Aria listened somberly as Yerbol spoke about his concerns and thoughts, smirking wryly as he mentioned the wish to keep their Force sensitivities hidden. “I can understand that, I suppose…it is more difficult for us…when you have that much raw power inside of you its almost impossible not to let it do too much damage if you lose control of it for just a moment.” she chuckled guiltily and shook her head, offering: “We won't talk about how many of my mother's light bulbs I smashed every time I threw a temper tantrum, or the boys I put in the hospital because I threw them across the plaza like ragdolls (although, in my defence they shouldn't have called me a demon, they were asking for it).”
As he protested about not wanting to be angry all the time, she responded with a perfectly reasonable alternative. “Maybe, but there's no harm in beating the crap out of a training dummy to get it out of your system. It's what we did at the Academy.”
His next question required a bit more thought to be put into her answer, so the Champion fell silent, turning her hand over in his grasp to intertwine their fingers in the meantime.
“I don't know if it makes sense COMPLETELY, I can't begin to make sense of what that feels like… Or WHY anyone - you, Revan, or Meetra - would feel that way,” she admitted slowly, huffing out a breath, “but I think I understand the premise.” she sank her teeth into her lip and paused again, then glanced up to meet his gaze warily.
“Honestly? I don't think I've ever been more scared of anything in my life.”
For Aria, that was a big admission.
“Not really of…where we might be going or- or going into the unknown because we've done THAT all before.” she clarified, holding up her free hand to indicate that she wasn't quite done with her explanation before he could interrupt her, “I'm scared of what might happen out there, and I'm scared for YOU.”
Don't cry. For the love of the Force Do. Not. Cry.
Thankfully her voice somehow managed to keep itself steady despite her worries, though it did drop considerably in pitch to just above a whisper. “The pain I felt from the bond when we were orbiting Malachor… I-I thought I was going to lose you right then and there. And that was only a FRACTION of what you were feeling, I can't…I can't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for you, what any of this feels like, whatever it is.”
Aria scoffed in frustration, looking to him helplessly once more.
“And I don't know if its just me being a mother hen, but it almost feels like you're getting, weaker, since then. When we opened that door…it felt like I was putting more energy into it than you were, not because you weren't trying but because… I HAD more energy?” this time, she stared down at their hands instead, as if she was worried the observation might somehow offend him or make it seem as though she was belittling him. Which was the opposite of what she was trying to convey.
“And it HURTS me, emotionally, to know that you're struggling like that and I can't fix it for you. Because I have no better idea what in all the hells is happening than you do… And if you're already feeling that way now, what's going to happen when we do go out there?”
What if you die? She couldn't bring herself to say it out loud, but the worry was there, niggling at her thoughts like a hungry Mynock. What if I can't save you? What am I without you?
With a snort of wry laughter that caught in the back of her throat, Aria shook her shoulders out in a feeble attempt to physically shake all these anxiety-inducing possibilities from her brain.
“Maybe I've just been spending too much time thinking alone, but, we have NO idea what it is that we're going to find out there. Something so evil that Revan would choose to leave his wife and unborn child just to go out there and stop it? I doubt it's True Sith technology either, or anything made by them, or else Renso or the Archives we have would've given us some kind of heads up, and then…it's been decades, maybe even closer to a century now, since Revan and Meetra left and they NEVER came back, Force, Bol, maybe they're already karkin’ dead and no one in the known galaxy ever bloody knew! How strong will whatever this is be, if THEY couldn't stop it, how can WE?”
The Champion had to take another breath, this time falling silent as she realised she hadn't given her partner a chance to get a word in edgewise.
“I rambled again, didn't I… Shit. I'm sorry, I've got to stop doing that when I'm upset…” she apologised sincerely, leaning into his side. “I'll shut up and let you talk now.”
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