Private The Crown Between Us

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: Office of the Queen
Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

"Interim High Chancellor Aurelian Veruna here to see Queen Abrantes!"

The words cracked down the marble corridor like a thunderclap, half outrage, half theater. The guards at the door startled, exchanging a look that suggested they'd sooner face a firing squad than the young man currently glowering at them. Aurelian Veruna stood framed by the vaulted archway, sunlight gilding the sharp line of his jaw and the restless gleam in his eyes. Just two weeks ago, he'd been King. Now, he stood outside his own office, waiting for permission to enter. The sheer absurdity of it burned through his composure.

"Cordé!" he barked, exasperation biting through the polished charm that usually coated his voice. "If one more bureaucratic fool tells me I need an appointment to access my own desk, I'll start signing decrees from the corridor!" He didn't wait for the flustered aide's reply. Aurelian shoved through the great doors as they swung wide, his stride cutting across the chamber like a blade through silk. The air smelled faintly of Naboo perfume and newly polished authority.

"Sibylla Ynez Abrantes!" he shouted, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. He approached the desk where the newly crowned Queen sat, serene, composed, and infuriatingly calm. He planted his hands on the edge of her desk, leaning in, eyes flashing with a blend of frustration and something dangerously close to fondness.

"I have an entire Republic to keep from imploding," he said, each word clipped, taut with barely leashed energy. "An Assembly demands answers. The Security Council has been rearranged twice over. There are a thousand fires to put out."

His tone sharpened, incredulous. "And I find out you were in Varl? At a fashion show? In the middle of Black Sun space?"

He stared at her, disbelief mixing with a worry he would never admit aloud.

"Tell me, Your Majesty," Aurelian said, his voice softening into a razor-edged drawl, "are you dense, or merely bored of being alive?"

​

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Office of the Queen
Aurelian Veruna


It was almost poetic, really…the irony of it all.

Not two weeks ago, this same man had sat behind the very desk she now occupied, issuing orders with that same imperious tone and brooding gravitas. And now here he was, storming furiously into her office to lecture her over the very sort of thing she had once tried to discuss with him, only for him to wave her off with that maddening mischief of his, distracting her with Padme, and the diplomatic equivalent of a shrug.

Truly, the galaxy had a wicked sense of humor.

Sibylla's delicate brows rose the moment he burst through the doors, his voice booming her full name like some sort of divine accusation.

Ynez? How in the Shiraya's name did he even know her middle name? Had he gone rifling through official records between crises? Or did Tona and Corde start gossiping in Assembly briefings now?

Not that it mattered.

What did matter was the sight of Aurelian Veruna, Interim High Chancellor, former King, and eternal storm cloud of dramatics, standing before her with the force of a supernova. She hadn't seen this level of fury from him since before the Assembly's attack, back in his office after Wielu. Even during the broadcast of the Empire's attack, he kept his composure. That alone told her how deeply this one cut.

He's upset, she realized, watching the flare amber ignite his eyes and the tension ripple in his shoulders. Upset and worried.

Still, the irony and hypocrisy of it all knew no bounds.

Behind him, poor Corde lingered in the doorway, flustered beyond words. And just beyond, Tona looked equally mortified, the two aides whispering before Sibylla gave a small, reassuring nod that sent them retreating down the hall like guilty schoolchildren. The chamber doors clicked softly shut, leaving the two of them alone in the quiet splendor of the Queen's office.

Calmly, almost pointedly so, Sibylla set down the stylus she had been using to review the Princess of Theed's latest budget proposals. And while her heart shaped face maintained a serene expression her mind was a whirlpool of disbelief and rising vexation.

Oh she really shouldn’t do it, prudence told her to hold her tongue. To try and calm him. That an argument wasn’t worth it. But the spark of that rebellious nature Aurelian had cultivated now had its embers stoked and his audacity was the fuel to the fire.

"Well," she said at last in a cool and unhurried tone, "I'm doing rather well. Having a wonderful day, in fact."

