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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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"I'm not sure, either."

It feels cruel to pretend otherwise.

"I had not thought you were, General."

That is the thing with republics. The actual decisions are made on a much wider basis than otherwise. Perhaps that is not terrible, but for a man ruled by the Aristocra, it feels much more chaotic than is comfortable.

"I'd ask what you'd do in my place, but..."

But they both know what the eventual answer to that would be. Still, this thought doesn't seem to bother her. Instead, she finishes -

"... but I was much more afraid of living under the Empire than dying under it."

"Death is a very well-known ending. I wonder, now, if there are those who feel similarly about the Ascendancy. And what that might mean if there are."

In its way, this is a terrible thought. And yet --

Hera watches him, her head tilting slightly again.

"I think your Ascendancy would be in trouble."

Thrawn is silent for a long moment.

Then --

"So you think there is no peaceful way forward, once such a feeling begins to spread?"

Hera's eyes fall, as she mulls on this.

"What do you think would be peaceful?"

Thrawn considers that for a few minutes.

Then --

"Compromise without revolution, rioting in the streets, or a bevy of arrests and exile for those who are not of the Aristocra."

"Maybe."

Hera takes another deep breath. "But I think sometimes more than compromise, people need justice. And I don't know if I'm the right person to ask about that."

He merely raises one eyebrow.

"It seems unlikely, you're right. Though having been away so long, doubtless I'm lacking the relevant context with which to explain, myself. I doubt that will change, but perhaps . . . "

"Where I come from, it's one of the worst fears most have."

She's quiet for a moment, maybe trying to decide how to say it.

"Knowing that you'll never see your home again."

"None that I know of have ever gone so far from the Ascendancy."

Thrawn considers that for a moment.

"I did not know I might need to fear it."

She turns over a few answers in her mind, but instead asks -

"Is there something you did fear?"

"Only the Ascendancy's destruction. Even now, that is what I find most disturbing to contemplate."

He says it with no particular feeling in his voice, and yet . . .

This doesn't surprise her. And she knows very well there's no arguing with. Still -

"I know you disagree. But I still think it's safer now than it would have been with the Empire."

"Perhaps if the rest of the galaxy were different," Thrawn allows. "I might believe that to be true, as well."

It's as much as he can concede, just now. Perhaps in another two years, if he still lives, his opinion will change again.

"I don't think there's anything else you can do about that now," she answers.

Edited 2017-07-15 19:55 (UTC)

"There is very little I can do about anything just now. Save feed more information to the rebe -- the republic."

He doesn't sound upset about that, just matter-of-fact.

"Whether that will help or harm your potential relationship with the Chiss Ascendancy, I'm afraid I can't say."

"Do you think they'd want us to return you?"

Her voice is even, with no suggestion as to how she'd feel about that.

"No."

Thrawn does not even take a moment to think about his response.

"I sent them a replacement years ago, now."

Hera's quiet for a long moment after that.

Very carefully, "You've done a lot for them."

Or in their name, in any case.

"No more than my duty."

And whether it means anything at all to the Ascendancy is anyone's guess.

Thrawn certainly cannot venture one.

"We are called to serve, and we do."

Again, Hera is silent for a long moment.

Finally, "If your duty to your people comes at the total expense of others, you won't have peace then, either."

Thrawn is silent for a long few moments.

Then --

"We do aid others, on occasion. Or perhaps more frequently than that, but overseeing such things was never my task. We do not allow harm to ourselves and our dependents in order to offer such aid, however. Perhaps that is part of the difference."

"I think helping the Empire went beyond that."