A fractured moon suspended in the shadow of a gas giant, its surface marred by ancient impact scars and long dead structures that no longer served their original purpose, marked the concealed location of the gala. Her transport landed in silence, where the dark shadow of an outpost that had been renovated into a lavish estate revealed itself. Black marble and obsidian had been fused seamlessly into the structure, their jagged geometry refined into various sculptures. Gold traced the edges of archways and columns, catching the ambient light and bending it into warm glow that bathed the halls. Chandeliers of black and red crystals hovered at varying heights, softly refracting their light through the space.
Masks were not required, but expected. Each guest wore one of varying detail alongside the rest of their refined attire, enough to conceal their identities, but not the fact that the majority of them carried vast pockets of credits. Servants moved in silence, refilling drinks and offering delicacies. Soft music flowed through the room and a few of the patrons danced with one another, gliding across the marble floors.
At the center of it all, beneath a raised dais of black stone, the auction pieces rested in rotating display fields, each surrounded by an array of armed guards. Ancient holocrons, various engraved blades, finely preserved armor embedded with fragments of the Force— and there, suspended alone, was an item that Velira recognized all too well. The Sanguine Lattice, a necklace of interwoven dark crystals, hovered in place. It faintly glowed with threads of crimson energy, wrapping around it in a web of living patterns— the semblance of an ancient Anzati relic, one that contained the coordinates of various sanctuaries and lineages of her kind.
The woman known tonight as Mythra Vexorin, the alias she’d adopted, moved with the quiet confidence of someone accustomed to being watched. Her deep crimson dress faintly shimmered in the dim light, the corseted bodice laced tight around her waist, emphasizing each feminine curve of her figure. A black silk cloak flowed over her shoulders, its hood casting soft shadows across the elegant features of her face, enough to obscure them. Beneath it, a simple black silk mask framed her crimson eyes.
At her side, stumbled a necessary inconvenience, much to her dismay— Her “fiancé”, better known as her ticket through the door, and the distraction that she hoped would help divert unnecessary suspicions away from her. He laughed too loudly, leaned too close for her liking, and had hands that tended to wander further than they should. But as the son of a crime lord somewhere on the outer rim, he came with an identity of prestige that served to aide in concealing Velira’s.
At the very least, the mind of Krixo Kreeg had been easy to manage, to claw inside and reshape. Mine, his thoughts insisted lazily. Soon to be mine. Velira allowed the delusion to remain, even if made her frown in distaste. At the very least, he’d make a sufficient meal at the end of the night— Not one to be savored, but one that provided sustenance.
When her “date” for the night inevitably became distracted by the fully stocked bar, much to her relief, Velira seized the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Her gaze began to scan the room with quiet intent, as she watched for patterns. Already Velira could feel a sense of familiarity, of presences that were both as ancient as they were regal. Anzati, more than one, and of nobles at that— Her family. Of course they’re here, Velira couldn’t help but think to herself with a touch of resentment, but she knew all too well that the Lattice called to them as it did to her.
And somewhere in the room, there lingered the watchful eyes of bounty hunters. A few, Velira could already recognize, simply from their stance. Beneath tailored coats and masks, the weight of their trade betrayed them in subtler ways— the slight pull at one side of the hip where a blaster sat too comfortably, the quiet habit of never allowing their backs to remain exposed for long. She was careful not look at them directly, but from the periphery of her vision.
It was clear that they were not here for spectacle, but for her kind that warranted highly valued bounties— and the chance to obtain a tool such as the lattice, that would make it all the easier to hunt them. Velira just had to ensure that it ended up in her hands first, one way or another.
The thing she noticed first was the silence.
It wasn’t an absence of sound. The music still drifted on wispy notes, glasses still chimed, voices still murmured behind velvetry and anonymity. It was the sheer restraint of it, how it pulled itself into a ball of etiquette and high society. Every note and movement was premeditated, calculated, and engineered to achieve the best possible outcome. Morgan was no stranger to such gatherings, though her heart remained in louder, raunchier places. The dark pits where decency and decorum went to die. It was too quiet.
It made her smile beneath her mask. The Queen of the Shroud never arrived quietly.
The doors at the far end of the large room opened with deliberate, orchestrated slowness. The motion wasn’t forced but commanded, and the figure that stepped through didn’t rush to fill the space. Attention would come all on its own. She took her time, letting the room noticed her. Letting the eyes turn to stare or avoid her gaze.
White and black, from head to toe she wore an archaic suit made from the finest Ghorman twill and zeyd-cloth. Tailored to perfection and stark in its contrast, one half pristine white the other an all consuming black, split down the middle like a harlequin from the holobooks. A long cape slowed freely from her shoulders, dragging behind her like a living shadow obscuring reality, devouring light. White heeled boots struck the floor with precise and unhurried cadence just as her wide-brimmed top hat bobbed in the rhythm, its white feather moving softly at every jolt.
The mask completed the look. Black and white, split like the rest of her, fractured along the left side as if whatever tore it apart failed to destroy it completely. Through the jagged, gold-filigreed crack, her single good eye stared at the gathering with sharpness and life, almost glowing faintly like something not entirely natural. The right side was more unsettling. Empty. Devoid of color or shape. A hollow void where an eye should have been. Unsettling and intentional.
Conversations didn’t stop as she walked by, but they did shift with subtle looks of curiosity and whispers of smiles. The tone changed to something more refined, even reverent at times. It didn’t escape her notice, she simply walked as if she belonged. As if this estate, this auction, the relics suspended for her viewing pleasure were all, and have always been, her dominion. Gaze moving lazily across the room, she catalogued with precision: guards, entrances, exits, sightlines. Even the way the bounty hunters attempted to blend in and not look like…themselves.
“Amateurs.” At least some of them. Useful idiots all the same.
Then she felt it. Danger.
Her step didn’t falter, but her posture shifted by microns, instinctively controlled. The Force tickled her awareness like a lover kissing her neck, familiar and Intriguing. She spread her awareness and sensed—
Her.
Morgan’s eye flicked, searching without looking too closely, without staring. And there—
Velira.
She was easier to find than expected, but then again she wasn’t hiding from her. Morgan noticed the way she moved between the crowd, how she turned her back when a hunter passed, how she avoided the gaze of some patrons. Morgan’s gaze lingered longer than precious etiquette allowed, drinking in the crimson dress, the elegance in her movement, the cloak, the mask, the composure. And beneath it all the same thing Morgan had felt before. Hunger. A hssiss among the yard fowl. A predator in a jungle of prey.
The corner of Morgan’s mouth curved as Velira stopped next to a large support column, obscured from unwanted gazes, and stared at the artifats on display. Her cane tapped against the marble floor, a soft, ringing note. She changed direction and the crowd adjusted to accommodate her. Space opened, conversations quieted, servants avoided her path. Her focus narrowed as she drew closer, pulling in and sharpening. Morgan slowed just a bit as she approached and found herself standing behind the Doctor. Close enough without touching or intruding.
“Careful, Countess,” she whispered softly. “You seem to be staring.” Her eye followed Velira’s gaze towards The Sanguine Lattice, knowing its value but not its significance.
Velira did not turn. Not at first. Morgan’s now recognizable voice— low and unmistakable— settled against her like a familiar pressure, and for the briefest moment, something within her paused. A mixed hunger lightly stirred at her senses, not enough to fully distract, but enough to alert her that it was there. It flowed through her in layers— instinct rising first, sharp and immediate, drawn to the proximity, to warmth, and the undeniable presence at her back.
Velira’s fingers tightened ever so slightly into a delicate fist, then relaxed at her side, as she forced her thoughts elsewhere to maintain her sense of self control. She exhaled slowly with a measured breath.
Casting a quick glance over her shoulder, her eyes traced the line of Morgan’s form without lingering too long in any one place. The precision of the finely crafted tailoring. The contrast of the luxurious fabric, and the flow of the cape. And then there was the fractured mask— Velira saw the beauty in it, in the imperfection and contrast against the rest of the attire.
Only then did her head turn slightly, just enough that Morgan would catch the edge of her profile beneath the mask— the faint curve of her red lips and the smooth composure of her expression.
“There are people in this room who would kill for that piece.” she said quietly with a pause, her gaze lightly brushing against Morgan’s. “Tonight, I am Mythra Vexorin… And I would intend to keep it that way, for now….”
Morgan’s eye slowly turned away from Velira, her body casually sliding into a more comfortable position, covering Velira and her conversation from prying eyes. Mythra Vexorin, Morgan thought. Interesting choice for a name. She considered what the other patrons might think of it Unique. Obviously noble and likely fake, but so were many of the others here. The masks are here for a reason.
