Private Doctor's Orders

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: En route to Republic Space from Moorja
Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian woke to the indignity of being wheeled. "I am the King," he snapped, voice sharp despite the dull ache in his skull. "Do not put me in an occupied room."

The medical staff did not even slow down. One of them muttered something about capacity and triage. Another adjusted the scanner hovering near his head as if he were luggage. He glared at the ceiling while they rolled him through the crowded ward. Moorja had net the Republic a lot of injured peasants.

"I am not sharing space," he tried again, less regal this time, more irritated. "Find someone less important." No reaction. Of course. They parked him behind a privacy curtain and left like they were escaping a small fire.

Aurelian sat there, seething, pressing two fingers lightly against the swelling at his temple. It pulsed in protest. Knocked out. Kicked unconscious like some tavern drunk. This will never be spoken of again.

A faint sound came from the other side of the curtain. Movement. Breathing. He froze. No. He yanked the curtain aside. Of course.

Cora.

Aurelian stared at her like the universe had personally betrayed him. "No. No, absolutely not." He pointed toward the hall. "No no no!"

No one came back. He let the curtain fall halfway, then dragged a hand down his face before climbing into the bed with far less grace than he would have preferred. The mattress dipped as he settled in, adjusting his coat like he had chosen this arrangement.

Silence stretched for a moment. He glanced sideways at her. "What happened to you?" he asked, tone finally leveling out.

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

When Aurelian pulled the curtain back with a rush, he'd find Cora sitting up. Her movement stilled, arms locked in place as they braced the bed behind her. She'd been on the verge of trying to rise.

No no no!

Cora swallowed. It took her a few dumbfounded moments to find her voice first, then her personality.

"Please," she croaked. "It's not as though I'm in active labor."

She eyed Aurelian clinically as he seemed to give in to this unpleasant predicament. The King of Naboo didn't fall while depositing himself onto the bed. Good.

Cora had already tried to climb out of her own bed twice - insisting that she was well enough to assist with triage - thereby creating more work for the already overworked medial staff as they escorted the wounded, shambling Jedi back to her room.

Perhaps they'd thought that pairing them in the same room would keep the snippy royals occupied.

"I was enjoying the quiet," she mumbled. A pause. It took a few long moments for her to think back to what had happened.

"That mountain of a woman broke some of my ribs. Then her…tendril…? was around my neck."

There was a decent anesthetic flowing through her IV, but it didn't dull the pain completely. Cora collapsed back onto the mattress with a huff.

"While protecting you, I might add. With Gavin Restur . He's fine, by the way. Not that you asked.”

Now, she mirrored his sideways glance and squinted. “How’s your head?”

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian's eyes snapped toward her, arms folding tight across his chest. Oh, she had jokes now. He very deliberately did not think about the last time she had been in a confined space with him and in active labor. That memory stayed locked away, all of the fluids and panic. Though he had been quite the hero that day. Probably saved her and her new-borns life. She was lucky to have him there.

"I was enjoying the quiet," he repeated under his breath, dry and unimpressed.

He shifted in the bed, trying to find a position that did not make his head throb or his dignity ache. Neither was particularly cooperative. As Cora spoke, his expression flickered. Just for a second. Ribs broken. Something around her neck. For a moment he stifled a laugh, suppressing quite an inappropriate comment. Though he had seen that woman. That thing. She was quite the force, there was nothing to joke about when it came to that monster.

Aurelian exhaled slowly and leaned back, one hand coming up to press lightly against his temple again. "I know Gavin is fine," he said. "I pay him to be fine. It would be very inconvenient otherwise."

His gaze slid back to her, sharper now. "My head is fine," he added, a touch too quickly. "Yours, however…" He let the sentence hang for a moment before continuing, tone slipping into something more pointed. "I do not know who you think you are, throwing yourself into a fight like that immediately after childbirth." His brow furrowed as he shook his head, irritation creeping in. "I swear, I do not understand your complete lack of self-preservation."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora’s brow crinkled. Then, her eyebrows rose.

“So when you were held at knife point, and then kicked unconscious, I was supposed to…what, run? Leave you to the wolves?”

She tsked rather loudly as he called her self-preservation instincts into question. It hadn’t been the first time. “Please. I’ve been cleared by several medical providers to resume my work as a Jedi.”