The phrasing was deliberate, of course, Sibylla was using the exact same words he had once thrown at her in the royal stables when she'd dared question his decision to attend a certain Hapan wedding with Bastila Sal-Soren .

Full lips curved just slightly.

"And you, Aurelian?"

It was obvious that would bait him and part of her wanted to, exactly for the same reason she’d been upset when she heard he’d attended that wedding with Bastila, her handmaiden, and recklessly risked his life when he had an active assassination bounty on his head.

Thinking about it once again irked her.

So it was with a seemingly calm expression that she let her hazel eyes travel from the tousled crown of his hair down to the way his hands pressed against her desk, a stance likely meant to intimidate, though to her it merely looked like a man about to realize the floor had shifted under him.

"Tell me," she added lightly, returning her attention to trace the angles of his face and meeting his fiery stare, a spark of ironic humor flashing through her composure, "isn't it remarkable how much louder one's moral outrage becomes when it's someone else doing the exact same thing?"

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: Office of the Queen
Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

Aurelian's jaw clenched. Her words, his own twisted back at him, hit their mark. For a moment, he forgot to breathe. Her calm, the mocking echo of his own quip, was a mirror to his own arrogance. He hated it.

His eyes flashed with fury. "Oh, Shiraya," he hissed, a disbelieving laugh catching in his throat. "You truly are dense."

He stood, running a hand through his hair, an attempt to control his temper that only seemed to fuel it. He turned away for a breath, exhaling hard. Then he spun back, the force of his movement rattling the pens on her desk.

"There's a galaxy of difference," he snapped, his voice climbing despite his efforts. "One was a King, attending a royal Hapan wedding. I was officially invited. There were security guarantees, diplomatic shields, even one of your own handmaidens with me as guard." His hands sliced through the air, punctuating his words.

"You," he continued, stabbing a finger toward her desk, "are a Queen. A Queen who sits on that throne because the Chancellor was kidnapped by the very organization hosting that damned fashion show!"

The last two words boomed, echoing off the walls like a gunshot.

He stopped himself from slamming his palm on her desk, instead gripping the edge, knuckles white. He forced his voice back down. "Shiraya," he breathed, low and dangerous, "do you have any idea what it would do to Naboo, what it would do to me, if they took you too?"

His anger was a storm barely held in check. He looked at her then, truly looked, and the rage softened into something heavier. Something close to fear.

But he didn't say it. He never did.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, turning his head away. "You can't do stupid shit like this," he muttered. "You can't."

​

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

N A B O O
Queen’s Office
Aurelian Veruna

Dense.

The word struck harder than it should have.

Both brows rose, the faintest twitch of disbelief ghosting over her features before Sibylla's tongue swept slowly over her teeth, pressing her lips together to keep from saying something she might regret. But the insult, paired with the galling hypocrisy of him, of all people, lecturing her about recklessness, was the final thread snapping taut.

She inhaled once. Deeply.

When Sibylla finally rose from her seat, it was with a slow and deliberate precision, like a storm building beneath still skies. Her chin lifted, her hands braced against the carved surface for a heartbeat before she stepped out from behind it. The sharp echo of her heels against marble built with each step in a measured rhythm of defiance and barely bridled emotion.

If there was anyone in the galaxy who could truly test the edges of her composure, it was the man now standing before her, fury simmering behind those amber eyes that pulled at her like a satellite caught in the gravity of his sun.

But Shiraya help her, she saw it, the flicker beneath the anger, the tell she'd come to recognize too well. Concern and the unspoken edge of something else buried beneath all that fire.

And that, more than his words, was what made her blood burn.

Because he couldn't see how his carelessness, his recklessness, hurt her too.

"I can't do stupid shit like this?" she began, her voice deceptively calm as it sliced through the tense air.

"A galaxy of difference, you say?"

Each word grew sharper as she advanced, her fury tempered by the poise of a queen who refused to tremble. The glint of her crown reflected against the light of the overhead windows as she neared.