She spread her awareness once more, touching everyone in the large room with a whisper of her presence, just to see who would respond. She sensed slight apprehension from the woman in front of her, though she hid it all too well. She ignored it, for now, but she was beginning to piece it together. As she searched, as if on instinct, a group of four nobles resonated in the Force, like rocks reverberating in a watery pond. She focused on them, steadily examining what exactly she was sensing, and what echoed back was…a surprise.
“Your people are here?” She asked, on instinct. Her tone was low, her voice level, but curiosity and surprise reverberated in the question. “Curious, Miss Vexorin.” Her eye passed beyond Velira, straight at the artifact. “What’s the significance of it, I wonder. Something…personal?” There was teasing in her voice now, prodding and poking at the edges of a mystery too succulent to let go.
Morgan’s question settled— and with it, a memory far older stirred beneath the surface. Something in her posture tightened, a soft break in her ordinarily flawless composure, small enough to go unnoticed by most.
Not a clear image that entered her mind at first, but broken fragments of the past. A voice, gentle and warm. The cadence of instruction, echoes of laughter, and slow weaving of Nightsister magicks beneath pale evening light. The weight of being seen— not as a weapon, not as a predator — but as something… cultivated. Before everything changed. The rest of the memory flowed in broken pieces. Hunger, left alone for too long. And then a sound, not quite a scream, not anything that carried a shred of humanity.
Velira deliberately silenced the memory there, her crimson gaze paused on the necklace for a moment longer beneath her mask, before she finally turned back to Morgan. “They are not my people, not anymore… Not for at least two hundred seventy-four years,” Velira began, opting to begin revealing a fragment of the truth.
And yet, even that detail of her age was something Velira had never openly revealed. It lingered now, spoken before she could take it back. She was not careless with such things—she did not offer pieces of herself without reason. And yet, something about Morgan unsettled that restraint, drawing truth from places Velira had long since buried.
“I have my own reasons for wanting it,” she added softly, the words measured, almost careful. “Some things are not easily replaced… once they’re gone.”
Morgan didn’t respond immediately, deliberately clutching to the silence that so often followed important revelations.
Instead her eye squinted as she gave the Lattice a long, examiner’s look, calculating, planning. Attention shifted as did the music over it all. Now she looked at Velira, gaze dipping briefly as the cane rolled in her fingertips. She was enamored by the distractions, but her focus was on the subtleties of Velira’s body language. The miniscule movements that betrayed her inner turmoil, the twitch of the fingers, the straying eyes, the nervous roll of her high heel. There was no lie in Velira’s answer, but there was more to it than just plain desire to be a custodian or an owner. Personal, then.
She returned to the group in her mind, cutting at the edges of their awareness as precisely as a surgeon cut skin, focusing in on their surface thoughts to see if anything lingered. They resonated wrong: old, patient, watchful.
A smirk started to form on her lips, just barely hidden by the elaborate mask. Since their last encounter she had investigated the name Morvane in detail. Anzati noble family rarely seen away from their homeworld, meaning this was a rare encounter, if her assumptions were correct. Still, as powerful as they were on their Anzat, she held dominion here, and the upper hand. They were all Force sensitive, as was their nature, but none of them approached her in magnitude. That gave her comfort for what was surely to come.
Instead of speaking, Morgan’s presence touched Velira’s mind, but unlike the last time she did so and nearly battered her defenses down like a stack of cards, this attempt was more careful. Almost warm. She approached, feigning formalities while giving Velira even more cover, blocking some more unwanted sightlines.
“You feel nervous, Miss Vexorin. A dangerous thing to be in a place like this,” she whispered directly into Velira’s mind. “They haven’t noticed you yet. But when they do I imagine this evening stops being polite.”
Morgan’s presence did not go unnoticed. She felt the woman brush deliberately against her mind, communicating in a way Velira knew was far better suited to secrecy. Velira stilled, if only for a moment, focusing on this. Paths of her mind remained veiled in shadows, thoughts shifting just out of reach, as though fragments within Velira existed behind a living curtain. Never empty, but obscured by design. However, at Morgan’s whisper within her mind, the fog of the veil parted just enough to let her in.
She did not recoil, nor did she fully yield. Instead, she answered after a moment of focus, her presence moving back along that same unseen thread— slower, softer —brushing against Morgan’s awareness just enough to respond.
“You are indeed perceptive, Morgan. A flicker of it, perhaps. Enough to keep me sharp. One cannot deny that there is danger here…. But I’d prefer to blend, rather than disappear,” Her mind answered back smoothly.
Movement at the edge of her awareness drew her back to the present. Velira’s gaze flicked once away from Morgan’s toward the bar, only to find her “fiancé” already moving— his posture loose and unrefined, attention scattered, glazed eyes beginning to search with the dull insistence of someone who believed himself entitled.
There was a subtle shift in the music of the room at the same moment, as low strings echoed softly. The marble floors around them, once open, began to fill as bodies moved into motion— silk brushing velvet, shadows folding into one another as dancers slipped into rhythm. Layered movements until the space became something indistinct.
Velira did not hesitate. Her hand found Morgan’s gently and deliberately. She stood behind the shadow of Morgan’s silhouette, enough for them to remain hidden among the flow of movement that had gathered. Only then did she turn fully, her crimson eyes meeting Morgan’s gaze from behind the silk mask.
“Tell me… do you dance? Consider it… a more elegant way, to remain unnoticed,” she said as she leaned in, her voice lowered to that of a soft whisper.
Morgan’s gaze fell on Velira’s hand. Her movements were deliberate, confident, devoid of question even as she asked it. She expected Morgan to accept. No, she demanded it, in her own way. And who was Morgan to refuse.
Her fingers closed around Velira’s without hesitation, gripping her firmly as she pulled her half-a-step in, bodies touching again just like the last time they saw each other. Unlike then, circumstances didn’t allow for flirting or heated breaths.
“A dance? With pleasure.” That was all the warning Velira received as Morgan shifted them into the current of dancers, capes folding naturally into the motion, obscuring them just as much as they were drawing attention. A delicate dance on the knife’s edge.
Her hand guided Velira’s with purposeful intent, shielding her from wanton gazes, obscuring her face from prying eyes, hiding both of them from unwanted attention behind the other dancers. As they found their way into the middle circle of dancers, hidden as much as they could be, Morgan’s rhythm changed into something more akin to the grander dance around them.
Moves shifted into sharper stances, deliberate and unapologetic. Morgan followed suit, dancing into Velira instead of around her. The next step claimed her with a shift of weight, close now, too close to be bashful, shared breaths raising and lowering chests in synchronous beat. Her other hand found its place on Velira’s back, anchoring them. It was a conversation between partners and they seemed surprisingly well acquainted.
Forward. Pause. Pivot sharply. She shifted Velira with the smallest application of pressure, guiding her and yet demanding her attention all in one. She smiled as Velira followed every step with perfection, precision and discipline, matched and even exceeded her. Good. It made this dance worth doing.
There was a clear sense of structure in the other woman’s movements, enough to capture Velira’s attention. A sharp understanding of timing, of weight, and the subtle negotiation between lead and response. Not the clumsy dominance of someone forcing control, but the quiet confidence of someone who truly understood it. Velira’s gaze flicked up to her, just briefly, with a curious smile.
The next movements brought them closer and Velira instinctively responded— not retreating or softening, but meeting that proximity with her own brand of precision. Her body arched and curved close to Morgan’s, her heels sweeping across the marble floor with a series of intricate footwork, gliding in fluid movements.
As Morgan guided the two of them, Velira answered each motion with her own in flawless synchrony. Her breath held gently in focus, body poised with a sense of balance, each muscle engaged while maintaining an appearance of effortlessness. The curves of her hips gently rotated in rythym alongside her shoulders, the smooth silk of her crimson dress flowing around her form with each movement. With their bodies aligned again, closer this time, her breath did not quicken but deepened, into something controlled.
She could feel the precision of Morgan’s steps— the measured control, the balanced awareness of space, and of timing with not a moment wasted. Every movement seemed to carry intention, adjusting to the subtle shifts between them. Velira recognized it as the same instincts one would utilize on a battlefield, now refined and repurposed. It was evident to her that this was someone who had survived long enough to truly understand how bodies moved in conflict— how weight could shift before a strike, how balance betrayed intention, and how proximity could be weaponized or avoided with equal consequence. Her crimson gaze lifted to Morgan’s again, holding it with a quiet sense of understanding.
The chandeliers above fractured light across the dancers, casting long, shifting shadows that moved with fabric and form. Velira sensed them as she always did, those quiet edges of darkness waiting at the periphery. And yet this time, she subtly reached for them, with a faint flicker of will and a soft breath.
