He didn't miss the cold temperatures, Ezra decided, but he definitely missed the longer nights that used to rule this planet in winter. The trees were still mostly bare, some of them just beginning to bud, but the sun was rising earlier and earlier each day.

And with the sun, thought Ezra darkly from his makeshift mattress, came those kriffing birds. He cracked an eye open, glaring through the little window Thrawn had fashioned on the east side of the shelter. The sunlight was thin, but the birds were screaming at the top of their little lungs, like they had a personal vendetta against the people who'd crash-landed on their planet and were determined neither Ezra nor Thrawn should get any sleep.

Ezra sat up slowly, stretching out with a groan. Somehow, every muscle in his body felt sore — like he'd just had the fight of his life, or like he'd ran across half the planet or sifted through the wreckage of the Chimaera on his own. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so harshly affected by Force training.

Maybe he wasn't suited for this, he reflected.

Or maybe, he thought a little more darkly, Thrawn wasn't suited to be a test subject. That seemed easier to believe, really. Starting out mind-reading with Thrawn was like coming out of a year-long coma and going straight into the All-Lothal Triathlon the very next day.

By the time he stumbled out of his shelter, the sunlight was coming through the trees more strongly, warming up the cold, wet grass beneath his feet. Thrawn was already up, standing waist-deep in the river to check the traps he'd set the evening prior. He glanced up when Ezra came out, making brief eye contact before resuming his task.

"Good morning to you, too," Ezra muttered. He kicked at the defunct fire pit, now filled with cold ashes from the night before, and glanced around for the little duraplast container they usually kept nearby.

They'd discovered shortly after the purrgils abandoned the ship that there was practically no dry wood anywhere on the planet. Everything was damp, covered in thin layers of snow and ice. It rained daily in the winter, sometimes snowing as well, and at first it seemed like a fire would be next to impossible.

Thrawn had been the one to discover a flammable sap in the trees. It was a special form of bioprecipitation, he said — a type of bacterial infection in the trees that created ice nucleation-active proteins, making the water in the trees freeze even at mild temperatures. The water froze; the bark of the tree split open, and out came a viscous, bluish sap that burst into flames when heated.

They'd collected it in a broken duraplast droid cap scavenged from the Chimaera, but now that container was nowhere to be seen. Ezra spun in a circle, glancing this way and that across the clearing, and couldn't catch sight of it anywhere.

He wasn't incapable of starting a fire without the sap — especially not now, with a makeshift shed keeping their firewood safe from the rain — but where the hell could the container have gone?

Frowning, he glanced back at Thrawn. Still in the river, studiously avoiding Ezra's eyes.

"Oh, you bastard," Ezra said, just loud enough for Thrawn to hear. He sat down hard on the ground, crossing his arms over his chest. Some kind of dumbass test, first thing in the morning. And the fire was out, so he couldn't even have breakfast first.

Ezra gave himself a few moments to sit there, just scowling and wallowing in his outrage. Then, gradually, he let it go.

Reach out to the Force, he heard Kanan saying. Open yourself up to the world around you.

To other people.

Ezra let out his breath in a slow sigh. He didn't see the pebbles lifting out of the dirt around him, hovering just a few centimeters off the ground. His eyes were closed, his concentration focused solely on the thin, unspooling thread connecting him to Thrawn.

He felt the subtle current of the river pushing against his legs, the water like ice against his skin and going up over his head as he sunk beneath the surface, his hands going numb from the cold. The ropes connected to each underwater trap felt foreign, his fingers stiff, making it difficult to pull them up.

Even stronger than those sensations, though — and more surprising — was Thrawn's awareness of Ezra. He was checking the traps on autopilot, tossing the full ones onto the banks of the river without really thinking about it. He gasped for air each time he resurfaced, but with military efficiency rather than panic, taking in as much oxygen as he could as he reset the empty traps and let them sink back down to the silty bottom. All his senses were trained on the world around him, focused especially on Ezra, taking in things Ezra himself had never noticed about both their surroundings and themselves.

The river had been shaped by sentient beings eons ago, Ezra realized. He didn't know how Thrawn knew this, but he did. There had once been a man-made dam not far from where he stood, the effects of years of tree-clearing still evident on the flora growing there. Beyond that, far from the clearing where they'd made their shelter — scarcely visible through the trees — was a patch of overgrown field and new-growth forest where crops had once been grown hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago.

Through Thrawn's eyes, Ezra could see his own heat signature flaring up over his sorest muscles — his abs, his triceps, his quads. Ezra focused deeper, pouring himself into the connection, clawing his way into Thrawn's observations. He could feel a warm, pulsing glow between his clavicles, a sense of calmness and serenity emanating out from that one, small point.

