tHello. o/
Here is the last chapter.
It was difficult, but great to be able to put this story on paper. ^-^
I apoligize again for any grammar mistakes you find here. :P
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Star Wars doesn't belong to me.
Song: Black
Band: Pearl Jam
Note: The talks you will see in this chapter were inspired by an episode of The Blacklist, where one of the main characters has an interesting interaction with someone from the past. :)
Subtitles:
"Blah blah": dialogues
Blah blah: flashbacks
Blah blah: intonations
"Blah blah": Thoughts
Chapter 2 - The Warlord
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Sheets of empty canvas
Untouched sheets of clay
Were laid out before me as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken the turn
The Empire.
Thrawn was not blind to the simple truth. The Empire was not even close to that utopia represented in official propaganda. No government was or could be; particularly one composed of several different species, and whose natures ranged from the most friendly to the one capable of the greatest of horrors. There was no simple solution in this case. It was imperative that a strong hand held the reins and a greater voice was heard over the others. The Empire was quite efficient in doing that, and he saw no reason to doubt his actions. Until a certain episode.
The Battle of Derra IV.
An eternal mark on his existence.
Not so much for the victory over the rebels or for the lack of credit coming from it. To be honest, he couldn't care less about it. That the laurels of victory were given Lord Vader; discretion served Thrawn far better. The major issue about that battle was the pain. One almost as intense as the one he had felt for Thrass's loss.
Oh, and all I taught her was everything
Oh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black,
Tattooed everything
Around him, only silence and contemplation. Remnants of what had been a Rebel base at Derra IV were brought to him in boxes and distributed along the room. Equipment, weapons, random and personal objects left behind. Fragments of lives. Memories. Mementos. Alone in his cabin, seated in his armchair, Grand Admiral Thrawn gazed at two objects in particular.
A helmet and a small object. A statuette. Found in one of the main lodgings (probably a leader's). Under any other circumstance, he would pay no attention to those objects except for what he could deduce from them.
Written in the helmet was the codename of the one who, once, had been the owner. Any Imperial agent that looked at those letters would not be able to understand their meaning. None. No one but him.
The words were Red Flame.
Written in Cheunh.
Almost like an inner joke.
Being a son of Csilla, cold did not bother him. At least not in the climatic meaning. For the cold that he felt now was within and similar to being in hell. An agony greater than the solitude of exile.
Thrawn had spent years ignoring the evidence. Jorj Car'das had done his best to keep it from him, but there was no way his intellect could not piece things together. Maris Ferasi had been a rebel. A rebel who had died in Derra IV. A rebel whose death laid now in his hands. Hands that he now touched his face.
"Kriff ..." He said to no one, and for hours, the Chiss remained seated in his chair. Until he fell asleep.
As a punishment, in dreams, she comes to him. Like she had come so many times, back in Crustai. Brown curls cascading down her shoulders, the rebel uniform polluting the picture, and a serene expression on her face. The eyes staring at him had that dreamy expression that had charmed him when they met.
"Ferasi." He says.
"Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo," replies Maris-that-wasn't Maris. "It's been so long!"
"Grand Admiral Thrawn, Ferasi." He corrects her. "Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo doesn't exist anymore."
"That's unfortunate," she stands before him. "I was very fond of the commander."
"Let me express my preference for the smuggler."
Maris smiles.
"Why, Maris?"
"Why what?"
"Such a choice?" He explains. "Why did you walk straight into the arms of death?"
"For the same reason you fight, Thrawn," her youthful stance disappears and is replaced by a heavy melancholy "For something greater."
"Do you really think the Alliance's childish delirium is more effective than the Empire?" The Grand Admiral asks. "Allow me to say that I do not see the merits of that."
"What would be the point on arguing about it? Choices have already been made and my destiny has been sealed." A pregnant pause. "But I fear for yours."
"And why is that?"
"Because the one I have loved would have never fallen that much."
"The one you have loved was not real." Even to his ears that sounded cruel. "Your pathological idealism created him."
"You do realize that your words only reinforce my point?" The human asks. "But it doesn't matter, does it?"
The silence between them was not uncomfortable. On the contrary, it was like an echo of the many moments they had shared in youth. Only the two of them, away from everything and everyone.
"I am very sorry, Maris."
"Don't be," she caresses his face and a mischievous smile adorns her lips. "Did you like my helmet?"
The dream suddenly shifts. They are now at the base of Derra IV, known to him thanks to holograms. The Oneiric Maris tours among the non-existent objects and fighters, and he just follows her.
"I found it ironic." Thrawn remembered her opinion of the words in question. "Did you embrace the Flame ideal?"
"It's helped me a lot over the years," she says. "But it was funny how no one ever understood what that meant."