The shadows answered in response, flowing around where they moved alongside one another. They gathered low around them, soft and unobtrusive, no wider than the space they occupied. Not enough to draw attention, but to subtly blur edges and further soften details. But within it, they were alone, at least for the moment. Velira leaned in closer, her voice low and soft, meant only for Morgan.
“Most people merely learn the steps, and yet you read the flow of movement that lies beneath them, a rare quality indeed. That kind of awareness… How did you acquire it?”
Morgan’s hand at Velira’s back pressed a fraction to guide the Anzati into a tight pivot, pushing them forward to follow the crowd, before releasing again, arms extended into a pirouette, then dragging into a soft embrace, back into the press, the body heat. Then quick, deliberate, jerky motions that flowed with the music like wine from a corked bottle, testing Velira’s balance as Morgan walked into her, legs crossed in perfect, beautiful sync. Velira didn’t falter. Of course she wouldn’t. Morgan though with a smile that reached her eye, enough perhaps for Velira to notice.
Yet Morgan barely noticed the dance, running on autopilot like a droid-brained starship weaving through a battle with precision and grace. Her focus was on Velira’s question. It wasn’t as flirty as before, at least not entirely. It radiated genuine curiosity. A rare thing that enticed Morgan to ponder her answer for a moment.
There were many reasons why she learned to dance like that — for social status, to gain power with the right people, to learn new skills, for herself, for her own sanity — but only one reason for how she learned. She remembered the short red hair in her fingers, the scarred skin dragging under her nails, the physique that could lift her to the stars, the brown eyes that never seemed to look away when she was there. She remembered the way they danced, how Morgan was the one in Velira’s place back then, how she was the one being led, surrendering into an embrace that seemed never to let go. She remembered the heat and sweat of the dance, much like this one, and it stirred something inside her. Something she hadn’t expected.
“Experience,” she replied simply, voice low and charming, lacking all mirth or sarcasm to it. She stole the opportunity as their dance sequence became less frantic just before the climax.
“Eventually, you stop noticing what people say they want to do and start paying attention to what they want to do. I learned to read people and their desired well enough to know how and where to push.”
She didn’t leave it there as she pivoted again as the music swelled. Another step, slow, slower as her leg brushed up Velira’s inner thigh, softly letting her fall away, arching her back, hair nearly reaching the floor, that hand on Velira’s back holding her firmly as durasteel. Morgan bent forward, over Velira as the doctors’s hands grasped for purchase in Morgan’s hair, fingers tangling in the well-groomed bun, their dance reaching its natural high. With a soft touch, Morgan’s mask touched its lips on Velira’s chest.
The brush of the mask against her chest sent a slow, heated breath through her, subtle but unmistakable, with Velira’s back curving into the hold as though it had always been meant to rest there. Morgan’s strength anchored her, unyielding, and Velira let them remain for that single, suspended moment.
The music swelled, but it faded into something distant— lost beneath the contrast of her cool skin against Morgan’s warmth. Her hand slid from Morgan’s hair, slower now, tracing the line of her jaw with a restraint that made the touch all the more intentional. She leaned into Morgan’s movements, bringing them both upright and close as the dance shifted into its final cadence, the soft curves of her chest brushing against Morgan’s. Her hips followed, aligning with the other woman’s in a slow press. The motion drew the silk fabric of her dress higher, revealing the pale line of her thigh— and the black lace strap curved around around it, a slim lightsaber secured in place.
Velira’s gaze slowly lifted, now catching Morgan’s through the fractured mask as she felt a familiar shift tug at the edges of her own senses. There was warmth there now— but beneath it, something older stirred, ancient and predatory in nature. It lingered in the way her attention settled, not just on Morgan’s presence, but on what moved beneath it. Something rich, and layered. Alive in a way that pulled at instincts Velira had spent centuries learning to contain.
“Mm… Experience suits you, Captain,” she murmured softly, her voice low, touched with something almost indulgent. “Desire is rarely spoken honestly, but it has a way of… revealing itself. And sometimes…” she added in a low whisper, “…it shows far sooner than intended. Even when someone is trying very hard to be disciplined.”
In that moment, her hand rose slowly and deliberately, fingers lightly brushing the lower edge of Morgan’s mask. She tilted it— just enough to reveal her lips. Velira angled her head closer, slowly leaning in to close the final inches of distance between them, her eyes fluttering closed.
And yet, it was then that she felt it— a sudden shift in the room, the attention drawing tighter, sharper. Her lips hovered close to Morgan’s, close enough to almost meet, before she paused out of instinct. Slowly, Velira pulled back, her gaze slipping past Morgan’s shoulder as her crimson eyes flicked open again and her awareness sharpened, only to spot him. Her “fiancé”, now weaving unsteadily through the thinning crowd, his dull gaze locked on the two of them with clear irritation and hands tightened into fists.
Morgan felt Velira’s vexation the moment it appeared, clearly and vividly in her own mind. They were still connected through Morgan’s telepathy and the surface thoughts painted her a picture. A picture of his role in all of this. Poor pawn, so well manipulated by a passing queen, he thought himself a king. She didn’t see him yet but she knew he was staring at them behind her back.
She moved, pulling Velira in, drawing her attention to herself as her mask fell into place once more. Her hand on Velira’s back tightened once again, lower, and lower. So low it’d make anyone blush, especially the poor Sephi. She pivoted sharply again, pulling them both into the final swell of music and passion, turning Velira through the last phase of their dance. They were seamless, precise and undeniably matched in purpose. One final turn, bodies aligning before Morgan stepped in, pulled Velira against her into the final shape of the crescendo: thigh up, stuck to Morgan’s hip, Morgan’s fingers brushing the soft skin and lace-covered lightsaber; Velira’s hand in Morgan’s hair, possessive yet elegant; faces so close it only took a miniscule—
Staring directly at the Sephi, Morgan moved in, her mask softly pressing against Velira’s lips in a kiss that would definitely leave a lipstick mark on the cracked white porcelain.
The man staggered. Gold mask, uneven gait, confidence that came from a pampered existence. Never being told no in any meaningful way. And then there were his eyes behind the mask, a mix of shock and anger and disbelief. Morgan enjoyed the power play, the pushing of buttons, the dominion she held. She would enjoy what came next.
For a moment, she remained exactly where Morgan had drawn her, lips still, breath steady, before her focus slipped outward. Velira’s posture tightened in preparation, subtle and controlled, as her crimson gaze settled expectantly on the rapidly approaching Sephi male known as Krixo Kreeg. She had seen enough of his mind to understand the fragile architecture of it— ego built on indulgence, pride quick to fracture under pressure.
And Morgan… Velira could sense it in the way she held her, in the quiet certainty behind each movement— that subtle willingness to push, to provoke. It was clear enough to Velira that there would be no quiet resolution to this. Not after the deliberate closeness, the way she had let Morgan’s gliding hands explore her curves and feel her smooth skin, claim that space and linger there— an intimacy she had never once allowed him to even approach, despite their arrangement.
“What is this?” A slurred voice cut through the room, loud and carrying far too easily across the thinning dance floor. Her “fiancé” stood several paces away now, posture rigid with an unsteady sway to his movements, his gold mask catching the chandelier light at an uneven angle. What could be seen of his confused expression, had soon twisted into something raw and possessive.
“You—” he pointed at Velira, white gloved hand trembling, “—you’re mine. We are to be married tomorrow on Daleem! What is the meaning of this?” He snarled, eyes shifting between the two of them, disbelief curdling into anger. “How long has this been going on?”
Velira did not move away from Morgan. If anything— she remained exactly where she was with a slow sigh, observing him with mild annoyance. “Careful. You’re not thinking clearly,” Velira stated simply with the dismissive wave of her hand.
And yet despite her calm exterior, beneath it, her focus shifted. Velira reached inward, threading back through the familiar pathways she had already carved into the simplicity of Krixo’s mind. The woven delusion was there, burnt into his very thoughts— layered carefully over memory and perception. She moved to begin to unravel it, just enough to dull the edge. But the moment Velira made the attempt to alter her work, she was met with resistance— not from him, but from the constructs themselves that she’d so thoroughly rooted into his mind.
“Don’t— don’t do that,” he snapped, advancing closer, agitation bleeding through the haze of drink. “Don’t act like this is nothing. You said—” his voice caught, frustration tightening in his voice, “—you said you’d marry me. After everything I—“
His hand gestured vaguely and unsteadily, sending the empty wine glass that he carried shattering in pieces to the ground. Velira’s gaze held his, the icy quality of her silence and the sight of her close to Morgan enough to further unsettle him.
“You think you can make a fool out of me?” he shouted, louder now, enough to draw more glances within the room. “Yes,” was all that Velira stated softly in response. Her head tilted slightly, crimson gaze steady beneath her mask.
