First Reply Echoes of the Dead

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: ?
Mentions: Kaila Irons Darth Imperius ​

The air was thick with the scent of scorched metal and stagnant ocean winds. The Leviathan's wreckage stretched endlessly across the jagged cliffs of Rakata Prime, a ruin of blackened durasteel and twisted corridors, its once-great bulk consumed by time and corrosion. The storm overhead churned the sky in dark hues, crackling with distant lightning that illuminated the skeletal remains of the Sith dreadnought.

Serina Calis moved carefully through the ruins, her boots pressing softly into the damp, moss-covered floor of the shattered corridor. The metal beneath her feet groaned in protest with each step, but it held. For now.

She had been here before.

And she had died here.

Her fingers traced the rusted edges of a fractured bulkhead as she stepped forward, eyes scanning the shadows that stretched deep into the ship's carcass. It had not been long ago, though it felt like another lifetime. She had stood here, cut down by the Sith Lord who had called himself Imperius. She could still remember the searing pain, the cold grip of death, the way darkness had swallowed her as she fell.

But death had not been the end.

She had returned, and the galaxy had shifted around her like sand slipping through fingers. The Circle of Ten had grown, the Jedi had become an obstacle she could no longer ignore, and the chains of fate that had once bound her had started to fray. And yet, here she was—back on Rakata Prime, back within the husk of the Leviathan, searching for something she could not yet name.

The walls around her bore the scars of destruction, scorched from the battle that had brought the dreadnought down all those centuries ago. Jagged cracks in the ceiling allowed streaks of pale, diffused light to filter into the gloom, casting flickering shadows along the ruined path ahead. Here, the past lingered. It clung to the rusted panels and broken durasteel like an old wound refusing to heal.

Serina exhaled softly, steadying herself as she moved deeper into the wreckage. The air was cold, unnaturally so, and though she told herself it was the storm beyond, she knew better. The Force was strong here. It coiled and pulsed beneath the wreck, an unseen current that whispered of old battles, of pain, of echoes too stubborn to fade.

Then, as she stepped through the threshold of a collapsed corridor, she saw him.

A Sith trooper.

Or rather, what remained of him.

His body lay slumped against a fractured bulkhead, armored hands still gripping the blaster that had long since rusted over. The shining tint of his armor had long faded, leaving only the skeletal remnants of his once-imposing body. His armor, though worn by time, still bore the sigil of the old Sith Empire, an emblem of a force long extinguished, a symbol she had started to grow a deep fascination with.

Serina frowned, stepping closer, her fingers brushing the metal of his chestplate.

And then—

Pain.

It wasn't hers.

Her breath hitched as the world around her twisted, the present dissolving like mist, and suddenly—

Fire. Explosions. Screams.

She was no longer in the ruins of the Leviathan. She was aboard it, as it had once been—whole, alive, dying. The ship was burning. Red emergency lights flared through the corridors, casting frantic shadows against the walls. Smoke choked the air. The deck trembled violently as the dreadnought descended into Rakata Prime's atmosphere, the force of the planet's gravity tearing at its failing structure.

The Sith trooper—no, she—was running. Her body, his body, moved on instinct, gripping a rifle, sprinting through a corridor that had seconds left before collapse. Orders blared through a distorted commlink, but they were drowned by the wailing of alarms, the distant cries of dying men.

The air grew impossibly hot. The deck beneath her feet gave way.

And then—impact.

A blinding white light.

And then—

Nothing.

Serina gasped, lurching backward, the ruined corridor snapping back into place around her. She stumbled, her breath ragged, her heart pounding in her chest. The ship was silent once more, save for the distant groan of metal shifting under its own weight.

She looked down at the trooper again, his corpse unchanged, his story long ended.

Slowly, she exhaled, forcing the tension from her shoulders. It had happened again. Just like before. Just like when she had seen her name—Darth Anathemous, stripped down to the person she had once been.

Kaila Solus.

This wreck held memories, and she was starting to realize it was willing to share them.

Serina stood still for a moment, listening to the echoes of the dead.

Then, without another word, she turned and pressed forward into the Leviathan's ruins.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

".. Ohho?"

Alina stood from deeper within, her gaze shifting outwards. Upwards. Old ships often held old secrets, and given her recent apparent enemies within the Sith Order because of her dismissal of Quinn Varanin , there were few better places to find what she needed than these trashier planets. Quite literally the junk world at that. From what she'd been able to gleam, this vessel had gone to some sort of Star Forge at one point in time.

Limitless droid soldiers, ships, and the like all created from the fire of a star? It sounded pretty damn useful in her mind.

