(Y/N) is told that she is next in line for the Batonnese throne during the battle of Batonn after her father and brother were killed by the empire. Attempting to return home, she is kidnapped by the empire. Viewing her as an asset rather than a liability, the emperor arranges a forced marriage between herself and the Grand Admiral Thrawn to keep them both in line.
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Grand Admiral Thrawn deliberately stalls the Empire just long enough to ensure his family's permanent disappearance into the shadows.
Masterlist, Part 31
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“I don’t want to go back,” (Y/N) panted as they approached the Lothal residence, “please, they already know.”
“We must act as though none of this happened, (Y/N),” Irtur said.
“My son, what will they do to my son? What will I do as someone who has given life and has now slain Batonnese blood.”
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She didn’t rest that night. Beside the crib of her son, she sat upon the cold floor, drawing her knees close against her breast. She had she washed her hands three times in the clear waters, seeking to cleanse them of the night’s dark work, yet still, in the secret chambers of her mind, she deemed she could feel the phantom stain of blood lingering upon her skin, a river that no stream of earth might ever wash away.
The prison corridors replayed endlessly behind her eyes. Gret standing inside the cell. The sound of the blaster…
She placed her hands over her ears, as though they would prevent the sound from playing in her head. After some time, she removed them and looked into the cradle of her child.
“My sweet boy,” she whispered.
The bedroom doors slid open softly behind her and she turned too quickly. Thrawn stood in the doorway still wearing his uniform though the long evening had left faint exhaustion beneath the perfect composure of his posture.
His eyes found her immediately.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked calmly.
“Yes,” (Y/N) lied softly.
“You are awake very early.”
“I could not fully settle.”
Thrawn stepped farther into the room, his gaze moving briefly toward (C/N) asleep in the crib before returning to her.
“There was a security incident tonight near the northern detention district,” he said evenly.
“A prison break attempt?” She gulped, attempting to remain still.
“One detainee was killed during the event.”
“I had not heard.”
“No,” he said. “The information remains restricted.”
Thrawn caressed the dress he had folded the other night as it was still in the same position he had left it.
“One of the surveillance sectors failed shortly before the incident,” he continued. “Several reports are still being compiled.”
(Y/N) folded her arms lightly across herself to conceal the trembling beginning again in her left hand.
“A maintenance issue?”
“Possibly,” His eyes remained fixed on her face, “I dislike incomplete reports.”
Her breath caught violently, because he said it while looking directly at her.
Behind them, (C/N) shifted softly in his sleep. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Thrawn’s voice came again, calm as ever.
“I am relocating the household temporarily.”
“What?”
“There is a secured residence outside the capital district,” he said. “More isolated. Easier to manage during the remainder of Fete Week.”
“The prison incident changed this?”
“It accelerated an existing consideration.”
“And Irtur?”
“He will accompany the household in his diplomatic capacity.”
Thrawn stepped closer then, stopping beside the crib. His son slept peacefully beneath the low nursery light, entirely unaware that his parents stood above him speaking in half-truths and concealed suspicions. For the first time that evening, something in Thrawn’s expression softened slightly as he looked down at the child. Then he said quietly:
“You appear anxious.”
Then, his crimson red eyes averted to her.
“I wonder why.”
Under the unblinking stare of those crimson eyes, her breath caught, and a sudden tremor shook her left hand. She strove to hold his gaze with a proud front, yet beneath that piercing and ruby light, she felt the chill of an inner dread, as though the innermost secrets of her soul were laid bare before a silent judge.
“You should rest while you can,” he said with gentleness that nearly broke her apart. Because it would have been easier if he were cruel. So much easier.
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The new residence sat far from Lothal’s capital in the eastern highlands where the land opened into rolling green plains broken occasionally by pale stone cliffs. It was beautiful in the deliberate way Imperial residences often were, isolated enough to feel peaceful while still remaining heavily guarded. Somewhere deeper in the residence, Uiona tended to (C/N) while the security detail rotated outside with quiet military precision.
(Y/N) hated it immediately.
She stood near the fireplace with her arms folded tightly across herself as Irtur poured something expensive into two glasses he had absolutely not been given permission to open.
“I think he knows,” she said.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head once. “Enough to move us here.”
He handed her one of the glasses.
“That alone proves nothing.”
“He asked where I was.”
“And?”
“And I lied.”
“That has not historically stopped you before.”
“This was different,” (Y/N) said before she moved toward the window, staring out toward the rain-covered hills. “He mentioned the prison break immediately. He said the reports were incomplete and then he looked directly at me when he said he dislikes incomplete reports.”
“Well. That is unfortunate.”
“That is your response?”
“It is my calm response. My internal response is significantly worse.”
“Why hasn’t he sent me back to Coruscant? If he truly suspects me, why am I still here?”
“Because it is still Fete Week. The Empire would not publicly remove the Grand Admiral’s wife during a major military celebration unless they possessed undeniable proof.” His expression darkened slightly. “Not you specifically. Not now. Not while your face is currently hanging from half the city.”
The perfect Imperial family, the thought of it made her ill.
“He is containing the situation,” Irtur continued. “Which means he does not yet know enough. I need to go to Batonn.”
“What?”
“I do not know what Gret told them before we reached him.” His voice remained calm, though she could hear the exhaustion beneath it now. “If the ISB pulled names from him, routes, old contacts…”
(Y/N) looked away immediately because she knew he was right.
“I need to clean this mess before it spreads further,” he continued. “Destroy records. Move people if necessary. Speak with the northern cells directly.”
“They’re watching Batonn closely.”
“They always are,” Then Irtur stepped closer to her, “You should remain here.”
“In this beautiful Imperial cage?”
“For now.”
“And what if Thrawn already knows?”
“Then he has already made an interesting decision by not turning you over.”
Carefully, he turned her wrist upward and pressed a brief kiss against the Batonnese signet ring she still wore despite everything.
“You are still our queen,” he said quietly.
“Irtur…”
“If this worsens,” he interrupted softly, “protect the child first.”
“When do you leave?” she asked.
“Within the hour.”
He moved towards the doorway, his black and white clothing swaying behind him.
“This marriage does not end peacefully,” he said quietly. “You know that.”
The very moment he crossed the threshold and stepped out from her sight, heavy rain began to fall, as if nature herself were hastening to wash his earthly frame clean of every past transgression. It was an melancholy departure, for though he walked with a steady step, the relentless downpour seemed to weep for a man who was leaving the comforts of life behind forever.
She moved to sit near the hearth, the fire feeling unnaturally cool on her skin. (Y/N) stared at it for some time, before removing her prosthetic from her left hand to feel the fire dance between her fingers. The fire danced between her, but if she got too close it would inevitably burn her, but she didn’t care. She simply wished she could throw herself into the flame, the cold flame.
Thrawn.
She woke up near the hearth, the fire had been extinguished and for some reason, the room felt warmer.
(Y/N) fixed her gown and had just descended into the lower receiving hall when she saw the stormtroopers first. There were four of them, positioned at the entrance and Lord Kaelor Virex was situated in between them.
For a second, she thought that she was looking at Gret again, that he had somehow raised himself from the dead and had come to seek his revenge.
But Kaelor stood harder than his son ever had. The stormtroopers watched him closely enough to make the purpose obvious.
(Y/N) slowed near the staircase.
“My Lord, I did not expect you here on Lothal,” she said though he was meant to greet her first.
“I am here to collect my son’s body,” he said in his strong, rugged voice. Kaelor’s eyes moved briefly over the polished Imperial surroundings with visible disgust before returning to her. “I was informed the Empire would release his remains under supervision.”
“You may stay here tonight,” she said after a moment. “The city is still unstable after the incident.”
“In your residence?”
“It would be safer.”
“For whom?”
“I am trying to help.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You are trying to ease your conscience, Queen Geronh.”
The stormtroopers shifted subtly at the tone. One hand moved nearer to a holstered weapon. Kaelor noticed that too and smiled faintly in the way broken men sometimes did.
“I will not remain beneath Imperial protection,” he continued. “Especially not yours.”
“You should not travel alone on Lothal right now.”
“My son was tortured in an Imperial prison,” Kaelor replied evenly. “I no longer possess a meaningful relationship with caution.” He now lowered his voice and stepped closer to her, he now towered over her and it frightened her. He never frightened her before. “When Gret first joined the resistance, he still believed in you. He said the queen would remember Batonn eventually,” His expression hardened further. “I told him queens who marry conquerors do not return.”
(Y/N) could not breathe properly for a moment as Kaelor stepped back again before she could answer. Then one of the stormtroopers moved forward stiffly.
“Transport is prepared.”
Kaelor did not look at the stormtrooper and kept his eyes fixated on her.
“You wear grief beautifully,” he said coldly. “The Empire trained you well.”
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As Fete week came, it had gone. The banners were slowly removed from the capital. Portraits came down from shop windows and government plazas. Imperial officers departed in waves of polished transports while the city returned to its ordinary rhythm beneath the Empire.
Just as quietly as she had arrived on Lothal, (Y/N) was sent away.
The transport waiting on the landing platform was sleek and immaculate, its engines already humming softly in preparation for departure back to Coruscant. It rained again that day, and she wished she could’ve said that it was a beautiful day but it wasn’t.
She stood near the boarding ramp holding (C/N) against her shoulder while attendants finalized the luggage transfers behind them. Uiona remained nearby speaking quietly with one of the pilots as too many stormtroopers lined the platform perimeter.
Everything lately felt watched, even when she was alone in the darkness of her bedroom, she felt watched.
“Lady Thrawn,” Thrawn called as he approached across the landing platform in full uniform, white against the muted grey morning. “You are prepared for departure?”
“Yes.”
She answered too quickly and he noticed, of course he noticed. It caused him to step closer, focusing his attention on the child in her arms.
“The journey to Coruscant will take approximately sixteen hours,” he said. “The child’s medical supplements have already been transferred aboard.”
“Thank you.”
“You will remain within the Imperial Residence District upon arrival.”
She nodded once at the instruction. (C/N) stirred lightly against her shoulder and Thrawn’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly as he reached out, adjusting the edge of the blanket away from the child’s face with careful precision. The gentleness of it worried her.
“You should avoid public appearances for several weeks,” he continued carefully. “The celebrations were… extensive.”
“Am I being hidden?” (Y/N) asked as she looked up at him.
“You are being protected.”
“Is there a difference?”
“To you, there often is.”
Wind moved across the landing platform, carrying the distant scent of rain and engine fuel. Her grip tightened unconsciously around (C/N). (Y/N) lowered her eyes briefly toward her son because suddenly looking directly at Thrawn felt dangerous again.
“You are quiet this morning,” he observed.
“I’m tired.”
“No, you are troubled.”
A long silence filled the distance afterward as machinery and the smell of rain filled the room. Then, before she could retreat from it, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against her forehead.
“You should rest when you arrive on Coruscant,” Thrawn said as he pulled away. “You have not slept properly in days.”
Throughout the long flight, she remained utterly motionless on her bed, seeking refuge from her sorrows in an unceasing slumber. She did not rouse herself to partake of any refreshment, nor did she once address her companions, preferring the silent oblivion of sleep to the painful reality of her thoughts. The entire duration of the transport was passed in a state of sorrowful torpor, her mind stubbornly closed against a world that now afforded her so little comfort.
And when she arrived, Coruscant greeted her with the same grey coldness she had grown accustomed to. Though her imperial attendants greeted her with a bow and smiles she felt as though these actions felt unreal. She had too much to burden, and too much to hide that returning a smile would be against her.
(Y/N) moved through the enormous apartment like a ghost while (C/N) slept against her shoulder. The nursery had already been prepared before their arrival. Fresh flowers sat arranged beside the windows. New toys had been placed carefully near the crib. Someone had anticipated their return perfectly. The empire anticipated everything, nothing escaped its sight.
Days passed strangely slowly after that.
She stopped attending dinners and appearing publicly. When invitations arrived from senators or officers’ wives, she declined them all through formal correspondence drafted by assistants she barely listened to anymore. Most mornings she remained in the nursery long after (C/N) had fallen asleep again, sitting beside the crib while Coruscant’s endless city lights glowed beyond the windows.
She had not heard from Irtur in some time and it frightened her.
Sleep never found her, and it hadn’t since her academy days on Hosnian Prime.
Some nights she woke abruptly convinced she had heard stormtroopers entering the apartment. Other nights she dreamed of Gret inside the prison cell with her gun pressed to his heart. But sometimes, on the odd occasion when sleep did find her, she dreamed of Clvtorig in the oasis on Batonn. Desperately, she tried to forget him as someone she could never love, but his face was the only thing that could bring her comfort.
But when she couldn’t sleep or couldn’t stand, she found herself in the nursery with her son.
“You should eat something,” Uiona said gently one evening while standing near the nursery doorway.
(Y/N) barely looked up from where she sat near the window holding her son.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You have said that twice today.”
“I wasn’t aware you were counting.”
Uiona fell silent immediately following the guilt that ran across (Y/N)’s face.
“I apologize,” she whispered tiredly. “I did not mean…”
“You are frightened,” Uiona said softly.
“What if something happens to him because of me?” (Y/N) said looking down at her son, moving his growing hair from his face.
“The child is loved,” she said carefully. “Whatever else may exist around this family… that much is true.”
That night she walked the corridor and reached out the door of Thrawn’s office, she asked V3PO to open it and it did. The office remained immaculate exactly as he preferred it. Traces of him were everywhere and it bothered her so much that she stormed out.
In a few mornings, (Y/N) sat alone at the writing desk near the nursery with untouched tea growing cold beside her. There was still nothing from Irtur of Batonn and it worried her. Her hands trembled slightly as she unfolded a sheet of expensive cream-colored correspondence paper bearing the Imperial household seal. Lady Sereth would answer if anyone could.
(Y/N) dipped her pen in ink, the traditional Batonnese ink before writing.
‘Lady Sereth,
I apologize for the lateness of this correspondence. Fete Week required rather more public participation than I had anticipated. I confess I find myself missing quieter company.
There is another matter for which I seek your discretion.
I have not heard from Lord Irtur since our departure from Lothal. This silence is… unusual. I would ask whether Count Clvtorig Tronstad remains within your reach and, if so, whether he might be persuaded to contact me through secure means.
You understand my caution in writing this directly.
Please do not respond through official household channels.
And my Lady,
If there is something I should know, I would prefer honesty over comfort.
With affection,
(Y/N) Geronh.’
When she finished, she stared at the page for a long time. Then carefully folded it closed. She handed it quietly to Uiona, a woman she knew she could forever trust.
“I am sending you to Batonn,” She whispered as though someone was watching them in her own sitting room, “Only to Lady Sereth.”
Uiona bowed, then said, “Of course, your Majesty.”
Afterward, (Y/N) remained standing alone near the apartment windows long after the letter had disappeared into Coruscant’s endless machinery below.
Uiona arrived two weeks later with another note in her hand. Well, it was one note until she flickered her finger and another one appeared under it. (Y/N) took the note outside, to the gardens where she had once walked with Thrawn. She stopped at the same bench she had once sat at with him and opened both of the notes.
Lady Sereth’s handwriting remained as elegant as ever.
‘My Queen,
I received your message safely.
Clvtorig remains alive. That alone is presently a blessing.
Batonn has become unstable since the incident on Lothal. Entire districts in the north are under increased Imperial review, though no public explanation has yet been issued. Several names connected to the old resistance routes have disappeared within the last week.
Irtur has not returned.
No one seems willing to say this aloud, but fear has begun moving through the remaining houses.
I do not yet know which possibility terrifies me more.
Clvtorig refused to remain here long enough for proper conversation. He requested only that this second note be delivered directly into your hands.
You must be careful now.
There are rumors that Lord Vader himself has begun reviewing reports connected to the prison incident.
Burn this after reading.
— Lady Sereth’
She opened the second note that was not as pleasant as the first one:
‘I will return when I am needed.’
(Y/N) stared at the words for a very long time. Then slowly lowered the paper into her lap. Suddenly, she felt more alone than she had since Batonn had bled.
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Six months later
The senate session had run long.
It always ran long when Restos was presenting, which she had come to understand was a deliberate strategy rather than a failure of brevity, the longer the session, the less time the opposing senators had to organize their responses before the vote closed.
She was tired from all of this and sat her bag down inside the apartment door and reached up to remove the first earring without looking. The apartment was quiet in the way it was quiet when the household staff had stepped back for the evening. She removed the second earring and moved to her bedroom where she thought she was alone.
Thrawn was sitting in the chair near the window.
Not the workspace chair, the one she had come to think of as his reading chair, the one angled toward the Coruscant night, though he was not reading. He was in his uniform, the Grand Admiral's white, which meant he had come directly from something official and had not yet changed, which meant he had come directly here, which meant…
She stopped in the doorway.
He was not supposed to be on Coruscant.
The Lothal campaign. He was not supposed to be on Coruscant for another five months.
He looked at her and she looked back at him, nearly jumping at the surprise. She set the earrings on the side table.
"You're not supposed to be here," (Y/N) said.
"No," Thrawn said. "I'm not."
She did not move from the doorway. She stood in it with the bag still over her shoulder. He looked back at her with the expression she had been building a vocabulary for over the years of their marriage, the one that was not the Grand Admiral and not the cold and was the thing she had the most words for now and still not enough.
"There will be an ISB inquiry tomorrow morning," he said. The words arrived with the evenness he applied to everything.
"About what?"
"You," he said, looking at her steadily.
"You," he said.
She could hear the faint sounds of the nursery, Uiona moving, the particular quiet of a room where a child was sleeping and the people in it were being careful about it.
"How long?" Not how long until the inquiry. She was asking how long she had.
He understood the question. He always understood the question.
"You should leave before 0400," he said.
She looked at the window, at Coruscant. At the city that had never been hers, that she had learned to move through and had never learned to love, that was about to become the last thing she saw of this life before it changed into whatever came next.
"Will you come with us?"
"No," he said.
She held his gaze.
“Why?”
He was quiet for a moment. Not the quiet of a man constructing an answer. The quiet of a man who had already made a decision and was now delivering it with the precision he brought to things that had cost him.
"Because someone must remain here," he said, "long enough for your absence to become irreversible."
She set the earring down beside the other one.
She straightened and went to the nursery.
(C/N) was asleep. His hair was getting longer and she moved it away from his face. She lifted him and turned to Uiona who was already in the doorway.
"We do not have much time," Uiona said.
"I know," she said.
"Irtur is waiting. Lower levels. The service corridor on the thirty-first, the same route."
The same route. The maintenance alley and the freight elevator and the hood pulled low and the city that did not watch boxes, only people. She had learned this years ago in a different life and it was still true.
"The child's things," she said.
"Already done," Uiona said. "Two bags. I packed them this morning."
She walked back through the bedroom without looking at the chair by the window, without looking at the Coruscant night, without looking at any of it, and she went to the corridor and she stopped.
She turned.
He was standing in the bedroom doorway now. She had not heard him move. He was looking at her with the expression that had no name in any language she knew.
She looked at the same man who had stood next to her and married her, who had cut her hair and kept it. Who had given her her first child, who she had slowly fallen in love with.
She opened her mouth.
She closed it.
There was nothing that fit inside the available time.
She inclined her head and he held her gaze for a moment before inclining his and watched her walk toward the service corridor and did not look back.
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Irtur was where Uiona had said he would be.
He was in a dark cloak, the hood down, his face carrying the exhaustion of a man who had been moving carefully through the wrong places for months and had arrived here at the end of it.
"He's gotten bigger," he said.
"They do that," she said.
She turned to Uiona.
Uiona was already there. She had been there the whole time, the two bags at her feet, the expression she had been wearing since the nursery doorway, the one that was not performing anything.
She stepped closer to her and pulled her in, hugging her until her face turned red.
"You know where to go," she said instead. Into her hair. "You know what to do."
"I always do," she said.
"Yes," Uiona said. "You always do."
She stepped back.
"Thank you," she said. Which was not sufficient and was the only word available.
Uiona straightened.
"Go," she said. "Your people are waiting."
Everything echoed as (Y/N) and Irtur descended into the darkness. (Y/N) kept the hood low over her face as they moved quickly through the lower maintenance levels. Irtur led them through narrow passages lit only by flickering strips of emergency light while Uiona’s final words still echoed painfully in her chest.
‘Your people are waiting.’
She no longer knew who her people were she thought to herself as they rounded another corner and stopped abruptly. Someone stood waiting in the darkness ahead.
She stepped back as the tall, dark silhouette stepped forward into the light.
Clvtorig.
His brown hair was longer now, tied roughly at the nape of his neck, his face thinner than before. There was dried blood staining one sleeve of his coat that did not appear to belong to him. (Y/N) let out a breath she had not realized she’d been holding.
“You’re alive.”
“Disappointing for several people,” Irtur replied dryly, causing Clvtorig to shoot him a look.
“(Y/N),” Clvtorig moved her hood from her face and cupped her cheeks with his gloved hands, “I can’t believe it’s you. It’s almost as if you are an illusion I cannot grasp.”
She placed her hand on his before his eyes drifted to the child in her arms.
“You took too long,” he said, hearing Irtur nearly trip over a crate.
“Yes,” Irtur agreed calmly. “It has been a very difficult month.”
Clvtorig looked back toward (Y/N).
“You ready to disappear, Your Majesty?”
“No,” she admitted softly.
“Good. Sensible people rarely are.”
There was no more time after that. The transport hangar sat buried beneath the lower industrial districts where freight ships came and went too often for anyone to remember faces. Steam drifted through the loading platforms while workers shouted over machinery in a dozen languages. Irtur approached the checkpoint first while she stayed slightly behind him holding (C/N) tightly beneath the cloak.
“Identification,” A bored security officer said as he barely looked up.
Irtur handed over three forged chain cards casually and the officer scanned them. He looked up at them before rescanning them, then he looked up again slowly.
Then back down at the IDs.
“These say you’re Twi’leks.”
Irtur blinked once.
“What are you,” he asked tiredly, “some type of racist?”
The officer raised an eyebrow but it only remained raised for half a second as a violent force suddenly exploded through the checkpoint and Irtur was hurled backward into a cargo container hard enough to dent the metal. (Y/N) screamed instinctively and stumbled backward as the lights above them began to flicker.
Clvtorig sensing the issue as one requiring him as a jedi, igniting his lightsaber which caused people to run and scream, trampling over (Y/N) and Irtur in the process.
An Inquisitor stepped from the shadows beyond the loading platform dressed in black armor beneath the crimson glow of an ignited spinning lightsaber. Her face was pale and severe beneath tattooed markings across her jawline.
“Well now,” the woman drawled coldly, “Ah knew yew rats would try somethin’ dramatic.”
When she spoke, her voice carried a sharp outer-rim accent curled around every word.
Stormtroopers flooded the platform instantly behind her with their blasters raised. Clvtorig swore softly. (Y/N)’s pulse turned to ice.
The Inquisitor’s yellow eyes settled immediately on him.
“Oh, Ah know yew,” she said with ugly amusement. “Little Jedi survivor playin’ revolutionary.”
Clvtorig stepped slightly in front of (Y/N) instinctively.
“I knew the Empire would send one of you eventually.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” she sneered, spinning the saber lazily through one hand, “yew flatter yourself.”
Suddenly, Clvtorig jumped at the inquisitor and the sound of their sabers clashing cracked through the hangar like thunder. The green and red blades moved impossibly fast through the darkness. The Inquisitor fought viciously, using the Force to tear loose crates and machinery, hurling them across the platform hard enough to shatter durasteel.
Clvtorig barely avoided one piece of debris before driving forward again.
“You should’ve stayed hidden!” she spat, locking blades with him.
“And miss this conversation?”
She snarled and slammed the Force outward violently. Clvtorig crashed across the floor. The Inquisitor turned instantly toward the crates where (Y/N) hid and Irtur. (C/N) who began to cry beneath the crate stirred under (Y/N)’s coat.
“Oh?” the woman smiled cruelly. “There yew are.”
(Y/N)’s blood froze.
The Inquisitor lifted one hand and Clvtorig drove his saber directly through her chest from behind. The red blade sputtered violently. For one stunned second the woman simply stared downward at the glowing weapon protruding through her armor. Then Clvtorig ripped it free. She collapsed hard against the platform floor.
Dead.
Silence followed.
Only smoke.
Burning circuitry.
And the sound of (C/N) crying softly against her shoulder. Clvtorig stood breathing heavily in the center of the ruined checkpoint while stormtrooper bodies lay scattered around him. Then slowly he turned toward her.
“Hiding strategy was excellent,” he said hoarsely.
(Y/N) stared at him in complete shock.
Irtur groaned somewhere behind a destroyed cargo container.
“I despise Jedi,” he muttered weakly from the floor.
They ran onto the transport before any more inquisitors could appear from the shadows. The transport doors slammed shut behind them just as blasterfire tore across the landing platform. “GO!” Irtur shouted from somewhere near the cockpit.
The ship lurched violently almost immediately, engines screaming as the pilot forced the transport upward through the industrial traffic lanes of lower Coruscant.
(Y/N) nearly lost her footing, but Clvtorig caught her arm before she could fall while (C/N) cried loudly against her shoulder, frightened by the noise and sudden movement. Outside the narrow viewport, red emergency lights flashed across the hangar district below as Imperial sirens began rising through the city. They had minutes at best before the Empire locked down the lower sectors. Irtur disappeared toward the cockpit muttering something furious about Inquisitors and concussions while the ship climbed sharply into the endless layers of Coruscant traffic. The cargo bay remained dimly lit, trembling softly from engine strain. For a while neither of them spoke. Only (C/N)’s crying filled the silence. (Y/N) finally managed to calm him enough for him to fall asleep again against her chest.
She sat heavily against one of the cargo crates.
Clvtorig remained standing nearby, one hand still resting against the wall from the turbulence. There was blood on his sleeve again. More now.
“You’re injured,” she said quietly.
“It’s superficial.”
“That usually means it’s serious.”
A faint smile touched his mouth briefly.
“You’ve spent too much time around soldiers.”
Too much time around Thrawn but neither of them said it aloud.
(Y/N) looked down at the child sleeping against her.
“Where will we go?”
Clvtorig leaned back against the wall opposite her.
“Batonn isn’t safe,” she continued before he could answer. “They’ll search it first. Every remaining house is compromised. Every route monitored. They will find me there.”
“They will,” he agreed quietly. “Nal Hutta. We will go there.”
“Nal Hutta?”
“It’s where I’ve been hiding.”
“The Hutt systems? I thought you were with the Sereth clan. ”
“The Empire avoids direct interference there whenever possible.” He shrugged slightly. “Too expensive. Too complicated. Too corrupt even for them.”
“I used to know exactly who I was,” she whispered.“And now look at me.”
“A fugitive?”
“A traitor.”
His expression hardened immediately.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You betrayed the Empire,” he corrected calmly. “That is not the same thing.”
“You sound like Irtur.”
“He’s usually right. Unfortunately.”
Slowly, she reached toward her hand, toward the Batonnese signet ring still resting there. The metal caught softly beneath the cargo lights. She stared at it for a long moment before pulling it free. Clvtorig immediately straightened slightly. (Y/N) held the ring in her palm for a second before extending it toward him.
“I’m not worthy of this anymore.”
He stepped closer but did not take the ring immediately.
“You still believe crowns are earned through purity,” he said softly.
“They should be.”
“No,” Clvtorig replied. “They’re earned through survival.”
“I slept beside the man who destroyed my world.”
“And still helped save what remained of it.”
“I loved him.” The confession fell into the cargo bay so quietly she almost thought the engines swallowed it, but Clvtorig heard it, of course he did. For a long moment he said nothing at all. Then finally he took her hand gently instead of the ring, closing her fingers back around it.
“That does not erase who you are,” his voice lowered now as he spoke in the dim light “The people remembered you negotiated for civilians when the Senate abandoned us. They remembered you walking through refugee camps yourself while Imperial officers hid behind escorts. And they remembered that even after marrying Thrawn… you never once stopped grieving Batonn. They know that you did it as a duty.”
Tears burned suddenly behind her eyes.
“I failed them.”
“No,” Clvtorig said firmly. This time he took the ring carefully from her trembling hand, then pressed it back into her palm once more. “You are more than worthy of this.”
She looked at him helplessly.
“You carry Batonn differently now,” he continued quietly. “Not as a palace. Not as titles. As memory.” His eyes lowered briefly toward (C/N) sleeping against her chest. “And memory survives longer than empires do.”
The words settled somewhere deep inside her. Clvtorig sat beside her finally, close enough that warmth lingered between them in the dim cargo hold. The ship continued carrying them farther and farther away from Coruscant.
Away from Thrawn.
Away from the life she had built accidentally beside the enemy she had once sworn to hate.
A Roman slave named Ianthe is captured and condemned to the arena to be claimed and bred by the winning gladiator.
(Original work, read on AO3)
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Ianthe.
That was the name written on her bracelet - the name she had always been called. It was most likely the name of a former mistress or trader, but for now she was ‘Ianthe’.
It was a name screamed, a name that was commanded, but never a name that was begged. For Ianthe had learned her place as a slave and did not wish to anger the fist of her master. That was until her mistress desired to cut her striking red hair to weave a capillamentum for herself to wear. She did not wish for that old hag to wear her hair, so she ran into the city and hid for days until she was caught by the guards, who recognized her markings and returned her to her master.
Rome was never kind to slaves, especially those with features deemed desirable.
“That dreadful girl,” Nerilla was so angry she kicked over the vase her late husband had gifted her last spring.
All the slaves in the household stood idly in a single line, not daring to move or flinch while watching the tantrum thrown by their superior.
“Where is she?”
“She is locked in the cellar as ordered, mistress.”
“I am sending her to the gladiator games.”
No one said anything, but they all shared a consistent look of fear, for it was known what happened to girls sent to the arena after the games. As a girl, she wouldn’t fight but be a gift to the winner, who would breed her in the center of the arena for all to see. Sometimes they put up a fight, but usually they calmly bowed their heads and accepted their fate. Knowing Ianthe, she would put up a fight , which worried them.
So that night, the slave Prima hurried down to the cellar with the chain of heavy keys she had taken from their leader. Unlocking the heavy door, she became engulfed in the darkness , absorbed in the scent of salty tears and dried blood.
“Ianthe,” she called to the answer of whimpering and soot. “Ianthe, where does Nerilla have you chained?”
When she stepped into a pool of blood, she hit a soft, fleshy leg that had been damaged and bruised by the whip. A whip her redheaded friend knew all too well.
“Ianthe, oh you poor thing,” In all her years as a slave, she had never seen a woman so beaten and so wounded. Even during the war, when the Romans conquered her home, enslaving her people and enacting their fatal campaign.
“I am alive. That is all Phanes has gifted me.”
“And I have news.”
“News of when I will die? Have the gods spoken to you?”
“No, Nerilla did.”
She picked herself up, now fully interested in what her sister slave was about to tell her.
“You are to be sent to the games.”
“The games?” She gasped and held her chest in shock. She was almost bare, for her blue tunic had been cut and slit at the chest, exposing her and causing her to become as cold as a corpse. “But I am woman; I am weak ; I can’t walk without a limp. How am I to fight a gladiator?”
“You are not to fight, Ianthe.”
The woman she had come to know as a sister looked upon her with pity and woe. Not even she had the courage to educate her friend about what was to come.
“You are to be a gift.”
“No…”
“Do not worry,” Prima knelt down and poured oil on her lame woman’s open wounds. “For it is rumored that Vitus’ slave Septimus will be fighting, and he is almost free. He may petition to keep you as his own.”
“Is he almost free?”
And Prima nodded, giving her friend hope of escape.
So in the morning, Prima made sure to keep close to her mistress to overhear the date and competitors of the next match. She soon confirmed that Septimus would be fighting and that the match would be held in a few days. All the while, Ianthe was being held in the cellar, starved and void of light. It had been days before she was finally let out, but Nerilla decided to still starve her slave of the glow of light.
As soon as she was guided from her dank prison, a mask cloth was tied around her eyes. It was something she never expected to pray for, but every day she prayed that Helios would rip her from her clothed prison and allow the sun to warm her skin and bless her eyes. As the sun in Corinth was when she was young and free.
One day, her prayer for sun would be answered.
Prima visited her sister slave that morning with olive oils and a vase of fresh water. She lathered Ianthe’s naked body in the oils, then scrubbed it off with her own cloth and water. The cloth of her tunic, a part of it she had ripped from the one item she owned, she allowed to become dirtied for the sake of her friend’s beauty.
She was fed a Pomegranate, which stained the pinkness of her lips. It was rumored to boost fertility in the times of Jupiter . Ianthe hoped that becoming with child would allow pity to be bestowed upon her, something she most dearly needed.
Most slaves were discarded after the games , but Ianthe wished Septimus would enjoy her and keep her as his own. She did not want to be killed or, even worse, be sent back to Nerilla.
She was forced to stand in the pit next to her mistress, still with the cloth over her eyes, to avoid the sun. Unable to see the gladiators fighting, she could only make out who was winning through the yells of the crowd.
“That large fellow over there. Though you cannot see him, he will be the one to deflower you, you criminal,” her mistress whispered in her ear. “It is what you deserve, Ianthe. After all, you need to be taught a lesson.”
“Ede faecam,” she responded in a tone that would’ve gotten her killed if she had not been reserved for her current punishment.
Soon, the scent of blood filled the air and, with it, the cheers of an unforgiving crowd. It was then she began to breathe heavily, nearly breaking out of the rope she had been forced into. She yearned for the sun, and that was what she was allowed when she suddenly found herself in the center of the arena. A rough hand cut her blindness from behind, allowing her to eventually see the world around her. But her eyes did not wish to see , and she stumbled back, hitting a bulking frame who attempted to save her from her fall but failed.
Her head hit the hard ground, and she screamed and clenched her eyes shut, the newfound sun blinding her. She did not know what to do , so she simply screamed, as she had done as a child. The entire colosseum roared in laughter, laughing at the small slave as she laid in the shadow of the Gladiator.
He picked her up, using her shoulders to give her balance. It was then she was able to awaken her sense of sight, looking up at the towering man. She had recognized him from the streets of Rome and the graffiti that featured his victorious name and strength. Her mistress had bet on him several times before, boasting to her confidants about the money she had won.
“Πραΰς,” he muttered to her in her native language. He reached out to her cheek, stroking her soft skin with his woundedness. Never had anyone been so still in his arms, especially in the arena. It got him excited, almost making him feel powerful, given his title. “You will not struggle, or I shall kill you. It is my right.”
“I am not the slave of Septimus but of Nerilla,” she looked crazed , her eyebrows creating wrinkles on her forehead as she pushed them up with unease.
“I have won.”
He turned her body around, ripping her dress from behind.
“I am Victor.”
He pushed her to the ground by her shoulders, forcing her knees to become buried in the ground.
“I am free.”
She stared at the crowd in front of her and wished that her blindfold was still tied around her eyes.
“If I shall enjoy you, then I will keep you.” He kneeled down behind her, smacking her buttocks, making her gasp. “But if I find you unwilling, I will kill you. Now, I am your master, and you are my slave.”
He poked at her pussy lips with his hardening cock, determining if he should go slowly or roughly. But then he realized that she was his prize, a lowly slave who was available for him to use and do as he wished.
He wanted her to feel pain. To wish she was dead, for that was the only emotion he knew to inflict.
Slowly, he inserted himself into her. She began to attempt to push away, but he used his strength to grab onto her legs and draw her closer to him. He groaned. Feeling her tightness hug around his bulging and growing cock. He began humping into her, using his free hand to take hold of her hair and pull so that she was forced to stare into the crowd of spectators.
It was a feeling she did not expect. She felt a mix of pain and pleasure, a moan flying from her mouth.
“You like that, you little whore?”
Feeling ashamed, she did not respond. So hearing silence, he became rougher and faster , causing her to bleed.
“Your master asked a question,” he pulled from her and stood tall, grabbing her from the floor, positioning her so that she was bending over. “You may be too small to carry my seed, but I will force myself until you are bred and unable to walk.”
He inserted himself again, this time faster, which caused her to leap and gasp.
“Please,” she began to plead, “please keep me as your own, and I promise to reserve my pussy for your seed so that only you are allowed to defile me in such a way.”
“With me, you will never be free.” He grabbed her neck and forced her to look upon his scared face. “If you escape from me, I will not be as forgiving as your old master.”
Her lust was palpable with a red face and aroused pussy, and he noticed. He used his hand to grip onto her pussy, rubbing her forcefully as he fucked her from behind.
“You’re my little girl,” he spat on her face. “You were made for me, Ianthe.”
The way he said her name caused her to squirm in his arms.
The crowd watched eagerly, waiting for him to breed the slave girl. They grew impatient, but her echoing moans subsided for some entertainment in the meantime.
“My body, my soul and my womb are yours, master.”
And with those nine words, he came into her , fertilizing her womanly body with his warrior seed. She will give him sons whom he will eventually send to the arena to fight for his glory.
He picked up her tired, fragile body before she collapsed into the floor. Setting her on his shoulder, he strode from the arena to never visit it again. Beyond the trials of the gladiator arena, he kept her in the shackles of his home, far from Rome. There was nowhere for her run, not that she ever thought of the idea for his arms of steel frightened her.
When an urgent schedule change forces a desperate prison break on Lothal,(Y/N) risks everything to rescue a rebel ally, all while keeping the ISB away. The mission takes a devastating toll, forcing her to commit a terrible act of betrayal that will forever shatter her secret life as Grand Admiral Thrawn’s wife.
Masterlist, Part 30
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The queen of Batonn’s shoes made a clanking sound on the floor that made her ears cringe. She walked through seats led by an attendant who stopped at a chair positioned correctly near the front, close enough to observe the military procession while still maintaining the hierarchy expected of the Grand Admiral’s household.
Lord Irtur was already seated but when (Y/N) approached, he stood and gently bowed to her and only sat once she sat. The parade had not yet begun. Below them, officers and local dignitaries gathered beneath white banners while military orchestras tuned instruments along the lower avenue.
“You look miserable,” Irtur murmured pleasantly.
“I am wearing propaganda.”
“Yes, but elegantly.”
She gave him a flat look.
“There’s been a problem,” he said in a whisper in Batonnese. “We need to move quickly now.”
“What kind of problem?”
“The transfer schedule changed.” His eyes remained forward on the avenue below as though discussing weather. “The prisoner will not remain in the detention sector through the end of the week as expected.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“That soon?”
“Yes.”
For several seconds she said nothing, forcing herself to keep her expression composed while officials continued filling the surrounding seats.
“Fine,” she said, “I will pretend to be ill tonight and avoid the dinner.”
“I thought you loved dinner parties.”
“I do,” she replied dryly. “Just not as Lady Thrawn.”
Irtur laughed silently, twirling the propaganda pamphlet in his hand that had been in his sea before he had sat. A group of local officials entered several rows below them then, accompanied by a young woman in pale blue formalwear. His eyes followed her briefly.
“Lothal may be an ugly planet,” he murmured thoughtfully, “but it appears to contain beautiful women.”
(Y/N) immediately smacked him lightly across the arm with the rolled ceremonial pamphlet.
“Oh, stars above,” she hissed. “Can you behave like a revolutionary for five minutes?”
“I am behaving like one,” he said calmly. “Historically speaking, revolutionaries are terrible.”
“You are impossible.”
“And yet beloved,” He looked again toward the governor’s daughter, “She smiled at me.”
“She smiled at everyone.”
“That is still encouraging.”
(Y/N) hit him again with the pamphlet.
This time he laughed quietly beneath his breath, but the humor faded quickly as the orchestra below them began playing the opening procession anthem while stormtrooper formations moved into precise lines along the avenue.
After a long moment, she exhaled slowly.
“Are we really doing this?” she asked softly. “All while the ISB is already circling us?”
“We crossed that threshold long ago.”
She watched officers gathering below, watched citizens wave small Imperial banners while holo-cameras drifted overhead preparing to capture the parade. Somewhere in this city Gret was imprisoned. Somewhere else Thrawn was likely preparing to stand before crowds beside the Empire he served with terrifying devotion.
“If this fails,” she whispered.
“It cannot fail.You once told me Batonn deserved witnesses. Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Then remember this also: empires survive because everyone eventually convinces themselves that resistance is too dangerous.”
“And what if they are right?” Her eyes lowered briefly toward the folded pamphlet in her hands.
“Then at least,” he said quietly, “someone still tried.”
A line of white-armored stormtroopers marched into the avenue first in perfect synchronization, followed by naval officers in dark uniforms edged with silver. The crowd erupted into applause almost immediately, citizens rising to their feet as banners unfurled from the surrounding towers. Then the Chimaera’s insignia appeared overhead across the massive holographic projectors suspended above the plaza an of course beside it, him. Even at a distance there was something unmistakable about him.
“You’re staring at him,” Irtur murmured.
“I’m thinking.”
“That is usually worse.”
Below them, Thrawn paused briefly near the central reviewing platform as governors and naval officials approached to greet him. Cameras turned toward him instantly. (Y/N)’s fingers tightened unconsciously around the ceremonial pamphlet in her lap.
“If something happens to me,” she said quietly.
“Do not.”
“If something happens,” she repeated softly, eyes still fixed on the parade below, “I want you to watch over my son.”
“No.”
Her head turned sharply toward him.
“No?”
“I will not sit here while you speak like someone preparing for martyrdom.”
“This is serious.”
“I am aware it is serious.”
The applause below them rose louder as Thrawn acknowledged one of the sector governors with a slight inclination of his head.
“He needs someone who will tell him who he is,” she continued quietly. “Not what the Empire says he is. Someone who remembers Batonn before all of this.”
“He will have you.”
“You cannot promise me that.”
“If the worst occurs,” he said softly, “I will protect him as though he were my own blood.”
Pain shot straight to her heart it hurt, she swallowed as though to wash it away. Below them, Thrawn finally lifted his eyes toward the viewing platform, towards her more specifically. Even across the distance, she felt the weight of his attention settle precisely onto her.
It filled her with shame that he was the man she loved, and the man she was actively betraying.
By the time the parade concluded, her face hurt from smiling. The military procession had lasted nearly three hours beneath banners and applause and endless speeches praising Imperial unity. Citizens lined the streets waving printed copies of the household portrait while officers discussed strategy and expansion beneath decorative lanterns meant to soften occupation into celebration.
Now the evening reception had begun inside one of the capital’s upper ceremonial halls.
Music drifted softly beneath crystal chandeliers while officers and dignitaries moved through clusters of conversation with glasses of champagne balanced elegantly between gloved fingers. White uniforms filled the room like an extension of the architecture itself.
(Y/N) stood near one of the towering windows with (c/n) resting against her shoulder, exhaustion beginning to settle deep into her bones. Her son had tolerated the day remarkably well. Too well, perhaps. Every officer who approached had smiled at him like he was proof of imperial success.
She hated how gently they spoke to him.
“Lady Thrawn,” a familiar voice said beside her. Thrawn had finally escaped whatever cluster of governors and admirals had trapped him for the better part of the last hour. The sharpness of formal command still clung to him.
Before anyone nearby could properly observe the moment, he leaned down and pressed a brief kiss against her cheek. The gesture was perfectly appropriate and somehow unbearably intimate anyway.
“You did very well today,” she told him quietly.
“As did you.”
(C/N) stirred lightly between them at the sound of his father’s voice. Immediately, Thrawn’s attention shifted downward.
Before either of them could continue, another officer approached through the crowd. It was Captain Pellaeon, she recognized him from her wedding. He had sent her a star chart as a gift and she had written him a card saying ‘thank you’, that was the last communication she had had with him. He had not changed, she had noted, as he was still grey and old.
“Grand Admiral,” he greeted immediately before inclining his head respectfully toward her. “Lady Thrawn.”
“Captain,” Thrawn replied evenly. “You have not yet formally met my son.”
“Well, he looks exactly like you sir,” Pellaeon said with surprising softness, “with his mother’s smile.”
(C/N) blinked up at the captain with the solemn concentration infants occasionally possessed, one tiny hand still curled stubbornly into the front of Thrawn’s white uniform. For a moment, Pellaeon seemed genuinely uncertain whether he was permitted to smile at the child and he did anyway.
“A dangerous combination,” he added dryly.
“The fleet survives many dangerous things,” Thrawn replied calmly.
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said. “Though I suspect this one may prove considerably more difficult.”
(Y/N) laughed softly.
Pellaeon’s eyes shifted briefly toward her then.
“I was pleased to hear the star chart reached you safely after the wedding, Lady Thrawn.”
“It did,” she said warmly. “I appreciated it very much.Thank you.”
“It was a chart of the outer rim,” Pellaeon explained to the child very seriously, as though (C/N) were capable of understanding. “Your father is deeply offended when people gift him things that are inaccurate.”
She allowed her son to play with his father’s rank for a moment before being sucked back into reality.
“I apologize,” she said quietly after a moment. “I do not believe I will remain much longer tonight.”
Thrawn’s eyes shifted immediately back toward her face.
“You are unwell?”
“Only tired,” she said carefully. “The day was… extensive.”
“Entirely understandable, my lady,” Pellaeon said as he immediately straightened.
Thrawn continued watching her for a moment longer than necessary, as though trying to determine whether exhaustion was truly all that troubled her.
The attention unsettled her, causing goosebumps to crawl upon her skin.
(C/N) made another small restless sound against her shoulder. She adjusted him carefully, brushing her lips once against the soft blue skin near his temple. The child’s eyes were already beginning to close.
“You should take him back to the residence,” Thrawn said.
“Yes,” she admitted softly. “I think I should.”
“You did well today,” he said again, more quietly this time.
“Thank you.”
“I will return after the reception concludes,” he said.
“I will wait up for you,” she said quietly.
Then he leaned down once more and pressed another brief kiss against her cheek, perfectly appropriate beneath the watching eyes of officers and governors nearby. But his hand lingered lightly at her waist for half a second too long.
In her quarters, she sat for a moment. Not for long, but long enough for it to feel long. She sat on the bed, while holding her son who was too young to ever understand what she was about to do, and who he was born to. She looked out the window, out to the fields of grey.
‘If we do not get to him, then they will get to us,’ she thought to herself.
Pressing a soft kiss to her son’s forehead, she inhaled his sweet, innocent scent, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. How had she allowed her heart to become so desperately tangled up in the enemy? Thrawn was a conqueror, a brilliant and ruthless architect of Imperial dominance, yet in the quiet dark of their quarters, he had become her sanctuary. His touch, his rare but profound tenderness, and the fierce, protective way he held their family had cracked her defenses until she was completely undone. Loving him was a beautiful tragedy.
And now, she was going to break him.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into her son's soft hair, the words meant entirely for the father who wasn't there to hear them. "I'm so sorry."
Gently, she laid the sleeping boy down in his crib, her hand lingering on his small blanket for one final, steadying heartbeat. When she pulled away, the warmth of her domestic life vanished.
“Uiona will be here soon,” she said, kissing him one last time as the door chimed three times. But three was not the number of Uiona, it was the number of Irtur.
She pressed the button to let him in, allowing the door to slide open.
He stepped inside wearing dark civilian clothing instead of formal diplomatic attire, the coat fitted close enough to conceal weapons beneath it.
“We need to move now,” he spoke in the darkness of the room.
“Has something changed?”
“Security rotation shifted earlier than expected. We have less time.”
Irtur reached slowly beneath his coat and withdrew a blaster wrapped in dark cloth. He stepped closer and placed the wrapped weapon carefully into her hands.
“This does not mean I enjoy bringing you.”
“You think I enjoy coming?”
“You look frightened,” Irtur observed quietly.
“I am frightened.”
“Good,” he said. “Fear keeps people alive.”
“If Thrawn discovers this tonight,” she said, “I do not know what survives afterward.”
“Then let us ensure he does not.”
Clad in garments of deepest shadow, she hoisted the blaster on her belt and they snuck into the corridor, being mindful of the cameras and roaming droids that operated at an hour where everyone was partying.
Together, they descended toward the lower transport hangars where the speeder waited in darkness. The speeder cut silently through the sleeping sectors of the capital while Fete Week celebrations continued somewhere behind them in distant bursts of light and music.
(Y/N) sat rigidly in the passenger seat with every patrol speeder making her jump and every glimpse of stormtroopers at intersections tightened something painfully inside her chest. Lothal at night felt different from Coruscant. Cleaner. Wider. The white stone buildings rose high beneath the moonlight while banners bearing Imperial insignia shifted softly in the wind between towers.
Irtur drove one handed with infuriating calm.
“You are gripping the seat hard enough to damage it,” he observed.
“I am considering throwing myself from the speeder.”
“That would complicate the evening.”
“You brought me to a prison break.”
“You volunteered.”
“I was emotional.”
“You are always emotional.”
She glared at him while Irtur smiled faintly and took another turn sharply enough to force her against the door.
“You drive like a criminal.”
“I am a criminal.”
As they journeyed onward, the fair face of the city began to alter, fading as they left behind the high and luminous citadels of the central lands. Here, the golden garlands of the Fete Week grew thin and ceased to shine. In their speeder, no joy was found, but only the cold, unblinking glare of stormtroopers who carefully walked in their formations.
Eventually the prison complex emerged in the distance.
(Y/N) watched as Irtur slowed the speeder several blocks away in a narrow maintenance sector partially hidden beneath elevated transit lines. He killed the engine and for one frightening moment neither of them moved.
“You can still remain here.”
“And let you get yourself shot alone? Absolutely not.”
A faint grin touched his mouth.
“There she is.”
Together they exited the speeder and moved quickly into the shadows between buildings. Her boots struck metal walkways softly while cold night air swept through the narrow industrial corridors. They reached the rear maintenance district bordering the outer prison infrastructure. Here the walls connected to adjoining service buildings and elevated energy conduits that stretched overhead between sectors. Irtur stopped beside one of the narrow maintenance towers and looked upward.
“We climb from here.”
(Y/N) stared up the side of the building. He began climbing before she could say anything, leaving her below him. Swearing quietly beneath her breath, she followed. The cold iron of the high tower bit deep into her hands as she clung to its steep flank, while far below, the dizzying abysses of the city stretched out like a grey and bottomless sea. With every cubit they won upward into the dark air, the tide of her heart thundered louder against her ribs.
“You are doing wonderfully,” he said.
“If I die, I am haunting you.”
“You would be unbearable as a ghost.”
They finally hauled themselves onto the rooftop breathing hard. From here the prison stood terrifyingly close. Searchlights swept rhythmically across adjoining rooftops while cameras rotated along mounted security rails. (Y/N) crouched immediately behind a ventilation structure. Irtur peered across the gap between buildings calmly.
“Yes, this part is unpleasant,” he noted.
A surveillance camera rotated slowly toward them. Without hesitation Irtur picked up a loose piece of metal piping from the rooftop and hurled it. The pipe struck the camera with a sharp crack. Sparks burst instantly and the lens went dark.
(Y/N) placed both her hands over her mouth and then turned sharply to Irtur.
“You cannot simply do that to Imperial surveillance equipment!”
“Come,” he whispered, already moving again. “Before someone notices.”
(Y/N) looked down once and immediately regretted it. Searchlights swept slowly across the prison walls below them. Every movement felt deafening. Every breath too loud. Irtur crouched near the edge of the rooftop and examined the adjoining structure carefully.
“There,” he said quietly, pointing toward a maintenance access panel partially concealed behind cooling conduits. “That connects to the secondary security corridors.”
“And how exactly do we reach it?”
“We climb.”
“I thought you hated climbing, remember Nar Shaddaa?”
“I do hate climbing,” Irtur informed her immediately. “I have always hated climbing. Revolutions should occur horizontally.”
They crossed the narrow service bridge one careful step at a time while cold wind moved violently between the buildings. The prison walls towered around them now, pale stone and dark steel lit harshly by rotating floodlights. Below them, patrol officers moved through lower courtyards completely unaware that two idiots were currently climbing into an Imperial detention complex above their heads.
(Y/N)’s hand was trembling again. They finally reached the maintenance structure attached directly to the prison exterior. Irtur eyed the vent system with immediate disgust.
“No.”
“What?” (Y/N) asked.
“I refuse.”
“You refuse what?” (Y/N) asked again.
“The vents.”
“You brought us to a prison break and your moral boundary is ventilation?”
“I am not crawling through industrial ductwork like some sort of underpaid spy holo character.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“I have dignity.”
She covered her mouth briefly to stop herself from laughing too loudly. He examined the wall again before visibly relaxing.
“Thank the gods,” he muttered. “We do not need to.”
He pointed toward a partially unsecured maintenance hatch built into the side of the structure beneath one of the energy relay systems.
“Service access.”
“That seems almost suspiciously convenient.”
“Most Imperial architecture is designed by people who assume nobody would be stupid enough to climb the exterior walls.”
“That feels insulting.”
“It should.”
Irtur knelt beside the hatch and produced a thin slicing tool from inside his coat. Sparks flickered softly as he bypassed the locking mechanism. (Y/N) kept watch nervously behind him, every distant footstep making her pulse spike.
“How much longer?” she whispered.
“Patience.”
A final spark burst from the panel, then the hatch slid open with a soft hiss. Darkness awaited them below. As cold recycled air drifted upward from the access shaft beneath them.Irtur peered down into it.
“Well,” he said quietly, “this feels deeply illegal.”
“You think?”
“Mm. It has atmosphere.”
Then they climbed down into the prison. The shaft opened into a narrow maintenance corridor lined with exposed piping and dim emergency lights. The moment her boots touched the floor, (Y/N) exhaled shakily.
“You see?” Irtur whispered behind her while resealing the hatch above them. “Much better than vents.”
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At nearly the same hour, the rooms of the Imperial quarters remained wrapped in a deep and heavy silence.
Thrawn entered their private chambers without ceremony, the doors slid shut behind him with a muted hiss. The room was dim except for the pale city glow filtering through the long windows.
He expected to find her sleeping as she claimed she had retired to do, but instead the bed was empty.
His gaze moved across the room once before he stepped further inside.
“(Y/N)?”
But no answer was given, only silence, heavy as the emptiness that lay between the sheets.
His eyes settled briefly on the vanity where several jewelry pieces from the evening had been discarded carelessly beside a brush. Then he noticed the gown. The ceremonial dress she had worn during the parade and reception had been left draped across the chaise near the window, abandoned in visible haste rather than properly stored by attendants.
He approached it slowly.
For a moment he simply looked at it.
The silver embroidery caught the dim light softly. One sleeve had slipped partially onto the floor while the fabric still held the faint shape of where it had rested against her body hours earlier. Thrawn reached down and lifted part of the gown carefully between his fingers. The fabric was still warm, but not from her skin.
Thrawn looked briefly toward the windows. Then back toward the empty room. Slowly, he folded the gown neatly over his armchair instead of summoning attendants to collect it.
For the first time in that dark night, a shadow cold and unbidden crept into the hidden chambers of Thrawn’s heart, bringing with it a sudden and strange misgiving.
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The corridor hummed softly with machinery. Somewhere deeper within the structure alarms chirped intermittently while detention systems cycled through their endless automated routines. Straightway, a great sickness fell upon her; the solid floor beneath her feet seemed to tilt and sway like a ship in an evil sea, and the heavy air choked her throat as if the very walls were leaning in to crush her. For a terrible shadow from years gone by rushed back to claim her mind. Fourteen long and bitter months she had spent entombed within just such an Imperial abyss, where the sun was forgotten and the days were measured only in torment. The phantom chains of that ancient captivity seemed to bind her limbs anew, and the iron walls whispered of old despair, threatening to drown her spirit in the dark waters of remembrance.
Irtur pulled the folded datapad from inside his coat and activated the dim projection of the prison schematics she had helped piece together from memory and stolen authorization glimpses. It pulled her out of her sweeping sickness when he called her name a few, bringing her back to the current.
“Aurek-17 detention wing,” he murmured softly into the gloom, “Northern interior block.”
“That’s three levels below us,” she said, her voice strained.
“Yes.”
“You neglected to mention that as well.”
“You were already unhappy.”
With wary steps they crept along the shadow-bound passageway, their steps falling as light as ash upon the iron floor. At every turning of the way, a sudden dread seized her body, and each distant murmur of speech smote her breast like a lightsaber. At one intersection they froze completely as two officers passed through the adjoining hall laughing quietly about Fete Week celebrations above the city. (Y/N)’s hand instinctively found the blaster beneath her cloak.
As the officers disappeared in their walk, she looked down at her left hand and only then did she notice its tremor.
“This was easier in my imagination,” she whispered once they continued moving.
“That is because your imagination is optimistic.”
“I am beginning to understand why rebellions fail.”
“Mostly logistics.”
They descended two maintenance stairwells successfully before reaching the first secured interior checkpoint. A narrow blast door blocked the corridor ahead while a security terminal glowed softly beside it.
The access panel was revealed, the code she had memorized.
“This is my part,” she said to Irtur, walking towards the panel. She used her right hand to punch in the code she had memorized only some hours ago.
For one terrible heartbeat, Lothal hung in an awful stillness, and nothing stirred. Then, with a sudden, sharp clang of iron:
‘ACCESS ACCEPTED.’
The great barrier of steel slid back, and the dark way lay open before them. They stepped in, the iron of her blaster was the only light. She looked around and saw cells lining the walls behind reinforced energy barriers. Some prisoners found slumber, while others watched silently from the shadows.
(Y/N) kept her hood lowered and her eyes forward until they came upon a familiar face down the hall, sleeping.
The young Lord Gret Virex sat inside beneath dim light, bruised heavily but alive.
For now.
Then the muffled voice of a Stormtrooper called…
“Hey!”
Two stormtroopers rounded the corner instantly, white armor catching the dim prison lights as their rifles lifted toward them. Everything happened too quickly afterward.
“Hands where we can…”
(Y/N) fired first with the recoil jolting her arm violently.
The blaster bolt struck the nearest trooper directly through the chestplate with a violent burst of sparks. The soldier collapsed backward against the wall hard enough to rattle the corridor.
The second trooper swung his rifle upward…
Irtur shot him. Inside the cell, Gret was now stared through the energy barrier at her with exhausted disbelief.
(Y/N) looked physically ill.
“If you wish to survive the next five minutes, I recommend emotionally processing it later,” Irtur said, moving to Gret’s cell panel, ready to fire again.
A warning light suddenly flashed red across the terminal.
Irtur cursed under his breath in Batonnese.
“What?”
“They initiated a secondary lock.”
“Oh, excellent.”
“Your sarcasm is becoming stressful.”
Behind them, one of the fallen troopers’ comm units crackled faintly to life.
“North corridor unit, report status.”
Then:
“North corridor unit, respond immediately.”
And suddenly the prison alarms erupted into a deafening sound. A fierce and bloody light flooded the long corridors in an instant, as though the very walls had run red with the wrath of the enemy.
Irtur swore under his breath while trying to override the final detention lock manually, sparks flickering from the terminal.
“It’s freezing the release sequence.”
“We do not have time for this,” (Y/N) snapped.
“No, really?”
Another voice crackled across the stormtrooper comlink somewhere down the corridor:
“Containment breach reported in Aurek sector. Respond immediately.”
Heavy footsteps echoed faintly in the distance as (Y/N)’s pulse hammered painfully in her throat.
“Move,” she said suddenly as she shoved past him toward the terminal, mind racing through the authorization patterns she had memorized days earlier.
Her trembling fingers moved across the controls.
“(Y/N)...”
“I know.”
The terminal flashed red once, then it became green.
‘ACCESS ACCEPTED.’
The energy field around Gret’s cell flickered violently before disappearing entirely with a sharp electrical hiss. The silence afterward lasted less than a second as it was time to now do what they had came to do.
“We need to be quick,” (Y/N) said to Irtur, for some reassurance.
Gret remained seated. He looked terrible with bruising darkening one side of his face while dried blood stained the collar of his prison uniform. His eyes remained sharp however as he watched them intensely.
Slowly, she raised the blaster toward him.
“Get up,” she ordered quietly.
Gret stared at her for a long moment, then he laughed.
“Oh,” Gret said proudly. “I already told them everything.”
“What?” (Y/N) questioned as she went completely still.
“They were very persuasive.”
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
“Am I?” His eyes moved over her dark clothing, “Look at you. You arrive in a Grand Admiral’s residence ship. Wrapped in Imperial silk. Carrying Imperial clearance codes. You are no queen.”
Irtur moved toward him but Gret continued over him now, years of bitterness spilling out violently, “No Veil of Batonn. No daughter of the palace. You are weak. You married them. You sleep beside them while our people disappear into prisons like this one. You bred with them.”
“Enough,” Irtur said dangerously, but Gret’s eyes remained fixed on her.