He lunged, in one sudden movement. The punch came wide, fueled more by wounded pride than skill. With a smooth pivot, Velira shifted her weight to avoid it, remaining close within Morgan’s space as the punch passed through empty air. “You think you can just use me like this?” he snapped. “I’ll have you…both of you, removed from here—”
His rising outburst was more than enough to draw the room’s attention, a sea of masked faces turning, some openly, others carefully— until their focus settled on the scene. Among them, a few of the crowd’s gaze lingered longer than the rest, their attention beginning to sharpen into something of recognition.
Morgan’s senses flared as the yelling started, aware how things had gone wrong. She felt a shift in the room without needing to see it. A ripple that started with his raised voice but spread swiftly, thinning conversations, slowing movements, sharpening attention toward them.
And then the music stopped.
The silence was unpalatable after such an enjoyable, masterful performance. She could have blamed Velira for brining an obvious pampered rich-boy as a ticket into the gala, but she wouldn’t, not when she was the one who willingly accepted Velira’s advances and the one who antagonized him enough for an outburst. In fact, she was enjoying the attention, despite the known dangers.
Her eye flicked across the room, already rearranging her plans, finding exit strategies. Just in case.
And then Security acted. They approached calmly, with a practiced gait that spoke of professionalism and experience. She clocked the black suits, the armorweave, the weapons bulging under the cloth, the communicators on their wrists as well as several gang tattoos she knew from the Matron and a few Iron Legion rejects displaying their ill-gotten tattoos on their necks.
There were a lot of guns in the room, she realized quickly. By herself, she could probably cut them down and rush out without a solid reaction from anyone else. But with Velira here… Worse came to worse she could probably cover Velira as they ran out, but lose her necklace in the process. Unless…
She sensed them moving on the periphery of her senses. Velira’s family had noticed and was starting to slither at them from the shadows with intent obvious to see for those who knew what to look for. Then the second layer, The bounty hunters too started to move, their determination present in her mind like glowrods. Less subtle and elegant. Practiced in their practicality. They shifted across the periphery, waiting to see the outcome no doubt, spacing themselves to close any venue of escape.
Krixo staggered back after his failed attempt at assault and turned to the approaching detail. “Finally!” he snapped, pointing drunkenly. “Remove them this instant!” The order fell on deaf ears as a big Zabrak — one of the Iron Legionnaires — stared at him, then at Morgan and Velira. He clicked his tongue at the Sephi and two of his compatriots grabbed him. “Hey! Not me, you bloated buffoons! Do you know who I am?!” Unable to resist their strong grips, Krixo was manhandled in place as the Zabrak pointed his chin towards Morgan and Velira. Two more of his companions — gangers this time, a Twi'lek and a Human — started toward them with the same intent.
“Gentlemen,” Morgan’s cane tapped on the marble with force, her growl slow and deliberate, and laced with something far more than just a threat. Her presence spread towards, embedding itself into their core, pulling out any fear they felt in their bunks at night when they thought no one was looking. They stumbled and stopped, unsure of the kind of feeling they were sensing. With painful slowness she removed her mask to reveal her face, and that unmistakable cloudy-white eye that bent so many knees across the Brotherhood. They shared a moment of recognition when she spoke. “Well done. That man assaulted Miss Vexorin, quite brazenly I might add.”
“What?! That’s a lie! She’s my future wife— ow!” Krixo yelled as one of the guards twisted his arm to silence him. Despite himself and his station he sensed the change in demeanors around him and stared at Morgan who paid him no mind at all.
The Zabrak stepped up between his companions and, instead of a display of bravado and anger, he simply bowed. “Madam Herald, I wasn’t aware you were here tonight.” He gave Velira a long look, then back at the Sephi. Morgan could see the wheels turning, the scales tipping. She waited, patiently.
Every eye in the room turned, transfixed on the sheer presence of the Herald now revealed. Conversation died outright this time, not softened, not thinned— gone entirely. Even those stationed along the perimeter, those meant to remain vigilant over the relics themselves, faltered if only for a moment.
Velira watched it happen without a word, as Krixo was seized and dragged away, until his insolent protests gradually faded into nothing. For a moment, Velira felt a practical sense of disappointment— A lost investment, even if he had been a risky one to begin with, and a lost meal even if his mind would lack depth in flavor.
Her gaze shifted instinctively back to Morgan. She took her in fully now, unobstructed—the revealed face, the refined line of her jaw, the shape of her lips. The pale, clouded eye that she could sense struck fear into the minds of many, yet created a contrast that Velira found striking to the rest of her features. However, what truly held Velira’s attention was not the surface of it, but what lurked beneath. The quiet ferocity coiled in Morgan’s composure, the ease of control, and the fact that her presence did not need to announce itself to be felt. Velira saw it, recognized it… and found it all the more compelling. A dangerous kind of beauty— one not defined by form alone, but by what was revealed of the mind and will beneath it. And something about it stirred that persistent conflict within her, between hunger and restraint.
However, Velira quickly shifted her attention elsewhere out of habit, knowing this moment was not one to go to waste. The Sanguine Lattice rested untouched, suspended and gleaming beneath its protective field, its presence now dangerously exposed by the shifting attention in the room. Velira was aware that if it fell into the hands of a bounty hunter, of someone mortal and temporary… it could be reclaimed. Time, or a hunt, would solve that. But if it fell into the hands of an Anzat, of her family— It would vanish. Buried within a lineage that did not forget, with plentiful years granted to them from the stolen life force of other beings. And that was a fate that remained unacceptable to her.
She slipped from Morgan’s side as naturally as a flickering shadow receding from the light, drawing her cloak higher. With the audience’s gaze still focused on the Herald, Velira soundlessly crept towards the edge of the room, carefully weaving her way through. Her focus narrowed, and in one swift movement, she swept upwards.
The shift in gravity was subtle and precise, bending only where Velira needed it to. Her heels softly met the wall, and the next step followed without pause, her body aligning to the new orientation as though it were natural. Silk carefully wrapped around where she moved, altered by the threads of gravity to flow along her form with each motion. Velira swiftly climbed, propelling herself upwards across a marble column in silence. Upside down and suspended from the ceiling, Velira glided across the vaulted structures and curved around each of the chandeliers, moving as a swift shadow.
She lowered herself in a sudden drop, letting the flow of the gravity slow her descent a few inches from the ground to land in silence. With the Lattice now in her perimeter, Velira took a deep breath and adjusted her focus once again. On instinct, a thick haze of darkness swept forwards. The dense, unnatural veil snapped into existence around the relics in a shroud of absolute shadow that swallowed light whole, visually cutting the space cleanly away from the rest of the room and leaving those caught within it’s haze sightless.
And yet, she saw clearly, her bright crimson eyes cutting cleanly through the darkness to clearly catch each detail and silhouette. The summoned shadows of the Force would linger on their own, but only for a fraction of time, and Velira chose to act accordingly. She moved without hesitation, her telekinetic touch slipping through the mechanisms with delicate precision, lifting the Lattice free without disturbing the sensors that guarded it. The necklace drifted toward her hand, obediently settling into her grasp.
Confusion swept the guards, their weapons drawn blindly in the dark, pulses quickening and steps faltering. Until the one closest to her stopped. His body stiffened, his hands reaching for his face as invasive tendrils began to slither tightly around his skull, piercing their way past his skin and bone to find their way inside the recesses of his brain, draining him. His life ended swiftly, and his form collapsed without sound. The tendrils slowly retracted, as a tall yet familiar form revealed itself to her. And then, a voice, dried with age and echoing in a reverberating whisper, “You are not the only one who can see in darkness, Velira.”
Xanthus Morvane stepped forward from the void, shedding his mask without ceremony. Long dark hair framed a gaunt, pallid face, with dark purple shadows pooling beneath hollowed dark eyes. An Anzat that was as equally ancient in his long lived, stolen years as he was grotesque. Recognition slammed into Velira, enough for her to pause.
“Your mother was a fool,” her uncle continued, his voice devoid of warmth. “To craft something like this. To believe it could unite our kind.” His gaze flicked briefly to the necklace in her hand. “We will correct that mistake. I’m afraid the Lattice must be disposed of, as it has proven to be nothing but a liability.”
Velira shifted defensively, clutching on tighter to the relic that she held— the last piece of her mother that still remained. She remembered the torture that her mother had endured in dark stone rooms, the way that her starvation had ravaged both her body and mind alike, twisting her mother’s gentle nature into something of ravenous insanity— And Velira, powerless to stop it. Her mother’s screams, sounds that no longer resembled anything human, echoed hauntingly within her memories.
“I know you are still upset. But she simply was not fit to rule,” he went on, almost conversationally. “So tell me, Velira… where have you been these last three hundred years?”
