grazed him before falling away, her touch leaving behind a phantom chill and a memory of fire.

"And when I have hollowed out his Order from within… when I have shown the Empire that I alone shattered the most powerful covert Sith apparatus in the known galaxy... what will I be then, Odrin?"

She took a slow breath, letting the question linger.

"I will be feared. Respected. Envied. And whispered of by every Darth from Korriban to Jutrand. My name will be spoken as both a curse and an invitation."

She smiled now. Not the faint smirk from before. This one was wide. Terrible. Beautiful. Like a queen being crowned on a pyre.

"Serina Calis, the woman who seduced the shadows and made them bleed."

Then, and only then, did she reach for his hand.

"I'm not asking for your loyalty," she said, eyes never leaving his. "I'm asking for your investment. Your presence. Your mind. Your strength. Join me, and when the time comes, I will give you Malum's bones to shatter and his secrets to claim. Refuse, and I may still rise… but you will simply be another war dog chewing on the scraps of dead tyrants."

She took his hand gently—not with submission, not with dominance, but with certainty. A pact unspoken, yet thundering with meaning.

"I don't want to rule over you, Odrin. I want to rule with you. At least until I no longer need to."

Her grin deepened, voice a whisper now, slipping past his ears and into his bloodstream.

"Now… shall we make gods weep together?"

 

[Odrin Rath]

IN PUTRID FLAME

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis

The juggernaut watched carefully as Serina evaded his hand. His eyes settling on the pink miasma as it approached his open hand as if it had a curiosity of its own. It curled around his fingers without ever touching his gloved gauntlet, expressing its interest in him like a passive snake waiting to strike.

The formula and workings of this were beyond him, he thought. Sith Alchemy being one of his weakest skills he sought to strengthen in the future. Partly why he decided to come here, even as Serina listed off her observations of him. She was not wrong and she knew that. Even as she began to circle him once more, attempting to pelt the barriers he raised to test his defenses and his response to her verbal tempts to gauge him.

He found himself, however, agreeing with the seductress the more she spoke. Her direct nature showed no signs of deceptiveness. Part truth and part agenda, sure. Though he could sense her passion for everything she said, her inflection and delivery changing the more she spoke. He studied her while looking at his hand, playing with the pink mist as it curled around him.

Odrin was indeed more than the daunting warrior he made himself out to be, the reason so many others had failed to see his true potential before it was too late. Serina was indeed what she said and her offer of recruitment brought his full attention once more.

His eyes locked onto the pink hue as it shifted into the form of a mask he had only recently become familiar with as part of his Masters teachings. Darth Malum of House Marr, lord of the Tsis'kaar sect. The complete opposite of everything he was. Their intrigue and skullduggery made even a Sith blush.

As the mask dissipated and the hallway changed and shifted at her whim as the walls trembled and glowed, Odrin's eyes watched in careful anticipation even as he felt the cold yet burning touch on the back of his neck. On instinct, he lashed out with the Force in self defense, causing the darkly pink gas to expand away from him as if he formed a small bubble around himself in a sudden display of telekinesis. His eyes flashed red as his head turned to his side to lock onto the smirking grin of Serina Calis. Knowing her game enough by now to know what she was doing meant no real harm. Not yet.

Her intent for Malum revealed, he simply grunted in return and steadied himself again, allowing his defenses to go passive once more as the gas immediately encompassed him once more.

As her intentions and plans, or at least she she revealed, laid bare between them and her offer displayed for him to see...Odrin simply smiled and closed his fist around a small pocket of her creation, trapping it within as he studied its contents through the Force. Feeling what it was, its attempts to escape his grasp even as the rest of it clung to his crimson cloak and blackened armor.

"Careful you don't fall to those same shadows you seem so intent on seducing, Calis. Malum may rule the Tsis'kaar but they were around before him and will be around after him." His deep voice once again pierced the hallway as he began his own movement, approaching her and moving around her outstretched hand to study her more closely. The curving of her armor and the glowing runes placed upon it. "If you think your ability to scheme better than the shadows themselves...well then, your ambition has my respect. Though I prefer action to talking."

