The victory was incomplete, but Thrawn was satisfied with it nonetheless. They had not captured Cham Syndulla, who had been identified early in the fight, but they had his home. That was a personal blow sure to affect the Twi'lek leader. When emotions ran high, logic ran low. Loss of logic led to mistakes. Mistakes led to defeat.

The house was in excellent condition, considering the fight that took place in it. It took little time at all for the troops to clean it up, securing several conscripted servants from the local population. Lady Luxsolaria had begun decorating the upper half, the lower half being used as a base of operations, once she was done with her two day convalescence in bed nursing a vertigo-inducing headache. In four days' time, she had instituted her designated tea time once again in what they had designated the 'sitting room', a larger open space meant for small gatherings.

Her poetry selection was, once again, insightful to the situation at hand. She chose pieces about victory and new settlements, following it with leading conversation with the officers present. She was good at drawing people out to talk about themselves. Even Slavin, who Thrawn knew did not like her, most likely because she was more competent than him, was not immune to her charms. After the hour was up, the officers began to trickle out to return to their duties.

"Grand Admiral Thrawn," Lady Luxsolaria called out. "May I speak with you for a moment?"

Thrawn felt, more than saw, Viita paused as he turned back toward her. He was surprised at the question. He had not expected it.

"Of course," he said, putting his hands behind his back and reentering the room.

Her gaze shifted to Viita and she shot him a very obvious go away look. It was a long moment after that before Thrawn heard Viita's boots clicking on the floor in exit.

"Sit, please." She gestured to a chair across from her as she sank down into the one behind her. Her gown, a white shift covered in lace and cinched at the waist with a decorative girdle, spread across the chair as she sat with a whoosh. "We—" She stopped abruptly and swallowed. "We must talk about maps," she got out in a breathy voice.

As Thrawn sat on the seat across from her, he could see her heart thumping quickly in her carotid artery at her neck. She was blinking rapidly as if trying to regain her thoughts. He could see her heat signature ran cold. Her back was ramrod straight. Even without all of that, he could feel that she was afraid.

"What about maps?" He tried to make his voice gentle. He did not like that she was afraid, alone in a room with him. For some reason, after her sunny smile and unbounded energy, it seemed a travesty that this was left in its place.

"Please promise that you will never tell anyone about what happened on the bluff," she said quickly, leaning forward.

"Your brother has already taken care of that," Thrawn told her.

"He did?" Her voice cracked.

Satisfaction crept into his shoulders. It was as he had suspected. "Do you not remember?"

She had been in a trance, standing in front of the map on the bluff. She had the same look on her face that Chiss navigators had when they flew, only her eyes were open. It wasn't a blank look, but more of a peaceful one, gentling the features. Her eyes looked as if she were seeing through everything in front of her to something far away.

As soon as her hands touched the map, Viita had put his hand on his blaster. It had made the troopers who saw him start. "If any of you," he said viciously, "breathe a word of what you see tonight to anyone, I will hunt you down and kill not only you but your entire family and whoever you told."

No one moved or said anything. Thrawn believed him. And if he believed him, anyone else here who didn't was a fool.

"Have I made myself clear?"

Viita's eyes went to each individual, who answered with a "Yes, sir," until they landed on Thrawn.

The Chiss inclined his head in acquiescence. He saw no reason not to.

Luxsolaria had stayed in that position, her hands following routes on the map for hours as she accurately followed the people in the building. He had relayed their location in real-time as best he could make out with the rough-hewn map. Once both of her hands dropped, signaling, he assumed, that no one else was in the house, she simply stood staring at the map.

He had expected Viita to call her back, but he only looked at her anxiously. "She's been like that a long time," he muttered.

Thrawn had refrained from commenting as he turned off the holoprojector. This was not the first time Viita had encountered this, surely, and he must have had his own way of bringing her back into the present moment.

Viita touched her shoulder, but she didn't move, just continued to stare into the space where the map had been. He'd then left her to attend to his duties with Thrawn. It was not until they got word that they'd met the dissidents in the pass, a few of them escaping, Cham Syndulla being one of them, that Viita had turned back to his still sister.