Something in her stilled, and then broke. If Velira had a heartbeat, it would’ve been raging within her. But instead, it was something older and deeper that surged through the careful control she had kept for centuries. Fury, cold and feral. Her stance lowered on pure instinct, dropping into the form of a predatory crouch. Her eyes burned red, pupils narrowing into slits as the last of her restraint thinned. A low hiss escaped Velira’s lips, as she launched herself forwards. Her fingernails tore through the silk of her gloves, cleaving into the side of his face in deep gouges, beginning to rip through skin and muscle.
The moment instinct took over, the moment she could no longer see and had to sense what was going on, she knew chaos had come. And she breathed it in like the sweetest summer flower. Her mask fell from her hand as the darkness awakened around her. It struck the marble, shattered as much as any hope of a peaceful resolution. Instead, arterial red illuminated the darkness, Furia igniting in Morgan’s hand with a snap-hiss, burning away her masterfully crafted walking cane that hid the hilt in its head. It painted her in bloodlight, white and black suit turned monstrous in contrast.
Guards shouted, disorientated by the darkness, their formation collapsing like a stack of sabacc cards at a bad table, but they stood their ground refusing to engage. Blaster shots echoed out, shooting uselessly into the dark, followed by terrified screams of the shooter — a civilian no doubt. The hunters lunged first, drawn in by the commotion, assured in their own skill and tech.
A mistake.
Morgan didn’t step back as they approached, she didn’t step at all…she vanished in a puff of sickly green smoke. In as quickly as the eye could blink she was gone. A crack displaced air behind one of the hunters as she reappeared, Furia carving clean through the man in one swift motion, dropping him with only a low gurgle in his throat.
The Herald rolled her shoulders, her eyes nearly retreating into her skull with pleasure as she felt the man’s essence evaporate like a flame in a storm. She inhaled the sensation as it flared her engine. The rage and fury she had been keeping behind walls and walls of self-control bubbled out to the surface, bracing her body, tightening her arms and legs, surging her with energy.
Fire in her veins burned from the inside as two more hunters rushed her. Like an angry blur, Furia deflected a blaster shot aimed at Morgan’s head, landing it squarely into another attacker’s chin, blowing his teeth through his skull. Another came as swiftly and just as surely Furia reflected it into one of the pillars. Her glare stopped the man in his tracks, debilitating fear taking over his mind for a fraction of a moment.
Enough.
Morgan was there, behind him, her saber already carving his armorweave suit as he smelled his own flesh bubble in his nostrils. Tears ran down his cheeks in his last, bisected moments of life. Morgan was already on the next one, heel slamming his kneed back, ripping tendons and muscle and bone. The rage-filled lust for carnage powering through the Herald’s body like a freight train made it all too easy. Made it all look blurred, the world slowing at her whim. Or maybe she was speeding up, lightning in a closed space, snapping at everything that came too close.
She felt alive. And she laughed. “Stay out of the dark,” she called out casually, voice carrying through the chaos, “or I’ll assume you have a death wish.”
Around her the room was devolving further, blinded by darkness, touched with her own imperceptible aura of terror. Security retreated away from her in an attempt to save themselves, disrupted by the flailing bounty hunters now laying dead on the blood-soaked marble. The nobles pressed forward, unafraid and hungry, their attention fixated on the darkness, knowing full well what was going on in it.
Yet when they tried to close, they found Morgan barring their way, crimson saber held in a mocking dualist’s salute. Etiquette, remember? She laughed to herself. One of them pressed, impeccable vibrosaber at the ready. Blade met blade, screeching along their lengths as sparks flew around them. He was good, she noted, but she was better. Better trained, more experienced, despite his age. Three exchanges aimed to kill, three attempts to take her head, and he failed. She shifted, brutal and overpowering, baited his overextension and took his head instead.
The vibrosaber rattled to the floor a moment before Morgan picked it up, looked at the rest of the snarling, shocked “nobles”, and stabbed the man’s head clean through with the pristine durasteel tip. Sparks crackled as the dead flesh started bubbling.
“Haven’t been away from your homeworld very often, have you?” she asked, her eyes on the dead man, her question intended for his family. “There are worse monsters out here than you, little Anzati.” She crouched slightly, a stance that of a predator ready to slaughter, lightsaber gripped in both hands over her head, aimed at her opponents. Behind her the blackness bubbled as Velira engaged in her own fight. “You want her? You come through me.” She licked her upper teeth as all of them lunged.
The Anzati descended as a wave, fueled by their natural instincts and necessity alike, their movements no longer restrained by decorum or disguise. They knew that the woman standing before them spoke truth. This was not their world, not their shadows— but the incessant hunger within them did not care, as it summoned them forward all the same, their minds acting as one.
Even through the haze, through her own predatory state, Velira sensed the change. She felt Morgan’s presence rip through the room, leaving various bodies carved in her wake. There was a rhythm to it, a sense of mastery that flowed with each of her movements. Something stirred within Velira— not fear, but a deeper hunger that burned through her, sharper now, intensified by the feral edge of her state. It coiled low within her, drawn not just to the life force Morgan carried, but to the way she wielded it—controlled, alive in a way that called to Velira’s very nature.
Her nails were slick with the silvery black fluid of the other Anzat’s wounds, his uncle’s face torn open beneath her assault, deep gouges carved into ancient flesh that should have been harder to break. She tasted the scent of iron in the air, felt the iciness of his ripped skin beneath her fingertips.
And yet, Morgan’s words were enough to cut through her as sharp as a blade, catching her off balance. Protection? For a fraction of a second, Velira hesitated, the feral side of her nature relenting its grip on the core of her being, if only for a second.
Her uncle moved, catching the shift. His body twisted with a speed that contrasted to his gaunt frame, his strength crashing into her as he seized the opening. The world tilted, then shattered, as he drove her into the marble floor. The impact slammed into her senses, and his pale hand closed around the slender shape of her throat, tight and unrelenting. His grip was that of cold iron, ancient strength, honed through centuries of hunting and consumption.
The Lattice tore from her grasp, shattering. Gemstones scattered across the marble, skidding outward in arcs of silvery black blood, catching the light in fractured glints. More of them came. She felt them before she saw them— Anzati prowling in from the back corners of the room, called by the carnage.
Her uncle’s face loomed above her, distorted by proximity and by something almost triumphant. Her body reacted as her form thrashed, and then slowly, it stopped. Velira’s vision narrowed, as her chest rose in one final draw of air and her eyes fell closed. The instinct to struggle slowed, deliberately suppressed as her mind reached inward, deeper, to a place she had not allowed herself to linger in for years— And Velira found herself fading. Muscles loosened, and her thoughts followed, slipping away into a dark void. Her body went slack beneath his grip, until nothing remained.
Her uncle stilled, watching her for a long moment before something twisted across his torn features— a smile, thin and wrong. “Gone,” he said, almost fondly. “Just like her mother.”
Around him, the others shifted, some watching with cold approval, others with something more uncertain, more distant. As the other hoard of Anzati continued their strike towards Morgan, ravenous for the life force that radiated from her— For a moment, he watched them, then just as quickly dismissed it.
“A shame,” he continued, shaking his head slightly. “But she chose this, long ago.” His gaze lingered on her still form. “At least, her body will be returned to where it belongs, as her father would have wanted.” Two Anzati quickly stepped forward. They reached for Velira, lifting her without resistance, her limp body yielding easily in their grasp. Her head tilted with the motion, dark hair falling loose as they removed her mask from her face.
For a moment— nothing. Only then did her eyes flash back open, vibrant and crimson. Alive, if only in the way that one of her kind could be. Velira moved before they could react. She slipped from their grasp in a single, fluid motion, dropping low as her palm struck the marble with controlled force. The invisible strands of energy that followed ripped forwards— a concussive wave that radiated outward through the floor, slamming into the surrounding Anzati and driving them down hard against the stone with crushing force.
Velira rose from the crouch with a smooth, deliberate motion, her cold gaze lifting to her uncle as something darker settled across her expression. Her lips curved— not wide, not exaggerated— but enough to reveal her intent. The Force gathered around where she stood, tightening in focus, and then it closed. Her uncle’s expression of what remained of his face shifted, confusion first, then strain. His body locked as invisible pressure seized him, clawing from within. It began subtly, a gradual tightening behind the eyes, a pressure at the temples. Velira held him there, her gaze unwavering as the force of her will pressed inward, compressing, collapsing— turning his own structure against itself. His voice did not rise, not that it could.
“You’ve been unwell for a very long time, Uncle,” she said softly as her voice slid into something of a clinical sense of kindness, the grip around his skull tightening until bone began to fracture. “Please, allow me correct that.”
