Private The Arrival of the Once-Sephi.

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

The sky above Rakata Prime was the color of old bruises—deep purples and violent oranges streaking across the heavens, as though the planet itself had not yet healed from its millennia of ruin. Serina Calis stood atop a shattered temple, her cloak billowing in the salt-tinged breeze, the whisper of ancient voices rustling through the skeletal remains of a civilization long since erased.

She was waiting.

And she had never enjoyed waiting more.

Serina's fingers traced slow, absent-minded patterns across the smooth, blackened surface of a fallen monolith, feeling the cold bite of history beneath her touch. Rakata Prime was a place of endings. Empires had died here, their rulers screaming into the void as the Force abandoned them, as their machines rusted and their gods turned to dust. And now, Serina found herself in the heart of it—waiting to create yet another ending. Or perhaps, a beginning.

Lirka Ka.

Oh, what a fascinating wretch she was. A creature of sculpted flesh and whispered agony, built for war, reforged in betrayal, and poisoned by her own failures. The Once-Sephi had come to her on Korriban, desperate and decaying, that unnatural body of hers gnawing away at itself like a rabid beast trapped in its own skin. She had tried to play at strength, tried to hold herself high as a warlord, a slaver, a monster—but Serina had seen deeper.

Lirka was weak.

Not weak in the way the Sith sneered at—the fragile, pathetic kind of weakness that deserved to be crushed. No, Lirka's weakness was far more exquisite. She was unfinished. A shattered blade reforged too many times, the cracks running deep beneath the surface. She was a story without an ending, an endless cycle of death and rebirth that had long since lost all meaning. And Serina?

Serina would give her purpose.

She smiled. Not the polite, measured smile she wore in courtly circles, nor the sly smirk she used when weaving her web of manipulation. No, this was something purer, something far more indulgent. The kind of smile one gave when watching an artist finally take up the brush and ruin a pristine canvas in glorious, destructive strokes.

She is going to be magnificent.

Serina could already picture it—Lirka kneeling before her, that monstrous body twitching as Serina whispered the truths she had been so desperate to hear. She would show Lirka the way. Not the lies of the Sith, not the indulgences of the Dark Side's lesser acolytes. No, she would reshape her. Not as a pawn, not as a tool—but as something greater, something boundless.

And the best part?

Lirka would beg for it.

She exhaled slowly, letting the pleasure of the thought settle over her like a warm embrace. Every fiber of her being ached in anticipation—not of the conquest, not of the power, but of the sheer joy in watching Lirka struggle, in watching her mind twist and break in just the right way. There was nothing more beautiful than the moment of surrender.

And it was coming.

She had left the trail for Lirka to follow, a carefully placed series of riddles and invitations disguised as mere circumstance. A whisper in a dying man's ear. A slaver ship found abandoned, its crew vanished without a trace. A beacon pulsing on the edge of Wild Space, just enough to be noticed. All leading here.

To her.

The air crackled with distant thunder, the ocean below crashing violently against the ruined cliffs. A storm was coming—not just in the skies, but in the Force itself.

Serina closed her eyes, tasting it, reveling in it.

Come now, my monstrous little pet. Let me show you the shape of the Dark.

 

[Lirka Ka]

The Galaxy was a transient thing, and Lirka Ka considered herself representative of the Galaxy. Of the primal struggle between strength, the dominion of the strong over the weak, to take what you want. And she was transient.

She had come scuttling to Korriban, a pathetic thing digging through ruins to find some bauble or trinket to gift her the power to keep the Sith off her ass for her unnatural state.

But the Butcher King provides.

Lirka Ka had been remade, reforged once more. The blood of Carnifex coursed through her like ichor, a portion of strength had been gifted to her in their marriage of flesh and blood. And it had emboldened her tenfold, it was an unfortunate thing to give a narcissist a power boost.

A single dark shuttle came to Rakata Prime, an unassuming thing. A shuttle that Serina Calis hoped would hold her latest toy, a new plaything in the Dark Jedi’s arsenal.

She would be disappointed.

As the vessel landed on this ruined world with a thud, the hiss of the landing bay was accompanied by the heavy metal footfalls of a monster. A thing that twitched with power barely contained, the brand upon her head itching: a reminder of her bond to her Dark kin.

And with madness in her heart, Lirka threw back her head and screamed, beckoning the shadowy figure she had met on Korriban in what had already seemed like a lifetime since her rebirth.

“WEAVER!”

Lirka would not cower and dance on a knife’s edge this time, the “Weaver” had talked themselves up quite a bit. And spoke of chaos, fire, and war. Lirka would not waste time with such things, for they were vital to the continuation of the Dark’s purpose for mortals like themselves. So did Lirka stomp after the girl, as painfully obvious as ever.

But it was not a void in the force that gave Lirka away this time. No. It was darkness, primeval darkness the likes of a force dead monstrosity like her should never have possessed. Darkness like that of a Lord, an unnatural creature that danced the line of bustling and dead all the same. Carnifex had remade her, as he had done all those years ago when she had sworn her oaths to him.

For it was not Lirka Ka, sniveling slaver that walked the sands of Rakata Prime.

It was Lirka Ka, raging Lash of the Kainate. Envoy of the Eternal Father, Kin bound by blood and flesh.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina Calis watched from the ruins as the dark shuttle slammed onto the ancient stone, its landing violent, its presence disruptive. A Sith might have been irritated at such an arrival—so graceless, so lacking in the subtlety of a careful approach.

But Serina was not a Sith.

She knew why Lirka Ka had done this. She was making a statement.

And Serina… Serina was elated.

From the moment that monstrous form emerged from the shuttle, Serina could feel it. The change. The warping of something primal, something that had no right to exist within a creature like Lirka, yet did anyway. She had seen this work before, documented and studied it for her own pleasure, although she had not personally seen or met the true master, she knew of his name.