As his voice traced along her exposed skin like a silky blanket, he continued to circle around her until he stood directly in front again. Her offer was mutually beneficial, he could see that. He had plenty to gain from this as much as she had to lose. Either one of them could be the others downfall if this did not work or assuming mutual destruction was on either of their agenda. What he did respect the most however, was her current honesty. Even if she did not realize it, which he was sure she did, her display of direct and unfettered truth is what really brought him in.

Odrin respected a person who could tell it like it is without having to try and wrap spider webs and strings around their points. They meant to utilize one another in their aims to grow beyond their current stations. While Odrin has yet to reveal his ambitions he fully understood her own. And he did not hear anything he did not like.

The big man opened his palm as the pink hued gas escaped to join the rest of its mass.

"You have my investment, Calis." Odrin shot his big hand forward and enveloped her own, suddenly pulling her toward him as he looked down on her, even while the miasma reacted to his sudden physical display on its maker. "At least until we make a god weep and no longer need one another."

His grin spread wide to display the whites of his teeth as a chuckle escaped his amused lips.

"Care to show me around this broken place?" He said as he released her hand. "I'd prefer to start out partnership forthwith and there are...things I wish to learn."

 

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

Serina Calis let herself be pulled forward.

The suddenness of the gesture—the raw physicality of it—might have startled a lesser creature. Might have provoked a reaction, defensive or even offended. But Serina was no lesser being. She allowed the pull, let it unfold, let it seem as if she yielded to the strength of his hand. Her body moved like smoke—pliant, shapely, obedient only in form. Yet her eyes… her eyes told another story entirely.

They did not flinch.
They did not blink.
They burned.

When Odrin's powerful grip enveloped hers and yanked her toward his towering frame, Serina's body collided lightly against his armored chest with a muted clang of metal meeting metal. Yet there was no tension in her form. No resistance. Only presence.

Even the gas responded—hissing and curling violently for a heartbeat, as though recoiling in offense to the disruption of its mistress. But it calmed just as quickly, reorienting itself like a loyal pet. It swirled about Serina's shoulders and spine, coiling upward in languid arcs before settling again, more vibrant than before, more alive. As if it approved.

When Odrin released her hand, she did not step back.

Her eyes trailed upward, locking his gaze once again—and this time, they shimmered not with promise, but with possession. Not the kind taken by force, but the kind willingly surrendered to—just before the blade is drawn across the throat.

"You learn quickly," she said, voice a sensual murmur that wrapped itself around the space between them, velvet dipped in venom. "I admire that. Most who try to match their fire against mine only manage to burn themselves hollow."

She reached up then, slowly, purposefully—trailing two fingers across the front of his armored chest, just above the heart. Not as an invitation, but as a claim. A gesture of acknowledgment. Of recognition.

"I can taste it now," she purred, her fingers withdrawing. "The thing behind the warrior. Not just hunger. Not just defiance. Vision."

She stepped away from him, the distance a sin in and of itself, and began to move through the corridor—not aimlessly, but with sovereign command. And as she moved, the very miasma responded.

The gas parted where she stepped, folding into arching forms that mimicked the architecture once held by this place in its prime. Hallways outlined in glimmering fog. Columns rising in suggestion from the mist. Windows that did not exist, casting phantom starlight. The laboratory was reborn for her—through her. She had wrapped her essence into the very bones of the ruin.

And now it performed for her.

"This place," she began, her tone shifting back to professional cadence, "was once a research hub for the Old Republic. Here, they studied the limits of medical science. Transference, genetic stabilization, synthetic organics. When the war against Malak ended, it was abandoned… but not forgotten. The knowledge here was buried, like a corpse still twitching with life."

She turned her head slightly, letting golden locks tumble across her cheek.

"I unearthed it. Reanimated it. Made it mine. The ventilation systems, the power grid, the environmental regulators—all woven together now with the Force, with my will, with… other means."

Her hand rose and the gas obeyed, peeling back from a sealed bulkhead ahead. The door creaked open at her gesture with a reluctant groan, revealing a chamber beyond—circular, with consoles encircling a central slab of durasteel marked with ancient Sith sigils. The console lights flickered on as if in greeting, bathing the space in deep reds and violets.