It had been a few months, after all. Even if, to her, it still felt like barely any time at all had passed. What had that felt like to Aurelian? Had it gone by just as quickly for him, or had the days dragged on? She wouldn't begrudge him if he'd blocked out the elevator-birth chapter of his life.

Cora’s fingers flexed once, absently, aching to hold her child. To feel Lucy’s comforting weight and warmth against her chest. She was at home, safe with her father, but Cora was struck with the instinctive desire to have her here.

Not that she would act on it. A triage ward was no place for an infant.

“We didn't know that the visit to Moorja would go that sour,” she added, a little softer. "It was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. Not a trap."

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian let out a slow, disbelieving breath.

"Oh please," he said, turning his head just enough to look at her properly. "Who cleared that? The same brilliant minds who thought it was wise for you to be pregnant and on the floating death trap above Atrisia?"

He shifted again, wincing faintly before pretending he hadn't. "I am not saying you should have run," he continued, voice tightening. "I am saying someone else should have been there. Someone without… additional responsibilities."

His hand gestured vaguely toward her, then dropped back to his side. Internally, the thought was far less polished. Someone expendable. He didn't say that part out loud. He wasn't that careless. His gaze lingered on her for a moment, frustration bleeding through the usual polish.

"What kind of life does Aurelia have if you get yourself killed?" he asked, quieter, but no less pointed.

The question hung there. He looked away first, jaw tightening slightly as he leaned back into the pillow. The ceiling suddenly became very interesting. He knew that answer too well. A life with something missing. A childhood without a mother. Something no amount of duty or discipline ever quite replaced. He exhaled through his nose, annoyed that the thought had even surfaced.

"Yes, yes," he muttered. "Throw yourself into danger at every opportunity. Excellent long-term strategy."

His fingers tapped once against his arm before going still. "Do you not have a temple to run?" he added. "Or is this your preferred method of administration? Leave, get injured, return, repeat."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora jabbed a finger at Aurelian, perhaps forgetting years of carefully cultivated noble decorum. "I told you that I didn't know during Atrisia!" Scoffing, she added in a discontented murmur: "Are you certain that you haven't suffered a brain bleed?"

She had half a mind to locate his medical chart. Perhaps a few more scans would give her some peace - as well as peace of mind. Aurelian was an important figure in the Republic.

The corners of her lips drew down in a little frown. Now he was questioning her capabilities? At least, that was how she saw it. That her additional responsibilities precluded her from being a Jedi.

But, there was more than one way to be a Jedi. And things had changed. She was a mother now, and as much as she tried to balance her responsibilities, Luciana came first. Always.

The way Aurelian's voice tightened suspended her irritation into something…else. Not quite anger, not quite confusion.

Cora drew in a sharp breath and held it. She didn't bother correcting him on Lucy's name. When had her eyes started to sting? The air in here must be dry. Aurelian had stated the obvious - that her work put her at risk of Luciana losing her mother - and it was something that often lingered in the back of her mind.

But never spoken aloud. Somehow, Aurelian had casually vaulted over those barriers.

"The enclave? Something that small can run without me for a little while. It's meant to be self-sustaining, and it's a fraction of the size of the Jedi temple on Naboo."

Her answer was clear, but there was something half-hearted in her voice.

How could Cora explain the incessantly gnawing urge that she needed to make the galaxy safe for her daughter? She couldn't quite explain it to herself, but some feelings were stronger than words.

Cora bit the inside of her cheek. Irritation returned, this time with a hot wash of anger. Beneath clenched teeth, a muscle in her jaw clicked once.

"Don't…don't use her against me like that. My daughter isn’t a prop for you to make your point with.”

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian watched her finger jab toward him, and for a fleeting second, his lips quirked. He lived for these cracks in her Jedi composure. Reminding her of the Atrisia was a low blow, but he found a perverse satisfaction in bringing it up in situations such as these.

Then he saw her eyes.

"Are you... crying?" The words came out more puzzled than mocking. The Cora he knew would have snapped his head off or lectured him on why he was wrong. This version looked fragile. It was a deeply uncomfortable sight. He felt a strange, leaden sensation in his chest... Guilt, perhaps, though he'd prefer to call it indigestion. Had he actually gone too far? Why did he even care that he had? This was a weird feeling.