What she hadn't expected was another. The scent took a bit to reach her, but someone stronger in the Force had found their way inside. A click of her tongue and the Sangnir stood more fully, idly reaching down for the saber on her hip as she sauntered forth. Whoever it was, it'd be entertaining to meet them. Were they after a similar thing? Or something else entirely?

She'd soon learn.

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina moved deeper into the wreckage of the Leviathan, her steps careful, measured. The ship groaned with every shift of the wind, rusted beams trembling beneath the weight of time. It was a carcass of the past, half-buried in the sands of Rakata Prime, yet still clinging to the echoes of what had been.

She could feel them—all of them. The ghosts of the dead, their presence thick in the air, whispering in a chorus just beyond hearing. This ship had been their grave, their tomb. Hundreds—no, thousands—had met their end here, and in death, they had left fragments of themselves behind.

And now, those fragments were finding her.

The first time it had happened, it had nearly taken her off her feet. The Sith trooper, a nameless soldier who had died in terror as the ship plummeted to the surface, his last moments playing out through her eyes. She had felt his panic, his desperation, as real as if it had been her own.

But she did not collapse this time.

The next memory came in flashes. A Sith officer—higher rank, more composed, more resigned. He had known they were doomed. He had sealed off compartments, sacrificing his own men to buy himself a few more seconds. The ship is lost, he had thought, even as flames swallowed the walls around him. If I can just make it to the pods…

He never did.

The further she walked, the more they came. Officers shouting orders into broken comms. Sith Lords raging against inevitability. Screaming crew trapped in the lower decks as fire and vacuum devoured them whole. None of them had mattered in the end.

They had all died just the same.

Serina exhaled slowly as she reached the ruined lift doors. They had long since jammed shut, but the metal was weak. A simple push with the Force, and they crumpled inward with a shriek, revealing the shaft beyond.

The bridge was above.

She leapt.

The bridge was a graveyard. The transparisteel viewport had shattered upon impact, leaving jagged shards framing the gaping hole where the void had once claimed the crew. A storm raged outside, whipping sand and rain through the wreck, but it barely touched the stillness of the ruined command center.

Serina stepped forward. This place was important.

She could feel it.

This was where orders had been given. Where battles had been won and lost. Where history had been shaped—not by the hand of some nameless officer, but by one of the most infamous Sith Lords to ever walk the galaxy.

Darth Malak stood here.

The air hummed, charged with something she could not name. And then—

It took her.

She was not on Rakata Prime.

She stood aboard the Leviathan as it once was, pristine and powerful, its dark metal polished to gleaming perfection. The command consoles glowed with aqua light, the sound of the ship's engines a low, ever-present hum beneath her feet.

She was not herself.

She stood in rank and file with the officers of the Sith fleet, eyes locked on the massive viewscreen before her. Beyond it, Taris hung in the void, its sprawling cityscape a glittering tapestry of light stretching across the entire planet.

Malak loomed at the forefront, his broad frame cast in shadow, his presence suffocating. He turned slightly, his pale, cybernetic jaw catching the cold light of the bridge. His gaze swept across the officers before him—calculating, merciless.

And then—

"Wipe this pathetic planet from the face of the galaxy."

The words were spoken without hesitation. Without remorse.

Serina felt the officer she inhabited shift—Karath, this was Saul Karath. His, no her stomach twisted, but she did not hesitate. she gave the order.

"Fire."

She felt it—like the breath before a storm.

The fleet above Taris moved in perfect, mechanical unison. Turbolaser batteries charged, their red light filling the bridge in an eerie glow. The first volley struck the upper levels, shattering towers, collapsing skyways. Fire spread in great, uncontrolled waves, consuming entire city sectors in moments.

The second wave dug deeper.

The planetary shield held for only seconds before it shattered under the sheer force of the barrage. What had been a thriving ecumenopolis became a furnace. Buildings collapsed into molten wreckage. The lower levels, already choked in filth and crime, drowned in falling debris.

Serina could hear them.

The screams. The chaos. The horror of an entire world realizing it was dying.

Some fled to spaceports, praying for a way off-world. There was none. The Sith had blockaded every possible route of escape. Others tried to hide, seeking shelter in the deepest parts of the undercity. It wouldn't matter. The fire would reach them soon enough.

Serina—Karath—stood frozen as the bombardment continued, his mind a battlefield of duty and revulsion. He had been a soldier all his life. He had burned cities before. But this—this was not war and she was no soldier.

This was execution.

Malak watched it all in silence, his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was unreadable.

Serina gasped.

The vision shattered, the present slamming back into her like a shockwave. She stumbled, her body lurching forward as if reality had shifted beneath her feet. Her breath came fast, uneven, her heart hammering against her ribs.

