Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private There Stands The Ashes



sith-divider-pink.png

There Stand The Ashes

Tags: Serina Calis Serina Calis

Deployment Location:

  • Primary Target Zone: [Dantooine]

Equipment Loadout:





The airspeeder kicked up a swirl of dust and brittle grass as Sable set it down near the ruins. The repulsors hummed for a moment before powering down, leaving only the whisper of wind through the open plains.

She stayed in the cockpit a second longer than she needed to, fingers tightening around the controls before she finally exhaled and climbed out, moving to assist her passenger to disembark. The old homestead was little more than a memory now—worn timbers, crumbling stone, and the faintest outline of a life long past.

It felt alien to walk here, to look upon this place, and yet she didn’t exactly remember it.

She just felt it.

Her hand drifted to the edge of her mask, fingers brushing over the cold as if it could ground her in the moment. But the memories pressed in anyway—long afternoons spent cleaning blasters at the kitchen table, the warm scent of caf mixing with the open air, the steady reassurance of her adoptive father's presence.

They were fragments, more impressions of a memory, rather than a recollection. It made her stomach turn, and flickered to a cold fury in her gut.

And then a silence followed. The kind of silence that settled in after loss, after life had been carved away piece by piece until nothing but an empty shell remained.

But standing here now, she wasn't so sure.

Something had pulled her here after all. She just wasn’t sure what.

Only one way to find out.
 

There Stands The Ashes
Location: Dantooine
Objective: Burn a home down.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Sable Varro Sable Varro


"Let the past die."

The wind carried the scent of old wood and dust, curling around Serina like a patient observer as she stepped from the airspeeder. She moved with the kind of deliberate grace that came naturally to her—unhurried, confident, inevitable. The ruins before them were unimpressive to her eye, just another forgotten relic in a galaxy filled with them. But the way Sable stood there, frozen at the threshold of memory, made this place something else.

Serina let the moment breathe.

She did not rush to speak.

Instead, she watched.

Sable's fingers hovered near her mask, a touch meant to ground herself, but Serina knew better. This was not a place for grounding—it was a place for ghosts.

She took a step forward, then another, the crunch of dry grass beneath her boots the only sound in the heavy silence. The ruined homestead loomed before them, its bones bared by time, a skeleton of something long dead.

"How quaint," she murmured, voice rich with amusement, but lacking its usual cruel edge.

Not yet.

Her gaze flicked toward Sable, sharp and knowing. The way her shoulders had gone tense, the way she lingered at the edge rather than stepping forward—it was not hesitation. No, hesitation was for those who feared their past.

Sable was measuring it.

Serina turned, her gloved fingers tracing over a crumbling wooden beam, feeling the old, splintered surface beneath her touch.

"This was once home to you," she said simply. A statement, not a question. "Or at least, that is what they told you it was."

A pause.

"But that's the thing about home, isn't it? It is not the place that remembers you."

Her fingers curled into the aged wood and snapped a piece off with little effort. She turned it over in her palm, examining it idly before letting it fall to the dirt.

"It is only ever you who remembers it."

She stepped forward again, glancing toward the outline of a foundation nearly swallowed by the tall grass. A home reduced to its spine.

"Tell me, dear one—" she tilted her head, watching Sable closely now, carefully, "—what exactly is it you hope to find here?"

It was not a taunt.

Not yet.

But it would be.

Because Serina already knew the answer.

Nothing.

There was nothing left here for Sable.

No answers. No solace. No warmth of some long-forgotten embrace to be reclaimed. Just ruin. Just decay. Just absence.

But still, Sable had come.

That, more than anything, fascinated Serina.

Her lips curled, just slightly.

"Memory is such a fragile thing," she mused, tilting her gaze to the sky, as if the wind might whisper something back to her. "So easy to rewrite. So easy to shape."

Her eyes found Sable's again.

"Would you like me to shape yours?"

The question was quiet. Dangerous.

Serina could erase this pain if she wished. She could mold Sable's past like wet clay, turn this ruin into whatever she desired it to be. A lie. A dream. A weapon.

And for a moment, she wondered—

Would Sable let her?

Would she break so easily?

Or would she fight for something real?

Serina almost hoped for the latter.

She did so love a challenge.