She led him inside.

"Here, I study. I refine. I create." Her voice caressed the chamber walls. "Sith Alchemy is not just blood and bone, Odrin. It is not some brutish reformation of flesh, nor merely poison and potion. It is a language. A dialect written in pain and pleasure, sacrifice and desire. It is corruption… codified."

She turned back to him, the gas swirling around her hips like a veil.

"Every rune etched into my armor is a word in that language. Every breath you take within this place is a whisper of it. And should I wish it…"—she stepped toward him again, her presence rising like a tide—"…I could pour it into your veins."

A pause. Her fingers danced above the air near his wrist, not touching, but close enough for him to feel it. That tremble just above the surface of sensation. Just above longing.

"But that is not why you're here. Not yet."

She moved back to the slab, brushing her hand across a console. A projection emerged—a holomap of Sith territories, but subtly altered. Nodes flared in strange places. Tsis'Kaar-controlled archives, embassies, hidden enclaves—glowed more brightly.

"These are the arteries of the Tsis'Kaar. Not all of them, of course. But enough. Enough to bleed them, if you know where to cut."

She looked to him over her shoulder, her lips curving into something between a smile and a dare.

"I've already infiltrated two. Through whispers. Through trust. Through those who think me harmless, or useful, or too young to be anything but another sharp-eyed apprentice sniffing around their corridors."

Her hand clenched into a fist.

"I will open the third with a knife."

Then she turned fully, approaching him again, the light catching the faint shimmer of sweat on her brow—not from exertion, but devotion. From the fire of it. Her passion didn't come from chaos or revenge—it came from vision, and it burned so fiercely it could not help but ignite the air around her.

"So if you truly wish to begin," she said, her voice now equal parts promise and peril, "then strip away the notion that this is a war of soldiers."

She was before him again, close enough that the heat of her ambition clung to her like perfume.

"This is a war of corruption. Of whispers in the right ears. Of one kiss too long. Of one truth too well timed. Of one Sith Knight who walks into an archive and leaves a convert in his place. You."

She placed a hand on his chest again, firmer now.

"Let me teach you how to speak that language, Odrin Rath. Not to replace your strength. But to make it inevitable."

Then she pulled back.

And smiled.

"Shall I begin with something small? A Tsis'Kaar operative stationed right here on Polis Massa? Her loyalty is brittle, and she thinks herself clever. I've left her just enough rope. You, dear juggernaut, may choose whether to tighten it… or yank it."

Her fingers gestured to a console. A file opened. A face appeared.

And the room was silent but for the whisper of pink mist swirling around them like a promise waiting to be kept.

 

[Odrin Rath]

IN PUTRID FLAME

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis

Again, he found Serina to not be wrong about her observations of him. He did in fact have hunger and vision. What that vision was? Who could tell yet. Maybe not even himself. Though he was sure of the current, immediate path ahead. One which walked alongside this anomaly of the Sith. This...unbothered shadow without a tether.

He felt a coldness return as she stepped away from him, creating a distance between them that was felt physically and via the Force. Odrin watched her carefully as she proceeded forward with him in tow, ever on alert. His armored boots falling heavily and echoing within the space in contrast to her own silent steps. The miasma flitting around her at command as it obeyed her. Whereas for him it simply fell onto his bulky armor and dissipated around him as he failed to surrender his pace to it.

As Serina glanced back at him, that slight bit of blonde locks fell to her cheek, he found her words amusing as he quickly diverted his eyes to gaze around. This place must have been old. Really old, then. He knew of the Old Republic but his history was not as brushed up as he would like. Still, the fact this lab still stood even with her renovations was a miracle in of itself.

"You're quite fond of possessing things, aren't you Calis?" He smirked as he teased his new partner in crime. "One may even say domineering enough to make a soldier like me blush. I find that respectable."

Once she gestured for the bulkheads to reveal its contents, Odrins attention was brought to the lab within. Especially the slab of durasteel in the center with Sith runes embedded on it. The big man marched pass her as he proceeded to lower his hand toward the sigils, studying them and feeling their effect within the Force. How curious.

