She felt so much better after getting some actual sleep. Her head was clearer, rather than being a fuzzy mess of over-intensified sounds and voices, and she could ACTUALLY think straight. During that time, the diplomats had hashed out the fine details of the treaty. At first, Aria got a little nervous when Neta summoned everyone back to the command center. Oh, I went to sleep because I DIDN’T want to talk politics, Neta! she felt like shouting to the ceiling (rather than AT poor Neta), but was pleasantly relieved to find that the spec ops pilot simply wanted to convey her gratefulness for each of the people who had stood beside them and fought with them for the duration of the horrendous six months they had been at war with the Alliance. She was glad Neta had taken it upon herself to convey the thanks to them, sure that Neta was speaking for every Force user on the Council and not just herself. Aria had wanted to try and say something to convey her own gratitude for their sacrifices, but whenever she tried to think about how to put it into words she found herself falling short. Neta summed it up pretty well. 

She looked up again to spot Voldon beckoning them out of the room, nodding and slipping out after him to find that Yerbol and the other members of their Council of Force users had also been summoned. Voldon presented them with the idea that he and Jungze had been discussing, of a formal “Council” being formed of the older and more experienced Force users. Aria had to admit she liked the sound of that, especially of how it differed from their previously laid out Councils. Equal say for each member in decisions to be made, rather than a constant power struggle between members over who should have more influence than their counterparts. She couldn’t help but feel proud that they had all LEARNT something from the whole experience. People who would have previously shunned or tried to kill each other had REALLY come together as allies to work towards an end goal that would benefit everyone in the galaxy. If a mystic of some description had approached her months ago before she had followed Lysa into Naga Sadow’s tomb and foretold the events that had taken place since, Aria would have laughed in their face and called them mad. But it had happened, and she was proud to say she had been a part of it.
Slow, careful footsteps came towards them, Cheriss joining them a moment later. The Dathomirian was paler than usual, and still wobbly on her feet, though she cracked a broad grin as she caught wind of Jungze’s insinuation about titles. 
“No indeed, Malu, you are correct. I will make no judgement of your choices, but I earned that Darth title and I intend to take it to my grave.” she proclaimed. “Besides, someone has to pay homage to the old ways somehow.” 
“You weren’t far off from it, Cheriss.” Ailel chortled in amusement, placing a steadying hand on Cheriss’ shoulder as she teetered again, leaning up against the side of the compound to keep herself upright. “You should be in the medbay.” 
“I’ll be fine, I can still see straight. I didn’t want to sleep through ALL the interesting discussion.”  
She looked between Voldon and Yerbol as the Knight enquired about their obligations to join (or not join) the rebuilding efforts, nodding slowly at the Battlemaster’s subsequent reply and Jungze’s query directed at her. She sighed heavily, shrugging her shoulders.
“No, no...I’ve definitely had enough of war and fighting for a while.” she agreed quietly, managing an amused smirk. Ice skating. That made her chuckle at the thought. “I dunno, we could take a trip back to Hoth.” she exchanged a knowing glance with Yerbol, whose cheeks reddened ever so slightly. She was going to excuse herself and Yerbol so they could slip away and talk about whatever it was he had planned (and whether it involved them staying together, as he had alluded previously), when Cheriss nearly lost her balance again and was subsequently ‘banished’ back to the medbay by her concerned comrades. The Dathomirian looked unsteady enough on her feet, and Aria was hoping someone would offer to accompany her to make sure she got back safely when their eyes met and Aria found a kind of urgency there, something that said ‘I need to talk to you’. Nodding in affirmation, Aria volunteered to accompany Cheriss and ensure she did as she was told; they walked the first few corners in silence, Aria allowing the still ailing Master to lean some of her weight against her side as they made their way back to the medical portion of the complex at a slow pace. Cheriss finally spoke again:
“I wanted to talk to you away from the others, about your parents.” The proposed chosen topic came as somewhat of a surprise to Aria, she had known her father and Cheriss had been acquaintances, but for the other Sith Lord to have been close enough to Roan to have known ANYTHING about her mother was new information for her. She wanted to ask other questions, too many questions, but all she managed to squeak out was:
“What about them?” 
“Roan always knew you’d questioned his feelings about your mother, he never got the chance to explain it to you. He asked me to do so in his absence, before we left Zinuthra to approach the Alliance fleet...I know it might be difficult for you to believe, Aria, but he loved your mother. Very much. Perhaps too much.” the Dathomirian chuckled, stopping to lean on the wall and recover some of her breath momentarily. “Their meeting was a total accident, but I could tell as soon as I saw that look in his eye that he was smitten. I TOLD him not to play with fire but the [i]karkin’[/i] idiot wouldn’t listen to me.” she snorted and rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly. “He decided that she was worth the trouble and that he’d do whatever he could to make things work despite their differing political factions...the Dark Council were most displeased with the fiasco but he had concocted this whole lunatic scheme in his head that if they just gave him enough time he could persuade your mother to switch her allegiances to the Empire and to the Dark Council. ‘She could be useful to us’, now your mother wasn’t a fighter or a violent person by any means (in fact I doubt she’d ever touched a blaster or a vibroknife in her life, much less would she know what to do with one), but I tell you, she could sell snow to a Wampa! She could indeed have made an excellent pair of eyes inside the Republic’s own forces, if he could have succeeded.” 