 
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sith-divider-pink.png

There Stand The Ashes

Tags: Serina Calis Serina Calis

Deployment Location:

  • Primary Target Zone: [Dantooine]

Equipment Loadout:





Sable stood still, the silence between them stretched taut, humming like a powerline before the storm.

The wind caught the edge of her poncho, flaring it just enough to reveal the weathered butt of her sidearm and a sliver of old ink on her forearm—black lines etched in a language of violence and regret. She didn't look at Serina right away. She didn't need to.

"I didn't come here for answers," she said, voice low, rough like gravel under a boot heel. "I came to burn this place down."

Her gaze shifted finally, eyes like storm glass meeting Serina's with that calm, coiled stillness that said she'd bled through worse things than ghosts.

"I still see this place in my dreams."

She stepped forward then—slow, deliberate—and passed through the wreckage like someone walking a crime scene rather than a childhood memory. Her boots cracked a broken support beam underfoot. She didn't flinch. She removed her mask, stowing it away on her belt. Her white hair tumbled down, bringing her mood along for the ride.

"I've been shaping it." She said over her shoulder. "I think it's time I just...break it down."

There was no anger in her voice, no heat. Just the kind of hollow certainty that came from living too many years with a hole where something soft used to be.

"I've let you shape me, and I've continued to let you." A pause. "I'm not exactly sure where I'd be without you. I guess that's the point."

The threshold stood like the mouth of a grave—weathered, hollow, and waiting.

Sable stepped toward it slowly, boots crunching against a scatter of broken tiles half-buried in windblown dirt. The skeletal frame of what had once been the doorway rose before her, leaning slightly to one side where the foundation had begun to sink, crooked like a tired old man bowing beneath the years. The wood was splintered and sun-bleached, warped by rainstorms and the heat of countless Dantooine summers. Faint scorch marks curled along the frame—residue from whatever fire had claimed the house's final breath.

It had to of happened years ago. She was surprised it was still standing honestly.

Above, the lintel beam still bore the faint carving Alfonz had etched into it—just a crude sigil of a star and a crescent moon. A family mark, or maybe just a passing thought he'd scratched in during one of those long, quiet evenings. Time had worn it thin, but not gone. Not yet.

Inside, shadows pooled like old secrets. The roof was gone, torn away by time and wind, but the bones of the house remained—a few support beams jutting like ribs from the earth, shattered window frames clinging to the edges of their openings, a cracked hearthstone visible beyond. The walls were half-fallen, scattered stone and fractured plaster overgrown with stubborn weeds and creeping grass.

Sable stopped at the doorway.

She didn't cross it. Not yet.

She stood there, hands at her sides, one curling unconsciously near her holster—not to draw, but to anchor. A reflex. A habit.

Her habit.

Beyond her, the wind stirred through the ruins again, lifting dust and dead leaves, curling them in lazy spirals across the floorless interior. The scent of ash and dried wood still clung faintly to the air, mingled with the earth-rich breath of the plains.

She looked at it all, not with longing, not with grief.

Just with eyes that remembered.

And for now, she didn't move.

Just stood at the doorway, like someone visiting the tomb of a life that never quite belonged to them.

"But you already know that, don't you?"

She turned then, standing to face Serina fully now, wind tugging strands of pale hair loose from beneath her hat.

"You poke at memory like it's a wound you want to infect. But that only works on people who still feel pain."

The edge of a smirk tugged at her mouth. It wasn't humor—it was defiance, worn smooth by time.

"And if you're asking what I hoped to find…" She shrugged. "Maybe just the proof that nothing here matters anymore."

Another pause. The smirk faded.

"…Or maybe I just needed to see if I still cared."

She let the silence settle again, let Serina stew in whatever meaning she might pull from that.

Then Sable turned away and started walking again, toward the old trail that led past the ridge.

"I can still hear her sometimes," She called without looking back, "I just need to...really cut her out..if I want a future with you, this all has to go."

And just faintly, she turned back to Serina:

"…I'll give you whatever you want. Because, I love you." She motioned to the weathered structure.

"It's...why I want your help...destroying this."
 
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There Stands The Ashes
Location: Dantooine
Objective: Burn a home down.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Sable Varro Sable Varro


"Let the past die."

Serina watched Sable with a satisfaction that curled deep in her chest like a purring beast, its hunger momentarily sated.

She had known, of course, that this moment would come.

That Sable, given time, given the right pressure, would offer herself fully—not just in body, not just in service, but in the destruction of what had come before. Because love, true love, was the complete and utter abandonment of the self.