“You stand there wearing their power and pretend you still belong to Batonn?” His laugh was ugly now. “You are an Imperial wife playing at rebellion because guilt finally became inconvenient.”
The blaster shook visibly in her hand.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m saying.” Gret stepped closer slowly despite the weapon pointed at him. “And the saddest part?”
His voice was sharper now, filled with hate and demons.
“You are not even strong enough to shoot me.”
As the noise of the alarm surrounded them, she pressed her blaster to his heart and then pulled the trigger, sending him back. He was cast backward into the blood red gloom, slain by the hand of his Queen.
Then, beneath the roaring of the red alarms that filled the hall, she raised the blaster unto her own head. Her (s/c) fingers trembled upon the trigger, and a great darkness fell upon her mind.
‘What madness has fallen upon my mind? I have a son, I have (C/N) who needs me,’ she thought. Yet another thought, older and more bitter, rose up from the depths of her fourteen months of torment to answer it. ‘My spirit was slain long ago in the dept of the Empire. I am already dead, and Gret has sealed my fate.’
Then Irtur pointed the blaster to the wall, away from her head.
“(Y/N) are you mad?” He screamed at her. “We have to go.”
“I just executed him.”
“Yes.”
“I just…”
Heavy footsteps thundered somewhere nearby, causing Irtur to grab her hand.
“Move.”
And together they ran, breaking her paralysis. The detention corridor exploded into motion around them as security doors began sealing throughout the prison complex. Red emergency lights flashed overhead while stormtrooper voices barked through distorted intercom systems.
“Containment breach in Aurek sector!”
“Seal the north stairwell!”
“Find them!”
(Y/N)’s breathing came ragged now as they sprinted through the corridor. A blaster bolt suddenly struck the wall beside them. Stormtroopers rounded the far end of the corridor.
“There!”
Irtur fired instantly.
Red, white sparks burst from armored chestplates as one trooper collapsed. The second opened fire wildly down the hall. (Y/N) ducked instinctively behind the corner as a blast nearly struck her shoulder. Irtur grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward an adjoining maintenance corridor before more troops could reach them.
The prison had become chaos now.
They forced through a narrow service hall barely wide enough for both of them while emergency lighting flickered overhead. Behind them, voices grew louder.
“They’re heading toward the maintenance sectors!”
“They cannot reach the exterior!”
Irtur laughed once under his breath.
“That feels optimistic.”
“You are enjoying this entirely too much!”
“No, I’m panicking elegantly.”
They reached the maintenance shaft again breathless and sweating. Above them, the hatch still waited open toward the rooftops.
“Climb,” Irtur ordered.
Her muscles screamed in protest as she hauled herself upward onto the ladder. Below them, blaster fire erupted again somewhere nearby. They had seconds at most as (Y/N) reached the rooftop first and nearly collapsed against the cold surface while wind tore violently across the buildings. Lothal spread beneath them in glittering white lights completely unaware of the violence erupting inside the prison walls. Irtur climbed up after her and resealed the hatch immediately.
Then searchlights swept suddenly across the rooftops.
“Oh no.”
A security siren erupted from the tower above them.
“They’ve spotted movement!”
“Run,” Irtur said calmly.
“THAT IS YOUR PLAN?”
“It is currently the best available plan!”
They sprinted across the rooftops while floodlights chased behind them. Blaster fire cracked through the night air. One bolt struck the rooftop beside her feet hard enough to shower sparks upward. (Y/N) nearly slipped. Irtur caught her again instinctively. They crossed the service bridge at nearly a run now while alarms consumed the entire district behind them. Below, prison personnel flooded into the courtyards. Above, Lothal’s festival fireworks suddenly burst across the sky in brilliant white and gold.For one surreal moment the city celebrated while two fugitives fled murder beneath the light of Imperial banners. Irtur finally dragged her into a narrow alley between two closed market buildings several districts away from the prison perimeter.
She bent forward immediately, bracing both hands against the wall as she fought to breathe. Beads of sweat now dampened the stray tresses of her hair, which had fallen in disarray from the braided splendor ordered for the parade. The dark mantle of her disguise hid much from the eye, yet no longer did she bear any likeness to that tranquil Lady Thrawn from the parade.
Irtur moved toward the alley entrance and checked the street carefully before finally returning,“No patrols yet.”
“I did not want his last words about me to be true,” she admitted softly.
“He was dying,” Irtur said quietly. “Dying men often mistake pain for clarity.”
“I feel sick.”
“You should.”
In the far distance, the voices of children rose like a sweet and fleeting music, rejoicing in the high revels of the Fete Week.
“Listen to me carefully,” Irtur said as he crouched down in front of her. “The prison believes this was an extraction attempt gone wrong. Gret is dead. The troopers who saw us are dead. No one there should know it was you.”
“But Thrawn…”
“Yes,” Irtur interrupted softly. “Thrawn is the problem.”
“What if he looks at me and knows?”
“He already looks at you like he is solving something. We need to return before your absence becomes suspicious.”
As he pulled her upright, she looked once more toward the distant prison lights still flashing red against the night.
“How much,” she asked quietly, “do you think he told them?”
“He was held by the ISB for months,” he said carefully. “Interrogated repeatedly. Isolated.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“No,” he admitted. “It does not.”
“If he broke…” (Y/N) wrapped her arms around herself tightly as her voice faltered. “If he gave them names…”
“He likely did.”
“Then Batonn is already dead.”
“No.” Irtur stepped closer again, lowering his voice instinctively. “Listen to me. Information becomes less useful with time. Cells moved. Routes changed. People disappeared. We adapted after the arrests began.”
“And if they have more than that?”
“They probably do.”
“You are calm about this?”
“I am extraordinarily afraid,” he corrected. “I simply have practice carrying it.”
“I executed one of our own,” She said as they continued walking, now further into the city.
“You gave him the only death the Empire was not going to give him.”
After a long silence, (Y/N) spoke again.
“If Thrawn discovers this…”
“He will,” Irtur sighed quietly. “Perhaps not tonight. Perhaps not tomorrow. But men like him eventually notice missing pieces.”
“And when he does?”
“Then,” he said softly, “we pray whatever he feels for you remains stronger than whatever he feels for the Empire.”
(Y/N) and her fellow rebel collaborator, Irtur, secretly plot a prison extraction after discovering that the Empire is holding and interrogating a vital figure from their past. Thrawn confront her.
Masterlist, Part 29
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
On an unused terrace overlooking the vast plains of Lothal, stood Irtur overlooking the stone railing. The wind tugged gently at his coat and he did not turn when he heard footsteps behind him.
“You’re late,” he said without turning.
“You sound like Thrawn.”
“That is the cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
(Y/N) came to stand next to him, overlooking the same view he had been admiring since sunrise. Her smile vanished after a few seconds and she looked down into the cracks that somehow found themselves deeply situated into imperial perfection.
“What happened?” Irtur asked her, his expression deepening.
“I found the authorization rotation,” She muttered while looking at the stormtroopers who were stationed below them.
“The actual codes?”
“No. But I found the detention sector designation and the rotation cycle structure.” She lowered her voice further. “Aurek-17. Temporary transfer block. Rotating authorization every six hours through northern command.”
“How?”
“I wandered into one of the naval administration offices after the reception dinner. The lieutenant running logistics would not stop complaining.”
“That sounds stupidly reckless. You heard anything else?”
“They think rebels may attempt extraction already.” She hesitated briefly. “Thrawn knows the prisoner matters.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice tightened. “Enough to increase security personally.”
“We must move quickly. Perhaps after Fete week after all these stupid animals leave.”
(Y/N) played with her signet ring as she looked onto the grey abyss.
“This will go wrong. It is the nature of things here,” she sighed as her left hand started trembling. “There are too many imperials in this place for it not to go wrong.”
“You are risking everything.”
“So are you.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “But I chose this before I had anything left to lose.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment after that. (Y/N) let the wind talk for them, to blow a song that danced between both of them.
“We retrieve the prisoner,” he said calmly. “Then we decide what survives afterward.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then at least Batonn will know someone still tried.”
Now she looked at him sharply.
“Who is this prisoner anyway?”
For a long moment, Irtur said nothing. He intensely watched the fields below, fields he complained about only days ago. Then he spoke in a way that made a terrible feeling boil in her stomach.
“I told Clvtorig to handle it months ago.”
“Handle what?”
“To move him.”
“Irtur, what are you saying?”
“I thought he succeeded.”
The silence stretched too long. She simply stared at him, for she didn’t know what to do.
“It’s Gret,” he said after a long time.
“What?”
“It’s Gret Virex.”
“No,” she said immediately. “No, I thought you moved him off world after the northern camp operation. You told me he was safe.”
“He was supposed to be.”
“Then how is he in an Imperial prison?” Her shock turned into anger as she nearly lashed at him. Her face turned into a deep crimson and she gripped onto the railings.
“Clvtorig arranged transport through the Kestro shipping corridor. Quiet route. Unregistered civilian carrier. Gret was meant to disappear into the Mid Rim under a false identity,” Irtur said as he leaned back slightly, exhausted suddenly in a way she rarely saw.
“What happened?”
“The carrier never made rendezvous.”
“The pilot sold them out?”
“No. Worse.There was an inspection sweep two systems early. Completely random according to Imperial records, which means it probably wasn’t random at all.”
“And Clvtorig?”
“He tried to extract him during transfer. Failed.”
She pressed a hand slowly against her forehead and screamed, “Kriff!”
“The ISB buried the arrest quietly at first,” Irtur continued. “No public detention. No announcement. Then six weeks later they manufactured a financial terrorism charge tied to the bombing on Batonn.”
“They pinned the bombing entirely on Gret?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense. Half the evidence was destroyed.”
“The Empire does not require evidence,” Irtur said coldly. “Only narrative.”
“The public thinks they finally captured the architect of the bombing. And now they’re keeping him alive because they think he’ll break. If the ISB has had him this long…”
“They are already interrogating him.”
“And you still think we can extract him?”
“No,” he said honestly, “We are going there to prevent the Empire from learning what he knows.”
“But why are they holding him here, on Lothal?”
“Closest prison I assume.”
“I wish I could hit you over the head with a staff right now.”
“Many women have said that to me before.”
Two droids came to the door, making the noise droids made when their machinery moved agonist hardened floors. Irtur turned to them then made a face of disgust, he always hated droids, just as (Y/N) did.
“Let us go into town. It is too dangerous to speak openly here.”
She glanced instinctively toward the door leading deeper into the residence where Aiocletian slept under Uiona’s watchful care.
“I cannot leave for long.”
“You will not.” He said. “But I would rather speak beneath an open sky than inside an Imperial residence arranged by Grand Admiral Thrawn.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The speeder cut cleanly through the evening traffic lanes of Lothal’s capital. (Y/N) sat beside Irtur in silence at first, one hand gripping the edge of her cloak against the wind as the city unfolded around them in layers of white stone and glowing light.
Immaculate white towers loomed over them as she found herself gawking at architecture that moved too quickly.
White banners already hung between balconies for Fete Week. Strings of lights crossed the streets overhead in glowing arcs of gold and silver. Workers stood atop hovering platforms hanging imperial decorations that had been present on Coruscant.
As the speeder slowed near a plaza, she watched as children played around shops while stormtroopers stood idly at their post.
“In a few days,” she said softly as Irtur helped her from the speeder, “they’ll pass out my portrait in honour of the navy’s presence on this planet, and everyone will know my face.”
“They will,” Irtur said grimly.
She missed Batonn so badly she thought it might physically split her open.
The plaza around them glowed with warm evening light. Someone was roasting a native plant against a fire and selling them from his cart, the smell made her mouth water. It should have felt festive but instead it felt watched.
For a moment neither spoke.
“Do you even have blasters with you?” She asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“A concerning number.”
“Irtur,” She sighed as she stared at him in disbelief.
“What?”
“Do you have a weapons permit on Lothal?”
“No.”
She stopped walking outright.
“No?”
He looked genuinely confused by her reaction. “No.”
“You brought illegal weapons into an Imperial capital city?”
“Yes,” He answered as though it were obvious.
“You are unbelievable.”
“And you are suddenly very concerned with Imperial firearms regulations.”
“I am concerned because if they search you we both die.”
Irtur laughed softly under his breath as they continued down the crowded avenue.
“You care about this now?” he asked. “You, specifically?”
“Yes, because unlike you I currently have a child and a husband who commands an entire fleet.”
A group of children ran past them carrying little glowing lanterns shaped like Loth-cats. One nearly collided with her before hurrying away laughing. For a brief moment she watched them disappear into the crowd.
“How armed are you exactly?” She asked, stepping closer to him.
“One holdout blaster. One standard sidearm on me currently.Two knives.”
“You brought knives?”
“One knife is ceremonial.”
“That still leaves one illegal knife.”
“You are being extremely judgmental for a woman currently helping organize a prison assassination.”
They crossed deeper into the city together beneath the glowing festival lights while Imperial banners shifted overhead in the evening wind like something watching them move below.
By the time they returned toward the speeder platforms, the city had grown darker and brighter all at once. Music echoed from distant plazas while Imperial patrol speeders cut overhead through the traffic lanes.
“We should return,” (Y/N) said as she pulled her cloak tighter as Irtur unlocked the speeder. “It’s getting late.”
“We are not returning yet.”
“What?”
“I want to see the prison.”
Her head snapped toward him immediately, “You want to…what?”
“The detention complex.”
“No.”
“I need to understand the layout,” Irtur said as he climbed into the driver’s seat with infuriating calm.
“We are not driving to an Imperial prison complex at night.”
“Why not?”
“Because that is the sort of decision made by men shortly before execution.”
“We are only observing.”
“You are insane.”
“Frequently.”
“Irtur…”
“You worry too much.”
“And you do not worry enough.”
He glanced sideways at her with the faintest trace of amusement.
“Ugh, you are impossible,” she leaned against the door of the speeder, giving up.
“And yet remarkably charming.”
“You were more tolerable before the rebellion.”
“No I wasn’t.”
The city gradually changed around them as they moved farther away from its center. The decorative lights thinned first before the crowds did until the music chatter of the crowder did completely.
White civilian towers slowly gave way to grey Imperial structures reinforced with harsh floodlights and surveillance arrays. Security checkpoints appeared more frequently now, stormtroopers stationed at intersections beneath towering banners bearing the Imperial crest.
(Y/N)’s stomach tightened immediately.
“Irtur.”
“I see it.”
Ahead of them, the enormous walls of the detention center rose against the darkness. Even from this distance she could see the security towers.
“Turn around,” she said instantly.
“We’re too close now.”
“That is exactly why we should leave.
He slowed the speeder slightly near one of the outer service lanes, and then she noticed the blue security lights ignited behind them. An Imperial patrol vehicle descended sharply into the lane ahead, blocking the path forward. Stormtroopers emerged first before Agent Kallus did.
(Y/N) felt cold instantly.
Kallus approached the speeder with controlled professionalism, one hand resting near his weapon while two stormtroopers moved toward either side of the vehicle.
And Irtur had an illegal blaster under his coat, her pulse began hammering immediately.
“Agent Kallus,” she said smoothly. “We made a wrong turn. We will be on our way.”
Kallus looked from her to Irtur slowly.
“Lady Thrawn,” he said politely, which somehow made him seem more frightening. “This area is restricted after the twentieth hour.”
“Yes,” she said. “Which we realized somewhat late.”
One of the stormtroopers moved closer toward the rear storage compartment.
Irtur, unbelievably, smiled while (Y/N)’s stomach dropped.
“Very dramatic district you have here, Agent. I was beginning to think Lothal simply decorated everything in white stone and banners.”
“Ambassador Irtur,” Kallus said as his eyes shifted toward him.
“I assume this means we’ve stumbled somewhere unpleasant.”
“You’ve stumbled near a military detention complex.”
“Ah,” Irtur said pleasantly. “There it is.”
(Y/N) wanted to strangle him while the second stormtrooper circled slowly along the side of the speeder now, flashlight scanning the interior.
Kallus looked back toward her again.
“Does the Grand Admiral know you are out this evening?”
“I am a Senator on a diplomatic mission,” she said evenly, forcing herself not to tense. “I was unaware I required permission to observe the city.”
“No,” Kallus said calmly. “Though the Grand Admiral is generally informed of matters concerning household security.”
The stormtrooper near the rear compartment paused and for one horrifying second she thought he was about to open it.
“You know,” Irtur said conversationally to Kallus, with one arm leaning the steering controls, “where I come from, this is considered an extremely poor method of impressing a woman.”
(Y/N) nearly closed her eyes.
Kallus stared at him for a long moment.
“One wrong turn, Ambassador.”
His voice sharpened slightly.
“Do not make another.”
The stormtroopers stepped back and Kallus moved aside from the lane. (Y/N) nodded immediately and sunk into her seat and her hand stopped trembling.
“Of course, Agent,” Irtur inclined his head lazily. “An unforgettable evening.”
Kallus did not smile. The speeder lifted again almost immediately. Only once they had cleared three full blocks did she finally turn toward Irtur in absolute fury.
“You are never speaking again.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
By the time she returned to the residence, the halls had gone quiet and most of its staff had retired for the evening.
(Y/N) entered her room slowly, removing her prosthetic before running the water for a bath. She covered her body in the warm water, baptizing herself in the filtered, imperial water. When she was done, she tied on her white nightdress and sat at the vanity and sat down heavily before the mirror. For several seconds she simply stared at herself without moving.
She reached for her brush and made long strokes in a repetitive motion because it kept her breathing even.
Behind her, the door opened softly.
She saw his reflection before she turned. It was Thrawn, who entered wearing his white uniform. Though the upper collar had been loosened slightly in the rare concession to exhaustion he allowed himself in private.
His eyes settled on her immediately.
“You returned late.”
It was not accusation, at least not yet.
“Yes,” she said as she continued brushing her hair. “The city was crowded.”
Thrawn remained standing near the doorway a moment longer than necessary, watching her. There were times she thought his intelligence itself was the most dangerous thing about him. Not because he demanded answers, but because he noticed absences. Inconsistencies. The shape around a lie rather than the lie itself.
“You are unsettled.”
“No.”
“Something occurred.”
“We made a wrong turn near one of the military districts. Agent Kallus stopped us briefly.” She said as her grip tightened slightly on the brush before relaxing again.
“And?”
“And nothing.” She forced herself to sound amused. “Ambassador Irtur irritated him enormously and we were sent away.”
“That does sound probable.”
Thrawn stepped closer then, setting a datapad carefully atop the vanity beside her, causing her to look down. It was a proof of the Fête Week publication flyer. There was a heavy white print stock embossed with the Imperial crest in silver that decorated the publication with the words: ‘OUTER RIM STABILITY CELEBRATION WEEK’ gracing the top.
Below it were arranged portraits of senior Imperial leadership assigned throughout nearby sectors. The cold faces of Moffs, Admirals and Governors were printed on the publication along with theirs. Their portrait, for the whole galaxy to see.
Her stomach turned. Their child looked so small and happy while she looked so calm and content. Almost as though none of the galaxy’s horrors had touched them.
“It will be distributed throughout the capital during the military procession,” Thrawn said evenly. “As well as through sector publications.”
The Empire had turned them into architecture, a family constructed carefully enough to reassure entire systems. She hated how perfect and unbothered she looked, as though she were displayed next to her husband as some sort of reward.
Her hand started to tremor again, silently but knowingly.
“I will keep it with me, thank you,” (Y/N) replied, giving him a false smile that he could see right through.
Thrawn remained still for a moment behind her before speaking:
“You are afraid,” he said simply with his words landing harder than she expected them to. She set the brush down before he could see the slight worsening of the tremor in her hand. “You dislike being visible.”
“Yes,” she bit her lip “but I also dislike being owned.”
“The distinction matters to you.”
“It matters very much.”
She rose from the vanity then, needing movement suddenly. The flyer remained in her hand, the heavy Imperial paper bending slightly beneath her grip. Behind her, Thrawn remained silent long enough for her to know he was thinking carefully.
“You are displayed because you stabilize perception.”
“There are moments,” she said softly, “where the Empire feels less like a government and more like a machine that consumes meaning.”
“Regardless of the institution utilizing the portrait,” he said, “the child in this image is still your son.”
Her eyes lowered instinctively toward the flyer. Towards (c/n) who was still so small and skin so tender. His red eyes bright even in the carefully softened portrait lighting. One tiny blue hand curled against the fabric of her sleeve. Slowly, she reached out and touched the image with the tips of her fingers.Suddenly the fear beneath everything rose sharply enough to speak aloud.
“What happens to him,” she asked, “when he comes of age?”
“He will be educated appropriately,” Thrawn’s expression did not change as he spoke.
“That sounds Imperial.”
“It is Imperial.”
“Will they expect him to serve?”
“Yes.”
“The Navy?”
“If he is capable.”
“And if he does not want that?”
“Choice will always exist within limitations.”
Her fingers tightened against the portrait.
“I do not wish this for him,” she began to say after being silent for some moment, as though time would pass but would leave her in the present “It frightens me.”
Thrawn stepped closer behind her. His hand settled carefully at her waist, slow enough that she could have stepped away if she wished. She did not.
“You believe the Empire will take him from you.”
“I believe power consumes everything eventually.”
“And yet you remain beside it.”
“I have no choice.”
“No,” he said “Neither of us were given many.”
The room fell still again. His hand remained at her waist, steady and warm through the fabric of her gown.Then his voice changed slightly, more precise.
“You must also exercise greater caution moving forward.”
“With what?”
“I do not know what occurred on Nar Shaddaa,” he said evenly, “but whatever involvement you had there attracted attention.”
She looked at her finger, at the absence of her finger.
“I was under the impression my activities there were thoroughly documented through the Senate,” she replied carefully.
“Your official activities were,” His fingers tightened once at her waist before relaxing again. “You are no longer positioned to survive scrutiny as easily as before. You are now publicly associated with my household. More importantly, you are the mother of my son.”
“You speak as though I’ve become fragile,” she said quietly.
“No,” he corrected. “Valuable.”
“You should not protect me,” she whispered.
“And yet I continue doing so.”
His hand slid slowly up her back, drawing her closer against him. She felt him exhale softly against her mouth, controlled even now, though she had begun to recognize the small failures in that control.
“You are trembling again,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“Fear?”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Yes,” she whispered.
But not the kind he assumed.
She looked at him for a long moment before leaning forward and kissing him again with guilt following immediately after. Affection and deception intertwined so tightly she could no longer separate them cleanly inside herself. She wondered right now, in this very moment, if he could feel it somehow. Her apology, laid in with every touch.
But if he did, he said nothing.
He pulled away gently and caressed her hair.
“You are troubled tonight,” he murmured.
“I am always troubled.”
“Yes,” he said softly. “But not always like this.”
Her fingers tightened slightly against the front of his uniform.
“I think that somewhere in another life we could have been happy without all of this.”
“Perhaps,” he said with an answer that hurt more than disagreement would have.
She kissed him more harshly this time, leading him to sit on the grey sofa as it was closer than the bed was. She could only look at him as she breathed in the air of the room which was thick from the suffocating remnants of their discussion.
She felt like a traitor to her own morals, a collaborator in her own bed. And yet, the guilt only served to heighten the arousal, turning the shame into a sharp, electric current that pooled between her thighs. It was so wrong that it felt inevitable.
Thrawn’s hand slid into her hair, tilting her head back to expose the line of her throat. He kissed her sensitive skin and spoke into her tenderness.
"I can feel your conflict, your resentment."
"Yes," she gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders.
"And yet," he whispered, his hand sliding down to grip her thigh, pulling her leg high over his hip, "you continue moving towards me despite it."
Thrawn didn't wait for an answer. He reached down, his fingers hooking into the lace of her undergarments and ripping them aside with a single, decisive tug.
He then shifted himself as he slid down his trousers to free himself, not allowing her anytime to adjust. He guided himself to her entrance as she laid on her back, awaiting him, wanting him. As he pushed inside her in one deep, unrelenting thrust, she let out a strangled cry.
“You hate what I represent,” he said quietly, one hand steady at her waist. “And still you came back to me.”
She tried to look away, but his fingers tilted her chin back toward him.
“Do you know what fascinates me?” he murmured. “Not your anger. Anger is predictable. It’s that you continue choosing proximity despite it.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“The Empire took your world,” he said. “And yet here you are, in my quarters, wearing my name.”
“You want me to feel guilty?”
“No,” he replied evenly. “I want you to examine why guilt has failed to stop you.”
He used his free hand to grip onto her neck, forcing her to look at him while he continued thrusting into her, forcing her to surrender.
“Look at me!” he ordered, his red eyes the only light in the room. “Yet I find myself wanting to help you. There is something about you that I am drawn to.”
The sensation was overwhelming, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her. With every wet slide of his shaft, she felt her of him betrayal deepen. The wrongness of it was an aphrodisiac, a dark fuel that made her cling around him in desperate, rhythmic pulses.
The sofa creaked under their combined weight. He continued to claim her, slamming into her harshly, making her arch her back to adjust to him.
He gripped her waist, his fingers bruising her skin, and began to drive into her with primal power.
(Y/N) felt his orgasm building as he quickened his pace. With a final, deep plunge that seemed to pin her to the cushions, he let out a low, guttural roar, his body stiffening as he released inside her. He poured his seed into her. They remained locked together, chests heaving, sweat-slicked skin clinging. The silence returned, but it was different now, more knowing and more hurting.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Morning greeted her as it always did to those who did not belong. The sun arose unhurried behind the eastern crests, lifting a pale veil of mist from the shoulders of the grey fields, yet it brought little comfort to her heart. To the dwellers of Lothal, the dawn was a token of enduring life; but to a woman far from the hearths of her own planet, it was merely the turning of a page in an endless book of what seemed to be confinement.
(Y/N) stood before the mirror while attendants finished the final arrangements of her clothing. For the tenth time in ten minutes she adjusted the rings on her fingers.
“You have already fixed those nine times,” Uiona observed.
“I know.”
“You are nervous.”
“Yes.”
A soft chime sounded at the door as footsteps that were all too familiar to her were heard entering the room. Her pulse tightened as she turned to face Thrawn. He was in his white uniform with his medals aligned perfectly, and his uniform as crisp as the morning.
Neither of them spoke for a moment, as she allowed for his eyes to roam over her.
“You are late,” he said finally.
Uiona bowed her head once and quietly withdrew from the room with the attendants, leaving them alone.
“I am exactly on time.”
“You are three minutes behind schedule.”
“That still qualifies as on time for most species.”
“The Empire is not most species.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve noticed.”
His gaze moved over her again with slow precision. Not improperly, but in the way he allowed his attention to focus on a specific thing. The gown had been chosen carefully for the occasion. It was a political symbol that portrayed her as.
The wife of a Grand Admiral.
The surviving queen of Batonn.
The mother of the Empire’s newest carefully crafted image.
“You must remain composed today,” he said calmly. “There will be considerable observation.”
“And if I fail at being the perfect Imperial wife?”
Thrawn reached toward her then, adjusting one of the silver fastenings near her shoulder with careful fingers.
“You will not.”
His hand paused briefly against the fabric near her collarbone before falling away again while the certainty in his voice unsettled her.
He came to stand in front of her, with his eyes trailing to her lips. The air between them shifted into something more warm.
“You should not look at me like that before a public ceremony,” (Y/N) murmured.
“How am I looking at you?”
“As though you remember I am your wife and not merely useful to the Empire.”
“You are both,” he said.
She looked down briefly, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from her gloves just to steady herself.
“You should get going or you will be late, Grand Admiral.”
“You are the only interruption I do not resent.”
Her breath caught slightly.
“You are making this difficult.”
“I disagree,” he said, using his thumb to brush her cheekbone lightly. Then he leaned down and kissed her. When he pulled back, his forehead rested briefly against hers. “You will do well today,” he said softly.
“So will you.”
Then the Grand Admiral straightened once more into military perfection, composure sliding back over him like armor.
“The procession begins in eleven minutes,” he said.
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(Y/N) navigates the suffocating performative domesticity of an Imperial portrait session while simultaneously conspiring against her husband. After a night of intimacy and guilt, she risks everything to secure the location of a high value prisoner for the rebellion and Batonn.
Masterlist, Part 28
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She stood near the mirror while one of the attendants finished fastening the deep blue outer layer of her gown. Uiona announced Irtur before he fully entered her room.
“Ambassador Irtur to see you, Your Majesty.”
Irtur stepped inside still wearing a coat from the morning cold outside the administrative district. His eyes moved over her once, then narrowed slightly with immediate suspicion.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Something certainly happened during training."
“I have no idea what you mean, ” (Y/N) said, nearly dropping the clasp she was fastening.
“That is a lie of catastrophic quality.”
One of the attendants immediately found an excuse to leave the room. Irtur watched her expression for another second and then looked genuinely delighted.
“Very well.” He lifted both hands in surrender though he was still visibly enjoying himself far too much. Then, slowly, the amusement faded from his face. “There is another matter. I’ll do it.”
“What?”
“Gret.” His voice remained calm now. Steady. “I will handle it myself.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You should not have to carry that.”
“And neither should you.”
(Y/N) looked away towards her son’s crib, the words landing and settling in the room. Lord Virex and his lady will lose a son due to the bombing that was caused because of them. He will die to keep the secret, a secret that allowed many people to become liberated from the northern territories mining camp.
“He trusted us,” she whispered.
“He was already dead the moment the ISB began circling him.” Irtur removed his coat as he spoke. “There are some burdens a kingdom places upon its servants whether they wish to bear them or not. Better that the blade fall from the hand of someone who loved Batonn than from the hands of the Empire as my father would’ve said.”
“I keep thinking,” she admitted softly, “that if I had not brought him into this…”
“We gave him purpose,” Irtur interrupted gently. “And dignity. There are worse ends than dying in service to your people.”
“That sounds very noble when you say it.”
“It is easier to speak nobly about tragedy before it belongs to you personally.”
“When it is done,” she said, “I will arrange for his funeral rites to be held in the palace on Batonn.”
Irtur looked at her carefully, “The old palace?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The Imperials will object.”
“They object to everything.”
A faint smile touched his face, “That they do.”
“The young lord Gret deserves to go home,” she walked over to her child and gave him her finger to latch onto. “It is the least I can give him now.”
Irtur bowed his head once in quiet agreement.
“Another thing if I may, (Y/N).”
“Yes, go on.”
Irtur glanced once toward the closed doors before speaking lower, “There is a prisoner being held on Lothal.”
Her expression hardened instantly, “What kind of prisoner?”
“The important kind.”
“Who are they?”
“A Batonnese intelligence courier,” he said quietly. “Captured three months ago near the Kestro mining routes. Clvtorig believes the prisoner has information regarding several hidden imperial cells operating in the northern territories.”
“And they’re here? On Lothal?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because people still loyal to Batonn continue risking their lives to tell us things and he was working with the rebels here.”
“Where are they being held?”
“A temporary detention site near the Imperial district.”
“This is very dangerous and there are stormtroopers everywhere on this planet.”
“Yes.”
“You are not going alone.”
“I am.”
“You could be killed.”
“So could the prisoner.”
“Marc…”
“No.” His voice sharpened for the first time. “You have a child now. You are the surviving monarch of Batonn and the wife of a Grand Admiral. If you are caught anywhere near an Imperial detention facility the consequences will extend far beyond your own life.”
“And if you are caught?”
“I am easier to sacrifice.”
“That is not true.”
“It is practical.”
“I am coming with you.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“I am the only person you can trust completely here.”
His expression shifted slightly because it was true. On Lothal every corridor belonged to the Empire. Every servant reported upward. Every official smile concealed loyalty to someone else.
But her…
She was the one variable neither side fully understood anymore.
“That,” he said quietly, “may be the most tragic sentence you have ever spoken.”
Before she could answer she heard her name called.
“(Y/N),” Uiona announced carefully, walking back into the room, “the portrait staff has now sent four separate inquiries regarding your arrival time.”
Irtur glanced toward the clock.
“You are late.”
“Yes, thank you, I gathered that.”
“The Empire will collapse without its family portrait.”
“Oh, be merciful.”
“I have never once been accused of mercy.”
Irtur looked toward the doorway as one of her attendants hurried past outside carrying folded garments and a datapad as a droid followed behind her, “What is your attendant’s name?”
“Which one?”
“The dark-haired one,” he said. “Very pretty. Terrifying posture. Looks like she could stab a man in a diplomatic hallway.”
“That describes half the women employed by my household.”
“The one who glared at me yesterday.”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“I merely asked her a question.”
“You flirted with her.”
“I admired her professionalism.”
(Y/N) turned toward the door before he could continue.
“I am late for my portrait.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The portrait chamber had been assembled inside one of the upper administrative wings of the Lothal governor’s residence. Everything about it was aggressively Imperial in the way only carefully curated things could be. Pale grey walls. Precise lighting arrays. Dark polished flooring that reflected the glow of the chandeliers overhead.
A backdrop bearing the Imperial crest stood behind the raised platform where the portraits would be taken.
(Y/N) arrived twelve minutes late.
Not accidentally.
The attendant waiting outside the chamber looked visibly relieved when she finally appeared carrying (C/N) against her shoulder while Uiona followed behind with the child’s things.
“Your Majesty,” the attendant said carefully, “the Grand Admiral has already arrived.”
“I assumed as much.”
When the doors opened, conversation inside the chamber stopped almost immediately.
Military officers. Administrative personnel. The portrait artist. Two aides adjusting lighting equipment near the platform.
And Thrawn standing near the center of the room in full white uniform.
“You are late,” he said calmly.
“Eleven now,” he corrected after glancing briefly toward the wall’s clock.
She shifted (C/N) slightly higher against her shoulder. “I was under the impression the Empire possessed patience.”
“The Empire possesses schedules.”
(Y/N) walked further into the room slowly, taking in the setup properly now. It was worse than she expected. The entire arrangement had the carefully polished feeling of state imagery, the kind distributed through HoloNet publications during holidays to reassure citizens that the military leadership possessed families and humanity and ordinary domestic lives.
The artist approached nervously. “Lady Thrawn, if we could begin with the arrangement…”
(C/N) made a soft sound against her shoulder. Immediately, several people in the room looked at him. The subtle fascination in the faces of officers trying not to stare too openly at the blue skinned infant in the queen of Batonn’s arms.
Thrawn noticed the shift in her expression almost immediately, “Begin,” he said to the room.
Everyone moved at once.
The arrangement placed her in the center while Thrawn stood beside her with one hand resting against her waist. (C/N) remained in her arms initially, wrapped in dark blue fabric selected specifically to complement the color palette of the room.
The artist adjusted the angle of the lighting.
“Closer together, please.”
(Y/N) remained perfectly still.
Then she felt Thrawn’s hand settle lightly against her waist. It wasn’t a possessive feeling, but more of a positional one. The sort of touch expected in an official portrait of a high ranking Imperial family. Yet the warmth of it still unsettled her.
“Lift your chin slightly,” the artist instructed and she obeyed automatically.
The child stared directly at the camera equipment with startling intensity.
“He is extraordinarily focused,” the artist said nervously.
“Yes,” Thrawn replied simply.
The artist hesitated. “Would you prefer a softer expression from the child in the final selection, Grand Admiral?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“This portrait is intended to represent my household accurately.”
By the final sequence (C/N) had grown tired and restless. She took him back instinctively, settling him against her chest while he slowly calmed.
“Hold there,” the artist said suddenly.
Aiocletian’s small hand remained curled loosely against the fabric near her collar while Thrawn stood beside her.The room fell quieter because for one fractional second the performance disappeared. The artist lowered the camera slightly.
“Yes,” he said softly. “That one.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
On the dark sheets of her bed, she dreamed of Batonn the way people dreamed of dead things.
Summer sunlight spilled across the white palace corridors while banners snapped softly in the warm wind. She was fourteen again, barefoot against cool stone, carrying her shoes in one hand while trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.
Her father walked beside her through the gallery halls.
Not the king.
Just her father.
He wore no ceremonial robes today, only the formal attire of the old court with the sleeves rolled carelessly halfway up his forearms because he had been working rather than receiving dignitaries. He was younger than she remembered him at the end. Healthier. Untouched by Imperial negotiations and military occupation and the slow exhaustion that had hollowed him out during the final years.
For a moment the dream became painful in the specific way dreams sometimes did, because somewhere inside herself she realized she was remembering something real.
Suddenly she was standing alone in the burned remains of Paeragosto City with smoke curling black into the sky while the palace crumbled somewhere far behind her.
Her father was gone.
In his place stood the enormous Imperial portrait banners hanging from Coruscant buildings during Fête Week. Thrawn’s face. Her own. (C/N) held between them like some holy offering to the machinery of Empire.
Symbol.
The word echoed violently through the dream.
Then another voice.
Real this time.
“(Y/N).”
Her eyes opened sharply and she rose herself from the bed.
The room remained dim except for the low bedside lighting and the glow from the city beyond the tall windows. She had fallen asleep atop the blankets still wearing part of her evening clothing. Her hair remained loose around her shoulders.
And Thrawn stood near the foot of the bed with a portfolio case in his hands.
“You were dreaming,” he observed quietly.
“What time is it?”
“Late.”
Helpful as always.
“The portraits,” (Y/N) said softly.
“Yes.”
He crossed the room and set the case carefully atop the bed beside her before opening it with precise movements. Inside rested several large printed proofs from the day’s session.
She looked at the first one in silence.
The seated portrait.
Thrawn standing beside her chair in full white uniform while (C/N) rested in her arms beneath the soft lighting of the governor’s residence. The Imperial crest behind them. Her blue gown blended almost seamlessly against the white and silver composition.
The Empire would love it.
She hated that part of her that loved it too. Her fingers moved carefully to the second portrait.
This one was near the windows overlooking Lothal’s skyline. (C/N) slept against her shoulder while Thrawn looked toward her instead of the camera. The next photo, the third one, showed Thrawn holding the child while (C/N) reached upward toward the white collar of his uniform.
And the final portrait…
Their son was half asleep between them while Thrawn’s hand rested against the center of her back and she looked downward toward the child instead of the camera. No perfect posture. No carefully arranged expression.
It looked almost frighteningly intimate.
“This one was not selected for distribution,” Thrawn said.
“No,” she said quietly. “I imagine not.”
Her thumb brushed lightly across the edge of the image.
“Why did you bring them yourself?”
“Because I believed you would want to see them before the Imperial office altered them for publication.”
“Altered?”
“Minor corrections,” he said calmly. “Lighting adjustments. Composition refinement. Removal of visible fatigue.”
“They’re editing exhaustion out of the portrait?”
“Yes.”
“That feels symbolic.”
“It is.”
Outside the windows, Lothal’s night glowed gold beneath the darkness while the Empire slept around them. And slowly, without fully realizing she was doing it, she leaned into him when he sat beside her on the bed. Thrawn did not react visibly to the movement, though she felt the slight adjustment of his posture to accommodate her weight against his shoulder. The portraits remained spread across the blankets between them.
“Did you have a family on your homeworld?”
She felt him still beside her, though not dramatically, just enough for her to notice.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. The answer surprised her slightly. Not because she thought him incapable of family, but because he so rarely spoke about himself.
“What were they like?”
“My father served within the Ascendancy,” he said finally. “Administrative command rather than direct tactical deployment. My mother belonged to one of the lesser ruling families attached to our region.”
“You don’t talk about them often.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the Ascendancy values function over sentiment,” he said at last. “Personal attachment is not considered irrelevant, but it is rarely prioritized publicly. Particularly within military structures.”
“And were there…” She hesitated slightly. “Were there other women before me?”
The question escaped before she fully intended to ask it. Thrawn looked at her.
“There were political considerations,” he said. “Potential alliances discussed between families. None progressed significantly.”
“That is an extremely evasive answer.”
“It is an accurate one.”
“Did you love any of them?”
“No.”
Her fingers tightened unconsciously around the edge of one of the portraits.
“And me?” she asked softly before she could stop herself.
The room went very still. He looked down briefly toward the portrait resting between them. The candid one. Her leaning unconsciously toward him while (C/N) slept between them.
When he answered, his voice was quieter than before.
“When I first arrived in the Empire,” he said slowly, “I considered attachment a structural weakness. Useful in others. Dangerous in myself. The Ascendancy teaches discipline very early. Duty before personal desire. Clarity before sentiment. We are taught that emotional attachment compromises judgment. In many cases, this is correct.”
“And yet you married me.”
“The arrangement was politically advantageous,” he said automatically.
She gave him a look. A rare flicker of something almost embarrassed crossed his expression.
“At the beginning,” he amended.
“And now?” she asked.
“Now,” he said, “your absence alters the atmosphere of every room I enter.”
Something painful moved through her chest. She leaned forward slowly then and kissed him to hide her pain. His hand moved automatically to the side of her face, thumb brushing lightly against her cheek as he returned it with the same restrained intensity he seemed to bring to everything. When she pulled back slightly, their foreheads rested together for a moment in the dim light.
“You were not supposed to become personally significant.”
(Y/N) looked down at the portrait again because it was easier than looking directly at him.
“And yet?” she asked softly.
“And yet,” he said, “you did.”
There were moments with him that frightened her more than the Empire itself. Not because they were cruel, but because they were sincere.
“You make it sound accidental.”
“In part, it was.” His eyes lifted to hers again. “I understood the political value of the arrangement. I understood the Emperor’s intentions. I understood your intelligence, your usefulness, your symbolic importance.” A pause. “I did not anticipate attachment.”
“You are very dangerous to me,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“You should not say things like that to me,” she whispered.
“And why is that?”
“Because eventually I may start believing you.”
A faint shift touched the corner of his mouth at that, though his expression remained mostly unreadable.
“I suspect,” he said carefully, “that possibility passed some time ago.”
She leaned forward again and kissed him again, slower this time. His hand slid carefully to the back of her neck as he returned it with that same restrained intensity she had come to associate with him. Everything about Thrawn felt deliberate, even tenderness.
When they finally parted, he brushed his fingers against her jaw and spoke gently, “I leave again in ten days.”
“You always leave.”
“Yes.”
“But you come back.”
His gaze held hers steadily.
“Yes,” he said again, softer this time. “I do.”
But (Y/N) didn't want to talk about the ten days. She didn't want to think about the void he would leave in the room or the coldness of the sheets when he was gone. She wanted the weight of him, the reality of him, to anchor her to the present.
She shifted, her body sliding further onto the mattress, pulling him with her. Thrawn let her move him, following her fluidly. He braced himself on his elbows to avoid crushing her. His red eyes were glowing, searching her face with a clinical intensity that slowly melted into raw, unfiltered hunger.
"You are thinking too much," he murmured, his voice a low vibration against her gleaming (s/c) skin.
"I'm thinking about how much I hate that you leave," she whispered, her hands sliding up his chest, feeling the powerful thrum of his heart.
He didn't answer with words. Instead, he captured her lips in a kiss while his hand slid from her neck down to the curve of her waist, gripping her hip with a firmness that bordered on bruising.
He kissed her as if he were trying to memorize the very essence of her, as though he was attempting to burn her image in her mind to hold her in the coming weeks of his campaign.
(Y/N) groaned into his mouth and allowed her legs to wide around his waist, pulling him wantingly against her. Their clothing was a wall, a barrier, she needed the barrier gone.
Her hand found the opening of his trousers, pulling them down as he did with her own. Her hand felt warm against the cool of his skin and she traced his body with the fingers she still had.
She arched her back as he broke the kiss to trail his lips down her throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her collarbone. "I do not wish to be disciplined tonight," she whispered against his skin.
“Then no discipline tonight,” he murmured softly against her. “Only honesty.”
She laid beneath him, naked and vulnerable under the dim light. His gaze swept over her body, at the rise and fall of her breasts, the curve of her stomach, the invitation of her thighs. The look was possessive, a strategist marking his most prized territory.
His hand slid down, fingers brushing against the damp folds of her core. She gasped, her hips bucking instinctively. He watched her face, observing the way her eyes fluttered and her breath hitched.
He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his shaft rubbing against her slickness, teasing her. Then, with one deliberate thrust, he buried himself inside her.
(Y/N) tossed her head against the pillows. He filled her, allowing her walls to close against him as though she were inviting him further into her. His eyes closed for a second, taking in her warmth before opening them again and thrusting in and out of her.
As his member filled her with every rhythmic thrust, she closed her eyes and found herself beneath the softness of his voice and the carefulness of his touch, living the unbearable truth of what she was doing to him.
She was lying to him, using the access his name gave her. Sitting in meetings beside Irtur discussing prisons and routes and rebels while Thrawn stood between her and the full violence of the Empire without fully realizing she was helping undermine it from inside his own household.
Guilt moved through her suddenly, sharp enough to ache.
When she came into his office with a list of requests before they married, all he had requested of her was honesty. And yet she couldn’t give it to him. Not even now as they laid as husband and wife.
Maybe in another life this could have been different. A quieter galaxy. A kinder version of history. No Empire. No Batonn burning beneath Imperial machinery. No arranged marriage turned into something dangerous and real by accident. But there was only this life. Only this room. This war. The conqueror holding her like she was something precious rather than politically convenient.
(Y/N) opened her eyes again and clung to him, her nails digging into the muscles of his back, her voice breaking into fragmented moans. He gripped her thighs, pinning them back towards the sheets and began to thrust faster into her. The friction was intense, as though he knew she would betray him and didn’t care. He was no longer the strategist; he was a man claiming his wife, his movements raw and desperate.
She squeezed him tight, her pussy walls pulsing in rhythmic contractions around his shaft. She screamed his name, her body shaking violently as he peaked inside of her, filling her up with his release. He throbbed inside of her as he emptied every drop of his seed into her womb.
For a long time, neither of them spoke, the only sound was the synchronization of two hearts slowing down. Thrawn shifted slightly, kissing her forehead.
(Y/N) watched silently as he sat up at the edge of the bed. Even now, after everything between them, he moved with the same composed precision. He reached for his uniform blouse from the chair nearby and began fastening it again beneath the dim gold light of the room. The sight hurt unexpectedly.
She pulled the blanket higher around herself.
“Will you sleep here tonight?” she asked softly.
Thrawn’s hands paused briefly at one of the clasps before continuing.
“No,” he said quietly. “There are operational matters requiring review before morning.”
She looked away toward the darkened ceiling.
“Of course there are,” (Y/N) sighed.
He crossed back toward the bed once more before leaving, one hand brushing lightly against her hair.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“I doubt I will.”
“I will return before morning if I am able.”
It was not a promise and she had learned this from the very beginning.
And after he disappeared into the adjoining office and the doors slid shut behind him, (Y/N) remained alone in the dim room.
She fell asleep for some time before waking up again. The room was darker this time and quieter. She rose from the bed and crossed silently through the darkened sitting room.
From the bedroom doorway, (Y/N) could see the thin line of light beneath the office doors where Thrawn had disappeared nearly an hour earlier.
The closer she moved toward the office, the more clearly she could hear the low cadence of his voice through the sealed doors. She grabbed her double viol and stood near the door.
“…temporary detainment transfers will proceed through the northern corridor rather than the central route.”
A pause. Another voice answered through the comm system, distorted slightly by transmission static.
“The Batonnese prisoner remains secured in Aurek-17, sir.”
“The current authorization rotation?” Thrawn asked.
“Updated every six hours, Grand Admiral.”
“Good. Increase oversight on all personnel assigned to the transfer. If extraction is attempted, I want advance indication before execution.”
She leaned slightly closer to the door despite herself.
“There has been increased chatter regarding insurgent interest in the detainee,” the officer continued. “Sector Command believes the prisoner may possess information connected to the resistance cells.”
“Then Sector Command is likely correct,” Thrawn said evenly.
He knew more than she and Irtur had assumed. She barely had time to step back before the office doors slid open abruptly.
Thrawn stood there immediately.
For one terrible second neither of them spoke.
“(Y/N),” he said calmly.
“I couldn’t sleep,” She said, forcing herself to breathe normally.
“And so you came here?”
“Yes.” She lifted the double viol slightly in her hands then, grateful she had brought it with her half on instinct. “I thought perhaps I could play for you.”
“You were standing outside the door,” he observed as the office behind him glowed softly with active holoscreens and military projections. Fleet movements rotated slowly in blue-white light across the walls.
“I did not want to interrupt your call.”
“You should have entered.”
The suspicion had not vanished entirely. She could feel it lingering beneath his composure like something submerged beneath water. But after another long moment, he stepped aside from the doorway.
“Come inside,” he said.
She entered carefully.
Thrawn deactivated the remaining transmission screens with a movement of his hand.
“You wished to play?” he asked.
“Yes.”
As the music filled the office, she wondered if he could hear the guilt inside it.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Midnight caused the residence to grow quiet.
(Y/N) waited another twenty minutes after the household finally settled before leaving her room. She wore one of the darker Senate robes rather than formal attire, her hair braided simply back away from her face. Not suspicious enough to draw attention. Not important enough to require escort protocols. The trick to surviving Imperial buildings, she had learned, was behaving as though you already belonged there.
She calmly moved through the upper administrative corridor, passing officers who straightened slightly when they recognized her before immediately looking away again. No one stopped her of course, she was Lady Thrawn.
She reached the secondary command offices near the northern wing and slowed slightly.
Earlier that evening she had listened carefully while Thrawn reviewed operational updates through a holo-call in the adjacent room. Temporary detainment transfers. Northern district holding rotations. Clearance delays due to increased insurgent activity.
Prisoners.
The detention facility Irtur needed.
A lieutenant emerged from one of the offices carrying datapads stacked against his chest. He froze briefly upon seeing her.
“Lady Thrawn.”
“Lieutenant,” she replied warmly.
He visibly relaxed and smiled when she smiled. He was young and young officers were easier to get information out of. He reminded her of Davio Langro from her bachelorette days on Coruscant.
“I apologize for interrupting so late,” she said softly, glancing toward the office behind him. “Grand Admiral Thrawn requested I retrieve the updated sector transit schedules. I believe they were forwarded incorrectly to administrative command?”
“Oh… yes, perhaps. I can assist you,” He said, blinking and allowing her inside the painfully grey office. On the grey walls a terminal glowed softly against one wall displaying regional security routing.
The lieutenant moved toward the central terminal.
“I believe the transport schedules were integrated alongside the detention transfer routes after yesterday’s update…”
‘Detention transfer routes.’
She stepped closer, leaning lightly against the edge of the console as though only half interested.
“You all work such impossible hours,” she said sympathetically.
“Recent insurgency activity has complicated things,” The lieutenant gave a tired laugh.
“I can imagine.” She glanced briefly toward the screen. “And all this for one prisoner transfer?”
He sighed immediately.
“Oh, don’t remind me. Security command’s treating the Batonnese detainee like he’s carrying plans to assassinate the emperor.”
“Really?”
“Tier-four encrypted detention protocols, rotating access authorization, direct review from the northern command office…” He shook his head. “It’s absurd.”
“Mm.” She tilted her head slightly toward the terminal. “That sounds expensive.”
“It is expensive.”
As he spoke, her eyes moved quickly across the active authorization screen.
Years in the Senate had taught her how to absorb information without appearing to.
“Though honestly,” the lieutenant continued, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “I think Command’s worried someone might try extracting him.”
“That would certainly be dramatic.”
“Yes, well. Rebels are dramatic.”
He finally located the fabricated transit schedules she had never actually come for and handed the datapad toward her apologetically.
“My apologies for the delay, Lady Thrawn.”
“You’ve been extremely helpful.”
And I mean it.
She walked out of the office with swift haste and when she found the residence corridor she held herself against the wall and breathed in counts of eight. There was a window next to her but no light hit her face, the pale white ceiling light highlighted all her imperfections on her (s/c) skin from the sleepless nights which had now become routine. At least she was doing something now and not simply waiting in bed waiting for the sleep to find her.
(Y/N) and Thrawn have a much needed reunion after she arrives on Lothal.
Masterlist, Part 27
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Lothal greeted them with dust coloured skies.
The shuttle descended through layered clouds into the Imperial capital where everything looked half-built or half conquered. The landing platform itself was enormous, crowded with walkers, supply transports, and officers. As (Y/N) stepped down the ramp with (c/n) against her chest, she noticed all they eyes on her and how the security escort never left them.
Some of the workers stared because he was blue. Others because he was Thrawn’s. Most because they already understood he was becoming something politically useful. Irtur noticed all of it too.
“Well,” he murmured beside her as they were led toward the waiting transport convoy, “nothing says ‘welcome to Lothal’ quite like armed surveillance and atmospheric despair.”
“That is not the official tourism slogan,” she said tiredly.
“No? Could have fooled me.”
The Imperial residence assigned to Thrawn’s household was large and severe. Built in the clean angular style the Empire favored, where every hallway felt intentionally designed to discourage emotional vulnerability.
The officers escorted them through polished grey corridors while aides moved quickly ahead preparing rooms that had clearly already been prepared hours ago.
Irtur glanced once through one of the narrow windows overlooking the city below.
“Ah,” he said solemnly. “Excellent. They still have the same uncomfortable mattresses and grey views.”
Uiona made the faintest sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
“I was worried modernization had reached Lothal,” Irtur continued.
One of the officers looked deeply uncertain whether this was criticism and (Y/N) was too exhausted to save him from the conversation.
The bedroom itself was quiet when she entered. Quiet enough that the absence of Thrawn felt immediate. (c/n) stirred lightly against her shoulder as she crossed toward the bed.That was when she saw the note resting neatly atop the dark blankets. Her name was written on the front in Thrawn’s precise hand.
‘I regret that military developments prevented my presence at the landing platform. I understand the discourtesy of the absence, particularly given the circumstances of your arrival.
I will see you tonight.
— Thrawn’
Her heart jumped and slowly warmed as she traced her fingers over the note. Very carefully, she folded it once and placed it beside the bed instead of throwing it away.
The office assigned to her within the Lothal residence overlooked the capital district below, all pale lights and distant military traffic moving through the warm dark. It was connected to her room and left the door open, giving her the view of her bed. Somewhere farther out beyond the city the plains stretched into shadow, broken occasionally by factory lights or the blinking red of Imperial towers.
(c/n) was asleep in the nursery with Uiona.
(Y/N) stood beside the window holding a glass she had not touched while Irtur sat across from her at the desk, sleeves rolled back slightly, exhaustion visible around his eyes now that the formalities of arrival were over.
“I will never forgive myself for it,” she said quietly.
“No,” he agreed softly. “Neither will I.”
“He trusted us,” she whispered. “He believed we were protecting Batonn.We recruited him into something he did not fully understand.”
“That is how resistance movements survive.”
“That sounds very noble when you say it quickly enough.”
Irtur looked at her for a long moment. “You think I do not know what this is costing us?”
“I remember him we were young,” Irtur continued quietly. “Arguing with archive staff because he thought the royal preservation records should be public access. He nearly got himself removed from the embassy over it.”
“He was terrified of public speaking.”
“He still is. If we delay this the ISB eventually reaches him first.”
“And if we don’t delay it,” she whispered, “then we become the kind of people who murder boys we once promised to protect.”
“The Empire made that decision long before we did.”
A knock sounded suddenly at the office door and both of them went still instantly.
The shift was automatic now. Fear trained into reflex. Irtur’s posture changed first, expression smoothing into something lighter, safer. (Y/N) placed the untouched glass down carefully before speaking.
“Come in.”
The door opened.
Thrawn stepped inside still wearing his uniform from whatever meeting had kept him occupied since their arrival. The white of it seemed almost stark against the dim office lighting. His eyes moved first to her, then briefly to Irtur.
“Ambassador,” he said with polite neutrality.
“Grand Admiral.”
For half a second the room felt unbearably crowded with things unsaid before Irtur stood smoothly.
“I was just informing Her Majesty that training resumes tomorrow morning.”
Thrawn’s gaze shifted briefly toward her.
“Training?”
“She is improving,” Irtur said pleasantly. “Slowly. Against extraordinary odds.”
“Irtur,” she warned tiredly.
“What?” he said innocently. “I am encouraging morale.”
“By insulting me?”
“It builds character. I will leave you both to your evening,” Irtur said finally.
As he passed Thrawn near the doorway he paused just long enough to add lightly:
“And Grand Admiral? The mattresses are still terrible.”
Then he disappeared into the corridor before anyone could answer. The door swooshed closed behind him, leaving Thrawn and (Y/N) alone in their office.
“How was the journey?” he asked after a moment.
“Long. Over secured.” She folded her arms loosely. “Your officers stared at us like we were a classified military project.”
“In fairness,” Thrawn said calmly, “from their perspective you are adjacent to one.”
“That is not comforting.”
“No,” he agreed. “It was not intended to be.”
He stepped farther into the room then, “Did the transport present any complications?”
“No. Though Irtur spent most of the flight becoming increasingly convinced we were about to be arrested.”
“A rational concern.”
“You are not helping your case.”
“My case?”
“The one where I attempt to convince myself bringing our infant son to an active military sector was not a catastrophic decision.”
“And our soon?” he asked quietly then.
“He slept through most of it,” she said softer now. “Though Uiona says he dislikes turbulence less than I do.”
“A useful adaptation.”
“He also started screaming when one of the officers came into our room unexpectedly.”
“Screamed?”
“He didn’t knock.”
The corner of Thrawn’s mouth moved very slightly upward.
She stared at him in mild disbelief. “Was that amusement?”
“It appears the child has inherited strong evaluative instincts.”
“You are impossible.”
“And yet you continue speaking to me voluntarily.”
The room grew quieter after that. Outside the windows, Lothal’s capital glowed in scattered gold and white beneath the darkening sky. Somewhere farther away she could faintly hear the distant engines of patrol craft moving through the atmosphere. Thrawn studied her carefully.
“You are thinner,” he said eventually.
“I had a child.”
“Yes,” he said. “And you are still thinner.”
“Coruscant was…” She searched briefly for the correct word. “Difficult.The investigation. The Senate. The whispers. Everything.”
Gods, she had missed him. Not safely. Not rationally. But genuinely. And perhaps he saw some part of that realization cross her face because his expression softened almost imperceptibly before he spoke again.
“I regretted my absence from the birth.”
The honesty of it caught her off guard again.
“You were commanding a military campaign.”
“That does not alter the regret.”
“You really did miss us,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Very much.”
The distance of the past months suddenly felt unbearable in a way she had not prepared herself for. The calls through holograms and the war always existing around him like weather. And now he was here again, standing close enough to touch.
“Then you will see me tonight,” she said softly.
For the first time since entering the room, something in Thrawn’s composure shifted fully.
“Yes,” he said, quieter now. “I will.”
He stepped closer slowly enough that she could have moved away if she wanted to, but she did not. His hand lifted carefully to her face, fingers brushing lightly along her jaw with a gentleness that still startled her every time it appeared. She leaned into his touch before she could stop herself.
“You are exhausted,” he murmured.
“So are you.”
“That is likely true.”
“And yet here you are.”
“And yet here I am.”
Then he kissed her. Not like reunion after absence in stories. It felt instead like recognition. Like two people who had spent too long surviving separately remembering, briefly, that they did not always have to. Outside, Lothal’s city lights burned against the dark plains beyond the capital. Somewhere distant, ships moved through the atmosphere and alarms sounded faintly within the military district, reminders that the galaxy remained exactly as dangerous as it had been that morning.
But for a little while none of it entered the room.
His kiss deepened gradually, lips moving against hers with a tenderness that made her chest ache. Thrawn's hand slid from her jaw to the nape of her neck, fingers threading into her hair without pulling, just holding her steady.
(Y/N) pressed closer, her body molding to his, feeling the solid warmth of him through his uniform blouse.
He broke the kiss first.
“Your room,” he whispered, “If you'll have me there.”
She nodded, and they left the office together, steps soft on the carpeted floor. The door hissed open at her touch, revealing the bed with its dark sheets, a viewport framing Lothal's skyline.
He turned her gently to face him, hands at the fastenings of her blouse. Buttons slipped free one by one under his careful fingers, exposing her skin. The fabric whispered to the floor, followed by her skirt, leaving her in undergarments that he unclasped with the same patience. She stood bare before him, skin flushing under his steady gaze, dark eyes tracing her curves without hunger, just quiet admiration.
He stripped then, shirt tugged over his head to reveal a lean, blue muscled torso. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists softly, kissing her palms before drawing her to the bed.
They sunk onto the mattress together, him easing her back against the pillows. Thrawn hovered above, kissing her mouth again, then her throat, collarbone.
He pushed slowly into her, causing her to gasp at the feeling. They both stilled, savoring the join, her heat gripping his length, his pulse throbbing inside her.