CARNIFEX

Her eyes traced the twitching mass of power barely contained beneath durasteel and sinew, the grotesque beauty of a body reforged once more in Carnifex's image. The brand upon Lirka's head burned with its unseen weight, marking her as bound—enslaved, despite the way she carried herself.

It was delicious.

Lirka screamed into the ruins, her voice a shattered, mad thing that bled defiance.

"WEAVER!"

A lesser creature would have recoiled. A fool would have drawn a weapon.

Serina?

Serina laughed.

It was a slow, silken sound—low and indulgent, like a queen watching her new pet thrash against its chains.

She did not descend from the temple immediately. No, that would be giving in too easily. Instead, she let the silence stretch, savoring the heat of Lirka's presence in the Force—this unnatural thing, this broken beast pretending to be whole.

Not yet, my little monster.

She took her time. Each step forward across the ruined stone was deliberate, the edges of her dark robes trailing behind her like living shadow. The wind that howled through the ancient temples did not touch her. She was stillness incarnate, the eye of the storm, the cold certainty of inevitability.

And then she finally spoke.

"Lirka Ka."

Her voice was warm, almost affectionate, as though welcoming an old friend into the fold. But beneath it, in the way she shaped the syllables of that wretched name, was something else.

Something amused.

Something that knew.

"I see you've been remade again. And here I was, thinking we had already met your final form."

A knowing smirk curled at the edge of her lips, but her piercing blue eyes remained sharp, analyzing, dissecting. The energy pouring off of Lirka was different now—something raw, something unnatural. Carnifex had touched her.

How utterly predictable.

Serina tilted her head, her gaze drinking in the details—the twitch in Lirka's limbs, the barely contained fury, the overwhelming need to prove herself, to be more than just another monster in service to a greater beast.

Ah. There it is.

"So the Butcher King has seen fit to bless you. And yet…"

She stepped closer, slow, unhurried, taunting in her ease. She walked the line between inviting and challenging, her tone like silk drawn across steel.

"Here you stand, screaming my name into the void like a beast let loose from its leash. Tell me, Lirka Ka…"

A pause.

A breath of silence, stretching just long enough to let the words settle.

"Did he remake you for him? Or for yourself?"

It was a knife of a question. One she knew would fester.

Lirka Ka was many things—a warlord, a killer, a survivor—but above all else, she was narcissistic. She did not serve; she endured. She took what she wanted and left ruin in her wake.

And yet.

And yet.

She had been reforged not by her own hand.

But by another's.

Serina let that question hang in the air as she stepped closer still, her presence coiling like an unseen thread through the Force.

"Did you come here to prove something to me, Lirka? Or…"

And here, her voice dropped into something almost intimate.

"Did you come because you know, deep down, that I can give you something more than what he ever could?"

Her gaze bored into Lirka's soul, twin blue infernos of knowing.

Serina did not fear Lirka.

Because she was not here to fight her. Not here to dominate her.

She was here to own her.

 

[Lirka Ka]

And so did Lirka wait, a prowling thing. She paced back and forth like a beast on the hunt. She was impatient, evidently. The “Weaver” had taken their sweet time calling upon her again and truthfully, Lirka found it almost insulting in a way. It was not normal for her to kicked so far down the pecking order, and besides, she had been eager for this exchange.

Too many questions unanswered, too many possibilities. And Lirka, ever craving the knowledge of which gears turned in the dominion of the Sith had come to understand, and to learn.

A twitch as she heard her, and the inferno of Lirka’s rage simmered down to but a boil. The affectionate tone of this specter were like knives in her ears, but knowing that she was actually here: Lirka knew that the many possibilities of their exchange had opened. She did not intend to misuse it.

“Ah, so you didn’t decide to just waste my precious time.”

The words hummed out of her helm, in near-mocking she mirrored the “friendliness” in Serina Calis

The “Weaver” may have known much, but Lirka was an ancient thing now. A plotter and a schemer for decades among many-a-master, she did not rush into these things blindly. All she needed to do was bide her time till the moment presented itself…

She spoke, curtly and with judgement. As if Serina had offended some aspect for the Once Sephi’s bizarre religion that should have been obvious.

“The only finality is death. You should know as one who spoke so heavily of Primordial Dark.”

Lirka’s lenses trained on her form, utterly unmoving. She drank in every detail, every little expression. Lirka intended to know all that she wished, for that is why she was here.

“Do not speak of our Marriage as if it is a thing you understand, Weaver. The Eternal Father has gifted a part of himself into me.”

She remained blunt, her pacing continued but her eyes remained locked. Words grumbling out of her helmet, undistorted, letting her alien accent shine through the mechanisms.

“You are predictable, Weaver. You seek to drive a wedge between me and my Kin: it is the way of your lot, and I do not blame you for it. For who am I to despise a beast for its nature?”

She was quippy today, evidently. The cautious respect from Korriban had been tossed to the wind. Lirka intended to learn, and she would be dissuaded by pointless questions and stabbing manipulations.

“I have come for knowledge, Weaver. You speak honeyed words of war and death, and I intend to see just how true they ring. Because I know, Weaver, that you have me here because you want me. Why else would you invite me here? So we will speak, Weaver, you and I.”

Lirka stopped her pacing, facing to the girl. Grinning to herself as she decided it was her turn to set the stage.

“Plainly. Simply. No masks, eye to eye, face to face.”

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina did not flinch, did not react beyond the slow, deliberate tilt of her head as Lirka's voice filled the ruins. The challenge, the barely veiled accusation—oh, how predictable it was. But also, how delightful.

She let the Once-Sephi speak, let her prowl and pace like the caged beast she was. Let her bare her fangs.

It was all so very necessary.

And Serina savored it.

"Ah, Lirka, you wound me."

Her voice was light, teasing—a mockery of offense as she placed a hand on her chest, over her heart. The very picture of amused patience.

"Do you truly believe I brought you here just to waste your precious time? No, my dear, I brought you here because you interest me."