The Anzati quartet rolled over her with a force belying their seemingly weak and drying frames. Their cursed, brutal strength and one-minded determination to feed on her brain juice made them feral beyond words, all pretense of nobility lost. She managed to cut down one before the rest overwhelmed her, the red flash of Furia’s anger bisecting his body before he could even react. The Force snapped around her, ordained by their unholy connection to the Dark Side, as four more unleashed their power, snapping her head back, forcing her to retreat. Furia rattled away as they grabbed her arms, twisting, pushing her head down as a third jumped at her, hunger streaming from his aura like a faucet.
“Oh frak you!” She hollered, her shoes scraped across the marble as her assailants hooked her arms back, muscles straining. The Force surged through her, recovering, pushing forward despite their grip, forcing herself at the the man in front whose proboscis she was about to feel in her nose. As the tentacled wrapped around her head she found purchase with her teeth, biting down and tearing back, ripping them from his face. The Anzati screamed in pain as she smashed her forehead into his nose for good measure, the grip on her arms loosened just enough, and she was gone.
“Temper, temper,” echoed an ethereal call as a strong arm gripped the screaming noble’s head, wrapping around it in a sudden motion that took him by surprise. No finesse nor elegance sufficed, just force and leverage. She twisted. Hard. His head snapped around his neck, vertebrae popping like sticks. She didn’t release him immediately, instead turning his head all the way around with a wicked smile, enjoying his confusion in death. “Pathetic,” she whispered into his ear as the body collapsed.
Morgan spat blood on the floor, teeth covered in a soft veneer of crimson and pink. Rolling her shoulders as her hands curled into ringed knuckles glinting marvelously under the low lights, she motioned for them to attack, if they dared. Two more.
The first struck and she met him head on, fast, faster than anything he had ever seen. With the battle haste of a fury reborn out of myth, Morgan smashed a right hook into his jaw, dislodging it, shattering teeth and making him swallow his own tongue. The impact echoed through her fist and arm, painful despite its precision. His head snapped sideways but she didn’t let him fall as her left hand caught his open jaw and her right grabbed his upper teeth.
With a howl of a banshee of myth she tore him apart, muscles straining, bulging her clothes, nearly ripping them apart. A vein careened through her forehead as rage flooded her arms. The howl from his throat mixed with a ripping sound as his face tore in two, spittle and viscera, only an alien species like his could conjure, coated her hands and suit. The body collapsed, jaw slack against the floor as his compatriot ripped into her sides with his claws. Morgan yelped in pain but he only found her smiling even more, her pain fueling the blazing engine in her core that gave her the monstrous will and power to kill his kind with such abandon.
Grabbing both his hands, Morgan crushed his claws in her grip and twisted, dislodging his wrists in the process. Her forehead spoke again as her laughter spread through the room, smashing his nose, pushing him to one knee, then to the floor entirely. She straddled him, fists pounding his skull with enough force to bleed his brain to death, to disfigure his face beyond any recognition, and to slam his head against the cracked marble floor underneath. As she stood up, triumphant, stumbling, Morgan simply laughed all the more and looked for strays. “Is that it?! Is that all you can do you brain sucking drukks?!” There was no one left to challenge her, except whoever Velira was battling in the darkness. Morgan’s gaze snapped to where she sensed the woman’s aura radiating like a furnace, crushing another’s body bit by agonizing bit.
“Finally, the real you, Miss Morvane. Good, let it out.” The wicked smile never left her mouth.
From the edge of her awareness, Velira saw them fall. The bodies— broken, torn, reduced to something unrecognizable, that now littered the smooth marble floor in ruin. Viscera and blood alike now pooling in slow, widening spreads that caught the fractured light of the chandeliers above. The tattered remnants of her family, a word that no longer carried meaning to her. Not after what they had done to her mother.
Her gaze lingered only a moment before something colder settled into place. What had remained in their final moments was hunger without restraint, instinct without control. And Velira knew there was a part of her not fully separate from that fate. No matter how carefully she composed herself. No matter how many lives she preserved, how many deaths she delivered cleanly, mercifully— It inevitably lived in her, and perhaps, it always would.
Morgan’s voice whispered through, her very words lingering in her mind. Something in Velira began to emerge with Morgan’s influence, something that she had usually tried to keep carefully locked away.
Her head tilted, eyes holding a soft red glow, and her attention locked back on her uncle. Velira ‘s gaze changed, into something precise and cold with focus. The way a physician studies a body not for what it is, but for what can be done to it. Each memorized detail came clearly to her mind— muscle tension, bone alignment with the corresponding structural weaknesses.
Velira’s fingers curled, and the Force answered her call. It began at his hand. A small motion, barely visible, and his fingers snapped backwards one by one. Each break was distinct, audible in a series of cracks— The tendons pulled wrong, bone piercing through thinning skin as his body jerked against her hold. Velira did not rush, as she honed her understanding of where pain lived, the whisper of a smile rising to her lips.
His legs followed. A twist, subtle and deliberate, just enough for both femurs to crack under invisible pressure. They folded inward as his body convulsed, the sound wet and heavy beneath the silence that had overtaken the room. Velira did not stop, not yet, as her focus rose to his spine. Each vertebra compressed, then shifted, and shattered— one after another— until his body collapsed in on itself, structure failing, his posture dissolving into something warped and incomplete.
Velira stepped closer, her expression unchanging, the whisper of her silk dress trailing softly against the ground with her movements. Her pale hand lifted, slowly, and then closed into a tightened fist. The remainder of his skull caved inward under the force of her will, bone folding with a final collapse, as what remained of him dropped lifeless to the floor at her heels.
She paused for a longer moment than necessary. The Force ebbed still faintly around her, now beginning to recede, and yet something else surged. It hit her slower than the violence had. A tightening sensation in her throat followed by a sharp, familiar ache that spread through her limbs like quiet fire. Hunger. Stronger now, sharpened by the exertion both mental and physical.
Her breath hitched as her gaze lifted. Morgan— alive, radiant in the aftermath of the carnage, power still clinging to her very form. Velira’s focus locked, her pupils narrowing once again. Instinct stirred fast— too fast. Her body reacted on instinct to her predatory nature, reflexes tightening in response. The first, instinctive urge to feed.
No. Velira’s control snapped back into place hard, clawing at her own mind. A sharp inhale as she forced it down, her lips parting just slightly before she turned— leaping in the opposite direction within the fluid arc of a flip and lightly landing on her feet, enough to force distance between them. A hiss slipped from her, low and involuntary, with regret burning just beneath it. And hunger, still biting at her senses.
“Morgan, I..” Velira paused, gathering herself. Her voice softened, but did not falter, as her crimson gaze held with intent. “I have to feed. I refuse to become what they are, to descend into that.”
Morgan’s gaze hardened, nostrils flaring, smile sharp. A blink and she was there, hand on Velira’s throat like a steel vice crushing a pipe. She pushed her back, back into one of the pillars, forcing her against the cold marble as she drew closer.
“And you’d like to feed on me, is that it?” Velira squirmed, nails grasping for the steely hand. Morgan’s leg came in between her thighs, pinning her to the pillar. She licked her lip as Furia flew into her hand, igniting across their vision, inching closer. “I’ve been a succulent meal all along, haven’t I? Is that why you let your family attack me? To tenderize me? Make me more pliable? Is it?!” There was no forced persuasion, no mental invasion, only words and two infernal eyes scanning for any sign of deception.
Morgan’s grip hit like iron. Velira hadn’t realized the exhaustion beginning to slowly creep up on her, the way her breath came thinner than before, even more so with the hand at her throat. The Force within her felt spent, frayed at the edges after all she had poured into it. Her fingers began to curl around the other woman’s wrist— not to fight this time, but to steady herself.
And yet, her gaze lifted, and held. Even with Morgan’s weapon humming near, even with her throat pinned and her body restrained, Velira did not look away. There was something there, the same tension that had followed them from the beginning, heightened now with Morgan so close. It was not merely the press of bodies, but the gravity of presence— of will, of mind— that drew Velira in just as strongly. Her fingers tightened just slightly around Morgan’s wrist, not resisting, but grounding herself against the pressure.
Velira took a shallow breath, her gaze not leaving Morgan’s. “They are not my family,” she began, her voice escaping in a whisper. “And they have not been for some time.”
Something shifted behind the elegant features of Velira’s face, the ones that she normally ensured to keep so composed, something that was deeper than words. A decision. And for the first time, Velira did not hide it.
The shadows of her mind parted, tearing open of their own free will. Morgan would feel it before she fully saw it— Velira’s presence brushing back, not invasive, but offered— a deliberate fracture in her ordinarily maintained defenses. And then, fragments of memory.