He winced as her anger finally flared. Feth, I've definitely gone soft, he thought, feeling the sudden urge to be anywhere but this hospital bed. He couldn't quite meet her gaze anymore, finding a loose thread on the sheet of his bed, far more compelling than the fire in her eyes.

"I am not using her against you," he said, his voice losing its edge. "I just firmly believe she needs to be considered. In everything."

He shifted, the movement reminding him of the dull ache in his head. He wasn't great at the sincere stuff, but the alternative was letting this silence rot between them.

"I just don't want to see Lucy grow up without a mother," he admitted, the flippancy drained from his tone. "I know how that goes. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

He cleared his throat, desperate to reclaim some of his usual polish before things got too heavy. "Plus, it would be fairly inconvenient to lose a friend-adjacent during my current period of personal growth. You'd really be doing me a disservice by dying."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Just say it," Cora snapped. “You think I’m a bad mother!” There was hurt there, but mostly there was anger. What right did he have?

Something in her heart twisted, then sank into the pit of her stomach. She was afraid of the answer, not that even Aurelian would have the audacity to cross that particular line.

She hoped, at any rate.

Cora turned away from the King - not that he was looking in her direction anymore - and dabbed beneath her eyes with her sleeve. She'd quieted, but irritation still simmered in her voice.

"You say that as if she isn't the singular thing I'm thinking about all the time."

Then, Aurelian casually revealed just why his concern was so pressing.

"Oh," she said softly. "I didn't…I'm sorry. I didn't know." Her voice was tight, awkward, and a little broken like the words had been dragged over gravel in her throat.

She flicked her gaze back to Aurelian, and the hurt in her eyes was no longer solely for what she thought he'd implied. No longer for how unfair this all was to Luciana, either.

Friend-adjacent. It was something she could only picture Aurelian saying. The line of her lips perked up a little, lifting her frown into something more neutral.

"When did…how long ago did you lose her?"

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian recognized the "bad mother" comment as a tactical trap immediately. Even if he were feeling particularly suicidal, he wouldn't touch that accusation with a ten-foot pole. He kept his eyes diverted, half-expecting her to go off the rails and use some Jedi trick to choke him for his insolence. An emotional, spiraling mother with the Force was a dangerous combination. He decided to remain quiet until the air stopped vibrating with her indignation.

When she finally softened, asking how long ago he had lost his mother, the silence stretched. This wasn't a topic he trotted out for company. He felt a rare internal concede as he looked at her. Fine, he thought. If it keeps her from crying, I'll play along.

"She isn't dead," Aurelian said, his voice flat. "At least, I don't think so." He reached for the pendant that usually hung around his neck, the one his mother had left him at birth. His fingers found only the new one Sibylla had gifted him and in turn he had given his mother's to her. He rubbed the grooves of the markings, grounded by the thought of Sibylla. "My father used her to secure an heir. I never knew her."

He looked back at the ceiling. He respected Makko, knew he was a good man, but he knew the limitations of a father's reach. "A motherless home is no way for a child to be raised. Luciana deserves more. I know you Jedi pride yourselves on being headstrong and selfless, but she needs you to be present."

He turned his head to catch her eye, the familiar mischief returning to his gaze like a shield. It was easier than being vulnerable. "I just want to make sure she has you. Otherwise, she might turn out like me. Do you really want that on your conscience?"

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora took his silence as an answer. Maybe that wasn't fair, but she was busy stewing in her own guilt until the curveball of the century smashed right into her psyche.

At the very least, it had begun to funnel the energy of her anger into sympathy. It would take time for her to settle properly into this shift in topic.

So, she watched Aurelian speak. She watched the way his fingers idly ran over the pendant worn around his neck, the way his gaze turned to the ceiling, and then, to her.

Cora noticed, with a measure of quiet disdain, that Aurelian had longer eyelashes than her.

It took a long moment for the meaning of his words to land, to really sink in. The neutral distaste of her expression slowly tensed into something adjacent to horror.

"That's a cruel thing to do. Not just to your mother, but to you." Her voice was soft, but it came edged in steel. For all its polish, Naboo hid some surprising similarities to Ukatis behind the curtain. Separating a mother from her child was unfathomable.

Cora glanced down her flesh hand, flexing her fingers once. They ached to hold the soft weight of Luciana.