"Sola," he said gently, snapping his fingers in front of her face.

She did not respond.

"She's been like this for too long," Viita said, panic in his voice. "

Thrawn was about to tell him, Call her back, when Viita grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Sola!" When she stayed still, he repeated, "Sola!" giving her a violent shake before lessening it to something more gentle. "Sola!" His voice sounded desperate.

Thrawn wondered for a moment if she would come back, for if she would be stuck in that state forever. Perhaps they should have tried to get her out of it sooner, rather than attending to the battle.

Then she had blinked rapidly, her eyes focusing on Viita before she fell into his arms. A few minutes afterward, the splitting headache that Thrawn had known would come from overexertion hit her hard enough that she had vomited.

"No.." she said, her pale brows drawn together, her voice sounding girlish.

"He threatened to kill anyone who said anything," Thrawn told her.

A look of surprise came over her face for a moment before turning to one of resignation. "Of course he did," she muttered with a small smile.

He had noticed in the time she had been on Ryloth, that her face and body blatantly told what she was feeling. She didn't even try to hide it. He found that relieving, not having to guess at her emotions or her motivations. They were right on her person for the world to see and she was not ashamed of it. He respected that.

He respected that she was having this conversation with him, too, when it had obviously scared her so to do it. Many people never moved past their fear, they chose to stay stationary with it. She chose to move through it. He found he wanted her to move through it.

"Why do you hide it?" he asked after a moment of silence where they just looked at each other.

The fear returned to her face and she broke eye contact. "People who can…they have a tendency to disappear."

That he knew well, he had made several 'disappear' himself. "I would think that if you were going to disappear, you would have by now. You are not good at deception."

Her eyes went back to him and she laughed, reminiscent of the joyful one that he heard before. "No," she admitted. "I'm not. I never have been."

"Do you think Emperor Palpatine doesn't know?" he asked rhetorically, remembering their first meeting when he had been present. There was no way the Sith Lord did not know, even if she had been a good liar.

The fear came back to her eyes.

"He is a Force-user," Thrawn said simply. She had to already know this. He could tell by the hard swallow she forced down that she did.

She gave a small, quick nod. "He knows," she whispered. "You know?"

He inclined his head toward her in agreement. "I have had several demonstrations of his use of the Force," he replied, his voice low.

To his surprise, relief washed over her entire body, releasing it as if it was holding her erect physically. Her posture became more natural and her hands stopped wringing her dress and rested on her knees. She leaned forward and sighed, "When I first met him, the Emperor, I was only 21. It was through the Senate education committee, to create a cohesive lower school curriculum that any child in the Empire would have access to. He lifted my chin and looked into my eyes and he…touched my mind." Her brows drew together. "It hurt my head. It was like he had enveloped me in this strong wave of dark water and I couldn't breathe, that kind of hurt. It seeped everywhere in my head and I couldn't keep it out. Then, it was as if the water sucked everything from me and receded and I was in the room again." She paused, her eyes searching his face. Thrawn was not sure for what. "Then he smiled and said, 'Excellent, Lady Viita. I trust you will continue to use your talents in service of the Empire. Keep writing beautiful poetry.' Then he walked on to the next committee member. I never told him I wrote poetry. I hadn't had any published before then, either." She blushed and straightened a little. "I felt proud that he thought I wrote beautiful poetry. That is what gave me the courage to publish it."

The Emperor had dealt more gently with her than he had with himself, Thrawn mused. "You published poetry because of the Emperor." He said it rather than asked.

She nodded. "I've never told anyone that before," she whispered. "Not even Uri." She took a deep breath as if she were having trouble catching it. The look on her face, however, was one of gratitude so profound that sloughed from her like wind touching his skin. The feeling was like one he had never felt before, almost like the push he felt when she entered a room, but warmer, more gentle. "I have never talked to anyone who I knew for sure knew about Emperor Palpatine."

Then he realized with sudden precipitance, "Neither have I."