Serina continued to tell him of this rooms purpose. Of what was done here, of what would be done here. And as she turned to face him once more, utilizing the mist to her benefit, she found his burning gaze already trained upon her. Burning not with his usual controlled fury or pain but with desire.

The desire for knowledge. For learning. For bettering himself.

As her fingers approached his wrist, he felt what she described. A sudden, lurking and slow crawl of desire appearing from within. A desire that may or may not have existed until brought forth to his attention. Right before she pulled back, Odrin almost felt himself react to defend his self. Though he controlled it once more. As he always had. Lashing out never got anyone anywhere. If he was to be a true Sith, to learn and better his weaknesses...

Then games must be played and its ancient rules adhered to.

Serina then moved back to the console as she awakened it as he closed his hand into a fist. That desire was deeply buried once more. Odrin then turned his attention to the holoprojection displaying the map of territories and locations. This instantly lit his eyes with something he hadn't felt so far this meeting. Confidence. Assured that now they were within his domain. Maps, planning, tactics, executing all of this was where Odrin excelled. It was what he was built and molded to be. It was about time.

With something almost like eager childlike glee, Odrin approached the holoprojection to stand alongside Serina. His eyes bore into what he saw, absorbing every last detail as he listened to her. His gaze only flicking down to her balled fist and noting down what triggered such a response. In that reaction, he found another commonality between them. They were both lowly outcast, not eager to return to their low stations. Simmering with rage at those that saw them as dirt beneath their lofty feet. To not be taken as a threat...well now, that was just disrespectful.

They would come to learn their truth.

Odrin watched her carefully as she approached again, noting her passion for what she was speaking on. He had trouble hiding the fact that he was matching her devotion with some of his own, his burning gaze locking onto hers once more as they exchanged a knowing and shared understanding.

Her words and her hand placed on his chest amused him, a grin spreading onto his face as he spoke. "I've never had a complaint from my past converts." He crossed his arms over his chest as she stepped back. "Whether from whispers or kisses left behind in forgotten archives."

Though jokes aside, he understood her point. Better yet, he understood what he wanted and needed to do. That same eager light returning to his eyes as if he could see the future him. Strengthened by knowledge and added to his formidable presence like an armor to serve his continually growing arsenal. Very well then.

Odrin broke the silence with one heavy footfall after another as he approached the displayed file. Quickly reviewing it over as he turned his gaze back onto Serina.

"Teach me how to break her. To make her mi-...ours."

 

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

The moment the word caught on his tongue—"mine"—Serina Calis heard it.

She caught it not as a slip, not as an error to be brushed away, but as confession. A single, accidental syllable offered like a tithe of subconscious desire. To most, it would have passed unnoticed, smothered by the rest of his sentence. But Serina wasn't most. She was a predator wearing the perfume of politics and the smile of a lover. And that little falter?

That was blood in the water.

Her head tilted ever so slightly as he stood before the projection, her eyes narrowing—not in judgment, but in delight. The kind of subtle pleasure reserved for finding a fracture in unbreakable stone. Odrin's desire was no longer just for power. It was taking shape. A shape she could mold. And like all great architects of corruption, Serina never let such moments pass without note.

She stepped forward again, slowly, the gas blooming around her like petals unfurling from some dark flower. The atmosphere thickened with each of her steps, responding not just to motion but to intent—her intent. It glowed with a deeper hue now, a silken blend of passion and poison that shimmered violet at the edges. The entire room grew warmer, as if the very air was intoxicated by her presence.

When she reached his side, she didn't speak at first. Instead, she raised a hand—gracefully, deliberately—and gently placed two fingers beneath his chin, turning his face toward her. There was no force in the gesture. There didn't need to be. Her confidence was so complete, so unshakeable, that her touch carried the weight of law.

"'Mine…'" she echoed, voice low, sensuous, a musical note dipped in menace. "Tsk. I expected better from that tongue of yours, Odrin."

She let her fingers trail down from his chin to the base of his throat, then dropped her hand, her smile blooming—wicked, indulgent, and knowing. Her voice, when it came again, was velvet-wrapped ice.

"I told you. I am not here to serve alongside you. I am here to use you. And if you are very clever… very capable… you may find you enjoy being used."

