"If I didn't know any better," said Arihnda Pryce, "I would have thought you were flirting with Madam Tristaine." She didn't know why she felt irked by it. Sitting across from Thrawn on the shuttle back up to the Chimaera, she knew damn well he wasn't. He didn't flirt with anyone or anything. But the smile he'd worn while throwing words at that woman had gotten under her skin.

The woman herself had gotten under Arihnda's skin. It shouldn't have taken Thrawn that long to best her, which gave credence to her previous observation. Although, when the woman had announced it was the best game ever, Arihnda had to admit, it was the best game of Snooks she'd ever witnessed.

"I was simply following the rules of the game, Governor Pryce," Thrawn replied in his ever calm, smooth voice. "I don't see how that translates into flirting."

It isn't the rules of the game, she wanted to shout. It was the way he let her invade his space, in a way she hadn't seen anyone do before. The way she leaned forward and he did not lean back. The way she slapped his knee and he did nothing about it but smile with that tiny, smug smile of his!

What did she care? She wasn't sure why she did. But it felt as if someone were encroaching in on her territory and she had fight to keep what was hers. She already has her own Grand Admiral, she thought sourly. She can leave mine alone.

Oh, her Grand Admiral had been something to look at, that was for sure. Her brother was the epitome of a golden boy, right down to his hair on his head. She wasn't surprised at all to see several women hanging on him the entire evening, even though his attention had been on the game and not on them. If she'd been that kind of person, she'd have gladly hung on him, too, in more ways than one.

But Thrawn was her Grand Admiral. She had helped him get where he was, had requested he be brought to Lothal. He owed her….

"I don't like her," she said, looking down her nose. "Madam Tristain. There is something off about her."

"Is there?" Thrawn asked. "I did not pick up on that."

"She is very presumptuous."

"Of what?" Thrawn asked.

"She doesn't seem to know the definition of personal space," Arihnda finally said.

"My study of the Astarrax culture intimates that a lack of personal space is a compliment among the population," Thrawn explained.

"That's a compliment among any population," Arihnda replied. "And not necessarily the right kind of compliment."

"I do no think that either Grand Admiral Viita or his sister made any untoward overtures in their lack of regard of personal space," Thrawn said.

"She slapped your knee," Arihnda stabbed.

"After I stretched the rules of the game," Thrawn said.

How could he not see something wrong with it? Arihnda shook her head. He was utterly devoid of any political finesse, she already knew, and had for years. But was he that blind to personal syllabus also? Surely not. But then…she regarded him for a long moment, his red eyes looking back at her in the emptiness of the shuttle. Perhaps he was.

"Watch out for her," Arihnda warned. Though she wondered if the warning was for Thrawn or for herself.

"That was the best game ever," Sola said, putting her head on her brother's shoulder as he drove the rented speeder back to her dwelling.

"You let him win," he said, putting his arm around her and drawing her close. It felt good to have someone do it.

She wiggled into his side and put her head back on his shoulder. "I didn't," she said. "I was flustered."

"You are never flustered for words," he laughed. "And you damn well one doesn't use a wrench on a reactor."

"There has to be somewhere on a reactor that one uses a wrench," she said. She reached up and began to unpin her hair, long curls falling into her lap as she did.

"Hmmm." Her brother simply made an unconvinced sound.

"He understood the game," she said into the darkness in her sing song voice.

"It's a simple game, Sola," he replied. "There isn't much to understand."

She sighed. Uriellien didn't understand. It wasn't just the general rules of the game, it was the underlying meaning of the game that Grand Admiral Thrawn had understood. It had pleased her to no end that the game had continued for as long as it did. But when he had switched languages, her stomach had flopped in delight. He understood the language, and it wasn't even his native language. He'd switched to a trade language, which he must have guessed she would know based on where she was from. That alone grabbed her. But the entire thing all wrapped together utterly enchanted her. It was like it was only the two of them in the room, batting words across a net with racquets.

That had been the moment she decided to let him win.

She wanted to talk to him again. About anything. She didn't care what it was. For someone who understood the words of the language that much, on an intuitive level, must understand about other things. What other kinds of layers did he understand that the rest of the world didn't? That made her feel so utterly alone so often when she tried to speak of them to others?

Uriellien stopped the speeder at her dwelling and let it idle for a moment before releasing her. She felt the immediate loss of his presence and fought the oncoming loneliness that threatened to envelope her.

"Thank you for bringing me with you," she said.

"I would bring you to everything if you'd let me," he said nonchalantly. It occurred to her that he should be saying this to someone else, someone he was in love with, whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, not his older sister. But even knowing that, it made her feel wanted.

"I know you would," she told him. She leaned over and kissed his cheek before sliding to the door of the speeder. "Be careful on your way back."

"When will you come to visit me?" he asked, catching her arm.

She looked down at his hand wrapped around her forearm, keeping her in the speeder for that much longer. "As soon as I can," she promised. She looked back up to his face.

They looked each other in the eye for a moment and she thought she was going to have to admonish him to let her go, when he finally uncurled his fingers from her arm. He nodded, his beaming smile on his face once more. "I will hold you to that, you know."

"I do know," she said, opening the door and sliding out. "Good night, Uri."

"Good night, Sola."

He stayed in the parking space as he watched her walk up to her door and let herself in. She heard him speed away as she took her shoes off. In one hand she clutched a handful of hairpins, her long, golden curls fell over her body like a safe and familiar blanket as she entered the quiet of the house. She crept to the bedroom and opened the door silently, slipping the straps of her dress from her shoulders and letting it drop off of her as she walked.

Her husband lay spread on the bed, taking up the entire thing, the covers wrapped around him. He snored softly, holding onto her pillow as if it were a person. She let out a hurt sigh and then stamped down the growing anger that was swelling in her breast. This was her punishment for going out that night when he had wanted her to stay in with him.

She grabbed her nightgown and turned from the bedroom. Pulling it overhead, she closed the door behind her. That was fine. He could sleep on his own. She wouldn't let it ruin her evening. He's the one who was missing out. He might have gotten lucky if he wasn't being such an ass.

She considered going to one of her children's rooms and sleeping with one of them. It is what she would have done when they were younger, but now they were both much too old for her to join them without bringing up questions upon their waking. She made her way to the couch and laid down on it, going over the batting of words back and forth in her head, much too wound up to go fall asleep.