At least this time, Aurelian's lambasting had come from a place of experience. She'd never quite thought about how the Prince of Parrlay had been raised, aside from a caricature of luxury and privilege.

How cold had the halls of the Veruna estate been to a child?

"She'll always have me," Cora murmured. "Even if die, I'll come back as a Force ghost to watch over her." It might've been a poor attempt at humor, especially given the grim deadpan of her voice.

Her gaze flicked back up to Aurelian. "I'd imagine that she loves you very much. More than you can know. That's how I felt the moment I first held her."

If someone had taken Lucy, Cora would've torn down the galaxy to retrieve her. Force be damned, Jedi and Sith be damned.

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

"No kidding," Aurelian said with a knowing look. She didn't even know the half of it. The absence of his mother was only compounded by a father who seemed to be made of pure evil and spite. He didn't mind if the galaxy viewed him as a pampered, rude aristocrat. He was a product of his environment, and nothing could change that now.

He shot her a dry look when she mentioned the Force ghost nonsense. He couldn't tell if she was joking or just rubbing his nose in her mysticism. To him, it sounded like a cheap excuse for the Jedi to justify their headstrong idealism. Living forever as a specter felt like a convenient way to shirk actual parental responsibilities.

The conversation shifted as she insisted his mother must have loved him. Aurelian tightened his grip on the pendant. "I am not too sure about that," he admitted. "I couldn't fathom leaving a child the way she left me." The thought was a cold, familiar weight in his chest. Love was a word people used to decorate ugly situations. She had to have known what his father was like. Who would do that to their child?

He sat in the silence for a moment, the antiseptic smell of the room suddenly overwhelming. In the spirit of their new friendship-adjacent status, he decided to turn the spotlight away from his own history, he preferred it that way.

He looked at her, his expression uncharacteristically serious. "Is your mother still around?"

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora ruminated in awkward silence. Aurelian didn't seem like he was interested in engaging too deeply with the circumstances of his conception, and frankly, she couldn't blame him. It wasn't exactly a pleasant notion.

She offered him a glance, though. One that wasn't filled with snark or disdain, but something more genuine and reverent for his circumstance.

Aurelian met that glance with something a little harder. Then, he reflected the question back at her.

Cora thought for a long moment. "In a manner of speaking," she murmured.

"She's still alive. I have a few memories of being with her when I was young, but she started getting tired. I didn’t see her much after I turned three or four. She was less of a mother and more like a ghost."

Cora frowned to herself. She couldn't pinpoint when it had happened, young as she'd been. Was it after Dom had been born, or Volk? Cora had spent more time in Lysander's nursery than their mother had.

"I suppose having ten children with a man like my father could do that to a woman," she conceded. There was a thread of bitterness woven into an otherwise somber tone.

"I still love her, I think. I named my daughter after her."

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Aurelian Veruna

"Ten children?" Aurelian blurted out, genuine shock breaking through his composed veneer. He stared at her, wondering if anyone had ever considered telling the man to give the poor woman a rest after the first five.

She had told him that these Ukatians were a bit more old-fashioned, treating children like assets to be bartered and wed off, but the reality sounded like a nightmare.

"Where is she now?" he asked, his voice losing its sharp edge. He had a vague idea of where her father stood in the galaxy before his passing.

He understood that desperate urge to find a motherly connection, even in a name. It certainly explained why she'd bypassed naming the girl Aurelia. He supposed he could finally let that slide now. He assumed he would do the same if he knew his mother's name and had a girl. It seemed they were both just trying to bridge a gap that had been wide since birth.

He watched her, wondering if they were more alike than he'd ever cared to admit. Neglected children of powerful, cold men. It was a specific kind of bond. "What was your father like?" he asked. He wasn't trying to be a prying investigator, but the curiosity was genuine.

He leaned back against the thin hospital pillow, feeling a strange sense of kinship. For some reason he needed to know if they were cut from the same shitty cloth. "Was he the sort who looked at his children and saw heirs, or just more pieces on a board?"

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora shrugged, the motion pulling a fresh ache from bruised bones and tendons. "It's Ukatis. Things can be old fashioned there."

