Aria didn’t glance sideways as Yerbol plopped down wordlessly beside her and put his arm around her, only scooting closer slightly and dropping her head to rest gently in the curve between his neck and shoulder as the Knight began recounting his own first experience with a squadron of Republic troopers on Ilum. She didn’t say anything during the entire tale, simply listening to his words and nodding slightly into his shoulder in understanding. Even as he finished his story, Aria didn’t reply straight away, the silence settling heavily onto the room before it was punctuated by Yerbol whispering.
“You don’t have to talk to me about it….but I’m listening if you want to.”
It was then that she finally worked up the courage to peek up at him through her eyelashes and meet his gaze, mumbling.
“Shouldn’t have done it….I should’ve tried to run, then. But I was neck deep in the politics and the backstabbing and…” she looked down again in shame, her hand clenched into a half fist around her knee, the synthleather fabric bunching even tighter in her grip, “I was a coward and I was too afraid of what they would do to me if they ever caught me.” She sniffed quietly, shaking her head weakly.
“My mother didn’t deserve to die like that. She was a good person...you know, for a politician.” the statement was accompanied by a half-hearted giggle, Aria shifting unconsciously a little closer to Yerbol. She hadn’t thought she would find this hugging thing comforting at all, having not really had much experience with them since she had been a very young child, but she was pleasantly surprised to admit to herself that she did kind of like it. 


“Sometimes I wonder how he does it. Act like it didn’t matter at all.” of course she couldn’t speak on Roan’s behalf and Aria had no way of knowing how her father REALLY felt without looking into his mind, which was forbidden territory. He had never let her in nor had she looked for any reason to ask, despite being curious. “I begged him to change their mind. To...to pick somebody else. ANYBODY else but her, and he just...stood there and did nothing.” Aria’s bottom lip trembled temporarily as she fought down more tears that briefly threatened to reappear. “I’d killed enough times before, other acolytes, tomb beasts, Republic prisoners, but I hadn’t felt that physically sick since the first time I ever did it. I saw her face every time I closed my eyes at night for four years. Thought I’d got rid of it by now but I guess all I really did was push it down and try to forget about it.”
She lifted her head from the place against his chest to crane her head back and look at Yerbol again, searching his eyes carefully as if to confirm what she was feeling through their Force link. 
“I...I should have told you, I’m sorry…I didn’t know how to, and I thought that you’d hate me, if I did.” Aria sighed, slowly beginning to uncurl from the ball she’d huddled herself into against him. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did. I’d hate me too.” she concluded in a quiet whisper, despite knowing that he probably didn’t (there was no telling how much they could hide from one another now, with their bond continuing to strengthen with each passing day). “She was my mother and I killed her.”


After a few more moments of silence, her attention returned to the door and she reluctantly extricated herself from Yerbol’s embrace to place her feet gingerly on the floor. “Guess we should go and see what the others have managed to figure out from those holodisks, huh?” As much as she wanted nothing but to stay there and let him hold her while she just gave in to the pent up emotions Bracknell had brought back to the surface, they didn’t have time to waste so she could wallow in self-pity. They had a radical movement to quash before the crackpots destroyed the known galaxy. Before they left the room again, Aria turned her head to smile at him, a faint flush of colour appearing in her face. “Thanks, Bol. For...everything. I never really said it before, but it means a lot more to me that I have someone like you as a friend than I could ever really tell you.”