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Hera enters the Bar, holding a slender metal box between her hands. She blinks around, her grip on the box growing a little tighter, maybe deciding whether or not she wants to stay this time.

In the end, she does, moving through the room until she takes a seat at a table near the Bar. She sets the box down and aside, and then orders red leaf tea from a waitrat. It's served cold, and very bitter, and she sips at it while watching the room, and maybe purposefully not glancing down to the box.

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"A very lovely non-answer."

He smiles faintly, but it passes quickly.

"I have turned in the star charts for the Unknown Regions, and am in the midst of detailing the customs of various planets and peoples. In case you were wondering."

"I appreciate it."

It's the first thing that comes to mind, but the moment she says it, she has the thought that it sounds like something he would say. Her eyes flicker down, and she shifts very slightly as she reaches for her tea again.

He huffs out a breath that is close cousin to laughter.

"I find myself wondering what my people would think of me. We do not, on the whole, respect failure, whatever the cause."

"Your people exiled you."

It's quiet, just short of a question.

"Ah, yes. That is what I told the Emperor, when a scouting patrol stumbled across my crashed ship on an uninhabited planet. It is not strictly untrue."

There's just more to it than that, and.

Well.

Given how great a shift the power centers in the former-and-now-again republic have recently undergone . . .

Perhaps it's time for this game to shift, as well.

"I guess that means it's not strictly true, either."

Her voice is still quiet.

Edited 2017-07-11 15:58 (UTC)

He smiles, just the merest upward curve at one corner of his flat mouth.

"No. I was sent."

Her head tilts slightly.

"To help the Empire?"

"To fortify the Empire. To keep it a strong force in this sector of the galaxy, as a bulwark against what lies deep within the Unknown Regions. Alas, I failed. Perhaps your republic-to-be will pick up the slack."

A mirthless smile crosses his lips.

"We could not rely on that at the time. Even still, I suspect my people are . . . . displeased with how events have played themselves out."

Hera's quiet for a moment, before she asks -

"They would've preferred an Empire to a Republic?"

"I suspect they would have taken the Republic, too, had certain events happened earlier than they did. It is this chaos of reformation and rebuilding that they . . . we . . . find wasteful and distressing, in neighbors."

To put it a little gently, but only just.

A little dry, "I guess we'll have to learn to live with each other."

"One can only hope there is time for that. We shall see."

A pause, and his lips purse the faintest bit.

"Or rather, you will."

Hera watches him for another moment.

"You never worried the Empire might look to your home?"

She leans forward, crossing her arms over the table, breaking with any kind of military formality.

"Not even after Alderaan?"

"Having seen the Imperial machine from the inside -- "

He pauses, as if giving room for the weight of his experience with said machine.

" -- much less so after the Emperor and Vader perished."

Thrawn folds his hands on the table, watching Hera over his knuckles.

"But there is something to be said for a planet-killer as a deterrent. You, too, might want one eventually."

"You're trying to make me angry."

Hera keeps her voice flat. But if it's true, then it's clear from her sharp breath and the way her hands clench that he at least, initially, succeeded.

Thrawn raises his eyebrows, voice remaining mild.

"I am trying, as best I can, to give warning without breaking any of the oaths that I made when I left my people."

"You lost, Thrawn."

Her voice is still flat.

"Has it occurred to you that there's something you could learn from me?"

He steeples his fingers, a gesture left over from the time before . . . Jakku.

"Perhaps. And yet there seems little point to it now."

Thrawn gestures at the worn gray prison-garb he's wearing.

"What change I can effect lies in the information I give, and that I have already begun to do."

Her voice is suddenly sharp -

"Do you have any suggestions that don't involve genocide?"

"In this case? None that will be effective in the long-term, but to shape the beginning of your encounters . . . yes. Shall I detail those in my logbook, as well?"

When battleships are the size of moons, and entire populations travel on them . . . it becomes difficult to separate out military and civilian targets. Still.

"That's the only future you can see?"

She lets out a breath. "One where we inevitably have to wipe others out?"

"There are always those on the outside, those from whom we must defend our own."

In space, everyone is always close enough to kill you.

"When they do not exist, we make them. Occasionally we make them out of those who should also count as our people. It is neither noble nor wise, but it will happen. Better to be prepared."

"And if you only hold a blaster, all you'll see are targets."

Her voice has gone quiet again.

Thrawn, too, falls silent, at least for a few moments.

"I have, General, always been a military man."

There is a more than slight emphasis on the world 'military'.

"Others of the Ascendancy have different skills. Working together is how we accomplish much, but what I bring to the table remains the same."