A pause, letting the words settle. Letting the implication hang between them.

And then, a slow smile.

"And I so enjoy the things that interest me."

Serina stepped forward, descending the ruined stone with the grace of a shadow untethered from the flesh. Each step deliberate, her hands folded behind her back, her presence unshaken, unwavering.

No masks?
No games?

Lirka was a liar. A beautifully self-assured liar.

And Serina would let her believe the lie.

"Plainly, then."

She came to a stop mere paces away, standing tall despite the height difference between them, despite the weight of that monstrous suit. Lirka was a thing of metal and war, a hammer sharpened into a blade.

Serina?

Serina was a knife in the dark, already at Lirka's throat without her even realizing.

"You say I do not understand your… marriage."

She let the word roll off her tongue with just the right amount of intrigue. Not mockery, not dismissal—but something else. Something interested.

"Perhaps. But I understand power, Lirka Ka. I understand what it means to have another's will seared into your very being."

A sharp tilt of the chin. A challenge, but one delivered in silk instead of steel.

"You say the Eternal Father has gifted you a part of himself. And yet, you are here. With me. A creature of Carnifex's dominion, and yet you seek the Weaver's words. You say I am predictable, and yet, Lirka Ka…"

A step closer.

"You came anyway."

A pause.

A soft, slow smirk.

"That means one of two things."

She circled now, no longer standing still. Lirka had prowled, had paced, and now it was her turn.

"Either you are so supremely confident in your will that you believe nothing I say will touch you. That my words are nothing more than idle curiosities."

She stopped, standing behind Lirka's right shoulder. Close enough for her breath to ghost against the cold metal of the helmet.

"Or… you already know there is something more to be found here, and you cannot help but want it."

She let it settle.

Serina had no need to tell Lirka what she already knew. Lirka wanted knowledge. Knowledge she could not find from the Kainite. Knowledge beyond the Empire's reach.

Knowledge only Serina could offer.

And so, she relented.

She stepped away, giving Lirka space again, meeting her gaze with that same calm, effortless confidence.

"Very well, my dear. Face to face. No masks."

And then, slowly, deliberately, she raised a hand to her hood.

With an unhurried grace, she pulled it back, revealing the cascade of golden hair beneath, the sharp lines of her face—a queen's beauty, a viper's sharpness. And then, she raised a hand once more.

Her fingers brushed the edges of the cold, unfeeling mask she had worn for so long.

And then—she removed it.

It was a gesture as old as power itself. A symbol. An offering.

A challenge.

Serina Calis stood before Lirka Ka, bare-faced beneath the bruised Rakatan sky, her piercing blue gaze unwavering.

"Now then, Lirka Ka."

She let her voice drop just slightly—low, intimate, a whisper of honeyed venom.

"Let's talk about what you truly want."

 

[Lirka Ka]

That was Lirka’s way. To challenge, to bark, to bite. A savage and simple life, born of the Underworld. The clash of strength that motivated her being so often masked under the veneer of her self-interested manipulations. Perhaps that is why she found herself so short with Serina Calis

They were souls cut from the same cloth.

And Lirka had very little patience for people like herself.

She had even used the same line about wounds before when taunting poor poor Trayze Tesar. If Lirka’s daughters weren’t dead and buried decades ago, she might have assumed this Weaver was her bastard spawn.

“The machinations of manipulators are a thing difficult to predict, will one deal with grand schemes, or petty pranking?”

The closest thing Lirka would ever do to self introspection. Lirka knew what she was, but there was still plenty to learn about her odd little “compatriot”. Lirka looked down to acknowledge her, so tiny these Sithlings were. Like gnats flying around her being, but, they were useful gnats.

“My Marriage is as I say, yes. A piece of him has been gifted to me. Carnal union of flesh and blood. But I am not his lickspittle, my legs are my own, and I may walk where I please.”

She’d never truly acknowledge the leash around her neck. Her pride didn’t allow her to.

“I seek many things, and if we are to speak plainly: I seek your name, I tire of your melodramatic title. I have come here because you speak the honeyed words of war and death, and I intend to see how serious your claim.”

As Serina removed her mask, Lirka could almost laugh. But she kept it in, just another child, that is what she saw before her eyes. The youthful arrogance she had become so accustomed to living among the Sith for so long. But she’d keep her feelings to herself, with the hiss of depressurization Lirka’s claws gripped her helmet and removed it. The “Weaver” would be gifted the chance to be among the rare few that could see the beast beneath the metal.

Lirka was an abomination, existing in ways that the nature beings of the world could not. The androgyny of a statue’s grace, features sculpted and infinitely too symmetrical. Eyes of an impossible blue, obviously dyed, speckled with the distinct red-orange of the dark side within them. Her hair had been cut short recently, and she had decided to keep it the rather “classic” midnight black she had been born with. But there was one feature that made Lirka stand out.

The brand upon her forehead, raw and red as if it had just been pressed.

The brand of the Kainate. The same brand burned upon her Kin, Carnifex.

“I know what is to be found here, the possibility of a new test to weed out the Strong. I have walked this new Empire, and seen its weakness. Noble men and women who pride themselves on honesty and justice. I have seen the Heir of this Empire, her weakness oozes like a disease. An overly emotional child, untouched by the teachings of Primordial Darkness. Of the truths of struggles and hardship, the Way of the Strong. “

Lirka’s clawed hands clasped behind her back, and she paced once more. Her eyes never breaking from that of Serina’s. A predator staring down another.

“So what do you intend, girl? What is the bloodshed and change you have whispered into my ear?”

To know the turning of the gears. That is what Lirka sought among the Sith at all times.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina's smirk did not fade as she drank in the sight of Lirka Ka, now bare to the elements.

What a fascinating wretch.

A monster sculpted in flesh and metal, shaped by war and remade in another's image. The brand on her forehead was raw, still fresh enough to burn if pressed upon. A mark of ownership, though Lirka would never admit it.