She had forgotten how it felt. How it felt to be penetrated by him and allow warmth to cover her body. She felt the pain turn into ecstasy and arched her back into the mattress.
Movement began languid, he thrust into her with her walls clamping around him, welcoming him further into her tightened body. Her hands explored his back, feeling muscles flex under her touch.
(Y/N) shattered and moaned as she felt him release into her, her body quaking around him. Thrawn eased out after some time, allowing his release to stain the bedsheets.
(Y/N) lay against his chest half-awake, one arm draped loosely across him. In their fragile peace the room became quiet except for the soft hum of the residence systems and the distant sounds of the city outside. It was strangely peaceful. Dangerous in its peacefulness.
Thrawn’s hand rested carefully along her back.
“Irtur is going to complain tomorrow morning when I fail training again,” she murmured sleepily as she dug herself into his chest.
“He appears committed to your improvement.”
“He appears committed to my suffering.”
“A subtle distinction.”
For a few more minutes they stayed like that in silence.
Then, quieter:
“How bad is it here?” she asked.
He did not answer immediately, which was answer enough already.
“Manageable,” he said at last.
“You will tell me if it becomes unsafe?”
“Yes.”
“And you will actually mean it?”
“Yes.”
She also knew, however, there were limits even to what Grand Admiral Thrawn could protect.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The training hall on Lothal was larger than the one on Coruscant and somehow even less welcoming. The walls were grey with one wall deviating and being almost entirely transparisteel, the Lothal morning visible through it, the dust-colored sky lightening slowly toward whatever color Lothal's sky decided to be at full light, the plains visible in the far distance beyond the capital's angular skyline.
(Y/N) stood near the center mat twirling the practice staff absently between her palms while waiting for Irtur to arrive. She ran it three times and her left hand was doing the thing it did when she pushed it past the comfortable interval.
The doors at the far end of the hall slid open. She looked up automatically, already preparing some insult about his lateness.
“...Oh.”
Thrawn stepped into the hall instead, dressed not in full uniform but in black training attire that somehow made him look even more dangerous.
"Where is Irtur?" She asked, confused.
"I sent him a communication this morning," Thrawn said. "His presence at the training session is not required today."
"And he accepted this?"
"He is a reasonable man."
"He is many things," she said. "Reasonable is not always one of them."
"Nevertheless," Thrawn said. He moved to the equipment rack as though he had done this before, selecting the staff that matched his height and balance with the same precision he applied to everything.
“You’re taking his place?” She asked.
“For this morning.”
“That feels deeply unfair.”
“How so?”
"You are the Grand Admiral of the Imperial Navy," she said.
"Yes," he said. "Among other things."
She looked at the staff in her hands.
"Irtur is going to be very annoyed when he finds out about this," she said.
"Yes," Thrawn said. "I expect he will."
Something moved in her expression that was almost a smile.
She settled into the stance Irtur had been drilling into her for four months, the weight distribution, the grip, the specific positioning of the left hand that was harder with the prosthetic finger and that she had been compensating for in ways Irtur described as technically creative and practically problematic.
“Ready?” He asked, stepping onto the mat and lifting his staff into position.
“No.”
“An unfortunate but recurring condition.”
Then he moved fast.
Faster than Irtur.
The first strike cracked against her staff hard enough to jar her arms immediately. She barely blocked the second. By the third he had already twisted behind her and swept her legs cleanly out from beneath her.
She hit the mat with an offended noise.
Thrawn lowered the staff slightly while looking down at her.
“You anticipated the wrong angle.”
“You attacked from three directions in under two seconds.”
“A battlefield rarely limits itself to one.”
She accepted his offered hand this time mostly because her pride had not yet recovered enough energy to refuse it dramatically.
The second match was longer.
She managed two blocks she had not managed in the first, the deflection on the left side that Irtur had been working on, which hurt in the specific way of using the prosthetic finger under pressure but which worked.
“Your left side is compensating again,” he said as their staffs locked briefly together.
“Oh, wonderful,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Now there are two of you.
“You shift your weight before impact,” he continued calmly, like they were discussing fleet logistics instead of actively trying to knock each other unconscious. “You anticipate failure in the hand before the strike lands.”
“It’s difficult not to when part of the hand is artificial.”
“The weakness is not entirely physical,” he observed quietly. “You hesitate before committing force with that side, not because you are incapable. Because you no longer trust it.”
She nearly had him before he moved in a way she had not mapped and (Y/N) was on the mat again.
The third match she lost in ten seconds.
It was the worst one. She had been adjusting and she had over-adjusted and the specific confidence of the adjustment had produced a gap in the approach.
He disarmed her halfway through and caught the falling staff before it hit the ground with irritating efficiency.
“You hesitate before committing to forward momentum,” he observed.
“Because forward momentum keeps resulting in me dying.”
“Only temporarily.”
The fourth match ended with her pinned flat against the mat, one of his forearms braced carefully across her wrist while the practice staff rested lightly against her shoulder.
She was breathing hard now, hair falling loose around her face.
He released her and stepped back immediately, offering space for her to stand.
She stared at him while catching her breath.
“You enjoy this.”
“The exercise is strategically useful.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer you are receiving.”
When the fifth match began, she stopped trying to overpower him and match speed with speed. So when Thrawn advanced again she moved differently. Closer instead of backward.
He blocked high expecting the same angle she had used before and she pivoted sharply beneath it, catching his wrist with the staff and using his own momentum against him the way Irtur had been trying unsuccessfully to force into her for months.
For one brief glorious second surprise crossed Thrawn’s face.
Then both of them went down hard onto the mat.
Except this time she landed on top of him. Her knees pinned his sides instinctively while one hand caught his wrist against the floor before he could recover the staff.
Her hair had come loose completely now, falling around her as she stared down at him breathing hard. It had grown since their wedding day, but not long enough to be woven into a proper Batonnese braid.
Thrawn looked up at her with unmistakable surprise.
“Better,” he said slowly.
For a moment neither of them moved.
And suddenly she became very aware of the fact that she was sitting on top of her husband in the middle of a training hall while he looked up at her with that unreadable steady focus of his.
“So,” she said quietly, still catching her breath. “Does this mean I’m improving?”
One corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly.
“Yes,” he said. “Considerably.”
The training hall suddenly felt much quieter than it had a moment ago. She had not moved and was still breathing hard from the sparring match, knees braced against his sides, one of his wrists pinned lightly beneath her hand.
“...Are we alone?” she asked softly.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the darkened edges of the training hall before returning to her.
“I believe so,” he said.
Something in the way he answered it made her heart stutter.
Then she leaned down and kissed him. For a second he seemed almost startled by it. Then one of his hands lifted carefully to the side of her face and the kiss deepened into something slower and far more dangerous.
The war. The investigations. The Empire. None of it disappeared, but for a few stolen moments it became background noise again, beneath the simple reality of missing someone too long.
Near the entrance to the training hall, the doors slid open quietly. Irtur stepped halfway inside carrying a datapad. He stopped immediately as (Y/N) and Thrawn remained entirely unaware of him.
Irtur stared at the scene for one exhausted second, then muttered something deeply disrespectful in Batonnese beneath his breath. He reached over and dimmed the training hall lights lower from the wall panel.
Then he turned around and left again without a sound.
Thrawn's fingers traced her cheekbone, then slid into her loose hair, cradling her head as their kiss grew hungrier. She shifted atop him, thighs squeezing his ribs, the thin fabric of her training pants rubbing against the hardness straining his trousers.
As heat pooled between her legs, she pulled back just enough to tug at his blouse. His blue chest gleamed under the dim lights.
The air in the room seemed to thicken as she worked his belt, the metallic click echoing in the silence. Her hand closed around him, stroking the velvet heat of his length, Thrawn’s composure finally fractured. A low hiss escaped his teeth, his hips bucking upward in a raw, instinctive search for friction.
Thrawn’s hands clamped onto her hips as she cast her top aside. She shoved her pants down her thighs and kicked them off along with her boots.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered into the cold air as he traced his hand over her bare chest. He traced her in the way one would trace a beautiful stone, as though to confirm it were real. She yelped and arched herself as his hand came upon her nipple.
She positioned herself and sank down slowly, taking him into her aching cunt. They both groaned, her walls clenching around his full length. She braced her hands against his shoulders and began to move. It was a rhythmic, rolling grind, gentle at first before becoming feral.
The sound of their union filled the room, a wet, rhythmic sliding punctuated by the heavy slap of skin on skin.
Thrawn’s thumbs dug into her hip bones to meet her every grind, the art of the war they had been practicing was utterly forgotten, replaced by her far more dangerous art of surrender.
Leaning forward, hands braced on his chest, she began to ride faster.
With a sudden flinch, he seized her waist. With the blur of motion, her world tilted; she gasped as he rolled her beneath him, pinning her into the yielding mat with the crushing, delicious weight of his frame.
He loomed over her, a silhouette of midnight blue against the dim light, his eyes glowing like dying embers in a forge. There was no more calculation in his gaze, only a raw, imperial demand.
"My turn to dictate the terms," he rasped. He caught her wrists, pinning them above her head with a single hand, forcing her chest to arch upward.
With a low, guttural growl, he drove back into her. She cried out, her head tossing back as he filled her. He moved with the cadence of a conqueror, each thrust a heavy, driving beat that shattered her composure into a thousand glittering shards.
Her legs tangled around his waist, her heels digging into the backs of his powerful thighs, silent pleas for him to never stop. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his breath hot and ragged, his teeth grazing the sensitive cord of her throat as he claimed her again and again.
Soon, Thrawn’s pace became relentless as (Y/N)’s fingers clawed at the mat as her breath came in jagged, broken sobs. The tension within her coiled tighter and tighter. Every time he withdrew, the void was a momentary agony; every time he returned, the impact sent white hot sparks dancing across her vision.
"Look at me, your majesty" he commanded, his voice a raw, jagged edge.
She forced her eyes open, meeting that burning crimson gaze. In that moment of absolute vulnerability, she released. The sight of her undoing was the final catalyst for his own. His muscles turned to iron, his back arching as he delivered one final, soul-shattering thrust. He buried himself within her as he poured himself into her with a force that left them both gasping.
The heavy, rhythmic silence of the training room was broken only by their synchronized gasping. He lingered for a moment longer, his weight a grounding heat against her, before he finally withdrew with a slow, lingering slide that left her feeling cold and achingly hollow.
He rolled onto his back beside her, his chest heaving as the dim overhead lights caught the sheen of sweat on his skin.
For a long minute, neither spoke.
Thrawn sat up with a fluid, disciplined grace that belied the feral energy of moments before. He reached for his discarded blouse. As he draped the fabric over his broad shoulders, he turned his head to look at her, his glowing crimson eyes regaining their sharp, analytical clarity.
(Y/N) remained stretched against the training mat, still trying to steady her breathing. One of her hands rested across her stomach while the other covered her eyes briefly in exhausted embarrassment.
“You are staring,” she muttered.
“You are distracting,” he corrected calmly.
“Then I wound you.”
A faint shift touched the corner of his mouth. Then his expression settled into something more thoughtful.
Then his expression settled into something more thoughtful.
“There is another matter. It is administrative,” he said.
“You sound ominous.”
“I have commissioned an official portrait.”
She lowered her hand from her face slowly. “A portrait.”
“Yes.”
“Of whom?”
“Us,” he said simply. “And the child.”
She stared at him for a moment in disbelief before letting out a quiet laugh that sounded almost pained.
“You choose now to tell me this?”
“The scheduling office confirmed the appointment this morning.”
“Of course it did.”
“The portrait will be archived through the Imperial household registry and distributed to several sector publications during Fête Week.”
It was an imperial tradition for high ranking officers during the holiday, to have portraits taken with their families in order to humanize them. (Y/N) had seen them before, even before the insurgency when the imperials first came to Batonn.
“The symbol again,” She said as she looked away toward the darkened ceiling above them.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“I also wanted one for myself,” he said, watching (Y/N)’s eyes meet his again, “You are both historically significant but that is not the only reason.”
“How sweet.”
Thrawn moved closer again, slower this time, and brushed a loose strand of hair back from her face with surprising gentleness.
“You should rest before tomorrow,” he said quietly.
(Y/N) is summoned to Lothal by Thrawn, who reveals he is protecting her despite knowing her loyalties are divided. As the Empire transforms her son into a political symbol, she and her ambassador are forced into a corner where survival demands a sacrifice.
Masterlist, Part 26
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Thrawn had always come and gone.
This was the structure of their marriage and she had accepted its structure early, he was a Grand Admiral and the Empire required its Grand Admiral continuously, and his absence was not personal in the sense of being directed at her specifically, it was simply the condition of what he was.
When he was present they were, she searched for the accurate word and found it, careful with each other. Not cold, not the cold of people who had nothing between them, but the careful of people who had something between them that neither of them had fully mapped and both of them were navigating around the edges of with the attention you gave to things that could be damaged by carelessness.
She did not trust him. She needed to be precise about this in her own accounting.
This time however, felt different.
Maybe because there was a child now sleeping in the next room beneath a low lit mobile of Batonnese moons Uiona had commissioned quietly without asking permission. Perhaps because she had watched him hold their son with something dangerously close to tenderness and now could not fully separate Grand Admiral Thrawn from the image of blue hands supporting an infant with impossible care.
She shivered when she remembered the way Irtur now spoke to her like a woman standing near the edge of a cliff whether she recognized it or not.
Two months after (c/n)’s birth, Irtur decided (Y/N) was recovered enough to begin training. (Y/N) personally believed this decision had been made by a man who had suffered some form of irreversible brain damage in his youth.
“You are smiling,” she informed him as they stood facing each other in one of the unused private training halls. “Which means you are enjoying this too much.”
“I am,” Irtur admitted easily.
The practice staff in her hands felt heavier than she remembered. Everything felt heavier now. Her body still did not belong entirely to her again. Sleep came in fractured pieces between feedings and nightmares and late-night messages from outer-rim sectors she could no longer emotionally separate from the people dying in them.
It was also hard to grip the staff in her left hand as she never fully got used to the prosthetic finger she had been forced to live with.
Irtur twirled his own staff once lazily. The hall lights reflected softly off the polished floor, creating a shadow’s outline of the staff. Outside the high windows Coruscant traffic moved in endless ribbons.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Excellent,” He struck immediately.
She blocked too slowly. The impact jolted painfully through her wrists and he swept her legs out from beneath her with insulting ease. She hit the floor hard.
“Oh, I hate you,” she groaned from the floor.
“You say that every session.”
“Because every session feels like an assassination attempt.”
Irtur extended a hand. She slapped it away and forced herself upright on her own.
“Again,” he said.
Three minutes later he disarmed her completely. Five minutes after that he had her pinned against the mat with the end of the staff pressed lightly to her throat.
“Dead,” he announced.
“You are impossible.”
“You are distracted.”
“I had a child eight weeks ago.”
“Yes,” he said. “And now you are holding your weapon too high because you are compensating for weakness in your left side.”
“You can tell that?”
“I can tell you are exhausted before you enter the room.”
He stepped back and allowed her space to stand again. Sweat clung to the back of her neck. Her muscles burned already.
“This was a mistake,” she muttered.
“No. This is necessary.”
“For whom?”
“For the woman who once slapped Governor Restos in his own office.”
“That was different.”
“You aimed better then.”
They circled each other slowly.
“You’re hesitating,” Irtur said.
“I’m thinking.”
“You are overthinking.”
“Well forgive me for wanting strategy before you beat me unconscious.”
“You already think strategically. Your problem is that you stop yourself halfway through action.”
He lunged again. She blocked instinctively this time, twisted, nearly managed to catch his shoulder and then he flipped her cleanly onto the mat again.
She let out a furious sound into the floor.
“Oh, gods above.”
Irtur rested the end of his staff against his shoulder.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “for someone married to Grand Admiral Thrawn, I expected significantly more terrifying combat ability.”
She rolled onto her back to glare at him.
“I married him. I did not absorb him through proximity.”
“A missed opportunity.”
She threw her practice glove at him. He dodged it effortlessly.
Then his expression shifted, the teasing disappeared so gradually she almost missed it. He lowered the staff.
“Get up, (Y/N)!” The use of her name in Batonnese made her pause.
Slowly, she pushed herself upright again, breathing hard. Irtur looked at her for a long moment.
“You are stronger than this,” Something in his voice landed differently this time, it was expectation. The expectation he had for the queen of an ash world to know how to wield a staff, a primitive weapon used by the Batonnese for centries.
“You survived Batonn,” he said quietly. “You survived Palpatine. You survived becoming a symbol for people who wanted to own you. You survived childbirth while your husband was halfway across the galaxy commanding a military campaign.”
She looked away.
“You are not weak because you are tired.”
The training hall suddenly felt very quiet.
“You think I do not see what is happening to you?” he asked softly. “You move through the Senate like a ghost now. You barely sleep. You hold that child like you are afraid the galaxy will steal him from you if you loosen your grip for even a second. And maybe that fear is rational. Which is exactly why you need to remember who you are”
She swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the staff.
“I don’t know who that is anymore.”
“Yes you do.”
“No,” she said sharply now. “I don’t. I don’t know if I’m a senator or a rebel or a mother or his wife or Batonn’s queen or just…” Her voice broke slightly from exhaustion. “Just something the Empire reshaped into usefulness.”
“You are all of those things,” he said as he stepped closer to her. “And none of them erase the others.”
Then he lifted his staff again and settled back into stance.
“Again,” he said.
“You just delivered an emotional speech.”
“And now you are going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and hit me properly.”
The second round went worse than the first.
(Y/N) came at Irtur too quickly, still angry from the last loss, the staff striking against his with enough force to sting her palms. He pivoted easily. The end of his staff caught behind her ankle and swept.
She hit the mat hard.
“Oh, come now,” Irtur said, not even breathing heavily. “At this point I’m beginning to take it personally.”
“You are annoying.”
“I am winning.”
“That does not make you less annoying.”
“It actually makes me substantially more so.”
Irtur spun the staff once between his palms.
“Again.”
“I hate you.”
“You say that every lesson.”
“And every lesson you continue deserving it.”
The staff cracked sharply against his. Once. Twice. Three times. Faster now. She drove him backward half a step and felt a sudden flare of satisfaction. Then he disarmed her completely. The weapon spun from her grip and clattered across the training floor.
“Oh, stars,” Irtur sighed dramatically. “That one was genuinely embarrassing.”
She opened her mouth to insult him properly when movement near the doorway caught her attention.
Someone stood there watching. Tall. Familiar. Her expression changed instantly.
“Tannian?”
Before she could think about dignity or sweat or the fact she was currently losing a sparring match in front of witnesses, she crossed the room almost at a run and threw her arms around him.
“What an unexpected surprise,” she breathed.
Tannian laughed softly as he caught her easily. “You say that like I appeared through the Force.”
“You were supposed to still be stationed in the outer Rim.”
“I finally got shore leave.” He pulled back slightly to look at her. “Though apparently I arrived in time to witness Lord Irtur humiliating royalty with a stick.”
“I was teaching her discipline,” Irtur said.
“You were enjoying yourself.”
“These are not mutually exclusive concepts.”
Tannian’s gaze softened as he looked at her properly now, taking in the exhaustion still faintly beneath her eyes, the slight changes motherhood had left behind. “You look well,” he said gently.
“That is a lie.”
“It may be.”
“Come,” she said, placing her staff back on the rack and walking back towards her brother “let us go see your nephew.”
In her residence, Tannian looked at the child and almost said nothing for a full minute.
"Can I hold him?"
"Yes," she said.
He held the child with the terrified carefulness of someone who had not held an infant recently and was aware of their own inexperience with the fragile things of the world.
"He's going to be remarkable," he said.
"Well, he has a lot to contend with," she said.
"All remarkable people do." Tannian looked back at the child. "He has your look about him. The eyes are going to be different but the, there's something in the structure of the face. The way he holds himself even now." He paused. "Stubborn."
“You know, everyone has been saying that and yet I don’t see it.”
“You will in time.”
She smiled at him then turned her head when she heard the pristine, perfect steps of V3PO as it entered the room.
“Your majesty, a gift has arrived from Lieutenant Commander Res Geronh.”
She knew it was from him before V3PO brought it to her, the formal wrapping, the Imperial seal, the handwriting on the card that she had known since childhood and associated now with specific memories she kept in the sealed room and visited rarely.
“How kind of our dear brother,” Tannian said as he placed his nephew back in the bassinet.
Res. The traitor brother. The one who had stood before their fallen father in Imperial regalia and called his sister a destabilizing variable requiring containment. The one who had been at the front with the Imperials on the hot midsummer's day. The one who was alive and promoted and apparently writing congratulatory notes.
She looked at the card for a long moment before she opened it.
‘To the Grand Admiral and his Lady, on the occasion of the birth of their son.
The Geronh family extends its congratulations on this significant occasion. The continuation of the line is a matter of great moment for Batonn and for the Imperial administration of the sector. I have no doubt that the child will reflect the exceptional qualities of his father's distinguished service and bring honor to both his families.
With respect and in service to the Empire,
Lieutenant Commander Res Geronh’
Enclosed: A commemorative piece from the Geronh family estate's historical collection, chosen as an appropriate acknowledgment of this occasion.
“What the hell?” She whispered under the breath before handing the letter to Tannian.
It was a letter to a Grand Admiral from a junior officer who wanted the Grand Admiral to know that he existed and was useful and was very Imperial and had no inconvenient attachments to anything that the Empire found inconvenient.
She looked at the enclosed piece.
It was a historical artifact from her family's estate, a small ceremonial object, pre-Imperial, the kind that appeared in the palace's formal records. It was genuinely valuable and genuinely historical and it was also precisely the kind of thing that would impress a Chiss Grand Admiral who had a documented interest in the art and artifacts of the cultures he encountered.
It had nothing to do with a newborn child.
"He sent a gift," Tannian said.
"He sent Thrawn a gift," she said. "And put the child's name on the card."
Tannian looked at the artifact. He picked it up and looked at it with the careful attention of a man identifying something. "This is from the royal gallery," he said. "Mother’s gallery. A ceremonial collection."
"I know."
"This was… mother kept this on the shelf in the nursery. She said it was from the third queen of the Geronh line."
She looked at the artifact in her brother's hands. She looked at it with the particular quality of looking at something that had been her mother’s.
"He's selling mother’s things," she said. Quietly. "To the man who ended the monarchy."
"I'm going to put it on the shelf," she said. "With the hawk and the naboo flowers and the other things. And it's going to be my son's because he is the Geronh line and everything that came from that line is his. Res sent it to Thrawn. I'm giving it to (c/n). Those are the only hands it needs to pass through."
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The days came and went, and Irtur never let her miss a day of training.
At first she hated him for it.
Her body still ached from the birth in ways she had not expected. Some mornings (c/n) had cried through most of the night and she arrived at the training hall exhausted, hair hastily pinned back, hands still smelling faintly of the oils Uiona used on the baby’s skin. Irtur never accepted exhaustion as an excuse. He handed her the staff anyway.
“Again,” he would say.
And again.
And again.
Three more months passed like that.
At night she sat in the nursery with (c/n) asleep against her chest while Coruscant glowed beyond the windows in endless seas of light. She memorized him obsessively. His bright red of his eyes. The way his tiny hands curled instinctively into the fabric of her sleeves. The soft blue skin that made Imperial visitors stare half a second too long before remembering themselves.
Thrawn called irregularly from Lothal. Sometimes only for minutes at a time. And still, whenever the calls ended, she found herself missing him afterward in ways she resented. By the beginning of the sixth month, (C/n) had begun recognizing voices. He turned immediately toward hers. Toward Uiona’s. Toward Thrawn’s through holographic transmission with startling attentiveness whenever he heard it. That frightened her more than she admitted aloud, because children learned attachment before they learned politics. And someday imperial politics would come to take him from her.
New Year Fête Week approached slowly. The start of the new year was of course celebrated on Batonn since its creation but Fête Week was imperial. There would be a military parade alongside children carrying lanterns with clan markings painted carefully by hand on the streets of Paeragosto.
(Y/N) stood in the nursery holding (c/n) against her shoulder while Coruscant glowed beyond the windows. He was beginning to grow faster now. More alert. He looked almost entirely like Thrawn. Some days this frightened her so badly she had to leave the room for a few minutes just to breathe.
‘Selfishness surrounds my heart.’
She thought to herself.
‘And a noble Queen is never selfish’
She was in the sitting room reading when V3PO announced that “the Grand Admiral is requesting immediate transmission from Lothal.”
She went to her office and accepted the transmission.
He resolved in the blue-white of the holographic quality, the Chimaera's office behind him.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Lady Thrawn," he said.
She waited as he held her gaze through the transmission and she waited because she had learned over the course of this marriage that waiting was information and she was always gathering information.
"How is the child?"
“Well, he is doing very well.”
"And you?"
"Managing," she said. "Dr. Thalias is satisfied with the recovery progress."
"The documentation she sent was conservative," he said.
"The documentation she sent," she said, "was accurate."
She thought: he is building toward something.
"I have been thinking," she said, before he arrived at whatever he was building toward, "about Fête Week.I would like to take (c/n) to Batonn, I believe it is appropriate."
The silence after was immediate. Thrawn looked down at the sleeping child in her arms through the holo before several seconds before answering.
“No,” He said with the word that sounded harder than expected.
She straightened slightly. “No?”
“No,” he repeated calmly. “You will not be returning to Batonn at this time.”
“The clans gather during New Year's Week,” Her exhausted voice sharpened instantly into anger.
“I am aware.”
“He should see his home.”
Thrawn finally looked at her fully then.
“Lothal is currently the more secure location.”
“What?”
“I am summoning you to Lothal.”
For one terrible moment she felt again what she had felt during Palpatine’s speech at the gala, the sensation of her marriage collapsing back into Imperial hierarchy without warning.
“Lothal is an active military theater. There are insurgent attacks almost weekly."
"Not within the Imperial sector where you would be housed. The situation on Lothal is otherwise stabilizing," he said.
"Stabilizing is not stable," she said.
"No," he said. "But it is sufficiently secure for the purpose."
"And what is the purpose?"
He studied her for a moment before speaking again.
"There has been discussion," he said, "within the Naval hierarchy. Regarding my household."
“Discussion,” she repeated.
“Interest,” he corrected.
“In me?”
“In the child,” Thrawn’s voice remained level, “the Empire is entering a period of instability within the Outer Rim. Symbolism has become strategically significant.”
“He’s a baby.”
“He is also the son of a Grand Admiral and the heir to Batonn’s surviving monarchy.”
“He is not a symbol.”
“No,” Thrawn said quietly. “But others will make him one regardless.”
"They want to use him and you let them."
"They want to use the image of him," Thrawn said. "There is a distinction."
"Is there," she said.
He held her gaze.
"From their perspective," he said, "yes. From yours, I understand that the distinction is less clear."
She turned away from him immediately, “I knew this would happen,” she whispered.
"The Outer Rim is restless," he said. "it has produced consequences that the Imperial communications apparatus is managing with decreasing effectiveness. The narrative of Imperial order requires supplementation. A Grand Admiral with an outer rim wife and a child represents a specific kind of supplementation." He held her gaze. "Unity. Stability. The suggestion that what the Empire has built extends to the personal as well as the structural."
"We are a recruitment poster," she said.
"We are a symbol," he said. "Which you have always been. The specific content of the symbol is shifting."
"You knew this," she said. "When we married. You knew the child would become this."
"I knew it was possible," he said. "The Emperor's design for the arrangement included this possibility."
"And you are telling me now."
"I am telling you now because the possibility has become the reality and you require accurate information."
"And Batonn," she said. "The answer remains no?"
"The timing is not appropriate," he said. "The celebration observance on Batonn in the current political climate, following Ghorman, with the ISB investigation still active, would be read as a statement."
"It would be a cultural observance."
"Nothing you do," he said, "is read as only what it is."
He was not wrong. That was the difficulty of the position, that he was frequently not wrong, that the accuracy of his assessments did not change what it cost her to receive them.
“The honesty is almost cruel.”
“I have found that you prefer it.”
“I prefer kindness.”
“Kindness,” he said carefully, “would be allowing you to walk unprepared into what is already occurring.”
“And bringing me to Lothal is preparation?”
“It is protection.”
“Protection from whom?”
“From what you are bringing yourself into, deviation from the empire,” he said.
The answer stunned her into silence. For a moment neither of them spoke.
Behind him, somewhere beyond the office walls of the Chimaera, alarms sounded faintly through the transmission before disappearing again into the machinery of military life. He did not react to them.
“You are speaking about the Empire as though you are not part of it.”
“I am part of it,” he said. “Which means I understand the mechanics of it more clearly than most.”
“And what exactly happens on Lothal?” she asked. “Do they parade us through receptions? Have me stand beside you while officers stare at the child and reassure themselves the Outer Rim can be domesticated if given enough time?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“The sector governors assigned to nearby systems will be present within the capital during Fête Week,” he said. “Several Moffs. Representatives from the Naval command structure. There will be formal appearances.”
“There it is.”
“There is also security,” he continued evenly. “Isolation from Coruscant political surveillance. Distance from the Senate. Distance from the ISB inquiry currently developing around Batonnese associates.”
“What development?”
“A minor one presently,” he said. “Which is why I am informing you now rather than after escalation.”
Cold moved through her body and the room seemed to close in on her.
“Does this involve my ambassador?”
Thrawn did not answer immediately and that itself was answer enough.Her grip tightened instinctively around (c/n).
“What happened?”
“There was an audit request filed regarding several cultural expenditures tied to the Batonnese diaspora initiative.”
The credits. The art collection cover story.
“The request originated through routine financial oversight channels,” he continued. “At present it appears administrative rather than targeted. I am ensuring it remains administrative.”
“You’re protecting us.”
“I am containing variables,” he corrected automatically.
“Thrawn.”
His eyes lifted to hers again.
“Yes,” he said quietly after a moment. “I am protecting you.”
The words sat strangely between them. Too honest. Too exposed. She looked away first because it hurt less than continuing to look at him while he said things like that in the same calm voice he used to discuss fleet formations.
“You should hate me,” (Y/N) whispered suddenly.
“Why?”
“Because every time you protect me, I am lying to you.”
“I am aware,” he said. Her head snapped back toward the hologram immediately, “and I know you are not entirely aligned with the Empire’s interests.”
Fear moved through her so quickly it almost felt like cold blood.
“And yet,” he continued before she could speak, “you remain aligned with your people’s survival. Which is not always the same thing.”
“How much do you know?”
“I know enough to understand that forcing you further into a corner would be strategically unwise.”
“That is a very elegant way of saying you’re choosing not to look too closely.”
“Yes,” he said.
(c/n) stirred lightly against her chest. Instinctively she rocked him once until he settled again.Thrawn watched the movement with an expression she could not fully name.
“Come to Lothal, (Y/N).”
Not Lady Thrawn. Not Senator. Just her name.
And somehow that made it harder to refuse.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She sent the message to Irtur when she laid in bed still wet from her shower.
‘Walk with me tomorrow. Ninth hour. I need to tell you something.’
He responded within twenty minutes:
‘Alright.’
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Irtur entered through the apartment door still wearing the dark formal coat from whatever Senate function he had abandoned to get there. The moment he saw her expression, his own changed.
“What happened?”
He followed her as she set out with the stroller, down to the gardens, the same garden she had once walked with Thrawn when they first married.
“Thrawn called from Lothal,” she began under her breath, “They audited the diaspora expenditures.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know yet. He said it still looks administrative.”
“Still,” Irtur repeated carefully.
“Yes.” She looked at him finally. “And he’s summoning me to Lothal.”
“For what purpose?” His expression darkened immediately.
“The child.” Her voice sharpened with bitterness. “Imperial unity. Outer Rim symbolism. Stability. The same performance as always except now they’ve added a baby to it. He says it’s for our protection.”
“And do you believe him?”
The terrible thing was that she did.
“That’s not the point,” she snapped.
“No,” he said, “It actually is.”
“This is serious now,” she said. “Do you understand? Before, if something happened, if the investigation expanded or the shipments were traced or the maps somehow led back to us…” Her voice caught briefly. “I would have been the first one to go down.”
“And now?”
“Now I have him,” she said gripping harder on the stroller, “I cannot survive an Imperial prison with an infant and I cannot disappear anymore. I cannot even run properly. Everything is different now.”
“This is exactly what they wanted.”
“What?”
The artificial flowers and bushes no longer distracted her as she looked directly at him, at the sharpness of his eyes.
“The Empire. Palpatine. All of this.” He gestured vaguely toward the stroller, the entire life surrounding them. “You think the child only became politically useful after he was born? No. The child was part of the architecture from the beginning.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s true.”
“He is not some Imperial strategy.” Her voice rose instantly. “He is my son.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t,” she said sharply. “You didn’t carry him. You didn’t spend months terrified of what he would look like and whether people would hate him for it before he even spoke his first word…”
“I am not criticizing your child.”
“You’re criticizing my life.”
“I’m criticizing the fact that the Empire has successfully tied your survival to theirs so tightly that now every decision you make must pass through the question of your child’s safety first.”
“Of course it does! You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t wake up every morning terrified that one day someone will look at him and only see the Empire in his face?”
“Oh, (Y/N).”
“I love him so much it feels like being skinned alive,” she admitted softly. “And sometimes I look at him and all I can think is that they’ve won.”
“They haven’t won.”
“That sounds like something rebels tell themselves before they die.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes it’s also true. I’ll go with you.”
“To Lothal?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
“I can,” he said calmly. “The cultural attaché position gives me sufficient justification to accompany the Batonnese royal household during New Year observances.”
“This isn’t a cultural visit.”
“No,” he agreed. “Which is exactly why you should not go there alone.”
“Lothal is dangerous.”
“Coruscant is more.”
“This could pull you directly into military scrutiny.”
“I am already under scrutiny.”
“Fine,” she said “but we must be careful.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
They went to the hanger the next day, deciding that it would be better to leave earlier in order to avoid anymore ISB officers who were actively investigating them on Coruscant. At least the ISB headquarters were not on Lothal.
Both times the hangar had been the ordinary kind of Imperial facility, functional and grey and occupied by the maintenance staff and the standard two-person security rotation that the building's administrative protocol required.
It was not the ordinary kind today.
She came through the hangar entrance with (c/n) in the carrier against her chest and Irtur at her left with the diplomatic case and luggage. Uiona walked behind them with her own luggage case.
Eight Imperial security officers, not the standard residential rotation, in the full security detail configuration, the armoring, the ISB adjacent insignia that was not quite ISB but was adjacent to it in the way that indicated a mandate that came from above the building administration, from somewhere that had decided that the Grand Admiral's wife and infant son traveling to Lothal required a different kind of escort than the building's standard two-person rotation provided.
“Senator Gernoh,” The senior officer said as he stepped forward.
"Officer," she said. Warm. Even. "I was not informed of an escort."
"The Grand Admiral arranged it this morning, Senator," he said. "Through the household security office. Given what occurred on your last transit, the incident in the outer rim, the Grand Admiral felt it appropriate to ensure your journey to Lothal proceeded without incident."
"Of course. How thoughtful of the Grand Admiral."
The senior officer inclined his head.
The ship was not the transport she had been expecting — the standard household shuttle, the grey one that V3PO had confirmed through the household office two days ago. This was larger. Imperial configuration. The specific model she associated with senior officer transit rather than civilian household arrangements.
She looked at Irtur.
Irtur was looking at the ship.
"Ambassador Irtur," the senior officer said, "The Grand Admiral has also arranged accommodation for your party aboard the transport. The cultural attaché function during New Year observances on Lothal was noted in the household documentation."
"How thorough," Irtur said pleasantly.
"The Grand Admiral is thorough," the officer said.
"Yes," Irtur said. "He is."
"Shall we board," she said. To the officer. To the hangar.
"When you're ready, Senator," he said.
She walked into ship and found her own cabin and left her son with Uiona before knocking on knocked on Irtur's cabin door twice.The door opened.
Irtur was still in the formal coat. He had not sat down, which told her he had been standing in his cabin since boarding.
"This is not good," she said, closing the door.
"No," he said. "It is not. This is not a household shuttle, we are being watched."
The engine vibrations hummed low beneath the floor. Somewhere outside the cabin walls she could hear the muted movement of officers preparing for departure. (c/n) was with Uiona three cabins down. She hated being separated from him even by that distance now.
“He knows something,” she said quietly.
Irtur leaned against the edge of the table, arms folded. “The question is how much.”
“He told me directly that he knows I am not entirely aligned with Imperial interests.”
“He said forcing me further into a corner would be strategically unwise.”
“And you are only telling me this now? You should have started with it.”
“I know that now.”
“He’s either warning you,” Irtur said carefully, “or he’s informing you that he has chosen not to act yet.”
“Do you think he knows about the maps?”
“No.”
“The shipments?”
“No.”
“The bombing?”
“He may suspect proximity,” he admitted quietly. “Thrawn is not stupid, (Y/N). He notices patterns. He notices when financial audits appear around the same people repeatedly.”
“He said he was protecting me.”
“Yes,” Irtur said flatly. “I believe he probably thinks he is.”
“If he were cruel this would all be so much easier.”
The ship shuddered faintly as departure clearance finalized. Then Irtur spoke again, quieter this time.
“This marriage does not end with both of you growing old together. You know that.”
“I know,” she said quietly. Hearing the harsh reality made her look down at her feet before she looked back at him, “there is one more thing. Gret.”
The name sat heavily between them.
“He was questioned already,” she continued. “The audits are escalating. We are now under military escort. The ISB will pull Gret again…”
“He’ll break.”
Irtur closed his eyes briefly. And when he opened them again she already knew they had arrived at the same conclusion separately.
“We cannot move him again,” she whispered.
“No.”
“We kill him,” she said. The words felt unreal in her mouth.Not because she had never thought violent thoughts before. Batonn had burned those illusions out of her long ago. But because saying it aloud transformed it into something material.
“Yes,” he said.
Her eyes closed.
“He cannot survive another interrogation,” Irtur said carefully. “And neither can we.”
“I hate what this is turning me into.”
“No,” he said quietly. “This is what occupation turns people into. There is a difference.”
A son arrives, and (Y/N) must do what she must in order to protect his future, even if it means betraying Thrawn.
Masterlist, Part 25
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
It was not long after the gala that Irtur was questioned.
A message came through the household communication channel at the sixth hour, routed through the cultural attaché's office in the way that had become their established method.
“The ISB called me in yesterday. Routine, they said. I am not certain Gret will hold.”
She read it twice, then deleted it.
They were walking through one of the upper promenade corridors near the Senate district, moving at the measured pace expected of two people who belonged there.
“What did they ask?”
“The bombing. The northern territories. My whereabouts during the week before the attack.” He glanced at her. “And Gret, my alibi.”
"How long did they have him?" she asked.
"Two hours. They were careful about it. Framed as background verification for the cultural attaché appointment. Nothing that named what they were actually asking about."
“And what were they asking about?”
"They were asking about my associations. My travel patterns. The meetings I have taken in the past three months. They were asking about you."
She absorbed this and looked ahead at the shop lights.
"He didn't give them anything," Irtur said. "Not yet. But he is young and not built for this. I should have never brought him but I needed him."
She was called in four days later. She was led into the white interrogation room. An officer whose voice never changed volume laid the datapad carefully flat on the table between them.
"Senator (Y/N) Geronh of Batonn.”
"Yes, that is me," she said warmly.
“Were you aware of dissident activity within the northern territories prior to the attack?”
“No.”
“Did Ambassador Marc Irtur ever express sympathy toward insurgent elements?”
“No.”
“Were you aware of unauthorized movement of explosives through Batonnese trade channels?”
“No.”
Again and again and again. She remembered the footage Irtur had sent her. She had not seen it until after the gala,she had watched it in the apartment on the grey sofa with Jankie on her feet and V3PO in the next room and had sat with what she had seen for a very long time after.
The smoke. The specific Batonnese smoke hiding faces she did not recognize and faces she did.
He asked three more questions. She answered all of them with the same composed accuracy, giving him what was technically true and nothing that was not, and she did not let her left hand move.
She went back to her apartment alone that day with V3PO meeting her almost immediately at the door.
“Your Majesty,” the droid said, “you have received a delivery.”
(Y/N) removed her gloves slowly. “From whom?”
“Grand Admiral Thrawn, your majesty.”
V3PO presented the box with careful formality. It was black lacquer, understated in the expensive way Imperial things often were. Inside, resting against dark velvet, was a pair of earrings. They were a deep sapphire and not large nor ostentatious. Elegant enough that she immediately understood he had selected them personally rather than delegating the task.
“They arrived approximately two hours ago,” V3PO informed her. “The Grand Admiral included a message.”
(Y/N) picked up the card.
“For the Senate reception next week. I believed this colour would suit you.”
And somewhere beneath that, still trapped under everything else, the Emperor’s voice lingered like poison. “Do not disappoint me.”
She sat in her pod, waiting for the senate to convene. Governor Restos had informed her that he would not be on Coruscant for this session, that he had other matters to attend to.
Irtur came through the pod’s door and sat down next to her, she didn’t turn to look at him for she recognized the pattern of his footfalls and how his left leg always fell heavier than his right.
“New earrings?” Irtur leaned back slightly in the Senate pod chair, looking out over the vast chamber below them where senators drifted into their assigned sections. Aids moved between pods carrying datapads and revised agenda schedules. Somewhere across the chamber a trade representative from the Mid Rim was already arguing with someone before the session had even begun.
“Yes.”
“From him?”
“Yes.”
“Very thoughtful,” he said dryly.
She almost smiled but didn’t quite manage it.
"They're careful," she said. "They're not naming what they know. Which means they're not certain yet."
“Gret…”
"Will be handled," she said. "Not harmed. Moved. There are people in the Paeragosto district who will bring him to a place where the ISB will not look.”
"The survey maps," she said now in Batonnese, “I have a plan. They're sending new officers into the outer rim. I know this from the Senate. New contractors, new oversight personnel. They're specifically being assigned to mineral extraction oversight. Which means they have new sites. Sites they haven't begun on yet. The northern territories aren't the ceiling, they're the beginning.”
Irtur was very still.
"There are survey maps," she said. "Geological surveys of Batonn, commissioned through the sector administration eighteen months ago. I've seen references to them in the resource allocation documentation. They have identified extraction sites across the planet that haven't been touched yet. Sites in the Veyruun lowlands. If those maps are destroyed before the new officers arrive to act on them, those sites cannot be efficiently located without beginning the survey process again from the beginning. Which takes time. And time is…"
"A resource."
"Yes."
He looked at her.
"The survey maps are held in the sector administration registry,the digital record."
"I know," she said.
"That is not a simple thing to destroy."
"No, it isn’t. I can't get near the sector registry," she said. "But you have the cultural attaché appointment. The administrative access that comes with it."
"Limited access."
"Sufficient access," she said, "to someone who knows what they're looking for. Ugh, I hate these people. Every time I sit across from someone in that building and smile and say of course, how reasonable, I am seeing the footage. I am seeing Batonn"
Irtur held very still.
"Destroy the maps," she said.
"I will," he said.
"There's something else," he said, after a moment.
She waited.
"The ships," he said. "The transport schedule for the doonium. The routing we couldn't read."
"Yes."
He slowed slightly, dropping his voice further beneath the ambient noise. "Clvtorig found it. If someone were to interrupt their transfer…Someone would need a ship and people who know how to handle one. And the specific codes to access the transfer window without triggering the alert protocols."
"Which Clvtorig has."
"Which Clvtorig has," he confirmed.
"The cost?"
"Significant, the kind of operation requires payment upfront. Equipment, personnel, fuel. The kind of credits that don't come from a senate allowance."
She thought about her accounts. The household allowance, the governance funds, the senate stipend. The specific amounts, the specific access points.
"How much?"
He told her.
“I’ll need a cover story. I’ll say that i’m acquiring art for the Batonnese diaspora art collection. It's already documented. The amounts are consistent with high-value artifact purchases.”
They were silent for a moment before he spoke again.
“This gets dangerous very quickly,” he said.
“I know.”
“No,” he said quietly, “I don’t think you fully do.”
She didn’t answer immediately. Because she did understand. The footage from Batonn still lived behind her eyes every time she closed them. The smoke. The ruined streets. The bodies beneath flags.
The Senate chamber lights shifted another degree brighter as more pods moved into position around them.Then Irtur looked at her again. At the sapphire earrings catching the white Coruscanti light each time she moved her head.
“Take those off.”
She blinked slightly. “What?”
“The earrings.” His voice remained calm, but there was something hard underneath it now. “Take them off.”
Her hand moved instinctively toward one of them.
“Lord Irtur…”
“You’re sitting here discussing sabotage operations while wearing jewelry sent to you by the man tasked with maintaining Imperial control of the outer rim. Do you understand how insane that is?”
Her fingers closed around the cool sapphire.
“They’re just earrings.”
“No,” he said. “They’re not. They’re a reminder. A very expensive, very elegant reminder of exactly where you live now and who is watching you while you try to convince yourself you still belong somewhere else.”
“This is unfair.”
“Is it?”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t care about you,” he said finally. “I think he probably does. In the way he knows how.” That hurt more than if he had insulted Thrawn outright. “But you cannot do this halfway anymore. You cannot help organize resistance operations while still allowing yourself to be soothed by gifts that make all of this feel survivable.”
Slowly, she removed one earring. Then the other. Below them, the Senate session began with applause.
It rolled through the Senate chamber in waves, polite and mechanical and endless. Somewhere across the floor a representative from Kuat had begun speaking.
Irtur was still looking at her.
Then, very quietly, with something dangerously close to disbelief:
“Oh my.”
She looked at him.
“(Y/N)… do you love him?”
She looked away from him almost immediately, down toward the Senate floor below them where people were speaking about tariffs and shipping routes and pretending the galaxy was not burning at its edges.
“What kind of question is that?”
“I thought this was survival,” he said carefully. “I thought this was adaptation. Political intelligence. I thought you were enduring him because enduring him was necessary.”
“And what if I was?”
“You just took those earrings off like it hurt. I am very good at reading women, (Y/N).”
He stared at her another second and then leaned back slightly in the chair like the realization itself had physically unsettled him.
“Oh, stars.”
“Stop.”
“You love him.”
“I said stop.” But there was no force in it now. Only exhaustion.
“The Grand Admiral.” He almost laughed, “The architect of Batonn.”
“He is not only that.”
Irtur looked at her with an expression she could not fully bear to meet because it wasn’t judgment. Judgment would have been easier. Instead it was grief.
“For you?” he asked quietly.
“He…” Her voice failed briefly. “He tries.”
Irtur closed his eyes for a moment, “That may actually be worse.”
If Thrawn had been cruel, this would have been simple. If he had treated her like property, like spectacle, like punishment, she could have built hatred cleanly around herself and lived inside it. Instead, he sent her earrings because he noticed what colors she stopped to look at in shop windows. He stood too close to her when he thought she was frightened, as though proximity itself was protection. And somewhere along the way, against every reasonable instinct she possessed, she had begun to love him in the quiet disastrous way people sometimes loved things that were destined to destroy them, or had already destroyed them.
For a while neither of them spoke.(Y/N) stared at the sapphires resting in her palm. Finally, Irtur spoke again.
“Does he know?”
“Thrawn notices everything, but no I do not think he knows.”
“And you?” he asked. “Did you know before now?”
“I think,” she said slowly, “I kept hoping it would stop before I had to name it.”
Irtur leaned back in the chair and looked briefly toward the ceiling like he was asking his gods for patience.
“If you love him then every time we discuss the maps or the shipments or the mining operations, part of you is thinking about him finding out. And every time he looks at you, you’re wondering whether you’re betraying him.”
“I am betraying him.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You are.”
The Senate applauded again below them for something neither of them had heard.
“Do you think anyone will mention the Chandrilan?”
“No, I think they’ll pretend that it didn’t even happen,” (Y/N) responded
Below them, another senator began speaking about shipping tariffs in the Core Worlds while aides drifted between pods carrying revised motions and budget amendments. The machinery continued.
“She was one of them,” she said quietly. “One of the most visible senators in the galaxy and they’re just…”
“Continuing?” Irtur finished. “Yes.”
(Y/N) suddenly understood why Irtur had looked at her the way he had after she admitted she loved Thrawn. Because this was the structure he belonged to.
“I keep thinking about Batonn,” she admitted softly.
“The footage?”
“Yes, and the gala was part of it. Me standing there as a pawn while Palpatine talked about mercy.”
She looked down at them again, at the earrings in her hand. The word mercy now sounded like something rotten.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The third trimester arrived the way difficult things arrived which was not suddenly but as though it had always been coming and she had simply been too occupied with everything else to fully account for the approach.
Dr. Thalias adjusted the protocol at the beginning of the seventh month. More rest. Reduced Senate commitments. The governance correspondence to be managed from the apartment rather than the Senate building where the corridors were long and the sessions were longer.
She reduced the Senate sessions but did not reduce everything else.
Imperial women spoke with polished curiosity that disguised cruelty beneath etiquette. Batonnese delegates were worse because their discomfort carried grief inside it.
‘The child.’ One of them said it with the register of a woman handling a concept she was not entirely certain how to categorize. ‘Chiss and human. Do you think it will look like him or like her?’
‘I think it will look like neither,’ the other said. ‘That is generally how it works, isn't it. They never quite look like either.’
They spoke in front of her, as though she were not even there.
She had sent Irtur the question in the careful language they used for things that could not be said directly. He had responded in the same language:
‘The clans will accept what they are given. The question is how it is presented.’
She had read this and had not found it comforting.
If the child inherited his eyes, the impossible burning red of them, then every room the child entered for the rest of its life would react before the child even spoke.She knew what the Empire did to visible difference. Thrawn survived it because he was brilliant enough to weaponize their underestimation of him. Some days she felt so overwhelmed by terror that she could barely breathe properly.
The bombing investigation did not close.
The ISB sent a follow-up communication in the eighth month, a formal notification that the review was ongoing and that additional documentation might be requested.
Irtur had destroyed the geological survey maps. He told her in careful language, three weeks after the fact, that the sector administration registry had experienced a targeted data loss in the geological resource division and that the reconstruction timeline was estimated at eighteen months minimum.
Thrawn called from the Chimaera at irregular intervals.
The calls were formal in the way that communications conducted through Imperial channels were required to be formal.
She received the calls in her office.
He said, on the call in the eighth month: "You look tired."
She said: "I am in the third trimester. Looking well is a variable outcome."
He held her gaze through the transmission.
He said: "I will be back before the delivery."
She said: "Dr. Thalias estimates three weeks."
He said: "I know."
She said: "Then you know the timeline."
He said: "Yes."
"Goodnight," she said.
"Goodnight," he said.
The transmission ended. She sat in her office in the Coruscant apartment at the whatever hour it was and she held the image of his face in the blue-white light and she breathed. Jankie jumped onto her lap. She rested her hand along her back.
The depression came the way the third trimester came. She did not tell Dr. Thalias. She did not tell Uiona, though Uiona knew. Uiona did not ask her to be other than what she was.
Uiona sat with her in the evenings when she could not read and could not work and could not do anything except sit on the grey sofa in the apartment that she had lived in long enough that it was the closest available approximation of a home and look at the Coruscant night through the window.
A message from Lady Sereth came in the ninth month.
It was brief and in careful language and said only: The boy continues to improve. He asks for you.
She did not sleep well that night.
It happened during the afternoon, quietly.
(Y/N) had been trying to nap but found herself stressing over investigations out of her control. She pushed herself from the bed and was making her way to the door when suddenly she stopped. Pain hit so suddenly that breath vanished from her lungs entirely.
She stopped walking immediately. For one confused second she genuinely thought something inside her had torn.
Her hand slammed against the wall beside her.
“Oh…”
She bent forward sharply, breathing too fast already as pain radiated through her abdomen and down her spine. She was crying before she fully realized it.
“V3PO!” Her voice cracked violently,“V3PO!”
The silver droid appeared almost immediately from the corridor beyond the dining room.
“Your Majesty?”
“I think…” She sucked in a breath sharply as another contraction hit. “I think it’s happening.”
The droid froze for precisely half a second. Then every protocol in activated simultaneously.
“I am contacting the medical team immediately,” V3PO said rapidly. “Please attempt to remain calm…”
“I am calm,” she snapped through tears. Another contraction hit and she nearly folded in half “I am not calm.”
The life of a queen.
The birthing suite was on the upper medical level. It had large windows, Coruscant windows, the kind that looked out on the city's middle atmosphere, all light and traffic and the geometric density of a planet that had replaced all its natural features with constructed ones.
She asked for Uiona immediately. Uiona came within four minutes which was faster than the medical team, which meant she had also been on standby, which she had arranged herself without being asked, which was the most Uiona thing that had ever happened.
"You are doing well," Dr. Thalias said.
"You keep saying that," she said, through a contraction that was erasing her ability to form complete sentences.
"Because it remains accurate," Dr. Thalias said. "And because it is true that you are doing well and I intend to keep saying it."
"Tell me something," she said, to Uiona. Between the contractions.
"About what?"
“About home.”
Uiona sat beside her while Coruscant glowed cold and gold beyond the windows. Between contractions, she spoke quietly about Batonn in the springtime. The lowlands after rain. The sound of the sea striking the cliffs beneath the western monasteries. Orange lanterns during festival nights. The smell of cedar smoke from the mountain clans. She kept speaking even when (Y/N) could no longer answer properly, her voice becoming something steady to hold onto while pain tore through her in waves sharp enough to empty the room of everything else.
Hours later, with Dr. Thalias instructing calmly beside her and Uiona gripping one of her hands hard enough to bruise, the child finally entered the world in one sudden devastating moment that knocked a cry from her throat and left the room ringing with silence before another sound replaced it. An infant’s cry. Thin. Furious. Alive. She was crying before they even placed him in her arms. Blue skin. Tiny red eyes squeezed shut against the light. So impossibly small that fear moved through her immediately, violent in its intensity. She held him against her chest.
The weight of a crown was nothing compared to the weight of the child in her arms.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Three days later, Thrawn returned to Coruscant. The apartment had been quieter since the birth. Not peaceful exactly. Softer. The medical staff came and went with controlled efficiency. Uiona had remained. V3PO moved through the apartment with increased volume suppression protocols after accidentally waking the infant twice during the first night.
(Y/N) was half asleep in the bed when the apartment doors opened. She knew his footsteps immediately. The footsteps of a man who never rushed even when he should.
The nursery lights were dim. Coruscant evening stretched gold beyond the windows. Thrawn paused in the doorway before entering fully. For the first time since she had known him, he looked uncertain.
His eyes found her first. Then the child in her arms.
“You returned quickly, though not when expected.” she said softly.
“No,” He said as he moved closer to the bed slowly, like someone approaching something potentially dangerous. The infant stirred lightly against her chest. Thrawn stopped beside the bed and looked down at his son.
All the terrifying composure of Grand Admiral Thrawn seemed, for one fractional second, to fail him completely.
The child looked unmistakably Chiss. Blue skin, though softer in tone than Thrawn’s. Red eyes that tracked movement with startling alertness whenever they opened. Only small things belonged visibly to her: the shape of his mouth, the curve of his nose, the faint structure of her family somewhere beneath all the Chissness of him.
“He looks like you,” she said quietly.
"Yes," he said. Quietly. "He does."
"Do you want to hold him?"
He looked at her.
"Yes," he said.
She shifted (c/n) carefully and held him out and she watched Thrawn receive his son for the first time.
One of his hands supported the child’s head automatically, the other beneath the small body with the control of someone accustomed to handling fragile and dangerous things simultaneously. (c/n) made a small sound of protest at being moved, his tiny face tightening briefly before settling against the white fabric of Thrawn’s uniform.
She caught herself looking then turned away, because for one dangerous second the image had felt almost gentle. It was too peaceful, and peace was a word that the empire used when they really meant submission.
He is the enemy.
The thought arrived with the force of something rehearsed too many times to still feel natural. The man who had stood beneath Imperial banners while her planet burned under the logic of order and necessity and strategy. The man whose victories filled Senate speeches and military academies and mass graves. And yet he held the baby like he was afraid of harming him.
(c/n) stirred again, one tiny blue hand pressing weakly against the front of Thrawn’s uniform. She hated how much it hurt to watch. This was the contradiction she could no longer survive cleanly inside.
“You should sit,” she said quietly, because it was easier than saying anything else.
Thrawn glanced toward her briefly before sitting in the chair beside the bed with the same controlled precision he brought to everything. But once seated, the control seemed to loosen around the edges. Not disappear. Never disappear. Just… change.
Very softly, in Cheunh, he said something she did not understand. The words settled low and quiet in the room.
“What did you say?” she asked.
Thrawn looked up from the child.
“A Chiss phrase,” he said after a pause. “It does not translate directly.”
“Try.”
“It means,” he said carefully, his gaze lowered back toward (c/n). “You are known to me.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Irtur arrived on the sixth day, at a time where he knew Thrawn would not be present.
He came through the door with the bearing she knew, the way of moving through spaces that was part of how his family had governed their province for two hundred years. He was in the formal diplomatic dress, which meant he had been somewhere official before this and had not changed. Or he had changed specifically because he was being careful.
He was also carrying flowers so aggressively expensive that she immediately understood they had been chosen specifically to irritate Imperial sensibilities.
“They’re from Naboo,” he informed her while handing them to V3PO. “Apparently Coruscanti flowers are bred for symmetry rather than scent.”
“You are becoming increasingly insufferable,” she muttered from the bed.
“Yes, but now I’m doing it professionally.”
(c/n) was asleep against her chest beneath a soft blanket when Irtur finally sat down at the chair near her bed, the same chair Thrawn sat in the day before. The humor faded from his expression almost immediately once he looked at the child properly.
“He looks like you,” he said quietly.
“No, he doesn’t,” She said with almost a laugh, as though she knew he was attempting to give her a white lie.
“He does.”
“He looks exactly like Thrawn.”
Irtur shook his head slightly. "That’s not what I said. The mouth is yours, so is the nose. The way his brow sits. The shape of his eyes."
She looked down at (c/n) automatically. Blue skin. Dark blue hair already beginning to show at the crown of his head. Red eyes hidden now beneath sleep heavy lids. She could not find herself anywhere in him.
“I don’t see it.”
“You’re tired,” he said carefully. His expression softening into concern.
“You’re tired,” he said carefully.
“I’m fine.”
“That was not what I said either.”
She looked away from him toward the Coruscant skyline beyond the apartment windows. There were whispers already. Imperials fascinated by the novelty of the child. Batonnese delegates speaking in lowered voices about bloodlines and conquest and symbols. She heard things even when people tried not to let her hear them. They called him Thrawn’s son, as though she had disappeared from the equation entirely.
“When can you train again?” Irtur asked suddenly.
She blinked at him. “What?”
“Physical training. Self-defense.”
“Irtur, I gave birth six days ago.”
“Yes.”
“And your immediate response to that is combat preparation?”
“Defensive preparation,” he corrected calmly.
She let out a short laugh. “I can barely walk down the hallway without feeling like my organs are rearranging themselves.”
“That will improve.”
“Oh, good. Wonderful.”
Irtur leaned forward slightly, elbows against his knees now, his voice lowering beneath the soft apartment lighting.
“(Y/N), listen to me.”
Something in his tone made her still.
“We are past the point where caution alone protects us,” he said quietly. “The investigations are still active. Clvtorig is operating against Imperial supply routes. The mining delays will eventually be noticed. And if anything goes wrong…”
“It won’t.”
“You do not know that.”
(c/n) shifted lightly against her chest. Instinctively she rested a hand against his back. Causing Irtur to watch the movement before continuing.
“You have a child now,” he said softly. “Which means you cannot afford helplessness anymore.”
The words landed hard because part of her already feared they were true.
“I am not asking you to become a soldier,” he continued. “I am asking you to know how to survive long enough to escape a room if survival becomes necessary.”
“I am not strong, my Lord and here you are telling me to be a fighter.”
“I think the Empire survives by eventually discovering everything.” He held her gaze. “And I think we need to be ready for the day it discovers us.”
Before she could answer, the apartment doors opened somewhere down the corridor. All three of them recognized the footsteps immediately: Precise, Even, Unhurried.
Irtur leaned back into the chair, rearranging himself socially at dangerous speed just as Thrawn entered the bedroom still in uniform. His eyes moved first to her, then to the child, and then finally to Irtur.
“Ambassador,” Thrawn said.
“Grand Admiral.” Irtur’s mouth curved faintly. “Good to see that this meeting is occurring under significantly less awkward bathroom circumstances than the last one.”
(Y/N) closed her eyes briefly.