The bridge was cold again. Silent. Taris was long gone. Her fingers dug into her palms, nails pressing hard enough to leave marks. She forced herself to stillness. This was the past. A memory. But the weight of it lingered in her bones, in her mind, in the air around her.

She had seen it. She had felt it.

And now she could not forget it.

Serina exhaled sharply, regaining her composure. There were more memories in this wreckage, more echoes waiting to be found.

And she would find them.

No matter the cost.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Enejoying your visions, fallen Padawan?" It had been oh so tempting. Visions were a powerful thing. From what Alina heard about them anyway. Her connection to the Force didn't allow her such.. Burdens, as it seemed. To find the girl caught up in what she could at least tell was some kind of vision had Alina just so tempted to do something to mess with her. In a place like this, it was never good to loose track of her surroundings, right?

But Alina did nothing but watch. Serina was a very oddly powerful Padawan. Illusions were tricky, but Alina could often smell through them enough to know if someone was actually there. The day they met? She had no idea that the girl was just a conjugation.

It certainly explained why the girl was so willing to yap. That as unfocused as the Padawan seemed, she very well could already know Alina was there.

Alina's legs swung too and fro from her perch as she smiled her fanged smile. There was no makeup, no sunglasses, no disguise. Just the Sangnir as she was, somewhere beyond life and yet not quite death. "Anything fun?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina's breath had barely steadied when the voice cut through the silence.

A part of her should have flinched, should have reacted in some startled way. But she didn't. The moment the words reached her, she knew who they belonged to. The tone was too casual, too comfortable in the presence of the unnatural. And the scent—something old, something just beyond life's reach—gave her confirmation before she even turned her head.

Alina.

Serina inhaled slowly, pushing the remnants of the vision aside, and let her gaze drift toward the Sangnir.

She looked different. Paler than before, even for a creature that already danced on the edge of mortality. There was no attempt at disguise this time—no makeup, no sunglasses, nothing to mask what she was. Fangs glinted as she smiled, her legs idly swinging from her perch. A predator at ease.

Serina wasn't surprised.

"I suppose I owe you an answer." Her voice was steady now, smooth. The visions may have rattled her body, but her mind was sharp as ever. She stepped away from the broken command console, crossing her arms. "You were right. The Force never lets go of people. Not truly."

She tilted her head slightly, studying Alina in the dim, fractured light filtering through the broken bridge. "It just didn't want me dead."

Serina let the words sit there, knowing full well they'd only provoke further questions. She wasn't like Alina, whose connection to the Force was different, limited in ways Serina had only begun to understand. The Force didn't force its will upon normal people.

But Serina wasn't normal.

"You were close, though," she continued, a faint smirk curling at the edge of her lips. "The Force doesn't force its will upon most. But I am not most."

Her fingers drummed idly against her arm as she exhaled, gaze drifting briefly to the wreckage around them before settling back on Alina.

"I made my choices," she murmured, her voice quieter now, though no less certain. "I just never know when I did."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Not most? You truly believe yourself to be some sort of chosen, then." It wasn't mocking. Alina tilted her head, her legs done with their swaying before she hopped down. Landed rather quietly, given the drop. The girl had died twice. Brought back by seeming the Force's will, if she was to be believed. And now they were here, talking. Surely that had to also be the Force's will?

"You know, I eat the Force." Red danced between Alina's fingers as she lifted them. Blood, but not quite. Anima. It was the pure living part of the Force itself, idly flowing around her fingers like water in space. "On Denon, it wasn't something we could really talk about. It's an Alliance world after all, can't just openly talk about being a Sith. But here? Let's have a proper conversation. What does it mean to you that I eat the very Force you think controls everything?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina's smirk deepened, her head tilting just slightly as Alina landed with that unnatural grace, as silent as a shadow slipping through the cracks of reality. The Sangnir's words weren't mocking, but there was weight to them—curiosity, challenge, something else.

Serina let out a slow breath, her gaze flickering to the strands of crimson energy curling around Alina's fingers. The sight was fascinating, in a way. The pure essence of life, drawn out, twisted into something malleable, something consumable.

It was a power that most would recoil from.

Serina simply smiled.

"Chosen?" she echoed, voice rich with something just beneath the surface—humor, suggestion, something darker. "No, not quite. That would imply there was ever a choice."

Her fingers trailed idly along the cold metal of the ruined console beside her, a slow, absent motion, like tracing the curve of something delicate, something worth savoring. Her movements were unhurried, her gaze sharp and knowing.

"You're asking what it means to me that you eat the Force," she mused, drawing out the words like silk between fingers. "That you take it into yourself, consume it, own it." She exhaled, stepping closer now, just a breath, just enough for the air to shift between them.