Serina could see it—the denial, the pride, the refusal to acknowledge the leash she bore so willingly. It was beautiful, really.

A lesser Sith would have seen Lirka's grotesque form and recoiled. A lesser Sith would have tried to tear her down, to call her weak for wearing another's mark. But Serina was not lesser.

Serina saw possibility.

Lirka was right about one thing—they were similar. Not in their methods, not in their ambitions, but in what they understood. They both knew the Galaxy was a lie, that strength dictated all, that power was the only thing worth holding onto.

But where Lirka had spent centuries carving her path through blood and bone, Serina had spent a lifetime bending the very fabric of fate.

And she was about to do it again.

She let the silence stretch for a moment longer, just enough for the weight of it to settle between them. And then—

"Serina."

No grand theatrics, no ceremony. Just the name.

"Serina Calis, if you must know the full thing."

A gift, seemingly, though it cost Serina nothing. If Lirka thought knowing her name would give her some kind of advantage, she would soon learn how little it truly mattered.

"And you're right, Lirka Ka. I did not bring you here to waste your time."

A slow step forward, measured but unafraid.

"I brought you here because you see the same weaknesses I do. You see what this new Empire is—a thing pretending to be strong while it rots from the inside. A hollow vessel, wrapped in the illusion of order and nobility."

Her gaze flicked to the brand upon Lirka's forehead for just a fraction of a second. A subtle thing, barely noticeable—but intentional.

"You speak of struggle, of hardship, of weeding out the weak. And yet, look at them."

She extended a hand, gesturing vaguely to the sky, as if pointing to the Empire itself.

"They preach strength, yet cling to tradition. They play at power, yet refuse to truly embrace it. Their 'heir' is exactly as you say—a child wrapped in delusions of righteousness, playing at the game without understanding the rules, unlike you and I."

A slow, knowing smile. Everyone had a piece on the board. Quinn wasn't an exception.

A deeper thought entered her mind, where would her piece be once the inevitable game was over, once she had taken and bent more than the stars to her very will?

Serina hoped that she could be at her feet, like all she shared similar affections for. But as Reicher always said.

Hope is a dangerous thing.

"And you know what happens to children in the dark, don't you, Lirka?"

She let the words settle, let the meaning hang in the air like the scent of blood before a battle.

Serina took another step forward, closer now, just inside Lirka's space—just enough to provoke.

"You came here for knowledge. Then here it is, plainly: I intend to reshape this Empire. Not as it is, but as it should be. A place where the strong do not answer to the weak. Where the truth of power is understood, not wrapped in the trappings of nobility."

Another step. A whisper now, just between them.

"Tell me, Lirka Ka—when you gaze upon this new Empire, do you truly see a home for the strong?"

Her voice was velvet, soft where it should be sharp, sharp where it should be soft.

Serina already knew the answer.

She had seen it in Lirka's pacing, in her prowling movements, in the way she loathed what she had witnessed in the Empire's new hierarchy.

Lirka was no fool. Lirka saw the same cracks.

The only question now was if she was ready to admit it.

Serina leaned in, her breath warm against the edges of Lirka's jagged, monstrous features.

"Or do you simply cling to what you know because it is easier than tearing it all down?"

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka paced in silence for a moment as well, she drank in the name. Serina Calis . Names were such a crucial piece of information, and while Lirka had never been a shy woman: her first exchange with Calis had been one of shadows and secrecy: now all was bare, Lirka had little to hide in her face. It was all theatrics that she kept it so well hidden, to be only the ideals and not the flesh. So on and so forth. The sort of mewling melodramatics of a woman who was far too old, and had been given far too much time on her hands in her long life.

"Serina Calis."

Lirka hummed the words out, her accent was thick and alien: even in rebirth, Lirka would always sound like she was from Thustra. Serina was wise to give out her full name. Lirka was always a fan of using someone's name in its entirety when she wasn't finding some childish insulting nickname for them.

"Weakness festers in all Empires. It is the nature of them, bloated things that survive and die as Primordial Dark bids: those who can pass the tests of strength and those who can not. Leaving those who cling to the power of Empires in foolhardy determination, or those like the Father who has slipped into the darkness. Content to command and rule the wretched creatures of the dark."

Wretched creatures like Lirka.

"Empires are but facilitators for strength, to tear them down to nothingness reduces us to meandering pointless animals: in the stead of Empires rises democracies and republics, foul things were the Weak rule and the Strong rot. But, Serina Calis, I believe in the transience of all things. To evolve to adapt to the challenges the Dark bids of us. I will not weep at an Empire reformed into something unrecognizable."

She paused her pacing now to look at the girl. Eyes locked, unblinking, a hunger for war in the air. The girl talked a big game, and Lirka intended to see just how much she could back it up.

"But. I do not see any Legions, I do not see Armadas, I do not see Warriors. I see only you, Serina Calis. What have you done to start your endeavors, or you merely intended to whisper honeyed words into the ears of millions and reforge this Empire through the miserable bureaucracy of politics?"

Lirka was a brutish woman, she saw the changing of tides through the lenses of war: machinations of the dark were the realm of politics, and Lirka wasn't all that much of a politician.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina listened. Not out of patience, not out of courtesy, but out of amusement.

Lirka Ka was many things—brutish, savage, a wretched thing carved from violence and raw survival—but she was not stupid. She spoke in truths, in the philosophy of war and dominance, of the transient nature of empires.

But truth alone was useless without action.

And that was why Serina was already ahead of her.

Lirka finished her words, standing now with expectation, that hunger for war thick in the air between them. She was testing her. Waiting for her to falter. Waiting for excuses.

Serina did not entertain such things.

She simply turned.

And without looking back, she walked.

"Follow me, Lirka Ka."

That was all she said. No honeyed words, no elaborate rhetoric.

Just a command.

Because Serina Calis did not explain herself.