“I was unaware you considered that encounter awkward.”
“You entered a locked bathroom during an Imperial gala immediately after the Emperor threatened your wife personally,” Irtur replied. “Some cultures would classify that as memorable.”
“Reasonable,” Thrawn said.
It startled a laugh out of her before she could stop it, causing both men looked toward her immediately.
“Irtur, you are acting like a child.”
“An encouraging sign,” Irtur replied. “You sound more alive today.”
Thrawn stepped closer to the bed then, his attention settling briefly on (c/n) asleep against her chest.
“He has remained calm?” he asked.
“He screams primarily at droids and medical scans,” she said. “So yes.”
“A promising beginning.”
Irtur rose from the chair slowly, adjusting the sleeves of his coat.
“Before I leave,” he said, turning toward Thrawn with exaggerated diplomatic formality, “congratulations on the child, Grand Admiral.”
Thrawn inclined his head once. “Thank you.”
Irtur moved toward the apartment doors with the easy elegance of someone long accustomed to leaving rooms before conversations became dangerous. At the doorway he paused and looked back once toward her. Something unspoken passed briefly across his face. Concern. Affection. Fear. All of it carefully buried before he inclined his head.
“Your Majesty.”
“Ambassador.”
Then he looked toward Thrawn.
“Grand Admiral.”
“Ambassador.”
And then he was gone.
The apartment quieted immediately after the doors sealed behind him.
Thrawn stood very still for a moment.
“There has been a development on Lothal.”
The words changed the air in the room instantly.
“What kind of development?”
“Rebel activity.” A pause. “More organized than previously estimated.”
Of course it was. The galaxy was burning faster now. Everyone could feel it.
“And you have to leave.”
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
“Immediately.”
Something painful moved through her chest, though she had known from the moment he arrived that his presence here was temporary. Men like Thrawn did not belong to homes. They belonged to campaigns and war rooms and distant systems lit red on tactical maps.
Still, she smiled at him softly.
“Duty calls, Grand Admiral.”
“Yes,” he said.For the first time since entering the apartment, something in his expression altered faintly.
Thrawn stepped closer to the bed again, his gaze lowering briefly toward his son before returning to her.
“If conditions stabilize,” he said carefully, “I will send for you.”
“To Lothal?”
“If it is sufficiently secure.”
There was no such thing anymore. Not really. But the fact that he was offering at all twisted painfully through her. Because part of her wanted to go. Which felt like its own betrayal.
“And if it isn’t safe?” she asked.
“Then you will remain here.”
Thrawn looked at her for another long moment, like there was something else he intended to say and was deciding against it.Then he reached down very carefully and touched two fingers briefly against (c/n)’s small head.
“I will contact you upon arrival,” he said.
The silence that followed settled softly between them. (c/n) slept against her chest completely unaware that the galaxy outside this apartment was held together by war and fear and people making impossible choices. One tiny blue hand remained curled loosely against the blanket. Thrawn looked at the child once more before his eyes returned to her.
“You should rest,” he said quietly.
“You always say that like it’s an order.”
“Often it is.”
“That’s romantic.”
Something almost imperceptible shifted at the corner of his mouth. Then, after a brief hesitation unusual for him, he reached toward her slowly enough that she understood immediately he was giving her time to refuse.
She didn’t.
His hand settled lightly against the side of her face, thumb resting just beneath her cheekbone. The touch was careful. Reverent, almost. As though she were something more fragile now than she had been before.
“You are exhausted,” he said softly.
“I just created a person.”
“A valid explanation.”
She laughed quietly under her breath.
“You look tired too.”
“I have been informed the current condition is acceptable.”
“By whom?”
“You, approximately four months ago.”
She blinked once before remembering dimly saying something delirious and affectionate during a late-night holocall.
“That information should not have been retained.”
“I retain most things.”
“Yes, that’s part of the problem.”
His thumb moved once against her skin before he seemed to realize he was doing it.
Then very quietly, almost like the words surprised even him:
“I dislike leaving you here.”
Because he did not say things like that often. Not plainly. She looked at him for a long moment. The blue skin. The dangerous red eyes. The man she had once feared before somehow, disastrously, becoming this.
“You always leave.”
“Yes,” he said.
Without thinking, they both smiled. For one impossible second they looked like something ordinary. Something untouched by empires and rebellions and the terrible machinery of history waiting outside the apartment walls.
(Y/N) navigates the dangerous politics of Coruscant while her autonomy is systematically stripped away. The tension reaches a boiling point when the Emperor himself intervenes, delivering a chilling reminder of exactly where she stands in his New Order.
Masterlist, Part 24
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Tannian Geronh arrived at nine in the morning.
He came in his Lieutenant Commander's uniform, which Thrawn assessed in approximately two seconds , correctly fitted, maintained with care but worn without enthusiasm, the presentation of a man who understood that the uniform was a requirement and had decided to meet requirements precisely and nothing beyond them. Thrawn received him in the study.
Thrawn gestured to the chair across the desk.
Tannian sat. He looked at Thrawn across the desk and Thrawn looked back and neither of them said anything for a moment.
Thrawn waited. Waiting cost nothing and told him things.
"Grand Admiral," Tannian said. His voice was even. The control in it was built rather than natural, recognizably the same family trait, the same architecture of composure over something considerably less composed underneath. "Thank you for seeing me."
"Your sister is my wife," Thrawn said. "It would be unusual not to."
Something moved through Tannian's expression at the word wife, a fractional thing, contained immediately. Thrawn filed it.
"I'll be direct," Tannian said.
"Please."
"My sister wants to deliver her child on Batonn. She tells me you've refused and has asked me to speak to you as sisters do. I'd like to understand your reasoning."
"The medical risk is significant. A Chiss/human hybrid gestation is not well documented. The variables are considerable and the outcomes are not predictable with sufficient confidence. The Imperial medical division has specialists in nonstandard gestations, facilities equipped for complications that Batonn's existing infrastructure cannot address. The child's safety requires proximity to those resources."
"That's one reason."
"It's the primary reason."
"Is it the only one?"
Thrawn looked at him for a moment. "No."
Tannian nodded slowly. Confirming something. "She said you were honest when pressed." A pause. "The other reasons."
"The child's reception within the Imperial hierarchy will require management from the moment of birth. The circumstances of that birth are the first variable in that management. A child born on Coruscant, in an Imperial facility, under Imperial medical care, enters the hierarchy from a position of greater legitimacy than one born on an outer rim planet under traditional ceremony." He paused. "The political reality is not separable from the practical one."
"You mean the optics," Tannian said. Flat.
"I mean the calculation," Thrawn said. "Which is not optics. It is arithmetic."
"I want to offer you a different calculation," Tannian said. "The child's legitimacy on Batonn depends on Batonnese recognition. Not Imperial, Batonnese. The people of that planet have been watching their monarchy get reduced and repackaged. They watched the consolidation. They have been watching my sister govern under the conditions she's been given and measuring every decision she makes against what they know of her and what they know of what was done during the consolidation. If her child is born on Coruscant in an Imperial facility, without a single Batonnese tradition observed, there are people on that planet who will read that child as the replacement of the monarchy rather than its continuation. That instability will be more expensive to manage than whatever you're preventing by keeping her here."
It was, Thrawn acknowledged internally, a competent argument. The man had learned something in his two years of service.
"I've considered that argument," Thrawn said. "I find it insufficient to change the calculus."
Tannian blinked. "Insufficient."
"The Batonnese population's recognition of the heir is a variable I can manage through other mechanisms. A formal presentation on Batonn following the birth, a ceremony consistent with royal tradition, conducted on Batonnese soil. The birth location itself is not the determining factor in legitimacy, the subsequent recognition is. The medical risk remains, regardless of the political framing."
"And what other mechanisms," Tannian said. "For managing Batonnese recognition. What exactly does that look like from here."
"Administrative and ceremonial measures that are well within Imperial capacity to execute," Thrawn said. "I've managed more complex political communications with fewer resources."
"You've managed them. From a desk. With data reports. That's how you understand Batonn. From reports."
"I understand Batonn considerably well," Thrawn said.
"You understand its resources. Its strategic position. Its insurgency patterns." Tannian looked at him. "You don't understand what it means to have been born there."
"No," Thrawn said evenly. "I don't. That is accurate."
"Then perhaps…" Tannian stopped. Started again. "Perhaps you might defer, on that specific point, to the people who do."
"Deference is not a strategy," Thrawn said. "It is the absence of one."
The room was quiet.
"Lieutenant Commander," Thrawn said, before Tannian could continue. "I want to be clear about something, since we are being direct."
"By all means."
"You came here as a brother," Thrawn said. "I understand that. And within those limits I am willing to hear what a brother has to say. But you are also a Lieutenant Commander in the Imperial Navy, which means that within the structure of this conversation you are speaking to a superior officer about a decision that has been made. I have heard your argument. I have considered it. The answer is no. My wife will deliver her child here, under appropriate medical care, and the matter is settled."
Tannian was very still.
"Furthermore," Thrawn continued, in the same even tone, "I would remind you that the political situation of the Geronh family has changed considerably since the consolidation. Your sister's position is defined by her marriage and her function as Queen of Batonn under Imperial oversight. Your position is defined by your rank in the Imperial Navy. The Geronh line no longer holds hereditary political authority independent of those Imperial-sanctioned roles. Which means that your standing to make demands regarding decisions that fall within my authority as her husband…" He paused. "Is limited."
Something crossed Tannian's face. Something that was not political and not military and had nothing of the two years of Imperial service in it. It was older than all of that. It was the face of a man being told, in precise language, that the thing he used to be no longer existed.
"You're reminding me," Tannian said, quietly, "that I am no longer an heir."
"I'm reminding you of the current structure," Thrawn said. "Which is relevant to the scope of this conversation."
Tannian was quiet for a long moment. He looked at the desk. Then at the window. Then back at Thrawn.
"You're right," he said. "That I'm not an heir. That none of us are, now I am aware of what I am now. I am aware of what my family is now. I don't need it explained to me. What I am is my sister's brother. That's a title that hasn't been revoked yet. And in that capacity I want to say something to you that is outside the scope of the argument I came here to make."
"Grand Admiral," Tannian said. "You led the Batonn insurgency."
Thrawn said nothing.
"You commanded the operation that ended our monarchy. That created the conditions in which my sister was taken from the palace and held in a detention facility."
"I'm aware of the events," Thrawn said.
"I am not here to condemn you," Tannian said. "But I am her brother. And because I am her brother I am fulfilling her request.”
The silence in the study afterward was the longest silence of the meeting.
"You mentioned," Thrawn said, finally, "that the child's reception within the Imperial hierarchy was relevant to your argument."
Tannian looked at him. "Yes."
"You were framing it as an argument for Batonn," Thrawn said. "That a child born there would have greater Batonnese legitimacy. But I think there is a version of that concern you did not say directly."
Tannian was quiet.
"You think," Thrawn said, with the precision he applied to everything, "that the child's reception on Coruscant is already compromised. Regardless of where it is born. Regardless of what I do to manage it."
"You know the xenophobia that exists here," Tannian said quietly. "You have lived it. You have navigated it for years. Every room you walk into, every officer who looks at you and sees the blue skin and the red eyes before they see the rank or the record or the mind. You know better than anyone in this Empire what it means to be non-human in a structure built by humans for humans. And you are asking your child to be born into that. In the place where it is most concentrated. Most visible. Where the women at the parties are already talking about the alien Grand Admiral and his Batonnese, outer-rim wife and what their child will look like. I am asking whether keeping her here is about the child's safety. Or whether it is about something else, about making the child as Imperial as possible, as fast as possible, before the galaxy has a chance to decide what it is."
Thrawn looked at Tannian for a long moment.
"Both things can be true simultaneously," he said. "The medical concern is genuine. The political calculation is genuine. They are not in competition with each other."
"I know," Tannian said. "That's what concerns me."
"I would protect my child," Thrawn said. Quietly. "From whatever requires protection. Including this planet’s particular pathologies."
"By making the child less visible as a target," Tannian said. "By making it more Imperial. More…Less like you. Less like her. Less like what it actually is."
"By giving it the best possible starting position in the structure it is going to have to navigate. Which is the same thing."
"Is it?"
The silence was very long.
"My answer is no," Thrawn said. Finally. Flatly. "The child will be born here. Under appropriate medical care. With the resources that the situation requires. That decision is not going to change."
Tannian looked at him.
He looked like his father, Thrawn thought, distantly. In the way that (Y/N) also occasionally looked like her father. The Geronh line was strong in the bone structure, in something about the way of stillness when they had made a decision they would not revise.
"I heard you," Tannian said. He stood. He straightened his uniform with the motion of a man resuming a shape he had set down. "I want you to hear something in return."
"Go ahead."
"I don't hold you in contempt," Tannian said. "I want to be precise about that because I think imprecision is dangerous between us. I understand command. I understand that the Empire made certain things inevitable and that the specific men at the top of those operations were in some ways as constrained as everyone underneath them. But I am her brother. That has not been revoked, regardless of what has been revoked. And I will be paying attention. To how she is. To what she has and what she doesn't. To whether this arrangement is something she can survive. I think you should know that."
"I know it," Thrawn said.
Tannian nodded. Once. The weighted kind.
He left. His footsteps moved down the corridor and the apartment door opened and closed and the study was very quiet.
Thrawn sat alone with the quality of silence that followed a true thing being said in a space where true things were not often permitted.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She came to the garden when she needed to be outside without being observed, which was becoming a more pressing need as the weeks progressed and the pregnancy settled into her body with the particular insistence of something that intended to be taken seriously.
She was sitting on the bench behind the second topiary screen when she heard Tannian's footsteps.
She knew it was him before he appeared. She knew his footsteps.
He came around the topiary and looked at her, and she looked at him, and he sat beside her without being invited because he was her brother and the invitation was implicit.
"So, he told you to fuck off as well?" she asked.
"Yes, in fact he did," Tannian said sitting down next to her, “Queens don’t curse, (Y/N).”
She nodded and looked at the garden. At the plants that were not connected to any soil that had a history, in light that came from a source that had made a decision about what kind of light to administer.
"Tell me what he said," she said.
Tannian was quiet for a moment. He was deciding, she could tell, what version of it to give her, the version that was accurate or the version that was kind.
"He cited the medical risk," Tannian said. "Genuinely. I think it is a genuine concern, the hybrid gestation, the lack of appropriate specialists on Batonn. He was not inventing it."
"I know it's real," she said. "I've read the same documentation he has."
"He also…He acknowledged the other dimension. When I pressed him. The reception of the child here, the management of the child's position in the hierarchy, starting from the birth. The calculation of what it means for a half-Chiss child to be born in an Imperial facility versus a Batonnese palace."
She breathed. "He wants the child to be as Imperial as possible."
"He wants the child to be protected. I think those two things, for him, are the same thing."
"And you said."
"I said that you know the xenophobia that exists here. That an alien child…That a child that is visibly nonhuman would face things in this city, in this Empire, that no amount of strategic positioning could fully prevent…I said he knew this better than anyone. That he had been living it for years."
"What did he say?"
"That both things could be true simultaneously.”
She was quiet.
"And the answer was still no," she said.
"The answer was still no," Tannian said. "He said it was not going to change."
She looked at him. He was looking at her with the expression that was not the Imperial officer and not the political argument and not the careful calculation of what to say in what room.
"(Y/N)," Tannian said,"I'm sorry,"
She looked at the garden.
"And me as well," she said.
They sat together in the false spring of the Coruscant garden.
"We'll figure it out."
She shook her head. A very small motion. "He won't move on this."
"I know."
"And I can't…I cannot fight him on it in a way that costs more than it gains. Not right now. Not in this position The ISB will reinvestigate me. I am pregnant and my legal standing is entirely contingent on an arrangement that benefits the Emperor as long as it is stable and becomes a liability the moment it isn't. I cannot afford to make this a battle."
Tannian didn’t answer her immediately. He watched her instead. The way she sat too straight for someone who was tired. The way she looked at the garden like she was trying to convince herself it was real.
“You’re right,” he said finally. “You can’t make this a battle. And I can’t fight it for you.”
“What?”
“I can’t fight your battles anymore,” Tannian said.
It wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t even firm in the way Thrawn had been firm. It was…honest.
“I can still speak,” he continued. “I can still argue. I can still walk into a room and make a case. But I can’t…override him. Not in this structure. Not in this hierarchy.”
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“I did,” he said quietly, “I expected that I could still do something. That there was still a version of this where I could walk in and say ‘no, this is wrong,’ and it would…matter in the way it used to. I’m still your brother, that hasn’t changed. But what that means, what I can do with that…has changed.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do,” he said, not unkindly, “I can stand next to you. I can tell you when something is wrong. I can tell you when I think you’re being cornered or managed or pushed into something you didn’t choose.” His voice steadied. “I can watch. I can pay attention. I can make sure you’re not…disappearing inside all of this.”
Her throat tightened slightly at that.
“But I can’t take the decision out of your hands,” he continued. “And I can’t force it out of his.”
“At least you tried, brother,” she smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
She looked back at the garden.
“And he wasn’t wrong,” Tannian added, after a moment.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not agreeing with him,” he said. “Not completely. But the medical risk…”
“I know the risk.”
“I know you do,” he said. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying he’s not doing this to control you,” Tannian said. “He’s doing it because he thinks this is the only version where both of you survive it. It means you can’t dismiss it. You can’t just decide he’s wrong and move around it. You have to…live with it.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
“I hate that this is happening here,” she said finally. “That something this important is being decided in a place that doesn’t belong to us. I hate that I don’t have the space to fight it properly.”
“I know.”
“I hate that I have to think about the ISB before I think about myself.”
“I know, but you’re not alone.”
“I am,” she said. “In the ways that matter.”
He didn’t contradict her. Because he understood what she meant.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She did not send a message first.
Sending a message would have given him time to prepare, which was precisely what she did not want him to have. She had been sitting in the Coruscant garden with Tannian until the eleventh hour and then she had walked Tannian to the building entrance and watched his speeder disappear into the midlevel traffic and then she had stood on the landing for approximately forty-five seconds before she had made the decision and gone to find a cab to Irtur’s apartment.
It was not the apartment of an ambassador, it was too small for that, too lived-in, with the specific quality of a space that had been occupied by someone who had not entirely committed to the idea that Coruscant was where they lived rather than where they were currently located. She had been here twice before, both times with prior notice, both times during hours that were appropriate for visits.
She pressed the panel.
Nothing.
She pressed it again, longer.
A sound from inside. Then silence. Then another sound, lower, a voice that was not Irtur's.
She pressed the panel a third time.
The door opened.
Irtur stood in the doorway in the specific state of a man who had been horizontal until approximately thirty seconds ago. His hair was wrong. He was wearing what appeared to be the lower half of a dress and nothing else. He looked at her with the eyes of someone whose brain had not yet fully committed to wakefulness.
"Your Majesty," he said.
"Get dressed," she said, and walked past him into the apartment.
The apartment was dim, the Coruscant morning light filtered through the partially closed panels. There was a jacket on the floor near the entrance that was not Irtur's jacket. There were two glasses on the low table, one of them still with something in it.
She looked at the bedroom doorway.
There was a woman in Irtur's bed. She was awake, having presumably been woken by the door panel, and she was looking at (Y/N).
(Y/N) looked at Irtur and he looked back at her.
She crossed to the kitchen, filled a glass with water from the tap, returned to the sitting room, and held it out toward him.
He stared at it.
"Don't," he said.
She poured it over his head.
He sputtered. He grabbed the front of his own hair.
"I am awake," he said, dripping. "I was awake. I was perfectly awake."
"You answered the door like a man who was still asleep," she said.
"I was resting," he said. "There is a difference."
She set the glass on the table. She looked at the dresser near the bedroom doorway. On it, between a datapad and what appeared to be a clan documentation file, was a small paper packet, folded in the specific way that she recognized because she had seen it once before, in the lower-level markets, in the company of someone who had been doing things she did not approve of.
She looked at Irtur.
"Is that spice?"
He looked at the dresser. He looked at the bedroom. He looked back at (Y/N).
"It's hers," he said immediately.
From the bedroom, a rustling. The woman had apparently been following the conversation with the attention of someone who understood that she was a variable in it.
"What was your name again?" Irtur asked her.
“Opal.”
"Opal," he repeated, with the confidence of a man who had known this and simply needed the reminder.
Opal appeared in the bedroom doorway wrapped in the sheet, collected the jacket from the floor near the entrance, located her shoes from somewhere near the sofa, and departed through the front door with the practiced efficiency of a woman who had decided the morning had taken a turn and was executing her exit accordingly.
The door closed.
Irtur looked at (Y/N).
"Good morning," he said.
"Sit down," she said.
"I need a towel," he said.
"After," she said.
He sat. He was still dripping slightly and waited for her to speak.
"Restos filed a report through the ISB channel," she said. "This morning. The bombing investigation."
Irtur's posture changed. Not dramatically, he was from the Torvek clan and the Torvek clan families had been managing their expressions since birth.
"Your name," he said.
"And yours," she said.
"His evidence?"
"I don't have the full report," she said. "Thrawn told me this morning. At breakfast. He said the report names you as a suspect and that my name has not been cleared. He said formal questioning may be initiated."
"Questioning," Irtur said.
"Of persons connected to the northern territories operation during the relevant period," she said. "We were both on Batonn."
"I was at the Virex hold with Gret. I have an alibi."
"I know I told him that. I said exactly that. Gret Virex can confirm it. The Virex clan records will confirm it. He said alibis are examined by the investigating body."
"Restos is the investigating body."
"Restos filed the report," she said. "The ISB conducts the investigation."
"And Restos has contacts in the ISB," Irtur said. "Has had them since before the insurgency. The relationship between Restos's sector office and the ISB monitoring division is not a relationship that produces unbiased investigations of Restos's enemies."
"I know."
"So we have a report," he said, "from the man who threatened you in a Batonn corridor, naming me as a suspect in a bombing that there is no proof that I did, during a period when I was demonstrably elsewhere, filed through a channel that he has historically influenced."
"Yes."
He ran his hand through his wet hair. He looked at the ceiling. He did the specific thing he did when he was performing a rapid inventory of every decision he had made in the past several months and was assessing their relative exposure. She had been doing the same inventory herself since breakfast.
"We received an invitation," he said. "Yesterday. To my office. Through the standard diplomatic channel. A formal gala, upper level, Senate district. Tonight."
"For what," she said. "For whom."
"Did you see what happened on Ghorman?"
She held very still.
"No," she said.
He breathed.
He stood up from the sofa and crossed to the low table where her holoprojector was sitting, she had left it there on a previous visit, which was an oversight she was going to address , and he picked it up and he pressed something and he set it on the table between them.
The holo resolved and she watched it without speaking.
The footage was not official Imperial recording, the quality was wrong, the angle was wrong, the specific grain of it told her it had been taken by someone who was not standing in a designated recording position but was standing in a crowd or near a crowd or at the edge of something.
Ghorman.
The plaza.
The people in it.
"A contact," she said.
"Yes," he said. "Someone with access to the plaza footage who had reason to want it seen."
"How long ago?"
"The footage arrived last night," he said. "The gala invitation arrived this morning."
“Every senator, every governor, every admiral and moff and attaché in the city."
"Yes."
"All in the same room."
"Yes," he said.
"While they decide what to do about Ghorman," she said.
"While they decide," he said, "what story to tell about Ghorman. Which is a different thing."
She looked at the holoprojector.
She looked at the footage, still running, the plaza, the people.
"They needed the room empty," she said. "All the people who would ask questions. All the people who would look at what happened on Ghorman and have something to say about it. They needed them in a room with wine and music and the specific social machinery of an Imperial gala that makes it very difficult to say anything that is not the approved version of things."
"Yes," Irtur said. "That is also what I think."
"And Restos's report," she said. "The ISB investigation. My name uncleared. Your name on the suspect list."
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"We cannot decline the invitation," she said. "A senator and her ambassador declining an Imperial gala three days after a major Imperial action on a populated planet. The ISB reads that as…"
"Yes," he said. "I know."
"And we cannot attend and say nothing."
"No," he said. "We cannot."
"And we cannot attend and say something without knowing precisely what we are saying and to whom and with what consequence."
"No," he said. "We cannot do that either."
She reached over and turned the holo off.
"Get dressed," she said. "We need to think."
"I need a towel first," he said.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The transport ride to the Senate district passed in silence. Coruscant glittered as it always did, indifferent to whatever had happened on Ghorman, indifferent to the calculations now unfolding beneath its surface. Irtur and (Y/N) were silent in the speeder. By the time she stepped out beneath the towering façade of the gala hall, she had smoothed her expression into something composed, something unremarkable. Beside her, Irtur adjusted his cuffs.
"The Corellian brandy," he said, quietly, as they came through the main entrance, "is on the east table."
"I cannot drink," she said, “though I wish I could.”
"I was not suggesting you drink it," he said. "I was suggesting you stand near it. People standing near the brandy are assumed to have opinions about the brandy. People with opinions about the brandy are assumed to be there for the brandy. People assumed to be there for the brandy are not people being asked about Ghorman."
“Oh please, you sound like the Grand Admiral. But it is the most useful thing you have said to me in three days.”
"I have been very useful for three days," he said. "You have been too worried to notice."
The gala was already in motion. Light, music, conversation, the illusion of normalcy executed with Imperial perfection. Senators, governors, officers. All of them here. All of them exactly where they were meant to be.
And then…
She saw him.
Across the room. White uniform. Stillness in motion.
She moved toward him before she fully decided to.
“Grand Admiral,” she said.
“Lady Thrawn.”
She held his gaze.
“I thought you would be back on Lothal after your briefing this afternoon…”
“The schedule permitted a revision,” he said. “It was…advantageous to remain.”
The words were neutral. The implication was not. He had stayed for her. She understood it immediately.
His gaze shifted, just slightly, to her right.
“Ambassador.”
“Grand Admiral,” Irtur said, with a small incline of his head. “Always good to see command taking a personal interest in social events. It really reassures the rest of us that nothing catastrophic is happening elsewhere.”
Well, the joke landed…
Thrawn regarded him for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
“Your reassurance,” he said evenly, “is noted.”
Irtur smiled, just slightly but (Y/N) did not because the room had already begun to shift around them, in ways most of the people inside it did not yet understand.
Thrawn did not prolong the exchange with Irtur. There was a point, (Y/N) had learned, where he would simply decide that a conversation had narrowed to its essential components, and everything else became unnecessary movement.
“Ambassador,” Thrawn said, with a slight inclination of his head toward Irtur. “If you would excuse us for a moment.”
“Of course,” Irtur said. “I will find something sufficiently diplomatic to drink.”
He stepped away, merging into the current of officials and officers. Thrawn waited until the space around them had shifted, until the nearest listeners were far enough to render the conversation private by Imperial standards.
“Walk with me,” he said.
It was not phrased as a request.
She moved with him along the perimeter of the hall, past a series of tall transparisteel panels that overlooked the endless strata of Coruscant’s lights. The music softened at the edges, the conversations thinning into something less distinct.
“I will be leaving after dinner,” Thrawn said.
She glanced at him. “Back to Lothal.”
“Yes. The Senate will convene tomorrow morning. Which makes tonight…predictable.”
“That’s one word for it.”
They walked a few more steps in silence.
“Tomorrow,” Thrawn continued, “When the Senate meets. It would be wise if you did not say anything."
She stopped. Not dramatically. Just enough that he had to stop as well.
“And what,” she asked, very evenly, “would I be inclined to say?”
Thrawn turned to face her fully then, his red eyes steady.
"Say nothing beyond your function," he said. "Say what that work requires and nothing beyond it."
"You are asking me to be quiet."
"I am asking you to be careful," he said. "Which is not the same thing, and you know it is not the same thing."
"It functions as the same thing," she said. "In a room where something has happened and the people in the room are deciding what to say about it."
He held her gaze.
"Yes," he said. "It does. But I also want you to survive the consequences of whatever is decided."
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“I know you,” Thrawn said. There was no emphasis in it. No softness either. Just certainty. “And I know that you do not tolerate what you perceive as injustice well when it is placed directly in front of you and framed as something else.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something in her stilled.
“That is not a criticism,” he added. “It is an observation.”
“It sounds like a warning.”
“It is.”
“Thrawn…”
“I have experience navigating this environment,” he said. “You have not had the opportunity to acquire it yet.”
“This is you helping me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I disagree?”
He held her gaze.
“Then you will act,” he said, “and the system will respond. And you are currently,” he added, more quietly, “in a position where that response would not affect only you.”
"I am carrying your child," she said. Very quiet.
"Yes," he said. "You are."
She held his gaze and she understood the shape of what was in the room between them, the warmth and the threat and the care and the precision and the way those four things in his particular configuration were sometimes impossible to separate from each other.
“For someone who says this isn’t about control,” she said with spite in her voice, yelling in her whisper “you’re very comfortable standing here and telling me what I can and can’t do.”
“For someone who values autonomy,” he replied, changing his tone to match hers, “you are very willing to exercise it in situations where the cost extends beyond yourself.”
They stood there for another moment, the music swelling faintly behind them, the conversation of the room continuing as if nothing of consequence was happening at its edge. Finally, Thrawn inclined his head slightly.
“I will be here for the duration of the dinner,” he said. “After that, I will depart.”
“I would prefer,” he added, “that when I do, you have not made yourself a focal point of the evening.”
“And if I have?”
“Then I will adjust accordingly.”
Which, she knew, meant he would contain it.
Manage it.
Correct it.
“Enjoy your dinner, Grand Admiral,” she said.
Thrawn studied her for a fraction of a second longer than usual. Then he inclined his head again.
“And you, Lady Thrawn.”
He turned and moved back into the crowd, the current of the gala absorbing him almost immediately.
The meal had been imperial in the precise sense of the word, not food, exactly, but a statement made in courses. Each dish an assertion of the Empire's reach, ingredients from twelve different systems arranged on plates with the aesthetic of power rather than the pleasure of eating, presented by service staff who moved with the silent efficiency of people who had been trained to be invisible.
She had eaten what was appropriate. She had spoken to the Moff on her left about what had happened last evening on a different planet.
She gave him a false smile,
“I find it interesting, but I am just a senator from the Batonn Sector.”
Thrawn was at the head of the table, or near enough, the configuration that celebrated campaigns randomly in the sea of tragedy produced. She was adjacent to this configuration rather than inside it, which was the accurate spatial expression of her position in the Empire's understanding of things. The Grand Admiral's wife. Lady Thrawn. The useful symbol.
She had accepted this configuration and had been building within it for some time.
“There was some victory by your husband in Lothal. Someone will raise a toast to it to overshadow Ghorman,” Irtur whispered next to her.
“How predictable.”
The meal concluded. The service staff removed the final course with their invisible efficiency and the room settled into the specific quality of an evening that had completed its eating and was now waiting for its formal program.
She felt it before she saw it. A shift in the quality of the attention — every person in the room reorienting simultaneously with the specific quality of people who have been trained to respond to a particular stimulus. She turned.
The holoprojector at the head of the room had activated.
The figure that appeared was blue in the way of all holographic transmission and was, in that blueness, both more and less terrible than in person. The robes. The hood. The face that she had seen in the throne room and had not been able to fully look at.
Emperor Palpatine.
The room stood.
She stood with it, the same motion, the correct response, the performance of appropriate deference that was the price of being in this room. Irtur made eye contact with her then shifted his gaze back to the holoprojector.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn," the Emperor began while everyone sat.
The voice filled the room. It always filled rooms.
"Your campaign in the outer rim," Palpatine continued, "has demonstrated… once again… that the Empire's reach is not merely military. It is… civilizational."
She looked over to Thrawn who stood with the stillness that was his particular version of the same performance.
"The Lothal sector operations." A pause. "The Batonn consolidation's continued… stabilization." Another pause. The Emperor's pauses were their own form of communication, what was left in them always larger than what was said. "These are not merely victories of arms. They are victories of… order."
She kept her face composed. She kept her eyes on the hologram with the appropriate expression of respectful attention. She breathed at the pace she had decided on.
"Peace," Palpatine went on, "is not the absence of conflict." He let this sit in the room for a moment. The room received it without response because the room understood that responses were not what was being requested. "But the presence of control." A thin pause. "And control , true control, requires not merely force. But… symbol."
She heard the word and thought of herself.
"What better symbol of such control," the Emperor added, his voice taking on the specific quality of idleness that was its most dangerous register, "than the preservation of Batonn's… monarchy."
"Rise, Lady Thrawn."
The title echoed.
It had never echoed quite like this.
Louder than before, heavier.
The title of a woman who belonged to a man who belonged to the Empire, said by the Emperor in a room full of people who were watching her rise to it, said in the context of a sentence about control and symbol and the function of leaving her alive.
She rose with the posture of her mother and the composure of the room with no windows and she looked at the hologram of the Emperor with the expression she had decided on.
"You stand as proof," Palpatine said, "that the Empire is not without mercy."
Mercy. The word for leaving her alive after the Battle of Batonn. The word for the arrangement that had been handed to her and which she had spent building into something she could survive. The Emperor's mercy, which was the specific mercy of a man who had found a more useful function for a thing than its destruction.
"Through unity," he continued, "You shall guide people into a more… enlightened future."
She inclined her head. The motion of a woman who has made her peace with exactly what this is.
"My Emperor," she said.
She felt the room watching her. The Moffs and the officers and the wives who had opinions about the Grand Admiral's outer-rim wife and what she represented. All of them watching her stand and receive the Emperor's mercy and the Emperor's description of her function.
"Serve your husband well," Palpatine said, "In doing so… you serve the Empire."
She held herself very still inside the room.
"And the Empire," he said, "does not forget those who serve it faithfully."
Then, softer, the register that was somehow worse than the authoritative one, the intimate register, the one that was just for her in a room full of witnesses.
"Do not disappoint me."
The chill that moved through the room was not metaphorical. It was the specific physical response of approximately forty people simultaneously experiencing the full weight of those four words from that specific source. She felt it. She did not show it.
She inclined her head one more time and said nothing. The Emperor looked at her for one more moment. Then he turned to Thrawn.
"Grand Admiral," Palpatine said, "Your service to the Empire is without equal. The outer rim operations represent a new standard of Imperial strategic execution. Your methods have been studied at every level of the Naval command structure The Empire is strengthened by your dedication."
"I serve at the Emperor's pleasure," he said. Even. Correct.
"Indeed you do," Palpatine said.
"The victory belongs to the Empire," Palpatine said. "And the Empire endures."
The victory at Ghorman, the victory of Batonn, or maybe the victory over the rebels at Lothal?
Then the hologram flickered. Then it was gone.
Then the applause began,the correct Imperial applause, measured and sustained.
She applauded with the room, though hands were completely steady, and then sat back down.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said lowly to Irtur even though she did not look at him.
He didn’t hesitate. “Then we’re leaving the table,” he said quietly in return.
She was already rising and no one stopped her. No one ever stopped anyone in these rooms, not directly at least. Heads turned, conversations paused just enough to register movement, to log deviation. The Grand Admiral’s wife leaving the table early. The Batonnese senator. The symbol.
Irtur followed half a step behind, not touching her, not drawing attention, just present in the exact way that made it clear he was not going to let her walk out of that room alone. They reached the corridor. The noise of the gala dimmed behind them, replaced by the softer, controlled quiet of the Senate district’s private interiors. She made it into the restroom just in time.
The door shut behind her and she braced herself against the edge of the sink for half a second before the nausea overtook her completely. It wasn’t delicate. It wasn’t controlled. It tore through her with a violence that had nothing to do with food and everything to do with the last ten minutes, the last ten weeks, the last ten years.
When it passed, she stayed there, hands gripping the porcelain, breathing hard, eyes closed. Outside, she could hear Irtur’s footsteps shift once. Then stillness. Waiting.
For a moment, she didn’t recognize the woman looking back in the mirror. Then the anger came. It settled into her chest like something that had been waiting for a place to land.
Her hand tightened on the edge of the sink. A monarchy preserved as a demonstration piece. A woman kept alive as proof of benevolence. A child already positioned as an extension of Imperial narrative before it had even been born.
The door opened behind her.
“I gave you approximately thirty seconds more than you needed,” Irtur said as he stepped inside, closing it quietly behind him. “And then I decided protocol could…”He stopped when he saw her face. “Ah,” he said, softer now. “There it is.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You are not fine.”
She turned slightly, leaning back against the counter, folding her arms like she needed something to hold onto that wasn’t the room.
“They applauded,” she said, “They sat there and applauded while he explained what I am.”
Irtur didn’t interrupt.
“I stood there,” she continued, “and I nodded. Like it was reasonable. Like it was correct. Like I agreed with him.”
“You survived it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
“Do you have recordings?”
He blinked. “Of what?”
“Batonn,” she said. “During the war. The consolidation. The parts I’ve never seen.”
“Yes,” he said carefully. “I do.”
“I want to see them.”
“Not tonight.”
“Tomorrow,” she said immediately.
She nodded once, like she was filing it, placing it somewhere she intended to return to with purpose. “What does the rebellion need?” she asked.
“(Y/N)...”
“What do they need?” she repeated.
He exhaled, slow and controlled. “Money,” he said. “Resources. Access. Information. The same things every resistance needs when it’s up against something like this.”
“And…”
“And we are not having that conversation,” he cut in, “in a Senate district restroom during an Imperial gala immediately following a direct address from the Emperor.”
“…Tomorrow,” she said finally.
“Tomorrow,” he confirmed.
There was a knock at the door. Sharp. Precise.
Irtur’s head turned toward it immediately, his posture shifting, the ease gone.
“Occupied,” he called, irritation edged deliberately into his tone. “Find another…”
The door opened anyway.
Thrawn stepped inside. The space changed the moment he stepped in, the unmistakable shift of control reasserting itself.
“Ambassador,” Thrawn said evenly.
Irtur stared at him for half a second longer than was strictly appropriate.
“Grand Admiral,” he replied.
There was a beat of silence. Then Irtur let out a quiet breath and, with the faintest edge of dry humor that didn’t quite land, added, “I assume this is the part where privacy becomes an Imperial suggestion rather than a reality.”
The door closed behind Thrawn.
Thrawn did not respond to the remark. He rarely did when something fell outside the range of what he considered useful. Instead, he stepped fully into the room, the door sealing behind him with a soft, final sound that made the space feel smaller than it was.
“Ambassador,” he said again, more precisely this time, “Give us a moment.”
Irtur understood that he was being dismissed and looked at (Y/N) who gave him a nod.
"Of course," Irtur said. He looked at her one final time, the look that was not for the room, and then he was gone and the door closed behind him and the bathroom had two people in it instead of three.
"You should not have left the table," he said. “Given the current environment, that invites interpretation.”
“I was sick.”
“Yes,” Thrawn said. “And now the room is deciding why.”
“The room,” she repeated. “Do you ever hear yourself when you speak?”
“Often.”
“That was not a compliment.”
“I’m aware.”
“I didn’t choose this,” she said “I did not choose to stand in front of an entire Senate hall while the Emperor explained that my existence is an example of Imperial mercy. I did not choose to become some ceremonial proof that Batonn was conquered correctly. And I certainly did not choose to sit there while everyone in that room applauded.”
Thrawn regarded her steadily.
“No,” he said after a moment. “You did not.”
“Then stop speaking to me,” she said, “like I am mishandling a situation I built myself.”
“But you don’t seem to understand,” Thrawn replied evenly, “your position is unstable.”
“What?” She went very still.
“Your position,” he said. “Here. Politically. Socially. Legally. It is under evaluation.”
The phrasing was clinical enough to feel cruel. She laughed once under her breath, disbelieving. “Evaluation?”
“Yes.”
“By whom? The Emperor?” she asked. “The ISB? The Senate wives deciding whether I embarrassed myself correctly tonight?”
“Everyone.”
The room seemed colder suddenly.
“The renewed investigation into Batonn has already altered the way certain individuals are viewing your situation,” he continued. “Tonight intensified that scrutiny. The Emperor singled you out publicly. That has consequences.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” he asked quietly. That stopped her. Not because of the words. Because of his tone.
“You are approaching this,” Thrawn continued, “as though emotional honesty will protect you from political interpretation. It will not.”
“I am not naive.”
“No,” he agreed. “But you are angry.”
“You keep talking like I’m a threat to myself.”
“At present,” he said, “you are.”
Her throat tightened unexpectedly. She knew he was right, she knew that whatever she would say to argue with him would be wrong and he would forever be right, and that angered her.
“I am trying,” she said finally, quieter now, “to survive something I never wanted.”
“I know,” he said.
She looked around the bathroom and saw that he blocked the exit, though not intentionally, it sure felt like that to her.
"I want to go home," she said with a sigh, "To the apartment," she said. Because she understood, after this long, that she needed to be precise about what she meant by home.
"Yes," he said. "We will go."
He studied her for a moment. Then, quieter…
“You should return,” he said. “Briefly. Reestablish presence. Then you may leave without drawing additional attention.”
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1 month after Lothal, Thrawn unexpectedly comes back to Coruscant and tells (Y/N) that she is under investigation.
Masterlist, Part 23
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
1 Month Later
The Virex hold had not changed.
Irtur had been coming to this hall since he was a boy accompanying his father to the clan councils. The ironwood table. The stone walls. The banners that had been restored since the wedding, not all of them, some were still gone and the bare stone above the crossbeams still had the specific blankness of a wall that remembered something it could not display, but more than before. Someone had been working at the restoration.
The council was assembled.
on the holo projector at the table's center, the blue-white resolution of Coruscant resolving into the specific quality of (Y/N). She looked tired, but Irtur held his tongue.
The council had been running for forty minutes already, the eastern province road reconstruction update, the clan documentation filing status, the ISB monitoring report that Rhyss had compiled from his contacts in the eastern reaches, and now the labor situation, the post-bombing dispersal, the question of what had happened to the people who had been in the northern camps when the overseers stopped functioning.
This was where Lord Draxil had his opinion.
"The dispersal was not organized,"Lord Draxil was saying, "The people left the camps because the enforcement structure failed. Not because anyone planned an exit for them. Which means they are scattered in clan territories that were not prepared to receive them. There is no accounting for where they are."
"There is partial accounting,"Lady Sereth said. "My clan has been conducting a census of the arrivals in the southern territories. It is incomplete. But it is more than nothing."
"The Sereth census," Lord Virex said, "It accounts for approximately four hundred people. The camp population was estimated at…"
"The camp population," Irtur said, "was considerably larger than the sector administration's estimates.The hidden camps alone added numbers that were never in any public record."
"How many?"Lord Rhyss asked. From the far end. Quiet.
"We are still counting," Irtur said.
The room held this.
The holo projector showed her face receiving it.
"The point," Lord Draxil continued, returning to his trajectory, "is that without an organized dispersal plan, these people are vulnerable. They are in unfamiliar territory, without resources, without clan affiliation in many cases, without the specific knowledge of Batonnese terrain and community that would allow them to integrate."
"Some of them are not Batonnese," Lord Torvek said.
"People from other planets?" Lord Virex asked.
"Yes."
"On Batonn?"
"On Batonn," Irtur confirmed. "In the highland. In the farming territories. In the areas adjacent to where the camps were. They have nowhere to go. They do not speak Batonnese. They do not know the clan structure. They have been here long enough that returning to wherever they came from is…Complicated, in many cases."
"Then they are our problem," Lady Sereth said. With the flatness of a woman stating a logistical fact.
"They are on our land," Lord Virex said. "That is not the same thing."
"In the old form,"Lady Sereth said, "a person on our land is under our protection.”
"Lord Veyruun," the holo said.
Veyruun looked at the projector.
"The refugee situation," she said, from Coruscant. "What are you seeing in the territories closest to you?"
"An increase," he said. "Significant and continuing. The eastern lowland territories have received more displaced persons in the past two months than in the previous two years combined. And you are correct, Your Majesty. Not all of them are Batonnese. I have counted among the arrivals people from at least six distinct outer rim origin systems. Some of them bear the specific physical marks of extended labor camp conditions. They are afraid. They are not afraid of Batonn specifically. They are afraid of everything. Which is the kind of afraid that is the hardest to address."
"Because it does not have a specific object."
"Yes," Lord Veyruun said. "It is the kind that has been trained into a person over a long period of time and does not release simply because the immediate threat has been removed."
"I know that kind," (Y/N) said.
The room was quiet for a moment.
Irtur looked at the holo.
Then Draxil cleared his throat.
"The question of resources," he said. "For the dispersed population. Clan and non-clan both. The supply situation in the eastern territories is…"
"Strained," Torvek said. "That is the word I would use."
"I was going to say compromised."
"Strained," Torvek said again. With the specific quality of a man who had chosen his word and was not revising it.
"Alright," Irtur said. "Strained. The supply routes from the highland to the eastern territories have been operating at reduced capacity since the road reconstruction began. The tariff revision…The tariff revision that the Queen filed has not yet cleared the sector administration review. Which means the distribution funding is still operating under the old allocation structure."
"Which is insufficient," Lord Virex noted.
"Which has always been insufficient," Lady Sereth said. "The old structure was designed for a population that no longer exists in the configuration it was designed for."
"We need more funding."
"We need the tariff revision to clear," Irtur said. "Which requires the sector administration to approve it, which requires either patience or pressure."
"And we have neither," Lord Rhyss said.
"We have some of both," Irtur said. "We have the Queen in the Senate. We have the documentation. We have…” He set his datapad down with the ease of someone who had decided something and was executing it. "We have, in fact, a considerable number of things to be getting on with. Some of which I have been meaning to mention."
He said, with the specific quality of a man introducing a new agenda item, "The Queen is pregnant."
The hall was completely silent.
The ironwood table. The stone walls. The restored banners and the bare patches above them. The candles. All of it.
"When," Veyruun said.
"Secound stage," Irtur said. "The specifics are the Queen's to share as she sees fit. What is relevant to this council is the succession question and what it means for the governance arrangement going forward."
"The father," Lord Virex said.
"Is the Grand Admiral," Lord Torvek said. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Irtur confirmed.
"A Thrawn heir."
"A Geronh heir," Irtur said. "Who will also carry Chiss lineage. Yes."
"The succession to the Batonn throne. The Geronh line. If the heir carries…"
"The Geronh blood carries. The child will be born of the Queen of Batonn. The line runs through her."
"And the father's blood?"
"Is the father's," Irtur said. "The mother's line is the Geronh line. That is the highland tradition. That is many centuries of succession law. I do not believe anyone in this room is proposing to revise centuries of succession law."
"There is a question," Virex said, "of whether a queen who has produced an heir of that particular lineage remains the appropriate…"
"Kaelor!"
Virex stopped.
"Does that," Irtur said, "actually seem like a smart position to take. Right now. With the ISB monitoring on every clan in this hall. With the bombing investigation still active and the Empire looking for any reason to classify what is happening on Batonn as a renewed insurgency." He held Virex's gaze. "You want to try and overthrow the Queen. The queen the Empire recognizes. The queen the Emperor himself installed. You want to make that argument right now? The Empire will not read it as a succession dispute. They will read it as another uprising. And we have had one of those recently. We know what those cost."
"Furthermore," Irtur said, "the Geronh line has been ruling Batonn since the year twenty-five thousand and twenty-four before the treaty. The Virex clan…With respect, Lord Kaelor. The Virex clan has been prominent in the highland since the third dynasty. Which is…Considerably fewer than that."
Torvek made the sound that was the involuntary beginning of a laugh caught before it completed. Sereth looked at her hands.
"I am simply," Irtur said pleasantly, "providing historical context."
The holo shifted.
"Lord Virex," she said.
He looked at the holo.
"If the Empire falls," (Y/N) said. "If it ever falls. If this system ever collapses under the weight of what it is. Then we will do what we have always done in Batonn when the succession is disputed. We will do as in the days of old. Hand to hand combat. Rayanta de guier. The old form. The way the first Geronh held the throne and the way every Geronh since has held it I welcome that conversation. I will have it with anyone who wants to have it. But not today. And not while my people are in those territories needing food and shelter and protection. Today we have other work."
"Yes," Lord Virex said. "We do."
"Where is Clvtorig?" she asked.
Sereth looked up from her knuckles.
"The boy is safe," she said. "He is with me. In the Sereth southern hold. He arrived in a condition that required several days of medical attention and several more days of sleep. He is improving. He is safe, Your Majesty."
"Thank you," she said. To Sereth. Simply.
"I will contact you separately," Irtur said. "Regarding what I mentioned."
"Yes," she said. "Thank you."
"My lords," she said. "My lady." She held the room. "I need to say something to all of you and I need you to receive it as what it is, which is not a political position or a tactical calculation. It is the truth."
The hall was quiet.
"We are in the worst of it," she said. "I know that. I carry all of it. Every day. In the specific way that a queen carries things, not lightly, not with the luxury of setting it down. I carry it and I continue moving because moving is what the carrying is for. But I need you to understand something. The specific thing that I have understood over the past year in a way that I did not understand when I was a cadet on Hosnian Prime or a prisoner or a conditional regent in a Coruscant apartment. What they are doing to us only works if we help them do it. If we fracture. If we turn the succession question into a knife and use it on each other. If we allow the weight of what we are carrying to make us smaller than what we need to be. They need us to be smaller than what we need to be. That is the specific mechanism of what is being done to us. And we cannot give them that mechanism."
Virex was looking at her.
Torvek was looking at her.
Rhyss, at the far end, was looking at her.
"We need to stay together," she said. "Not because it is comfortable. Not because we agree about everything. Not because the succession question is resolved or the clan disputes are settled or any of the things that have been between us for generations are suddenly not between us. We need to stay together because we are all that is standing between our people and the specific thing that is being done to our planet and we are not sufficient to that task if we are separate. That is the arithmetic. I am not asking for more than the arithmetic requires. I am asking you to stay."
The candles moved.
Then Veyruun, who had been standing at the edge of the council the entire session with the specific dignity of a man who had survived by reading situations accurately, said:
"We have seen an increase of refugees in the eastern territories. Not all of them Batonnese. Some of them from as far as the mid-rim. The camp bombing dispersed people who had nowhere to go and Batonn is where they ended up. They are here. They are our problem by virtue of geography if nothing else. And they are afraid in the way I described."
"Yes," she said. "And we are going to address that.”
"The mines," Lord Torvek said. "The remaining camps. The hidden ones. The ones we know about. If the bombing worked…"
She looked at him again.
"The bombing," she said, very steadily, "worked in the specific sense that it removed a particular operation from a particular location. It did not work in the sense that it solved the problem, because the problem is not the location. The problem is the system. If we bomb more mines, the Empire classifies Batonn as an active insurgency zone. The clan holds that are currently operating under standard occupation monitoring become military targets. The dispersed population, Batonnese and non-Batonnese alike become enemy combatants by association You will get us all killed, Lord Torvek."
The holo disconnected.
The hall was quiet.
"Well," Lord Draxil said. "The galaxy has been stranger before."
"It has," Irtur said.
"And Batonn has endured it," Torvek said.
"Yes," Irtur said. "It has."
Torvek drank.
The hall continued its business.
And (Y/N) was left alone in her home on Coruscant as Jankie sat on her lap. The room was dark and barren with a soft hum coming from the outside. She couldn’t help but yearn for him, for Thrawn.
The way he had said you will always be within my awareness.
She closed her eyes briefly. It was not comfort. It should not have been comfort. And yet it was.
Jankie shifted slightly in her lap, settling more comfortably against her. She rested her hand absently along her back, the motion automatic, grounding in a way she did not question. The room felt too large.
Her hand drifted, unconsciously, to her abdomen. For a room so large, she felt entirely alone.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The Senate session had run long.
Which was not unusual but annoying to a person who realized long ago that the decisions they made in the senate did not matter. She had taken shorthand notes that contained three pieces of information that were not about the outer rim resource allocation amendment.
She came through the apartment door at the nineteenth hour and sat her bag on the chair. She reached for the kettle in the kitchen and poured the cold tea into her cup.
"Your Majesty," V3PO said.
"In a moment, V3PO," (Y/N) said, not turning from her cup.
"Your Majesty," V3PO said again, with the tone it used when the information was important.
"A communication was received yesterday," V3PO said, "from the Chimaera. Addressed to the household account. The Grand Admiral will return from Lothal and will be arriving on Coruscant for a brief time this evening to attend a defender project review."
"This evening?”
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"When this evening?”
"The estimated arrival time is approximately two hours from now."
"The communication came this afternoon?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And I am only hearing about it now," she said.
"The household communication inbox," V3PO said,"has been experiencing a backlog. Several hundred unread communications have accumulated over the past weeks. The Grand Admiral's message was received but was positioned behind four hundred and seventeen unread items."
She stared at V3PO.
"Four hundred and seventeen?"
"You have been very busy, Your Majesty," V3PO said. With what she was fairly certain was diplomatic restraint.
"V3PO," she said.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Why did you not flag urgent communications separately?"
"I attempted to establish a priority flagging system in the third week of your return from Batonn," V3PO said. "You told me you would attend to it later."
"V3PO," she sighed.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Go find Uiona," she said. "Tell her I need her immediately."
"Of course, Your…"
(Y/N) was already moving.
She scurried to her office and went through it as though she were conducting an intelligence operation in a monitored apartment. The data chips were first. There were four that were not connected to any activity she could explain within the parameters of her sanctioned governance function.
The chip that Irtur had cracked laid in her hand. She crossed to the kitchen and held the chip over the waste bin. She stopped, then placed the chip in the coat she had once kept the lightsaber in the bedroom closet.
She then went back into the office and found the chip that contained the outline of where Irtur had made a rough draft as to where he thought the rest of the hidden camps were. It also contained notes on supply chain discrepancies that she had been attempting to graph out since she was last on Batonn. It was many months of work.
She found the box that Lady Sereth had sent as a wedding gift, the carved wood with the hawk inside, the one that contained Sereth's letter with the highland blessing.
She placed the chip under her letter and left the box on the shelf it had called home since being sent to Coruscant.
Anything that mentioned Clvtorig or Nar Shaddaa was tossed in her gown in the closet.
Uiona found her at the desk twenty minutes later, going through the messages or anything that she flagged as anti-imperial.
“How much longer do we have?” Uiona asked.
"Hour and forty minutes.”
"One hour and twelve minutes," V3PO said from the corridor, with the helpfulness of a droid.
"Thank you, V3PO," Uiona and (Y/N) both said in unison.
(Y/N) crossed the room again, faster now, pulling open drawers, scanning, sorting anything that might be suspicious. She also decided to finally put away some cleaned laundry she had kept on her vanity seat.
“One hour and three minutes, Your Majesty,” V3PO’s voice carried from the doorway again.
“Stop counting!” (Y/N) snapped.
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
Uiona almost smiled, but it didn’t fully form. (Y/N)’s office door was kept open to allow for Uiona to hear anything she needed to.
“Your personal logs,” Uiona said. “Anything encrypted?”
“All of it.”
“That will draw attention.”
“It always does,” (Y/N) said. “He has never asked for access.”
“Because he has not needed to.”
“You think he will now?”
“I would be more careful this time, (Y/N).”
(Y/N) then straightened. The apartment no longer looked like a place where anything had happened. It was cleaned and barren of any knick-knacks that may have hinted of any behaviour that was not meant to be happening in this specific apartment.
“Forty-eight minutes,” V3PO said.
She moved to the mirror. There were shadows beneath her eyes she could not entirely erase, but she adjusted what she could: posture, expression, the set of her shoulders. Queen. Senator. Wife. Nothing else, nothing more.
Jankie padded softly into the room, brushing against her leg, unaware of the tension saturating the air.
“Thirty-two minutes,” V3PO said. Every sound in the corridor outside felt amplified. Every distant footstep, every hum of passing speeders beyond the transparisteel.
(Y/N) moved into the main room and stood still.
Uiona lingered near the edge of the space.
“You should sit,” Uiona said.
“No.”
“You look like you’re bracing.”
“I am,” Then, she spoke quieter, “I just don’t know what version of him is walking through that door.”
“The same one,” she said. “You just understand him better now.”
“Fifteen minutes,” V3PO said.
(Y/N)’s hand drifted unconsciously to her abdomen. She forced it back to her side.
“Uiona,” she said, turning to her friend, “Thank you for helping.” She gave her a smile and they embraced before Uiona left through the door.
The door opened fifteen minutes later. She straightened herself once more as she felt the weight of how he moved through a threshold. She was standing in the center of the sitting room with her hands at her sides and Jankie somewhere behind her and the apartment looking exactly like it was supposed to look, which was the apartment of a Senator and a Queen who had been busy with legitimate governance and had not been doing anything else.
He came through the door.
The white uniform. The Grand Admiral's white, which meant he had come directly from the transport or from the briefing or from wherever the evening had taken him before it took him here.
I missed him.
The thought came before she could approve it, and she pushed it back in the depths of her mind.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Lady Thrawn," he said.
He came further into the apartment with the unhurried attention of someone who had been in intelligence functions since before she was born and read spaces the way other people read documents.
"How long are you on Coruscant?"
"Forty-eight hours," he said. "The Defender project review requires my attendance at the command level tomorrow morning. I return to Lothal the following evening."
He looked at her and squinted.
"You do not look well," he said.
"Thank you," she blinked. "That is a very warm greeting."
“It is an accurate one,” he said.
She let out a small breath through her nose, something almost like a laugh but without warmth.
“I have been working. The Senate session…”
“Yes,” he interrupted, not sharply, but with precision. “I am aware of your schedule.”
“Then you are aware that exhaustion is a reasonable consequence of it.”
"You are pale,” He stepped closer, not enough to touch her, but enough that the space between them narrowed into something deliberate, “You are sleeping less than the physician's protocol requires."
"I have been seeing her," she said. "Regularly. She has opinions about my sleep and my nutrition and the pace at which I conduct my governance work. I have been receiving the opinions with appropriate attention."
"And acting on them?"
"With appropriate frequency."
He held her gaze.
"Sit down," he said.
"I am fine standing," she said.
“(Y/N).”
She sat to avoid further argument. He sat in the chair across from her. Jankie appeared from somewhere and assessed the situation and jumped onto the sofa beside (Y/N) with the conviction of an animal who had made a territorial decision.
“You have lost weight,” he said.
“I am pregnant,” she replied. “That tends to alter the body in ways that are not always aesthetically pleasing.”
“I have read your documented summaries from Dr. Thalias. What I am looking at suggests the documented version is conservative.”
“I am managing. Still working. Still doing everything that is required of me.”
“And exceeding it.”
She looked up. In truth, he was right. The northern territory mining camp, the one that had been bombed and the water contaminated, had been rebuilt and was starting to operate at normal capacity in the span of the month. Governor Restos and herself oversought its rebuilding, though (Y/N) tried to stall the project, it had been pushed forward. She wondered where he was getting all the labor from, and had sent Irtur to investigate and do the things he did to stall imperial projects.
Somehow, someway the empire was still getting their doonium supply from Batonn.
"You are managing everything simultaneously," he said, "and it is producing a cost that is visible in your face and in the way you are sitting and in the way of your voice. You are weaker than you were a month ago."
It was an accurate observation, not cruelty.
"I know," she said.
He stood unexpectedly and crossed over to her on the couch. He knelt in front of her and took her right wrist , not the injured hand, the right one, and he held it between two fingers at the pulse point.
She understood that he was counting. She breathed with the discipline of someone who was trying to breathe normally and was aware that normal was relative.
He held her wrist for twenty seconds.
He was at eye level with her, crouched before the couch, and he looked at her face.
"Your pulse is elevated," he said. "Resting. Fifty percent above the baseline Dr. Thalias documented at the appointment."
"I am sitting," she said. "I am not…"
"The elevation is not from exertion."
"Thrawn," she said. "I am…"
"Breathe in."
She breathed.
She breathed in eight counts because he had asked her to and because the eight counts were hers and she had been using them since the facility and the fact that he had asked for them rather than discovering them was something she was going to need to examine later when she had the capacity for it.
He was watching the way her shoulders moved and the way she held her jaw.
She slowly opened her eyes and held his gaze which was fixated on her. Something shifted in his expression, something kinder.
"You are tired," he said. Very quietly. Not an accusation.
"Yes," she said.
"Not the tiredness that resolves," he said. "The other kind."
She breathed.
"Yes," she said.
His hand came to her face, not as it had at the formal events, not the deliberate public gesture. The way a person reached for something they were concerned about. His thumb rested just below her cheekbone. She felt the coolness of him, the specific cool of his skin against the warmth of hers. She held herself still.
"The child," he said. "You are frightened of it."
She held this. Her breathing hitched and she thought of the promise she made to herself, to never allow for herself to be seen crying in front of any man. A single tear came involuntarily and hit his hand, though he did not move it from her cheek.