And Sable had finally arrived at the precipice, standing before the ruins of her past, not with grief, not with longing—but with the desire to set it all alight.

Oh, how delicious.

"I can still hear her sometimes," Sable had said.

Serina took a step forward, slow and deliberate, the leather of her gloves whispering as she flexed her fingers. How poetic, she mused silently, a ghost that still lingers in the mind, despite everything we've done to silence her.

"If I want a future with you, this all has to go."


A shiver of genuine pleasure ran down Serina's spine at the words. Not for what they meant to Sable—but for what they meant to her.

There was no future for Sable. Not one that belonged to her, at least.

There was only purpose.

There was only function.

And the only function worth anything to Serina was utility.

Serina smiled then, slow and indulgent, stepping toward Sable like a lover answering an unspoken call. Her boots crushed dried grass and brittle memories beneath them as she closed the space between them.

Her gloved fingers lifted, traced the edge of Sable's jaw with an agonizing slowness, the kind of touch meant to unravel rather than comfort.

"Oh, my dear, sweet thing," she murmured, her voice low, sultry, but carrying the weight of a promise wrapped in silk. "You say the most wonderful things."

Her other hand came to rest lightly on Sable's chest, just over the eye carved into her armor—her mark. The thing that ensured that no matter where Sable went, she would always carry Serina's gaze upon her.

"You offer yourself so completely, so beautifully." She leaned in, breath warm against Sable's ear. "And you want me to help you burn it all away? To strip the last remnants of what you were, to ensure that nothing of her remains?"

She exhaled softly, as if drinking in the moment.

"How could I ever deny you such a thing?"

Her lips curled in amusement as she pulled back just enough to look at her fully, tracing the outline of Sable's face with the barest flick of her fingertips.

"But tell me, dear one—"

A pause, deliberate, devastating.

"Do you really want this because of me?"

She watched—waited—for the flicker of uncertainty that always came before the final collapse.

"Or is this just another excuse to do what you've always wanted?"

Serina's
smile grew, soft but dangerous, her thumb brushing over Sable's lower lip in a touch so intimate it was nearly obscene.

"Ah, but it doesn't matter, does it?" she sighed, shaking her head as if she found it all terribly endearing. "You belong to me, and so, your desires belong to me as well. If you wish to destroy this place, then it will be done. If you wish to burn away the past, then I shall be the one to light the match."

She tilted Sable's chin higher, forcing her to meet her gaze.

"Because that is what love is, isn't it?" Her voice dropped to a whisper, honeyed and venomous all at once. "To become what the other needs. To shape ourselves into exactly what is required."

Her fingers trailed lower now, resting lightly at the base of Sable's throat, possessive. Claiming.

"And you, my little shadow, were always meant to be shaped."

She leaned in again, close enough that their lips nearly brushed, close enough that Sable could feel the heat of her presence pressing into her very bones.

"Say it again."

The command was quiet. Sharp.

"Tell me again that you love me."

Serina already knew the answer. She always knew the answer.

Because Sable had already given herself completely.

She had offered her body, her loyalty, her very sense of self—all wrapped in a single, devastating truth.

Sable belonged to her.

And Serina would never let her forget it.

 


sith-divider-pink.png

There Stand The Ashes

Tags: Serina Calis Serina Calis

Deployment Location:

  • Primary Target Zone: [Dantooine]

Equipment Loadout:





Sable didn't answer right away.

Her gaze lingered beyond Serina, over the ruined house—the place that once held lullabies and firelight and the scent of spicebread baking in a crooked old oven. That memory flickered like smoke, distant and dull. She thought she might mourn it. Once, she should have. But now…

Now, it was just kindling.

Serina's touch slid like a blade under her skin—gentle, practiced, patient. Sable felt it not as comfort, but as pressure, an exquisite tension that curled at the edges of her ribs and coiled down her spine. The softness was a lie. A trap. One she walked into willingly.

Because it was easier than facing the echo of her Alfonz's voice.

"I don't know if it's love,"She said quietly, but there was no hesitation in her tone—just a distant, hollow calm. "Not the kind they wrote about in storybooks."

Her eyes flicked toward Serina's fingers at her throat. She didn't move. Didn't flinch.

"But whatever it is… it's stronger than grief. Stronger than memory."


