Unable to focus so much on not tripping since she couldn’t see with his hands over her eyes (she was relying on him for that, too, and was surprised to even find she was okay with that), she was still processing it, wondering how to put those feelings into words. The awkward first conversation around the holoprojector on their first trip to Quensu, the way she had silently berated herself for not letting those creepy ice demons flay him to pieces while she made off and carried on (“like a REAL Sith would have done!”) and then being oh so glad she hadn’t later on down the line when they had gotten to the top of the temple. In fact, she was more than confident it had been the right thing to do, especially after all the hardships they had faced together as a team. She remembered the gut-wrenching feeling of panic when she had thought she would never see him again, only to have him appear precisely at that moment to come to her aid and help her to fend off whatever trouble she’d managed to end up in.
She had attributed it to their Force bond, but perhaps it wasn’t JUST that…
They stopped on the hillside, Yerbol revealing the spectacular view to her and they took a few quiet moments to just admire the views. He had shared some of his memories, and Aria had shared some of her own. Smaller memories, some silly and others more nostalgic, like the times Roan had taken her up to the Sky Ramp on Onderon at night and they had just sat and watched the stars while he pointed out the constellations and she hadn’t grasped the concept of Jedi or Sith Lords or the Dark Council…. that she would have never thought about sharing with anybody before, because they had been too private or insignificant for anyone but her to know. Unknowingly, she had inched slightly closer during their previous talks, their shoulders just brushing. Aria looked up to find her gaze locked with Yerbol’s and there was an intensity there that she had never noticed before, not even on Zinuthra. He took her hands in his own carefully, the contact sending shivers of warmth down her spine as it had done once or twice before-
The realisation hit her right between the eyes like the butt of a rifle, and she almost wanted to try and deny it again. Yerbol was her best friend, she COULDN’T be in love with him….could she? Her throat tightened at the prospect of having to somehow tell him, though she was thankfully spared any awkward fumbling with words as Yerbol decided he would be the one to start talking first. She should have looked away, but couldn’t, unable to break her attention away from the sudden depths that had appeared in the Knight’s bright blue eyes, even if she had wanted to. But then he wasn’t talking about being friends anymore, and she felt her heart flutter violently with each passing second of his confession, until it was going so fast she was terrified it was going to explode against her ribcage. He smiled at her again, and this time her knees really DID wobble; she had to grab onto his hands even tighter as an assurance that she wasn’t going to collapse into a puddle right there in front of him.
BREATHE! MOVE! SAY SOMETHING! her brain was screaming, and yet it felt like an eternity before she could make her mouth move again, the words all tumbling out at once in a breathy whisper:
“I was so, so sure I was going to kill you in that tomb and prance back to Bracknell with the artefact and then I’d be the most successful acolyte and everything I’d been through up to that point, the things I’d done, would have been worth it. And maybe it was the Force...or destiny or..or something else, I still don’t know and it doesn’t even really matter, because I’ve never been more glad of something I didn’t do in my whole life. When that Force bond happened in the Quensu temple I was so TERRIFIED. I didn’t want to be stuck tethered to some stupidly brave Jedi that thought he knew the answer to everything for the rest of my life, actually I thought my life was over right in that moment,” she choked out a laugh, having to pause to blink away the mist of tears that had started to form in her eyes, “Now I...Force, I don’t EVER want it to go away. You became not just my best friend, but the best reason for me to still be alive when I didn’t really HAVE anything else except what my father wanted me to be; you were somebody I could trust with anything, you stuck up for me and anybody else that ever needed it, even when not everybody agreed with you, you’re still stupidly brave but I’ve realised that’s not a bad thing because if you weren’t all of us would have been a lot worse off without you there to encourage us and keep us going. Running into you was the best damn thing that ever happened to me and I don’t ever want you to think anything less than that, you hear me? You were willing to stick by me and work with me even after everything I’d done (even if I thought you were really stupid for it at the time), especially to you, to...to Lysa...and maybe it took a little while but being with you made me stop and actually think for once, about what I was doing with my life, what I was letting the Dark Council turn me into. And I realised that I didn’t need to be killing and fighting and trying to impress them to have a life I could be happy with. I just needed...somebody like you.”
She pulled her hands free from his, but only to hug him instead, quickly wiping away the stream of tears from her cheeks in an attempt to not cry all over him, too.
“I’ll never stop loving you, I can’t.” he had said.
“You’d better not.” Aria mumbled into his chest. “Not ever; because I love you too.”
She’d said everything now.
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