She turned from him then, letting her back face the warrior, a gesture that in most Sith circles would be a challenge, a mistake. But Serina did not fear the knife. Not yet. Not from him. Not when she had already begun to slip inside the architecture of his mind.

"I will never be yours, Odrin Rath," she said, tone sharper now, steel wrapped in silk. "I will never be anyone's. Not the Tsis'Kaar's, not some bloated Darth's, not even the Empire's. I will be everything—to everyone—until they forget they ever lived without me."

She turned her head, just enough for him to see her eyes over her shoulder.

"And you will be glorious, so long as you remember that you are a chapter in my story. Not the author of your own."

She walked back to the console, one gloved finger extending to touch the rotating image of the Tsis'Kaar operative—her target, their future victim. The woman's face spun in place, records and datapoints unfolding like petals around her holographic form: name, location, known associations, psychological profile. Serina tapped a line of Aurebesh and expanded the intelligence.

"She is a low-tier analyst stationed in the Harrow District. Name: Velyra Nesh. Supposedly loyal, but we both know what that means in Tsis'Kaar terms. She spies on her own superiors just to avoid being seen not spying. She once turned in a Sith Master for harboring non-sanctioned records… and was rewarded with a promotion and three months of silence protocols. She's sharp. Paranoid. Lonely."

Serina's voice slowed on that last word, like the savoring of fine spice.

"Loneliness is a wound that never scars. It stays open. It drinks everything offered to it. Offer warmth… and you are needed. Offer admiration… and you are adored. Offer truth…"

Her eyes flashed, and the gas spiraled upward into a shape—Velyra's silhouette reaching toward some unseen flame. The image twisted until the arms broke and the body fell into smoke.

"...and they crumble."

She turned back to him fully now, the entire chamber bathed in hues of amethyst and dusk-rose. The air buzzed with power—her power. The console lights dimmed, leaving only the glow of the alchemical gas to light her armor, her skin, her eyes.

"You asked me to teach you how to break her," Serina said, stepping forward again, each word falling like silk-wrapped daggers. "But we do not break. Not immediately. That is too crude. Too final. We unravel. We tempt. We transform. If you snap the string, the instrument never plays again."

She was before him now, her hand rising again—but this time to his chest, her palm pressing against the hardened durasteel that covered his heart.

"You will approach her as a curious Knight," she continued, her tone threading between professional instruction and intimate promise. "Not as a brute. Not as a threat. As a possibility. Someone outside the suffocating walls of her doctrine. You will speak with her. You will find her truth. You will show her yours. Not all of it. Just enough."

She leaned in then, close—so close he could feel her breath on his ear, warm and deliberate.

"You will make her ache for more."

A pause. A whisper.

"Then, when she begins to reach for you… you will hesitate. And in that hesitation, you will become everything she cannot have. A desire wrapped in purpose. A future she never dared imagine. And when she is raw… when she needs… then we shape her."

She pulled back, not with a flourish, but with clinical precision. And yet still the gas followed her like perfume from a lingering touch.

"I will prepare the false assignments. The hidden truths. The whispers. You will be her flame. Her shadow. Her mentor and mirror. And if you do this well…"

Her eyes narrowed, and her voice, at last, coiled with unmistakable promise.

"…then perhaps I will let you carry the leash when she kneels."

A beat passed.

"But do not mistake that for control."

Serina turned away, back to the console, fingers dancing across it once more, setting data to transfer.

"You are a useful tool, Odrin. Strong. Obedient when needed. Clever when required. But you must always remember—I am the architect. I am the one who sees the end before the beginning."

She looked over her shoulder again, and this time… her smirk was not amused.

It was warning.

"One day, when all the gods are weeping, when Malum's empire lies in fragments, when the Tsis'Kaar are nothing but black ink in forgotten tomes… I will ascend."

A breath.

"And if you stand in my way, I will cut your name from history with the same gentle hand that now teaches you how to wield it."

Then her smirk returned.

"But until then… let's make something beautiful, shall we?"