"I think it's rather intimate, don't you?"

Her eyes flicked up, blue as a dying star, shimmering with something both ancient and insatiable.

Alina had no idea how close she was.

No one did.

Serina's voice dipped, low, edged with something serpentine, curling around the space between them like a whisper in the dark. "You see the Force as something you can devour. Ingest. Pull apart piece by piece until it's no longer beyond your grasp. I wonder… what does it taste like, Alina?"

The name was deliberate.

Her lips parted slightly, a ghost of a smile remaining. "Do you savor it? Feel it writhe on your tongue, dissolve as it becomes yours?" Her voice curled around the words like a caress, lingering, suggestive, laced with something more than just curiosity.

She let the silence stretch for just a moment before continuing, the smirk never leaving her face.

"And yet, you—" she gestured subtly to the crimson essence still shifting between Alina's fingers "—consume it without knowing what it truly is."

She took another step, slow, deliberate, gaze lidded but gleaming.

"The Jedi say the Force binds all things. The Sith say it is power. The scholars, the mystics, the fools who think they understand—they all have their theories, their carefully built cages of thought."

She leaned in slightly, her breath warm against the cold air between them. "But none of them have any idea what it truly is. What it truly desires."

A pause. A lingering moment of something unspoken.

"But I do."

The final words were a whisper, a promise, a dare.

Serina let her fingers trace the edge of the console one last time before withdrawing, stepping back just enough to let the tension breathe, to let the space between them settle into something charged.

She tilted her head, watching, waiting.

"Now," she murmured, lips curling into something knowing, inviting. "Prod further, Alina. You've already sunk your teeth in."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina slowly tilted her head before a rather heartfelt laugh escaped her. She shook her head after a moment, the disbelief in the air practically palpable. "You've our roles mixed up yet again! The confidence you hold is astounding. I'm not asking you these questions because I don't know the answer. I'm asking you to broaden your horizons. To teach you, fallen Padawan, how much more there is to this ecosystem you think the Force has a monopoly on."

She raised her other hand then, and then the Force died. All at once, all around them throughout the chamber, the Force ceased to flow. It was her one true power in the Force. Any Sangnir could eat the Force, could manipulate Anima as she did. She was better than most, sure, but it was her species that made it possible. This.. Void? It was her gift. Her talent.

Idly she moved over to touch where Seina had been, where she'd been listening to some vision. "I wonder, truly, why you think you know so much and speak so much like you're the teacher. Is it these visions filling you with an overabundance of confidence. What if I were to erase these spots completely?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina barely had time to react before it happened.

It wasn't a slow thing. It wasn't something she could anticipate, brace for, fight.

One moment, the Force surrounded her, coiled within her, was her. The next—

Nothing.

The breath in her lungs turned razor-sharp, her chest constricting like a vice as the connection was ripped from her, like flesh torn from bone. It wasn't silence. No, silence would have been merciful. This was a void, a negation so complete it carved her down to her very foundation. Her mind became a shattered prism, fragments of thought clashing against one another with unbearable discord.

Her body reacted before her mind could comprehend.

Pain—everywhere.

Searing, all-consuming agony that made it feel as if her very cells were splitting apart, unable to hold themselves together without the Force's embrace. Her nerves ignited, her skin burned, and her muscles screamed as if her body had forgotten how to exist.

And then—

She howled.

A sound so raw, so utterly unhinged that it rattled the very metal beneath their feet. It was not just a scream—it was something more primal, something wrong, something that carried with it a depth of fury that words could never reach.

It was rage absolute.

Her hands clenched into claws, nails digging into her own flesh until blood welled at her fingertips, smearing across her arms like war paint. Her pupils dilated to nothing but black, and for a moment, she was nothing but need—to destroy, to consume, to fill the emptiness that should not exist.

The Force was her. It had always been her. It flowed through her veins, it wrapped around her soul like a lover's embrace. It did not command her—she was it, and it was her.

And now it was gone.

Torn from her like the wailing cries of a lover ripped from her arms.

Something broke inside her, a fissure so deep it was almost euphoric.

And then the madness came.

Serina's lips curled, breath ragged, her voice drenched in something that was neither despair nor fury but something other.

Pleasure.

"You—" her voice was guttural, breathless, her throat raw from the scream. Her body trembled, skin slick with sweat, muscles twitching from the sheer, unbearable violation of separation. Her gaze locked onto Alina like a predator unhinged.

"You—you DARE—"

Her laugh came next, sharp, jagged, splintering between gasps as she clutched her own arms, nails biting into her skin. "You would erase them?" Her voice was a whisper, laced with something more than anger—something carnal, something desperate, something starved.

