Kinslayer
She sensed no deception. A slow inhale through her nose was followed by an equally measured exhale. The scent of herbaceous air hung heavy where they were, even low to the ground.
"Things work differently here," she acknowledged in a low murmur. "Jedi do not rule. And women - we don't have a seat at the table."
Her gaze spilled over the expanse of charred soil, which for a moment, seemed to go on further than it actually did. "But," she added as her focus drifted back to Aurelian, "we can serve the table."
Cora let her words fall, quietly ruminating on how much of her tender past to let slip through the mask and give color to the picture he was trying to draw. He'd come to her genuine enough for a man of his station, but she still didn't have a handle on his level of integrity.
Gloved fingers closed around the handle of the trowel, but the implement didn't yet move. "Noble daughters are marriage fodder. That was how I first served Ukatis; as a wife to the crown prince." Her upper lip curled slightly. "He was not a…pleasant man."
Horace's nature was no great secret. She had no great secrets for Aurelian.
The trowel moved, heaving a heaping scoop full of dirt to the side. "This garden was my solace," she murmured. Two fingers of her free hand wriggled into the dirt, and after a few tugs, freed another root from beneath the surface. Cora held it up to the light, and the dried husk took on an amber hue.
"And he burned it."
If Aurelian had a particular knowledge of horticulture, he might've recognized the thick stems she'd unearthed as silphium; an herbal remedy used in the countryside to prevent pregnancy.
Cora ran her thumb along the root's dried surface in a moment in contemplation. Had Horace known what she'd been growing, or had it simply been about taking away what little joy she'd managed to carve out for herself?
A careful, almost reverent hand placed it with the others and turned her gaze back toward Aurelian with a soft wariness. "Before Ukatis was attacked by the Sith and Mandalorians, before we'd joined the Alliance, we fought each other almost routinely. Axilla has burned dozens of times. Entire villages completely razed, returned to the earth. Every time, without the technology of the core, without the resources of worlds like Naboo, we rebuilt. We lived, but not much changed. Most don't see us as much more than a backward, backwater world."
The way she drifted off might've implied that she wasn't far from disagreeing.
"But the way I see it, change can take root with the right tending. Ukatis will never be Naboo, but I don't think that it should try to be. The people, the land, certain traditions and aspects of our culture – I want to not only protect them, but lift them into something greater."
If she'd maintained his gaze, she draw it down to the barren flower bed where her finger tapped against scorched earth.
"Something greater, that's still us."
Cora lifted the trowel, watching as the soil fell from it in granules. They hit the flower bed below like little punctuations. "You want to know why I'm digging around in the dirt?"
This time, when she looked to Aurelian, something flashed in the ocean blue of her eyes. A stroke of lightning in the storm, an electric tinge that hadn't been there before.
"Because I don't want to burn what I hate. I want to grow something from it, even if all I have to work with are ashes."
She angled the trowel to the side, and this time dry soil fell in a stream. When it was empty, the implement struck the ground with a decisive thuk as thin metal dug back into the dirt.
"I don't doubt that you care for Naboo. It'll be hard to convince me that you would care for Ukatis - I've meant quite a few men who've made grand promises, and nearly all of them fell through in one way or another."
Aurelian Veruna