"Oh, you're right, Aurelian, there is a galaxy of difference." The laugh that escaped her was a quiet, humorless chuckle of disbelief.

"I don't have a six-hundred-thousand credit assassination bounty on my head like you do."

Her tone rose, and the gold flecks in her hazel eyes sparkled like embers, reflecting the storm within her that churned with worry, fear, and all that had been building up between.

"You really want to talk about diplomatic assurances? The last Hapan wedding in that same damned palace ended with the bride and groom murdered before they could even take their vows! If they could kill their own Prince, how easily do you think they could have done the same to you?"

Her voice trembled on the edge between anger and frustration.

"You want to talk about stupid? About dense?" she pressed on, stopping just short of him, breath shaking. "Then let's talk about the man who walked into a syndicate wedding surrounded by half the galaxy's assassins, knowing full well any one of them could make a fortune by putting a blaster to his head!"

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: Danger Zone
Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

Aurelian closed the space between them in two strides. The air crackled.

"You think I don't know that?" he bit out, his voice low but blazing. "You think I didn't scope out every escape route in that venue before I even set foot inside?"

He leaned closer. She could see the faint tremor of fury through him, the quick pulse at his throat.

"I wasn't there for fun, Sibylla. I went because every influential noble from here to Corellia was present. Naboo needed to be seen, to remind the galaxy we're still standing. That we are a force that will not cower." His hand slammed flat on the desk beside her, the sound sharp, final. "It was a damned calculated risk."

He straightened, his eyes burning. "What you did wasn't. You walked into Varl, a den of slavers and smugglers, with no security, no clearance, and without telling me!" His tone rose, anger and fear bleeding together until they were indistinguishable. "You could have vanished, Sibylla! Another cut transmission, another body found, another name in a eulogy I can't bear to give!"

He stepped closer again, his breath uneven, his voice rough. "You don't get it," he said, quieter now, almost hoarse. "You're not replaceable. You can't just disappear and expect the galaxy to keep turning."

​

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

N A B O O
Queen's Office | Danger zone
Aurelian Veruna

"Really? A calculated risk?"

The words tore out of her before she could stop them, each syllable sharp and trembling. Her hand shot up, gesturing with every word, fury breaking through the practiced calm of her crown and station.

"On a bounty that you scoff at! That you joke about, saying you should be worth double?!"

The flush of anger crept up her throat, painting her cheeks as her breath came quicker, her chest rising and falling with every breath she tried to steady and failed. He had the nerve to call it calculated, the gall to act as if she was the reckless one, when he had been dancing on the edge of death for months.

Had she been less infuriated, she might have admitted some of his points made sense. But the fact that he still couldn't see the root of it, the pain beneath her fury, the fear that had haunted her every time his name flashed across a crisis report, set her blood ablaze.

"Oh, don't you dare," she hissed, the incredulous scoff that followed curling off her lips like a whip crack. "Don't you even try to pin this on me, as if I didn't go through proper channels. I had Corde relay everything to Tona, who was supposed to give it to you!"

Her voice climbed an octave as her hands flew in agitated emphasis.

"I took every precaution I could. I had Jedi Knight Aiden Porte as my escort, I was invited personally by Mauve Du Vain, and I damn well went there to use my skills to find information on Kalantha's whereabouts!"

The pitch of her voice wavered with the emotional strain cracking through.

"I was trying to do my job, Aurelian! To be the bridge! What else am I good for if not finding ways to hold this damned galaxy together while it tears itself apart?"

She spun on her heel with a strangled, frustrated sound, the dark length of her chestnut hair swirling about her shoulders as her fingers pressed to her temple, only to turn back with fire flashing in her hazel eyes.

"And don't you give me that dank farrik about not telling you when you didn't even tell me!"

Her shoulders rose and fell with every quickened breath, her pulse just as wild as she jabbed a finger against his chest.

"You didn't tell me, Aurelian. After everything that happened on Wielu. After you almost died!" Her voice cracked on the word. "So what? Are you the only one allowed to make 'calculated risks'? The only one allowed to be reckless with your life while I'm left waiting for the next transmission saying you've lost your damned head to some assassin?!"

