Thankfully, most of what Neta had to say to fill them in was good news (minus the part about the storm possibly lasting quite a while, of course). The ship had survived with minimal damage and it sounded like everything was going smoothly with the SIS and Imp Intelligence contacts. Aria couldn’t help but feel a little triumphant. Maybe they COULD do this. Bidding Neta a quick farewell, she accompanied Yerbol back to their room as he had asked. 
As the Knight enquired about any changes she had noticed in the connection between them, Aria nodded slowly in affirmation. 
“On Korriban, in the hangar a-after…” she trailed off for a moment, then picked up the train of thought again, “I could feel how angry and desperate you were. I couldn’t tell what had happened till after we got there, and then after I touched you it was like I could feel everything you did.” 


It seemed as if the physical contact between them had somehow triggered the strengthening of their bond, but perhaps that was just a coincidence? She pointed this out to Yerbol, wondering whether he would have anything to add to the thought. He suggested meditating together, which seemed like as good of an idea as any. She’d meditated on her own plenty of times, but never with another person. There was only one way to find out how it would go…
“Okay…” she blew out a heavy breath, nodding again. “Okay, let’s try it.” 
She patted his forearm gently, brushing past him to settle on the floor in the middle of the room. 
“I’ve...not done this before.” she admitted carefully, a note of apprehension in her tone. Aria was aware that to do this, she would have to open her mind to him, which was an entirely new concept to her. It wasn’t that she was unused to having other presences touch her own, the Dark Council were infamous for invading acolyte’s minds whenever they saw fit, to search their thoughts or memories or simply to remind them that they COULD do it and there was nothing the acolytes could do about it.


She reminded herself that Yerbol wasn’t the Dark Council. This would be entirely different, and maybe that’s what frightened her so much. Taking another deep breath, Aria crossed her legs and folded her hands neatly into her lap. “Only one way to find out, right?” she chuckled softly, “I’m ready.”
It was a simple matter of focusing on the invisible thread that bound them together, and following it along until they found their minds touching again, only this time they would lower any barriers they had placed around their consciousness, to allow each other to connect more openly. There were parts of her own mind that Aria kept well-shielded still, containing memories and thoughts too personal to share with him just yet; she was sure Yerbol would have certain things he wouldn’t appreciate her poking around into either, and she was careful to give them a wide berth out of respect for his privacy. But everything else, she left open for him to explore as he saw fit: the argument with her mother over Force powers that resulted in Roan taking her to the Academy, the subsequent training sessions and taunts from the other students and tutors alike, the extra training sessions with Roan and Vano to prove them all wrong, and even, after some careful consideration on whether she SHOULD leave it open to him, the day Lysa had appeared at the Academy and thrown all Aria’s hard work off-kilter when she had drawn Bracknell’s attention to her instead, right up to the moment Aria had cornered her in Naga Sadow’s tomb and ended the quarrel between them once and for all.


The more they shared between them, the more freely the energy currents seemed to flow between them, leaving the bond between their minds as strong as it had been in those brief moments in the hangar and in the forest, even after they had withdrawn from the meditation.
“That was...strange.” Aria chuckled nervously, glancing sideways at Yerbol again. “It feels different, though. Stronger, like before...do you think, it’ll keep doing that? That we’ll be able to see into each other’s minds all the time, eventually?”