She showed.

The ruins swallowed her form as she strode forward, descending into the shattered pathways that led beneath the surface of Rakata Prime. The air was thick with the weight of history, the stone beneath them once carved by a species long dead. The only sound was the quiet click of her boots against the uneven path.

And ahead, the faint glow of something hidden.

The first step.

 

[Lirka Ka]

An example? Lirka could deem that acceptable. So did she swallow her pride and follow after Serina Calis all heavy footfalls thudding against the earth and perhaps leaving one or two new cracks in the stonework because of her bulk. Was this her grand plan? Old ruins of dead empires? She'd seen it before, and Lirka found herself very uncaring of failed dominions in her old age.

But she kept her thoughts to herself for once, eyes merely gazing around the ruins as they walked: though never letting Serina Calis out of her sight. Lirka trusted her about as much as...not at all. But that was normal when dealing with Sithlings.

But there was comfort in these places long dead, the Dark had touched this place as it touched all things withered and dead. There was a solace in feeling a connection to her god once more.

Now, all she could do was wait for the grand reveal.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina walked ahead, unhurried, unshaken by the heavy thuds of Lirka's footfalls behind her. The Once-Sephi moved like a beast barely restrained, her monstrous bulk shifting with the sound of cracking stone under her weight.

Serina smiled.

Lirka did not trust her. That was expected. But she had followed, and that was what mattered.

The ruins of Rakata Prime stretched downward in twisting pathways, the shadows growing thicker as they moved deeper beneath the surface. The air was heavy, thick with the weight of forgotten power. The old Rakatan tunnels had long since been abandoned, but the Dark had never truly left. It lingered here, in the bones of a civilization that once ruled the stars and had been erased from them.

And now?

Now it would serve her.

The path was long, but Serina never faltered. She knew exactly where she was going. They passed through ancient hallways where the walls were scorched from battles fought thousands of years ago. Strange, indecipherable markings lined the stone—remnants of a language lost to time.

But then, at the end of one of those long, winding corridors, Serina stopped.

The door before them was ancient, a massive slab of metal fused into the rock itself. To the untrained eye, it looked impassable. Sealed forever by the passage of time.

But Serina had other means.

She raised her hand, fingers splaying open toward the dead lock. And then, with a flick of her wrist—

The Force answered.

The sound of metal groaning echoed through the chamber, ancient mechanisms grinding against themselves as the seal broke. Dust spilled from the cracks as the massive door lurched open, splitting down the center in a slow, deliberate motion.

And beyond?

The arsenal.

Inside, rows upon rows of crates stacked high, each one marked with insignias not from Rakata Prime.

The Susefvi sucessionists.

This was no ancient relic of a lost civilization. This was stolen history, smuggled weapons, and gear meant to fuel a rebellion which had long since died.

And it was now in Serina's hands.

Blaster rifles lined the walls, heavy repeater cannons stacked in steel cases, explosives sealed in security crates designed for military-grade transport. Armor, durasteel plating, vibroblades, disruptors, tech—everything needed to cause chaos.

And all of it untouched.

Serina stepped forward into the chamber, running a hand along one of the crates, letting her fingers trace the insignia of the world that had fought—and failed.

"I told you, Lirka Ka and believe me this is only a fraction of what I have acquired."

Her voice was smooth, unwavering. She turned, her gaze locked onto the warrior behind her, a knowing glint in her blue eyes.

"I do not whisper into the ears of politicians. I do not wait for change to come to me."

She gestured to the vast array of weapons, gear, power.

"I take it."

A slow, deliberate pause.

"And now, so can you."

She let it linger. Let Lirka see.

Because this was no dream. No empty words.

This was the beginning.

 

[Lirka Ka]

The depth of what Rakata Prime represented was lost on Lirka, her brutish simplicity forbid her for having much respect for history she wasn’t involved in: it was to be expected, if Lirka wasn’t there how important could it really have been?

She followed after Serina Calis the Once-Sephi’s face blank and emotionless as if she still wore her mask. The only bits to reveal her fleshiness the occasional twitch of her writhing flesh.

But, when the grand reveal arrived. Amusement appeared across Lirka’s face, a smirk, a twinkle in her eye. She looked over the grand assortment of crates and armaments with a curious eye, possibilities were vast. But guns were guns, Lirka cared more for what they represented.

“Susevfi? You mean to tell me that mess was your doing, Serina Calis? Or are you a vulture picking through carrion?”

She wanted the confirmation. That final kernel of information that Lirka needed, the proof of power and potential. She turned to face the girl now, bristling with anticipation. Eyes locked with each other.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina met Lirka's gaze, unflinching, unwavering.

The smirk on the Once-Sephi's lips, the gleam in her unnatural eyes—this was what Serina had been waiting for.

Lirka was not impressed by history. She did not care for past glories or the weight of dead civilizations. But power?Action?

That, she understood.

And so, Serina gave her what she wanted.

A slow, deliberate smile curved across her lips. She took her time, letting the air between them grow thick with certainty.

"Oh, Lirka Ka."

Her voice was warm, indulgent, a mockery of affection. She took a step forward, her hands clasped behind her back, her movements slow, deliberate—measured dominance.

"I did more than pick through carrion. I made the feast."

She turned slightly, letting her fingers trail over one of the Susefvi-marked crates, as if tracing the echoes of destruction itself.

"That 'mess' you speak of? The fall of Susefvi? The rebellion that tore itself apart before it could ever reach its peak?"

A slow inhale. A lingering pause.

"That was me."

She lied.

Or, rather—she took what was partially true, a grand conspiracy of many moving parts, many hands in the dark, and she claimed it all for herself.

And why shouldn't she?

Lirka did not care for nuance. She did not need whispered alliances and subtle sabotage. She needed proof.

And so, Serina gave her exactly that.

"I did not merely watch Susefvi crumble—I ensured it. I made their strongest warriors turn on each other. I whispered war into the right ears and let the weak devour themselves."