The room seemed to stretch, to get bigger and then smaller.
And then…
"Yes," she said.
She swallowed once, her gaze dropping to nothing at all.
“I am afraid,” she said.
The admission sat between them, fragile in a way nothing else she said ever was. He did not interrupt.
“I am afraid that…” she started, then stopped, as if the shape of it resisted being spoken.
The four fingers on her left hand tightened slightly where they rested over her abdomen.
“That it won’t know me,” she said, her voice steadier now, but thinner. “That it will be born into this. Into the Empire. Into your world. Your structure. Your expectations.”
Her eyes lifted back to his.
“That it will learn to speak in your language before it ever learns mine.”
Something flickered behind her expression. Something sharper, more painful for how controlled it was.
“That it will not look at me,” she said. Her breath hitched, just slightly, “That it will look like you.”
It was fear. Not resentment.
“That when it does look at me…” she continued, quieter now, “it will see something…secondary. Something…adjacent. I am the Queen of Batonn. I rebuilt half a planet in a year. I have held together councils that have been trying to fracture for generations. I have done things that should have broken me.”
Her voice didn’t break.
“And none of that matters to an infant.”
“It will know what it is taught,” she said. “And what it is taught will be shaped by the Empire. By you. By everything this is. And I don’t know how to compete with that.”
When he spoke, his voice was softer.
"You are not competing," he said.
"No?" she asked. Quietly.
"No, you are not competing because there is no competition to be had. The child will know what it is taught. You said this. It is accurate. You will teach it as well."
"And you," she said. "Will also teach it."
"Yes."
"And the Empire will teach it," she said. "And the arrangement will teach it. And every person who looks at it and sees a symbol rather than a child will teach it something, whether anyone intends that or not."
"Yes," he said. "That is also accurate."
She had not expected the agreement. She had been building toward the defense and the agreement had arrived instead and she did not immediately know what to do with the agreement.
"Then you understand why I am frightened."
"I understand precisely why you are frightened," he said. “The child will be shaped by its environment. But your conclusion is incomplete. It will not be shaped by a single influence. It will be shaped by all available inputs.”
“That doesn’t change…”
“It changes everything. You are assuming that Imperial influence supersedes all others. The child will know what you teach it. Whatever the Empire provides and whatever I provide and whatever the arrangement shapes, that will also be present. But you will be its mother. The child will recognize proximity, consistency, and reinforcement. It will respond to presence. To voice. To touch. To repetition. You are not absent from this system,” he continued. “You are central to it.”
“I won’t always be,” she said. “Not like you. Not with what you are…”
“I am frequently absent, not physically present for extended periods of time. Which reduces my direct influence in early developmental stages. You are carrying the child. Your voice is already present. Your physiological state already affects it. Your patterns of stress, of rest, of speech…You will be the first environment it knows. You will be the first voice it recognizes. The first rhythm it associates with stability. The first presence it learns to orient toward.You are not competing with the Empire, you are succeeding it.”
Her hand pressed slightly against her abdomen as if to test that idea.
“And appearance,” he continued, more quietly, “is not determinant of attachment.”
“You don’t know that?”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because I did not resemble those who raised me,” he said.
She did not expect that. It was emotional in the way that he allowed. She did not know what to say and she simply looked at him with thoughts racing through her head.
"But I do not know," she said, very quietly, "how to love something that is also a political object. I have been trying to figure out how to hold those two things simultaneously and I cannot find the position."
He was still kneeling in front of her. Still close enough that she could feel the quiet steadiness of him, the absence of urgency where she carried too much of it.
“You have been a political object and a person simultaneously. You have not resolved that tension. You have learned to operate within it." He held her gaze. "That is what you will teach the child. Not the resolution. The operating."
"I don't want it to be alone the way I have been alone."
His thumb moved on her cheek, a small movement, the confirmation of the holding.
"It will not be," he said.
She breathed and she looked at him, at the red of his eyes in the Coruscant apartment light.
"You came," she said. "You could have arranged for different accommodation at the command level and come here in the morning."
He held her gaze and said nothing.
"You came here first," she said.
"Yes," he said. The word arrived with everything he did not add to it.
Jankie shifted against her side and pushed her nose into (Y/N)'s hand. Warm fur against her palm. A small, living thing that wanted nothing from her except presence. Thrawn did not move away.
“You should rest,” he said.
“I have work,” she said, though the words lacked force. “There are three files I need to review before morning. The tariff revision…”
“Will still exist in the morning,” he said.
Her gaze flicked back to him. There was no irritation in his tone. No challenge. Just the quiet removal of an argument before it could fully form.
“You should sleep,” he said again, but this time the words were quieter. Less directive. More…proximate.
She didn’t move.
“Stay,” she said.
“I will remain.”
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
He returned later than she expected. Not late by Imperial standards, precise, within the boundaries of what had been scheduled, but late enough that the apartment had settled into quiet.
(Y/N) was still awake but not working anymore.
She sat on the edge of the bed, one hand resting loosely against her abdomen, the other curled slightly into the fabric beside her. Jankie slept at her side, a steady warmth pressed into her hip. The room was dim, lit only by the ambient city glow and a single low lamp.
The door opened. He entered with the same contained presence, the same awareness that seemed to register everything in a single pass. She held her hands in her lap with the composure she had built and she looked at him with the full steadiness of everything she had. He removed his gloves with measured precision, setting them aside. The white of his uniform remained immaculate, untouched by the long day.
"The briefing," she said.
"Concluded," he said.
"Successfully?"
“Yes.”
A pause, but not an empty one.
“I had something to tell you,” she said.
That shifted his attention, not sharply, but completely.
“Go on.”
“I saw Dr. Thalias after you left.”
He waited.
“She confirmed the development progression,” she continued. “Everything is…within expectation.”
A slight inclination of his head. Processing.
“And?”
"The child is a boy."
She watched him receive this information. She had been watching him receive information for months and she had become, over the course of those months, moderately fluent in the difference between the kinds of his receiving.
This was a different kind.
This was not the rapid filing of tactical information. This was something that moved through him in a way that was slower than his usual processing.
He was very still.
"A boy," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"A son," he said. Not a question. The specific quality of a man saying a word that has just acquired new weight and is confirming the weight by saying it.
"Yes," she said.
Something moved in his expression.
"Yes," she said again, softly. Because the word seemed to need repeating.
Silence again, but not uncomfortable. Something else was being constructed in it.
Her gaze lifted back to him.
"His name," (Y/N) said, "I have been thinking about it since Lothal. Since before Lothal."
“There are multiple naming conventions to consider,” he said, “Batonnese, Imperial, and Chiss.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m bringing it up now before it becomes…a negotiation.”
“It will be a negotiation regardless.”
“I know,” she said again, softer.
“I want his first name to be Batonnese.”
“That is expected,” he said. “As the heir to the Geronh line.”
“I don’t want it to just be expected,” she said. “I want it to be his.”
"Tell me what you have considered," he said.
“(c/n).”
He repeated it once, quietly, as if testing the structure.
“(c/n).”
“It is an old name used in my clan. It means ‘defender of the home’.”
“Appropriate,” he said.
“You don’t object?” She watched him carefully.
“No,” he said. “ It is phonetically compatible with Basic and Chiss pronunciation structures.”
He was quiet for a moment.
"In the Chiss tradition," he said, "naming carries lineage designations that are… Complex. The full Chiss naming structure is not appropriate for a child who will be raised primarily in the human tradition. A partial structure is possible."
"A partial structure?"
"A lineage acknowledgment," he said. "Not the full designation. Something that marks the Chiss connection without requiring the child to navigate the full Ascendancy naming protocol. This is not standard. It would require consideration."
"Then consider it," she said “Whatever the Chiss lineage acknowledgment takes as form, it can be secondary. Present in the record and still there.”
"Yes," he said. "That is workable."
"Then we agree on (c/n)," she said.
"We agree on (c/n)," he said.
The name rested in the air between them, in the Coruscant apartment. She thought about a boy who would be taught both languages and would have red eyes or dark ones or something in between that she could not yet predict.
Her hand rested against her abdomen again. It had become instinct. Grounding. Claiming.
“I need to ask you something else,” she said after settling in the silence.
“You may.”
She had been planning how to ask him since Lothal. She had learned over the course of this arrangement that preparing exact words was less useful than preparing the architecture of a conversation, the specific structure of how an argument was built and where its weight was distributed.
"I want to give birth to our son on Batonn."
She had planned to build to this. She had planned all of it and then she had looked at him and said it directly because she was tired of managing the shape of things and this was the true thing and she was going to say the true thing.
"Tell me your reasoning," he said.
"The Geronh palace, the one in the capital. My mother gave birth there. Her mother before her. Every queen of the line for four centuries. It is not ceremony for its own sake, it is the specific continuation of a tradition that my people understand and respond to. A Geronh heir born in the highland chapel on Batonn is received differently than a Geronh heir born in a Coruscant medical facility. I am asking for political function."
He held her gaze.
She breathed.
"Dr. Thalias can travel," she said. "The final month …she could come to Batonn for the final month. The equipment she requires can be transported. I have looked at the logistics. The medical infrastructure in the highland capital has been rebuilt since the consolidation, the ISB administrative facility has the space, the…"
"No," he said.
She stopped.
"Thrawn…"
"No," he said again. The same register.
"I have not finished," she said.
"You have presented the argument," he said. "I have heard it. The answer is no."
“Then tell me why.”
"Batonn does not have a Chiss specialist. If Dr. Thalias travels to Batonn and something requires a response beyond her individual capacity, equipment that cannot be transported, a specialist consultation, an emergency procedure, the response time from Coruscant is not compatible with the kind of emergency that a complicated delivery can produce."
"Dr. Thalias could bring…"
"What she can bring," he said, "is what she can carry on a transport. A Coruscant medical facility has what cannot be carried on a transport. These are not equivalent situations and I will not treat them as equivalent."
"The risk is elevated," she said. "I understand that. But elevated is not…"
"Elevated in a context where the variables are not fully understood," he said, "and where the distance from adequate response is measured in hyperspace hours rather than minutes is a risk I am not willing to accept. This is not a negotiation about probability. This is a decision about what is available if the probability resolves unfavorably."
"The palace," she said. Very quiet. "It is the only thing I have left of her. Of how she did things. Of the way it was supposed to be. I want him to be born in the place where she was born and where her mother was born and where I was born."
"I know," he said.
"You know," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I know what you are asking and I know what it costs you that I am saying no and I am saying no regardless.I am telling you that the weight of what I am not willing to risk is greater."
"And if I disagree," she said. "With your assessment of the risk."
"You may disagree," he said. "The answer will not change."
"You are ordering me," she said. Not with heat.
“This is something I will not compromise on. The phrasing is yours to choose. The substance is the same regardless of the phrasing."
She looked at the window. At the Coruscant night, the administered dark of it, the city that had no stars because it had decided it did not need them.
"Dr. Thalias," she said. "On Coruscant. For the birth."
"Yes."
"And I can go to Batonn when I have recovered."
"Dr. Thalias will assess at the beginning of when you choose," he said. "If the assessment indicates stability, limited travel within the Coruscant system is possible. Beyond the system is a different question."
“Then I may leave when I see fit?”
"Yes," he said. "With the conditions Dr. Thalias specifies."
“And when our son is old enough. You will not prevent me from taking him to Batonn.”
"No," he said. "I will not."
She stood.
He stood.
She crossed the room to him, not quickly, not with the energy of a decision made suddenly, with the deliberateness of someone who had made a decision over the course of a conversation and was executing it at the pace the decision required.
She kissed him.
She stepped back.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
"Will you join me for breakfast," she said. "Tomorrow. Before the briefing."
"Yes," he said. "I will."
"Good," she said.
Something moved in his expression, the third one, fully present, the one that existed only in rooms without witnesses and had been present more frequently in this apartment in the past day than she had expected when she had been standing in the center of the sitting room two evenings ago bracing for what version of him would come through the door.
"Goodnight," she said.
"Goodnight," he said.
Before she went to bed, she sent a letter for Tannian.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She sent the message at the third hour which typically was an hour in which she wasn’t awake but she had been staring at the ceiling above her bed for a very long time. She sat up in the dark and she found her datapad on the side table and she held it for a moment in the specific way of someone about to do something they have already decided against multiple times and are doing anyway.
She typed to Tannian.
‘I need something from you. Not as my brother specifically. As someone who works in proximity to my husband and understands how he receives things. I have a request I have already made and lost. I need you to make it for me. I will explain when you respond. Do not wake anyone to tell them I messaged you at the third hour.
— (Y/N)’
She set the datapad down quietly so as to not awake Thrawn who was sleeping next to her.
She looked at the ceiling.
The response came eleven minutes later, which meant he had also been awake.
‘What did you lose and why do you think I can get it back?
-Tannian’
She typed:
‘The birth. I want Batonn. He said no. I want you to ask him.
— (Y/N)’
She watched the indicator that meant he was composing a response. It stopped. It started again. It stopped.
Then:
‘(Y/N)’
Just that.
She knew what just that meant. She had known Tannian since before she could read and she knew every register of every single-letter communication he had ever sent her and this one meant: I am not going to do this and you already know I am not going to do this so let's have the argument efficiently.
She typed:
‘I know what you're going to say.’
He typed:
‘Then I won't have to say it.’
She typed:
‘Tannian.’
He typed:
‘You are my younger sister. I have been solving your problems since you were born and that one time you convinced me to climb the eastern wall to retrieve the training bow you dropped over the side and I fell twelve feet and broke two ribs and you stood over me and said "you should have been more careful." I have been intervening in your situations for the entirety of my adult life. I am telling you, as your older brother, that I cannot keep doing it. You are a queen. You are a senator. You are a married adult woman who is carrying a child. You have to fight your own arguments.’
She read this and sighed and then turned to look at Thrawn who slept with his back towards her.
She typed:
‘This is different.’
He typed:
‘How?’
She typed:
‘Because I already made the argument. I made it correctly. I had the reasoning and the logistics and the historical precedent and I presented it the right way and he said no before I was finished and he held the no through everything I had. I have nothing left to give the argument. You work with him. You are in proximity to him in a way I am not. You know how he receives things from people who are not me. I am asking you to use that.’
The indicator.
Stopping.
Starting.
A long pause.
Then:
‘You want me to request a formal audience with a Grand Admiral to advocate for my sister's birth location.’
She typed:
‘Yes.’
Then:
‘You owe me for the ribs.’
It was the closest thing to relief she had felt since the sitting room.
‘I know’, she typed. ‘Thank you.’
She set the datapad down. She looked at the ceiling. She thought about breakfast and then slept.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The balcony at the seventh hour was administered just as every Coruscant morning was unlike Batonn, which was real and had the natural weather and the feel of the morning sun on one’s skin.
She had set the table herself even though V3PO had offered. She needed to do something with her hands, in order to bring her mind off his refusal to allow her back on her home planet.
The balcony overlooked the traffic lanes which were already at their morning density.
Above, the sky was the Coruscant color.
Not blue exactly. Not grey. She looked at it for a long time before she heard the door swish open.
Thrawn came through the balcony door at the seventh hour and four minutes, in the white uniform which meant the formal day had already begun for him or was about to, the briefing preparing to resume or having resumed and discharged him back to the apartment for the interval she had asked for last night and he had said yes to.
He sat and she sat.
They ate for a moment in a quiet that had developed between them, not absence of conversation, the way two people had learned that silence did not require filling and were operating in the learned version of that.
"A report came in," Thrawn said.
She looked at him.
"This morning," he said. "From the Restos sector office. Filed through the ISB channel." He held his cup. He did not look at her. He looked at the view. "The bombing investigation."
She put her fork down and listened.
"The report names a suspect," he said, "The report names your ambassador, Lord Irtur.”
"That is impossible!"
The words arrived with the precision of a woman who had considered this sentence before it was required, which she had not, which meant the precision was coming from somewhere else, from the part of her that had been running the contingency calculations.
"Irtur was with Lord Virex's youngest son," she said. "At the time of the bombing. He was not in the northern territories. He was in the Virex hold. Gret Virex can confirm it. The Virex clan records will confirm it. He has an alibi."
Thrawn looked at the view.
"Alibis," he said, "are examined by the investigating body. Not established by the subject's advocate."
"I am not his advocate. I am telling you what is true."
"What is true will require substantiation through the review process."
"The ISB review process. Which is the process that has been investigating this bombing for a month and has produced a report that names a man who was not in the northern territories when the bombing occurred. That is the review process we are relying on for accuracy?"
He held his cup and did not argue the point.
"Irtur has been my ambassador since I've been senator and queen," she said. "The idea that he…"
"The report does not require that you accept it," Thrawn said. "It requires that the investigation proceed."
He was still looking at the view, and she understood that the looking at the view was deliberate, that it was the version of a conversation he conducted when the information he was delivering had information that was better received without the full force of his attention on the person receiving it.
"There is something else in the report," he said. "Your name has not been cleared in the investigation."
The drink in her glass nearly spilled onto her.
"That has been the case since the bombing."
"The report indicates that the investigation may proceed to formal questioning. Of additional persons connected to the northern territory operation at the relevant time. You were on Batonn during the relevant period."
Internally, the arithmetic ran.
The ISB. Formal questioning. Her name on a report from Restos's office. Restos, who had looked at her in a corridor on Batonn and said do not think your marriage protects you. Restos, who had been in the room when she pushed him and said add my name to the list. Restos, who had been filing reports through ISB channels since before the wedding and who was now, apparently, filing them about her ambassador and leaving her name conspicuously uncleared.
"Formal questioning," she said. "By whom?"
"The investigating officer. The sector assignment has not been finalized."
“My schedule during that period is documented. I have the itinerary. If the investigation requires my schedule, the schedule exists."
He held her gaze. He held it with the full attention, the reading quality, the specific attention of someone who was not only hearing what was being said but was reading the architecture of the saying.
"Yes," he said. "The schedule exists."
The morning held them.
"There is one other matter," he said.
She looked at him.
"Lieutenant Geronh has requested an audience," he said. "It came through the formal channel this morning. Before the briefing."
She held it and she breathed and she thought: Tannian.
"An audience?"
"Yes, the request is formal. Which is unusual for a lieutenant requesting an audience with a Grand Admiral. Lieutenant Geronh does not typically operate through the formal channel."
The Queen of Batonn confronts Grand Admiral Thrawn with evidence of secret Imperial mining camps and displaced labor. Thrawn counters with a reminder of her precarious position, warning that his protection, and her pregnancy, won't shield her from being exiled to Coruscant if she continues to defy the Imperial structure.
Masterlist, Part 22
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The balcony faced east. She watched as the sun’s light arrived over Lothal’s plains in a way that did not happen on Coruscant.
She had taken her breakfast there, and was on her second cup of coffee when she heard Irtur open the door to the balcony.
She turned and gestured to the empty chair next to her.
“Please, Lord Irtur. Join me.”
He sat and poured himself a cup from the carafe. He looked at the plains with the expression he had been wearing since they arrived on Lothal, which was the expression of a man who had checked the view from every window and found it consistent.
"I went to your room this morning," he said.
She held her cup.
"Did you?"
"At the seventh hour," he said. "You were not there."
"I discovered," she said pleasantly, "that the senior officers' quarters have a considerably more comfortable mattress than the guest accommodation."
He chuckled in the warm silence between two people who had known each other since they were children and had developed, over the course of that knowing.
"Why didn't he join you for breakfast? He left his pretty young wife alone on a balcony with a view of…" He gestured at the plains. "This."
"I imagine the campaign has opinions about breakfast timing."
"The campaign," Irtur said, "can arrange its own breakfast."
"That is a very bold position on Imperial military scheduling."
"I am an ambassador and therefore,I have positions on many things."
"And yet you lost your ship."
"I was robbed on Nar Shaddaa. Which is a moon with a documented theft rate. It could happen to anyone.
"It happened to you specifically."
"Yes, I am a victim of circumstance."
"You are a victim of your own itinerary."
She poured him more from the carafe and he accepted it and they sat in the specific companionable way of two people who had survived a significant number of heroics together and had arrived at a balcony in Lothal and were drinking something that was approximately correct and looking at something that was consistently beige.
“Any news on the chip?” She asked him, sipping her coffee that was definitely more milk than coffee.
Irtur set his cup down and reached into his jacket to produce a datachip.
"The cipher," she said.
"Finally cracked," he said. "Fully. Not the outer notation, the full cipher. The destination routing. Everything beneath the extraction figures." He held her gaze. "I received it this morning."
She picked up the chip and held it in the sunlight.
"The hidden camps?"
"Seven," he said.
She looked at him.
"There are seven mining camps on Batonn that do not appear in any public sector administration record," he said."Three of them are in territories that the administrative record designates as uninhabited buffer zones. Two are in the eastern reaches, Rhyss clan territory, which is why Rhyss's hold sustained such extensive damage during the consolidation. They needed the land cleared."
"And the other two?"
"The northern plateau, adjacent to what we saw from the ridge."
She looked at the plains.
"Seven," she said again, not believing the words had left his mouth.
"Seven documented," he said. "What we do not know is whether seven is the complete number."
“What about the laborers? Is it mostly Batonnese people working these hidden mines?”
"This is the part I wanted to tell you separately," he said. "Before the gala. Before any of it. The labor force in the hidden camps is not exclusively Batonnese."
"Irtur…"
"They are bringing people in," he said. "From outside Batonn. Displaced persons, refugees from other sectors, planets that have been destabilized by Imperial operations and whose populations have been processed through the administrative resettlement channels. And prisoners. Political prisoners from other outer rim systems who have been transferred through the prison transit network into the Batonn sector. The prison transfer schedules that are not in the public record."
"They are using Batonn," she said. Quietly. "As a processing point. Not just for the doonium. As a location to put people that they need to put somewhere that is not on a record anyone can access."
"Yes."
"People from other planets who have nothing to do with Batonn. Who have no clan, no family, no community on Batonn. Who have no one there looking for them. Who disappear into the extraction zones and do not come back and there is no one to notice."
The balcony was quiet. The Lothal morning continued its measured business over the plains, the sun doing what it did at this hour.
"The recording," she said. "The grave."
"Yes."
"The people in it."
"Not all Batonnese," he said. Very quietly. "Based on what my contact was able to document in the body count."
Her left hand began to shake as she set down she cup, spilling the combination of coffee but mostly milk. She closed her eyes and breathed in eight counts, as she had been doing since the facility.
"Tonight," she said. "At the gala. I am going to be in a room with the people who authorized this. I need to be…I need to be very composed tonight."
"You are always composed," he said.
"Not always."
"Tonight you will be," It wasn’t reassurance, but he looked at her with eyes that had known her since before either of them was required to be anything.
She put the chip in her pocket and then picked up her coffee.
"Aggressively beige," She sighed.
"Every direction."
They stayed on the balcony through the second cup and most of the third.
She asked him about Cristi and her children, and he told her that she had escaped after the bombing, which many people had. That the water’s poison had killed the overseers and imperial guards. Cristi went to somewhere far, to the Sereth clan’s lands.
She asked him about the clan lords and what the explosion had produced in terms of the ISB monitoring on Batonn, and he told her what he knew, which was that Virex had been visited twice by sector administration officers since the explosion and had said nothing, and Rhyss had been flagged for increased surveillance which explained why Rhyss had been so contained.
When the carafe was finished and the ninth hour had arrived and the gala was close enough to require the beginning of preparation, Irtur set his cup down with the quality of a man reaching the end of what he had come to say.
He looked at the plains one final time.
"The ship," he said.
She waited.
"I received a communication this morning," he said. "From the logistics office. A vessel has been arranged for my return to Coruscant. Departure after the gala. Tomorrow morning."
"Coruscant?"
"Via Batonn. I have matters to attend to on Batonn before I return to Coruscant. The logistics office communication indicated that the routing had been cleared."
"He arranged it, didn’t he?"
"The authorization came from the Grand Admiral's office," he said. "Yes."
"He arranged a ship to be routed through Batonn?"
"Yes," Irtur said.
She breathed.
"He sends his thanks," Irtur said. With the specific quality of a man delivering a message he had decided to deliver and was not going to elaborate on.
She looked at him.
"Does he," she said.
"That is what I am choosing to interpret the routing as," Irtur said pleasantly. "A logistical expression of gratitude."
She looked at the plains.
"Go to Batonn, see Cristi. See what is there and tell me everything when you return to Coruscant."
"You will be the first to know," he said. As he always said it.
"Go get ready for the gala, and do something about the uniform. You have been wearing that since Nar Shaddaa."
"I have, it has seen things."
"It shows," she said.
He stood. He looked at her one final time with the eyes of a man who had known her since they were children.
"Tonight," he said. "Be magnificent."
"I am always magnificent."
"Yes," he said. "You are."
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The gala was in the facility's formal reception hall.
She moved through it with the smile she had since the first gala on Coruscant when she had been Arlinya Veth in an old, cream dress with an invented name, and she was considerably more practiced now and the dress was new and the name was complicated but the skill was the same.
She found the Besalisk contractor within the first twenty minutes.
He had been supplying materials to the Lothal facility through a secondary corridor that bypassed the standard Imperial customs documentation, which meant he was either operating with unofficial Imperial authorization or he was operating without authorization and had been sufficiently careful about it that the ISB had not yet closed the gap between what the manifests said and what the ships were carrying.
She was warm and direct and interested and she asked the questions that were not the questions she was actually asking.
The satisfactory answers told her three things.
The supply corridor ran through the Kessel sector.
The material being supplied was not listed in the facility's official construction manifest.
The authorization for the supply chain came not from Pryce's office but from a project designation she recognized.
She later found the Sullustan near the refreshment table and spent nine minutes with him and learned two things she had not known before and confirmed one thing she had suspected.
She found the human contractor from the Kessel sector and spent eleven minutes with him and learned the last piece.
She moved through the rest of the gala with her smile and she spoke to the outer rim senators and the governors and she ate the food that had been arranged and she accepted two glasses of something that was not the highland blend and drank neither of them. Thrawn across the room in the Grand Admiral's white being the specific kind of present that he was in public rooms. She could see him conducting.
He looked at her once across the room.
She gave him nothing except composure.
Then they both looked away and the gala continued its managed business around them and she held everything she had gathered and she waited for the hour when the gathering was done.
The gala dissolved slowly, the way Imperial functions always did.
She knocked at Thrawn’s door at the twenty-second hour.
He opened it immediately, which meant he had been expecting her or had been awake and near the door.
“You are late,” he said.
“I was working,” she replied, setting her gloves down with deliberate care. “For you.”
“Yes,” he said as his red eyes shifted to her, illuminating in the dim light. “You were.”
She sat across from him and told him everything she had heard from the gala. She told him what she had learned from the contractors, and the little pieces she had been placing together.
"I have done something for you tonight," she said, concluding her speech. "I gathered what you asked me to gather and I am giving it to you accurately and completely." She held his gaze with the full steadiness of everything she had. "Now I am asking you something in return."
He was very still.
"The seven camps," she said. "The hidden extraction operations on Batonn. The ones that are not in any public sector administration record. The ones using displaced prisoners and refugees from other planets alongside Batonnese labor. I want to know if you knew about them."
“You have verified this?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“That,” she said, “is not the part of this exchange that concerns you.”
He was still very still, not moving from his position.
"And if you had anything to do with their establishment," she said. "I want to know that as well."
He held her gaze for a long time. Long enough that she counted it. Long enough that she held the surface against the reading quality and held it completely.
"You are not," Thrawn said at last, "in a position to make demands."
She kept her focus locked on him.
"I am asking," she said. "Not demanding."
"The distinction," he said, "is thinner than you intend it to be. You have come to my quarters following a gala at which you gathered intelligence I requested and you are using that gathering as a mechanism to extract information you want. That is a demand, regardless of the register in which you have phrased it."
She held his gaze.
"Time and again," he said, "you overstep, Lady Thrawn."
"I govern my planet."
"You govern within the parameters of an arrangement that has boundaries," he said. "Boundaries you test with the specific consistency of someone who has decided that the testing is a form of governance rather than a violation of the structure within which the governance occurs."
“You are avoiding the answer.”
“No,” he said. “I am assessing whether the answer is useful to you.”
Her jaw tightened, just slightly.
"Those seven camps…"
"Are part of a sector administration operation that predates my involvement in the Batonn deployment. I was aware of their existence. I was not involved in their establishment. That is the accurate answer to the accurate question."
"You knew," she said, absorbing everything he had just said.
"Yes."
"And you said nothing."
"You did not ask," he said. "Until now."
"That is…" She stopped. "That is not sufficient."
"No," he said. "It is not. But it is the truth of what occurred. The camps are an administrative operation run through Restos's office with Imperial sector authorization. My knowledge of them did not extend to authorization or oversight. My function on Batonn was the insurgency suppression. What followed was the sector administration's arrangement."
"The labor," she said. "The prisoners from other planets. The refugees that are slaves for your projects."
"I am aware of the labor sourcing," he said. "Yes."
“And?”
"And it is not within my current operational mandate to address it," he said.
She looked at him.
"That is not an answer I can accept."
"It is the accurate answer," he said. "Whether you can accept it is a separate question from whether it is accurate. You have been conducting operations on Batonn and beyond it that are well outside the parameters of your governance function, and you are sitting in my quarters asking me why I did not share information with you as though the information flow between us is symmetrical." He held her gaze. "It is not symmetrical. You have been managing what you share with me since the beginning of this arrangement. I have been aware of this. I have permitted a degree of it because the management produced outcomes that served Batonn and because I chose to receive it as the specific kind of governance that your situation required. There are limits to what I will permit."
"I am not the kind of leader," she said, "who is told to be quiet and complies."
"I know," he said.
The words arrived with a way she had not expected,not agreement, not admiration, the specific tone of a man stating a fact that had two edges and was handing her both simultaneously.
"I know," he said again. "And it will be your downfall if you are not careful."
She wished she was stronger, she wished in this very moment that she could order his execution. She was queen, queen of a planet he had destroyed, and she was sitting here trying to rebuild it.
"The extraction site speech," he continued. "The off script remarks to the labor force. The incident with Governor Restos. The Nar Shaddaa deviation. The finger you lost while carrying a child. Under any other Imperial administrative arrangement, any one of these incidents would have produced consequences that are not recoverable. You have produced all of them within four months and you are sitting here making demands." He looked at her gaze steadily. "You are protected by your function. By the specific value of what you represent to the governance of Batonn and to this arrangement. That protection is not unlimited. It is not unconditional. And it is not independent of what you do with it."
"You are giving me advice?"
"I am giving you accurate information which is what I have always asked of you," he said "The arrangement has given you something that most people in your position after a planetary insurgency do not receive. Continued governance. Continued presence. Continued function. I want you to understand what that is worth and what it costs when it is lost. Your job is to prevent another insurgency from rising on Batonn, but that could be done in other ways."
"And if I don't conduct myself within the parameters you consider acceptable," she said, "you will do what, exactly?"
He said nothing, and she waited before raising her voice.
“I am your wife, not a subordinate to be managed.”
Something in his expression shifted, not softer. More precise.
“That distinction,” he said, “is the only reason you have not yet encountered the consequences of that behavior.”
She was very still and looked towards the window.
"You carry the weight of the Queen of Batonn, which is the weight of a planet and its people and the specific obligations of that governance. I carry the weight of the arrangement that makes that governance possible." He held her gaze. "When you put yourself at risk, you put the arrangement at risk. When you put the arrangement at risk, you put Batonn at risk. These are not separate chains of consequence. They are the same chain."
(Y/N) held his words and allowed silence to stretch between them.
"You are threatening me."
"I am describing the structure, which has consequences built into it that I did not design and cannot always prevent."
She breathed.
"The bombing," he said.
She held very still.
"In the northern territories," he said. "The extraction site. I have not asked you directly since Batonn. I am asking you now. I know you had involvement because I know you. I do not know the precise nature of the involvement. I am not asking for the precise nature. I am telling you that I know. And that I have chosen, thus far, to treat the investigation with the specific pace that I have treated it. That pace is a choice. It is not a permanent condition."
She gave him the room, but turned back towards him when he said the words:
"And the child…"
There it was again.
His gaze dropped, briefly, deliberately, to her abdomen, then returned to her eyes.
"You are carrying something," he continued, "You are operating as though your actions affect only yourself. That is no longer accurate. You involved yourself in an active conflict zone while carrying my heir and conducted unknown operations while in the first trimester of a pregnancy that Dr. Thalias has specifically identified as elevated risk. You do not know what you are carrying. Not completely."
“And yet,” she said, “I returned.”
“Yes,” he said. “You did but that does not make the behavior acceptable.”
She tilted her head, waiting for him to continue speaking.
"If you continue to put yourself and my heir in danger," he said, "I will ensure that the space available to you is considerably smaller. I have the authority to request that your governance function be conducted from Coruscant. Permanently."
"You cannot do that," she said.
He held her gaze.
"I cannot remove you from the governance arrangement," he said. "That is correct. The Emperor's arrangement is not mine to dissolve. But the governance function can be conducted remotely. The Senate seat does not require physical presence on Batonn. The conditional regency does not require you to travel. The arrangement does not specify where you must be. It specifies what you must do. Not where you must be when you do it."
"You would keep me on Coruscant?" she was sweating now, in the room that seemed to just grow colder.
"I would ensure," he said, "that you are somewhere I can confirm. That you are not on a Hutt controlled planet losing fingers while pregnant. You continue to test limits you do not yet fully understand, I would prefer not to define them for you through enforcement."
“But you will.”
“If required,” he said.
"I understand," she said. "The structure. I understand all of this. But I need you to understand something as well."
He held her gaze.
"I will not stop," she said. "Not entirely. Not in the ways that matter. I will be careful. I will be more careful than I have been. I will govern within the space available and I will not put the arrangement at unnecessary risk and I will not take risks with what I am carrying that are not absolutely necessary. But I am the Queen of Batonn. I am not a symbol to be positioned. I am not a governance function to be optimized. I am the person who stands between my people and the worst of what is being done to them and I will not stop being that person because it is inconvenient for the arrangement."
"I know," he said.
"I know," he said again. "That is not in question. It has never been in question. The question is whether you survive long enough to continue being that person. And the answer to that question depends on the decisions you make."
She looked at the star map of the Unknown Regions.
She looked at him.
"Alright," she said getting up and walking towards the door and then turning to face him again.
He held her gaze.
"Alright," she said again. Quieter. The specific quality of a woman who had not won and had not lost. Silence followed but not an empty silence. The kind that came when both of them had reached the edge of what they were willing to say aloud.
Thrawn inclined his head slightly, as though marking the conclusion of a discussion rather than the aftermath of an argument.
“You depart tomorrow,” he said.
She blinked once, the shift in subject precise enough to feel deliberate.
“Yes,” she said. “The transport is scheduled for the tenth hour.”
“I am aware,” he replied. “I will see you off.”
There was something in those words, not softened, not personal in the way she might have once defined it, but intentional. A choice, like everything else he did.
She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Alright.”
“When you arrive on Coruscant,” he continued, “you will report to Dr. Thalias.”
“I am capable of managing my own medical appointments.”
“Yes,” he said. “You are. And you will attend this one.”
She exhaled slowly through her nose, but did not argue further. More than anything, she wanted to return to her room and pack her bags and leave Lothal and the beigeness that plagued its plains. She wished to go home and contact Clvtorig and confirm that he were safe, but she would have to get through Thrawn first.
He watched her for a moment longer, then added, more quietly…
“You should not interpret my absence as negligence.”
Her fingers curled slightly at her side.
“The demands on Lothal will require my presence here,” he said. “That does not indicate a lack of attention.”
His words were clinical.
“I will be informed,” he said. “Of your condition. Of your movements. Of anything that is relevant.”
Her hand began to tremor.
“You will always be… within my awareness.”
There it was.
“I assumed as much,” she said.
Another silence, softer this time.
“I didn’t thank you properly,” she said. “For the instrument. It mattered a lot to me.”
“Then it served its purpose,” he said with something in his expression shifting.
She stepped closer to him, closing the distance with the same quiet deliberation she brought to everything now.
“For that,” she said, “thank you.”
Without ceremony, he reached out and rested his hand lightly at the side of her face. It was brief and controlled. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. It was not possessive nor demanding.
“Goodnight,” he said. “Lady Thrawn.”
“Goodnight,” she replied. She stood there for a moment after he stepped back, the space between them reasserting itself.
Then she turned and left, the corridor outside as quiet as before, her footsteps echoing just a little more than they had when she arrived.
The dream came the way the bad ones came. She had undressed without thinking, folding the fabric with the same precision she applied to everything else. The prosthetic rested on the table for a moment before she reattached it, the motion still unfamiliar, still not entirely hers. She did not look at it for long.
When she laid down, in sheets that were not hers, her mind sought comfort in the only warm place she remembered.
Batonn.
She knew it immediately: the sand dunes, the smell of the mines, and the green of the palace garden, the one with the stone path where she had fallen when she was young and Clvtorig had taken her hand.
He looked the way he had looked before the insurgency. She crossed the garden toward him.
She was walking and then she was not walking because the garden had changed and she was no longer in the garden anymore. She did not know where it was. It was a grey room she had recognized but not fully. The lamp in the room casted light over Clvtorig but someone else was there.
"Thrawn," she said, placing a hand over her mouth. She heard Clvtorig say her name, the way he always said it.
He did not look at her.
He looked at Clvtorig.
She heard herself say something but the dream did not give her the words.
Then, his body was gone as though he had survived an explosion that skinned away his skin and caused his blood to spill on her.
She woke and surfaced fully. She looked around the dark room. The prosthetic. The real one, which she pressed flat against the sheet until she could feel the sheet and the sheet was real and the room was real and the dream was the dream.
She looked at the window until the dark began, very slowly, to become the Lothal predawn and would not sleep anymore on Lothal.
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The Lothal sky is now pale, washed in that muted beige that never quite becomes anything else.
Tannian came to her room with his travel bag and his uniform and his hair was combed in a way that signaled that he had slept better than she had. He picked up her travel bag and then they walked through the corridor silently.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
"I slept some."
"You didn't sleep well," he said.
"Come on," (Y/N) said. "The transport is waiting."
The hangar was the same hangar they had arrived in. She walked through it to see the security complement was in its configuration and the administrative aides were with their portfolios and Irtur was already at the ramp with the pronouncement of a man who had said goodbye to the Lothal plains from every window and was prepared to be done with them.
She looked at the hangar entrance and Thrawn was there. He was in his white uniform. His red eyes found her immediately across the hangar with the same attention that found her in rooms since the gala.
She crossed the hangar.
She stopped at the correct distance.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Lady Thrawn," he said.
Around them the hangar continued its operational business of the crew movements, the equipment checks, the specific ambient sounds of a military installation going about its function. In the center of it they stood in the stillness of two people who had said everything they were going to say last night and were now in the morning after it.
“The transport will take you directly to Coruscant,” he says. “There will be no scheduled stops.”
“Good.”
“You will report to the specialist upon arrival.”
“I am aware.”
“The situation on Lothal will require my continued presence,” he says.
“You told me.”
“Yes,”His eyes settled on her again, looking down at her. “I will be informed.”
“I’ll manage,” she says.
“I expect that you will,” he replied.
She inclines her head slightly, “Goodbye,” she says.
“Safe travel,” he says.
A pause.
“Lady Thrawn.”
She turns before anything else can be added, ascending the ramp without looking back. The ship seals behind her. Engines engage. The platform recedes. And below, Lothal remains exactly as it was, flat, muted, controlled. Thrawn does not move as the transport lifts. His gaze follows it only until it clears the immediate airspace.Then, precisely, he turns and walks back into the structure, as though nothing has been lost at all.
(Y/N) has dinner with Thrawn and sees him later that night. After the tour, tensions raise in between them as he discovers a secrete she has been hiding.
Masterlist, Part 21
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She was not late.
She sat in the dining room with the discipline of arriving before the required time so that the arrival was a choice rather than a response.
The dining room looked the same as everything else on Lothal. It was functional, Imperial, without the performance of elegance of the Coruscant apartments. A table. Four chairs, two of which would not be used. A covering over the dishes the staff had arranged and departed.
She was alone in it for three minutes before he came.
He sat across from her.
She removed the covering and looked at the food. It was cooked Batonnese fish, surrounded by greens and vegetables that were definitely not Batonnese. She did not like food that was green, but the doctor had recommended she add more greens to her diet so that she had a healthy gestation. Thrawn had undoubtedly seen the physician’s note.
“This is Batonnese, did you arrange this?”
"The staff arranged it," he said. "According to the specifications I provided."
“You asked the physician what I could tolerate?” She asked poking at the greens with her fork.
“Yes.”
They ate in the silence that had developed between them over months of shared meals, not uncomfortable, not entirely comfortable, the way two people who had learned each other's rhythms at a table and were operating within them.
"The factory tour," she said. "Pryce's gala function. Tell me what we will see."
He looked at her.
"Tomorrow. I said tonight we would discuss the gala framing. The tour is tomorrow's briefing."
"I would like the overview tonight, so I can think through it before the formal briefing."
He held her gaze.
"The Lothal manufacturing facility," he said, setting his fork down with the precision of someone who had decided to give something his full attention, "produces TIE components. Specifically the advanced frame modifications that the TIE Defender project requires. The doonium from Batonn's northern territories supplied the primary material for the frame construction. The explosion removed that supply."
"Which is why Pryce is nervous?"
"Governor Pryce is never nervous. She is compressed."
She almost smiled.
"What does she want from the gala?" she said.
"She wants the outer rim contractors to see a functioning operation," he said. "To demonstrate that the project's material requirements can be met through alternative sources. She wants the senators in the room to receive the facility as evidence of Imperial investment in the outer rim. She wants you to be present as evidence that Batonn's governance relationship with the Empire is intact and to promote a swift rebuilding of the northern doonium camp."
"And what do you want from the gala?"
"Information," he said.
She looked at him.
"The contractors who will be present," he said. "Several of them have been supplying materials through routes that are not entirely consistent with their documented supply chains. The discrepancy is…" He paused. "Interesting."
"You are telling me this," she said carefully, "because you want me to be listening for something specific."
He held her gaze.
"I am telling you this because you will be in the room and you will be listening regardless and the listening will be more productive if it is directed."
So he’s using me as a spy?
"Which contractors?"
"Three," he said. "I will identify them tomorrow."
"And what are they supplying," she said.
"That," he said, "is what we are trying to determine."
The Lothal evening continued around them, pressing at the window in the muted browns and greens.
"The recording," she said. "Irtur's documentation…"
"Tomorrow," he cut her off.
"Before the briefing?"
"Yes."
She thought about the mass grave and the recording device and sixty seconds of documentation that Irtur had stood in a camp on Batonn. She thought about what he was going to do with it after he saw it. Probably nothing. He ran the system that created it. Not just in Batonn, but in other planets the empire deemed useful.
She looked at her left hand, gloved, resting on the edge of the table.
"I received word before dinner," he said.
She looked at him.
Something in his voice had shifted, something more careful than either.
"From the Batonn sector monitoring," he said. "The ISB daily report." He held her gaze. "A vessel matching Irtur's ship registration entered Batonnese airspace this afternoon. It has landed 400 miles from Scrim Island."
She was very still.
He held her gaze.
"I thought you should know," he said.
She looked at her gloved hand with the signet ring, the same ring Clvtorig had risked his life to give her. The ring that made her queen. His eyes were the same colour that reflected off the metal, the eyes that looked at her through the mirror of the speeder.
"Thank you," she breathed.
He said nothing else.
They finished dinner and the staff came to clear the dishes.
She went to her room and she sat on her and she looked at the Lothal evening, and the sunsetting. She wondered when was the last time Clvtorig had watched Batonn’s sunset.
He is home…
The second shower was shorter than the first.
She stood under it until the Lothal standard temperature had done what it could, which was less than the water on Batonn had done and more than nothing, and she got out and dried off and put on the nightdress and went back into the room.
She reached for the holoprojector on the side table. She pressed the mapping button. She activated it and the Lothal sector resolved in the air above the table, the planets and the lanes between them rendered in the specific shorthand of Imperial navigational cartography.
She looked at the sector.
She found Batonn.
She traced the route from the capital northward in her mind, through the territories she had mapped from memory and from documentation and from the view from a ridge at predawn with a bow in her hand.
She was trying to work out where he would go.
Not his palace , the Tronstad palace was under Imperial administrative management, occupied by Res and Restos's people. Not the clan holds, too visible, too easily tracked by the ISB monitoring that had been watching the clan activity since the explosion.
Where did you go when you were home but home was occupied?
She traced her finger through the holo.
"You are mapping something."
She was startled.
The holo destabilized at the motion and she steadied it and looked at the doorway and found Thrawn there in his uniform, which meant he had not changed for sleep, which meant he had been in the workspace or the operational center until some point after the dinner and had gone somewhere before coming here.
"I thought you had your own quarters," she said. She said it with the pleasantness of someone noting an unexpected variable. "I was not expecting you."
"The residence shares a corridor," Thrawn said. "The configuration places my quarters adjacent."
"Adjacent?"
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the holo.
She looked at him.
"I was reviewing the sector map," she said. "The briefing tomorrow. I wanted to familiarize myself with the Lothal system before…"
"Hmmm, but you were looking at Batonn,"
She held the composure.
"The sector is close to Batonn," she said.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
He came into the room.
She had not invited him in and he came in with the air he brought to rooms and he looked at the holo. He looked at Batonn, which was where her finger had been, and then he looked at her.
She deactivated the holo.
The room went back to its ordinary light, the Lothal night at the window, the functional quality of the residence accommodation, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightdress with her hands in her lap, the left one carefully beneath the right.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"The sector briefing," she said, "can wait until tomorrow."
"Yes," he said. "It can."
He did not move to leave.
"Thrawn," she said, with the warmth of a woman gently redirecting a conversation that had arrived somewhere unexpected. "It is late."
"Yes," he said. "It is."
He crossed the room.
Not to the chair. Not to the window. To her, with unhurried steps and she held herself very still with the composure assembled.
He pulled her close in a room with no witnesses and no performance required, and he kissed her with the tone of the third expression made physical.
"I did not know," she said, when she could say anything, "that Lothal created such an environment."
Something in his expression moved.
"Lothal," he said, "has very little to recommend it."
"And yet," she said.
"And yet," he said.
She looked at him in the room's light, at the red of his eyes and the blue of his skin that she now wished would cover her.
His hands framed her face, thumbs tracing her cheekbones as the kiss deepened, claiming her mouth. She melted into it, her fingers clutching the front of his uniform tunic, feeling the hard planes of his chest beneath. The fabric was crisp, starched from the day's command, but she tugged at the closures, popping them open one by one to expose the smooth azure expanse underneath.
Thrawn broke the kiss only to strip the tunic from his shoulders, letting it fall away. His skin gleamed faintly in the low light filtering through the window, the Lothal night sky a backdrop of stars beyond. She ran her palms up his torso, marveling at the cool silkiness, so different from the heat building between her thighs. He caught her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand as he leaned in, lips brushing her ear.
His free hand slid down her body, bunching the thin nightdress up her thighs. She arched into his touch, legs parting instinctively as his fingers found her, already slick with need. He parted her folds with two fingers, stroking the length of her slit before circling her womanhood with deliberate pressure. She gasped, hips bucking, the sensation sharp and electric. He released her wrists, but she kept her arms raised, surrendering to his control as he pushed the nightdress higher, over her head, leaving her naked on the bed's edge.
He stepped back a fraction, red eyes raking over her exposed form, her breasts heaving, nipples hardened peaks, thighs spread wide. He unfastened his trousers.
He knelt between her legs, shoulders nudging her thighs wider. His breath ghosted over her before his tongue flicked out, lapping at her entrance in long, firm strokes. She moaned, fingers threading into his hair, pulling him closer.
She shattered, she felt herself clenching around him as orgasm crashed. She trembled, oversensitive and gasping.
Rising, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes burning. He gripped her hips, flipping her onto her stomach with effortless strength. She pushed up onto her knees, presenting herself. He nudged her entrance, sliding through her wetness before he gripped her waist and drove in deep. The stretch burned sweetly, his girth filling her completely. She had not done this since before he had left to Lothal but her body quickly became used to the distraction.
He held still, letting her adjust, one hand stroking down her spine. Then he withdrew halfway and snapped forward, setting a steady rhythm, each thrust more and more powerful, hips colliding with her. She braced on her elbows, pushing back to meet him, the angle letting him hit that deep spot inside. One of his hands tangling in her hair to pull her head back gently, arching her spine.
He was rougher than usual, faster than usual. His movements felt less like a shared dance and more like a desperate escape. She braced herself against the mattress, her breath coming in ragged hitches as the intensity surged. This was his distraction, and she wondered what else was going wrong on Lothal.
The bed creaked under them, the room filled with the sounds of her moans mingling with his controlled grunts. Sweat slicked their skin, hers flushed pink against his blue. He released her hair, reaching around to pinch her nipple, rolling it between fingers as he fucked her faster. Her walls fluttered, another climax building from the relentless friction.
She cried out as her tightness undid him; he thrust deep, groaning low as he came, hot spurts of his seed painting her insides, overflowing to drip down her thighs.
He stayed buried as they caught their breath, then eased out, a gush of his seed following. Thrawn gathered her against his chest, both collapsing onto the bed. His arm draped over her waist, fingers idly tracing her hip as they stared at the Lothal night. Batonn lingered in her mind and so did Clvtorig, unspoken, but here.
The room transformed into the quiet of a space that had changed and was settling into what it had become. She kept the left hand away from view with the automatic discipline of someone who had been managing it since Nar Shaddaa, tucked slightly beneath her.
She heard him move and put his clothes back on.
She turned her head and her eyes caught his.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked.
"It depends," he said.
"On what?"
He looked at her with the third expression, the one she had the most entries for and had just added a new one to.
"On what the morning requires," he said. The evenness of it. The precision.
"Then I'll see you when I see you," she said.
Something moved in his expression.
He inclined his head.
He left.
The door closed.
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The tour proceeded today, and the next day would follow with the gala.
The briefing room had been arranged for the pretour function. The governors and senators and contractors assembled, speaking amongst each other and indulging in the refreshments that were offered. Governor Pryce would ensure that everything went to plan.
She arrived with Irtur.
"The temporary residence," he said, as they came down the corridor toward the briefing room, "Has a view of the Lothal plains, which are dreadful."
“Gross.”
“They look the same in every direction. I have checked. Extensively. From every window. The same plains. The same muted situation." He gestured at the landscape visible through the corridor viewport. "It is aggressively beige.”
“And what about inside the room?”
“There is a mattress that communicates strong opinions about the concept of rest."
“Then rest less.”
“Well I’ll need to find a girl to help me with that.”
“I heard Governor Pryce never sleeps and will probably need a stress reliever,” she joked, “Maybe she’ll help you rest less.”
He opened the door for her and they entered it laughing, causing some heads to turn. She recognized some governors from the Senate circuit and meetings, two senators from outer rim systems she had spoken to at the Coruscant functions, and the contractors, who were only interested in money.
She walked around the room and introduced herself to one of the contractors.
“Good Morning, I am senator (Y/N) Geronh of Batonn. I would like to discuss moving production to my planet as I believe it would be mutually beneficial…”
She had been doing this since the first gala and she was very good at it.
Pryce came in within the fifteenth minute. Kallus was behind her.
She had not expected Kallus.
She had sat across from Kallus in rooms with interrogation droids and the specific machinery of the ISB's interest in her and she had not given him what he came for and he had eventually stood in a corridor and said can you walk and she had said yes and walked, and neither of them had said anything further about what had occurred between those two moments.
Pryce came to her first. This was interesting. The choice to come to her before the governors, before the senior senator, before the contractors who were the ostensible purpose of the function.
"Lady Thrawn," Pryce said. "Thank you for coming to Lothal." She said it with the warmth she produced for public occasions, "I understand the transit was irregular."
"Nar Shaddaa has that effect on itineraries," she said pleasantly.
"Quite," Pryce said. Her eyes moved to Irtur. "Ambassador Irtur. Your loss of the vessel on Nar Shaddaa has been noted in the sector report."
"A distressing experience," Irtur said. With the expression of a man who had been distressed. "One hopes the report captures the full weight of it."
"It captures the relevant details."
Kallus came to stand beside Pryce.
She felt him come to stand there before she saw it, she knew what his presence felt like.
"Senator Geronh," he said.
"Agent Kallus," she said.
They looked at each other. Neither of them said anything else, which was itself a communication.
"The tour," Pryce said, returning the room's attention, "will begin in twenty minutes. The primary manufacturing floor first, then the materials processing section, then the Defender prototype display." She looked at the assembled governors and contractors presenting a product she had built and intended to sell. "The facility represents the most significant Imperial manufacturing investment in the outer rim in the past decade. I want you all to understand what that investment produces."
The factory was enormous.
The numbers from the documentation she had received did not prepare her for the physical reality of it.
The ceiling height was unnecessary for the manufacturing process but entirely necessary for the specific impression of scale and capacity that Imperial installations deployed as a form of argument. The machines that lined the floor in their rows were the specific machinery of TIE component production, the frame presses and the paneling equipment and the assembly stations, and they operated with the consistent efficiency of something that had been calibrated until the calibration was the primary quality.
She walked through it with the tour group and she looked at the machines and counted the output stations. She was also noting the material intake designations on the storage units. She was also looking at the secondary processing corridor they were not going to and noting where it was and what it connected to.
Irtur walked beside her.
He looked at the machines.
He looked at the ceiling.
He looked at the machines again.
"The ceiling," he said, "It is approximately thirty meters."
"Approximately."
"For a TIE component facility, that is…" He stopped. "An ambitious choice of ceiling height."
"Imperial architecture," she said. "The ceiling is always making a statement."
"The ceiling is making a statement that this building was built for something considerably larger than what they are telling us it is built for."
"That is very astute for someone who is primarily commenting on his mattress."
He made a sound.
It was not a loud sound.
But in it was echoed in a large manufacturing floor where the machinery was running and the tour group had spread along the walkway, the sound carried in the direction of the two people immediately ahead of them on the walkway.
Pryce turned.
Kallus turned.
Pryce turned back to the tour.
Kallus held the look one second longer.
"This is not for TIE fighters," Irtur murmured, barely audible now.
They walked.
The malfunction happened on the materials processing walkway.
They had moved from the primary floor to the upper walkway that ran along the processing section and the tour group was arranged along the railing with the factory floor visible below when the machine at station seven produced the sound that was not in its operational pattern.
She heard it before she could identify it, the sound of something departing from its calibrated rhythm, the mechanical equivalent of a person mid-sentence losing the thread. Then the station seven press released a discharge of pressurized gas that was not in the operational design, the sound of an uncontrolled release, and the station's safety systems engaged with the alarm quality of systems that had been triggered rather than activated by choice.
The tour group moved in the way Imperial governors and outer rim contractors removed themselves from a situation.
Pryce was speaking into her comm while Kallus scanned the walkway, which told her something about him that she already knew.
Irtur was beside her.
"Are you…" he started.
"I'm fine," she said.
She was at the railing.
"The intake designation on the units at station seven," she said. Very quietly in Batonnese register. "Tell me what you see."
"That is not a TIE component material designation," he said.
"No," she said.
"That is a…" He stopped. He breathed. "That designation is for something considerably more significant than a TIE frame."
"Yes," she said.
She turned from the railing.
"A routine pressure calibration issue," Pryce said. "The safety systems performed exactly as designed. There is no concern." She looked at the group. "We will proceed to the prototype display."
The prototype display was at the facility's northern end.
She leaned slightly toward Irtur as they walked.
"I cannot believe it malfunctioned," she said. Very quietly. "How embarrassing."
Irtur kept his eyes forward.
"The station seven designation," he said.
"Yes."
"I have been thinking about it."
"So have I," she said.
They walked.
"There is considerable rebel activity on Lothal," he said, "The campaign is active. The reason Thrawn is here is the rebel activity. And yet the facility continues construction. Which means that whoever is running the facility's timeline does not consider the rebel activity a significant operational threat to the facility."
"Or," she said, "they consider the facility's completion more urgent than the risk the rebel activity presents."
“What they are building here," he said, "is considerably more significant than a TIE Defender project."
“I’ll see what type of information I can find, update me on the chip tonight.”
“Your majesty, the chip has been the most useful.”
She looked at the corridor ahead of them.
"Irtur," she said.
"Yes."
"Did he contact you?" she asked. He did not need elaboration.
"Not yet," he said. "But I imagine he made it safely. The ship was in good condition when it left. The course was clean." He held her gaze sideways for a fraction of a second. "When I hear anything, you will be the first to know.”
They walked.
"Thrawn mentioned the ship," she said. "At dinner. The ISB daily report flagged it entering Batonnese airspace. He said he thought I should know."
"He said he thought you should know," he said.
"Yes."
"Interesting," he said, with the tone of a man who had arrived at a conclusion and was deciding whether to say it.
"Don't," she said.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were about to say something."
"I was about to observe," he said, "that a man who tells his wife information from an ISB daily report specifically because he thinks she should know it is a man who is making a choice about what information goes where. Which is…"
"Irtur."
"Interesting," he said. "I was going to say interesting."
"The finger," he said, shifting registers without announcement, the way he did when he had decided the previous subject was concluded. "Does he know?"
"I don't know," she said. "He suspects something. He looked at my hand and knew it was injured. He did not push past what I was willing to give him about how."
"And the how," Irtur said.
"Remains with us," she said.
"Good," he said.
"Yes," she said.
The tour concluded in the facility's reception area, the function room that Pryce had arranged for the posttour reception, the drinks and the managed conversation and the performance of Imperial confidence in a project that had just had a malfunction in front of its most important audience.
She accepted a glass and moved through the room with the warmth she brought to these occasions.
She was at the far window, looking at the Lothal plains , Irtur was correct about the aggressively beige quality of them, though she was not going to tell him so , when Pryce appeared at her left shoulder.
She turned.
"Lady Thrawn," Pryce said. "I hope the tour was illuminating."
"Very, the facility is impressive." She held Pryce's gaze with the pleasantness. "Though I imagine the afternoon did not go entirely as planned."
"Equipment performs imperfectly on occasion. The facility's safety systems functioned correctly. That is the relevant measure.”
"Of course," she said. "I only meant that a malfunction in front of outer rim contractors is…Inconvenient. For the impression you were intending to make."
"You remind me," Pryce said, "of myself. At your age."
She looked at Pryce.
"You were not anticipating that," Pryce said. With the directness of a woman who had stopped managing her directness sometime in her thirties.
"I was not," she said honestly.
"You shouldn't be surprised. Coruscant. The galas. The functions. The careful navigation of rooms full of people who have something you need and will not give it directly." She held her gaze. "I did what you are doing. Before the governorship. Before Lothal."
She held Pryce's gaze.
"I moved through rooms," Pryce continued. "I listened to what was not said alongside what was. I accumulated information that was not offered to me and I used it to build toward the position I intended to reach." She looked at her with the assessing quality fully operational. "You are doing the same thing. With considerably less advantage than I had, given your circumstances."
"Governor Pryce," she said pleasantly. "I am attending a factory tour. I would be a poor senator if I failed to pay attention to an Imperial manufacturing investment of this scale. Given that Batonn has supplied the primary material for it.”
"Had supplied," Pryce said. The precision of the correction.
"Had," she acknowledged. "Yes."
They held each other's gaze.
"The difference between us," Pryce said, with the quality of a woman reaching a conclusion, "is that I knew which rooms I was trying to reach and I moved toward them with complete dedication. I did not allow sentiment to redirect my trajectory. You have redirected trajectories. On Batonn. On this tour. You have allowed what you feel to influence what you do."
"And you consider that a weakness."
"I consider it a liability," Pryce said. "Which is not the same thing."
Before she could determine what to do with the shift, Kallus appeared.
He came from the direction of the governor's aide, with the expression of a man who had received information and was delivering it in the specific register of someone who has assessed the information as requiring immediate communication.
"Governor," he said.
Pryce turned.
He looked at her.
He looked at (Y/N).
He looked back at Pryce.
"A moment," he said. "When you are able."
"Now," Pryce said, "Lady Thrawn. The reception continues. Enjoy the Lothal standard."
"Of course."
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Irtur fell into step beside her as the function dispersed, with the ease of someone who had also spent the past forty minutes doing something other than attending a reception and was ready to debrief.
They walked the corridor toward the residence level without speaking until they were past the last uniformed staff member.
They reached the residence level corridor. Irtur stopped at the junction where their rooms diverged.