She turned her head slightly, letting Serina's hand guide her chin without resistance. Her voice dropped low, soft as embers, rough with something older than pain.

"And yes," She said, meeting Serina's gaze with that scorched, unwavering stare, "I want you to be the one to burn it down."

A breath passed between them.

"I want to forget her voice. I want to forget the little girl who waited at the window, and believed in justice. I want to forget what it felt like to believe in anything else, but you."


Her hands lifted slowly, settling over Serina's wrists—light, reverent, but not to push her away. Just to hold.

"Because if there's nothing left of her…"
Her throat worked. "Then, maybe you can finally accept me. Fully."

A beat.

And then, quietly, fervently—too raw to be theatrical, too honest to be anything but cruel:

"I love you."

Her lips shaped the words like a surrender and a curse in equal measure.

She leaned forward, resting her forehead briefly against Serina, arms moving to try and embrace her, to seal this deep seated discomfort that now formed in her gut.

"I've tried to hard, to destroy her, to purge her from my mind, Serina.....you wouldn't understand, the lengths I've gone...."

She pulled back just enough to let Serina see the truth gleaming cold behind her eyes.

"She just won't let go...I don't know how else to....remove her Serina. You may just have to kill me."

And that, perhaps, was the most terrifying kind of love there was.
 

There Stands The Ashes
Location: Dantooine
Objective: Burn a home down.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Sable Varro Sable Varro


"Let the past die."

Serina stilled.

Not from hesitation, not from doubt—from satisfaction.

From the deep, bone-deep pleasure of knowing that she had finally, finally worn Sable down to the last, trembling thread of herself.

She had peeled back every layer, scraped away every stubborn fragment of resistance, burned through every last tether that held Sable to anything other than her—and now?

Now, there was nothing left.

Nothing except this.

This desperate, aching, shattered devotion.

This hollowed-out love that wasn't love at all—but something better.

Something useful.

Serina's lips curled into a slow, indulgent smile. Not cruel. Not sharp. Something worse. Something kind.

Her fingers tightened, just slightly, against Sable's throat—not choking, not punishing. Just holding. Just reminding.

"Kill you?" she repeated, voice low, thoughtful, dangerously pleased. Her breath ghosted against Sable's lips, as if considering the idea, savoring it. "Oh, my dear, sweet love… why would I ever waste something as exquisite as you?"

She exhaled softly, her thumb brushing over the line of Sable's jaw, tilting her chin higher. Commanding. Possessive. Claiming.

"No, Sable. You don't need to die."

A pause.

"She does."

Serina leaned in, so close now, her lips barely grazing Sable's ear, her voice curling like silk and venom around every word.

"And I am going to help you kill her."

The promise was softer than a lover's whisper, heavier than a death sentence.

She pressed her forehead back against Sable's, her fingers stroking idly at her throat, feeling the pulse there, the proof that Sable was still hers, still alive only because Serina allowed it.

"But you are mistaken, darling." Her voice dropped lower, mocking, reverent, cruel. "You think I don't understand the lengths you've gone to?"

She pulled back just enough to look at her fully, to drink her in—the flickering embers of desperation, the cold determination barely holding back the shattered girl still screaming underneath.

"Oh, sweetling." Serina smiled, wide and rapturous, like a queen basking in the worship of a dying world. "I know exactly what you've done."

Her gloved fingers trailed lower, down the length of Sable's spine, as if mapping the places where she had already been broken before.

"I know the lengths you've gone to rip her out of yourself. I know how you've clawed at your own mind, how you've buried her beneath blood and war, how you've drowned her in my will, over and over again."

She let out a breath, almost purring, like this revelation was the most beautiful thing she had ever heard.


"And yet, she lingers."

Serina's
fingers tightened, just briefly, just enough to remind Sable of the power she held.

"That's where I come in."

She pressed closer, voice dipping into something low and knowing, something that settled into the marrow of Sable's bones.

"You couldn't kill her alone, but you don't have to."

A pause. A beat of silence that was suffocating in its certainty.

"Let me do it."

Her lips brushed over the corner of Sable's mouth—not a kiss, not quite, just the promise of one, held just out of reach.

"Let me take the pieces of her that still exist and shatter them, one by one, until nothing remains but exactly what you were always meant to be."

Her hands lifted, cupping Sable's face between them, tilting it so gently, so possessively, like she was handling something holy.

