#ziara

More Ar'alani content because she's criminally underrated

Ar'alani 💙

He's absolutely brilliant with tactics, strategy, and combat.

He's capable of missing everything else around him unless it's art.

Ziara has known this about Thrawn for most of his time at Taharim. In fact, a number of cadets and even some of the faculty call Mitth'raw'nuruodo her first command. She's been hammering him through upper division coursework because it's a very very bad no good never let it happen idea to let Thrawn get bored. It's like having a pusheen who has learned to open things and subverted it's feeding program like her late and beloved Mu'cher.

Hm. Having an overintelligent pusheen might be the best possible preparation for dealing with Thrawn. There's a thesis for you.

Of course, having him as her junior survival course partner is going to kick the firesting nest, but there are multiple reasons for doing so. One is that it keeps her friend in line of sight, therefore unlikely to dig himself a grave. Secondly, it keeps him out of sight from those who would push him into said grave and shovel for dear life. Thirdly, Thrawn misses a lot of things and he's missing a very important one and Ziara needs to correct this. Right now, he's intent on dinner, a new holochip of Late Middle Regency nightstone sculpture, and giving her half an ear about their upcoming two-week survival test.

"-and then I will take a chair and beat you to death with it."

"Sounds good."

"You didn't listen to a word I said, Thrawn."

He marks his place and then repeats every word she's said while Ziara restrains herself from pointless violence.

"Fine. You were listening. We ought to rest early since we don't know where they're going to drop us."

The mess is almost empty and Thrawn takes their trays to dump in the recycler before they walk back to their barracks. The rules of the survival test say only that they won't be dropped into hard vacuum or a toxic atmosphere without appropriate, tested, and functional equipment. Likewise, they will be warned about extremes of temperature since Chiss have diverged far enough from their human origin that they have lost their pores and hair aside from their heads, eyebrows, and eyelashes - they can't sweat. The testing grounds will be challenging, but unless one is stupid, they are not deadly.

Sometime in the night, they're drugged and wake up in a lifepod plummeting into atmosphere. Strapped into crash couches, all Ziara can do is watch the fire of entry and hope the heat shields held, Thrawn has the yoke in hand and visibly wrestles them into a controlled descent. There's just enough fuel in the tanks to scoot them out of trouble's way. The landing is rough, and the tanks are on fumes by the time the sun sets. They activate the beacon once firmly on the ground, then stagger to the sanitary unit before falling into bed to sleep off the tranks.

Morning is unpleasant. The hangover leaves Ziara feeling slow and stupid and Thrawn actively sick - a bucket between his knees and nothing staying down. Both of them are certified to operate the small med unit, she Thrawn gets fluids and medication while Ziara curls up and tries to sleep her way through it. Rations go down and stay down, and for some reason Thrawn has spiceleaf tea.

And eight layers of clothing.

A pair of multitools.

Knives.

He strips out of layer after layer until he's in his underwear and socks, looking pleased with himself and the haul of items on the floor of the pod.

"Oh, my life. Thrawn. How-?!"

"I knew that they'd come for us sometime this week, keeping us in the middle of the cohort for testing. So I slept with everything on my body as they are not allowed a body search."

(if you've already done this, feel free to ignore, unless you wanna do it again 😉)

That I'VE made? 🤔 I kind of forget about things I make, so it is kinda tough. I am reminded that I have doodled something when someone likes one of my older drawings. Or I get a random kudos or review on a story I wrote. I really do forget!

Drawings

Thrawn and Ezra Adventures, um, "featuring" Morai (It's just called Friday Doodle) It is one of my first Thrawn doodles on tumblr.

Baby Thrawn and Ar'alani It's basically the plot of the Ascendancy trilogy summarized in baby form.

Baby Tech Gets His Glasses It's not the very first Baby Batch, but the 2nd when I started to hone in on Baby Tech's hair tuft. I am considering doing a redraw of this lil story. Whattaya think?

Writing - Writing is very different for me than my doodles. I draw for myself, but I do write for others. So it's tougher to say what I'm proud of.

A Short Tech and Echo Adventure: Competition I love crafting a short little story, in this case a oneshot, and tying it up neatly or coming full circle. This one is a bit more of a short observation of their downtime and self indulgent display of my head cannons, but it worked out so well.