"Tomorrow," she said. "The gala. I need the documentation tonight. The recording from Batonn. I am going to review it before I sleep."
"I will send it to your secure channel," he said. "Within the hour."
"Thank you," she said.
He held her gaze for a moment with the eyes of a man who had been managing the gap between what he knew and what he could say for a long time and had arrived at the specific fatigue of sustained management.
"He landed safely," he said. "I have to believe that."
"He landed safely," she said.
Not because she had confirmation. Because she had decided it was true and the deciding was what was available.
"Go to sleep," she said. "The mattress will have opinions regardless."
"It will," he said. "Consistently."
She opened her door.
She stepped inside and stopped.
Thrawn was in the chair by the window.
She involuntarily startled, her body registering something unexpected before the mind had processed it. He was in the white working uniform. The chair was angled toward the door rather than the window, which meant he had positioned himself to see the entrance when it opened.
"You startled me," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I gathered."
"I was not expecting you."
"So I observed."
She set her bag on the end of the bed and took off her outer jacket and hung it and she looked at him with the pleasant composure of a woman accounting for an unexpected variable and finding it manageable.
She moved to the chair across from his, not the bed, the chair, the position of someone who has decided this is a conversation rather than something else.
"How was the tour?"
"Good," she said. "The facility is impressive. Considerably larger than I had imagined from the documentation. Governor Pryce is thorough in her presentation."
"Yes," he said. "She is."
"There was a malfunction on the processing walkway. Station seven. The safety systems engaged correctly. It resolved quickly."
"I am aware," he said. "The incident report reached my office within twenty minutes."
"Of course it did," she said pleasantly.
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"And the contractors," he said. "Were they sufficiently impressed despite the malfunction?"
"The Besalisk was consulting a datachip throughout the entire tour. I don't think she noticed anything that wasn't on the chip. The Sullustan barely looked at the machines. He spent most of the tour looking at the exits."
"Yes," Thrawn said. "He would."
She did not give him the three things she had learned, and she did not give him the intake designation, and she did not give him the ceiling height or what it meant, and she did not give him anything she had been building for months in the column where she kept things that were hers.
"Pryce spoke to me," she said. "At the reception."
"What did she say?"
"That I remind her of herself at my age," she said. "Which was unexpected."
Something moved in his expression.
"She is not wrong," he said.
"That is also unexpected."
"Pryce is frequently accurate in her assessments of people. It is one of her more useful qualities."
She looked at the window, at the beige outside. She looked back at him to find that his eyes had not left her.
"You are managing something," he said.
"I have been managing several things."
"That is not what I meant."
"I know," she said. "But it is the answer I am giving."
The room was quiet.
"(Y/N), I know enough," he said, very quietly, "to identify an orchestration."
Her pulse moved and her left hand started twitching.
"I have been thinking about our conversation last night and though I do not know every component," he continued. "Not yet at least. But I do know enough to recognize that your transport did not arrive at Nar Shaddaa by chance. I know that the rebel incident that diverted your transport was real. General Syndulla's cell has been active in the Lothal corridor. The engagement was documented by ISB flight monitoring. I know the diversion to Nar Shaddaa was not random. The coordinates were filed by your ambassador's vessel before your transport's pilot had completed the deviation assessment. The timeline does not support a spontaneous navigation decision. I know you were not in your cabin for the full duration of the Nar Shaddaa stop. I know that a vessel matching Ambassador Irtur's registration has entered Batonnese airspace carrying one occupant. The vessel left Nar Shaddaa with the registration of a ship that had been docked in bay seven for sixteen hours before your arrival."
"You believe I arranged for his ship to be stolen?"
"I believe," he said, "that if the Ambassador was deprived of his ship, it occurred in a manner he found politically useful."
"I went to Nar Shaddaa," she said carefully, "because I had no wish to remain on the ship under ISB supervision for the duration of the stop. I wanted to see the moon. I had never been. It was not what I expected. And it did not go as planned."
And then he moved. The stillness to motion without the interval she had learned to anticipate, and he was there and he had her by the blouse in the way of a man who had been sitting in a chair waiting for someone to come through a door and had arrived at the end of the managed version. He forced her out of her chair, and she hitched while he held her. She had not seen him angry before. Not this version.
"You risked yourself," he said. "While carrying my heir."
The words struck harder than accusation.Her hand moved before she could stop it, settling low against her abdomen, fingers splayed as if to shield something that had not yet formed into anything she could feel. She looked up sharply.
My heir.
Not our child. Not even the child.Not hers. Not in the way that mattered in rooms like this. Not in the language he had chosen. The distinction was not accidental. It rarely was with him. Ownership, defined in the way the Empire defined all things of value.
"I am not a vessel," she said.
"No," he said at once. "You are considerably more difficult than a vessel."
Her breath caught before she could manage it.
"You are injured," he said.
Every muscle in her body locked.
He looked at her left hand.
"The way you have protected that side of your body since entering the residence," he said. "The reduced use. The tension in the shoulder compensating for pain. The glove you have not removed since the hangar. You made sure to keep it under you even last night."
"It is nothing," she said, pulling herself from him and taking a step back.
"That is false," he said. He took one step. Not crowding. The specific distance of a man who had just released someone and was determining what came next.
"Remove the glove," he said.
"No," she said. Too fast. Too bare.
"That was not a request made idly," he said.
"It is late," she said, and her voice was thinner than she wanted. "I am tired. We have the gala. I would rather discuss something other than my hand."
"Very well," he said before crossing to her and taking her left hand before she had decided whether to let him and he removed the glove.
Silence stretched between them as he looked down.
"Tomorrow morning," he said. "You will see the physician before the gala."
"And if I decline," she said.
"You will not."
He set the glove on the side table.
He looked at her hand one final time.
"I dislike being deceived," he said. His voice was even. Precise. "But I dislike preventable infections considerably more."
He sat her down and turned toward the door.
He did not look back.
"The vessel on Batonn," he said. "If your concern is for whoever arrived safely…" A pause. The specific pause of a man selecting how much of a thing to say. "My analysts believe it landed intact."
Her chest tightened and her breath hitched. She held herself, as though that was the only autonomy she had right now. Heat flooded her face, and she looked away in shame, the way a bird turns from a predator before the end.
He left.
She collapsed onto the edge of the bed, her body feeling leaden. Sleep did not come as a relief, but as a heavy, suffocating blanket that pulled her under while her cheeks were still wet. When she awoke, she moved towards her desk and turned on the holo as she was meant to do.
It was dusk when a knock came. Not the door opening without announcement. A knock, two precise impacts.
"Come in," she said and Thrawn came into the room. Behind him was a medical droid. She didn't rise to greet them. She couldn't. The memory of his clinical coldness from earlier in the day sat like a stone in her chest. She was acutely aware of how she must look, her skin felt tight, her eyes remained swollen and raw still from the afternoon. Under his unwavering gaze, she felt less like his wife and more like one of the artifacts he so meticulously studied.
She finally looked up when she heard the soft murmur the droid made when it moved. It reminded her of many sounds she had once heard in a room of grey, a room she did not wish to hear again.
The droid was the ISB-adjacent medical unit, compact and efficient with the articulated arms folded in the transport position and the equipment case built into its chassis.
"What," she said, "is that?"
"A medical droid."
"I can see that it is a medical droid," (Y/N) said. "I am asking why it is in my room."
"Because the physician's schedule did not permit the morning appointment and the gala is tomorrow. And the hand requires attention that cannot be further deferred. So I arranged for the attention to come to you."
"I am busy."
"I disagree."
"I am in the middle of…"
"The documentation will be there when the droid is finished," he said. "The hand has been unaddressed since Nar Shaddaa. It will not continue to be unaddressed."
He gestured to the droid. The droid moved toward her as though it had no investment in the social dynamics of how the task had been authorized, and it didn’t, it was a droid.
"I would like," she said, with the pleasantness she could always produce, "to finish what I am working on before…"
"Lady Thrawn," he said but not harshly. Not the way he had used earlier in the afternoon when he had taken her by the blouse. "Sit, and give the droid your left hand."
She was aware that she had sat before she had decided to sit, and held out her left hand.
The droid unwrapped what remained of Uiona's careful dressing and it assessed the wound with a scanner and it administered what it administered and she looked at the wall and breathed with the eight counts and the precision.
Thrawn stood at the edge of the room. Not watching. Present. The specific quality of someone who had arranged something and was remaining available for the duration of it.
She had not expected the prosthetic.
The droid produced it from the equipment case and had determined that restoration was the appropriate response. A partial prosthetic, the kind designed for single digit replacement, fitted and calibrated and attached.
She flexed it but motion was not quite right, perhaps she would need to get used to it.
"Thank you," she said. To the droid. To the room. To him.
The droid collected its equipment and left with the door closing.
The room was quiet.
She looked at the window, at the Lothal sunset, the sky doing something that Lothal occasionally managed despite the aggressively beige quality of its general presentation, the gold and amber of a sun going down over plains that were the same in every direction, the one hour of the day when the planet briefly remembered how to be beautiful.
"I require you tonight."
She looked up.
He was still at the edge of the room and he was looking at her with the composure he always had and he had said it with the evenness he brought to everything, the precise flatness of a man stating a navigational fact.
I require you tonight.
Something moved through her that she did not examine directly, the specific warmth of it, and she held it at the same careful distance she held things she was still in the process of accounting for.
She thought about seeing him tonight.
She thought about being grabbed.
She thought about being forced to stand when she did not want to stand.
The thin line between the things she had filed as this is how he is and the things she had filed as this is something else.
Not I would like to see you. Not if you are not occupied. Not the question she had learned to expect from him in the register of rooms without witnesses. The flat declarative version. The version that did not have a question in it.
(Y/N) thought: I was looking forward to seeing him before he said it that way. I am still looking forward to seeing him. I do not know what to do with both of those things being true.
She held the prosthetic finger in her right hand and she looked at it and she thought about the oasis and the grey room and the promise and Nar Shaddaa and all the things she was carrying and all the rooms she had stood in and not broken.
She looked at him.
"What time?"
He held her gaze.
"The twentieth hour," he said. "My quarters."
"Alright," she said.
He inclined his head.
He moved toward the door and left while she returned to her own work on the desk.
She did not go immediately.
She chose her clothing with the same precision she applied to everything else now. Something neutral, something controlled. Not the softness of a nightdress. Not the full formality of a public appearance. Something in between. Something that did not invite interpretation.
She paused only once, at the mirror, her eyes catching on her own reflection for a fraction longer than necessary.
Then she turned and left.
The corridor was quiet.
Lothal did not have the layered noise of Coruscant, nor the restless hum of Nar Shaddaa. It had space. Silence. The kind that made footsteps sound more deliberate than they were.
His quarters were exactly where he had said they would be.
Adjacent.
She lifted her hand and knocked.
“Enter.”
The door slid open.
He had changed from the working uniform into the version she associated with the evenings in the Coruscant apartment , the civilian clothes. It was the version of him she preferred much better.
His quarters were the same as hers which was the standard grey and plainness of Imperial accommodation. But he had been here longer than she had, and the difference that duration made was visible. The table had datapads neatly organized on it. There was a piece of art on the east wall which was a rough outline of the Outer Rim. Beside it, a star map that was not the standard Imperial navigational chart but something older, more detailed in the regions the Empire had not yet decided to formally acknowledge. Almost like the map she received as a wedding gift.
“You are punctual,” he said.
“I try to be,” she replied. "Unknown Regions?" she gestured to the art piece.
"Yes."
"You travel with it?"
"I always travel with it," He said it in the way he said things that were true and did not require elaboration.
There was a table set near the window that had been cleared and there was something on it.
The object was wrapped, not in the Imperial household style she recognized from the wedding gifts, the precise corners and the official seal. This was different. The wrapping was dark fabric, the Batonnese kind, the specific deep green of the secondary Geronh color, and it had been folded rather than wrapped, the specific folding of someone who had learned how to handle this particular fabric through research rather than familiarity.
"What is this?"
"Open it," he said.
She unfolded the fabric and found a box and she opened the box and she looked at what was inside.
It was a double viol, the instrument she had played since she was six years old in the palace music rooms with her mother. She had left her old one on Hosnian Prime when Clvtorig came to the door. The one she had not played since.
This was not that double viol. That double viol was gone with everything else.
"You commissioned this?"
"Yes," he said.
“It is beautiful,” She looked at the craftsmanship and traced her fingers along the strings, “What made you…”
"You had one," he said. "You mentioned it. Once on Coruscant, in the early weeks. You told Uiona that you had left it on Hosnian Prime. You said it in passing. You did not intend it as a request."
"No," she said. "I didn't."
"Nevertheless," he said.
"Thank you."
"Yes," he said.
She looked at him.
"I was annoyed with you," she said, the confession forced out by the suffocating quiet. "This morning. In my quarters. When you…When you grabbed me."
Thrawn did not flinch. He held her gaze with a terrifyingly focused attention, the kind of look that felt like it was peeling back layers of her skin to see the nerves beneath, though she believed he was looking for something more.
"Yes," he said. "I was aware of that."
"I did not like it."
"No," he said. "I imagine you didn't. It will not occur again."
"Alright," she said.
The room was quiet.
She looked at the star map.
He looked at her.
"Play it," he said.
The suddenness of the command made her turn back to him.
"The viol," he said. The even voice. "Play it."
she found her familiar position, the specific angle of it against her, the muscle memory of something she had been doing since she was six years old. Then she played.
It brought her back to Batonn, to the oasis and to her childhood room. The vibration rattled against her sternum. She was now sitting on the low stone ledge of her nursery window, watching the shadows of the date palms lengthen across the dunes.
When the last note finally shivered into silence, the room seemed to hold the sound, reluctant to let it go. She set the viol back in the box.
“You said you required me tonight,” she said.
“I did.”
“For this?”
“No.”
He rose from the chair where he had been listening, his red eyes fixed on her with that quiet intensity she had come to recognize. The room in his quarters was dimly lit, the Lothal night pressing against the viewport, casting soft shadows over the functional furnishings. The viol case rested on the side table now, its strings silent.
Thrawn approached her slowly, his uniform tunic unbuttoned at the collar, revealing a sliver of blue skin. He took her hand, drawing her toward the bed with gentleness.
“For you,” he said simply, voice low and even.
She let him guide her, sitting on the edge of the mattress. His fingers traced her jaw, tilting her chin up for a kiss which was soft at first, lips brushing hers like a question.
He stood, pulling her up with him, and began unfastening her gown.The silk parted easily under his touch, sliding from her shoulders to drop to the floor. She stood naked before him, skin prickling in the cool air. Thrawn's gaze swept over her, appreciative, then he shed his own clothes.
Lifting her onto the bed, he followed, settling between her legs without haste. His mouth found her neck, kissing the pulse there, then trailing down to her collarbone, her breasts. He cupped one, thumb circling the nipple before leaning in to suckle gently, tongue laving the peak in slow circles. She sighed, arching slightly, fingers combing through his hair.
“I find you… increasingly difficult to disregard,” he said, pulling away from her breasts and looking into her eyes. His red creating a shadow in her (e/c).
He positioning himself at her entrance. He nudged her slick opening, sliding in inch by inch, stretching her with slowness. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he bottomed out with a shared breath, holding still to let her adjust.
He began to move, his hips rolling to grind against her with each pass. He braced on his forearms, bodies pressed close, as her warmth slid across his coolness. She rocked with him, hands roaming his back, nails grazing lightly. He kissed her again, swallowing her gasps.
He fully came moments later, burying himself fully as he came, warm spurts filling her pussy, his groan muffled against her shoulder.
He eased out eventually, gathering her against his chest, one hand stroking her hair as the Lothal stars wheeled outside.
He did not move immediately. There was always a moment with him where things concluded with precision, where he would withdraw, reassemble, return to whatever he wanted to for the next hour. But this time, he remained where he was, his arm still around her, his hand resting at the back of her shoulder, not restraining, not directing. Simply there.
She lay against him, her cheek against his chest, listening to the slowed rhythm beneath the surface. His skin had already cooled again.
She lay in the Lothal night and she looked at the Unknown Regions and found herself sleeping in his quarters for the night, and he let her.
(Y/N) and Irtur preform their rescue mission on Nar Shaddaa where she is given a wound that Thrawn will inevitably see. (Y/N) arrives on Lothal and sees her husband and fears that he suspects more than what she is telling him.
Masterlist, Part 20
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The hanger they would use to leave was the same they had arrived in.
(Y/N) was barely awake, standing lifelessly as she watched everyone scurry around her.
Up and down the ramp everyone went. The luggage and the security complement and the administrative aides with their portfolios and Uiona moving through it with the efficiency of a woman who had packed and unpacked the Queen of Batonn's household in conditions considerably worse than this and found this manageable.
"You slept?" Tannian asked, appearing right next to her
"Some.”
"More than before?"
"More than before," she confirmed, which was true enough.
He did not push it, which was the grace he had been extending to her since the northern territories visit. He had read the incident reports and had decided that asking her about them directly was not yet the right approach and was waiting for her to arrive at the conversation in her own time.
She was going to need to tell him about Nar Shaddaa before they landed.
She watched Res stroll into the hanger. He was in his Imperial uniform, the clean grey of it.
"Your Majesty," he said. The formal title. She had noticed that whenever he addressed her as that title he had a slight sneer to his voice. Jealousy. "A productive visit, I hope."
"Productive enough."
He looked at the assembly, the luggage, the complement, and the administrative staff, with the eye of a man cataloguing what he was observing and where it would go in the file he was building.
"We will see you soon," he said pleasantly. "Though I imagine not too soon. Given your behavior."
She said nothing.
"Promise me, dear sister." He stepped closer with the ease of a man using familiarity as a form of pressure. "That next time you will have learned to keep your hands to yourself."
He stepped forward and embraced her.
She did not embrace him back.
His mouth was at her ear.
"If I find out," he said, very quietly, "that you were involved in what happened to that extraction site…" He paused. The weight of the pause was deliberate. "I will make sure you are back in a cell before you have time to use that husband of yours as a shield. And this time," he said, "there will be no photograph to stop the riots."
He stepped back.
He smiled.
She looked at him, her mouth going dry but her eyes going wet.
“Goodbye, Res.”
She turned and walked to her ship and Tannian followed her.
She boarded and the closed the door on her brother and she sat on her bed and pressed both hands flat against her knees and she breathed eight counts in and eight counts out.
She was always going to come back.
Irtur's ship lifted three minutes after hers.
(Y/N) and Uiona watched it leave through the small window in the medical bay. Once Dr. Dajs entered the bay, Uiona left.
These medical visits were nothing more than a chore. It seemed even now, many miles away from Thrawn, he was still watching her through the eyes of the imperial physician.
"The neurological development window responds to environmental stability," Dr. Dajs said. "Familiar environments, familiar sensory inputs. Your body recognized Batonn. It will be less settled on Lothal."
"I know."
"You will need to be deliberate about rest. More deliberate than you have been. The second month begins in eleven days. The development pattern accelerates."
(Y/N) chose not to hear her words. She knew Dr. Thalias would reiterate it to her anyway when she was back on Coruscant. Uiona waited for her outside the medical bay door and walked with her back to her cabin.
“You know, this doesn’t have to be horrible.”
“What do you mean?” (Y/N) questioned as she sat on her bed and held her head in her hands.
“This pregnancy,” Uiona continued, “It could be a new beginning for you. Something that’s truly yours.”
“Mine?” she said. “Nothing about this is mine.”
Uiona said nothing yet. She watched the woman she had known since before she could speak lift her head and look at the narrow cabin wall, at the metal seam running through it like a scar.
“It was negotiated in rooms I was not in,” (Y/N) said quietly. “Discussed before I agreed. Expected before it happened. Even my body seems to have joined the arrangement without consulting me.”
“(Y/N), every child is a blessing.”
“No.” She stood abruptly “Do you know what they will call it? A symbol. A union. Stability. The joining of Batonn and Imperial authority. They will write speeches before it is even born.”
“And what do you call it?”
“I don’t know. Some days I call it a trap. Some days I call it punishment for being careless. Some days I try not to call it anything at all.” Her hand drifted unconsciously to her stomach, then fell away as though caught doing something shameful, “I am tired in ways sleep does not mend. Everyone speaks of the child as if it is already a banner being stitched. No one asks whether I wished to become the pole they hang it from.”
Uiona came to (Y/N) and held her hands in hers, guiding her back to sit on the bed.
“You are strong, (Y/N), you will understand it in time.’
“I don’t know whether to dread it or protect it. Whether to resent him for giving it to me or resent myself for not preventing it. Whether to fear what it will become or fear that I will love it.”
“There, that last one.”
“If I love it,” she said, “then I am bound. Entirely.”
“You are already bound,” Uiona replied. “To duty, to history, to men’s decisions, to planets, to names. Love would be the first chain you chose.”
Outside the ship, some distant mechanism groaned through the hull. The journey continued whether they wished it or not.
“You think this can be good?”
“I think good things are rarely delivered in clean wrapping,” Uiona said. “I think sometimes they arrive through terrible doors.”
“And if it looks like him?”
Uiona’s expression softened.
“Then it looks like him.”
“And if it thinks like him?”
“Then may the gods help us all.”
That drew a real laugh from (Y/N), brief and bright before it vanished.
Uiona touched her cheek.
“It may also have your stubbornness,” she said. “Your heart. Your ridiculous habit of trying to save everyone while pretending you do not care.”
“I do not have that habit.”
“You do,” Uiona said. “And if the child has that, the galaxy will survive the rest.”
“I am frightened.”
“I know.”
“What if I am not enough for it?”
Uiona rested her head lightly against (Y/N)’s temple.
“Then you will become enough,” she said. “That is what mothers do.”
Then the specific single lurch of something that had been hit from outside, the hull absorbing an impact and the inertial compensators doing what they could and the lights in the cabin flickering for exactly two seconds before the backup systems engaged.
Uiona had both hands on the surface beside her with the automatic steadying motion of someone who had not been on ships during incidents before.
The comm in the corridor activated the transport's internal system, the alert tone.
Then boots in the corridor. Fast.
The door opened and Tannian came through it with the expression of a man who had run from wherever he had been to wherever his sister was.
"What was that?"
"We appear to have been hit by something," Uiona said pleasantly.
"I noticed," he said. "The question is what."
The comm activated again. The external channel this time, the pilot's voice began speaking.
"Your Majesty. We have taken fire from an unidentified vessel. Damage assessment is ongoing. We need to deviate from our course to Lothal.”
Then the secondary channel activated.
Irtur's voice.
She had been waiting for it.
"This is Ambassador Irtur's vessel," Irtur said, in the tone of a man who was performing urgency. "We observed the attack from our position. I am in contact with both ships. The Queen's vessel requires immediate diversion to the nearest system free of these attackers. I am transmitting the nearest viable coordinates now."
She had known what the coordinates were going to be before he said them.
"Navigator," Tannian said, moving toward the door, already in the mode of a man taking action. "I'll go check the…"
"Tannian," (Y/N) said.
He stopped.
"Send the ISB officer to alert the Grand Admiral," she said. "He should be informed of the incident immediately. Through the proper channels."
"Hutt space?" Uiona questioned, plugging the coordinates into the computer next to her.
(Y/N) said nothing and allowed for hyperdrive to take them to Clvtorig.
Nar Shaddaa received them the way Nar Shaddaa received everything which was indifferently, with the specific indifference of a place that had seen enough arrivals to have stopped distinguishing between them.
The docking bay was the kind that asked no questions about the vessels it admitted, which was why Irtur had chosen it. The mechanic , a Rodian of indeterminate age and the tone of a worker who had been paid to do something and intended to do it and nothing more , came to meet them at the ramp.
He looked at the transport.
He looked at the fuel system damage, which was real , Hera's team had been precise about this, the damage was genuine and would require genuine repair.
"Three days," he said. Flatly. In Basic. The tone of a man delivering a timeline and receiving no negotiation about it.
Tannian came down the ramp behind her.
He looked at (Y/N) through her veil which only showed her eyes, an appropriate accessory in a place where a Senator’s head might go for a pretty penny. He had the expression that had been developing since the coordinates had appeared on the navigation display and had not fully resolved into a specific conclusion but was getting closer.
"Where are we?" He asked.
"Nar Shaddaa," she said.
"Why," he said.
"Because we had to escape the rebels," she said.
"Why did Irtur's coordinates bring us here?"
She held his gaze.
"The nearest viable port," she said.
"On the way to Lothal," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Nar Shaddaa," he said. "Is not on the way to Lothal."
"It is the nearest viable port," she said, with the composure of a woman who had been holding this conversation for a long time and was now having it with a man who was going to require more than the composure.
He looked at the mechanic, who had already lost interest in the conversation and was examining the fuel line with the professional focus of someone who had three days of work ahead of him.
"Three days," he said to the mechanic.
"Three days," the mechanic confirmed, without looking up.
He looked at her with their father's eyes and the expression of a man who had been patient for a very long time and had just received the information that confirmed what patience had been waiting for.
"What," he said, very quietly, "is actually going on."
She held his gaze and searched for Irtur whose ship was undoubtedly near.
Lieutenant Orok came down the ramp of the transport with the expression of a man who had assessed the situation and had arrived at a position he intended to hold.
"Senator," he said. "I have contacted the Grand Admiral's office and filed the incident report with the ISB sector division. I have also contacted the Lothal deployment coordination office regarding the adjusted arrival timeline." He looked at the docking bay with the assessment of someone cataloguing threat variables. "Until the vessel is cleared for departure, I am recommending that all personnel remain aboard the transport. The bay has not been cleared by Imperial security. The moon is…" He looked at the upper viewport, at the Nar Shaddaa skyline visible through it. "The moon presents specific security concerns that preclude unsupervised movement."
"I see," she said pleasantly.
"The transport is secure. I would ask that you remain within it until the fuel system assessment is complete and we can establish a clearer picture of the bay's security profile."
"Of course," she said. "That is very sensible, Lieutenant."
He received this with the slight adjustment of someone who had expected more resistance and was reassessing.
She walked back up the ramp and into her cabin.
She looked at Tannian, who had followed her in and closed the door and was now standing against it.
"Clvtorig is on this moon," she said.
Tannian went very still.
"He is in a Hutt fighting circuit," she said. "He has been held there. I don't know for how long exactly but long enough. Irtur has been tracking him. He has a contact inside. We are going to get him out."
“(Y/N) I told you to forget about that boy.”
She ran her hands through her hair and said nothing.
“Okay, when?” He shifted.
"Tonight,
"What about your entourage?"
"They are managing the security profile," she said. "Which will keep them occupied and will keep their attention on the bay perimeter rather than on the ship’s internal movements."
"And you," he said. "You are going?"
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her with their father's eyes and everything they had both survived and the specific expression of a man who had arrived, over the course of a very difficult year, at the complete understanding that his sister was who she was and there was a limited amount that could be done about it.
"I'm coming," he said.
"No," she said, "Someone needs to be here, someone the ISB will accept as present and accounted for. Someone who can manage the situation on the transport if something…Someone I trust to be here."
The cabin was very quiet.
"I hate this," he said.
"I know," she said.
He said nothing else.
He did not leave.
Irtur came an hour after dark.
He did not use the main ramp and (Y/N) decided to not question him as to how he boarded her ship. He appeared in her cabin doorway and then shut the door behind him when he entered.
He looked at Tannian, “Hello, Tannian,” Irtur looked at (Y/N), “He stays.”
"He stays," she confirmed. "Tell us the plan."
"My contact inside the circuit," he said, "confirmed the schedule this afternoon. Tonight is a fighting night. The bouts run from the twentieth hour to the third. He fights in the final bout. They always bring him out last because he is the one the crowds come for. He is known for giving a show."
She did not let herself think about what giving a show meant in the context of a Hutt fighting circuit on Nar Shaddaa for a man who had been held there long enough to become the crowd's preferred entertainment.
"The final bout ends around the second hour or the third," Irtur continued. "In the interval between the end of the bout and the return to the cells, there is a window. My contact can create a diversion that extends the window to approximately eight minutes. Eight minutes to move him from the arena floor to the service exit on the circuit's eastern side. My contact will have a speeder at the exit. We take it to the ship. Then Clvtorig will steal my ship and fly to Batonn."
"And the Hutts?" Tannian asked.
"Will not immediately pursue," Irtur said. "The diversion creates confusion about what happened and when. By the time the circuit administration has a clear picture, we are off the moon."
"Eight minutes," she said.
"Eight minutes from the arena floor to the eastern exit," Irtur said. "The speeder is three minutes from the exit to the ship. Eleven minutes total. If everything goes correctly."
"And if it doesn't?" Tannian said.
"Then we adapt," Irtur said.
"Uiona," she said.
"She knows," Irtur said. "I spoke to her before I came here. She will remain in your cabin. If anyone contacts the room , the ISB officer, the doctor, anyone , she answers and says you are unwell and are resting and cannot be disturbed. She will not open the door. She will not open it for anyone and you, Tannian will make sure of that."
"The gala," she said. "Lothal. If this takes…"
"If everything goes correctly," Irtur said, "we depart Nar Shaddaa before dawn. We are back in hyperspace by the fourth hour. We arrive at Lothal two days before the gala. Due to rebel involvement in that sector there is no doubt that they will infiltrate the gala anyway. I predict it will be pushed back, giving us more time.The timeline holds. If the mechanic is where he said he would be."
"He will be where he said he would be," she said.
Irtur reached into his jacket.
He produced the blaster.
It was not large , the compact civilian configuration, the kind that fit in a coat pocket rather than a holster, the kind that a woman at a gala or a queen on a transit ship might conceal in a way that did not attract the specific attention that a military sidearm attracted. He had chosen it deliberately. She could see the deliberateness in the selection.
He held it out to her.
She took it.
The weight of it was specific and real and she held it with steadiness.
She reached to the side table.
The medical kit.
She opened it past the anti-nausea compound and the supplemental nutrition tablets and the hydration concentrates, past the layers that V3PO had confirmed were packed first, and she found the hilt where she had placed it.
She held it for a moment before handing it to Irtur.
He took it.
"He will know it," she said.
"Yes," he said. "He will."
He put it inside his jacket.
He looked at Tannian.
Tannian looked at him.
"Take care of her," Tannian said. The specific quality of a sentence that was not a request.
"I have been taking care of her," Irtur said, "since before either of us knew what we were doing. Twentieth hour. I will be at the service access."
He left the way he came.
The waiting was the hardest part.
Nar Shaddaa at night was not night.
That was the first thing she understood when the service access door opened and the moon received her, that this was a place that had decided darkness was a resource to be eliminated rather than a condition to be inhabited. Neon lights of various colours polluted the moon making it so everything was seen in a pink, green or yellow tint.
Irtur appeared at her left shoulder from the shadow beside the access point.
He had the lightsaber inside the jacket.
She had the blaster in the coat pocket.
"Ready?"
"The speeder is here," he said.
It was a mid-grade model, the kind that populated Nar Shaddaa's lower traffic lanes in sufficient numbers to be unremarkable, already running, the specific hum of an engine kept warm by someone who had understood that they would need to leave without the interval of a cold start.
She got in.
Irtur got in.
He pulled into the traffic lane and Nar Shaddaa received them into its colored light and its noise and its complete indifference to who they were or what they were doing there.
The fighting arena was on the lower level.
She did not look at the billboards. She looked at the road ahead of them, at the moon that had never decided to be anything other than what it was, and she thought about a man who had been giving a show long enough that the crowd came specifically for him. The speeder moved through the colored light. Nar Shaddaa did not notice.
The building announced itself before they reached it. It was the utilitarian construction of a place that existed for function rather than impression, the low wide structure of a building needed to hold large numbers of people and had been designed with that single requirement in mind. What announced it was the sound and the light, the orange promotional holos cycling on the exterior walls showing images she still did not look at directly, and the crowd outside it, which was the kind of crowd that existed only around certain kinds of entertainment.
Most of the crowd was not human. This was the first thing she registered when Irtur pulled the speeder into the lower approach lane and they joined the stream of beings moving toward the building's entrance. She had been in crowds before, the capital crowds on Batonn, the gala crowds on Coruscant, the Senate, the diplomatic functions, but those crowds had been predominantly human with the occasional nonhuman presence, the specific demography of Imperial-adjacent spaces.
This was not that.
This was Nar Shaddaa, which was the demography of everywhere at once, the accumulated species of a moon that had been collecting beings from every corner of the galaxy for long enough that the collection had become self-sustaining. She saw Twi'leks and Weequay and Rodians and species she did not have names for.
She kept her face forward and her hands in her pockets and she moved with the crowd the way she had learned to move in rooms she did not belong in.
Irtur moved beside her.
He produced the tickets at the entrance. The being at the entrance was a Gamorrean who took the chips without looking at them or at the people holding them and jerked his head toward the interior and they were through.
The interior was the exterior amplified. The crowd noise was the first thing. The noise of several hundred beings cheering for death for entertainment. Underneath the crowd noise was the sound of the arena itself, the mechanical sounds of the fighting infrastructure, and underneath that something older and more animal, the atmosphere of a place where violence was the product being sold and the air itself had absorbed enough of the transaction to carry the quality of it.
The space was tiered, with (Y/N) and Irtur being on the highest level, so that they were looking down into the arena. She did not look at the sand directly. She looked at the crowd.
The range of it , the Weequay in the cluster to her left, their textured skin catching the arena's harsh lighting. The pair of Devaronians ahead of them, the horned profiles of them distinctive even in the crowd's compression, one of them consulting a datapad with the focused attention of someone reviewing odds. A Togruta woman to their right, alone, as though she were a regular attendee.
She confirmed the distance from their current position to the corridor door, twelve meters, she estimated, through the edge of the crowd.
She turned her attention to the arena.
The early bouts were not what she was there for.
She watched them anyway.
She watched them with the specific quality of someone who was gathering information about the environment and its rhythms rather than attending to the content, noting the crowd's response patterns, the timing of the transitions between bouts, the positions of the circuit's security personnel , large beings, various species, the specific bearing of people whose function was crowd management and fighter containment.
The crowd was engaged with every kill and new fighter that entered the arena.
The transition before the final bout had a different quality.
She felt it before she understood it.
The circuit's announcer , the voice coming from the arena's sound system with the specific enhancement of something designed to fill a large space, said something in a language she did not know that produced a response from the crowd that confirmed what she had already understood.
The final bout.
The lights on the arena floor shifted.
She straightened.
The eastern entry point opened.
The first fighter came out, large and armored in the improvised way of fighting circuit combatants, the armor that was functional rather than formal, assembled from whatever had been available rather than manufactured for the purpose. The crowd responded to this fighter with the moderate acknowledgment of an audience receiving something they had seen before.
Then the western entry point opened.
And her heart stopped.
She knew him before she had finished the process of recognition, before the catalog of features had completed itself, the way you knew certain things not through the mind but through something older than the mind, the specific knowledge that lived in the body rather than the memory.
He was thinner and his hair was gone.
The hair had been dark and had fallen across his shoulders in the way she had known since they were five years old in the palace garden. It was gone now, cut to the close crop of the fighting circuit, and the absence of it changed the shape of his face in a way that was and wasn't him simultaneously.
The way he moved into the arena, the quality of his movement that had not changed, the unhurried precision of a person who had decided something about their own relationship to space and maintained it regardless of the context. He had moved like this in the palace gardens. He had moved like this in the dorm room on Hosnian Prime with the urgency of the insurgency barely contained beneath the surface. He moved like this now, in a fighting circuit on Nar Shaddaa, and the moving was the truest thing about the fifteen years she had known him.
He was filthy.
She made herself see this clearly. The look of someone who had not been given access to basic provisions, the accumulated evidence of a life lived in conditions that the Hutts maintained at the minimum level necessary for their assets to remain functional assets.
She did not decide to move. Her body made the decision and she was at the front of the crowd and then she was at the barrier and then her hands were on the barrier and she was looking down at the arena floor.
He was looking at the other fighter.
He had not looked at the crowd.
She gripped the barrier and the bout began.
He was good.
She hated that he had become good at this, that the thing that had kept him alive was the thing that had kept the crowd coming back for him, that his survival and his captivity were the same mechanism. She gripped the barrier harder.
The bout moved toward its conclusion and the circuit managed these things, managed the duration and the outcome and the specific arc of each performance with the same commercial attention that any entertainment operation brought to its product. The crowd's noise built with the building momentum of something that was being directed toward a peak.
Irtur looks at his contact and his planned diversion began.
She was watching Irtur, who had moved from beside her without her noticing. He was watching the contact, who had disappeared from their position on the right side of the standing section.
Then the sound changed.
Something at the far end of the arena , not an explosion, not violence, something more mundane and considerably more effective in a space of several hundred beings with competing interests and sensory processing systems. She did not know what it was. She had not asked. She had decided, at some point in the planning, that the diversion was Irtur's to design and execute and her function was to be at the barrier when it happened and to move when it was done.
The crowd moved. The ripple of attention shifting from the primary event to the disruption, the beings nearest the disruption moving away from it and the beings furthest from it moving toward it out of curiosity. The circuit's security personnel moved toward the disruption.
But something went wrong. She could only see Irtur’s supposed contact being manhandled by two Gamorrean guards. The contact pointed at them and before she knew it, her and Irtur were pushed over the ledge and into the arena before the contact was decapitated.
Irtur heard her say something he did not catch over the noise.
Clvtorig heard her, he turned.
She stopped and looked at him.
He looked the way she had seen him from the barrier, thinner, the close-cropped hair, the accumulated evidence of months of this, and she looked the way she looked, and neither of them moved for one second that was considerably longer than a second.
"(Y/N)," he said.
Her name in his voice.
She had not heard her name in his voice since Hosnian Prime. She had heard it in memory.
He ran to her and held her tightly, as though there was no one else in the room. Not even Irtur or the crowd that loomed over them.
The crowd noise had changed entirely.
It was not the disruption noise anymore. It was something older and larger, the frequency of the crowd making the sound that was produced by the arrival of something that required a different register of response than everything that had come before.
She let go of him and looked at the entry point on the far side of the arena.
The entry point was open and very large.
Something was coming through it.
Clvtorig walked in front of both of them and watched as one of the gamorrean guards threw the dead contacts body into the arena, allowing the beast that had ran through the entry point to tear it apart.
"What, is that?" Irtur breathed.
"A rancor," Clvtorig said.
The crowd was ecstatic.
It was enormous in the way that certain things were enormous, not just the scale of it, the height and the breadth and the specific mass of something that had been built by whatever process had built it to be exactly this size, but the presence, the way it occupied the arena floor and the air above the arena floor simultaneously.
"Together," Irtur said. He was already moving , not away from it, which was the instinct she was overriding, but laterally, putting distance between himself and her and Clvtorig, spreading the targets. "Spread out. Don't…"
She pulled the blaster.
She aimed.
She fired.
The shot hit the rancor's shoulder and the beast turned toward her with the unhurried certainty of something that had decided a thing was notable and was now giving it its full attention.
It was not injured.
She fired again.
The second shot hit the chest, better placement, and the rancor made a sound that was not pain and was something considerably more alarming. Irtur was at her left shoulder. His blaster out. He fired twice in rapid succession. The shots hit.
"The blaster is not enough," Clvtorig said. He was beside her. She did not know when he had come to be beside her.
"I noticed," she said. She fired a third time.
The rancor took a step toward her.
The crowd screamed with delight.
"Clvtorig!" Irtur yelled. He reached into his jacket.
He produced the lightsaber.
He threw it at Clvtorig who caught it with both hands.
He looked at it as though he were receiving something back that they had not expected to hold again, she felt the moment of it even in the arena with the rancor twelve meters away and the crowd making its noise and the sand under her feet.
He ignited the green saber. It came to life with the sound of its hum and the crack of it, and the arena went to a different quality of noise, not just the rancor noise, the lightsaber noise, the recognition moving through the crowd like a current through water, because this was Nar Shaddaa and the people in this building had seen enough of the galaxy to know what a lightsaber was and what it meant.
The rancor looked at the blade but did not stop.
It moved.
She fired.
Irtur fired.
She was not going to pretend the shots were doing nothing , they were doing something, she could see the rancor register them. Clvtorig moved and he was fast.
She fired twice more, drawing the rancor's attention left, creating the angle.
Irtur fired from the right.
The rancor turned toward Irtur.
Clvtorig moved.
The blade went in at the base of the neck, the specific point that the arc of his movement had been building toward from the moment he started , one motion, and the rancor made the sound that was different from the annoyed sound and the crowd was making a noise she had never heard a crowd make before.
Irtur looked at her.
"We need to…" she started.
The circuit's security personnel were already on the arena floor.
There were many of them and they surrounded them.
She looked at her blaster.
Irtur looked at his blaster.
They looked at each other.
She put the blaster down.
Irtur put his down.
Clvtorig deactivated the blade.
The security personnel collected the blaster with the brisk movement of stepping into the next phase of a known protocol, and then they were being moved, the crowd parting for the security formation, and she was looking for Clvtorig…
He was not with them.
She turned.
The formation was separating, she and Irtur being moved toward the service corridor, Clvtorig being moved toward the opposite side of the arena, and she understood in the fraction of a second before the distance became too large that this was deliberate, that whoever managed this circuit had assessed the situation and had made a decision about what went where, and she had approximately one second to decide whether to fight the decision.
She was brought into a room that was the kind of room that existed in the building that needed rooms for purposes they did not advertise.
Stone walls. A single overhead light. The specific smell of a space that had seen a great many uncomfortable conversations. Two chairs, the kind without comfort as a design feature. A table.
She and Irtur were pushed into it and the door closed. They were tied on the chairs. They waited approximately four minutes before the door opened again.
The man who opened the door was a Weequay.
He was not large in the way of someone whose size was their primary asset. He moved through the room with ease. As though he had brought many people to this room and knew that whatever happened in this room happened because he decided it happened.
Two henchmen came in behind him and positioned themselves at the door.
"You think," he said, in Basic with an accent as though Basic was a working language rather than a native one, "that you can come here." He gestured at the room, at the arena above them, at Nar Shaddaa in general. "Come to my venue. Disrupt my show. Release my fighter. Bring a lightsaber into my arena. And what? Walk out."
"The evening went somewhat differently than planned," Irtur said pleasantly.
The Weequay looked at him.
"Yes," he said. "It did."
"We apologize for the disruption," Irtur said. "I think most people in attendance would agree the finale was more exciting than advertised, so if anything…"
"Where is he?" the Weequay said.
"I'm sorry?" (Y/N) asked confused.
"My Jedi," the Weequay said. "Where is he?"
Clvtorig was not where the circuit's security personnel had moved him, and he was not in this room.
"I don't know," she said. And it was true, it was entirely true, she did not know where he was, which was different from not knowing what the truth of the present tense meant.
The Weequay looked at her for a long time with the assessment of someone who had been reading faces in this room for many years and had developed significant accuracy.
"I don't know," she said again.
He breathed through his nose.
He looked at the henchmen at the door.
He looked back at her.
"Credits," he said. "For the disruption. For the fighter. For the rancor, which I will need to replace." He held her gaze. "You will pay."
"We don't have credits," Irtur said. "We are not carrying credits. We came here with…"
The Weequay held up one hand.
The henchman on the left moved to the table and produced, from somewhere she had not identified, the electric device.
She looked at it. She recognized it from the facility. The ISB had used variations of it, the technology of something designed to produce pain in a controlled and repeatable way. This version was the Nar Shaddaa version, which was the cruder version, the one that had been assembled from available components rather than manufactured for the purpose, which meant it was less precise and more unpredictable, which was, she understood from the facility, its own category of worse.
"Credits," the Weequay said again. "Or we find another currency."
She knew what he meant, he didn’t need to explain it.
"We don't have credits," she said. "That is the true answer. I am not …we did not come here with payment.”
The Weequay was looking at her hands.
She noticed him looking.
She looked at her hands.
Her left hand.
The tremor.
She was not sitting on it. She was in a chair with her hands on the table. The tremor was visible.
He said something in a language she did not know to the henchman on the right.
The henchman on the right moved toward her and took her left hand from her restraints and laid it flat on the table. He brought his small blade to her pinky finger and was quick with the slice which separated her finger from the rest of her hand.
She bit her lip so hard it began to bleed.
She did not make a sound but Irtur on the other hand…
She heard it, brief, involuntary, the sound of a man who had not looked away and wished he had.
The Weequay looked at her.
"Where is he?" he yelled, banging his hands on the table “Or next time it will be your whole hand!”
“I told you, we don’t know,” Her voice was even when she spoke.
He said something to the henchmen and the henchmen moved, leaving her finger and blood on the table. The Weequay moved toward the door and the henchmen followed and the door closed and she heard the lock engage.
The room was very quiet when she finally fully looked at her left hand.
"(Y/N)," Irtur said.
"It looks worse than it feels.”
"Let me…"
"I know," she winced, "In a moment."
She tore a strip from the inner hem of her coat and she wrapped her hand with the minimal knowledge she had learned in the academy on Hosnian Prime. She held the hand against her chest when she was done with the last knot.
She looked back at Irtur.
He was tied against her back , the henchmen had done this when they brought them in, the restraints, the seated position that put them back to back in the chairs with their wrists bound behind them around the chair backs. She could feel the warmth of him through the chair.
"Irtur," she said.
"Yes."
"He got out."
"Yes," he said.
"He will come back.”
"He better or I will be disappointed," Irtur said. "Because I am tied to a chair on Nar Shaddaa and this is not on the itinerary.”
Something moved through her chest that was not quite the laughter and was adjacent to it.
"That is what you're going with," she said. "Very disappointed."
"I have limited options for expression at present," he said. "My hands are tied."
"Yes," she said. "They are."
The room was quiet.
She tried to move her left pinky finger but she felt nothing, and too feel nothing in an area where you had always felt something was quite odd.
"He will come back," she said again.
"He always comes back for you," Irtur said. Quietly. Without the joke in it this time.
"Yes," she said.
The light in the room was the single overhead kind and it did not change regardless of the hour and the hour was indeterminate and Nar Shaddaa outside continued its indifferent illuminated business.
She fell asleep to the heavy footsteps on the guards outside the door. Coming to and fro.
She heard the vent before she saw it move. The sound was not the ambient noise of the building's ventilation system, which she had been listening to for two hours, but the sound of something moving through a space that had not been designed for the moving of things. A scraping. Deliberate. Intermittent. Getting closer. The sound caused her to stir and her eyes slowly adjusted to the light.
"Irtur," she said quietly.
"I hear it," he said.
They both looked at the vent cover in the upper left corner of the room.
The vent cover moved. It did not drop, but was caught and held and then a hand appeared and then an arm and then Clvtorig came through the vent opening. He straightened when he hit the floor.
There was a moment, brief, complete, in which neither of them said anything and the room held everything that needed to be held without requiring words to hold it.
Then he crossed to her and crouched behind the chair and his hands, which she could not see, found the restraints at her wrists. She felt the restraints release.
He then moved to Irtur.
"You came back," Irtur said. With the tone of a man confirming a hypothesis.
"Obviously," Clvtorig said. The restraints released.
"I told her you would," Irtur said, rotating his wrists with the expression of someone whose hands had been behind them for two hours and were now being reintroduced to the concept of in front. "She also told me you would. We agreed."
"It held me," he said. "The path is clear. If you move quickly and don't…"
"No," Irtur said.
"I am not going through that," Irtur said."I am a grown man of reasonable proportions and that opening is…" He looked at the vent. "No."
"It is wider than it appears."
"It is not wider than it appears, it is exactly as wide as it appears. It appears to be the width of a problem."
"Irtur…"
"Absolutely not," Irtur said. "I would rather stay here."
"You would rather stay in the room where they cut off her finger.”
"He is right about the vent," (Y/N) said, "If all three of us go through the vent we will make too much noise. We will alert whoever is in the corridor before we reach the other end and we will come out of the vent into a room full of people who are expecting us. Is there another way out of this room?"
"Yes," Clvtorig looked at the door and ignited his lightsaber.
The lightsaber going through a locked durasteel door produced a sound that she had not previously experienced and would not forget. The hiss and the resistance and the smell of it, and the circle of it moving through the door in the arc Clvtorig drew, precise and unhurried, the economy of every movement he made applied to this as it was applied to everything.
The circle completed.
The door section fell inward.
Clvtorig deactivated the blade and looked through the opening.
"Clear," he said.
"Marvelous," Irtur said. "We are getting him a door for his birthday."
"When’s your birthday, Clvtorig?" she asked.
"How could you forget his birthday, (Y/N)?”
"It is in the first month on the twelfth day," Clvtorig confirmed, stepping through the opening. "It is not the relevant information at this moment."
"Huh, When is it?" Irtur asked, not hearing him through the racket of the door.
"Later."
"You keep saying later," Irtur said.
She went through last. The corridor was dim and smelled of the building's lower levels. She oriented herself immediately in the direction they had come from when they were brought in, the direction of the arena above them, the direction that the building's layout suggested led toward the exterior. The henchman at the corridor junction did not see them until he had already been seen.
Clvtorig moved and stabbed him in the gut with his lightsaber.
She picked up the henchman's blaster and checked it.
She looked at Irtur. He was already picking up the second weapon from the floor with the haste of a man who had been waiting for access to a weapon since the table in the room and was now receiving it with considerable relief.
"Better," Irtur said.
"Yes," she said.
Clvtorig was already moving down the corridor and they followed.
They moved through the lower levels, navigating the infrastructure of a Hutt entertainment operation, which was not only the entertainment it advertised but the machinery beneath the entertainment, and the machinery required people to operate it, and some of those people were in corridors at this hour of the morning.
The first two they encountered at the junction heard them coming.
This was Irtur's fault, though she did not say so, because the specific sound of Irtur's boots on the maintenance flooring was not the sound of someone who had trained extensively in covert movement and Irtur had not, in fact, trained extensively in covert movement.
The two guards at the junction turned.
She and Irtur fired simultaneously.
"You are loud," Clvtorig said, without looking back.
"I am a lord ambassador," Irtur said, stepping over the guards with the dignity of a man who had decided his bearing was non-negotiable regardless of circumstances. "I am not trained for stealth."
"You are trained for hunting," she said. "We ride before dawn on a regular basis."
"Eopies are quiet," Irtur said. "My boots are not eopies."
"Perhaps," Clvtorig said, "walk on the balls of your feet."
"Perhaps," Irtur said, "you explain the balls of your feet while we are not in a building full of people who want to kill us."
She was, she realized, moving through a Hutt fighting circuit on Nar Shaddaa in the third hour of the morning with a blaster in her injured hand and her planet's ambassador arguing with her childhood love about footwear, and the specific quality of this as a fact of her current existence was something she was going to need considerable time to process.
"Left," Clvtorig said.
They went left.
The next corridor was longer and had three guards at the far end. She moved to the column while Irtur took the alcove and Clvtorig simply walked forward.
"He is just walking," Irtur said from the alcove.
"I see that," she said from the column.
"Should we…"
The three guards reached for their weapons.
Clvtorig reached for his. The blade came out once and then again and the third guard had time to fire and the shot went wide and then the third guard did not have time for anything else and Clvtorig deactivated the blade and looked back at them.
"Coming?" he said.
She and Irtur came out of their respective positions.
"I want to note," Irtur said, falling into step, "that he is considerably more useful than when we were twelve."
"He was useful when we were twelve," (Y/N) said.
"He was useful at falling out of trees," Irtur said. "This is a different skill set."
"I can hear you," Clvtorig said.
"Yes," Irtur said. "That is intentional."
The last corridor before the exit had four guards. She knew it before they turned the corner because she could hear them.
They stopped.
She looked at Clvtorig.
He looked at her.
She held up four fingers.
He nodded once.
"I will go first," he said quietly.
"Obviously," Irtur said, under his breath.
"When I come around the corner," Clvtorig said, "you follow immediately. Do not wait to see what happens first."
"Yes, follow me anyway."
He went around the corner. She counted one breath. She went around the corner.
The corridor resolved as she moved into it, the four guards, two of them already occupied with Clvtorig, one of them turning toward her, the other was reaching for a comm unit.
She shot the one reaching for the comm unit. Irtur shot the one turning toward her, which was, technically, the one she had been planning to manage herself, but the result was the same and she was not going to discuss priority of fire with Irtur in a corridor with two guards still standing.
Two more quards came from around the corner and made a decision that she recognized as the correct one, which was to be somewhere else, and they went somewhere else with the speed of people who had made a correct decision.
"Good," Irtur said. "Let them go."
"I was going to let them go," (Y/N) said.
"You had the expression," Irtur said. "The one you have when you are deciding something."
"I had decided."
"She decided correctly," Clvtorig confirmed, moving toward the exit door.
"Thank you," she said.
"See," Irtur said. "He's always been like this." He gestured at Clvtorig in a way that encompassed the full scope of his objection. "Always agreeing with you."
The exit door opened.
Nar Shaddaa received them.
"Speeder," Irtur said, taking in the outside air. He was already looking. "We need…"
Clvtorig was already moving.
He had identified the speeder, a mid-range model, the kind that populated this level in sufficient numbers to be unremarkable, currently occupied by a Rodian at the controls who was stopped at the thoroughfare's junction waiting for the traffic signal to resolve.
The Rodian looked up.
Clvtorig looked at him with the specific expression of a man who had been on Nar Shaddaa for long enough to understand the negotiating language of this particular situation, which was not a language that required words.
The Rodian looked at the lightsaber at his hip.
The Rodian got out of the speeder with the cooperative energy of someone who had made a rapid cost-benefit assessment and had arrived at a clear conclusion.
"Sorry," Clvtorig said. In Basic. Genuinely.
The Rodian made a gesture she did not know the meaning of and walked away at a pace that communicated several things simultaneously.
She got in the speeder.
Irtur got in the speeder.
Clvtorig got in the speeder and took the controls.
"You can drive?" Irtur said.
"Yes," Clvtorig said.
"Since when," Irtur said.
"Since I was fifteen," Clvtorig said. He pulled into the thoroughfare with the ease of someone who had been navigating Nar Shaddaa's traffic lanes for considerably longer than fifteen minutes and had developed specific opinions about the most efficient route through them.
"You drove the palace speeders," Irtur said. "When we were fifteen. You drove one into the garden wall."
"I improved," Clvtorig said.
"Dramatically, apparently," Irtur said.
She was in the back seat with her hand against her chest and the blaster in her lap and the Nar Shaddaa night streaming past the speeder's sides in its colored light, the billboards and the signage and the eternal illumination of a place that had decided on permanence as its default setting.
She looked at Clvtorig's profile from the back seat. The line of his jaw and the hands on the controls, the same hands she had been thinking about in the sealed room for months, the hands that had taken hers in the cold water of the oasis when they were young.
He looked at the mirror.
He found her eyes.
He held them for one second.
"Irtur," she said. "Which hangar?"
"Bay seven," Irtur said, consulting his datapad with the air of a man performing navigation while also conducting a debrief. "Eastern dock level. You, Count Clvtorig will steal my ship and go home."
Clvtorig navigated through a junction with the specific efficiency of someone who had learned Nar Shaddaa's traffic patterns the hard way and was now applying the knowledge.
"Bay seven," he said. "How long."
"Four minutes," Irtur said. "If the lower throughfare is clear."
"It is not clear," Clvtorig said, looking at the traffic ahead of them.
"Then six minutes," Irtur said.
"Eight," Clvtorig said. "There is an incident at the junction."
"Fine," Irtur said. "Eight minutes. We have eight minutes."
She looked at the back of Irtur's head.
She looked at Clvtorig in the mirror.
"You have eight minutes," she said, "to tell me everything."
He met her eyes in the mirror.
"Eight minutes is not enough," he said.
"Start with the important parts," she said.
He met her eyes in the mirror.
"Eight minutes is not enough," he said.
"Start with the important parts," she said.
He looked at the road.
He said: "I knew you would come."
He drove.
"Eventually," he added.
“I’ve been watched,” she said. "I got married."
"I saw," he said, referring to the faint marriage tattoos on her face. His voice had the specific quality of a sentence that contained considerably more than the two words it was made of.
"She had a war and a prison sentence, got married and had an explosion and now she’s pregnant," Irtur said helpfully from the front seat. "In roughly that order."
Clvtorig looked at the mirror.
She held his gaze.
"A baby?"
"Yes," she said.
The speeder moved through the Nar Shaddaa light.
"Eight minutes," she said, "is not enough."
"No," he said. "It is not."
"But we have more than eight minutes after eight minutes," she said.
"Yes," he said. "We do."
The hangar bay appeared ahead of them, the bay seven marker visible through the lower dock level's specific quality of industrial lighting, and Clvtorig pulled into the approach lane.
He met her eyes in the mirror one final time.
"It is good," he said, "to be found."
The speeder stopped.
They got out.
The hangar bay was the specific quiet of a space that had been waiting.
The mechanic looked up when they came in, registered the three of them with a single assessment, and went back to the fuel line without comment.
They stood in the hangar in the Nar Shaddaa predawn, the three of them, the colored light of the moon filtering through the bay's upper ventilation in the type of light that had been through too many things before it reached you.
"Batonn," she said. To Clvtorig.
"Yes," he said.
"Irtur's ship will get you to Batonn," she said. "The course is filed, Irtur will give you the coordinates. You will not file a new course until you are out of Hutt space. When you reach the outer lane you file for Batonn and you go directly."
"I know how to fly a ship,(Y/N)."
"I know you know and I am telling you anyway."
"She does that," Irtur said. "It does not improve with familiarity."
"It does not."
"I am standing here."
"Yes," they said, at the same moment, perfectly in sync as two people who had known each other since childhood and had developed, over the course of that childhood, the ability to arrive at the same response simultaneously.
"Irtur," she said. "The coordinates."
Irtur produced his datapad and transferred the course information.
Clvtorig took it and looked at (Y/N) with eyes that had been searching for her face for the past two years.
The hangar was quiet except for the mechanic and the specific ambient sounds of a docking facility at the third hour of the morning. Irtur moved for he was a man who had known both of them since they were children and had decided that this moment was not one he was going to be present for any more than necessary. He walked towards the transport's ramp, producing a reason to be elsewhere that was almost convincing.
She thought about the oasis and the cold water. All the distance that had been forced between them. She thought about his name in the margin of the list. About the lightsaber in the green dress and the message that had said he is not where they think he is and all the months of carrying it.
He looked at her hand.
The wrapped one that was now missing a finger.
Clvtorig closed the distance.
He put both hands on her face carefully, with the care of someone who was aware of what care was required. He looked at her for one long moment and she looked back, and then he kissed her.
It was a brief kiss but not a small one.
"I will be on Batonn," he said.
"I know," she said.
"You will come back," he said. Not a question.
"I always do."
Then Clvtorig turned and walked toward Irtur's ship and did not look back, which was the correct thing to do, and she watched him go. The ship's ramp closed.
She came back on her ship through the service access. Her transports personnel were distributed between sleep and duty rotation, and she moved through it the way she had been building since the insurgency which was present in the way that did not draw attention.
Uiona was in the chair when (Y/N) came inside the cabin. She looked at her bloody, wrapped hand and reached for the medical kit. She told her to sit down and began wrapping the part of her hand that was missing a finger with the imperial issued medical wrap.
"He is on his way home," (Y/N) said quietly.
Uiona's hands stilled for half a second.
"Good," she said. The word with everything inside it.
"Yes," she said.
Uiona finished.
She sat back.
"Go to sleep," she said. "It's almost the fourth hour."
"Yes," she said.
"And," Uiona said, picking up the datapad from the side table with the specific quality of someone delivering something they had been holding, "you missed a call."
She looked at the datapad.
The missed communication notification was from the Chimaera.
"How long ago?"
"The second hour," Uiona said. "You were…"
"I know where I was," she said.
She pressed the return call and he answered on the second signal.
This told her something, that he had been awake, that the call had not required him to be woken, that he had been waiting for the return call. He resolved in the blue/white of the holo.He was in his office on the Chimaera. The white uniform.
She was in the cabin of a transport on Nar Shaddaa in the clothes she had not changed out of, with the wrapped hand that she had positioned out of the holo's field of view.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Your Majesty," he said.
"I apologize for missing your call," she said. "I have not been feeling well this evening. The nausea has been…It has been a difficult night."
He held looked at her for a moment that was longer than the response to what she had said required.
"Imagine my surprise," he said, "to find that your transport's registered location is Nar Shaddaa."
She held her composure.
"The fuel line incident diverted us," she said. "The mechanic assessed the damage as requiring more time than initially estimated. My ambassador thought it was safe to just leave the sector. It has been an eventful evening. I have been in my cabin for most of it. The environment is not conducive to comfort in the current condition."