"I don't need to kill you, Sable."

Serina smiled, indulgent, victorious.

"I just need to finish what you started."

A breath.

"And when it's done?" Her nails dragged lightly, slowly, down Sable's jaw. "You will look at me, and there will be no part of you left that doesn't belong to me."

Serina's smirk softened, something sickly sweet, something deadly in its certainty.

"No more ghosts. No more voices."

Her hands slid down, resting lightly over Sable's racing heart, right over the eye carved into her armor.

"Just me."

She sighed, relaxed, as if all of this had been inevitable.

"Only, me. Only, Serina."

Her fingers curled lightly into Sable's armor, possessive, commanding, as she pulled her closer, just a breath away from sealing the moment completely.

"Now…" she purred, voice dripping with satisfaction.
"Let's burn this place to the ground, shall we?"
 


sith-divider-pink.png

There Stand The Ashes

Tags: Serina Calis Serina Calis

Deployment Location:

  • Primary Target Zone: [Dantooine]

Equipment Loadout:




Sable didn't speak at first.

She stood frozen, not in fear—but in stillness so total it felt like the moment before a blade drops. Not resistance. Not hesitation. Just the final breath before surrender becomes something irreversible.

She swallow hard beneath Serina's fingers, her pulse fluttering against that possessive grip like a caged thing still struggling to remember what freedom had ever felt like.

But it wasn't trying to escape.

It was only remembering how to be still.

How to belong.

Her eyes closed for a moment, lashes lowering like a curtain over the last flickers of doubt. Not because she believed Serina's words—she had believed them long before this. But because she needed to feel them sink all the way in. To feel them settle into her ribs like ash and soot.

To let them become truth.

When her eyes opened again, there was nothing left behind them but fire.

"I want you to," She said at last, her voice low, hoarse from something deeper than emotion. "I just, am tired of being held back. Of feeling like, I can never quite be free of anything. That I’m just…shackled to this life."

Her fingers moved—slowly, deliberately—up Serina's sides, not tender, not seeking comfort, but grounding herself in the only thing that still felt real.

Serina.

Her anchor. Her purpose.

"You said it before," She whispered, the corners of her mouth curling with something halfway between reverence and ruin. "That I was always meant to be shaped."

She leaned in, letting out a breath.

"I think you may have been wrong."

A pause, as she knew there would be a backlash to this regardless of her retort.

"I just need your guidance."

She turned her head slightly, resting her cheek briefly against Serina's gloved hand like a supplicant before an altar.

"And when the fire's gone, when the last echo's burned away and there's nothing left of her but smoke and dust…"

She looked up, eyes shining with that terrible, beautiful devotion.

"…there will only be you."

A beat.

"And I will still love you."

Even if she didn't know how to define love anymore.

Even if it had become something cruel and consuming and absolute.

She didn't care.

Because Serina was the fire now.

And Sable? Sable would be the kindling.

That probably didn’t make sense in the mind of a sane man, but it didn’t have to.

Her hands let go of the woman with reluctant. Sable stepped back, looking towards the house. She raised up one of her launchers and primed an incendiary missile towards it.

Her arm hung for a moment, pondering what was to come next. Feeling the faintest tug of hesitation at the back of her mind. Unseen strings stayed her hand, she felt her wrist tremble.

Some part of her pleaded for an end to the madness.

But she knew the truth. She knew what needed to be done.

"Burn it," She breathed. "Burn everything."

She let the rocket loose, letting it smash against the weathered roof, and witness it burst into a bright array of colors as it set the structure alight.
 

There Stands The Ashes
Location: Dantooine
Objective: Burn a home down.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Sable Varro Sable Varro


"Let the past die."

Serina watched, motionless, as the rocket spiraled forward.

For a moment, she felt nothing.

Not the wind against her skin, not the press of Sable's presence beside her. Not even the familiar hum of power that usually curled within her ribs like a contented beast, waiting to be called upon.

Just… stillness.

And then— the impact.

A bloom of fire exploded outward, swallowing the old home in an instant. The detonation sent a thunderous shockwave through the air, rattling the very ground beneath their feet. Flames roared skyward, licking hungrily at the night, consuming the memories, the ghosts, the weight of the past in a pyre of absolute destruction.

Serina should have smiled. She wanted to smile.

Because this was victory, wasn't it?

Sable had done it. She had burned away her past for Serina.

