Voice of Naboo
Marketplace Outskirts
Acier Moonbound
For a long moment Sibylla only breathed. The confession hung between them, heavier than the bridge under their feet. Ace's words echoed in her head in a low, insistent drum, each syllable a stone thrown into the still pond of her thoughts. She let them settle. She let him feel them without filling the air with immediate comfort or tidy answers.
That, she knew, would be a lie.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, but steady -- the sort that comes from someone who has learned to hold both sorrow, horrific news, and truth without pretending either is simple.
"Ace," she said, and the single name was both an anchor and a breaking. "Thank you for trusting me with that. Thank you for the truth, however unbearable it is to say aloud."
She drew a breath and let a memory come up like a tide, of Set and Vere, of Lysander, of Aurelian and everything that occured in Wielu, in the attack on the Asembly and even beyond that.
"There are parts of me that want to fix everything with speeches and plans, to wrap harm in neat solutions. Vere would have reached for the gentleness first, even in the face of horror with Set. She would have spoken of grief as something that does not make you less human. I am trying to do the same, though I will not pretend words can undo what was done."
The warmth of her fingers found his as if to remind him of the small tethering comfort of skin against skin.
"What you told me does not make you irredeemable. It does not make you less human. It makes you a person who has seen the worst and been shaped by it. That shaping can twist a life toward darkness. It can also be the beginning of something else, if one chooses it."
Sibylla let the silence breathe between them a moment more. Her hazel eyes softened, and she spoke with the frankness of someone who had sat at piano keys until her fingers were numb and then wept on them until the sound blurred into something that felt like a confession.
"You say you felt nothing then. That horrifies you more than the act itself. That is a kind of suffering in itself. The absence of feeling does not always mean the absence of conscience. Sometimes the shock of survival, the way the self hardens to get by, muzzles the heart until later. It does not mean you are a monster. It means you are wounded, Ace, in ways that are dangerous and in ways that need tending."
She looked at him fully now, not as a judge but as a witness. And perhaps, in the way she wished she'd been able to speak honestly with Lysander had she the chance to.
"I will not pretend I can make that right. I will not excuse it. If there must be consequences, you will face them with me near, not because I think you deserve easy absolution, but because I value you enough to stand in the hard parts with you. That is the work of friendship. That is the meaning of loyalty that I believe in."
As she continued to speak, her tone became softer, reflecting an honest admission.
"You asked before what strength is. You told me it is choosing better even when the dark is loud. If you are willing, tell me the rest when you can. But know this: if you let yourself feel now, if you let the grief and the guilt come without hiding them away, you are beginning the work of choosing differently. Cry if you must. Rage if you must. Sit in the shame if you must. I will not look away."
She offered him then what actions she could give.
"If you want, we can go find
Aether Verd
. Or we can sit here until the sun moves and Tic gets bored. If there are people you need to tell, or things that must be done, I will help you decide how to face them. I will hold you while you say whatever needs saying. And if you ask me whether I will leave if I learn everything, I will answer plainly: I will stay, unless you ask me to step back. That choice is yours to give me."Sibylla's cheek lifted in a small, rueful smile that was more brave than light.
"I am not naive. I do not imagine the path ahead will be simple or kind. But I will walk it with you a while. And if we are honest, if you keep choosing differently when it costs you most, then whatever you fear you are now will not define the arc of who you become."
She let her hand rest over his and waited.