And suddenly he had it. It was clear as day: he looked down and saw his hands (blue-skinned now, and larger than Ezra's hands normally were) reaching down to lift the duraplast container off the ground. He walked it away from the fire pit, moving carefully but quickly, gracefully — taking the container into the small shelter off to the right where Thrawn had made his home.

Exhaling through his nose, Ezra severed the connection and opened his eyes. His hands were a light, sun-kissed brown again; he felt inexplicably shorter. In the river, Thrawn glanced up again, catching Ezra's eye with a knowing expression on his face.

Ezra crossed the clearing to Thrawn's shelter, pulling the thatched door open and glancing inside. Instead of a makeshift cot, Thrawn slept on a woven mat placed directly on the hard-packed ground, with a scratchy Imperial-issue blanket folded into a square at one end. His quarters were orderly — slightly smaller than Ezra's but seeming somehow more spacious. His spare clothes were folded neatly in a handmade box in the corner; crude shelves on the walls held what few tools they'd managed to make out of scavenged materials and harvested wood.

Ezra spotted the duraplast container right away, but he took his time getting to it, making sure to inspect every inch of Thrawn's quarters before he fetched it. It was Thrawn's own fault; he was the one who'd decided to test Ezra before breakfast, so it was only fair if Ezra got to snoop around a little in return.

Broken comlinks and datapads — along with assorted parts scavenged from smashed droids — filled a second box next to Thrawn's clothes, and Ezra sifted through these for a moment, trying to determine if there was any real purpose to hoarding them or if they just represented some sort of faint hope that someday — somehow — they could find a way off this planet.

Digging through the box, his fingers struck something small and round — something immediately familiar to Ezra. He grabbed it and pulled it out from the mess, holding it up to the light without surprise. A holoprojector; he'd known as soon as he touched it. It was dull and scratched and cheap — the kind that people pre-loaded with books and other files before going on long flights or camping trips — but it was still functional.

Ezra slipped it into his pocket and lugged the duraplast container of sap out of the corner. Outside, he dipped a slim log in the container, coating it thinly in the blue liquid and placing it at the bottom of a firewood stack.

Thrawn came over shortly after the flames shot up, trailing drops of cold water as he waded out of the river and onto the grass. He stood too close to the fire for Ezra's comfort, his eyes closed and his arms crossed, letting the heat dry out the thin military-issue shorts he wore when dealing with the river.

"Very good," he said. That was the only acknowledgement Ezra got about passing Thrawn's test. They crowded around the fire, neither of them speaking; Ezra's thoughts were centered on the stolen holoprojector, his face carefully blank and his palms sweating. He was certain Thrawn would call him out on it at any moment.

But when Thrawn's clothes were more or less dry, he retreated to his quarters without another word, leaving Ezra to cook and eat breakfast alone. Ezra studied the fish traps, eventually selecting an eel-like creature that was unappetizing in appearance, but tasty enough and easy to prepare. He stripped off the outer layer of skin with a short vibroblade and plucked out the internal organs, almost disgusted with how easy this was after forty-six — no, forty-seven — days on this planet. In practically no time at all he had it propped up on a skewer stand and roasting over the fire.

He pulled the holoprojector out while the eel roasted, turning it over in his hands. When he found the power button, he pressed it without pausing to think about what he was doing. A series of images popped up — thumbnails, really, too small for Ezra to make out. No books, he noted sadly, and no films, either. Just photos.

Well, photos could make for decent entertainment, he supposed. Especially when you were stranded on a deserted planet with nothing better to do. He selected the first photo and it expanded immediately, showing a nondescript human family — two elderly adults, three young adults, no children — all smiling into the camera. Ezra scrolled through to the next photo, noticing familiar faces in a new location, different clothes.

On the third photo, his throat tightened. The elderly man and one of the young women from the first photo were embracing, both of them nearly swallowed up by the crowd at a dingy shuttle port. The man's face was creased; he looked close to crying.

The woman — his daughter, Ezra supposed — was wearing the uniform of an Imperial officer, though Ezra couldn't remember which rank her insignia represented. She was crying, too.

He shut the projector off for a moment, feeling sick. But what had he expected? The projector could only come from one place — the Chimaera — and there hadn't been any civilians onboard when it crashed. When the wave of nausea faded, he turned the projector back on again, steeling himself to look through the rest of the photos. They were arranged chronologically, showing the young woman in uniform with her colleagues, in civilian clothes with her friends, planet-side and smiling, aboard the Chimaera and smiling, still. Relaxed, comfortable with the people around her, leaning into her fellow officers the same way she leaned into her family in the first photo stored on the projector.

