Yelena smiled a little and motioned toward the inner corridor. "Come on. Your parents are waiting."

Cassian and Elara did not meet him in one of the public reception halls. Instead, they waited in a private family chamber overlooking the inner docks, where only a few trusted guards and secured systems were present.

The room itself was quiet and formal without feeling cold, the kind of place meant for important conversations that were never supposed to leave the walls.

Aurelian entered, stopped at the proper distance, and bowed.

"Father. Mother."

Elara moved first.

For a second, he thought she would keep things formal because of the others standing nearby.

She didn’t.

She crossed the room and hugged him.

Aurelian stiffened automatically for half a breath before finally relaxing into it. It had been longer than he realized since he was hugged like this, and maybe it was mainly because she was worried about him.

Rhoswen, standing off to the side with Astra, wisely stayed quiet for once.

Cassian gave them a moment before speaking.

"You look well."

"I am well."

Elara pulled back slightly and studied him closely in the way only mothers seemed capable of doing. "Thinner."

"I’ve been busy."

"That excuse is becoming old."

"I’ll prepare a better one next time."

Cassian’s mouth twitched faintly. "Looks like you have changed more than what meets the eye."

"Maybe," Aurelian replied.

Elara shook her head, though she looked pleased despite herself.

Only after that did the real discussion begin.

Aurelian spent the next stretch of time going through everything properly in person. Secure maps opened across the room while fleet records, production estimates, Kharov profiles, Mournveil scans, bastion reports, and expansion projections filled the displays around them.

He didn’t try to make the frontier sound safer than it really was because that would have been stupid.

But he didn’t downplay it either.

Larkspur Haven was stable enough to serve as a real foothold now, rather than just a temporary shelter.

Helion Bastion Twelve was far more valuable than most people would realize at first glance.

Mournveil had the potential to become both a hidden route and a future resource zone if they controlled it properly.

The Kharov were dangerous, but uneven. Their numbers mattered, but their technology still lagged badly behind Alliance standards in several key areas.

The Vhaloric ruins alone justified deeper exploration, and the stargate blueprint made the entire region worth paying attention to.

Cassian listened carefully the entire time, hands folded behind his back while he watched the maps change.

Elara focused on different things. She asked about population stability, disease recovery, food production, and whether Haven’s people truly accepted Aurelian’s authority or were simply too desperate to resist it yet.

Aurelian answered honestly.

"Desperation opened the door," he said. "And we just need to make sure to enter it and reassure them."

Cassian nodded slowly after hearing that. "Yeah, looks like your time at the academy wasn’t wasted."

The conversation continued for a long time after that.

The family would not openly relocate forces into the region yet because House Arcturus still had too much to lose by exposing the frontier route before the foundation was fully stable.

But quiet support would expand. More engineers. More survey ships. Carefully selected commanders willing to take long-term assignments.

Industrial seed packages. Medical support for Haven. Archive specialists for the bastion.

Military support would stay hidden for now, but it would exist.

Aurelian accepted that without argument because, honestly, it was the smart choice.

Then Cassian finally asked the question that mattered most.

"What do you want from the family?"

Aurelian didn’t answer immediately.

There were plenty of things he could ask for.

Ships.

Resources.

Personnel.

Political influence.

All of those would help.

But he had already thought this through before coming here.

"I want recognition of the Crownward March as my frontier command structure," he said. "Not separate from the family, but not treated like a temporary expedition either. I want support for now, which I can use to expand on."

Elara’s expression softened slightly after hearing that, while Cassian nodded as if agreeing with what his son was saying.

"That is not hard," Cassian said.

"And we never intended to have the family take over."

"You think I would take it from you?"

"No," Aurelian answered honestly. "But systems grow around power. If the lines aren’t drawn early, other people draw them for you."

Cassian smiled faintly after that. "You really have grown."

"I was hoping so."

Behind him, Rhoswen muttered quietly, "But, we still need to deal with the Kharov before we can move to territory planning."

Aurelian slowly turned his head toward her as he also agreed with that.

Elara, who heard this, nodded as she responded. "Yes, but you don’t need to worry, dear, as from the information we have, destroying them won’t be hard."

Rhoswen’s eyes brightened a little. "That’s true."

Astra answered calmly. "Yeah, but it is still hard for us due to the size of the fleet."

Elara nodded, as she had been in this phase when she was young.

Eventually, Cassian agreed to the main terms.

The Crownward March would officially be treated as Aurelian’s frontier command, supported by the Arcturus family without being folded into the normal family administration structure.

That gave him freedom to build it properly while still allowing the family to invest resources into it openly behind the scenes.

It was exactly what he needed.

After the meeting finally ended, Yelena found him standing in one of the side corridors overlooking the docking lanes.

"You caused quite a stir," she said.

"I arrived quietly."

"You arrived in a Tier V flagship."

"It was quiet for a Tier V flagship."

"That sentence means nothing."

Rhoswen nodded seriously beside him. "I told him we needed more dramatic formation spacing."

Yelena immediately looked at her. "You were correct."

Aurelian stared at both of them. "Absolutely not."

He then shifted his focus, "Where are the other two?"

Yelena, who heard this, answered, "Both of them are in your room waiting."

Hearing this, Aurelian was confused about why they were there, but didn’t think much about it as he let both Astra and Rhoswen take a break and do what they wanted while he and Yelena went to his room.