The devotion was absolute. The surrender complete.

She had never felt anything like it before. The warmth that flickered in her chest wasn't just pleasure, wasn't just control—it was something else. Something genuine. Something dangerous.

She was proud of Sable. Proud of her.

Her fingers twitched at the thought. A rare, delicate emotion she had never allowed herself to have began to unfurl within her. Not just possession. Not just satisfaction.

But something deeper.

Something fragile.

She turned her gaze toward Sable, the firelight reflecting in her eyes. She looked perfect. The flickering orange glow danced across her pale skin, illuminating the resolve in her features, the steady way she held herself even as the wind carried the scent of ash and ruin around them.

Serina had never seen anything so beautiful.

This is what I always wanted, she thought. This is what I always needed.

And then it happened.

The moment she had been warned about.

A sharp pull wrenched through her body—like something deep inside her was tearing away, unraveling, as if reality itself had begun to split at the seams.

Serina staggered.

Her breath caught— pain lanced through her veins, sharp and sudden, like fire had bloomed inside her very marrow. Her fingers curled into fists as she fought against the sensation, but her legs trembled beneath her.

The air around her warped, shimmered, as though space itself was rejecting her existence.

And then she remembered.

Dantooine.

The last time she had stood on this world, she had been warned. Warned by herself. The price for surviving Darth Imperius Darth Imperius ' blade.

"You will have to make the same choice one day."

The words echoed in her mind, clearer now than they had ever been.

"If you don't… you will be erased. Like I would have been. It is inevitable. Time does not allow us to cheat it forever."

She had brushed off the warning then. She had thought she was untouchable. She had thought she had control.

But now…

Now she understood the truth.

It was too late.

The unraveling had already begun.

Her existence—her very being—was beginning to collapse in on itself, because the cycle had been broken. She had lived when she should have died.

And the Force demanded its balance.

She had to do what her future self had done to save her. She had to make a sacrifice.

A cold, horrifying certainty slammed into her chest.

There was only one choice now.

There was only one thing she could offer.

Sable.

Her breath shook, her hands trembled as she turned her gaze toward the woman who had just burned her past for her. The woman who had just given her everything.

Serina felt something break inside her.

Because for the first time in her life, she didn't want to let something go.

For the first time in her life, she felt regret.

Her vision blurred, not from pain—but from something deeper.

This isn't fair, she thought bitterly. I was never meant to feel this. I was never meant to care.

But she did.

And it was too late.

A sharp gasp tore from her lips as she fell to one knee, clutching her chest as if she could hold herself together through sheer force of will. Her body flickered at the edges, a distortion of light and shadow, like she wasn't fully there anymore.

Serina squeezed her eyes shut. This isn't happening. This isn't happening.

But it was.

And she had no time left.

Her voice was barely a whisper. A breath. A dying thing.

"Sable…"

She forced herself to look up, her vision swimming, the fire behind Sable blurring into something indistinct and dreamlike.

She had to say it.


"I need you."
 


sith-divider-pink.png

There Stand The Ashes

Tags: Serina Calis Serina Calis

Deployment Location:

  • Primary Target Zone: [Dantooine]

Equipment Loadout:




Sable stood in silence, watching the fire consume the remains of the house she had once called home.

It crackled and roared, casting long shadows across the ground as it tore through wood and stone—through memories, through pain, through everything that had once chained her to the past. Her heart beat heavy, not with sorrow, but with something close to release. The smoke curled into the sky like a final prayer, and for a moment, she felt something.

She didn't look away.

She couldn't.

The flames were mesmerizing. Hypnotic. They danced in the night like spirits, licking up every corner of her former life. She could almost see the echoes of the past flickering in the blaze—the hallway where she used to hide, the cracked mirror in the upstairs room, the bloodstains she could never quite scrub from the floorboards. All of it, finally, gone.

A part of her wanted to smile.

She had done it. For herself. This has all been for herself, hadn't it?

She had severed the last thread of the old life. She could finally, just be free of her failings.

But then—

Something shifted in the air. A ripple. A disturbance she almost didn't notice at first, buried beneath the roar of fire and wind.

A sound.

Her name.

It was not loud. Not desperate. Just…wrong. Unnatural.

"Sable…"

She blinked.

Her head turned slowly, the trance breaking.

