Sibella Sparatus

* Justinien Victus (second/fourth cousin, secret lover/informal sexual partner, it's complicated...)

### Profession

* High Priestess of Bostra
* Vox Maiorum of House Sparatus

Sibella Sparatus Dorina is the High Priestess of Bostra. Responsible for tending to the eternal spirits and worldly remains of the honoured dead within the Petraean Necropolis, she is the central pillar of Bostran society, beloved by all the faithful. She is the first cousin of Bostra's incumbent *primarch*, *Primarch* Domitia Sparatus and, by extension, the first-cousin-twice-removed of Alia Sparatus. She is also the niece of Councillor Laiel Sparatus, the turian representative on the Citadel Council.

Sibella shared a particularly close relationship with *Primarch* Fidellion Victus of Palaven, acting as a spiritual guide to him for most of his adult life. In his bid to unify the Seven and One, she aided Fidellion in arranging the marriage between his half-brother Malkum and Alia, thus resolidifying the ancient alliance between House Victus and House Sparatus.

## Biography

### Childhood

Sibella was born in Petraea, Bostra, in 2164 CE, three minutes behind her twin brother, Aren. Their mother died birthing the pair of them, leaving their father to raise them alone. She grew up on the ancestral estate of House Sparatus alongside her brother, who was her constant companion and dearest friend.

As the second child of her parents (even if only by a few minutes) it was Bostran tradition that Sibella be groomed for a life of religious devotion rather than warfare. While her brother would strengthen their house by serving in the military and siring children to continue the bloodline, she would instead tend to their ancestors' spirits as a celibate priestess. Sibella surrendered her house name upon taking holy vows and entering into the priesthood at the age of eighteen, sacrificing her familial ties and any chance of having a family of her own, in order to truly devote herself to the dead.

### Relationship with Aren

As twins, Sibella and Aren were inseparable from birth. However, tradition decreed that they were destined to lead very different lives. In the fervour of youth, they railed against the apparent unfairness of their lives, secretly fantasising about running away together and eking out a life in the desert. When the time came for both siblings to part ways after Bootcamp, Aren held his sister tight and wept into her chest, proclaiming he would duel to the death anyone who tried to separate them. Sibella soothed him by stroking his fringe and telling him that, no matter how far apart life took them, a little piece of her spirit would always be with him as her twin.

Aren officially entered the military the following day and was promptly deployed to the Attican Traverse to serve with the patrol fleets, leaving Sibella behind on Bostra to become an initiate. The pair had little to no contact with one another during this period, even via the Extranet. But six months after his deployment, Aren was grievously wounded and shipped back to Bostra for urgent medical attention. Sibella was granted compassionate leave to be with her brother in the wake of the news. Fearing for his life, she rushed to Aren's side, praying for the Spirits to grant him the strength he would need to pull through. Her prayers seemed to be heeded; Aren survived his surgery and slowly began to heal. He was eventually discharged from hospital and permitted to continue his recovery at home. Sibella joined him, sitting at his bedside and nursing him back to health.

Having been separated for longer than either of them had ever been before, the pair delighted in being reunited again. Despite this mutual joy, the stark reality that Aren has only just escaped death weighed heavily upon both of them. Aren began to dread the prospect of fully recovering and being sent back to the frontier. As a believer, he did not fear death but he did fear being parted from his sister, and neither could he bear the thought of leaving her behind in the mortal realm should he be killed in action. Sibella shared his sentiments. Knowing that their future parting was inevitable, she spent every waking moment with her brother, soothing him with her presence and making fond memories that they could hold onto in the coming months of separation. For a time, they forgot about anything that was not the pair of them.

When Aren's time came to finally return to active duty, the twins wept against each other, unwilling to part company. Overcome with messy desperation, Aren snapped, kissing his sister upon the mouth before abruptly pulling away and apologising. Sibella hushed him by gently pressing her forehead to his own and whispering a prayer against his beak, invoking Daemon (the Spirit of protection) to watch over him for her. She promised that they would see each other again soon, when duty permitted. The night before his redeployment, she lay beside him as he held her close, falling asleep with her head on his chest.

A year later, on the eve of taking her vows, Sibella was visited by her brother, who begged her not to go through with the ceremony. Sibella told him that, whatever her wishes were, she had no choice as it was their father’s will. Aren became distressed. When she tried to comfort him, he took her face in his hands and kissed her fiercely - a gesture which she did not try to resist. He begged her to run away with him, telling her that he was prepared to desert the military and forsake his family for her. Worried for her brother's safety should he abandon his post, Sibella attempted to dissuade him, pointing out that if he was caught he would be executed and buried in an unmarked grave, his name stricken from their house's genealogical histories. Aren adamantly declared he was prepared to sacrifice his eternal spirit if there was even a chance of living out his mortal life with the woman he loved.