She turned back to Lirka now, her gaze like twin ice-blue daggers, sharp and unrelenting.

"Because that is the way of things, is it not? The weak always pretend they are strong, always cling to the illusion of power. But in the end? When the Dark touches them? When the test is placed before them?"

Her smile widened, her voice dropping to a low, intimate promise.

"They break."

The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the weight of something real.

Serina had fed Lirka the only truth that mattered.

That she could do it again.

"Susefvi was just the beginning, Lirka Ka. The first, the test, the proving ground."

She gestured—not to the weapons, not to the crates, but to the Galaxy beyond.

"Now? We do it everywhere."

She stepped even closer now, until there was nothing between them but the promise of annihilation.

"We will make the strong annihilate the weak. We will carve away the rot, remake this Empire, reshape the Galaxy."

Her lips curled upward, a smirk, a challenge, a certainty.

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka stared at her, unmoving, unflinching. She let the revelations wash over her, the brand on her hand giving the distinctive itch she had become so well accustomed to. And that glint in her eye came to life.

Lirka was on Serina Calis in an instant, servos in her legs bursting her forth. Not to strike, but to put a metallic gauntlet over the girl’s mouth. She needed her to shut up finally, for once in her damnable life. She leered forward, no murderous intent in her eyes. Nay, it was the glare like that of a disappointment mother.

“Now I will talk, you will listen.”

Her words hissed out like daggers, madness in her eyes. The madness of ambition, the madness of possibility. But the madness of deep frustration with the child before her. She leaned closer, the unnatural chill of being emanating off her.

“Breathe in girl, a deep breath.”

It was rare for Lirka to have her skin exposed, and while she may have been a “Once-Sephi”, she was Sephi nonetheless. Sephi held a very…particular evolutionary adaptation. Pheromones oozed off her being, a product of a bygone age before the Sephi had become the dominant predators of Thustra. A measure to use against predators, pheromones to trick the brain into thinking it was near death. Lirka knew the feeling well, and her wisdom would amplify in that twilight state: even if it was just a pale imitation of the real thing.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina's world lurched.

One moment, she was speaking—commanding, sealing the moment in certainty. The next, Lirka was upon her.

The servo-powered speed was unnatural, monstrous, too fast for something of her size and bulk. But Serina did not flinch. Even as the cold metal gauntlet clamped over her mouth, even as the crushing weight of Lirka's strength loomed over her, even as the madness in the Once-Sephi's eyes burned like a dying star—

Serina did not break.

Her body froze, but her mind did not.

She watched. She listened.

"Now I will talk, you will listen."

Lirka's voice slithered, sharp as the edges of a broken blade.

Madness. Ambition. Frustration.

Serina understood all of it.

She felt the unnatural chill bleeding from Lirka's flesh, felt the weight of something inhuman pressing against her. And then—

"Breathe in, girl, a deep breath."

And Serina knew.

She had read the histories of the Sephi. Not just the tales of their beauty, their longevity, but their biology. Their pheromones.

A relic of an age long gone—designed to twist the mind of predators, to distort perception, to make the prey feel as though death had already come for them.

It was clever.

It was powerful.

And it was exactly what Serina wanted.

She let herself breathe.

The effect was immediate. A creeping, insidious sensation slithered through her nerves—a primal warning, a whisper of doom, a trick of the mind telling her that she stood upon the edge of oblivion.

A lesser woman would have panicked. Would have gasped, stumbled, fled.

But Serina?

Serina embraced it.

Her muscles did not tense. Her pulse did not spike.

She simply leaned into it.

She made herself believe it.

She let the fear take root, let the sensation coil around her like a lover's embrace, let her mind touch the precipice of death—

And then, she devoured it.

The fear, the uncertainty, the primal urge to flee—she pulled it in, crushed it into nothing, reforged it into something else.

And in that space, in that breath where Lirka Ka sought to teach her, Serina did something terrible.

She laughed.

It started as a low, muffled sound against the metal of Lirka's gauntlet. A tremor. A ripple. And then it grew. It was not the laughter of someone breaking. It was the laughter of someone who had already won. Serina did not fight the grip. She did not struggle. She simply… waited.

Waited for the moment that Lirka realized.

Realized that her lesson, her power, her attempt to instill wisdom—

Had only fed the fire.

Serina's eyes locked onto Lirka's, her lips curling into a smile even as the gauntlet remained over her mouth.

And then—slowly, deliberately—she reached up.

Not to pry the metal away. Not to fight.

But to take Lirka's wrist in her own fingers—gently, almost reverently.

And then, with agonizing slowness, she pulled the gauntlet from her lips.

Not because she was stronger.

But because she knew, in that moment, that Lirka wanted her to.

Serina's breath was slow. Measured. Calm.

"Lirka Ka."

Her voice was soft. Deceptively soothing.

"You think I don't understand death?"

She took a step forward.

Closer.

"I have been at its door since the day I was born."

Another step.

"I have kissed its lips. I have whispered in its ear."

Her gaze burned with certainty.

"And I have told it to wait."

And then—

She lifted her hand. Not to strike. Not to harm.

But to brush her fingers against the raw, burning brand on Lirka's forehead.

Just a touch. A reminder.

"You are strong, Lirka Ka. But even you—"

A slow, knowing smile.

"Wear a leash."

She let the words settle.

Serina had no need to prove herself. No need to fight for dominance.

Because Lirka had already followed her here.

 

[Lirka Ka]

Lirka did not expect a coward, though she certainly would have welcomed one. To eat the fear of death? It was an admirable trait, Lirka could have respected it if her madness hadn’t so quickly turned to pure frustration as she felt her servos whine as her hand was pushed back.

Lirka had hoped Serina Calis could see through her hubris for a moment. But, they were cut from the same cloth. And did Lirka ever really see through her own hubris? Evidently, as the words of Calis reached her ears once again: the girl didn’t understand that now was one of those times you stopped talking.

