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Hera and Jacen had spent most of the afternoon in the lake outside, with Chopper on the shore, occasionally beeping grumpily when he'd decided they'd ventured too far out. But Jacen had never been in the water before, and they hadn't had time to find a spring or river before leaving Ryloth. The shore had made things easier, so that Jacen could move slowly into the water, rather than diving in as Hera had as a child. And that was probably for the best – Jacen could be extremely curious, but was also shy, and far more cautious than Hera had maybe ever been.

So after they've changed and dried off their lekku, they walk back into the Bar, following Chopper to a table. Hera had promised hot, bitter tea after their time in the water, and Chopper, eager to do something he can participate in again, retrieves two model X-wings from the Bar, and brings them over. For the moment, Hera falls silent, sipping at her tea, and watching as Chopper and Jacen swing the X-wings through the air, making wooshing and blaster noises.

She doesn't smile as she watches, but follows their movements with her eyes.

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They didn't even call themselves a Rebellion anymore. Now it was the New Republic.

But Hera only answers, "Thank you for making me aware, Thrawn."

His smile is chilly, and small.

They will always be a Rebellion to Thrawn.

"You have plans, I take it, for what happens next."

"Is there a reason this matters to you?" she asks, rather than answer.

"At this point?"

He raises one cool black eyebrow.

"A civilization must always know its neighbors, particularly just after a time of great upset."

It brings so many things creeping out of the woodwork. And, of course, it provides so many other opportunities.

"Is that who you are now?"

Her tone is a little less obstinate, a little more curious, than it was before. But she's not even sure how to ask this.

"A part of - your civilization?"

"It is who I have always been."

This is the simple truth.

It is, perhaps, Thrawn's only truly simple truth.

"And an Imperial."

That makes a difference, here.

Thrawn's eyebrow arches higher.

"Was that ever in any doubt?"

"One of those isn't my neighbor," she answers.

"Perhaps that was more like a housemate."

He does not smile.

"But the Chiss Ascendancy . . . I believe they will be interested in what comes after the Empire's fall."

"Then I guess they'll have to find out with the rest of us."

She also doesn't smile.

"I believe the term is 'waiting with bated breath'. In Basic, at least."

And only now does he clasp his hands behind his back.

Hera lets out a breath, shaking her head again.

"The Empire isn't gone yet, Thrawn."

"Perhaps not quite yet," Thrawn allows.

"But the relative strength of your positions has certainly undergone a very fundamental shift in the past few years. I would, for example, not advise the Chiss to consider allying with the Empire now."

Edited 2018-05-20 02:13 (UTC)

"Maybe, but it's still managed to do plenty of damage."

She finally takes another sip of her tea. "Or don't you know what it tried to do to Naboo? What it did do to Vardos?"

"Ah, yes. That."

His expression, too, is mild. Or rather, mildly disgusted.

"The Emperor, it seems, was less sane than might have been hoped."

"Do you think so, Thrawn?"

"His initial coup was masterful, you must admit. I wonder if the seeds of madness had been planted even then."

It's an interesting intellectual exercise, to be sure, but useless in actual reality.

"I really don't have to admit anything."

She doesn't feel much reason to marvel at the feats of tyrants and oppressors. With a glance away again, "And whatever he was, I don't think madness was the issue."

"No? Weather satellites designed to burn his Empire down behind him, and that is the mark of a man of rationality?"

Hmm.

"Or perhaps it was overweening ego that led him to that particular fix."

"A battle station built to destroy a planet?"

It's not as though any of this is new.

"His entire Empire was rotten, and he was the center of it. When did he show any care for this galaxy, beyond controlling it? And if he's dead, why wouldn't he want to bring it down after him?"

Now Thrawn does smile, a quick, razor-sharp expression.

"Most who chase after immortality seek to live in some way, if only in legend. There can be no legend when the galaxy itself has fallen into complete chaos. But what you say makes a sort of sense. Perhaps I misestimated the slant of his ambition."

Perhaps, he says. It seems, at this moment, to be a very definite sort of truth.

Dully, "You've had long enough to reconsider."

"Several years out there in the blackness of space, yes. The purrgil do not often seek refuge anywhere that is habitable to more land-bound species."

It was an interesting voyage, to be sure. But often very unpleasant, and particularly dangerous near the end.

"And in that time, you weren't furthering the goals of the Empire."

So she doesn't feel much regret about what happened to him.