"The ISB officer filed his incident report," he said.
"Yes, I would expect so."
"It noted the fuel line damage," he said. "The diversion. The Nar Shaddaa coordinates."
"Yes."
"It also noted," he said, with the evenness of a man selecting the pace of a conversation with deliberate care, "that your location within the transport was confirmed at the twenty-third hour. And again at the sixth hour."
"I have been in my cabin. Uiona has been with me."
"Yes," he said. "That is consistent with the report."
The holo connection had the specific quality of transmissions between significant distances.
"We will be on Lothal before the gala," she said.
"Yes," he said. "You will."
"The mechanic…"
"Will complete the repair. I have been informed of the estimated timeline."
"Thrawn."
"Yes."
"I will be on Lothal before the gala," she said. "I will have the assessment ready. I will attend the function and I will do what the function requires. I am sorry I missed your call. It was not intentional."
She gave him her surface, which was the composed warmth of a woman who had been unwell in her cabin on a diverted transport and was speaking to her husband and was managing both the conversation and the condition.
"Do not be late," he said.
"I will not be late," she said.
He held her gaze for one moment longer.
"Rest," he said. "The condition requires it."
"Yes," she said. "I know."
"Dr. Dajs has submitted her nightly report to Dr. Thalias," he said. "You did not attend the evening examination."
"I was…"
"Unwell," he said. "Yes."
The tone of his voice had the thing in it that she was still building a vocabulary for, the entry she was adding to now, the one that was not warmth and was not scrutiny and was located in the space between those two things where the complicated things lived.
"Rest," he said again.
"Goodnight," she said.
"Goodnight," he said.
The holo closed.
She thought: he knows something. He does not know what he knows yet. I will be on Lothal before the gala.
"Sleep," Uiona said.
"Yes," she said. "I know."
She laid down.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Lieutenant Orok appeared at her cabin door at the seventh hour and delivered the good news he had been waiting to deliver and reported that the vessel had been cleared for departure and that they could proceed to Lothal on the adjusted timeline.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said.
She went to find Irtur who was in the docking bay.
"My ship!" he yelled in a fit of proxy frustration.
"Yes," she said.
"It was here, I left it here. In this berth. And now it is…"
"Not here."
"Not here," he confirmed. He looked at the mechanic, "Did you see…"
The mechanic looked at the empty berth.
The mechanic looked at Irtur and shrugged.
Irtur looked at Lieutenant Orok, who had followed (Y/N) from the transport and was standing at the appropriate distance with the expression of a man preparing to file another report.
"Someone," Irtur said, with the careful emphasis of a man selecting each word for maximum plausibility, "has stolen my ship."
"I see," Crost said. He looked at the berth. He looked at Irtur. He began making notes.
"On Nar Shaddaa," Irtur said. He said it with the quality of a man arriving at a conclusion through visible stages of reasoning. "Someone has stolen my ship. On Nar Shaddaa. Which is…Yes. That is consistent with Nar Shaddaa."
"I will file a report."
"Thank you," Irtur said. He turned to her with the expression of a man in the process of reorganizing the logistics of his situation. "I appear to be without transport."
"Ambassador," she said pleasantly, "you will ride with us."
"That is very gracious of Your Majesty."
"Yes," she said. "It is."
She turned toward the transport ramp.
Irtur fell into step beside her with the ease of a man who had just successfully performed surprise and was experiencing the specific satisfaction of a well-executed piece of theater.
Tannian, standing halfway up the ramp, muttered, “Remarkable how these things happen.”
Uiona hid a smile badly.
They departed Nar Shaddaa two hours later, once the mechanic declared the transport spaceworthy and accepted a payment that suggested silence had been priced into the invoice.
Hyperspace made everything seem suspended, but time still moved within it.
The journey to Lothal was spent in a haze of medical checks, revised schedules, security briefings, and the quiet exhaustion that followed surviving something too large to process immediately. She slept in fragments. She woke with Clvtorig’s face in her mind and Thrawn’s voice in her ears.
When the transport dropped from hyperspace, the announcement came through the internal comms in the pilot’s measured tone.She stood by the small cabin viewport and watched the planet resolve beneath them in muted greens and browns.
“Approach to Lothal spaceport commencing.”
The ramp lowered to the Lothal hangar with a hydraulic hiss.
She expected local officials, a receiving secretary, perhaps an aide from the governor’s office.
But when she looked up.
He was there.
She had not expected this. She had not prepared for him.
Thrawn stood at the center of the hangar with the Grand Admiral's white and the stillness he had maintained since the gala, and around him the stormtrooper complement in the configuration of a formal military reception.
She walked toward him.
She stopped at the correct distance.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Your Majesty," he said. His red eyes moved over her face with the swift precision of inventory. “You have had an eventful journey.”
"I did not expect you in the hangar," she said. She said it with the warmth of a wife noting a pleasant surprise,"This is…"
"Standard procedure," he said. "For a high-value arrival following an irregular transit."
“I did not wish to arrive dramatically.”
“You arrived from Nar Shaddaa,” he said. “Drama was already assured.”
"The fuel line incident…"
"Has been fully documented," he said. "I have read the documentation."
"Then you know…"
"I know what the documentation contains," he said. "Yes."
He held her gaze.
She held his.
“A sophisticated criminal enterprise stole my ship, Grand Admiral.” Irtur said with a slight bow.
“Clearly.”
The single word landed with enough dryness that even Tannian looked away to hide a reaction.
Thrawn returned his attention to her.
“You missed two scheduled examinations.”
“I was unwell.”
“So I was informed.”
“I have arrived before the gala.”
“Yes,” he said. “You have.”
There was something in the way he said it that made the surrounding hangar feel smaller. A transport officer approached with datapads, hesitated at the atmosphere, then retreated wisely.
Thrawn stepped half a pace closer, low enough that only she could hear.
“You smell faintly of blaster discharge.”
“The transport was attacked.”
“Yes,” he said. “That explains some of it.”
“You will come with me now. Governor Arihnda Pryce expects us within the hour.”
She drew herself up. “I have not even been allowed to change.”
“I am aware.”
“Then perhaps I should.”
“You may do so in the residence.” His eyes held hers. “Where it will be easier to ensure you remain there.”
Irtur made a soft sound that might have been a cough.
"Thrawn, It is good to see you," she said. And it was true, which was the specific complicated truth of a thing she had not examined yet and was going to need to examine at some point but not in this hangar.
"And you."
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The residence was Imperial. Lothal was a campaign deployment and the accommodation reflected this. It was cleaner than the Nar Shaddaa room and smaller than the Coruscant apartment and had a window that showed the Lothal landscape.
She undressed and unzipped the bag she had brought with her and took out the clothing she had worn in Nar Shaddaa. She put the coat in the waste receptacle and then walked to the bathroom.
She dressed methodically in her working clothes.
She reached for the gloves.
She stopped.
She looked at her left hand. The wrapping was the fresh one that Uiona had applied on the transport.
She began to unwrap.
She needed to look at it before she covered it again. She had not let herself look at it directly since the room.
She looked at it now.
She looked at it with the complete honesty she had been trying to apply to things since a man in a Grand Admiral's uniform had sat across from her and said I require your honesty and she had decided to try.
It was smaller than she had registered it being. The absence. The space where the small finger of her left hand had been was smaller than she had been carrying it as in her mind.
She was reaching for the glove when she heard the door.
Thrawn was at the entrance to the room.
She stood at the dressing table with her left hand half-gloved.
She pulled the glove on in one motion.
"You startled me."
"I knocked," he said. "The door was not fully closed."
"I didn't hear it," she said. "I was…" She gestured vaguely at the dressing table, at the evidence of someone in the process of becoming presentable after a long transit. "Getting organized."
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
He came into the room even though she had not invited him in.
She moved to the chair by the window and sat in it with the ease of someone choosing rather than retreating, which was a distinction she was careful about. He took the chair on the other side of hers.
"The gala materials," she said. "I have not yet reviewed them."
"There is time," he said.
"Two days," she said. "I want to be prepared."
"You will be prepared," he said. Not reassurance. The flat accurate version of a man stating something he had assessed and found to be true.
She looked at the window.
He was looking at her.
She could feel him looking.
"You are managing something."
She held the surface.
"I have been managing several things," she said pleasantly. "The Batonn visit produced a considerable amount of material to manage."
"Yes," he said. "It did."
"The bombing…"
"That is not what I meant," he said.
"Nar Shaddaa was an unpleasant experience. "The diversion was unexpected. The moon is odd.”
"Yes," he said. "It is."
"I am glad to be on Lothal," she said.
"Are you?"
She turned to look at him then.
“I am glad to be off Nar Shaddaa.”
His eyes rested on her for a moment too long. She kept her gloved hands folded in her lap, the left tucked beneath the right, something he noticed immediately.
“The physician is delayed,” he said. “A supply transport has arrived with mislabeled manifests and Governor Pryce has assigned three people to solve one problem poorly.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He got up and looked around the room, eventually coming across the small trash bin which which was already full with her clothes.
“You discarded the coat.”
“Yes.”
“You favored that garment.”
“I no longer do.”
“Why?”
Because it smelled like fear. Because it held blood. Because it belonged to a version of the last two days she wanted burned out of existence.
“It was damaged.”
“You are managing something.”
The words landed softly, which made them worse.
“Nar Shaddaa was unpleasant,” she said. “I would prefer not to discuss it.”
“Preference noted.”
He left the trashbin and came nearer. Not close enough to touch. Close enough to narrow the room.
She rose from the chair instinctively, then regretted showing the instinct.
“Will I see you tonight for dinner?” she asked quickly, before he could speak again. “I would like to know what is expected.”
His gaze sharpened at the change of subject.
“Yes,” he said after a beat. “You will.”
“Formal dress?”
“No.”
“Guests?”
“No.”
“Just us?”
“Yes.”
The last answer unsettled her more than the others.
“Very well.”
His eyes dropped briefly to her hands.
“The gloves are unnecessary indoors.”
“I was cold.”
He took another measured step. She remained where she was because retreat would be noticed and weakness catalogued.
“You injured your left hand.”
She swallowed. “It is nothing.”
“If it were nothing, you would not be hiding it.”
“It has already been treated.”
“By whom?”
“Uiona.”
“A loyal woman,” he said. “Not a surgeon.”
“It does not require one.”
He studied her in silence, and she had the awful sensation of standing beneath some instrument designed to see through walls.
“What happened on Nar Shaddaa?”
“An accident.”
“No.”
“I don’t wish to speak about it.”
“That is evident.”
Her pulse was loud in her ears. He knew she was afraid; she could tell he knew. He never hurried when he knew that.
At last she said, “Something happened. It is finished now.”
He held her gaze long enough that she wanted to look away and did not.
“I am tired.”
“Yes,” he said. “And in pain.”
She said nothing.
“The physician will examine the hand when she arrives.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
The single word was quiet and absolute.
“You cannot order me.”
“No,” he said. “But I can insist.”
“Thrawn,” she said. She hated that the difference mattered, that she could not refuse. “Will you continue to interrogate me?”
“That depends,” he said, “on whether you continue lying.”
He turned toward the door.
“Dinner in forty minutes,” he said. “Do not be late.”
(Y/N)'s carefully controlled visit to Batonn begins to unravel as she witnesses the brutal reality of Imperial labor camps, causing her to deviate from Tarkin's speech. Meanwhile, Irtur secretly sabotages the Empire’s operations, ensuring the destruction of the doonium site while shielding her from direct involvement. Thrawn grows suspicious, tightening his scrutiny as he summons her to Lothal.
Masterlist, Part 19
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She woke to the sound of a gentle knock on her door.
She looked at her holo and saw that it was the third hour, Batonnese time.
Irtur opened the door to find a disheveled (Y/N) with mangled hair and oily skin. Her only shield was the thick, wool blanket that laid on top of her.
“Irtur?” she called to him, “It’s three in the morning.”
“Would you like to go riding?” He simply asked, already in his riding regalia with his mask already filled and dripping with the residue water that had spilt over its leather.
"It is not on the itinerary."
"All the Imperials in this palace are still asleep," Irtur said. "No one will know."
She dressed and met him in the stable yard where he had already dressed the eopies in their saddles, avoiding the regalia that had marked them as the Queen’s eopies.
“What if someone sees us?”
"No one will," He handed her the reins of the second eopie. "We will return before the sun rises."
She took the reins.
He produced the bow from behind the saddle pack as though he had thought of everything and had decided not to announce that he had thought of everything. A highland hunting bow, the Batonnese compact design for riding, and the quiver with it, the fletching on the arrows in the Torvek clan colors which meant he had brought these from home and had brought them deliberately.
"Target practice?"
"The morning birds," he said. "They come up from the lowland grasses about an hour before full light. We used to do this. You and I and Tannian and Clvtorig, before…" He handed her the bow. "Before."
She had not held a bow since before the insurgency. The weight was familiar in the way of things that live in the hands rather than the mind.
She swung up onto the eopie and Irtur swung up onto his.
They rode out into the dark.
Paeragosto City before dawn had a quality that she had been trying to hold in her memory for two years and had not managed. The sand dunes were endless and the mountains grand.
They rode far.
The city fell away behind them and then the roads became the tracks between the highland farms and then the tracks became the open ground of the upper plateau where the morning birds gathered before their descent to the lowland.
She shot three birds.
She missed four.
Irtur said nothing about the four. He shot two and missed two and also said nothing, which was the grace of someone who understood that the shooting was not the point.
They turned back when the sky began to show the first pale line above the Varath range.
They were on the upper ridge, the one that looked down over the secondary plateau where the highland farms gave way to the territory that had been, before the insurgency, the Torvek family's northern grazing lands. The lands that had been resettled. The lands that the mining operations had come to.
She saw smoke, fresh smoke that was not the cooking kind.
Irtur pulled up beside her.
The camp was below them.
It was not on any map she had been given. It was not in the northern territories documentation that Irtur had compiled, not in this specific location, or it was new, or it had been deliberately excluded, and she filed both possibilities and looked. She did however, notice the imperial layout which was the same as the northern territories layout. She recognized the dual configuration of the workers' barracks and the overseer residential block. Even from this distance she could see the compression of people into space that had not been designed for the number of people in it.
The stormtroopers were already positioned.
She counted them. Twelve. In the formation that she recognized from the Imperial military documentation she had been accessing through the governance networks.
The miners were lined up.
Perhaps twenty of them. Men and women both, she registered. They were standing as though they had been arranged into a configuration they had not chosen and knew what it meant.
She knew what it meant.
She knew what it meant before the first shot.
She had the bow in her hand before she had decided to raise it.
The arrow was nocked before the sound reached them, the distant flat sound of blasters discharged in sequence, and the row of people in front of the stormtroopers went down, and the smoke from the discharge drifted upward in the still pre-dawn air, and she was drawing the string back and she was looking down the arrow at the white figures below and her hands were steady, steadier than they had been in weeks, the tremor gone in the specific way it went when the body had something immediate to do and the nervous system stopped its commentary.
"(Y/N)!"
His hand was on her bow arm, not grabbing, the contact of someone who needed her attention before she did what she was about to do.
"Now," he said. "Point it down now."
She did not point it down. Below them the stormtroopers were moving with the administrative efficiency of people for whom what had just happened was a procedure rather than an event.
"There are two of us," Irtur said. "On eopies. With hunting arrows. There are twenty of them with blasters and a camp of three hundred people who will pay for whatever we do next." He kept his hand on her bow arm. "Point it down."
She lowered the bow.
Irtur's hand guided her eopie's head away from the ridge, the animal following his lead without requiring her direction, and she let the eopie be guided because her hands were not entirely functional at this moment.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The palace was not asleep when they returned.
The lights were on which allowed her to see figures visible through the ground-floor windows. She walked through the side entrance with Irtur behind her and the bow still in her hand because she had forgotten to leave it with the eopie, and she came into the corridor and found Tannian. Irtur had given their birds to a child in the city, giving the child a blessing before returning.
And Res.
Tannian had the expression of a man who had been awake for two hours in a state of controlled alarm.
Res had the expression of a man who had been awake for two hours in a state of anger and had not converted it into anything.
"Where," Res said, "have you been?"
"Riding," she said.
"Riding." He said the word as though he had prepared several versions of this conversation and had found that none of them had accounted for her arriving with a bow in her hand. "You left the palace before dawn without your security complement, without notification, without…"
"Let me go," she said. She walked past him toward the corridor.
He moved in front of her.
She stopped.
"This is not Coruscant," he said, and the pleasantness that he had been wearing since the landing platform was not present in this version of him. "You are not free to wander the highland at will. You are here on an approved itinerary under Imperial oversight and you have just spent…" He looked at the bow. "How long were you out there?"
"Long enough to get a good ride in.”
Tannian appeared at her left shoulder.
Res looked at them both.
He made a decision.
"Come," he said.
He moved toward the dining room.
The door locked behind Tannian. She had seen him move with a quick deliberate motion of someone who had decided he was going to be in this room regardless of whether he was invited.
Res turned.
"I am going to report this," he said. "To the Imperial entourage. The deviation from the approved itinerary, the unauthorized departure, the…"
"Res," Tannian said.
"I will be reporting it," Res said, "Within the hour, to the sector administration and to the ISB officers who are going to be very interested in…"
"Res, I convinced you not to report it. Remember."
Res looked at Tannian.
"You found her," Tannian said. Evenly. "Immediately. Because I found her. Because we both found her. And you have no obligation to report a queen's morning ride."
"She was unsupervised outside the approved…"
"She was riding," Tannian said. "On her own land. Before dawn. As she has done since she was a child." He held Res's gaze with the flatness of a man who had made a decision about how this conversation was going to go. "Let it go."
She was still holding the bow.
"You don't understand what you are doing here," Res said. To her now, the pleasantness entirely gone, the version of him that had sat in an interrogation room and put his hand in her braid while Kallus watched. "Whatever you think you are accomplishing with your clan visits and your speeches and your approved itinerary…"
"I am governing my planet.”
"You are a symbol with an itinerary," he said. "You are permitted to be here because it is useful for you to be here, and the moment it stops being useful…"
"Is that a threat?"
"It is a description," Res stepped closer. "Of reality. Which you have always had difficulty accepting. You were always like this. Even as a child. Father's favorite. The one who knew everything, who had the plan, who had already been three steps ahead of everyone in the room." His voice had dropped to something quieter and considerably more unpleasant. "And where did it get him, (Y/N) ? Where did it get all of them?"
She held absolutely still.
"Do not cause trouble," he said. "You know who I report to. You know what I can say and what the saying costs. Stay on the itinerary. Stay in the palace at night. Stay where you are supposed to be and do what you are supposed to do and do not give me a reason."
"You betrayed our father and now you wish for me to respect you?" she probed.
It had been in her chest since the landing platform. Since he had looked at her bridal marking and said it was fading early. It had been in her chest for months and it came out now with the specific quality of something that had been compressed for too long and had found the moment.
"You gave them the access codes," she said. "You let them into our home. You stood at the front of their formation and you let them…He trusted you. You were his son. You were his son and you…"
Res hit her.
The sound of it was very specific.
She had not moved in time, she had been looking at his face and the face had given her nothing before the hand moved, and then there was the impact and the bright specific quality of pain at her left cheek and she was stepping back and Tannian was already moving.
He had Res against the wall before the sound had finished.
The dining room was very quiet.
Res looked at Tannian.
Tannian looked at Res.
She pressed the back of her hand to her cheek. She breathed. She looked at the window, at the Paeragosto morning beginning outside it.
Tannian stepped back from the wall.
He did not step away from Res. He stood at the distance of a man who had made his position clear and was not moving from it.
"(Y/N) is pregnant," he said. His voice was entirely even. The evenness of someone applying everything they had to the evening of it. "Let her be."
He was looking at Res with the flatness of a man who had said the thing and was waiting to see what was done with it.
Res's expression moved.
The shift disgusted her.
She could see him deciding what it was worth. She could see him placing it in the context of his relationship with Restos and Thrawn, with the Imperial structure, with the specific currency of information in the environment he had chosen.
"It is my body," she said. "It is my information. Not yours to manage."
"It is an Imperial matter," he said, sharper now. "Given the father."
She felt Tannian shift beside her.
"Careful," he said.
Res ignored him.
"You will return to the approved schedule," he said to her. "Immediately. There will be no further deviations. Not in your condition."
"My condition," she said, very evenly, "does not remove my authority."
"It limits your capacity," he said. "And it creates obligations that supersede whatever you think you are…"
"Res." Her voice was the one she had found the day she climbed into the fighter jet. "I outrank you. I will always outrank you. Whatever arrangement you have made with whatever Imperial office you report to does not change the fact that you are standing in my family's house speaking to your queen. And you will not speak to me again about my body, or my condition, or what it creates or limits or obligates. Not today. Not ever."
Something moved in his face.
He stepped back.
"This will still be reported," he said. "The unauthorized departure. All of it."
"I assumed it would be," she said.
He looked at Tannian.
He looked at him with the specific quality of a man who had lost the version of this conversation he had intended to have and was now looking for a place to put that loss.
"Control your sister, brother," he said.
Tannian looked at him.
The look of a man who had known another man since they were both born and had arrived, over the course of the past several years, at the complete and final assessment of him.
"Get out of this room, Res," he said.
The door closed.
She stood with the bow still in her hand and her palm pressed to her cheek.Tannian turned to her.
He looked at her cheek.
His jaw tightened.
She lowered her hand.
"I'm alright," she said.
"You are not," he said.
"I am alright enough," she said. "For what comes next."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"What did you see?" he said. "Out there. This morning."
"What I needed to see," she said.
She found Irtur alone in the courtyard and even though her boots were loud, he did not turn when she came.
The morning made it so there was a sharp glow to her gown that illuminated her against the orange stone. She approached him, standing beside him and looking at the fountain as he did.
"How many camps are there? The ones we don’t know about. That camp… it wasn’t in any of my reports."
"No," he said. "It was not."
“It is either undocumented or it is documented in a file I do not have access to. How many are there that I don't know about?"
“I don’t know. The records show that what we stumbled upon is an Imperial operational zone. No residential designation."
"I need to know what that camp is. Who authorized it. What the population is. Who is in charge of it and what they are reporting to Restos's office. Can you get it?”
He looked at her.
"I will send someone tonight."
"Tell them the queen is asking," she said.
"That will either help significantly," he said, "or complicate things significantly."
"Yes," she said. "That is generally what my involvement does."
The day was full. It was supposed to be a day of leisure before she had her day of travel. Of course, it wasn’t.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Dajs asked, coming into (Y/N)’s cabin.
"Tired," she replied. "The anti-nausea compound is helping. It is not resolving the problem. It is helping."
"That is consistent with the stage," Dr. Dajs said. "How is your appetite?"
“Better than it was on Coruscant.”
"Good." The physician made a notation. "The fatigue will persist for several more weeks. The first trimester in a Chiss/human pregnancy carries a higher energy demand than the standard human equivalent.Your body is doing more work than it would normally be required to do at this stage. Which is why the riding before dawn and the governance sessions until the nineteenth hour are…"
“I know.”
"I am going to say it anyway," Dr. Dajs said. "Because saying it is my function and knowing it is yours and the two are not interchangeable. Rest is not optional. It is structural. Whatever you are managing here, whatever the days require , you build rest into them as a non-negotiable. Not as a preference. Not as something you do when everything else is done. The rest comes first."
“Noted.”
“You will notice a heightened sensitivity to sensory information. Smell particularly. This is the Chiss neurological component , the development pattern is more active in the early weeks and it produces a cross-sensitivity. You may find things more vivid than usual. More present. The hormonal architecture of the early Chiss-human pregnancy is more complex than the human equivalent. The emotional responses you experience in the coming weeks may be more intense than what you are accustomed to. Not unmanageable. But more present. I’ll send my report to Dr. Thalias in the morning.”
"Thank you."
"Sleep," she said. "Before the midnight hour. Not after."
"Yes," she said.
The physician left.
She changed into her nightdress and she was sitting at the window with her hair loose and growing to reach her shoulders when the holoprojector on the side table activated.
The incoming signal designation was the Chimaera. She sat up straighter and pressed the receive button.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Thrawn resolved in the blue, white of the holo.
He was in his office on the Chimaera. It was undoubtedly his, the position of the desk and the secondary tables and the art on the wall. He was in the white uniform. He was looking at her at a level she had not seen since the morning of the first correction, the morning of the desk incident.
She was sitting at a table by a window that showed the highland morning behind her and she was looking at the holo of her husband and she exhaled.
"Your Majesty," he said.
She registered the title. Not (Y/N), the one that indicated the private register. The formal one. The one for rooms that were not private.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
He looked at her.
"You arrived two days ago," he said.
"Yes," she said. "We landed on…"
"I am aware of your landing time," he said. "I was not aware that your first unscheduled action would occur within fortyeight hours of arrival."
"You've received a report?"
"I have received two.”
“Two?”
"Yes," he said.
"From whom?" she said. The question arrived before she had fully processed the implications of it, because two reports meant two separate sources.
"The first," he said, "was filed by the senior escort officer at oh-four-twelve. Reporting an unscheduled absence from the approved accommodation beginning at approximately oh-three-hundred. Duration at time of filing: one hour and twelve minutes. The officer noted that Lieutenant Geronh had provided assurance that he was aware of your location."
She said nothing.
"The second," he continued, "was filed by the household administrative office on Batonn at oh-six-forty-seven. Reporting a communication received from Lieutenant Commander Res Geronh indicating an itinerary deviation and requesting clarification of the applicable reporting protocol."
She had expected Res. Res had said he would report it and Res did what served his interests and reporting this served his interests.
"I see.”
"Is there anything you would like to add to that account?"
"No," she said.
He was quiet for a long moment.
"The itinerary deviation," he finally spoke. "The third hour departure. The failure to notify the escort."
"Yes."
"We discussed the consequences of an itinerary deviation."
"Yes," she said, feeling her heart drop.
"We were specific about them. I told you that if the itinerary was not followed, the visit ended."
"Yes," she said. "You did."
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
"I am not ending the visit," he said.
She waited for the catch.
"The governance function you came to perform is not yet complete. The clan meetings on the itinerary have not occurred. The eastern province documentation review has not been conducted. The northern territories community visits and speech…The ones on the approved itinerary. Have not been conducted. Ending the visit before those functions are completed would be a waste of resources."
"Yes," she said. Carefully.
"You will complete the itinerary," he said. "Every item. In the order it was approved. Without further deviation."
"Yes."
"The security attachment," he said, "is being adjusted. Effective tomorrow. You will have six officers. Not four."
She did not say anything about the two additional officers.
"The northern territories visits on the approved itinerary will have the eight-officer configuration we agreed upon. All of them. Including the community visits, which were previously approved at four."
"I understand," she said.
"The comm channel was not used."
"No."
"We discussed the comm channel," he said. "Specifically. The requirement to use it before responding to anything unanticipated."
"Yes," she said. "We did."
"I will be in communication," he said. "Regularly."
She had not been certain what regularly meant from him until this moment and she was now fairly certain it meant something specific and consistent and non-negotiable.
"I will expect a report," he said, "at the end of each day. The day's activities. Who you met. What was discussed. What was decided. What was not on the itinerary and why. If the report is not received by the twentieth hour Batonn time, I will contact you."
"Is there anything else?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Do not make me correct you twice," he said.
The call ended.
She sat at the table by the window that faced east and the highland morning was fully established now, the real light of the real sky doing what it did at this hour on this planet.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She dressed slowly in the morning, not because she was depressed, but because she didn’t want to leave the palace. She was too scared of the northern territories mining camp, too frightened for what she would see.
Before the security complement assembled in the courtyard, Irtur stood besides Gret Virex, Kaelor's youngest son. She walked over to them both and held out her ring. Irtur took it and kissed her signet ring. Almost as though he were saying: I serve this and I know what I am serving. He looked up at her with the eyes of a man who had known her since they were children playing in the palace gardens and who was about to do something that could not be undone.
"May destiny bend in your favor," she said.
"And yours," he said.
She then walked to her transport after nodding to Gret and watched them leave in their speeder.
Irtur occupied himself with asking Gret more questions about the contractor residential block, refamiliarizing himself with the building through his words.
“They control the water distribution,” Gret continued from what he was saying before “Officers, guards—anyone Imperial drinks from the same reserve. It’s centralized.”
“And the miners?”
“They don’t.”
“I’ve armed them.” Irtur said unexpectedly, which was new news to Gret, “The blasters came in pieces. Hidden in shipments. Broken down, disguised. I alerted only those that I for sure trust in that god forsaken place.”
“Does the Queen know you’ve been planning an uprising?”
“It’s an exit, not an uprising.”
Gret held the poison in his hand.
“When the overseers start dying,” Irtur went on, “it won’t be immediate chaos. There’ll be confusion first. Orders breaking down. Command shifting.”
“What about the doonium?”
“It gets bombed. After the agent kicks in.”
“Bombed by who?”
“I know who.”
Gret ignored the snarky remark, “…Why do they need so much of it? Doonium. This much doesn’t make sense. Not for ships. Not for standard operations.”
Irtur thought about the chip and the trouble he had ran into trying to get someone to crack it “I didn’t know either.”
It took them seven hours going full speed to reach the northern territories. Also once known as Clan Torvek’s realm. The contractor residential building was exactly as Gret had described it.
Irtur had listened to the description four times over the past two days and had mapped it in his mind, standing outside it now in the pre-dawn grey with the sounds of the camp on the other side of the perimeter wall he found that the map was accurate. Gret was good at descriptions. This was one of the things Irtur had learned about Kaelor Virex's youngest son in the past fortyeight hours.
"Seven," Gret said quietly, referring to the stormtroopers who acted as guards, beside him. He was looking at the building with the attention of someone who had been inside it and was comparing his memory to the current reality. "Two at the main entrance. Two at the service entrance. Three rotating the perimeter on a nineteen minute cycle."
"You timed it?"
"Twice," Gret said. "Yesterday and early this morning. Consistent."
"Good."
"The two at the service entrance are the problem. The main entrance ones we can take from the east shadow. The perimeter rotation gives us an eleven minute window after they pass the north corner before they come back around." He looked at Irtur. "The service entrance ones don't move."
"Then we move them."
Gret looked at him.
"I have a plan for that," Irtur said.
"Is it a good plan?" Gret asked.
"It is a plan that will work," Irtur said. "Those are not always the same thing."
Gret considered this.
"Fair," he said.
They moved.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The camp. She had been prepared for the visual, but the smell reached her before the visual and the preparation was not sufficient.
It was not a single smell, but the accumulation of many smells. The chemical scent of the extraction process, the mineral dust that the northern territories' doonium deposits produced when they were worked, the smell of inadequate sanitation infrastructure pressed beyond its capacity, and underneath all of it, underneath everything, the oldest smell, the one that was human and was not meant to exist at this density and this duration.
The transport had stopped at the approved perimeter point. The security complement had established the configuration.
She stepped out of the transport.
She looked at the camp.
This is Batonnese land, she thought, Where the Torvek clan grazed their livestock and mined for hundreds of years. Where children grew up knowing the names of the mountains because they could see them from the windows of their homes.
The houses were gone.
What had replaced them was the Imperial administrative standard buildings.
She walked toward it. Following the perimeter settlement,the approved boundary of her visit.
She saw the families as she came through the perimeter point . The faces that turned toward the transport and the security complement and then, as the recognition moved through the crowd the way recognition moved through crowds, toward her.
She felt dirty. Not because she was, but because she wasn’t.
The sound that came from the perimeter settlement was not the sound of the capital crowd. It was quieter than that. But it was there, the sound of recognition, the specific quality of people who had heard a name for two years and were now receiving the face that went with it.
She walked toward them. She looked at the ground beneath her feet. She looked at the mountains visible on the horizon. She looked at the children in the crowd.
"This is your land. What is being done with it is not permanent. I want you to know that I know that. And I want you to know that knowing is not comfortable, and I am not offering you comfort, I am offering you my word.” She said in Batonnese to the crowd, her voice shaking.
She should not have said this. It was not in the approved itinerary. It was not in the speech. It was not the managed version, the diplomatic version, the version that fit within the Imperial oversight and did not produce ISB notation.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Gret and Irtur were not moving carelessly.
The stormtroopers at the main entrance were in the standard two man configuration, facing outward, and settled in their routine. Routine was a vulnerability Irtur had been exploiting for two years.
He looked at Gret.
Gret nodded.
They moved.
They held up their blasters and aimed them at the stormtroopers. It was efficient and it was quick and when it was done the two stormtroopers were no longer standing at the main entrance.
"Two," Gret said quietly. Accounting.
"Four remaining," Irtur said.
"The service entrance," Gret said. "What is the plan for the service entrance ones? The ones that don't move?"
"A noise," Irtur explained. "From inside the building. Something that requires one of them to investigate. The other holds position but now he is alone, which changes the geometry."
"What kind of noise?"
The kind that a building makes, when someone who knows where the external maintenance panel is adjusts the water pressure in the secondary system."
"You know where the external maintenance panel is?"
"You described it four times. I have a good memory."
"I described it because I thought you would use it later," Gret said. "When we were inside."
"We will use it now and later."
Gret considered this.
"That is actually a good plan," he said.
“I know.”
The service entrance resolved to one, and then to none, in the sequence that Irtur had mapped, and they were inside the building at the thirtyseventh minute, which was within the window.
The corridor was undoubtedly Imperial. Gret moved through it with the ease of someone who had been here before in a different capacity, his memory of the layout accurate in every particular.
"Primary filtration access," Gret said quietly. "Sub level. The maintenance stairs are here." He gestured.
They descended.
The sub level smelled of water and metal and the chemical smell of filtration systems, It had the infrastructure of a room that existed to be functional and was. The primary filtration point was a cylindrical unit, larger than he had imagined it with the access panel on the east face and the cycle indicator showing where in the rotation the system currently was.
"We have eight minutes before the next cycle."
“Good.”
He produced the agent from the interior pocket of his jacket. The container was smaller than he had expected when he had first received it, which was a consistent feature of things that were going to have large consequences.
He looked at the filtration access panel.
He looked at Gret.
"The secondary system is completely separate?" he said.
"Completely," Gret said. "Different line, different access, different pressure zone. I checked the schematic three times. The imp family residential units are on the secondary system. This line only serves the operational and administrative sections." He held Irtur's gaze. "Their families are not on this line."
Irtur held the agent.
He thought about Cristi. His sister, in the camp on the other side of the perimeter wall, with her children who were six and four and who had been eating inadequate food for over a year. He thought about Arv Alan buried in the northern territories. He thought about the queen on the ridge with her arrow drawn.
“Good,” Irtur said, “(Y/N) would never forgive me if they weren’t.”
“What about you, do you care?”
Irtur opened the access panel and administered the agent at the primary filtration intake point and he closed the panel, and it was done.
“No.”
Gret watched him.
"How long before it activates?" Gret asked.
"Forty hours minimum," Irtur said. "We will be gone. The Queen will be gone. There is no connection."
"And then?"
"And then the overseers who have been running those labor details die."
Gret nodded.
He was quiet for a moment.
"My sister is in that camp," he said. "On the other side of the wall."
"I know," Irtur said.
"She has been there for fourteen months," Gret said.
"I know," Irtur said.
Gret looked at the filtration unit.
"Good," he said.
They found the stormtrooper uniforms in the equipment room on the main level.
"We need to be in these when we exit," Irtur said. "The perimeter rotation will come back around in four minutes. We walk out of the service entrance in the armor and we are two troopers returning from an internal check."
Gret looked at the armor.
He looked at Irtur.
"You are too tall for that one," he said.
Irtur looked at the armor.
"It will be close," he said.
"The leg plates will…"
"We will move quickly," Irtur said.
"Lord Irtur," Gret said, with the specific patience of someone addressing a superior who was being optimistic, "We’re going to get killed because you chose a uniform too small.”
"It is sandy," Irtur said. "Outside."
"It is becoming more visible."
"We will move very quickly.”
Gret looked at the armor.
He looked at Irtur.
"If we die because your legs are too long," he said, "I want it noted that I noted this in advance."
"It will not be noted," Irtur said. "Because we will not die here."
"My father is going to be very disappointed if I die on a mission he didn't know I was on," Gret said, pulling the chest plate over his head. "He will be disappointed that I died. He will be significantly more disappointed that I kept it from him."
"Your father, keeps things from you regularly. It is a family tradition."
"That is a fair point," Gret said.
They dressed.
They looked at each other.
The gap between Irtur's leg plates and his boots was, as Gret had predicted, significant.
"Walk fast," Irtur said.
"I was already planning to," Gret said.
But first Irtur stopped.
He stopped in the corridor near the service entrance and he looked at the recording device he had been carrying since they entered the building and he looked at the perimeter wall beyond which the camp existed and he made a decision.
He had time.
Four minutes had become three but he had time.
He went to the wall that bordered the camp perimeter and he found the access point that Gret had described.
He was not prepared for this.
He had the documentation. He had the reports. He had been building the information picture for months, for (Y/N), for the clan records, for the thing he intended to do with it when the time came.
The documentation was not the reality of it. The camp in the early morning light was the reality of it. He activated the recording device.
He did not say anything. There was nothing to say that the recording would not say better by capturing what was in front of him. The faces of the people he could see, the early risers, the ones who were already moving toward the work assembly point with the characteristic of people who had been doing this long enough that the body moved without the participation of any of the parts that required hope.
And at the edge of the assembly ground, the thing that had been there before they arrived this morning. He had heard about it from the contact. Seeing it was different from hearing about it.
The grave was not marked. It was not managed. It was the specific quality of something that had accumulated rather than been arranged, the accumulation of people for whom the camp's administrative structure had ceased to require accounting.
Bodies upon bodies mounted in an unmarked grave, bound to feed the land once the imperial overseers had decided that enough of them had filled up that hole and it was time to dig another one.
He recorded it before returning to the access point.
"Ready?" Gret said.
"Yes," Irtur said.
They walked fast out of the service entrance and through the perimeter and into the pre-dawn grey and they were three hundred meters from the building when the rotation came back around and found nothing unusual and continued on.
They shed the armor behind the maintenance depot and threw it in the waste container and they walked in their riding clothes toward the rendezvous point and neither of them said anything for a long time.
"Lord Irtur," Gret said finally.
"Yes."
"Was it…" He stopped. He started again. "The recording. Was it what you expected?"
"No," Irtur said.
"Worse?"
"Yes," Irtur said. "Considerably."
Gret was quiet.
"Good," he said.
"Yes," Irtur said. "Good."
They walked toward the rendezvous.
Irtur looked at the clock in his speeder and noted that (Y/N) should be ending her speech soon.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
The speech podium was at the edge of the extraction site.
She stood at the podium and looked upon the open wound of it all.
The workforce had been assembled before her arrival. It was pretty obvious that the crowd that had been organized rather than gathered, the security presence at the edges, the specific quality of people who were present because they were required to be present and not for any other reason.
She placed her speech down, breathing heavy and she looked at the faces before her.
looked at the faces before her. It contained the: The acknowledgment of Batonn's role, framing the work as participation in something larger. She read it with the voice she had been developing since she first stood in front of a room that required her to fill it. She watched the faces as she read and she watched what was in them. What was in them was not what the speech was designed to produce. They heard this speech before in different forms.
She stopped and looked at the faces. She turned the speech over.
"I was given these words. I want you to know that. I was given these words by people who needed me to stand in front of you and say them, and I was told not to change them, and I am changing them."
The crowd shifted.
The ISB officers at the perimeter shifted.
"What you are doing here matters. Not in the way the speech says it matters. Not as contribution to Imperial stability or sector development. It matters because you matter. Because what is extracted from this land is from your land and your labor and your bodies and none of that is invisible to me. I want you to know that your queen has stood on this ground and seen it with her own eyes and it is not something I will note and set aside.The Empire-"
A voice from the crowd.
"Will fall!" the miner screamed. "We are suffering here! My family has been here for…my son cannot…they take our…"
The stormtroopers moved before she could speak.
She saw it happen with the specific slow-motionless of things that occurred faster than the mind could process and slower than the heart could accept. The two troopers at the crowd's edge moved through it, the man's voice cutting off not because he had stopped but because they had reached him, and then he was on his knees and the crowd had become still. As though they had seen this before and knew what came after the kneeling.
"Stop," she yelled. Into the podium with the voice she had found the day she climbed into the fighter jet. "Stop…"
The shot was flat and immediate.
She was not standing at the podium anymore. But she did not remember moving towards the crowd, toward the man who had been kneeling, and then something was around her ,an arm, the security complement, the senior officer, and she was being moved, not gently, and she was saying something that she could not hear herself say because the sound of the camp was in her ears and the smell of it and the specific quality of what had just happened in front of her face in broad daylight on Batonnese land.
She was in a room.
Grey walls. Imperial construction. A storage room of some kind.
The door closed.
She looked at the grey walls.
She looked at her left hand that began to tremor.
No longer will I be a symbol. Something they can use to control.
She did not plan to sit on the floor. Her legs made the decision without consulting her and she was pressing both hands flat against her abdomen and she was shaking and she was crying. She had made a promise to herself in an interrogation room a long time ago. She had kept it through everything but lost it now.
She pressed her hands against the place where something was growing that did not yet know what it had been born into, and she wept with the specific quality of someone who had been holding an enormous weight for an enormous amount of time
"I know," she said. Quietly. To the grey room. To the mountains she could not see. "I know what you are being born into. I know it is not what it should be. I am going to fix it. It will not be fixed when you arrive. It will not be fixed quickly. But I am going to spend every day between now and the day you are old enough to understand what I am telling you working toward the fixing of it. I am going to leave you a better planet than the one I inherited. That is my promise. That is the only promise I have made in my life that I will not allow anything to compromise."
She received a ding on her portable holoprojector from Irtur, and she opened to see what he had been recording.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
She didn’t remember her ride home. She remembered being shoved in the vehicle, the door closing. She remembered the desert landscape moving past the viewport and not looking at it.
Her legs moved her towards Restos's office, but she made the conscious decision to open the door.
Restos looked up from his office when she came through the door. He looked at her face and something moved in his expression , not concern exactly, the recalibration of someone who had been in enough volatile situations to recognize the approach of one.
"Senator Geronh," he said. "I was about to send someone to—"
"What was that?" her voice was not the queen's register or the senator's register or any of the registers she had been building and maintaining on Coruscant. It was simply her voice, undressed, with the two hours of the grey room still in it and the smell of the camp still in it and the flat specific sound of the shot still in it.
"The situation at the site was…" he began.
"What was that?" she asked again.
She was not entirely certain when she had crossed the room. She was standing in front of his desk and she was looking at him and she was crying, she could feel the crying, and she was not managing it because she had used the managing in the grey room and this was what was left when the managing was gone.
"He was speaking," she said. "He was speaking and they…he was on his knees and they…They are people. They have names and families and they are working on their own land under conditions that…Do you understand what I saw today? Do you understand what is happening in those camps? There is a grave, Restos. There is a mass grave at the edge of the camp and no one has filed a report on it because no one is required to file a report on it because the people in it are not…"
"Senator!"
She pushed him.
Both hands, flat against his chest, the full weight of everything she had been carrying.
He stepped back.
He looked at her.
He looked at his hands, which had come up instinctively, and he looked at her face, and then he looked at the door.
"Guard," he said.
The door opened.
Two of the Palace security came through the door. They were not rough. They were efficient, which was its own kind of rough, and she was in the chair in front of his desk before she had decided whether to resist it.
She sat.
The guards took their positions at the door.
Restos straightened his uniform.
"That," he said, with the controlled patience of someone managing a situation they had managed variations of before, "was a disciplinary response to an individual who disrupted an authorized Imperial function. The protocol was followed correctly."
"The protocol?”
"Yes," he said. "The protocol."
"He said the word fall," she looked up at him. "One word. He was frightened and hungry and he had been working in an extraction zone on his family's land for over a year and he said one word and they…"
"He incited disruption at a public function," Restos said. "In front of the Queen of Batonn and her security complement and two ISB officers. The response was proportionate to the…"
"Proportionate?"
"Lady Thrawn." He leaned forward, looming over her, placing both his hands on the arm rests of the chair she was sat in "I understand that today was distressing. I understand that you have not been on Batonn for an extended period and I understand that the visit produced an emotional response. What I need you to understand is that your emotional response is not something I can build an administrative structure around."
She moved her face away from him, cringing at the new title he chose to use.
"You are not," he said, "making my job easier. Your function here is specific. It is defined. It is the function of a symbol, of continuity, of legitimacy, of the governance structure that keeps this sector from requiring the kind of military enforcement that would be considerably more costly for everyone involved. When you deviate from the speech, when you make unauthorized statements to the labor force, when you appear in front of ISB officers weeping and assaulting a Governor…"
"I pushed you.”
"...you compromise the function and when the function is compromised, the question of whether the function is still being served by the current…" He selected the word. "Arrangement."
She held very still.
"You are not a very good symbol," he continued. "Today was evidence of that. A symbol does not go off speech. A symbol does not push Governors. A symbol does not stand at a podium and tell a labor force that what is being done to them is visible to her, because visibility is precisely what the arrangement is designed to…A symbol that cannot be controlled is not a symbol. It is a liability."
“Then do something about it,” she spat in his eye, causing him to stumble back and produce a handkerchief to wipe himself.
"Do not think that your marriage protects you. The Grand Admiral is on campaign in the Lothal sector and the Emperor's arrangements have been revised before. You are not indispensable."
"Then kill me," she said.
He stared at her.
"Kill me," she said again. "Go ahead. Add my name to the list. Do you know how many names are on that list, Restos? Do you have the actual number? The people in those camps who have died under conditions that no one has filed a report on. The people in that grave at the edge of the extraction site. Add my name. See what happens."
The room went silent.
"You told the Emperor," she said, "and the Emperor told the sector administration and the sector administration told the briefing room that there are no more insurgents in the Batonn sector. That the consolidation addressed the instability. That the symbol function is working. I stood in front of two hundred people today. Labor force workers, resettlement families, people who have been in those camps for over a year. I stood in front of them and I watched a man be shot for saying one word. I want you to look at those faces in your mind, if you remember any of them. I want you to tell me what you see in them. Because what I saw was not a pacified population. What I saw was not the absence of insurgency. What I saw was two hundred people who are one more death, one more bad harvest, one more inadequate food allocation away from becoming exactly the thing you have been telling the Emperor they no longer are. You say there are no more insurgents in this sector. I say you have a camp full of people who will soon become them. And when they do you will not be able to hand them a photograph of their queen and tell them she is alive and well and stop the riots. Because they will have watched her be disposed of, and they will know exactly what that means, and there will not be a symbol left to manage them with."
She was still crying. She had not stopped crying. She had been crying through all of it ,the pushing and the guards and the scolding and the threat and the response to the threat.
"You will return to the approved itinerary," Restos said. The flatness of a man who has run the calculation and arrived at a position he is not entirely satisfied with but intends to hold. "Immediately and without further deviation. The northern territories visit is concluded it will not be revisited. You will conduct the remaining days of the Batonn trip within the approved parameters or I will file the incident report from today with the ISB and you will spend the remainder of your visit in this building under administrative supervision." He looked at her. "Is that understood?"
"It is understood," she said.
He looked at her for a moment longer.
"The guards will escort you back to the family wing," he said.
She walked out.
The guards fell into step behind her and she walked back through the corridor of her father's palace that smelled of the wrong things and looked at the wrong walls, and she breathed with the counting and the precision and she thought about the promise she had made in the grey room.
She thought about Irtur.
She thought about the recording.
She thought about the Mykapo corridor and the secondary supply route and the conversation she was going to have when she returned to Coruscant.
She was not done.
She was nowhere near done.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
Four weeks later, the message did not arrive as a report, but as a disruption.
Pryce stood at Thrawn's left and Thrawn looked at the holoprojector showing Batonn’s northern territories extraction site . The one that had been, until approximately thirty-seven hours ago, the Empire's primary source of doonium in the sector.
The door opened and Agent Kallus walked in.
“Grand Admiral. Governor.”
Thrawn did not turn.
“Report.”
“There has been an incident in the Batonn sector,” Kallus said. “Northern territories. An Imperial extraction site.”
“What kind of incident?” Pryce asked, her gaze sharpening.
"The explosion occurred at oh-three-twenty-two Batonn time," Kallus explained. "The origin point has not yet been confirmed. The initial ISB assessment identified three possible causes: a structural failure in the extraction infrastructure, a deliberate detonation of the doonium deposits themselves, or a combination of both. The facility has been destroyed. Completely. The doonium reserves stored on-site were ignited in the blast."
Now Thrawn turned.
“Destroyed?”
“Yes, sir.”
A slight shift in the projection as Thrawn adjusted it. Batonn resolved into focus, the northern territories highlighted in a precise grid.
“The total yield?” Thrawn asked.
“Preliminary estimates indicate full loss,” Kallus said. “The Empire’s primary supply line from that sector is no longer operational.”
"The distinction matters," Pryce said.
"Yes," Kallus said. "It does. The preliminary analysis suggests the detonation pattern is inconsistent with standard structural failure. The dispersal signature indicates multiple simultaneous initiation points, which is…"
"Deliberate," Pryce said.
"Consistent with deliberate," Kallus said. "The investigation is ongoing."
"The doonium," Pryce said. She said it with the flatness of a woman who had been building the TIE Defender project on Lothal through the specific combination of political maneuvering and resource acquisition that had required most of her professional attention for the past eighteen months and was now processing the specific arithmetic of what the explosion meant for that project. "The reserves."
"Destroyed," Kallus said. "The full accessible deposit. The survey indicated approximately…"
"I know what the survey indicated," Pryce said. "I commissioned the survey." She breathed. "What is the timeline for alternative sourcing?"
"Unknown," Kallus said. "The alternative sources in the sector have been partially developed but are at significantly lower yield levels. The Batonn deposits were…"
"Irreplaceable," Pryce said. "In the short term."
"Yes.”
The briefing room was quiet.
"The TIE Defender project," Pryce sighed. To Thrawn. "The timeline is…"
"I am aware of the timeline," Thrawn said. He said it without inflection. He was still looking at the display. "Agent Kallus. The senator."
Kallus looked at him.
"Senator Geronh," Thrawn said. "Her activities in the forty-eight hours preceding the explosion. And her response to it."
"Senator Geronh completed her visit on schedule. She departed the northern territories on the day of the approved itinerary visit to the extraction zone. She returned to the Restos administrative complex that evening. The following morning she conducted the remaining clan meetings on the approved itinerary. She departed the extraction zone within the authorized window."
"And her response to the explosion?" Thrawn asked.
"Senator Geronh has not yet made a public comment on the explosion."
"Has not?" Pryce looked at him.
"Her office issued a statement of acknowledgement," Kallus said. "Noting that the Senator was aware of the incident and that her office would be monitoring the situation. No further statement has been issued."
"The speech," She turned to the display and pulled up the ISB report from the northern territories visit. The incident documentation, the off-itinerary remarks, the incident with Governor Restos. She had read this report three times. She found something new in it each time. "She went off-script. In front of the labor force. Off-script from the approved speech. And forty-eight hours later the extraction site explodes.”
“That has been noted,” Kallus said. “However, there is no confirmed link between Senator Geronh’s presence and the explosion or any evidence of Rebel fleet involvement.”
“No evidence,” Pryce said, quieter now. “Or no trace.”
"The project timeline," Thrawn said, "is not the primary concern."
Pryce looked at him.
"The primary concern," he said, "is what the explosion communicates. About the current state of the sector. About the organizational capacity of whoever planned it. About what additional operations may be in development."
"You think it is part of a broader…"
"I think that the explosion at this specific site, at this specific time, following this specific visit, is not a coincidence. And I think that whoever planned it is not yet done." He looked at the display for a moment longer. "What is the assessment of the Batonnese population's response to the explosion?"
Kallus checked his datapad.
"Mixed," he said. "The ISB monitoring in the market districts suggests…The language being used is consistent with the language that has been appearing in the Batonn monitoring for the past year. The Veil designation. The protective framing. Some of the communications express what the analysts have categorized as satisfaction. At the destruction of the extraction infrastructure."
"Satisfaction?" Pryce squinted.
"Yes," Kallus said.
"She is not controllable. She has never been controllable. Whatever the arrangement was designed to produce, whatever message the emperor wanted to convey, will not happen.”
Thrawn looked at the display one final time.
"The investigation," he said to Kallus. "Every available resource. The origin point. The planning chain. The organizational structure behind it. I want to know who. And I want to know what they intend to do next."
"Yes, sir," Kallus said.
Thrawn walked to the door.
"The doonium," Pryce said. "The project…"
“We will adapt,” Thrawn said.
He left.
Pryce stood in the briefing room with Kallus and the display and the explosion and thought of the girl she probably should have just killed herself.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════
(Y/N) was at the desk when the call came, sitting in a desk that didn’t feel right in a palace that was once Clvtorig’s.
Irtur was in the chair by the window. His own datapad on his knees and had been working with (Y/N) on filing the requests of the clan leaders. The explosion had not been mentioned by either of them, which in of itself was its own communication. She did not want to know if he was responsible for it, or if he knew who was.
The comm unit activated and the designation on the incoming signal was the Chimaera.
She gestured to Irtur, a small contained motion they had developed, the one that meant stay and be still and do not be visible. He shifted in the chair, moving to the position that would place him outside the holo's field of view and she accepted the call.
Thrawn resolved in the blue white.
She had been expecting this call since the explosion was reported. She had been preparing for it with the precision she brought to things she knew were coming.
"Grand Admiral," she said.
"Your Majesty," he said.
"You have seen the reports?"
"Yes," he said.
"The doonium loss is…"
"Doonium is not what I am calling about.”
Her hand tremor was starting.
"Your speech," he said "The northern territories, the approved itinerary visit. The off-script remarks to the labor force. The explosion occurred fortyeight hours after the conclusion of that speech."
“Go on.”
"You were sent to Batonn in part to perform the governance function of stabilizing the sector. Of communicating to the Batonnese population that the arrangement is functioning. That the symbol is present and that the present symbol is contained. The speech you gave at the extraction zone was not that communication."
"No, it was not,” She crossed her arms over her chest.
"You changed your prewritten speech in front of ISB officers. In front of the security complement. In front of a labor force of two hundred people and fortyeight hours later the doonium deposits that have been supplying the primary materials for an Imperial project of significant strategic value were destroyed."
"Speeches do not cause explosions."
"No, they do not. But they communicate things to people who are listening for communication. And the people who were in that crowd, or connected to people who were in that crowd, received a communication."
"They received the truth," she said. "Which is that their conditions are inhuman and I am not going to pretend that…"
"They received a signal," he said. "Whatever your intention, what was received was a signal. And someone acted on it."
"I understand the connection you are drawing, but you must remember dear husband that there is no connection to those miners and the explosion. But I understand that the speech created…"
"But?" he asked.
"But," she said. "What I saw at that site was not something I could stand in front of and deliver the approved speech as though I had not seen it. I am aware of what that costs. I am aware of the consequences. I went off-script because the script was not honest and I made a commitment to you that I would be honest and I could not honor that commitment and the script simultaneously."
He was quiet for a moment.
"The explosion," he said. "Your office issued a statement of acknowledgement. No further comment."
"No," she said.
"You are going to investigate it," he said. Not a question.
"My office will be looking into it," she said carefully. "The origins are unknown. The investigation is ongoing. I intend to have my governance network produce whatever information is available about the…"
"(Y/N)," he said softer, shifting the conversation to become more intimate. The shift from formal to the specific form, "What do you know?"
“I know that my people are dying and that my planet is being overmined. I also know that there is nothing I can do about it.”
He was quiet.
"About the explosion," she said. "My office will investigate."
"The conversation," he said. "That we agreed to. When you returned."
"Yes," she said.
"It is scheduled for next week," he said, “I am summoning you to Lothal.”
She abruptly arose from her seat, “Lothal? But I am meant to be on Coruscant, this would disturb my schedule. I have Senate obligations, the sector administration review, the clan documentation I need to file through the governance channels before the end of the month…”
"Your Senate obligations," he said, "can be managed remotely for the duration. The clan documentation does not require your physical presence on Coruscant." He held her gaze through the projection. "I am not asking you to cancel your obligations. I am asking you to fulfill them from a different location."
"And the specific location is the Lothal campaign deployment?"
"Yes."
“Why?”
"Governor Pryce, has organized a gala. In celebration of the new manufacturing facility that has been constructed on Lothal. It will be attended by governors, senators, and contractors from the outer rim planets that supply the facility's raw material inputs." Thrawn held (Y/N)’s gaze. "Given that Batonn has been and remains the Empire's primary source of doonium in this sector, the explosion notwithstanding, your presence at a function celebrating the infrastructure that doonium supplies is appropriate."
“You want me at a celebration of a factory that is built on Batonn's extracted resources?"
"I want you to be visible at a function attended by the people who make decisions about outer rim resource allocation. As the Senator and Queen of the planet that supplies those resources. Your absence from that room would communicate something. Your presence communicates something else."
"And what does my presence communicate?"
"That Batonn is stable, that its governance is functional. That the arrangement is intact and the primary resource supply, despite recent disruption, remains under reliable administration." A pause. "That the Queen of Batonn is present and cooperative."
"You want me where you can see me?"
"I want you," he said, "where the relevant people can see you. That is not the same thing, though in this case the geography overlaps."
Irtur, in the chair by the window, had not moved.
"There is also," Thrawn continued, "the matter of the facility itself. The manufacturing capacity of the Lothal installation and its relationship to Batonn's extraction output is significant. You have been building an assessment of the doonium supply chain. The facility tour that Pryce has arranged would give you direct access to the destination infrastructure.That is information you have been trying to acquire through other channels for several months. What you observe in the course of fulfilling that function is within your discretion."
She exhaled, as though she had been holding in her breath.
"The assessment," she said. "That I promised you."
"Bring it when you have it. Lothal gives you more to bring."
She looked at Irtur's chair, which was empty of its visible occupant, the specific emptiness of someone who was there and was not appearing to be.
She looked back at the holo.
"Alright," she said. "I will see you there."
He held her gaze.
"There is one further matter," he said. The shift in his voice, not colder exactly, but more deliberate, the specific quality he used when he was returning to something he had set aside and was now picking back up.
She waited.
"The explosion," he said. "Your office will investigate."
"Yes.”
"You will submit your findings to me directly, whatever your governance network produces. The origin assessment, the planning chain analysis, whatever information your investigation develops. It comes to me. Before it goes anywhere else."
She held very still.
"Before it goes anywhere else," she repeated.
"Yes.”
"My investigation findings," she said carefully, "will be submitted to you as they are developed."
"Your performance on this trip remains under evaluation. The northern territories speech. The incident with Governor Restos. These have been noted. They are part of the record. What you produce from the investigation and how you conduct the remainder of the Lothal function will be weighed against them." He held her gaze with full attention.
"I understand.”
He looked at her for one moment longer.
"Travel safely," he said.
"Goodbye, husband," she said.
She cut the holo.
The room was quiet.
“This complicates things significantly,” Irtur said.
“What about Clvtorig? We still need to get him.”
“And now we only have a week if we leave tomorrow.”
"How long," she said. "From Lothal to Nar Shaddaa."
"Direct?" He calculated. "Seven hours. But the direct route from Lothal to Nar Shaddaa is through the Hutt trade lanes, which are monitored. ”
“We can’t leave him.”
"The diversion plan," he said. "The rebel incident that forces the ship off the approved route. The refueling port. All of that was predicated on the return journey being Batonn to Coruscant. A route we knew. A route my rebel pilot had coordinates for, timing for, security pattern for. A route where the nearest viable port in the case of an incident puts us in proximity to Nar Shaddaa." He looked at her. "The return journey is now Batonn to Lothal."
"And once we arrive and somehow manage to escape my imperial entourage, we would be in a Hutt fighting circuit on Nar Shaddaa carrying a Jedi weapon. Which the Inquisitors are actively looking for."
“Alright,” Irtur sighed, rubbing his hand on his eyes, “Somehow we have to do this in a week... I will get him, I’ll take Gret with me.”
“No, I’m coming.”
“No, you’re not. It’s too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous,” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“You mean inconvenient.”
“I mean dangerous.”
“You have never once confused those two things before.”
“You are pregnant,” he said. “You are under active Imperial observation. You are the queen of a planet held together by ceremony and threat. You are carrying a child whose father is the most strategically dangerous man in this sector. And you would like to accompany me into Hutt space to retrieve a wanted Jedi from a fighting circuit while Inquisitors search the moon and accomplish it all before you are expected on Lothal.”
