Sibylla let Aurelian draw her down beside him, the soft silk of her violet skirt draping over her legs as she sat there, their knees barely touching.
And for a moment, she said nothing.
Instead, Sibylla let her eyes fall down to watch how Aurelian's fingers laced through hers, their steady warmth providing a comfort he always seemed to provide, and she could not help noticing that he had seen the restlessness in her hands before she had even realized she was doing it.
That, more than anything, made her look at him. Perhaps Thyferra truly had changed something in Aurelian, because he was showing her a side of himself Sibylla had rarely seen. He did not claim to have the answers or offer clever solutions -- he simply told her he would support whatever decision she made. Asking her what it was that
she wanted.
And that was the crux of it, was it not?
The question she had spent most of her life avoiding. She had been trained to excel upon that road so thoroughly that, for years, she had scarcely known to ask whether she had chosen it at all. Since childhood, expectation had stretched ahead of her like a path already paved: honor in service to House Abrantes and Naboo, and perhaps, one day, the Crown itself. Even when her candidacy finally came, she had struggled with the same uncomfortable question.
Did she truly want the Crown? Or had she simply been raised so thoroughly to pursue it that she no longer knew the difference?
It had been one of the more selfish reasons she sought Aurelian out on Foundation Day. She had wanted to measure his mettle and to understand why he had saved her life, to know what truly drove the maddening playboy Patriarch and Senator he presented to the galaxy.
What she discovered had changed everything.
Aurelian
wanted the responsibility she remained uncertain she could claim for herself. Granted, much of his certainty had been fueled by that blasted Shaman and the prophecy he had clung to with almost fanatical purpose, but beneath it Sibylla had glimpsed something genuine.
Aurelian had represented something she had not expected then: another possibility. That perhaps she did not have to become Queen simply because everyone had spent her life preparing her to be one.
Yet somewhere along the years that followed, the answer had changed.
She
did want to serve.
She wanted to see Naboo flourish, but more than that, she wanted to help forge a Kingdom strong enough to weather whatever storms the galaxy hurled toward it. It was no longer about what the Republic needed from Naboo.
It was about what
Naboo needed.
And somewhere along that same road, she had fallen hopelessly in love with Aurelian. Not the Prince of Parrlay his father had tried to carve beneath a ruthless hand. Not the arrogant Senator with the charming grin and carefully cultivated reputation.
Aurelian.
The artist who shaped clay with his hands. The man who cared fiercely for Parrlay. The leader she knew he could become if only he learned to recognize his own worth rather than measure himself against the cruelty that had raised him.
Once, they had merely been allies. And to be honest, that had been easier.
Now the two things Sibylla knew with absolute certainty that she wanted -- her work and him -- had become the very things threatening to compromise one another. That was the complication.
Sibylla continued to watch how the pad of her thumb moved absently across his knuckles before she finally spoke.
"I think... that is what frightens me." Her gaze finally rose to meet his, those hazel eyes meeting the waiting amber of his own.
"Because I know what I want now." A small breath left her.
"I want to keep doing this work. I want Naboo stronger because I was here to help make it so."
It was then that her fingers tightened gently around his.
"And I want you." that was certain, and something Sibylla had no doubts on.
"I simply do not yet know how to have both without one changing the other." Her thumb stilled against his knuckles.
"What happens the next time you must make a decision as King, and what your Voice counsels puts the woman you love at risk?"