Her free hand flashed out, an iron fist aimed for that ever obnoxious smirk. She had made the rarest attempt to be “nice” this girl who shared so many of her own ambitions, but evidently that wasn’t going to work. So she shouted, frustrated, a mother’s scorn.

“You stupid, stupid, girl! Can you not swallow your idiotic pride for even a moment?”

Lirka didn’t even bother waiting to see if the first strike did anything before slinging out another. Wrenching her hand out of the Dark Siders grasp before pointing an accusatory, judging, finger.

“Of course you understand death! We all do! We are killers, marauders, we who speak of Primordial Dark have been touched by death in ways the Galaxy can not understand! You wish to make an enemy of me, girl-who-calls-herself-Weaver!? Wish to laud over me as if you are some Dark Messiah!?”

She spread her arms wide, beckoning to the room around them.

“You are a child! Playing in the shadow of giants, the moment you called me here I realized it! You are sloppy! You are foolish! You are arrogant!”

The true irony of it all, Lirka was describing herself just as accurately as she raved.

“I may have a leash, Serina Calis. But who holds it? You!? In only your wildest dreams could you do such a thing! No, you stupid girl, you have revealed yourself to me in arrogance: thinking that I would bend the knee, for this!? This…assortment of trinkets and toys? Susevfi is your grand ploy, you master design? A rebellion crushed in a day and will be forgotten in a month!? The Malsheem can churn out this assortment in a day! Do you understand that!? Do you understand what you fight against!?”

It should have been rage, a murderous wrath, but Lirka remained judging and frustrated. She shouldn’t have cared, but she did. She had some modicum of respect for this girl, and she hurled herself into the jaws of monsters in her youthful ignorance. So, Lirka finished her mantra: the piece she had left from her when first discussing her “marriage”

“In a carnal union of flesh, two have become one. The Eternal Father is I, and he is me. His eyes are my eyes, and my eyes are his eyes!”

So did she glare, her eyes open wide. Let this girl understand her meaning, her master saw all that Lirka did, and heard her beckonings from across the stars. Would this place really be so different?

“You are known, Serina Calis! Darth Carnifex will know! And I will vouch for you, for the service you offer to this Empire is grand, a test of strength to prove its worth. And do not think I do not know what you will say, you will laugh, you will cackle, you will smirk because you think yourself mightier than the oldest of us because it is the way of the youth to be foolhardy! But at a snap of my fingers, my fleet could arrive and pound these world to ash and dust!”

She took a breath, and let her composure calm. And she did something most unlike herself, she reached out, earnest, and honestly. For she knew the cause of Calis was just under the Way of the Strong.

“I am not your enemy, Serina Calis. Do not force me into becoming one. Do not be a fool. Listen to me. Listen well: I will never bow to you. I will never dance to your tune, I will let you hold the leash. Because Serina Calis, you have nothing you could offer me, no bauble, no trinket, no dark mysterious power that I could not already achieve. And that makes me your ally, the only ally that will not lick your boots and dance on the strings you weave.”

In her heart, Lirka knew she was talking to a wall. Her blade was ready, if it came to it: the girl would learn by violence.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka ​

Serina felt the impact before she saw it. A flash of iron, a brute's discipline, a warrior's frustration made manifest in the crack of Lirka's gauntlet against her face.

Her head snapped to the side, her vision blurred for half a second—not from pain, but from the sheer audacity.

And then came another.

The second blow followed before the first had even finished reverberating through her bones, an immediate reprimand, a mother's scorn wrapped in the steel of a soldier's fist.

Lirka raved. She bellowed, she judged, her accusations ringing in the chamber like the bell of a distant war.

Serina stood there, silent.

She did not lash out.

She did not interrupt.

She simply listened.

Not because she needed to.

But because this moment—this rage, this frustration, this fire—was exactly what Serina had wanted.

Lirka was a force of will, a creature bound to the law of dominance. She spoke truths, but truths woven through madness, contradictions she did not even recognize as she screamed them.

She was testing her.

And Serina?

Serina was learning.

She learned how far Lirka would go before her pride demanded violence.
She learned how deep her devotion to Carnifex truly ran.
She learned that even in her condemnation, Lirka wanted her to listen.

Wanted her to understand.

And so, as the echo of her final words faded, as the tension hung like a blade in the air, Serina did the most dangerous thing she could do.

She exhaled.

Long, slow, controlled. The heat of the moment bled from her like mist dispersing in the wind.

And when she finally looked back at Lirka, her cheek slightly reddened from the blows, her expression was not one of anger.

Not one of wrath.

Not even amusement.

It was serene.

She stepped forward—not fast, not threatening, just close enough to make the air between them vanish.

"You mistake me, Lirka Ka."

Her voice was soft, a whisper wrapped in steel.

"You think I wanted your submission. That I needed you to bow, to kneel, to break."

A pause.

"But that is not what I want."

She let the words linger, let them breathe, let Lirka hear them.

And then—a hand, slow, deliberate, reaching out. Not in violence. Not in manipulation.

But in recognition.

Her fingers touched Lirka's wrist, the same wrist that had struck her, the same clawed hand that had pointed at her in judgment.

"I do not need a servant, Lirka."

A slow tilt of the head, watching. Measuring.

"I need a monster."

The words hit the air like a blade.

"A creature that will walk with me into the fire—not because she is chained to my will, but because she wants to see the Galaxy burn just as much as I do."

She let go.

She stepped back.

And then, for the first time in this entire conversation—she bowed her head.

Just for a moment. Just enough to acknowledge.

"You are right about one thing, Lirka Ka."

She lifted her gaze, smirkless now, her blue eyes dark as the void.

"I do not understand Carnifex the way you do. I never will. Because he does not interest me."

A slow inhale.

"You do. You can teach me to grow my fangs."