“I need him,” she walked closer to Irtur, her cheeks turning red and her left hand clenched, “And I would rather die trying to find him than sit idly playing it safe while you do. I have not been playing it safe recently as you can tell, and I would like to take one more risk.”
He was silent for a moment. She loved him, that much was plain as the rising of the sun, and no counsel, no caution, no chain of reason could unmake it.
“(Y/N), This is not a hunt before dawn. This is Nar Shaddaa. You’ve never been to Nar Shaddaa.”
“I have been to Coruscant politics,” she said. “I assume the smell is different and the morality comparable.”
“This is not amusing.”
“No,” she said. “It is not.”
He moved away from the desk and crossed to the window, looking out over the palace courtyard as if the stone might offer better counsel than she had.
“If something happens to you,” he said quietly, “everything fractures.”
“If the inquisitors get to Clvtorig first,” she said, “we lose him forever. He went and got me, he told me I was Queen, he risked himself for me. He gave me a fighter and a chance and he believed I would matter later. I am later.”
“That debt does not require suicide.”
“It requires action.”
He turned back sharply. “Do not make this noble. I know you too well for that.”
“I am done being escorted from rooms while men decide what risks are acceptable for me.”
Irtur stared at her for a long moment.
“You think I am trying to control you?”
She said nothing.
“Gods, (Y/N),” He exhaled through his nose, “And if blasters start firing?”
“Then I will do what I always do.”
“And what is that?”
“Adapt faster than the man who underestimated me.”
Then, still staring at her after a minute of silence he said, “If this goes badly, I reserve the right to be insufferable about it.”
“It would comfort me to know some things remain constant.”
A small sound escaped her then, not laughter entirely, but the shadow of it, brief as light upon water and gone as quickly. Yet when it passed, the room seemed no easier for it. And still she felt cold. There are moments, rare and grievous, when one becomes aware of another soul not by touch nor by voice, but by the shape it has left upon one’s days. So it was with him. She felt Thrawn then, though he was far from Batonn and many planets removed. Not in body, nor in any mystic manne, but in the fashion of winter felt before the wind arrives. In the sense that some great mind, cold and wakeful, moved its pieces upon a board she had not yet fully seen.
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Thrawn is not in this chapter, you can skip it tbh but I already wrote it and didn't want to exclude it. This chapter has more to do with (Y/N)'s character devolpment. (Y/N) arrives on Batonn and attends a parade in her honor. She attends a clan meeting where they discuss her itinerary.
Masterlist, Part 18
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The departure terminal on the Imperial command level was not designed for comfort.
She had been through it once, briefly, for a Senate function on a neighboring level that had required the formal transit documentation and the security complement and the full machinery of being the Queen of Batonn in public.
She knew what the terminal looked like.
She had not yet been through it with luggage and a medical kit and a lightsaber in the medical kit. Tannian walked next to her.
The entourage was assembled at the gate.
There were six security personnel in the Imperial complement, the grey uniforms and the specific bearing of people who had been assigned to her detail rather than having volunteered for it. Two administrative staff from the sector office, young, precise, carrying the documentation portfolios she had reviewed and approved the previous week. The specialist that Dr. Thalias recommended Dr. Dajs, standing slightly apart from the rest.
And Uiona.
She saw Uiona before anyone else.
"Your Majesty," Uiona said.
"Lady Uiona," she said warmly, giving her a wink that meant I am glad you are here and I cannot say that in front of all these people.
Uiona's expression did the thing it did.
(Y/N) introduced herself to the security personnel with the warmth she brought to these occasions. She got three names. The other three gave her the formal acknowledgment without names attached, which was information about which of them she was going to need to manage and which would be straightforward.
She was shaking hands with the senior administrative aide when Irtur appeared at the edge of the terminal.
She walked to him.
"Ambassador," she said. Formally.
"Your Majesty," he said. He inclined his head in the Batonnese form.
He looked at her for one moment longer , at the travel clothes and the medical kit bag and the composed warmth she was wearing for the terminal , and then he inclined his head once more.
"Safe travels," he said.
"And you," she said.
He turned and walked toward the private hangar bay that was handling his own departure in his own ship. She watched him go before turning back to her entourage.
The senior security officer , the one who had given his name as Lieutenant Orok, the one she had already identified as the managing challenge , had moved to the luggage station. He was looking at the bags with the expression of a man who was about to do his job and was not going to be deterred from doing it.
"Standard security protocol," he said. "All luggage and personal effects are subject to inspection before boarding."
"Of course," she said pleasantly.
He moved to the first case.
She held her composure.
He moved to the second.
She held her composure.
He reached for the medical kit.
She felt the specific quality of the morning shift, the way things shifted when something was about to occur that required immediate management and the available management options were limited.
"The medical kit as well," Orok said. He was already reaching for the clasp. "Standard protocol covers all personal effects including…"
"I beg your pardon."
Tannian's voice.
He had stepped forward from beside her with the quality he brought to things he had decided to insert himself into .
Orok looked at him.
"Lieutenant Geronh," Orok said. The careful neutrality of one officer addressing another officer of adjacent rank.
"My sister," Tannian said, "is a Senator and a Queen and is traveling with a medical kit that contains personal medical provisions." He looked at Orok with the look he had developed in sixteen months of conscription, "Is there a female officer present who can conduct that specific inspection?"
Orok looked at the complement.
Six security personnel. All of them the same grey uniform, the same bearing. None of them, female.
"There is no female officer currently assigned to…"
"Then the medical kit," Tannian said, still pleasantly, "presents a logistical difficulty. Do you genuinely believe, Lieutenant, that the Senator is hiding a blaster with her medicine? Please."
Orok looked at the kit.
He looked at Tannian.
He looked at her.
She looked back with the composure of a woman who had absolutely nothing unusual in her medical kit and was waiting patiently for this administrative matter to resolve itself.
"The remaining bags have been cleared," Orok said, after a moment that had several things inside it. "You may board."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," she said warmly.
She picked up the medical kit herself.
She walked toward the boarding corridor with the specific unhurried ease of a woman making an entirely ordinary departure and she did not look at Tannian and she did not look at the kit and she did not allow herself to feel any of what she was feeling until she was through the boarding door and the corridor had closed behind her.
Uiona appeared at her left shoulder.
"Your Majesty," she said quietly, in Batonnese, in the register she used when there were ears nearby that she was accounting for. "Are you alright?"
She looked at the ship corridor ahead of her. At the end of it, the boarding ramp, and beyond that the transport that was going to take her off this planet and toward the one she had been trying to get back to for two years.
"Just get me off this planet," (Y/N) responded.
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Coruscant disappeared through the viewport in the way it always disappeared. Not gradually, not the way Batonn's horizon had receded when she left for Hosnian Prime all those years ago, the slow farewell of a planet that was genuinely round and had actual distance between its surface and its sky. Coruscant simply became smaller, and then smaller, and then the city-light of it was indistinguishable from the rest of the stars, and then it was gone.
She felt something release in her chest that she had not identified as tension until the moment it left.
The transport was not large : the security complement occupied the forward section, the administrative staff had their own cabin, Dr. Dajs had established herself in the medical bay. Uiona had found the cabin that had been designated for the Queen's household and was, she suspected, already reorganizing it according to how she knew (Y/N) cared for things.
She found Tannian in the narrow corridor outside the main cabin, leaning against the hull with his arms crossed and the expression of a man who had been waiting for her to find him.
She came into the cabin and pressed a button so the door closed behind her.
"The medical kit," he said.
"Thank you," she said. "For that."
"Orok was going to open it," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"What's in it?"
He looked at her with their father's eyes and gave her the look that conveyed that he had been patient about a question long enough and had decided the patience was complete.
"Tannian," she said.
"You have been acting strange since I arrived on Coruscant," he said. "Not Batonn-nervous strange. Something else. You weren't eating when I came to dinner last week. You went pale when Uiona mentioned the highland fish at the market. You sent V3PO out of the room three separate times for reasons that didn't require V3PO to leave the room. And you nearly had a crisis over a luggage inspection."
She looked at the hull.
She looked back at him.
"I am pregnant.”
The ship moved around them. The transport's engines had the low consistent hum of something in transit, the sound she had been hearing since she was a child on Batonnese navy vessels during the formal seasonal crossings.
Tannian was very still.
"How far along?" he said.
"Five weeks," she said. "Approximately."
"Is it…" he started, and then stopped, and then the rest of the sentence arrived with the specific quality of a question a brother asked when he was trying to understand everything at once and had selected the most direct route to the center of it: "Is it his?"
"Of course it is his," she said.
"I didn't…"
"Seriously, Tannian."
"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know what the situation was. Between you. I didn't know if it was…"
"It is his," she said. "There is no question. There has been no one else. There has not been anyone else since…It is his. Yes."
He ran his hand over his face, the gesture he had been making since he was twelve years old when something required more processing than the immediate moment allowed.
"A Thrawn heir," he said. Quietly.
"Yes," she said.
"(Y/N)..."
"I know," she said. "I know what people will say. But I needed you to know. Before we got there. So you knew the shape of what we were walking into."
He crossed the cabin and he held her.
She held him back.
"A Chiss heir," he said, into her hair. The way he said things when he was processing and the processing was not yet finished.
"Half Chiss," she said.
"Half Chiss heir to the Batonnese throne," he said.
"Yes."
"That is…" He stopped.
"I know," she said.
He pulled back and looked at her.
"Are you frightened?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. Simply.
"Of him? Of what he…"
"No," she said. "Not of him. Not in that way." She looked at the viewport, at the stars that were actually stars rather than Coruscant's administered approximation of them. "Of what it requires. Of what comes next. Of whether I can be…Of whether I am enough for all of it."
"You are the most capable person I have ever known," he said. "And I have met Grand Admiral Thrawn."
She looked at him.
The laughter came before she could stop it.
"Don't tell anyone," she said. "Not yet. Not until after the healer. Not until I have more information."
"I won't," he said.
"Not Uiona," she said.
"She already knows," he said.
"She knew before I did," he said. "She has been watching you not eat the highland fish for three weeks. She knows."
"Everyone knows.”
"Not everyone," he said. "Just the people who have been watching you carefully. Which, given your life, is a significant number of people."
She looked at the stars through the viewport.
Real stars.
"We are going home," she said. Quietly.
Tannian came to stand beside her at the viewport.
"Yes," he said.
They stood in the narrow cabin and they looked at the stars that were real, and the transport moved through them toward Batonn, and she held everything she was carrying with the careful hands she had been developing for years and she thought:
It will be enough.
She did not dream often.
When she did, the dreams were rarely kind. They were dreams of her back in the facility with no windows and only pain. She had developed, over time, the ability to surface quickly from the bad ones, the trained wakefulness that brought her up before the dream completed itself.
But in this dream, she was in the oasis, letting its breeze hit her skin. She was young and the water was cold and someone was holding her hand and she could not see who it was but she knew, with the specific certainty of dreams, that it was someone she loved.
She did not surface from this one, until someone knocked on her cabin’s door. It was a gentle knock, but loud enough to wake her.
"(Y/N)."
Tannian's voice. The one he used when he was trying not to startle her.
The cabin was dim. The transport's running lights gave the viewport a faint blue and she lay still for a moment with the dream still close, the oasis water still present in some cellular memory of cold and green and someone holding her hand.
"(Y/N)," he said again. The door opened a fraction.
"Let me sleep," she whined.
He came in.
He was already in his travel clothes, his hair combed in the regulation cut that she had still not fully reconciled with the brother she had known before the conscription, the one whose hair had fallen across his forehead in the highland way their mother had never managed to correct.
"We're here," he said.
She got up faster than she had gotten up for anything in two years.
Batonn.
She pressed her hand flat against the viewport glass and she looked at it and she could not immediately speak. It was morning on the highland side. She could see it from here. This was the morning that came up over the Varath mountains and turned them the color of pale fire before anything else was lit, the morning that her mother had woken her up to see when she was four years old and said: look. Remember this. This is yours.
She had remembered.
Batonn is beautiful, she thought. It has never not been.
Not in the way of things that were beautiful because they were arranged to be. Not the Imperial reception halls with their calibrated chandeliers, not the Coruscant upper levels with their administered elegance. Batonn was beautiful the way things were beautiful when they had not been designed for it, when the beauty was simply the consequence of existing fully as what they were. The mountains that had been mountains since before anyone had named them, the lowland plains that turned gold in the dry season and green in the wet, the Renneka river cutting through the capital in the specific blue that was not quite any other blue she had ever seen, and the highlands rising behind all of it like something that had decided where it stood and had not moved since.
She had been trying to hold this in her memory for two years.
But it was better than she remembered. It was always better than she remembered.
"Aren't you excited?" she said to Tannian. Without looking away from the viewport. "To be back."
He came to stand beside her.
"Yes," he said quietly, "Though it does not look the way it looked."
"No," she said. "It doesn't."
She knew the differences, she had been shown them on the holo.
"There is something I need to tell you before we land," He said, adjusting his expression.
She turned from the viewport to look at him.
"Res is on Batonn," he said, "I received the sector administration communication this morning. He arrived two days ago. He is, he has been assigned to the Governor's office in a coordination capacity. Restos's office. He will be at the landing reception."
She looked back at the viewport.
"(Y/N)," he said. "You need to be careful. Especially now. Especially given your…Your current state."
"I am always careful."
"You are always managing," he said. "That is not the same thing. Res reports to Restos and Restos reports upward and anything he observes goes into a file that goes to people we do not want reading it." He held her gaze. "Be careful. Not managed. Careful."
"I’ll dress before we land," She turned from the viewport and Tannian left the room. She rubbed kohl on her eyes, awaiting the sandy winds that she remembered from when she was a child.
The landing platform was in Paeragosto City, the one that had been built onto the palace's eastern face during the occupation, the Imperial addition to the Geronh structure that she had seen in the documentation and had not yet seen with her own eyes.
She saw it now.
She breathed through the seeing of it and she kept her face composed and she descended the boarding ramp with the bearing she had maintained through everything, the posture that was the Queen of Batonn's posture.
Irtur was there, he had landed first, of course.
Beside him, Lord Sahir who was older than she remembered. He was the senior of her father's remaining advisors, the man who had served the Geronh administration for thirty years and had survived the consolidation through the specific combination of political caution and genuine loyalty that the Empire had found useful to retain. His hair was fully white now. He had not been white-haired when she last saw him.
Beside him, Lord Nazeer.
Younger than Sahir, darker in coloring. He had been her father's cultural advisor. He had been the one who ensured the palace traditions were maintained through the early consolidation period, the small acts of preservation that the Empire had permitted because they did not yet understand their significance.
They were what remained.
Of all the men who had stood in her father's council chamber, these two. She had known there were losses. She had read the names. Standing in front of what remained was different from reading the names.
They knelt.
Both of them. The full Batonnese way with one knee and a hand to their chest, head inclined.
The door held shut and she looked at Sahir and Nazeer and she thought: you are still here. You stayed.
Irtur inclined his head in the Batonnese form.
She inclined hers in return.
And then she looked at the figure standing in front of them all.
Res had not knelt.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back in the Imperial naval posture, his uniform precise, his expression doing the thing that it had always done.
He looked well.
She had noted this at the wedding and she noted it again now, the type of man for whom the Empire's arrangement had produced comfort rather than cost, the unstained bearing of someone who had been on the winning side and had not forgotten it.
"Your Majesty," he said. "Lady Thrawn." A slight pause between the two titles, deliberate, the pause of a man selecting the hierarchy and placing it where he wanted it.
"Res," she said with warmth.
He stepped forward.
He took her hand in the formal greeting, the Batonnese one, and he looked at her face.
His eyes moved.
To her cheeks.
To the place where the engagement marking had been, the thin line of ceremonial ink applied by the keeper of traditions, and beside it the marriage line, the second mark, both of them fading now in the way that Batonnese ink faded , in the gods' own time, returning the skin to itself.
"Your bridal tattoo is fading early," he said. Lightly. With the pleasantness of a man making an observation about a domestic matter at a formal reception.
"Good," she said.
She held his gaze for precisely the length of time required and then she turned to Sahir and Nazeer and she greeted them in Batonnese.
He led them through the palace.
It was not the main palace, but the palace that belonged to the Tronstad family before the insurgency and now belonged to Governor Restos. He had even renamed it to Resots’ Palace as was noted on official imperial maps of the city. She wondered what else he had taken besides her mother’s tiara and the Tronstad family estate.
The entrance hall was intact. The bones of the palace were intact, the highland desert stone, the vaulted ceilings, the windows that caught the sand dunes light at the angle Clvtorig’s great-great-grandmother had specified when the palace was built.
The bones were intact.
Everything on the bones had been changed.
The Geronh banners were gone. The portraits of Clvtorig's family were gone. The furniture had been replaced with the Imperial administrative standard, the grey surfaces and the geometric correctness of people following a floor plan. The smell was wrong. She walked through it and noticed all these things.
She did not let her pace change or her left hand tremor or her face do anything that the security complement or the administrative aides or Res, walking at the front of the group with the ease of a man conducting a tour of a facility he had access to, could read as difficulty.
Tannian walked beside her. She put her hand briefly on his arm. He did not look at her so she took her hand back.
Res stopped at the corridor that led to the family wing.
"The family wing has been designated for your use during the visit. The primary suite at the end of the corridor. I took the liberty of ensuring it was prepared."
"Thank you, Res," she said.
The group dispersed. The security complement to their assigned positions, the administrative staff to the working offices, Sahir and Nazeer with the quiet dignity of men who were going to allow her to arrive before they required anything of her, Irtur moving down the corridor with the efficiency of a man who had things to do.
Tannian peeled off toward his own room with the look he gave her when he was giving her space and would be available when the space was done.
Uiona walked with her.
Res walked with her.
They reached the suite at the end of the corridor. The door was the same door — the highland wood, the Geronh crest carved into the upper panel with the Tronstad family crest carved under it, the specific handle that she had been reaching for since she was tall enough to reach it. At least they had left the door.
Res opened it for her.
She looked into the room.
He had done something to it. Which was removed anything that was remotely Batonnese.
"The arrangements meet your requirements, I hope," Res said.
"Yes," she said. "Thank you."
Uiona moved inside with the efficiency of a woman who was going to have an opinion about the arrangement and was reserving it for a private moment.
Res did not move.
(Y/N) turned to look at him.
"Sister," he said, avoiding her name.
The title in his mouth the way it had always been , too familiar, the familiarity that was not warmth but possession, the specific entitlement of someone who believed proximity conferred rights it did not confer.
She waited.
"You should know," he said quietly, with the pleasantness fully in place over whatever the sentence was going to be, "that Governor Restos's office has taken a particular interest in the success of this visit. The speech. The northern territories. All of it. And what happens here is reported. Comprehensively. To people who will determine what happens to you next. To your planet. To your…" His eyes moved, briefly, to her midsection, and she held absolutely still and gave him nothing. "To your arrangement."
She looked at him.
"Whatever you are planning," he said. "Whatever you think you are here to do beyond the approved itinerary." He smiled the smile she had known since they were children, the one that was not a smile. "Don't."
She held his gaze.
"I appreciate the concern," she said. "I always do."
She held his gaze with everything she had and she let the silence be what it was, which was the specific silence of two people who each knew exactly what the other was and neither of them was going to say it in this corridor.
"Goodnight, Res," she said.
She walked into the suite.
She closed the door.
She stood on the other side of it with her hand flat against the highland wood and the Geronh crest under her palm and the smell of the palace that was wrong and the door that was the same and Batonn outside the window where the mountains were still the mountains.
"Your Majesty," Uiona said, from somewhere inside the room. Quiet. Batonnese.
"Give me a moment," she said.
In the morning as scheduled per the itinerary , a parade was held. Not the standard military parades that had graced Paeragosto’s streets many times before. No, it was a parade, for the Queen.
Uiona rubbed kohl on her eyes and oil on her hands, the Batonnese version of sun protection. She wore a veil of indigo and a crown of gold with heavy gems that had been mined in one of the many mines that Batonn had given her people.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
I never wanted to be queen.
This crown is too heavy.
She had wanted to be the northern province commander. She had wanted to marry someone who came for the harvest seasons and brought her books she had not read, someone whose hands were warm and whose voice she knew before she was required to perform anything for it. She had wanted to watch the hawks in autumn and she wanted to play her double viol until her fingers hurt and then play it a little longer and have no one require anything of the playing.
She had wanted to be young in the ordinary way, the way that was allowed to end at its own pace.
Instead she was this.
This morning she would stand in front of a city full of people who had been waiting for her and who deserved better than what she had managed to give them and who were going to cheer for her anyway because that was what her people did — they cheered for what they loved regardless of whether the love had been earned or simply inherited along with everything else.
I am afraid I have failed you.
She thought it at the mirror. At the woman in the crown.
I am afraid that every choice I have made has been insufficient and that when I stand in front of you today you will see it, that the composure will finally crack under the weight of what it has been asked to hold, that the Queen you have been waiting for will not be equal to the Queen you needed.
She picked up the scepter Lord Sahir had brought it.
She had looked at the scepter.
She had known it all her life ,her father's scepter, the Geronh ceremonial piece, the highland silver with the Varath stone set at the handle and the line of clan markings running down the shaft, four centuries of her family's history in the specific weight of it.
She had reached for it and then she had stopped.
The tip.
The scepter had always been ornamental.
The tip had been sharpened.
Not recently, the sharpening was old, the edge worn in a way that suggested it had been done and then used and then not restored, and along the shaft near the tip there was the darkening of something that had dried and hardened and had not been cleaned. She did not need to be told what it was. She had seen enough of it in the past three years to know the color and the texture of blood that had been on metal long enough to become part of it.
Her father's scepter.
Someone had used her father's scepter. She looked at Sahir and she said nothing because there was nothing available to say.
The noise reached her before the doors opened.
She had been prepared for noise. The sound of it was different from everything she had heard in two years.
It was not the measured Imperial applause of a receiving line or the controlled social noise of a gala. It was not the Senate's procedural murmur or the administrative quiet of the meetings she had been sitting in. It was the sound of people who had been waiting and had stopped waiting.
After this she had the clan meeting, but for some reason, this was scarier.
They were calling her name.
Her name. Her actual name. Not Lady Thrawn, not Senator Geronh, not the conditional regent of the Batonn sector under Imperial administrative oversight.
Her name in the Batonnese register, the full form of it, the way it was said at the harvest ceremonies and the highland chapel dedications and the clan presentations when she was ten years old and her father had stood behind her and named every face in the crowd.
(Y/N) Varath Geronh.
She came through the doors.
The crowd rushed the barrier.
She understood, in the first second of it, the word rushed in a way she had not understood before. It was not aggressive, she could see that, could see the faces at the barrier and the hands reaching toward her and the quality of the reaching, which was not threat but the specific desperation of people who needed to confirm with their hands what their eyes were telling them. But the understanding did not make it less overwhelming. The sound and the movement and the press of the crowd against the barrier created a space that was too full of feeling for her to navigate without cost.
She smiled at the faces she could reach, she inclined her head, she placed her free hand over the hands that reached through the barrier and she felt the specific physical reality of her people.The roughness of farming hands, the calluses of the mining communities, the fine-boned grip of an old highland woman who held her fingers and did not let go for a long moment and looked at her with eyes that had been waiting and were now done waiting.
She felt the specific suffocation of being loved by people you were afraid you had failed.
In front of her, an eopie was ceremonially dressed and was ready for her to mount.
She had not ridden since before the insurgency. The animal's specific warmth beneath her, the highland breed, the ones that moved through the desert terrain with the patient certainty of animals that had been doing this for longer than anyone could remember. She lifted herself into the saddle with the muscle memory of a girl who had learned to ride before she learned to read and had not forgotten it.
“(Y/N),” Tannian said below her, “I was supposed to help you. It’s not lady like.”
She laughed and he did too.
She held the scepter across her lap and she looked at the capital and she let herself look at it.
The streets of the capital that she had run through as a child with her brothers, the ones she had traced on the maps she was not supposed to have acquired, the ones that she had looked at in the documentation from Lord Virex and Irtur and had translated from numbers into streets with the specific ache of someone who loves a place they cannot be.
She moved through it.
The crowd moved with her.
She was looking at the faces, moving through the capital on the ceremonially dressed eopie with the clan thrones assembled on the palace steps ahead of her and the crowd pressing at the barriers, and she was finding faces and receiving them and holding each one for the half second available.
She found the man three faces back on the left side of the road.
He was standing still in the moving crowd, which was itself remarkable, the specific quality of stillness in a space that was all motion. He was middle-aged, Torvek clan bone structure, the dark coloring of the lowland families mixed with the highland in the way of people whose families had moved between the clans over generations.
His face.
The burn mark began at his left jaw and ran upward toward the temple and disappeared into the hairline, old and settled in the way of burns that had long since finished doing what they were going to do and had left their record in the skin. Not recent. Two years or more.
The insurgency.
She did not know his name.
She held his gaze.
He held hers.
He did not rush the barrier. He did not call her name. He simply stood in the crowd that was moving around him and he looked at her with the eyes of a man who had survived something and was still in the process of understanding what that meant, and she looked back with the eyes of a woman who understood that the surviving was not the end of it and never had been.
She inclined her head to him.
He inclined his.
She moved on.
The palace steps.
The clan thrones were arranged in the semicircle behind the speaking position. The ironwood chairs with the clan markings, each one bearing its lord or lady. She could see their faces from here.
She was three steps from the top when a little girl appeared, holding white summer flowers in her hands.She thrust them forward.
(Y/N) stopped.
She looked at the girl. The girl looked at her with the complete seriousness of someone who had something to say and had been preparing it.
"When I grow up," the girl said, in Batonnese, "I want to be a starfighter pilot. Like you."
The crowd had quieted in the specific way that crowds quieted when something was happening that required quiet. She was aware of all of it, the clan lords behind her, the security complement, the administrative aides, the ISB officers she had not looked at but had catalogued when she dismounted , and she was aware of none of it.
She was in a docking bay on the Chimaera.
She was in a fighter jet that she did not know how to fly at the level the situation required, with a D on every simulation exam she had ever taken, with the specific recklessness of someone who had decided that dying for a thing was the only adequate substitute for knowing how to do it.
She was in the tractor beam.
She was being carried in.
She had done that. This child wanted to be her.
She looked at the girl.
"You will be a better pilot than I," she said quietly. Just for the girl. Just for the six years old and the serious expression and the highland flowers. "I promise you that it is not difficult."
(Y/N) pressed the finger to her lips once more, the secret between them, and the girl's serious expression broke into something that was entirely and completely a six-year-old's joy, the specific brightness of a child who had been given something real.
(Y/N) bowed and faced the crowd and they made a sound that was not describable. Then she raised the scepter and the sound settled and she stood in front of her people for the first time in two years and she spoke.
"Batonn has bled," she said loud enough so that her voice carried "I do not stand before you today and tell you otherwise. I do not stand before you and tell you that what was lost was not lost, or that the grief is small, or that the account of what this planet has been asked to pay is balanced. It is not balanced. I know the names of your dead. I have carried them. I will carry them until I have no more carrying left in me."
She exhaled.
"My objective as your queen," she continued, "is this, and it is only this: to keep you safe. To ensure that what happened here may never happen on this soil again. Not to any family. Not to any clan. Not to any child who is standing in this crowd today and who will grow up to be a doctor or a miner or a healer or a clan lord or something we cannot yet imagine." She looked at the mountains. "Batonn will not fall. Not while I draw breath. Not while there is a Geronh name to put to the throne and a people to stand behind it."
She looked at her people.
"I am home," she said. Simply. Without the formal register. Without the ceremony. "I am home."
Batonn will never fall.
The clan lords behind her rose.
The crowd answered.
She turned around and rushed into the building to the left, where Irtur had led her to. It was not the Geronh palace, as she was not allowed there yet. She calmed herself then revealed herself to Irtur who nodded and escorted her back to Governor Restos’ palace.
“Let us go riding soon, my Queen.”
“Yes, I would like that.”
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She heard them before she opened the door.
The council chamber’s walls carried sound the way water carried current. She had known this room since she was a child sitting outside it while her father held his sessions, pressed against the wall with her ear to the cold stone and Tannian beside her doing the same thing.
She had learned more about governance in that corridor than she had learned in any formal instruction.
What she heard now through the door was not the controlled deliberation of her father's council sessions. It was considerably louder than that. Lord Virex's voice was unmistakably loud. Lord Torvek responded to him, sharp and direct. Lord Veyruun saying something she couldn't quite catch that produced a burst of laughter from at least three people. Lord Draxil's voice cut across the laughter, he had an opinion and intended to deliver it before the room moved on.
Then something that sounded like an argument began.
Then what was definitely an argument.
She looked at the door.
Behind her, the two ISB officers that Restos's office had assigned to the session stood at their distance. They were here to observe and record.
She opened the door and the room went completely quiet when she did. Six clan lords and their advisors, the room full of the specific energy of a gathering that had been building toward something and had been interrupted mid-build, and every face in it turned to the door.
She looked at the room.
The room looked at her.
She walked in.
And she sat in the Geronh throne at the head of the chamber.
The room sat with her.
Irtur, was at her near right, looking at her with the eyes of a man who had been managing this room for the past twenty minutes and was relieved to hand it back.
"My lords," she said. "My lady."
She inclined her head to Lady Sereth.
Lady Sereth inclined hers in return.
"It is good to be here. Even if here is not entirely what it was."
"It is nice," Lord Rhyss said, with the dry precision of a man selecting each word like a stone from a riverbed, "to see you finally on the planet you rule, Your Majesty."
"My lord," she said pleasantly. "I appreciate the sentiment. I was on a rather extended holiday for fourteen months. Imperial hospitality, very exclusive, no windows , and then some time in an apartment on Coruscant. So yes. It is very nice to be back."
The room did something.
It was the noticeable ripple of people receiving something they had not expected to receive, which was their queen making a joke at her own imprisonment. Veyruun's expression shifted first, the recalibration of a man who had been prepared for composure and was encountering something more complicated. Draxil looked at Virex. Sereth's eyes moved briefly toward the door , towards the ISB officers.
Torvek made a sound that was, she was fairly certain, the involuntary beginning of a laugh that he had caught before it completed itself.
"And what of the Grand Admiral?" Draxil asked, "Not joining us today?"
"The Grand Admiral is on campaign," she said.
"Of course," Draxil said. " Very important business. Don’t bring him here ever."
"Lord Draxil," Irtur said, mildly.
"I'm simply noticing…"
"Too scared to bring your husband, Your Majesty?" Torvek said.
Then Rhyss laughed.
The laughter broke something loose in the room, not the tension exactly, something adjacent to it, the specific pressure of a gathering that had been managing itself carefully suddenly finding a point of release. Draxil laughed. One of Virex's advisors, a young man who had been doing his best to be invisible, made a sound he immediately suppressed. Even Veyruun, did something with his mouth that was possibly the shadow of a smile.
"I thought Batonn could manage a meeting without him." She said.
"Barely," Veyruun said.
More laughter.
Virex looked at her with the eyes of a man assessing something he had not expected to be assessing.
"Alright," Virex said. The word that meant he had decided the room had had what it needed and was now going to work. "We have things to discuss."
"We do," she said. "Let's begin."
She started with the itinerary.
Not the full itinerary , not the parts that were not in the approved version, not the parts that contained Irtur and Gret Virex and the water system and the seventy-five minute window. The approved itinerary, the one that had been filed with the sector administration and that the ISB officers standing near the door had already read.
"Day two," she said. "The Sereth hold."
Sereth sat forward slightly.
"I will be bringing documentation," (Y/N) continued. "The labor review submissions for the southern districts. The agricultural transit tariff appeals. The cultural heritage reclassification petitions for the four clan artifacts currently held in Coruscant administrative storage. I want your advisors present. Not for ceremony. For the working session."
"They will be there," Sereth said.
"Day three," she said. "Virex hold."
"I heard you requested the palace visit," Draxil said. "Day six."
"One hour," she said. "Approved through the cultural heritage channel."
"And the northern territories?" Rhyss asked.
The room shifted.
Not obviously , the ISB officers near the door did not move, the administrative aides did not look up from their documentation. But the quality of the air in the room changed.
"Day four," she said. "The perimeter settlements. Four hours I am going. The visit is approved. The security complement is finalized. I want reports from each clan on the current camp conditions before I arrive. I want the updated figures before day four."
Virex looked at his advisors.
"The speech," he said. "Day five. The extraction site."
"Yes," she said.
"What is in it?" Draxil asked.
She looked at the table briefly.
"What needs to be in it," she said, "to get me where I need to be."
Irtur looked up from the table for the first time in several minutes. He met her gaze for exactly one second.
She moved on.
"And the marriage," Rhyss said.
The room went to the particular quiet it went to when Rhyss spoke after a period of silence.
She looked at him.
"What about it?"
"There are people," he said carefully, "in the eastern dunes. Who have feelings about the arrangement. About what it represents. They ask me what to tell them."
"Tell them," she said, "that their queen came home."
"That is not an answer," he said.
"It is the answer I have today," she said. "The rest of it is being built. You will see the building when there is something to show you."
Veyruun looked at her with the assessment that was always present in him, the calculation of a man who had survived by reading situations accurately and had arrived at the age he had through the consistent accuracy of those readings.
"The Veil of Batonn," he said. Quietly. "That is what they call you."
"I know," she said.
"A veil must eventually be lifted," he said.
"I am working on the lifting."
The ISB officers near the door had not moved. She was aware of them in the specific constant awareness she maintained for things she could not change and needed to account for.
"Is there anything else before we move to the secondary agenda?" she asked.
"No," Virex said. With the weight of a man who had several things he was choosing not to say yet and was acknowledging the choice by not making it.
After meeting with the the doctor that specializes in chiss pregnancies, (Y/N) attends a gala where she sees an old friend. She says her goodbyes to Thrawn before leaving to Batonn.
masterlist, part 17
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Dr. Mitth'ali'astov's office was not in the Imperial medical complex. It was the first thing she noticed when the speeder stopped. It was a quieter address, the kind of building that existed in the upper-mid levels of Coruscant because the people who used it had sufficient resources to maintain their own infrastructure.
The waiting room contained two chairs and a plant that appeared to be genuinely alive. Usually on Coruscant, they were all fake.
Dr. Thalias came out to receive her herself.
Her skin was lighter than Thrawn’s and she had the red eyes that (Y/N) had been becoming more accustomed to over the past months. She wore a white medical coat over civilian clothes and carried no datapad. She looked at (Y/N) with the immediate, unmediated assessment of a woman who had been reading patients since before (Y/N) was born.
"Lady Thrawn," she said.
"Dr. Thalias," she said.
"Come in," she said simply.
The office was warmer than she expected. There were objects on the shelves that were not medical equipment. A star map of the Unknown Regions, physical, old, the kind that had been made before the Empire had decided the Unknown Regions were not worth mapping. Several texts in Cheunh, the Chiss language, their spines worn in the way of books that had been read rather than displayed.
She sat in the offered chair.
Dr. Thalias sat across from her, not behind a desk. The chairs were at the same level.
"The Grand Admiral contacted my office this morning," Dr. Thalias said. "He provided the Imperial physician's preliminary report and requested a specialist consultation. He did not tell me what to find or what to say. I want you to know that."
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
"I thought you would," Dr. Thalias said. "He said you would."
Something moved in her chest that she chose not to examine at this particular moment.
"Then tell me what you know," she said.
Dr. Thalias told her.
She spoke for forty minutes without the administrative language and without the careful management of information that the Imperial physician had used.
The Chiss gestational process, she explained, was in most respects similar to the human. The significant differences were in the early weeks. The first trimester carried specific variables that a human pregnancy did not, primarily related to the Chiss neurological development pattern, which began earlier and proceeded faster than the human equivalent. This was not dangerous in itself. What it required was monitoring that standard Imperial medical protocols were not designed to provide, because standard Imperial medical protocols had been designed for human patients and had not been updated to account for the existence of a Grand Admiral who was not one.
"Has this occurred before?" (Y/N) asked. "A Chiss/human pregnancy?"
"Yes," Dr. Thalias said. "Rarely. The documentation in the Imperial archive is minimal.”
“I saw, uhm, three sources in the archive. One was an annotation about an outcome on Csilla but the outcome was not positive.”
"The Csilla case was complicated by factors that are not present in yours," Dr. Thalias said directly. "The mother received no specialist care. The pregnancy was not identified until the second trimester. The conditions were not your conditions."
"I want you to tell me the actual risks, not the managed version. The actual version."
"The risks," she said, "in the first trimester, are elevated relative to a standard human pregnancy. Not dramatically. But elevated. The primary concern is the neurological development window , it requires rest, adequate nutrition, and the absence of significant physiological stress. The Grand Admiral mentioned a travel itinerary."
“Yes, I’ll be going home to Batonn.”
"The travel itself is not contraindicated," Dr. Thalias said. "The concern is the specific activities on the itinerary."
“I think he was most concerned about the northern territories visit.”
"An active extraction zone, environmental contaminants, physical exertion, stress load." She was quiet for a moment. "I can clear you for the travel. I cannot recommend the northern territories visit as currently structured."
(Y/N)’s hand began to tremor, she looked down at it for a moment before looking back at the Chiss woman.
She thought about Irtur and Gret Virex and the water system and the seventy-five minute window and what the northern territories visit contained that was not on the approved itinerary.
“Okay how about this, I will not enter the extraction zone itself. The visit will be to the perimeter settlements only. The environmental exposure is limited and the physical demand is minimal." She held Dr. Thalias's gaze. "I need to go. I need my people to see me there. I need to see them. I need to know what I am governing for my planet is becoming very foreign to me."
“Perimeter only. You will sit when sitting is available. You will not exert yourself. If you feel unwell at any point you leave immediately without negotiation. And you will tell me truthfully when you return."
“Yes.”
"I will provide the travel clearance with those conditions noted."
"Thank you.”
"I will also, be providing you with a dietary protocol, a rest schedule, and a monitoring checklist that you will actually follow rather than read once and set aside."
(Y/N) smiled to herself.
"I will see you when you return from Batonn. Whatever you find there, whatever your clan leader healer tells you , I want you to come to me before you act on it."
"How did you know about the healer?"
"I didn't," Dr. Thalias said. "But you are Batonnese and that is what your people do. I simply thought it was worth mentioning."
"I think," (Y/N) said, "that I will find you very useful."
"Yes," Dr. Thalias said. "I expect you will."
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She was in her office at the eleventh hour when she heard V3PO in the corridor. She heard the voice before she heard the words and she was at the door before she had decided to stand.
Tannian was in the corridor in his uniform with his travel bag over one shoulder and the expression of a man who had been keeping something and was now in the process of revealing it.
"Your leave was approved," she said.
"Yesterday," he said. "I wanted to tell you in person."
He had the dark circles of someone who had taken the earliest available transport and had not slept on it. She crossed the remaining distance and held him the way she had held him at the wedding, with both arms and the full weight of it.
He held her back.
"You're coming to Batonn," she said. Into his shoulder.
"I'm coming with you to Batonn," he said.
She pulled back and looked at him. At their father's eyes and the uniform he had not chosen.
"How long?"
"The leave authorization covers the full trip."
"Who approved it?"
"Well I know he arranged it, I had asked him to."
"The leave request was filed through the standard channels."
"Tannian."
"The approval came back in fourteen hours," he said. "Which is not standard."
"Come in," she said. "I'll have V3PO find you something to eat. You look terrible."
"You look tired," he said.
"I am tired," she said. "Come in."
She decided not to tell him of her state at this time. It was something she did not want to bring up right now or possibly ever. If she said it out loud, it would shift the shape of everything, so she held her breath and kept it to herself.
She sat across from him at the kitchen table and she watched him eat the food she had prepared. They caught up as siblings would and laughed as they planned out an entire excursion on their favorite spots from their childhood.
"Tannian," she said,"I'm glad you're coming.”
He looked at her with their father's eyes.
"I know."
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Two days before her departure (Y/N) asked V3PO to assist with the packing.
V3PO stood at the foot of the bed with the manifest datapad, reading items aloud in the efficient tone it used for administrative tasks and which she had come to find, over the months of their acquaintance, almost companionable.
V3PO was, as always, thorough.
"The blue gown, Your Majesty? For the formal visit to the Sereth hold?"
"Yes," she said.
"The cream dress?"
"Yes. Fold it separately."
"The highland day dresses, I count three—"
"All of them," she said. "I don't know what the weather is doing."
"The weather in the highland region is currently—"
"All of them, V3PO."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
"The Senate documentation portfolio," V3PO continued. "Secured. The highland correspondence and the clan reports, is in the inner compartment as requested."
"Yes," she said. "Good."
"The medical provisions." V3PO's tone adjusted by a fraction "The specialist physician's recommendations have been packaged by the medical officer. Anti-nausea compound, morning formulation. The supplemental nutrition tablets. The hydration concentrates. The Grand Admiral was specific about the supplemental nutrition tablets. He asked that I confirm they are packed first, before any other item."
She looked at the small medical kit.
"They're packed."
"Confirmed," V3PO said, with the satisfaction of a droid completing a verification.
(Y/N) moved to the wardrobe while V3PO occupied itself with the folding. She reached to the back of it, looking for something very specific. The green dress was where she had put it, behind the two others, the deep green of the Geronh family's secondary color. She lifted it carefully, feeling through the outer layer to the inner, her fingers finding the hidden recess on the left side where the fabric folded over itself in the way she had fashioned it to fold.
The weight was there.
She pressed her palm flat against the recess for a moment, confirming the shape of it through the fabric, the specific weight and length of it, and then she let the dress hang from her hand and looked at it in the wardrobe light and thought about what she was carrying and where she was going and what she was going to do when she got there.
She needed to get the lightsaber off Coruscant without the luggage being searched.
She had a plan for this. The plan was the pocket of the medical kit, underneath the anti-nausea compound and the supplemental nutrition tablets, which were the first thing V3PO had been instructed to confirm were packed and which therefore would not be disturbed again before departure. She had checked the dimensions twice. The hilt would fit.
She was going to move it now. She began to ease the hilt out of the recess.
"Your Majesty," V3PO said behind her, "I wonder if the green dress might be better wrapped separately given the weight of the fabric…"
"I'll manage this one," she said.
"Of course. Now the…"
"V3PO."
"Yes?"
"Could you check whether the travel documents have arrived from the sector administration? They were expected at the nineteenth hour."
"Certainly, Your Majesty." V3PO moved toward the office with the self-important efficiency of a droid given a task it considered meaningful.
She exhaled and removed her hands from the dress and she straightened and she turned.
Thrawn was in the doorway and she did not know how long he had been there.
She did not know whether he had seen her hands in the dress or whether he had arrived in the doorway after she had straightened and turned and there was no way to determine this from his face because his face was doing nothing except looking at her with complete attention with his hands behind his back.
"I didn't see you there," she said with words arrived with the warmth she produced automatically for moments that required warmth
"I came to check on the packing," he said.
"It's nearly done.”
He looked at the wardrobe.
She looked at him looking at the wardrobe.
"Your green dress," he said.
"I thought it should stay. I would prefer to travel light.”
She did not know what he had seen and she did not know what he was thinking and she breathed with the counting and the precision and she held herself with everything she had and she thought: if he asks me to open it I will have to think of something quickly.
"Yes," he said. "That is a reasonable choice."
"Your Majesty, I have the-”
“V3PO,” Thrawn interrupted "The correspondence portfolio. Take it to the office for cross referencing with the approved communication list before it's packed. Bring it back when it's cleared."
"Of course, Grand Admiral." V3PO moved toward the door with the efficiency of a droid executing an instruction, the manifest tucked under its arm.
The bedroom door closed and Thrawn stepped in.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
"I'm nervous ," she said. Which was true. Which was true in several directions simultaneously and was therefore the honest answer even if it was not the complete one.
"About Batonn," he said.
"Yes," she said.
He came further into the room. He stood at the foot of the bed and he looked at the organized luggage with the attention he gave to things he was genuinely assessing rather than performing the assessment of.
"The northern territories visit is cleared," he said. "Dr. Thalias reviewed the itinerary this morning. She has no contraindication for the visit at this stage provided the duration is observed and you are not required to…"
"I know," she said. "She told me."
"Then you know the conditions," he said.
"I know the conditions," she said.
There was silence between them. The type of silence that made it so time went by very slowly and unwillingly.
"Thrawn," (Y/N) finally spoke.
"Yes."
She looked at him.
"How long were you standing in the doorway?”
He held her gaze.
"Long enough to see that you checked the wardrobe twice," he said.
"I was looking for the ceremonial pins. For the highland arrangement. Uiona uses them for the formal braid and I wanted to confirm they were packed."
"Had she?”
"Yes.”
He looked at her and pressed his lips as he had always done when he watched her.
She was lying to him and he was reading her and she was holding the lie with everything she had because there were five days remaining and Clvtorig was in a cell on Nar Shaddaa and the plan was already in motion and she could not afford the truth of this specific thing right now.
She held the lie anyway.
"The pins are packed," she said. "Everything is nearly done."
He held her gaze for another moment.
"Come and sit," he said.
He had moved to the chair by the window , not his chair, the one she used when she was reading, the one positioned to see the door. He had not sat in it. He was gesturing to it.
She went to it.
She sat.
He remained standing, which was not the configuration she had expected, and he looked at the Coruscant morning outside the window for a moment before he looked at her.
"You have been managing something," he said. "For several weeks. Not only the pregnancy. Something else."
“I’ve been managing Batonn,” she said.
Thrawn did not move from where he stood, the light from Coruscant cutting across him in sharp, geometric lines that made everything about him look more deliberate than it already was.
“Yes,” he said. “You have. That is not what I meant.”
She held herself very still, sitting on her hand before it decided to move without her consent.
"You have been…" He paused. The selecting. "There is a quality you have when you are carrying information you have decided not to share. I have been observing it for the past month." He looked at her with complete attention. "I am not asking you to tell me what it is. I am telling you that I have observed it and that I want you to know I have observed it."
"Why?”
"Because," he said, "you are going to Batonn in five days. And whatever you are carrying, you will carry it with you. And I would prefer you to know that the option of telling me exists. If the weight becomes something you cannot manage alone."
"I know," she said. "That the option exists."
He held her gaze.
"Good," he said.
“But I believe you are reading into things, dear husband,” she stood up and kissed him on the cheek quickly, “I have been feeling blue since I’ve found out about … our blessing.”
He received the kiss with the stillness he received most things. She moved away from him toward the bed and the organized luggage and the ordinary business of the packing.
He did not move.
She could feel him not moving.
"Feeling blue?”
"It's a Batonnese expression," she said. She lifted the garment case and checked the fastenings with the attention of a person who was very interested in garment case fastenings. "When something significant happens and you don't yet know how to hold it. The weight of it before you've found the right position for carrying it. My aunt used it. When my cousin was born she said she felt blue for three weeks before she felt anything else."
"And what did she feel after the three weeks?"
"She said she felt like herself again," she said. "Only with more to protect."
"The blue," he said. "Is it only that?"
"Mostly," It was not a full lie but it was also not a full truth.
"Mostly," he repeated. Not as a challenge. The way he repeated things when he was trying to understand them.
“Yes,” She kept her attention on the garment case, aligning the edges with unnecessary precision.
Silence stretched before he said, “That is acceptable, for now.”
Thrawn stepped closer, not enough to crowd her, only enough to shift the balance of the room.
“And Batonn,” he said, “is an environment that tends to reveal things.”
“I do not doubt that.”
She was now sitting on the bed, running her left hand through her sheets in order to give it something to do.
“I would advise,” Thrawn went on, as if the conversation had shifted to something purely logistical, “that whatever you are carrying, emotionally or otherwise, you account for its impact on your decision-making once you arrive.”
“I always do.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do.”
He held her gaze one more time.
"A specialist will be at the departure gate," he said. "She will travel with the complement for the duration of the trip."
"I know," she said. "You told me."
"I am telling you again," he said. "Because the first time I told you, you were in the Senate clothes holding the document folder and your hands were shaking and I am not certain you retained it fully."
She looked at her hands.
They were not shaking now.
"I retained it," she said.
"Good," he said.
He moved toward the door.
He stopped.
"When you come back," he said. "From Batonn."
She waited.
"I want to hear about it," he said. "What it is actually like. What it looks like when you are standing in it."
"Alright," she said quietly. "When I come back."
He left.
She waited until his footsteps faded down the corridor.
She went to the wardrobe.
She moved the lightsaber into the medical kit.
She packed the kit.
She closed the luggage.
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The night before the deployment, right after the Chimaera passed her final inspection, a gala was held for the officers and their wives to socialize and say their last goodbye’s in the formal space.The venue was the Imperial Navy's formal reception hall on the command level, the kind of building that had been designed specifically for occasions like this one. It was the last collective gathering before the fleet moved and the people in it became operational rather than social, before the grey uniforms stopped meaning rank and started meaning something more immediate.
It was louder than most Imperial functions. It wasn’t inappropriate but controlled. The controlledness of men and women who were leaving in the morning and knew it and were carrying the knowledge in different ways. Some of them with forced relaxation. Some with the quiet of people who had already begun the transition in their minds.
She wore the deep Batonnese red.
The Geronh red, the formal color, the one that said what she was without requiring a caption. She had discussed it with Uiona for approximately thirty seconds before Uiona had said obviously and begun with the pins. It framed her body with feathers pressed against the bodice making her look like a red swan. A swan, the symbol of the Batonnese people.
She stood beside Thrawn in the Grand Admiral's white.
The officers came to them rather than the other way around, the gravity of Thrawn's rank pulling people into orbit rather than requiring them to be sought. She had learned to work within this configuration, she had seen her father handle it when he was still king of Batonn. It had certain advantages, the primary one being that she did not have to move through the room to gather information because the room came to her.
She was speaking to a senator's aide about the Batonn sector development report when she saw Yularen making his way across the hall.
She had met Wullf Yularen twice, once at the wedding receiving line and once at a Senate function where he had been precise and less courteous, a version of him that appeared in working contexts, which she had found considerably more interesting.
He arrived at Thrawn's left shoulder with the bearing of a man who had been walking in the direction of important meetings for so long that all motion had taken on that quality.
"Grand Admiral," he said.
"Colonel Yularen," Thrawn said.
Yularen turned to her.
"Lady Thrawn," he said. Something in his expression shifted with the specific adjustment of a man who had decided to be a person rather than an officer for the duration of a sentence. "I imagine this is not an entirely comfortable evening."
"I am quite used to uncomfortable evenings, Colonel," she said warmly. "I find I have developed a taste for them."
"I don't doubt it." He looked at Thrawn with the ease of two men who had been in enough operational contexts together that the social version of each other required less management. "You needn't worry about him, my Lady. I'll see to it that he stays out of trouble."
"I was not aware," Thrawn said, "that trouble avoidance was a concern."
Human humor went over him sometimes.
"It is not a concern for you," Yularen said. "It is occasionally a concern for the people around you. The Lothal campaign is a different kind of problem from Batonn. The rebel cells there have been more adaptive than the sector reports have accounted for. We'll need to hit them before they have time to…" He stopped. He glanced at her. The professional reflex, the ISB officer's instinct, the assessment of what was appropriate to say in front of whom.
She received the glance with pleasant composure and gave him nothing.
"Before they have time to consolidate their position in the Mykapo corridor," he said, with the slight adjustment of a man who had decided she was acceptable to continue in front of. "The supply chain they're running through there, we identified a secondary route last week. The primary route we already have mapped but the secondary…"
She filed Mykapo corridor, secondary supply route, identified last week in the column where she kept things she had not been told and had received anyway through the particular advantage of being the person standing next to Thrawn at official functions.
Thrawn looked at her and she met his gaze with the pleasant warmth of a woman following a conversation she was not particularly tracking. He held it for a fraction of a second longer than the conversation required.
She smiled.
He looked back at Yularen.
"The secondary route," Thrawn said, "will be addressed in the first briefing."
"Yes," Yularen said. "I wanted to flag it tonight so you had time to consider it before the briefing. At any rate." The adjustment again, back from operational to social, the shift she could see in real time. "Lady Thrawn. I heard you'll be returning to Batonn while the Grand Admiral is on campaign."
"Yes," she said. "For a few weeks."
"Your first visit since the consolidation?"
"Yes.”
Yularen held her gaze for a moment. He had the eyes of a man who had spent decades in intelligence work, which meant they were the kind of eyes that noticed what other eyes missed and had developed.
"I hope it is what you need it to be," he said.
She had not expected that. She had expected the diplomatic version, the political version, something that operated in the register of official courtesy. She had not expected the direct version, the one that acknowledged what the visit actually was rather than what it was described as in the sector administration filing.
"Thank you, Colonel," she said. "I expect it will be."
He inclined his head. He looked at Thrawn one final time with the look of two men communicating something through the specific economy of people who did not require words for it.
"Until morning, Grand Admiral," he said.
"Until morning," Thrawn said.
Yularen moved off into the hall.
"You told him I was acceptable?" she asked her husband.
"I told him," Thrawn said, "that you were the Queen of Batonn and the Senator of the Batonn sector and that you had a significant interest in regional stability. He drew his own conclusions."
She looked at the room.
"Thank you," she said. Quietly.
He said nothing. Which was its own kind of answer.
The chocolate cake was on the far table. The last time she had eaten chocolate cake was in the chow hall on Hosnian Prime, at a table with her roommate, the night before everything changed. Some other officer approached them but she excused herself before she could get dragged into another conversation.
She crossed the hall and stood at the table and picked up a plate.
She was still looking at the sweet when the voice arrived at her left shoulder.
"I thought that sort of symbolism was banned among you Batonnese."
The voice was of course referencing her gown which had red feathers pressed to her bodice and fitted at the shoulder with the overlapping layers of the skirt falling in the specific configuration that the Coruscant dressmaker had described as architectural and which she had thought, when she put it on, resembled nothing so much as the red swans that nested in the oases at night. Almost like a nightswan, who only sang at night. She had worn it deliberately and with the full awareness of what it said, because the Batonnese did not respect bans of their symbols.
She turned and placed her plate down.
She looked at him for a full second before she said anything because she needed the second, needed it to absorb the fact of him. The uniform, the insignia that was no longer an ensign's, the face that was exactly as she remembered it and was doing what faces did when they were trying to perform casually and the performance was failing.
Davio Langro.
"Then perhaps," she said, with the warmth she could always produce and the steadiness she was applying to it now, "we should switch clothes."
He looked at her. He had gone slightly pale.
"What are you doing here," he said. His voice was low. Not the provocation anymore. "Arlinya?"
She looked at the corridor to the left of the table and told him to follow her until they reached the faint residue of the evening's food.
She turned when they were far enough in.
"You're her," he said. "You're actually …the Queen of Batonn."
"Yes," she said.
"Lady Thrawn," he said. The title arriving with the clarifying quality he had mentioned, she could see it , seeing her in the red dress beside the Grand Admiral's white and something slotting into place that the breakup had left unresolved. "You're …Arlinya was…"
"An alias," she said. "Yes."
"For how long?" he asked. "How long were you…"
"From the beginning," she said. "From the first gala."
He looked at the corridor wall.
He breathed once with the quality of a man absorbing something that was not what he had expected his evening to contain.
"The information," he said. "The things I told you. About the Chimaera, the deployment…"
"Yes.”
"You used me," he said. Not with anger.
“No, Davio I did not. I promise you I did not. I am sorry… Davio. I am …I want you to hear that. You were kind to me and you were honest with me and I was neither of those things and I have thought about that. I have thought about it more than you would expect.”
"You broke up with me three days before…" He looked at her. "Before the wedding announcement."
"Yes."
"You knew when you ended it."
“I didn’t want to end it like that.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I didn’t have time,” she said. “Because I was told, and then it was decided, and then it was happening. And everything between those moments… Everything between those moments didn’t belong to me anymore.”
"You were protecting me?" he said. It arrived not as an accusation but as a clarification, as though he were trying to understand her.
"I had no choice," she said. "About the marriage. About any of it. And you had done nothing wrong and I did not want you to be…I did not want you to be caught in something you had no part in creating. That is all I could give you. The ending before it became something worse. It was real, Davio."
“I kept waiting after you ended it. I thought maybe… I don’t know. Maybe you’d come back. Or explain. Or that I’d run into you again somewhere that wasn’t…” He gestured again, helpless. “This.”
Her throat tightened and she said nothing.
He looked at her for a long moment. He was twentythree. She had forgotten that, or had set it aside in the category of things that were not useful to dwell on. She had never forgotten his eyes, the way he treated her and the flowers he would bring her. She smelt them now, masking the food she could smell in the hall next to them.
"Are you…" He stopped. He started again. "Are you alright? With him."
"Yes," she said.
"You're certain."
"Yes," she said. "I am certain. I am alright."
He nodded once. The nod of a man filing something and accepting the filing.
"The Chimaera," he said. "I ship out tomorrow."
"I know," she said.
"He's my commanding officer," he said.
"I know," she said.
He looked at her with something that was almost laughter and was not quite. "That is extremely strange."
She smiled, “Everything in the empire is strange.”
“Yes, it is.” They stood in silence for some time, allowing each other to take in the moment.
"Arlinya," he said, and then stopped, and then said: "I don't know what to call you."
"(Y/N)," she said. "If you need to call me anything."
He received it.
"(Y/N) ," he said, testing it. "For whatever it is worth. The Saturdays. I don't , I'm not going to pretend they were nothing. They weren't nothing to me."
"They weren't nothing to me either."
He nodded.
"You should go back," he said. "Before someone notices."
She looked at him for one moment longer.
She walked back toward the light and the noise and the controlled warmth of the gala, leaving him in the corridor that smelled faintly of food and something else she couldn’t name.
She didn’t sleep that night. Guilt stabbed into her heart from every side, sharp and bleeding, until even the quiet felt calming. Every time she closed her eyes, it came back, so she didn’t sleep, ignoring Dr.Thalias’ medical advice. She wanted to get up, do something , anything. If she lived alone, she would have gone on a run. By the time the first gray hint of morning slipped through the window, she hadn’t slept at all. And somehow, the light made it worse.
Thrawn’s things were gone from the surfaces, not all of them, he would be returning, but the datapads and the specific personal objects that accompanied him on deployment had been moved.
She was in her travel clothes , the Batonnese day dress, the practical one. Her bag was in the corridor. The medical kit was in the bag.
He was in the full Grand Admiral's white. He was checking the time when she came into the entrance corridor.
He looked up.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
"The transport leaves at the eighth hour," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Mine leaves at the ninth."
"Yes."
She held her outer wrap in her hands.
They stood in the entrance corridor of the apartment that would be empty of both of them within the hour.
He stepped forward.
He straightened the outer wrap in her hands with the precise care of a man who had noticed it was slightly misaligned and had decided to correct it, his fingers brief and certain against the fabric, and when he was done he looked at her.
She reached up and kissed him.
Not the brief corridor version. The other kind, the one that had a decision in it, the full commitment she brought to things she had decided, and his hand came to her face with the specific certainty she had catalogued and was still adding to.
She stepped back.
She looked at him.
"The itinerary," he said. His voice was even. It was doing the thing it did when he was applying the evenness with some effort.
"I know the itinerary," she said.
"Dr. Thalias recommended a specialist. She will be at the departure point," he said. "She will travel with your complement for the duration. Whatever she advises…"
"I follow her guidance," she said. "Not my own assessment of what I can manage."
"Yes," he said.
"You have told me this three times," she said.
"I am aware."
"Thrawn."
"Yes."
"I will be careful," she said. "I will take care of myself. And what I am carrying." She held his gaze. "I promise you."
He looked at her with the third expression.
"And you will tell me," he said. "When you return. What you find there."
"I told you I would," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I wanted to hear it again."
"Come back," she said. Quietly.
He held her gaze.
"Yes," he said. The same word she had used the night before, returned with the same quality, precise and without elaboration and entirely sufficient.
He picked up the deployment case.
He moved toward the door.
He stopped in the doorway.
She waited.
"The Mykapo corridor," he said. Without turning. "The secondary route. I want your assessment when I return."
She stared at his back.
He went.
The door closed.
She stood in the entrance corridor in her travel clothes and she breathed with the counting and the precision and she thought about all of it and she thought about nothing and she stood in the specific quiet of an apartment that had just changed configuration for the second time in twelve hours.
Then V3PO appeared from the sitting room.
"Your Majesty," it said, "the transport to the departure terminal will arrive in twenty-two minutes."
"Yes," she said. "Thank you, V3PO. Make sure Jankie gets love while I'm gone."