There she was making silly faces at the camera. There were her colleagues, engaged in card games. Pushing and shoving with her friends, then snapping back to straight-faced seriousness in the next photo, all of them posing with perfect Imperial posture and trying not to laugh.

He turned the projector off again, this time folding his arms over his knees and resting his head there. He closed his eyes and tried not to replay all those images in his mind.

He didn't notice his breakfast burning until Thrawn returned from his shelter and removed the blackened piece of meat from the fire without a word. Ezra kept his face buried in his arms, ignoring the sound of Thrawn's footsteps, of the traps opening and closing, of a fish being methodically and thoroughly prepared. Only when two good-sized fish were ready to cook — and not just skewered, but thrown into a dinged-up skillet they'd crafted from melted durasteel — did Thrawn take a seat at Ezra's side.

"Your skills have improved markedly since last night," Thrawn commented.

"Mm," Ezra said, not in the mood. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Thrawn picked up the holoprojector and silently turned it over in his hands. His thumb hovered over the power button, but he didn't turn it on.

Sighing, Ezra rubbed his eyes and forced himself to sit up. "Who was she?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Thrawn didn't say anything for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "Perhaps you can find her name in my mind?"

"Thrawn," Ezra groaned, kneading his temples, "come on."

"At least make an attempt," Thrawn said, not harshly. Unsettled, Ezra gave in, pouring himself fluidly into the connection once again. The name jumped out at him instantly, comprised of the only Aurebesh letters amongst the incomprehensible ciphers which made up the rest of Thrawn's thoughts. It stood out so starkly that it had to be deliberate, like Thrawn had translated the name into Aurebesh for him, just to see if Ezra would be able to read it.

And with the name came an image — a clear memory of the woman from the holos in uniform and at her station, her mouth moving, her hands coming up in an enthusiastic gesture as she spoke. Faint words, barely audible, echoed around the image, but Ezra couldn't quite make them out. He caught a sound that might have been breaking glass, a feeling like the earth trembling beneath him, a sensation of claustrophobia and smothering pain.

But no emotions came with these memories. No fear, no pain, no grief or sorrow. If there was anything there, it was too muted for Ezra to feel it.

"Kana Pyrondi," Ezra said wearily, drawing back from Thrawn's mind.

"Senior Lieutenant Kana Pyrondi," Thrawn said a little stiffly. "Yes."

Ezra rested his head on his arms again, this time turning so he could watch Thrawn at the same time. "You were … friends?" he guessed.

Thrawn gave him a strange look — arch and regretful at the same time. "Lieutenant Pyrondi was my weapons officer," he said. "She was on the bridge when …" He gestured wordlessly, a sharp and impatient flick of the wrist.

"Oh," said Ezra. Thrawn examined the projector a moment longer, the blunt edge of his thumbnail scraping over the power button.

"So far," he said, "I have found only this functional holoprojector. The rest have been irreparably damaged."

He stared into the fire for a moment, his eyes hard and unreadable, his hands clasped firmly around the projector. Ezra watched him, considered connecting with Thrawn's mind, and recoiled from the idea with an almost horrified sense of distaste, of shame. He watched the fire, too, his eyes constantly drawn back to the projector. The images played through his mind nonstop.

Finally, reluctantly, he said, "I looked through the pictures."

Thrawn nodded, unsurprised.

"I…" Ezra hesitated, unsure what he wanted to say. "I didn't know any of their names."

This time, Thrawn didn't respond. He leaned forward with an almost inaudible sigh and knelt before the low fire, flipping the simmering fish in the pan. Ezra stared at the back of Thrawn's head and forced himself to ask.

"Do you … uh, do you think you could tell me some of their names?" he said. "Or the ones you know, at least?"

"I know the names of everyone in those holos," said Thrawn, his voice flat. "Those who were not Lieutenant Pyrondi's immediate family were my officers, some from the Chimaera and some from the Thunder Wasp."

The fish sizzled, flesh hissing from the heat of the flames.

"So do you think you could tell me who they are?" Ezra asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

"No," said Thrawn firmly. His tone broached no argument; he got to his feet and slipped the projector into his pocket at the same time, keeping his eyes on the fire. This time, he didn't invite Ezra to find the names in his mind, and Ezra couldn't even fathom attempting it at the moment. It wasn't just a matter of laziness or exhaustion — there was something inherent to him that balked at the idea of forcing an answer when Thrawn didn't want to give it, even as the rest of him burned with curiosity; even if, in some way, he felt he needed to know.

"Eat well," said Thrawn eventually, turning away from the fire. "Come find me when you're ready to train."