A world choked in darkness, covered in layers of fog. Stone halls carved deep into a planet that rarely saw light, with both whispers and screams alike echoing through corridors that felt more like tombs than home. A woman— pale, composed, powerful— Velira’s mother. Gentle hands guiding hers, voice low and patient as Nightsister magicks coiled between them like living thread. Then a voice— male, cold, and absolute. Control. The same woman, now changed. Eyes hollow. Movements wrong, something broken beyond repair lurking below the surface. And her end— not mercy, not grief, but her kin tearing her apart like carrion. Velira’s presence tightened around that final moment with rage threading through it, old and unhealed.
“They did that to her,” she whispered. Her body faltered, leaning against Morgan’s hold. “And they would have done the same to me, had they been afforded the chance.” Velira’s head dipped just slightly, the strain catching up now as her grip on Morgan’s wrist loosened.
“I chose you,” she said, quiet but certain. “I know what I am… and I won’t dress it in anything kinder. I don’t take pleasure in the hunger.” Her gaze sharpened slightly. “And despite our shared lineage, watching you kill them… I won’t deny the satisfaction in seeing them fall, after all these decades.”
Velira stilled for a long moment, before continuing. “They have no claim to me. Not anymore.” Her posture wavered just slightly, if only for a brief moment. “If I am now to serve any new purpose, I wish for it to be one that I decide. Alongside you.”
Morgan’s gaze softened as she scanned Velria’s features: exhausted, nearly limp, breathing heavily, and not just because of Morgan’s steely grip on her airways. Her body language seeped sincerity. Candor wisped out of her every pore as she looked at Morgan with those pleading eyes. She really was telling the truth, and not just the convenient truth, the one that got her fed and homed and taken care of on the Matron. Not just that Morgan was an interesting mark or another conquest. Another hill to stab her flag into like a greedy general. It was deeper, far deeper than Morgan, or even Velira, even expected.
Something in Morgan gave way, something buried in her core, something she had suppressed for decades. A sensation she hadn’t felt since Nienna, perhaps even Isaac. A sensation that, should she indulge, should she give into her desired and the desires of the woman in front of her, it would ruin them both, and likely kill them both as well. It gave her pause. Warned her. Screamed at her like a banshee demanding to be heard after death. And yet…
She stared into her mind, the parts she opened freely, the parts Morgan could easily touch. There was a purity to Velira Morgan couldn’t quite pluck out and analyze. She was a monster like the rest of her kind, a predator built to hunt her and her own, and yet somewhere in there was a caring woman under the influence of her idol, a woman who went against her own just to be kind to others. All those platitudes about survival she espoused during their several brief encounters —the ones Morgan dismissed just as readily — rang true. The proof was around her, broken in heaps, bisected, ripped apart.
Morgan’s breath hitched, mouth opening only slightly, heat filling her cheeks as her grip loosened on Velira’s neck. Her hand stroked along her jawline, softer than before prompting the Anzati to lean into the warmth of it. Despite her self-control Velira was devolving, becoming hungrier and hungrier as the seconds passed, nearly on the knife’s edge between control and instinct as her proboscis poked out of her cheek, barely being held back by a will as strong as Morgan’s own. Her thumb hooked on the Velira’s lower lip as she stared into it with her own idea hunger. Velira was too enticing, too distracting, too…everything. Morgan’s heart raced as she made her decision.
“Feed on me.” She said with finality. “Make me forget you. Make me forget…this.” She felt as if she had no will of her own, instead feeling drawn into a black hole of inevitability charged to impossibile size by the gravity between two people, by forces beyond their understanding.
She leaned into the Anzati, pressing their lips together like it was the most righteous thing, preordained, written in the threads of space and time. Finally she let go and indulged.
Velira gave in. Not slowly, not cautiously, but fully. The moment Morgan closed the distance, something in her unraveled. The last of her restraint— carefully maintained, meticulously controlled for decades— gave way under the weight of proximity, of heat, of her. Velira’s eyes fell closed as she leaned into the kiss, not as a predator or as a hunter, but as something truer, now laid bare before Morgan.
Her hands found Morgan’s hair without hesitation, fingers threading through the soft black and white strands, tightening just enough to pull her closer still, until there was no space left between them. Velira felt everything. The heat of her skin, the steady, living rhythm of her heart pressing against her own icy stillness.
She breathed her in, not just the intoxicating scent, but the core of her very presence— The will, the fiery life that flowed beneath it. It was almost enough to overwhelm Velira’s senses, in a way that made her hold tighter, not to take but to keep. To memorize, as if she could anchor herself to it. This very moment— Velira knew it would remain. That long after names and faces faded, centuries blurring into nothing— This would remain within her.
Her grip tightened once more as she deepened the kiss, just slightly, enough to feel the shift, the way that their bodies moved against one another in the same rhythm— before she forced herself to slow, to pull back, to breathe. Her breath was thinner now, sharpened with hunger, a very hunger that she could no longer ignore, as much as she wanted to.
Her gaze lifted to Morgan’s, and for a moment, it fractured. Velira’s eyes traced Morgan’s features with a quiet intensity — taking in the confidence that never quite left her even now, the steady rise and fall of her curved chest as she breathed, the life that pulsed beneath the surface and burnt brighter than most. It called to Velira in a way that went beyond basic instinct, beyond survival. She imagined it, the taste of Morgan, more viscerally than she had allowed herself to before, upon hearing her very words— The permission that she had been granted.
Her proboscises unfurled slowly and carefully, not with hunger alone, but with care. They slipped from her cheekbones in a smooth, fluid motion, soft as they reached toward Morgan. They brushed along her skin, tracing her features as though to commit them to memory. The curve of her jaw, the line of her cheek, the shape of her lips.
Velira saw her again, not as prey or as sustenance— but as someone who had chosen her. Who had offered her protection despite everything. Who had seen, fully, and not turned away… Someone worth resisting for. Velira knew that if she made Morgan forget, perhaps it would keep her safe from herself — from the endless hunger that was the curse of her very kind. A trace of something softer, threaded with something that almost resembled grief flashed in her crimson eyes.
Her proboscis hovered just at Morgan’s mouth, brushing against like silk, moving to gently part her lips. Even with her hunger that tore at her very senses, Velira hesitated, because she knew. If she crossed this fragile line, there would be no pulling back— Not like this, not with her. And for the first time in a long time, Velira didn’t fully trust herself to stop. And there was also the part of her that didn’t want to — That wanted to hold onto Morgan, to remain at her side, to hold onto this connection, selfishly and irrevocably… a part of Velira that terrified her more than the hunger.
Her eyes lit— burning with conflict, sharp and immediate— and then she forced herself away. The tendrils withdrew in a sharp, controlled motion as she turned her head, breath unsteady. Her awareness snapped outward, searching, desperate now— not for the best prey, not for the strongest—but for anything that was not her.
Another thread of life tugged at the edge of her senses, barely registering against the roaring hunger that burned inside her. For a moment, she almost lost it entirely— her focus slipping, dragged back toward the warmth so close, so overwhelmingly alive standing before her. Velira’s breath hitched, her vision wavered. She grasped for that fragile thread, the alternative, with everything she had left, her control trembling.
Her gaze returned to Morgan once more. Lingering, and softened by something Velira did not speak aloud. Then she stepped away, unsteady now, her movements lacking their usual precision as she pushed through the doors into the corridor beyond. Her eyes landed on a lone guard, one who was sharp enough to react first. The blaster fired and the shot came fast, too fast. The bolt struck her upper arm, searing through fabric and skin. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, drawing a breath from her as her body faltered— but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Velira closed the distance without her usual finesse, driven by necessity alone. Her lightsaber ignited in her hand and drove forward unsteadily, piercing into the guard’s side, not enough to kill but to hold him in place. To subdue.
Her tendrils unfurled only a second later, and she fed, not delicately or carefully. Her proboscises drove forward, forcing their way into his skull as his body convulsed, draining him quickly, efficiently— taking what she needed without pause, without indulgence. Even as his body went still, even as some of her strength returned in a faint, fragile wave… It still wasn’t enough. Not yet.
Velira turned to who the guard had been keeping watch over— Krixo, still mildly intoxicated, now restrained by stuncuffs. His eyes widened as she approached, recognition cutting through the haze of drink. Then fear. Her grip was unrelenting as she seized him with her uninjured arm, dragging him back through the doors and into the ballroom, his protests weak and disjointed. He stumbled, struggled—but it didn’t matter. She forced him down, as her tendrils emerged again, this time without hesitation, and they took. Velira wasted little time tasting his thoughts, even as they screamed at her— that she was a monster, a liar. The male’s life essence ripped free to her grasping probosces, stripped from him as his body slackened beneath her grip, until there was nothing left to give.