And the moment she saw Serina—collapsed to one knee, face twisted in pain, the air warping around her like a mirage—her stomach dropped.

"Serina?"

The fire was forgotten in an instant.

She ran, boots skidding in the dirt, heart hammering as she dropped beside her. "Serina—what's happening?"

Sable reached out, grabbing Serina's shoulders, trying to steady her, trying to understand.

Her skin was cold. Her body flickered, like light through broken glass. The Force around her felt distorted—twisted—like it was fighting to hold her together.

"What do you need-" Her voice faltered. "What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong"

She tried to think on Serina's words, what might have been, what could be the groundwork for this whole episode.

She was left with almost nothing.

She scanned Serina's face, eyes wide, breath catching in her throat. "What did you mean, that you'll be erased?"

Her voice took on a tone of panic, trembling she hadn't encountered before took her hands.

"You said you needed me,"
She said. "What do you need me to do, Serina?"

She gripped Serina's hand tightly in hers.

Her past home laid burning behind her, the fire darted across the roof, starting to consume and spread. The roof buckled, long since past it's time as the heat of the fire devoured it. The inside began to burn, the heat starting to reach the pair, as smoke began to billow up into the sky.

With her past burning behind her, and her future seeming to slip through her hands, Sable struggled for rational.

 

There Stands The Ashes
Location: Dantooine
Objective: Burn a home down.
Allies: ???
Opposing Force: ???
Tags: Sable Varro Sable Varro


"Let the past die."

Serina's breath came in shallow, ragged pulls as the distortion around her grew worse. The edges of her body flickered, blurred, as though reality itself was trying to erase her, to wipe her from existence like ink smeared across parchment.

This couldn't be happening.

Not now.

Not when she had come so far.

Her fingers curled into the dirt beneath her, nails digging deep as if she could anchor herself through sheer force of will. The Force screamed around her, warning, demanding, pressing its will against hers with an urgency she could not ignore. She had known this moment would come. The warning had been clear. The timeline was unraveling. Her existence was a paradox, one that the galaxy would not tolerate for much longer.

Balance must be restored.

A sacrifice must be made.

Her gaze lifted, slow, weighted with something unreadable as it landed on Sable. The girl was kneeling before her, hands gripping her own, panic swimming in her crimson eyes. She was the obvious choice. The simplest. The quickest. A single, clean motion—Tyrant's Kiss sliding between her ribs, the power of the dagger sealing her fate.

And yet…

Serina clenched her jaw.

She had spent too much on Sable. Had shaped her, molded her, broken and reforged her into something greater than she had ever been before. Killing her now would be a waste. A ruinous, empty waste. Sable was not some disposable pawn to be discarded when the game grew inconvenient. She was a creation. A masterpiece. A blade still being sharpened.

No. She would not throw her away.

But the price had to be paid.

Serina exhaled, long and slow, and forced herself upright, though her body fought her every step of the way. The world still wavered around her, the telltale signs of unraveling creeping closer, faster.

Her fingers, still trembling, lifted to cradle Sable's cheek, a rare, genuine tenderness threading through the touch.

"I cannot kill you," she murmured, the weight of that admission settling heavy between them. "Not after everything. Not when you still have more to give."

Her other hand reached for her dagger—Tyrant's Kiss—its cold, familiar weight settling into her palm. The blade gleamed in the firelight, whispering promises of stolen existence, of life claimed and rewritten.

"But the balance demands a sacrifice," she continued, voice steady now, though the war within her had not ceased. "Something of equal weight. Something strong enough to seal the fracture."

She lifted the dagger, letting the firelight catch the dark runes etched along its length.

"Find me one," Serina commanded, voice like velvet over steel. "A soul worthy of the exchange. Someone powerful. Someone whose death will mean something."

Her fingers curled, just slightly, against Sable's skin, her hold firm but not cruel.

"Do this for me," she said, her tone slipping into something lower, something almost reverent. "And I will remain. I will stay by your side, as I promised."

The words were not a plea. Serina Calis did not beg. But there was something in them—something raw, something rare. The unspoken truth beneath them.

If you fail, I will not survive this.

She let her hand fall away from Sable's face, fingers ghosting along her jaw before retreating entirely.

"Go," she whispered. "And do not return until you have what I need."

And with that, Serina closed her eyes, inhaling slowly, willing herself to hold together for just a little longer.

Just long enough for Sable to bring her salvation.

 

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