Aria sighed. She could see where this was going. 
“There’s a ‘but’ coming, right?” Cheriss nodded.
“But your mother was so patriotic, and so STUBBORN, she swore blind she wouldn’t abandon the Republic for anybody, not even your father. I thought he had more sense, but he kept insisting to the Council that he just needed more time. Always he needed more time, ‘just another month and she’ll be swearing her loyalties to the Emperor, I swear!’. Of course, one month turned into three and so on, then you came into the picture and the rest of the Council began to lose their patience. They wanted to kill her then and end it all, his attachment to her made him weak and they could see that, but you became his bargaining chip for a time. They couldn’t risk eliminating her without wasting your potential, you could have, and did, inherit his Force abilities. The Sith could use that, train you as an acolyte.” she remembered her parents fighting about her Force abilities, managing another nod. They reached the medbay, which was thankfully just as sparsely populated. Those who were well enough had long since left and the others were so badly ill they were still unconscious or pumped full of medication to pay the pair’s conversation any mind. The question was difficult for Aria to voice, but it was the one she had been desperate to know for the five years since it had happened:
“Then...i-if he loved her...why make me kill her? Why…?” 
“By that time, he had exhausted all other excuses, Aria. Your mother was safe as long as their attention was on you, watching your progress. That’s why he spent so much time tutoring you even though he really shouldn’t have. It’s just as well you and Vano got on so well and that he could train you together or they might have had his head for shirking his REAL apprentice’s training in favour of yours. But after you turned sixteen, Roan was out of time. The  Council would not accept any more of his excuses, and if he wouldn’t act to remove the threat to the Empire your mother had become with the things she knew of the Dark Council through spending time with him, the rest of us were to take matters into our own hands and do it for him.” Cheriss sat on her appointed bed, her features creasing into a wan smile. “He would have fought off every single one of them to protect you both, run away with you somewhere remote and shielded you from them if he could have...but perhaps like we all were back then, he was neck-deep in the philosophies and he couldn’t see another way out. You have to understand that it was the hardest decision that your father ever had to make in his lifetime and he HATED himself for it afterwards, but he was convinced that your mother was safer dead than she ever would have been alive. If he had tried to sneak her away somewhere she would have spent the rest of her life hounded by the Dark Council until we finally tracked her down and then it would not have been a pleasant end for her. Assigning her as your target for your trials would make it quick and as painless as he possibly could without doing it himself….he would have spared you that grief if he could but he didn’t have it in him to lay a finger on her. Even asked me if I’d do it, once. I wasn’t going to put my neck on the line for him when I warned him in the first place not to start all of this.” Cheriss sighed again, reaching into a pocket in her robe to fish something out, which she turned over a few times in her hand. “So I suppose I owe you an apology as well, for my part in it.” she extended the hand towards Aria, palm opening to reveal the delicate gold chain that sat there, suspended on the end was a single cluster of gems, as dark as the night sky but which still shimmered with faint blue and purple hues as they caught the light. “This was your mother’s, she gave it to Roan just before he took you to the Academy. He never took it off.” a small, amused smirk crossed Cheriss’ face. “He thought none of us ever noticed, but we did. He wanted you to have it, if he didn’t make it off that ship.”

It was a lot for Aria to process, the young Force user pensively quiet as she picked up the pendant and closed her fist around it protectively, clutching it close to her heart. She wasn’t normally one to wear jewellery, but this would be different. Now at least, she had something from both of them. 
“Alright, that’s all I had to say, so you don’t have to hang around. I’m sure you have better things to do than keep pestering the last Darth in the galaxy.” 
Aria couldn’t help but grin teasingly at the remaining Darth, quipping:
“You’re still not dropping it? Well, fine, but don’t complain in twenty years time when all the kids are laughing at you for having a ‘funny name’.” that earned her an (affectionate) clip around the ears from the Dathomirian, who also nearly passed out again from the effort of the movement, shutting her eyes as she sagged back against the pillows. Aria paused in the doorway, turning to smile over her shoulder.
“Cheriss...thanks. I...I needed this.” 
“I know.” the former Sith Lord waved her off. “Now go on, go and join your friends. I’m sure we’ll all be seeing each other again at some point in the future.”

She found Yerbol again, not far off from where the group had still been gathered, sidling up to join him and murmur. “So….what now?”