"You would deny me?" Her breath hitched, a shuddering, unsteady thing as she swayed on her feet, feeling her own body betray her, feeling herself unravel. Her chest heaved, her fingers twitching, her body alight with an agony that was almost—almost—too much to not feel intoxicating.

"Do you know what you are right now, Alina?" She stumbled forward, her breath coming faster, her eyes wild, unfocused yet drilling into the Sangnir with something beyond hate, beyond want, beyond anything rational.

"You are the hands on my throat—" she exhaled, laughing again, her breath ragged. "The teeth at my skin, the blade at my ribs—" Her words dripped from her lips, feverish, frenzied, broken into a thousand shards of uncontrolled, exultant fury.

She shuddered, a tremor wracking her entire form as her body spasmed from the unbearable lack that had been forced upon her.

Her nails raked across her own arms again, blood smearing against her pale skin as she let out a ragged, gasping exhale.

"You think this is power?" she whispered, lips curling, her expression a maddened, twisted mix of rage and something else, something she shouldn't be feeling. "You think you can take from me and leave me nothing?"

She took another step, breathless, shaking, her legs barely holding her up. "Oh, Alina," she cooed, her voice shaking, her entire form trembling from the sheer violence of being cut off.

"You haven't taken from me."

A manic, wild grin split her lips, blood-smeared and beautiful in its depravity.

"You've only made me hungry."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Forceborn was a term Alina had really only thought about with Quinn Varanin . The fact she was created through the Force itself by her parents together made her so very susceptible to the void Alina could create. It was how she won their fight all those years ago, and likely why Quinn had died not but a couple months back. Her eyes narrowed slightly. Even now, she wasn't completely removed from her thoughts of Quinn. They both needed to move on, tough Quinn had already far more than Alina could ever bring herself to.

No, she had to.

But Quinn didn't bleed. Not like this. Serina was a step above and beyond what Alina had seen. There were Sith who went mad under her aura with desperation and fear as they realized the one thing they could cling to for immortality had been stripped away with a thought. It was humbling to them. Humbling and dreadful. When Alina was active within the Sith, when she was known, Sith who couldn't resist her knew to fear her.

She hadn't seen someone actually start to go this raving mad. Alina tilted her head for a moment.

"You think you're what, Nihilus perhaps? That this void is something you can fill draining the Force from others now? I haven't even begun to drain the Force from you, just.. Shut it off. You don't need to go completely crazy, it's not permanent yet." Alina wanted to cut her down to size more or less. Remind her that, perhaps, the Sith above her were very much above her. A fallen Padawan playing some kind of unholy priestess dispensing knowledge was the kind of person killed very early on in the life of a Sith. Now though?

Pity.

It showed in her eyes, in her smile as she leaned against the railing. "Or you're just rationalizing everything in the only way you can. What happened to you, I wonder, to make you so desperate to be this.. Prophet?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina's body thrummed with agony, but it wasn't pain alone—it was rapture. The raw, unbearable sensation of being unmade, of having her very essence stripped from her, turned her nerves into a firestorm of sensation. Her mind fractured and reassembled itself over and over in real-time, barely tethered to her flesh. She had felt pain before—had wallowed in it, had twisted it into a tool, a weapon, a lover.

But this?

This was something beyond pain.

This was deprivation.

Her breath was uneven, ragged, her body trembling not with weakness, but with something far more primal, something starved. Her blood dripped from her fingertips where her nails had dug too deep into her own skin, her muscles locked in quivering tension.

And yet, she smiled.

Not the coy smirk she so often wielded, not the knowing, serpentine curl of lips that promised a secret only she understood. No. This was something broken, something feral, something so utterly abandoned to feeling that it was almost divine.

Alina's voice cut through the haze, sharp and distant.

Serina laughed.

It came from somewhere deep, somewhere raw, somewhere untouched by reason. Her entire body shuddered as the sound poured from her lips, a melody of hysteria and indulgence. She swayed on her feet, fingers twitching, body wracked with the sheer, unrelenting pleasure of it all.

"Oh, Alina…" she purred, her voice dripping with something utterly indecent, something obscene in its abandon. "You're killing me."

Her breath hitched on the last word, her grin widening, her body curling inward as she felt it—the slow, exquisite dissolution of self. The Dark Side had always been her—its whispers, its caress, the intoxicating hum of something eternal and wanting.

And now?

Now it was slipping from her like a lover's hands ghosting away, leaving her aching, starving, burning.

Her hips rolled with the weight of it, her back arching ever so slightly as she dragged her hands over her own body, smearing the blood from her arms across her skin.