She let that truth settle. Let Lirka hear it.

And then—finally, after a breath, after a lifetime in a single moment—Serina gave her the only answer that truly mattered.

"Let us be monsters together."

 

[Lirka Ka]

As Serina’s head rose. Lirka realized she hadn’t hit her hard enough evidently, but that time would come. The girl needed to bleed. For no real reason other than it would offer some humor into Lirka’s dead soul, perhaps to knock out a tooth out and put it on a chain so she could reminded just how much Serina Calis annoyed her.

But that was Lirka’s way, wasn’t it? Hyper-violence and animalistic hierarchy, the Way of the Strong.

Serina finally shut her mouth for once, and listened. Lirka afforded her the same curtsey though she wasn’t so confident that the girl really deserved it. As her hands touched the cold metal of Lirka’s form, the Once Sephi bit back the desire to strike again. This girl needed to learn the definition of “personal space”, something Lirka valued oh so much.

Her eyes judged as Calis spoke, a sneer forming on her lips. She finally relented, but Lirka was in one of her oh-so-famed moods evidently.

“Serina Calis, what you need is a damn Nanny-Droid to stop you from killing yourself.”

She snarled it out, it was hard for an ancient to respect the young. But she allowed her face to calm, she was the guiding hand. And she needed to not let her misgivings cloud the divine purpose gifted upon her by the union.

“And evidently, girl-who-deems-herself-Weaver, I am your nanny-droid. Carnifex should interest you, girl. Carnifex is chaos, that wears the veneer of order. Carnifex’s Will decays this galaxy, so that the Strong may rise from the cracks that form.”

She stared her now, unblinking. Purpose, divine, maddening, shuddered through her face. The brand burned, compelling her.

“You want to be a Monster, Serina Calis? You aren’t even close. You have shown me a rebellion, the work me and Carnifex had done a dozen times during the Empire. So, Serina Calis, prove to me you can be a monster.”

She uttered the challenge, the call to be worse. To be selfish. To be cruel. To be strong.

 

[Serina Calis]

Tag: Lirka Ka
​

Serina tilted her head slightly, absorbing Lirka's words with an expression that was unreadable, measured, and calm. The insult, the snarling dismissal—none of it phased her. She had expected it. Lirka was a creature of violence, of hierarchy, of testing limits through force. And Serina?

Serina was a creature of patience, of calculation, of letting others believe they were in control until it was too late.

The accusation was not unexpected. Lirka spoke of Carnifex as if he were inevitable, as if his will alone dictated the unraveling of the Galaxy. And perhaps he did. Perhaps his influence was the gravitational pull that set entire sectors into collapse. But Serina did not worship chaos. She did not revere decay.

She shaped it.

Serina exhaled slowly, her hands clasped behind her back as she took a step forward, closing the gap between them once more—but this time, without mockery, without provocation. This was not the time for smug words or veiled amusement. No, she had heard Lirka. And now she would give her the answer she sought.

"I will meet him," she said simply, without hesitation. "Privately."

Her voice was smooth, without the flare of arrogance she so often wielded. It was simply a fact.

If Lirka believed that Carnifex was the true embodiment of chaos wrapped in the illusion of order, then Serina would see it for herself. Not through whispered secondhand accounts, not through the words of the faithful, but through his presence, his will, his design.

"If Carnifex is what you say he is, then I must know it for myself. I do not follow ghosts or legends, Lirka Ka. I do not kneel to names. I test the weight of power in my own hands. And if Carnifex is truly the force you claim, then he will not fear meeting me."

She let those words settle, knowing full well that to some, it would sound like blasphemy. That one did not request to meet with the Butcher King. One was either summoned… or destroyed.

But Serina did not ask.

She declared.

A pause.

And then, she allowed a slow, dark smile to creep across her lips once more—not one of amusement, but of something colder, something final.

"And if I am not a monster yet, Lirka Ka, then show me the path to becoming one."

 

[Lirka Ka]

Serina may have wished to shape, but Lirka at her core was a selfish thing. A thing that craved survival above all else, such was the tenants of one who wished to survive till the End-Of-All-Things. Such was the mind of a zealot. Lirka did not need to shape, for that was the will of the Dark and the Dark alone. They were but mortals allowed to exist till the day would come where they would all be pulled into the abyss. Entropy. Chaos. Decay. The misery needed for others to see what she knew to be true, the dark truths she had uncovered on holy Rhand. That is what Lirka worshipped.

That is what Carnifex brought for her, wrapped in the pretty veneer of order, in veneration, in the mind of a man who thought himself beyond Primordial Dark. Lirka chuckled, an airy and humorless thing at the mention of their meeting. Fine, the girl could run headlong into her own doom. Lirka had offered her help, if she wanted it Lirka would put in a good word. Spin her crimes till Susevfi looked like a pretty bow, a drop of water in an endless ocean of crimes.

"So be it, Serina Calis, let the Eternal Father be your judge. Perhaps you too will be christened into something greater and see the Darkness beyond his being."

She paused for but a moment.

"Or perhaps he will unmake you."

Lirka had gotten used to people not trusting her during the long years of her life, it was not an undeserved thing: Ka was quite the liar, after all. But she knew the youth would never listen to the tales of warning from an old woman, what ever happened next was in the hands of the Sith'ari and no one else. He'd know what to do with this girl, he'd know how to show her how meager her grand designs truly have been in the scale to a man-who-declares-himself-god.

A grin, slowly grew across Lirka's foul face. She wanted to become a monster? Then she would show her the way of monsters, the way of blood. Just as quickly as her fists had lashed out before, Lirka headbutted the girl. More as prelude than for any matter of particular dislike.

"A monster fights, Serina Calis. A monster is mighty, are you mighty Girl? Or are you just another rat in the dark?"

Brutish, but, it took a particularly good mood to make Lirka not. She raised her fists, slowly, the Once-Sephi demanded a test of mettle wordlessly.