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There's a new painting on the right wall. Hera is waiting in the office, seated in the chair she always sits in, hands folded in her lap. Very still – her fingers don't fidget, her feet don't swing. She's finally grown enough that her toes comfortably touch the floor. Only her eyes flicker, down to her hands, and then up again, to the right wall, to the new piece of art that hadn't been there before.

To her eyes, it's a strange collection of rectangular shapes, among which she can barely make out what looks like a head, a neck, shoulders. Maybe arms. She counts the colors, white, blue, black, beige, lighter blue, darker blue. She perceives something that reminds her of light, light through a window, so that it makes bright squares on the floor that mingle with the shadow around it. She knows that it's Terran art. The head and neck and shoulders don't have to belong to a Terran, and yet, she knows. It's the kind of art he would have. And there was art like this, in the house, before –

She stops her thoughts at that, goes back to counting colors. Gray, like steel. Orange, a light orange, like rust.

He wouldn't make her wait if he didn't have to. She knows that. She feels no impatience, not even any curiosity as to why he called her in. There's always a reason. And with nothing else to occupy her, she sets her focus on memorizing this painting, just as she has memorized every other object and corner and space of this office.

Pale yellow. Dark green. Maybe, around those shoulders, the back of a chair.

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"Hera," Thrawn says, bare moments after the door to his quarters opens, though he hasn't yet moved toward the office enough to actually see her.

Perhaps he simply trusts that she's there.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

When she hears the door open, Hera blinks away from the painting. She tilts forward, slipping off the chair, flattening the soles of her boots to the floor, and steps out from the chair, hands still folded in front of her.

She doesn't speak, but nods in response.

Edited 2018-07-24 07:07 (UTC)

"Would you care for some tea? I brought biscuits and some soup from the mess. I thought eating while we discussed your lessons might make the time pass less arduously."

For Hera, at least. For all that she has great discipline, she is still a child.

Hera does still feel a roil of excitement at being permitted food she actually enjoys the taste of, given that it happens often enough now. She has managed to outwardly calm that response since her first experience with it.

But she's still very prompt in answering, "Yes, sir."

"All right. Let me just set this down, and then I'll boil the water."

He suits word to deed, lowering the tray of food down onto a small side table, then pulling two chairs up to it, leaving one pulled out just so for Hera.

"I'll return in a moment. Please, help yourself."

Hera walks over to the table, keeping her hands folded until she reaches the chair he'd pulled out for her.

And she does help herself, though she practices a few of the lessons she's learned. That she'll like the food more if she takes her time, that it really is not going anywhere. And that when sharing a meal, it feels better to eat a similar pace, rather than finishing your own food before the other person has even started. But 'sharing a meal' was also something she'd never done, before.

So she reaches for one biscuit, and breaks it carefully over a place, slowly consuming it in small pieces as she waits for Thrawn to return.

Thrawn's return is reasonably swift, and he stops to pour the tea without bothering to offer sugar to Hera, as she never seems to take it. Then he settles across from her, taking his own biscuit and neatly splitting it in half.

"Would you care for some of the soup? And then, of course, I would like to ask about your progress in the lessons that I am not responsible for teaching you."

Basic self-defense, for one. For another, the working of shuttlecraft.

She nods, though she waits until he's seated to reach for the soup, and still makes no hurry of it.

Hera waits to speak until after she's finished the first biscuit, and taken a few sips respectively of the soup and tea.

"Eshon finished teaching me the controls and maintenance of a roundabout. Next time I'll take a test run."

Thrawn raises his eyebrows.

"Will you be taking it out of the bay yourself, do you know? Or shall you be the copilot until you're in clear space?"

He uses this pause in his own speech to eat a little of the soup. Bitter is not his favorite flavor, if Thrawn allowed himself to have favorite flavors, but it will do.

Edited 2018-07-25 02:05 (UTC)

"The first time I'll be the copilot," she answers.

"He wants me to watch him first."

"Watch him and feel the ship, I should hope," Thrawn murmurs.

He has little doubt she would do so even without this reminder, but still.

"Yes, sir," she says, again promptly.

There's more she could say about that, about she feels in the shuttles, with the controls under her hands, about the time she spends with the flight simulator Eshon lends her -

But this is about the progress in all of her studies. It's better not to get distracted.

So she moves on, her eyes turning down to her soup. "Vumija started teaching me about phaser rifles."

Thrawn would not mind if she got distracted, but it is a good sign that she chooses not to be.

"I would have thought she would press harder on your throwing technique, but there is something to be said for distance weapons. Have you disassembled one yet?"

Hera nods.

"She taught me that first, to take it apart and put it back together, before I could learn to fire it."

"Did she time you?"

He suspects the answer is yes, but whether she has started to encourage Hera to compete against herself . . . that may be an open question for at least another week.

"Yes, sir."

Hera takes another sip of her tea, and then, "She says later I'll have to do it blindfolded."

"Mastering that does tend to improve your sighted performance. It will be interesting for you to see precisely how much, when you reach that point."

He smiles, thin lips barely curving up at one corner.

"And mathematics is giving you no trouble? Flight calculations can be difficult, on the fly."

"I like flight calculations."

Though she does pause, still looking down at her soup, her spoon dipped in though she doesn't yet lift it. Another child might not so readily admit when their teacher has offered criticism, but -

"T'lul says I sometimes get distracted, because I try to do applied calculations before I learn the um - 'underlying theory.'"

She says the last two words in English, as she's not entirely sure she can express the Vulcan's term in Sy Bisti.

Edited 2018-07-25 13:04 (UTC)

"There's something to be said for practical applications, but T'lul is right. Understanding the underlying theory is what makes it easier to problem-solve in stressful situations."

Thrawn, too, uses the English term for now, just to make his statement absolutely clear.

Hera nods, dutifully. Any protest or reluctance is kept to herself.

"Datiu finished chemical sensitivities in Terrans compared to other species. Now Ijin is going to teach me about plasma conduits."

"Good lessons, all. Though I did wonder if, given your lessons have been going so well, you might be interested in playing a game?"

He steeples his fingers, regarding her over the tops of them.

She blinks up from the meal, her eyes just a little wide with surprise.

But she answers, "Okay."

"It is called chess, I do not know if you're already familiar with it. It's a Terran game, unfortunately, but it is very . . . useful to know, when it comes to understanding their martial point of view."

His voice is very dry on that last.

"There are other useful tools, and we will get to them with time. But this is a good one to begin with, because the rules are deceptively straightforward."

Hera shakes her head, as she hasn't heard that name before.

But she also listens intently to his explanation, and when he's finished replies, "I understand."

His smile is less thin, this time.

"We shall see. But let us finish eating, first. There is no sense in getting food on the game board."

Or the pieces.