"You don't understand," she gasped, breathless, writhing in the torment. "This isn't just power, Alina. This isn't something you can take from me without consequence." She licked her lips, head tilting back slightly, savoring the way her body screamed for something it could no longer touch.

"The Dark Side keeps me alive," she moaned, her voice raw, soaked in something beyond pleasure, beyond pain. "This—" she shuddered, trembling, "this is slow, exquisite death. You're pulling it away from me, and all I can do is feel it."

Her pupils were wide, black voids swallowing the blue of her irises, her breath hitching in manic delight.

"Do you know what it's like to be loved by something eternal? To have it wrap around you, in you, deeper than flesh, deeper than bone, deeper than soul?" Her fingers trailed up her throat, her body hypersensitive to everything in the absence of the Force. Every nerve, every inch of her skin, screamed for it back.

"You're stripping me bare, Alina," she whispered, voice ragged, shaking, tinged with the delirious exaltation of being undone. "Leaving me naked in the void, making me feel every inch of myself in ways I should not be able to feel—"

A sharp gasp left her lips, her body twitching, her need mounting into something frenzied.

"And yet, it's still mine," she moaned, a shiver racking her spine as she clawed at her own skin, her own emptiness. "I am it, and it is me, and you—you—think you can break it? That you can sever what was never meant to be separate?"

Her laugh returned, softer this time, breathless, drenched in madness and indulgence.

"Oh, Alina," she sighed, tilting her head back, stretching her neck like she was offering it up for the killing blow. "If you really wanted to ruin me, you should have taken more."

She gasped, her body giving a violent shudder, her hands clutching at her own arms to keep herself from collapsing under the weight of sensation.

"And yet…" she breathed, her eyes flickering open, locking onto Alina with something beyond hunger, beyond lust, beyond sanity itself.

"You've only made me want it so much more."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"You've really lost your mind, girl." Pain was something a proper Sith could use for strength, but this level of fanaticism? So many Sith these days were so caught up in their minds. Without the Force, she was supposed to have clarity. Alina had seen it so many times, how the clarity came through. How the fear came through, true and whole. Alina only had pity to offer Serina.

She hopped up on the railing, siting comfortably as she smiled that pitying smile.

"Work through it. Find yourself, not this zealot you keep shouting you are. I want to see who you really are, girl. That's how you can actually grow."

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina's breath was still ragged, her body still trembling, but as Alina spoke—as she sat there so damn comfortably, watching her with that pitying little smile—something in Serina snapped into place.

Not in rage. Not in madness.

Something cold. Something final.

She forced her body to stillness, one agonizing breath at a time, biting down the raw sensation tearing through her like molten glass beneath her skin. The madness, the hunger, the twisted pleasure—it was still there, but she shoved it into the depths of herself, forced it into submission with a willpower that had never once been broken.

And when she spoke, her voice was razor-sharp.

"Alina."

Just the name, spoken not as a plea, not as a challenge. A statement.

Her eyes lifted—wide, still blackened, still burning with something unnatural—but her tone was steady now. A blade tempered in the fire of suffering.

"You need to stop."

The words cut through the air like steel, devoid of embellishment, stripped of theatrics.

She exhaled, long and slow, rolling her shoulders back as though trying to force herself to remember how to exist without the Force writhing beneath her skin.

"I am dying."

She blinked once, deliberate. Her muscles screamed from the stillness, from the way her body fought to remain upright in the absence of what had always sustained it. But she did not waver.

"I need you to stop."

Not a plea. Not a request. A command.

Matter-of-fact. Simple. Unshaken.

And yet—beneath it all, buried deep, was the single undeniable truth:

If Alina didn't stop, Serina wouldn't be anymore.

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"There it is, the crux of your issue."

Alina's smile only filled with that much more pity. She stayed where she was sitting, kept the void around them as she crossed her arms over her chest. Mulled over the thoughts, the options. It wasn't what she was actually doing, of course. Delaying, toying. Was she even trying to help Serina at this point, or was she just the cat playing with a mouse and justifying it as something more?

Maybe.

"You're Forceborn. Cutting you from it isn't going to just give you a headache. Your body will fall apart, bit by bit, as it can't sustain itself properly. I'm well aware that you are dying, Serina. I knew you were dying the moment I created this void and stripped the Force from you. You want the Force back? Why not just.. Take it? It is yours, after all. Can't you just take it back? Or are you much too weak? Have you been talking far too much a big game you can't actually back up? Will you die here and now without even a struggle?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina placed herself on the cold metal floor, body trembling, breath slow and shallow. The agony was still there, deep, curling through every fiber of her being like a sickness, a hunger with no end. But her mind—her mind—was quiet now. The madness had burned through its peak and left only something hollow in its wake.