The space between them seemed to ignite, the tension electric, her words trembling not just with anger but with the raw, aching fear that lived beneath it.

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: BIG TIME DANGER ZONE
Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

Aurelian's laugh was a sudden, furious bark, shattering the quiet. "Yes a bloody calculated risk!" he boomed, his voice echoing in the vast, marble hall. "Forget the bounty, forget the danger! If we cower every time a blaster is aimed at us, what does that make us? Cowards?"

He stepped closer, his anger a palpable heat that seemed to thin the air. "If Mauve and her Sith-trained sycophants think they've intimidated us into silence, they've won. Instead, we showed our faces. We got results." He slapped his chest, the sound a sharp drumbeat. "Let every bounty hunter in the galaxy stare at the pathetic price they've put on my head and dream. They'll never collect. None of them can touch me."

The fire in his eyes was a challenge, reckless and electrifying.

Then came the sharp, disbelieving scoff. "You told Cordé to tell Tona?" His voice climbed again, incredulity laced with his anger. "What in the nine hells of Shiraya is that supposed to mean? What about telling me? I wouldn't have chained you to a throne, Sibylla. I would have sent someone competent, not whoever the f*ck Aiden Porte is."

He took a step back, running a hand through his hair. Then he turned, his posture tight, dangerous. "Precautions? Don't insult me. You accepted an invitation from Mauve Du Vain. That tells me everything. You met with a woman who peddles secrets like fine silks, who smiles while she deals in souls, and you call that strategy?"

He stalked nearer, his anger now a molten tide. "Oh, please. Don't stand there and tell me you were just doing your job. How does that even sound? You, who they knew would be coming, walking into a den of thieves and murderers, expecting them to willingly reveal the location of the galaxy's most valuable hostage?" He leaned in, their faces mere inches apart, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Really? What did you think you could accomplish that the entire might of the High Republic couldn't?"

The space between them crackled, the tension so thick it felt alive. His chest rose and fell with each breath, his hands clenching, as if unsure whether to throw them up in exasperation or reach for her.

He exhaled sharply, his jaw clenched, his gaze fixed on hers. "You want to know why I didn't tell you?" he demanded, his voice rough, low. "Because it would have led us exactly here. You would have argued until dawn, worn me down with talk of duty, risk, and responsibility. All while every single one of my advisors would have urged me to go."

Aurelian's voice softened, but the fury still smoldered beneath the surface, raw and exposed. "And you know what? I was right. Because this," he gestured sharply between them, "is what happens when I try to protect you, and you try to outmaneuver me. You drive me to the edge, Sibylla. You drive me absolutely mad!"

​

 

[Sibylla Abrantes]

​

Mega Big Danger zone!
Aurelian Veruna

The sound of his laugh cut through her like a vibroblade.

Sibylla’s breath caught, then burned.

She lifted her chin, fury flashing through her as she stood so close he could feel the heat of her breath when she spoke. Anger and disbelief tangled in her chest, tightening until it hurt to breathe.

"Don't you dare belittle me with that tone," she snapped, the words sharp and trembling, as if she hadn’t done the same to show her face and presence despite her assassination attempt. As if she wouldn’t have understood had he merely talked to her.

"As if I hadn't done the same after my own assassination attempt. As if I didn’t understand the reasons to show a strong united front!”

Shiraya’s sake how could he be so infuriating!?

“And do not speak to me about Aiden Porte as if you know a thing about him. He was there to protect me, to make sure I came back in one piece!"

The force of her words rippled through the room, her jaw tightening as she drew a sharp breath before speaking again in exasperation.

"Oh, but of course," she laughed bitterly, the sound soft yet sharp with disbelief. She took a step back, gesturing toward him in a fierce sweep of her hand. "I forgot, you decide what's reckless and what's righteous, don't you? When you gamble your life, it's noble. When I do it, it's foolish."