 

[Odrin Rath]

IN PUTRID FLAME

Equipment: Lightsaber & Armor
Assets: Starship
Tags: Serina Calis

The damned gas was getting to him, more subtle than before as he got used to its presence within his mind. For Odrin Rath would never allow such a slip of the tongue. Ammo for a crazed wielder of a wide ranging weapon. Serina Calis was more dangerous than he first analyzed. A failure on his part as much as a success on her own.

Though he was keen to play this game, even while slipping up, his brow lifted in amusement as she approached him. Those cold fingers of her slipping pass his beard to turn his chin to face her, trailing a icey trail down his throat. While that in itself was of no concern and elicited no reaction from the big guy, her words did.

"Careful witch, for you've not yet possess the influence or power to back up your words." Odrin stared daggers into the back of her head as she turned away. "You'll not have my tongue nor my service on your terms. Only my own. You'd do well to remember this if you expect your lofty ambitions to leave this sorry excuse for an asteroid."

Whether she heeded this warning concerned him not. He simply had a point to make. To himself, especially with this gas affecting him, as much as to her. For he knew while she tried slipping pass his mental defenses, he was doing the same to her. Finding out how she thought, how she carried a conversation and displayed herself physically. By the end of this conversation, he'd have a pretty good idea of how Calis operated. Hell he was just throwing out insults now to see what or any words would trigger a response.

Odrin continued to watch as Serina brought up the image of the supposed agent. He took in every detail within a brief read, looking over it all as he had always had the skill to do. Quickly and efficiently taking in the information before settling his eyes onto Serina again.

She was arrogant. Had ambition and goals but arrogant for one so young. She spoke of tools as if she knew how to wield them. To wield him. She did not. Would never know what it was to do so. Though he'd let her think as much. At least until he had what he needed. For as a Sith, everything was temporary.

As she approached him once more he locked his fiery gaze onto hers. The offer of gaining some plaything or the promise of future control would entice many to her aid. Not him. He could care less for this agent. He'd sooner see Serina broken and knelt beneath the Kainite throne...but he needed to stick to the plan for now. His own goals came first. Serina Calis promised to not play evenly. She wanted control. That much was clear, and unfortunately for her she has already mishandled a refined weapon.

Odrin smirked.

Even as her hand continued to stay placed on his chest as she spoke. Nothing but a tool when needed. Against Malum. The Tsis'kaar. Her ascension. Very well then. If this was the path she wished to tread, he would entice her as much as she tried him. He knew she was anything but dull. Though her ambition and arrogance made it a little too easy to get in.

Odrin was going to enjoy this game.

"I am whatever I need to be. To an extent. Should you mishandle my offer though..." He gave up his place of equal power in return for feeding into her personality while keeping his perceived edge. "I'll tear that fucking hand from your body and cave your ambitious skull in with it before tearing down everything your name ever hoped to touch. You have something I want, for now. Do not mistake me for another one of your hounds lapping at your offers of succor."

A gloved hand grabbed her hand, gently and with care in contrast to his harsh words, before bringing it to his lips and placing a small peck onto it.

"Let's see if your words have any weight to them, Calis. For I assure you my own do." He smirked once more. "Do keep this interesting, will you? I'd hate to be disappointed."

 

[Serina Calis]

In Putrid Flame.
Location: Polis Massa.
Objective: Begin developing further relations within the Sith Order.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tag: Odrin Rath

Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.
But when did I say I was wise?
​

Her hand lingered in his grasp—his lips brushing against her gloved knuckles with mock gallantry, the heat of his breath momentarily warming the cool leather. She allowed it. Expected it. Had orchestrated this dance from the first syllable she uttered in the corridor outside. But as he released her hand with a smirk and the taste of veiled threat, Serina Calis did not respond immediately.

She stood still.

Unblinking.

The gas around them responded first.

It rippled outward in a pulse, as if her stillness had been a command. A heartbeat. A warning. The pink fog thickened—not in threat, but in judgment, like a sentient audience displeased by a graceless move in a play of gods. It spiraled upward along the durasteel walls, crackling faintly at the edges with threads of violet lightning, hissing into unseen vents that did not exist moments before. The air trembled with tension, not from power unleashed, but from a pressure that refused to break.

Then, at last, Serina moved.

Her fingers, kissed so gently by the brute, flexed once in the air. And though her voice came soft, almost dulcet, there was no kindness in it.