Where was the Viscountess now? Cora felt another ache, this one deeper, sink into the pit of her stomach. She had never thought much of her mother, given how her father and a rotating cast of governesses filled her childhood. Questions hadn't been welcome, and she'd simply had to smother her curiosity until it was forgotten.

Now that she was a mother herself, it all felt…simply wrong. Luciana's story had been buried beneath centuries of rigid expectation.

"She's at home, in the family manor." Cora's hands came together to rest in her lap, thumbs twiddling together as she seemed to think a little deeper on that.

Her father, though, she didn't have to think very long about what sort of man he was.

"The latter, if I had to choose. He was a particularly heavy-handed man. Sent me to the Jedi for training, then pulled me back home once he'd secured my engagement."

Cora didn't go into further detail on that because what else could be said? Her bruises had faded long ago. The ones on her body, at least.

"I'm sure he saw heirs in his sons. In Dominick, at least. But me?" She waved a hand. "Cannon fodder for the royal family. Everything I was ever made to do was for the wife resume."

How could something feel so long ago but also feel as though it had only happened yesterday? Time and distance let the hurt fade, but not the lessons she'd learned.

She glanced at Aurelian, wondering now if their experiences really might've been more similar than different.

"I don't suppose your father raised to you with the intent to marry some well-to-do queen?" She half-teased.

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

"I wouldn't be surprised to find out I was promised to some distant duchess years ago," Aurelian said, his voice trailing off. He supposed his current station made any old contracts moot, but his father's mind had changed with the tides. He watched Cora as she spoke, noting the way her eyes clouded when she mentioned her father's heavy hand. The kinship he felt was becoming impossible to ignore. They were cut from the same shitty cloth after all. Two bruised children belittled under the weight of men who should have loved them.

He decided to offer a piece of himself in return. "I was sent away for training as well," he said. "Not for your mystic Force business, but a position in the Royal Naboo Defense Force. It was respectable." He remembered the brief window of autonomy he'd enjoyed before the leash was snapped tight again. "My father pulled me back the moment it fit his plan. Right as I was coming into my own. It was a waste. I could have done quite well there."

Aurelian paused, struck by the parallel. She had grown up on a backwater and he at the pinnacle of galactic civilization, yet the stories were identical. He shifted on the bed, the mattress crinkling beneath him. The curiosity he'd been nursing finally sharped into a direct edge. He wanted to see how she handled the darker parts of the history they might have shared.

"What really happened to your father?" he asked, cutting straight through the subtext. He had heard the rumors and the official reports, but he wanted to hear her version. He wanted to know if she had found a way to break the cycle.

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

“Aurelian the soldier,” she tilted her head, frowning in consideration. “I could see it.”

She refrained from making a comment about the Defense Force’s allowable amount of hair gel.

It had dawned on Cora that they, a pair of insufferable aristocrats, had led fairly similar lives. That conclusion probably shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was. It followed a centuries-old pattern: noble children engaging in activities of high esteem that would support their family’s strength.

“My father?”

Cora frowned again, and this time the corners of her lips seemed to sink a little deeper.

She stared straight ahead, turning his question over in her mind, feeling the shape of the words and the intent behind them. It wasn’t something she liked to talk about. Hell, she’d rarely spoken of that day with her own husband.

“He was manipulated by a Sith Lord to raise an army against the King. On promises of power, I presume.” Cora inhaled slowly through her nose. If she’d gotten to her father before he’d marched on the capital, could she have stopped it all? Was it arrogant to think she could have? Foolish to think that she could not?

“Sith were planted planetside, and supported the rebellion. Countless civilian lives were lost. I confronted my father, and he took my mother hostage.”

Cora’s vision had been magnetized to the wall. Suddenly, her gaze flicked to Aurelian like a star winking across the night sky.

“I did what I had to do.”

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

"Aurelian the best soldier," he corrected with an arrogant grin. The levity was a reflex, a shield he held up before she dived into the grim details of her past. He watched her carefully as she spoke. He could feel the weight in the room, the heavy, static air that came when people discussed the things they wished they could forget.

Remus and her father sounded like mirrors of the same rot. Men obsessed with power, willing to sacrifice their own blood to bridge the gap between ambition and reality.

It was a bizarre realization. He had always viewed Cora as a bit of a raggedy backwater Jedi, but underneath the unkempt hair and the stubborn idealism, they were built from the same wreckage. A makeover and an attitude adjustment aside, they were practically the same person. Though, he noted internally, her hair really was atrocious.