But it was his last accusation that truly shattered her.

"So… you didn't tell me," she uttered out in a hoarse whisper as her voice trembled with restrained fury. "Because you didn't trust me not to argue? Because you thought you already knew better, knew what I'd say, how I'd react?"

Sibylla's voice broke as emotion surged, her fingers pressing against her brow before she turned back to him in one sharp, furious motion.

"You were my judge and jury before you even dared to bring it to me! As if I can't listen to reason?! As if I can't admit when I'm wrong and you're right?"

By now her chest was rising and falling sharply, each breath dragged through a throat tight with rage and something far more dangerous. He had thrown truths at her, she would grant him that. She understood why he had gone to the wedding, understood the necessity of it. But the irony cut deep, because with every word they traded, rationality slipped further away, shattering completely the moment he admitted he had kept it from her on purpose. Her hazel eyes locked on his, glassy and burning all at once.

"You think this is what happens when you protect me?" she whispered, her tone trembling as she began to pace. "No, Aurelian. This is what happens when you shut me out. When you make choices that tear me apart and expect me to smile and stand behind you like some dutiful shadow."

Sibylla's breath hitched as she stopped short, then swung back toward him. Her voice came low and hoarse, heavy with emotion, as she jutted her finger at him sharply.

"No. You don't get to stand there and say I drive you mad for caring whether you live or die - - for caring about you."

Her nostrils flared, fury and anguish warring in her expression as she shot back, "Because at least I'll admit it. I care about you, Aurelian. I worry about you. You. Not the King. Not the Interim High Chancellor. Not the blasted Prince of Parrlay, you. I fear for your life because I can't stand the thought of losing you. And I won't hide it behind some blasted maddening notion of what's best for Naboo or the Republic or your damn, self-righteous advisors."

 

[Aurelian Veruna]

Location: I'm the best there ever was
Tags: Sibylla Abrantes

Aurelian stared at her, his pulse pounding. Her words hung heavy in the air, stifling him. For a long moment, he just breathed, jaw locked, his face a mix of fury and disbelief.

Then his composure cracked.

"Blast it, Sibylla!" His voice cracked sharp against the marble. "You think I don't know what it means to care? That I'm made of stone?"

He took a step closer, anger flaring again. "You think I didn't feel that same fear, clawing at me when I hear you vanished into Black Sun space with only Aiden Porte and your House to protect you?"

His tone sharpened, a raw pleading beneath the anger. "You're right. I didn't tell you. I should have. But don't mistake it for a lack of trust."

"We're both right and wrong here. I should've trusted you, and you should've trusted me. But you didn't."

"You ran off to play diplomat at a fashion show while half the underworld hunts us, and you expect me not to lose my mind?" His laugh was low and rough. "You call that strategy? I call it a bloody gamble, and not even a clever one."

He took another step forward, closing the distance. His voice was quieter now, but no less fierce. "I went because I had to. The Republic needed to see us unshaken, needed to see me after Wielu." He clenched his jaw. "You? You walked straight into a trap with a target on your back."

His words faltered, softer now, though his chest still rose and fell with agitation. "And yes, Sibylla, it's no secret I care about you." His voice dropped, roughened by the truth. "That's what makes this so infuriating. You're too damn smart for this kind of recklessness, and you did it anyway."

For a heartbeat, silence filled the space between them. It was charged, breathless. His expression twisted, torn between admiration and frustration.

"You're brilliant," he said finally, his voice tight. "Smarter than me by a long stretch. That's what makes this worse. You know what's at stake, and you still can't stop risking yourself just to prove a point."

He exhaled, shaking his head, a crooked, exhausted smile ghosting over his lips. "The difference is, mine was a calculated risk that would pay off for the Republic ten fold. Your risk..."

He straightened, meeting her eyes with steady, burning resolve. "You want honesty? Fine. I care about you, yes, but more than that, I worry for you. Every time you leave that throne, I have to trust the galaxy not to tear you apart. If that makes me overbearing, then so be it."

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