"Oh, Odrin…"

She turned her head to him, slowly—like a queen might regard an upstart knight who had dared speak too boldly in court. Her smile had vanished. Her eyes glowed cold. The shadows of her hood now seemed deeper, carved by something older than malice.

"You mistake this for seduction," she said, stepping forward once more, her boots moving silently while his had always thundered. "For manipulation. For the kind of power you understand. And that's charming. Adorable, even."

She was before him again—closer than before—and yet untouched. Her body did not seek to dominate his space. Her presence invaded it.

"I see the way your mind works. You still think in binaries. Threats and compliance. Strength and submission. You speak of ripping my hand off, bashing my skull in with it, and still you touch it like it's something sacred."

She leaned forward now, just slightly. Just enough for him to feel the pressure of her breath on his cheek.

"Don't mistake style for surrender."

Her fingers rose again—not to strike, not to touch—but to draw a sigil in the air between them, glowing briefly with a strange warmth. The gas responded, forming into the shape of a flickering dagger pointed directly at Odrin's chest—poised but unmoving.

"I want you angry," she purred. "I want you watching me like prey you haven't yet earned. Because only then are you honest. The mask of respectability you wear? It's charming. But I much prefer your threat. It's more honest than all the pretty little lies you've been spinning since you arrived."

The dagger dissolved with a snap of her fingers. The miasma coiled around her waist again like a serpent come home.

"You speak of tearing down my dreams with the same hand you kiss," she continued, circling him now, voice sultry and saccharine, but laced with deadly precision. "Do you even realize what that makes you, Odrin?"

She paused behind him, her words a whisper sliding down his spine.

"Mine."

She stepped around to his side again, eyes half-lidded, studying his profile as if he were a new type of sculpture—one built of fury and self-delusion.

"I've handled blades sharper than you. Men with empires behind them who've called me lover or leech. Sorcerers who thought they could devour my mind with theirs. I've danced with monsters, laid in the arms of tyrants, and fed kings their own ambition with a smile."

A faint, knowing smirk returned to her lips.

"And they all thought they had the upper hand… until they bled for me. Until they begged. Until they whispered my name in death or reverence."

Her tone dropped to a purr.

"Or both."

She walked once more to the center of the chamber, standing on the edge of the Sith-carved slab like a priestess conducting her rite. The gas encircled her legs and thighs, coiling up her armor, licking against the magenta runes like a worshipful tide.

"You may play this game with me, Odrin," she said, voice now professional again—clipped, measured, with that same razor-thin edge she had used when she first summoned him. "But do not confuse yourself with the player. Not yet."

She gestured to the file again, expanding Velyra's profile into a tactical readout.

"We are not lovers. We are not equals. We are not enemies. Not yet. We are collaborators. Temporary ones. Which means you don't warn me, juggernaut. You work with me."

She met his eyes once more.

"Because whether you wish to admit it or not, you need me."

The air around her shimmered, her own Force signature flaring just enough to be felt. Not overwhelming. But vast. The kind of depth that promised oceans beneath placid waters.

"And as for this asteroid…"

She looked up toward the unseen ceiling, through the stone, as if her voice might carry into space itself.

"This forgotten place will be remembered long after Alvaria is reduced to ash. After the throne of the Tsis'Kaar is broken. After Darth Malum becomes a name whispered only by ghosts. This slab beneath my feet, this mist in your lungs, this presence in your mind—I am not asking for loyalty. I am merely showing you the direction the galaxy will turn."

She looked back down at him, smiling once more—but now with genuine delight.

"And if you're clever, if you're strong, if you're patient…"

She stepped close again, lifting her hand to place it on his chest once more—this time over his heart.

"…you'll be there at my side when I twist the knife."

Her hand slid down slowly—then released.

And she turned.

"Now. Begin reviewing the file. We plant the seeds tomorrow."

A pause. A glance back.

"And, Odrin—if you plan to threaten me again…"

Another smile.

"…do it with a little more conviction. I've been stabbed by men with prettier words and sharper teeth."

She vanished through the swirling gas, the door sliding open behind her like the parting veil of a dream just beginning.