His ears perked when she finally admitted to doing what she had to do. He let out a low, thoughtful hum that vibrated in the quiet of the room. He knew that specific flavor of necessity. It was the kind of choice that left a permanent mark on the soul, one that no amount of noble polish could ever truly buff out.

"I know the feeling," Aurelian admitted. "I had to do the same." He didn't know how much she actually knew about Remus or the true circumstances of his father's end, but saying it out loud felt surprisingly decent. It was a confession wrapped in a mutual understanding that required no further explanation. He finally looked her in the eye, the mischief gone. "It's a heavy thing to carry alone."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora idly smoothed both palms over the crown her head, having been struck by the sudden compulsion to fix her hair.

What she'd done to her father hadn't been a secret - it couldn't be, not when she'd slain him in battle. For Nefaron's amusement, it seemed. She often wondered, that if Marcel had not dragged her poor mother into it, would she have still gone for the killing blow?

Aurelian understood in the way that only someone else who'd done the same thing could. That thought made her uneasy, as if he were privy to something she'd rather have kept hidden. When he met her eye, she was struck with the urge to look away.

She didn't. Not because it felt like weakness, but because she sought to face her guilt. Strangely, Aurelian's hawkish gaze was devoid of judgment.

Still, she could have refused to answer. Perhaps even remove a few bricks from that friend-adjacent bridge.

"You did?"

Cora sat up a little straighter. Her brow crinkled. She'd heard a little of Remus Veruna's disappearance, but hadn't followed those threads to be suspicious.

And yet, the whispers were impossible to ignore.

"I thought that was just a rumor spun in an attempt to discredit you."

She frowned, curious rather than criticizing.

"Why?"

Aurelian Veruna

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Tags: Corazona von Ascania

Aurelian stared at her for several seconds. He had never spoken that final truth aloud. Admitting it to the masses would be political suicide, yet this moment demanded a rare brand of honesty. It felt strangely liberating to give the secret a voice and move the sin out of his head.

"It is a rumor," he said, tilting his head with a faint, suggestive smirk. He let the word hang there as a shield before sighing. "It was burdensome being the only heir of Remus Veruna. I was the only vessel for his ambitions. It was a cruel childhood, Corazona." He used her full name, hoping the weight of it might distract her from the fact that he was vaguely confessing to a capital crime.

He idly picked at the fabric of his trousers. "I could handle the pressure of his wrath. I was molded by it." He swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed, the movement slow and deliberate as he faced her fully. The levity was gone. "He did not have Naboo's best interest at heart, and I would do anything for my people."

He paused, the memory of the breaking point resurfacing. "Then he threatened someone I care for. Someone I love. I will always do what is necessary to protect my own." He offered a small, proud flourish, reclaiming his composure. "Naboo is better for it. I imagine Ukatis is as well."

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora sat quietly, back straight against the slope of the hospital pillow and sterile wall behind her. She listened intently, but she also watched. A lot could be told through the idle play of fingers, in the subtle tense of his brow, even in the use of her full name.

Wrath should never be spoken in reference to one’s parent, and yet it seemed to be a significant tie that linked them.

Her eyes followed Aurelian as he maneuvered to face her, sitting up rather than lying. It was more dignified by a significant measure, but perhaps that wasn’t why he had done it. Perhaps it was.

He threatened someone I care for.

Cora let out a slow, audible breath. She glanced to the side, away from the startlingly earnest king’s gaze, aware of how rare such a thing might've been.

Naboo is better for it. I imagine Ukatis is as well.

She frowned. Ending someone’s life was never something that should be taken lightly, and she couldn’t tell where Aurelian landed on that. Either way, the parallels between their situations were undeniable - a cruel father who’d shaped his child into a weapon, who became a detriment to their respective homes, who threatened the lives of their loved ones.

“Perhaps it was for the best, but I still deprived nine children of their father.”

Nine, not ten. Marcel had disowned her, but now she acted as the family head. Some of her younger siblings wouldn’t meet her gaze, regarding her as a phantom stranger.

Her gaze flicked back to Aurelian. The tears had dried, but there was still something soft in her eyes. Soft, but bright.

“Do you feel any guilt over it?”

Aurelian Veruna