Her breath slowed. Her body steadied— just enough, but not completely. Though her hunger had been stabilized, her strength had not yet been fully restored, not after all she had depleted. Velira tore a piece of silk from her dress, biting her lip for a moment at the stinging sensation as she wrapped it around her arm. Her gaze flickered instinctively back to Morgan, as Velira took a step closer. Lingering there, a rare sense of warmth shimmering in her crimson eyes. “Some things, Morgan,” her voice whispered softly, “are worth remembering.”
Exhaustion finally caught up with Velira as a smile crested her lips. She tipped forward, eyes glassing over, half-lidded. Her body gave out from under her, knees failing as she fell face first towards the floor — Morgan was there in an instant, grabbing her as she fell, supporting her. Velira fell into her arms and allowed herself to relax for a moment or two. A small indulgence wouldn’t hurt, would it?
“You should’ve done what I told you.” She heard Morgan say as she faded in and out of consciousness, the hest of her Captain’s shoulder taking over her senses. She felt her body lift, weightless for a moment before settling against something strong and warm.
Morgan looked forwards as she held Velira in her arms, close enough the Anzati leaned her cheek against the crook of Morgan’s neck and pulled at her cravat. “You should have taken my memory and left it at that. It’d be better for both of us.” Morgan’s voice was soft, barely audible over the haze Velira was feeling. “You’ll regret it. Eventually.”
She stepped forwards, through the carnage and gore, slicks of blood pooling around her perfectly polished and yet ruined shoes. She stepped over corpses and severed limbs with care and managed to flick her the holoring on her finger finger in the hopes of activating its distress beacon and comms. A moment passed as she walked out of the grand gala hall. A long moment. Finally her ring buzzed and a voice came through.
“Captain?! We’re on our way!” Charoo Vaan’s voice sounded from the micro-speaker. The Kraken’s Twi'lek Quartermaster sounded winded and stressed, seemingly rushing through the ship’s corridors to the bridge, per protocol.
“We’ll take a local shuttle and meet you in orbit,” Morgan ordered as she passed a group of terrified patrons, still masked and attempting to hide, to look away, to make themselves as small as they could. She gave them a passing glance prompting sobs and gasps, but otherwise ignored them.
“Hold it!” A blaster clicked in the shaky hand of the Zabrak Legionary from earlier. There were several mor emen behind him, all ready all willing. Morgan stopped in her tracks, cursing herself for not paying enough attention. Velira’s condition and Vaan’s message distracted her just enough. She noticed the tattoo again, the brown hair cropped short, the protruding horns, the green eyes above tattooed cheeks.
Morgan’s eyes squinted as she tracked his movements, then his companions, taking in every detail, assessing, processing. They were poised, prepared, but he was hesitating and they followed his lead. Waiting for something. She couldn’t do much before he pulled that trigger, and the rest jumped her, not unless she wanted to push herself so hard she’d tear something, and risk Velira. She pushed hard back there, nearly exhausting herself. The rage in her core, the furnace that pushed her onwards, was finally subsiding, replaced by something that made her legs sluggish and her arms achy. She’d need a short time to recover, time neither of them had. A veritable army of reject soldiers was on its way right now to secure the gala, secure the artifacts and, no doubt, to violently dispose of any annoying spares they might find.
“Don’t be stupid, you know who I am.” She hissed through her teeth, frustrated that she was stuck talking to a grunt. “Put it down and let us walk or you won’t.”
His blaster raised slightly. Threatening didn’t work well, it seemed. Of course it wouldn’t. All these jarheads had egos as big as Destroyers, thinking they could face down a Rancor and live to see a new day. And yet, there was still hesitation there.
“Someone has to answer for…for this.” He looked back at the gala entrance.
She relaxed slightly, easing on her instincts to respond with piss and vinegar. Instead the Force answered her call once more, slower than before but always present. It dug into his mind with care as she softly started to influence him. “And someone will, I can promise you that. You don’t attack the Grand Master’s Herald without consequences.” His barriers were up fast, well-trained despite being rejected, still strong even after years away from the Brotherhood. And yet she knew a way in there. She’d done it with plenty of Inquisitors, even Grand Inquisitors. There were very few individuals who could resist her, and most of them were on her side.
“This won’t go unpunished, unless you keep us here. Then the death squads march in, kill everyone, and no one’s the wiser. A week from now there’ll be a new auction, a new gala and a new security detail. Like nothing happened.” The words resonated with him, embedded deep into his mind. Anotehr burst of instinctive resistance, stubborn and death with, and he relaxed.
The blaster drooped in his hand. “Go,” he said, defeated and looking away. Morgan huffed silently, too silent for him to hear, and started walking again feeling as if she would collapse.
Morgan moved unsteadily towards the transport, not yet trusting the quiet. Not after the way the very room had come apart under her hands, under her will, and left her nearly hollowed out in its wake. Velira’s weight in her arms grounded her, if anything could. And yet, she was too still. Too cold. The absence of a pulse was something her instincts still rejected on a fundamental level, even now. Even after everything. But the softness of her dark hair against Morgan’s forearm, the faint shift of breath against her collarbone— it was enough. Enough to remind her she wasn’t carrying a corpse. Not yet.
Her jaw tightened at the thought, the memories that tugged at her mind that she quickly forced away. Morgan adjusted her grip, holding her closer as she pushed through the last of the chaos, and into the night beyond. The shuttle ride was a blur of dim lights and low hum of the engine. Morgan settled into a seat, bracing herself against the bulkhead with one hand while the other kept Velira anchored against her. Her muscles trembled— not from pain, but from the slow, inevitable crash after pushing herself too far. The rage that had carried her through the ballroom had burned out, leaving only smoke behind.
It made her feel… slow. And she detested that. Even like this, even barely holding herself upright, she watched everything— Calculated and measured, waiting for the next threat that didn’t come. By the time the shuttle had docked, her legs felt heavier than durasteel. And then, there it was— The Kraken.
Carmine red stretched across its hull, with a few scattered deep scars of gold. The krayt dragon skull loomed ahead, hollow eyes staring into the void of space. Orange lit viewports glowed faintly. Morgan didn’t slow as the ramp lowered, not yet, despite the protest of her muscles. She stepped onto the deck with purpose, boots striking metal with a weight that echoed heavier than usual. A few crew members rushed forward immediately, their gaze lit with concern.
One of them, a towering Devaronian male with curved horns lined with metal rings was among them. Various piercings glinted along his jagged ears and brow. “Captain—“ He began, the same concern that the rest of the crew shared etched in his voice.
“I’m fine,” Morgan stated simply. It came out rougher than intended. His gaze flicked to Velira, then back to Morgan, with both a curiosity and wariness.
“Prep the ship,” Morgan continued as she naturally slipped back into command, gritting her teeth through the exhaustion. “Defensive grid on standby. We’re leaving orbit the second we’re clear.”
“Aye, Captain!” A pause followed, then more carefully. “Do you need—“
“No,” Morgan’s voice followed, flat and immediate. The crew exchanged glances, before nodding in understanding, knowing better than to question her. The crew stepped back, starting to shout orders of their own to one another. The ship came to life, as the engines flared and emitted their low, growling hum.
Morgan began moving, slowly and unsteadily. Down corridors she knew by instinct, past flickering panels of scarred bulkheads. Velira hadn’t stirred, not once, remaining still where she was in Morgan’s arms. The doors to her quarters slid open with a hiss, and she stepped inside without breaking stride. The room greeted her the same way it always did, opulence and pragmatism both colliding in a way that only made sense to her. Black silk and steel, adorned with various relics and weapons.
She gathered the last of her strength, crossing the threshold into the private sector. Carefully, more carefully than she’d ever admit— she lowered Velira onto the bed. Morgan exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down through her hair before turning away. Boots first, thrown quickly onto the ground. Then the coat—half shrugged off, half dropped wherever it landed. She didn’t bother with the rest, before collapsing into bed on the opposite side. Didn’t have it in her.
But even then, from where she rested against the pillows, her head turned, just slightly. Enough to look at Velira, who was unnaturally composed in a way that would’ve unsettled her hours ago, the flawless features of her face relaxed in her current state. Now… it didn’t as much. At least, not the same way. The moment replayed whether she wanted it to or not. The Anzat’s hesitation, the choice — Offered everything, and still refused.
“Stubborn,” she breathed, her expression softening, just barely, the corner of her mouth shifting into the faintest semblance of a smile. Morgan quickly denoted it as the exhaustion fully catching up with her. Her gaze lingered a moment longer than it needed to, before her eyes closed and she quickly fell into the heaviness of sleep. The ship hummed beneath them, its engines working with a low, familiar tremor as it carried them gently into the open expanse of space, where the stars stretched endless and bright.