She closed her eyes.

The pain did not fade, but she let it settle into her bones, let herself wear it instead of be consumed by it. The void still suffocated her, but she no longer clawed at it, no longer fed it with desperation.

Alina's voice reached her, still filled with that same pitying amusement, those words sharp and taunting, pressing at the edges of something deeper.

Serina exhaled, a slow, measured thing.

The answer was simple.

"Because it hasn't given itself back."

Her voice, though strained, was no longer wild. It was somber. Thoughtful.

She shifted, forcing herself upright with a trembling arm, her body still weak but her mind steel-edged now, sharpened through the crucible of suffering.

"You misunderstand," she murmured, her lips parting just slightly, breath shallow but controlled. "I know I cannot die here. I know that if it—" a pause, a shuddered breath as she felt for it, the great, terrible presence that had never abandoned her before, "—if it wanted me dead, I would be dead."

Her fingers twitched, nails still coated in her own blood.

"But it hasn't."

A faint, humorless smile ghosted across her lips, fleeting and bitter.

"And that means I am safe."

She did not say what it was. She did not need to.

Alina wouldn't understand.

No one ever did.

Her head tilted slightly, her breath evening out as she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her weight against the cold, unyielding floor. "Death will only come when it decides to," she continued, her tone softer now, the rage burned away into something rawer, something more tired.

Her gaze flickered upward, locking onto Alina's with an eerie calm.

"You think you're testing me, but I already know the answer." Her voice was quieter now, but firm. "I know I have to die."

She exhaled through her nose, tilting her head just slightly, her body still wracked with pain, but her voice carrying a strange acceptance.

"Do you know what the final mercy is, Alina?"

A pause.

"Oblivion."

Her eyes gleamed with something unreadable.

"The final freedom. The breaking of shackles I never chose."

Her fingers twitched again, pressing lightly against the cold floor as if grounding herself in the weight of reality.

"But that mercy has never been mine."

Another pause. A long, lingering silence as she let those words settle between them.

Finally, she closed her eyes again.

"Not yet."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"Then.. Die."

It was the only real conclusion now. Alina stayed on her perch, her smile ever present as she kept the void. Serina was willing to just lay and die, for whatever reason had clicked in her head. Alina was not merciful. She watched, listened, and simply waited for Serina to either perish where she'd determined to lay, or finally fight to survive. There was no greater power that would keep her alive if she was truly dying in this void, that much seemed to resonate in Alina's own mind.

"Die and know that you will be forgotten, fallen Padawan."

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina's breath came in slow, trembling gasps, her body still wracked with pain, but her mind… her mind was clear. The void pressed in on her from all sides, suffocating, unrelenting. Alina's power still choked the Force from the air, from her lungs, from her soul. It should have been the end. She should have withered, collapsed under the weight of her own severance.

And yet—

Something was stirring.

It was faint at first, a whisper just beyond reach, a ripple in the emptiness. A shift, subtle but undeniable, like the first breath of air before a storm.

Serina's fingers twitched against the metal floor as a strange sensation pulled at her chest—no, from her chest. From the place where she had died, from the wound that had never truly left her. The wound Valery Noble had carved into her heart, the scar she had carried unseen beneath her armor.

The place where death had touched her and failed to claim her.

A breath hitched in her throat as she felt it—movement, slow and curling, seeping from the unseen wound in her chest. Wisps of darkness, thick like smoke, slipping from her as if they had always been waiting beneath the surface.

And then—

A presence.

A warmth that was not warmth, a weight that was not heavy, a feeling that wrapped around her, coiling, pressing, pulling.

Serina's lips parted, a sharp breath escaping as the sensation deepened, as the tendrils of shadow slithered across her skin, winding over her shoulders, her arms, her spine.

IT.

It had come for her.

It was not sudden—it was inevitable. The moment she had been stripped of it, the moment she had been denied what was hers, it had found her again.

And it had refused to let her go.

She shuddered, her body stiffening as the tendrils curled around her limbs, her waist, her throat—not suffocating, not strangling, but holding. Steadying. Restoring.

Her fingers pressed harder into the floor as the darkness settled into her, as she felt her connection return.

Not all at once.

Not in a burst of fire and fury.

But like a tide rolling in, slow, patient, relentless.

A tremor ran through her as she inhaled sharply, feeling the energy seep into her very core, knitting together the fractures Alina had forced upon her. The pain ebbed, smoothed by the caress of something vast, something familiar, something that had never truly left her.

Her heart steadied. Her breath evened.

And then, with one final pulse, the Force was hers again.