Torn between love and duty, Sibella insisted that the only love she held in her heart for him was the love of a sister for her brother, and nothing more. She had hoped that rejection would cool her brother off and thus save him from himself. However, she could not look Aren in the eyes as she spoke, which alerted him to her attempt at lying. Aren forced her to look directly at him, her face inches from his, and asked her to repeat her previous statement - if she could still say she felt nothing beyond fraternal love for him while looking him in the eyes, he would take his leave and no longer pursue her. Try as she might, Sibella found could not lie to him and instead burst into tears. Her brother's demeanour softened at the sound of her sobs. Holding her close to him, he apologised for his behaviour before kissing her forehead, to which Sibella wordlessly responded by kissing his mouth.

The pair gave in to each other's darker desires, the mutual despair at a future neither of them could change, coupled with their forced separation, driving them both to sin. The following day, Aren watched as Sibella took her vows and became formally invested in the priesthood, both of them struggling to maintain their composure. The twins attempted to bury their grief with duty, Aren being redeployed to the Attican Traverse to repel Terminus pirate raids and Sibella staying behind in Petraea to tend to Bostra's honoured dead. Neither would be able to fully commit to their work, despite their best efforts, which hampered their careers.

Things would only get worse for the siblings in the coming years. Their father decreed that Aren must marry up and that Sibella should be the one to conduct the ceremony. Sibella was mortified at the prospect of adding to her brother's torment. Under the guise of seeking spiritual counsel, Aren met with her to discuss his inevitable fate. He spoke of his intended wife - a young woman called Amata Invectus - listing off her apparent qualities and genetic traits as if he were trying to sell the idea of marrying her to himself. However, he sounded utterly empty as he spoke. Feeling her brother's pain in her own heart, Sibella put on a strong face for him, telling him that she hoped he would be able to find some kind of happiness with Amata and agreeing to be there for him on the worst day of his life.

In accordance with their father's wishes, Sibella wed her brother to his new wife a month later, though not before spending the night with him on the eve of the ceremony. While speaking his vows, Aren notably maintained eye contact with his sister rather than his wife, citing pre-marital nerves as the reason for his awkward behaviour. Despite now being a married man, Aren would continue to see his sister in secret for years whenever he came home from a tour of duty. Sibella would make herself the vessel for all her brother's stress and sorrow, living for the moments when she could be alone with the only person in the galaxy who truly understood her. And while neither of them was ever truly happy, both Aren and Sibella endured by finding comfort in each other.

Aren would be killed in action during the Reaper War, giving his life to defend his sister from a rampaging brute. He died in her arms, his body broken and bleeding, staining her white vestments blue with his blood. Distraught, Sibella personally tended to his body, embalming him herself before laying him to rest in the Sparatus family vault. She would bury him with a photo of the pair of them together, in the hopes his spirit would not forget her love for him. While her role encompassed the well-being of all the dead, Sibella spent as much of her time as she could with her brother, praying for his spirit and speaking with him for guidance. It was the loss of her brother that pushed Sibella into fully devoting herself to the care of the dead, enabling her to become the figurehead Bostra needed in the time of its greatest mourning. This deep understanding of grief and loss endeared her to many, in particular a young Fidellion Victus, whom Sibella would come to counsel throughout the trials of his life.

### Relationship with Justinien

In later life, Sibella would enter into an informal sexual relationship with Justinien Victus, her fellow spriest priest and paternal second cousin. Justinien, deeply in love with her, had treated her with such love and compassion that it initially frightened her. While she cared deeply about Justinien, even loved him, she continued to feel conflicted by her memories of Aren and thus couldn’t emotionally commit to the relationship at that time. Rather than react with coercive threats of self-harm or outright hostility towards her, as her brother had whenever she had rejected his advances, Justinien instead backed off and gave her all the space that she required. With his friendship and unwavering support, Sibella was finally able to untangle her mess of memories and come to extremely painful realisation that her brother had been sexually abusing her for years; any 'love' that he claimed to have felt for her had been purely narcissistic and born out of a twisted desire to control her. Justinien was the only person Sibella ever trusted this information to; ever faithful to her, he took that information to his grave. Sibella and Justinien would, in time, rekindle their romantic relationship, remaining lovers and devoted life partners to one another, albeit in secret and without bond marks, for the rest of her life.