Serina's eyes opened, their deep blue glinting in the dim light of the wreckage, but beneath them was something more—something ancient, something that had never stopped watching her.

A slow, deliberate exhale. A moment of stillness. Then, finally, she smiled.

"Ah…" A breath, a whisper of relief. "There you are."

It curled around her like a shadow's embrace, neither harsh nor violent, but intimate. It had waited. And now, it welcomed her home.

She lifted her fingers, watching as the smoky tendrils coiled around them, twisting, settling beneath her skin. It was whole again. She was whole again.

Alina had told her to die. But death would never come for her.

Not while the Force still claimed her.

Not while it refused to let her go.

SHE WAS IT, IT WAS HER​

 

[Alina Tremiru]

Alina.. Sighed.

Without a word the Sangnir simply watched at this point. The void faded, since that seemed to be utterly pointless now. Whatever was going on with Serina, what Alina had been trying to show her was completely pointless. She mulled over her thoughts, idly leaning back on her perch. What should she bother doing now? Was there even a point to try and talk to someone so lost in their own mind?

Didn't really feel like it.

"Something something the Force has chosen me and thus I cannot die, right?"

Serina Calis

 

[Serina Calis]

Location: Ruin of the Leviathan, Rakata Prime
Tag: Alina Tremiru ​

Serina inhaled slowly, deeply, feeling the weight of the Force settle back into her, steadying her limbs, grounding her thoughts. The void was gone now, but its absence left a scar, a memory burned into her very bones. The raw sensation of being cut off, of being less, of being nothing—it was a pain she would not soon forget.

And yet, she had not perished.

Not because she had fought against it. Not because she had struggled, clawed, or proved anything.

But because IT had refused to let her go.

Her fingers traced absently over her chest, over the unseen wound where Valery Noble had once driven her blade through her heart. A death that should have been final. A death that had been denied by forces greater than herself.

Serina had spent so long believing that she knew the truth of it. That she understood what she was. That she was above questions, above doubt, above the need to prove anything to anyone.

But Alina had shown her something else.

Not through words.

Not through force.

But through absence.

Serina let out a slow, measured breath before finally shifting her gaze upward, locking onto Alina's form perched above her. The Sangnir lounged with a lazy ease, watching with something close to disinterest now, her previous amusement faded into something colder. Something like disappointment.

Serina could not allow that.

Not because she cared for Alina's opinion.

But because she would not let someone who had tested her walk away believing she had learned nothing.

Her voice, when she spoke, lacked its usual sultry edge, its usual teasing lilt or mocking indulgence. It was measured. Steady.

Respectful.

"You wanted me to understand what it was like to be without," Serina murmured, shifting, rising slowly from the cold floor, her limbs still tingling from the sensation of being emptied and filled again. She did not waver as she stood, though she felt the echoes of weakness still lingering in her muscles. "You wanted me to see what I truly am when there's nothing left but myself."

Her gaze did not drop, did not shift away.

"And I did."

She let those words settle for a moment, unflinching.

Then, she took a slow step forward, placing herself fully in the light that filtered through the ruined bridge. There was no bravado in her movements. No arrogance. Just certainty.

"I don't respect you," she admitted plainly, without hesitation. "Not in the way you might want. But I respect the lesson."

A pause. A flicker of something sharp in her gaze.

"You forced me to see what I already knew but refused to acknowledge." She exhaled slowly, glancing down at her own hand, flexing her fingers as if testing the sensation of feeling again. "That I do belong to something greater than myself. That no matter what I think I control, what I believe I understand, I am still subject to forces beyond my grasp."

Her lips pressed together, a thin line of thoughtfulness.

"You call me lost," she continued, tilting her head slightly, voice softer now, yet no less firm. "Perhaps I am. But if I am lost, it is only because my path has yet to be completed."

She met Alina's gaze again, unwavering.

"I don't need to prove myself to you," she said, the confidence in her tone quiet, absolute. "Nor do you need to believe in me. But I will remember this."

Another pause. Another breath.

"You made me feel death."

She let that linger. Let the weight of it sit between them.

And then—finally—her lips curled into the smallest of smiles. Not mocking. Not indulgent.

Just knowing.

"And I lived."

 

[Alina Tremiru]

"No, no nothing good came of this. You're still as annoying as ever. Full of yourself." Alina waved a hand, dismissive and just.. Tired of this now. Should she just kill the girl and move on? It was a tempting thought, but what good would it actually have? What purpose would it even give either of them? "All I cared for was teaching you to reach out for yourself. But you're just a slave, and now that's all you'll ever be, Enjoy your servitude, child."

With that, Alina left. Their second meeting, and once again Alina was left.. Disappointed and annoyed.