"Because you never wanted anyone to understand."
"No one but you," she says and winks.
He awakens, against his deepest desires; for the prospect of awakening in a universe where she no longer existed seemed truly terrible.
That dream was only the first of many he had in the months after Maris' death. He mourned her in silence, like almost all of his actions. Even without seeing her in dreams, Thrawn sensed her presence with him. As he had always felt. Since they had said goodbye decades ago.
I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter,
So, why do I sear?
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away
The years go by. The Battle of Endor. The Emperor's death.
The victory of the Alliance, while surprising, was not difficult to understand. Only the Emperor's personal power managed to keep the structures in place, and without him, chaos was established in what remained of the Empire. His reconstruction work would be long and rather tiring, Thrawn knew, but there was no one else who could do it. That was the reason behind his unceasing work in the Unknown Regions.
It would be no use trying to fight the Rebels and strengthen their base in Nirauan simultaneously. It would just be a waste of time and resources. Therefore, Grand Admiral remained anonymous and away from the inconvenient eyes of his enemies. Always thinking and planning.
He was well aware that his subordinates in the Chimera wondered why their leader spent so much time locked in his quarters; but they were all reasonable enough to keep their musings and gossips to themselves. To be honest, those moments in solitude were a balm. A momentary relief from everything that weighed on his shoulders.
The Chiss gazes at the statues of fire he always kept in his cabin. One was hers, found in Derra IV. The other was given to him by Maris and he kept with himself during the exile. In fact, for countless times, when he felt himself tempted to go mad, Thrawn touched the object and mentally fled back to those moments shared with Ferasi.
And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black,
Tattooed everything
All the love gone bad
The cabin in the Chimera was mostly dark, and he was, as usual, sat in his chair. A mug full of caf lay nearby. Its scent brought some comfort to the gloomy surroundings, illuminated only by holograms of Corellian firegems.
Corellia. A planet that had been occupying part of his thoughts recently.
Birthplace of one of his current enemies (Han Solo), of a possible opponent (Garm Bel Iblis) and of his second-in-command (Captain Gilad Pellaeon). However, he was aware that Corellia had never truly left his thoughts. Since his great friend (Jorj Car'das) and his great love were also born there.
Yes.
Now, years after her death, Thrawn finally allowed himself to name the feeling that bound him to Maris. Even if he was only going to do it to himself and in the absolute privacy of his thoughts. Red eyes abandon the analysis of the art and go to the mug, admiring the deep blackness of its content. As deep as her eyes.
"And to think you hated caf the first time you drank it."
One of the alleged and notorious signs of madness was hearing voices. Particularly the voice of someone he knew to be dead. Dead for years. And, as if in confirmation of his diagnosis, she (or the illusion his inconvenient mind insisted on projecting) stood next to him, leaning one of her elbows on the back of the chair, in that careless gesture he had seen her do so often .
"An acquired taste." Another sip. "What are you doing here, Ferasi?"
He finally looks at her. The smirk was there, in that young, impossible face.
"Just visiting," she begins to stroll among the holografic images. "How have you been?"
"Going mad, apparently." The Grand Admiral replies.
Maybe his condition was worse than he'd imagined. For there was Maris, dead, wearing a red dress (and why red? Or why a dress? He had never seen her wearing a dress). Thrawn knew it could not be a "splash" of Joruus C'baoth's clonic madness, for the ysalamiri were alive and well aboard the ship.
"You're far to brilliant to go crazy," she says. "But some would say madness and geniality are two sides of the same coin."
"I have a mission to fulfill, Maris." She paid no attention to him, just wandered, light and ethereal, along the room. "And your presence does not help me."
"Oh, yes. Solving the only puzzle that is worth it."
"Yes, destroying the Rebellion,"
"I've heard the name is New Republic." She deadpans, but the gleam in her eyes indicated great satisfaction. "Sounds pretty."
"Sounds pretentious and nothing more," he replies. "And how have you heard about it?"
"The dead know a lot. Besides, that name, New Republic, sounds like something I would have given my life for."
"A low blow, Maris." He drinks more caf. "This attempt of yours in making me feel guilty."
She walks back to him and sits in his lap, like she used to do on those furtive moments in Crustai. For a few seconds, Maris just gazes at him, with that striking trait of hers while alive: tilting her neck slightly to the side and biting her lip.
"I don't blame you, Thrawn," she says. "I made my choice and I don't regret it."
"Of course you do not regret it. You do not even exist."
"I'll exist as long as you exist." She rises up from his lap, and to his shame, Thrawn notices the void the false weight of her body left. "But I can leave."
"And what is preventing you from doing so?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Her laughter was musical. "Because you don't want me to."
No, not really.
"I never wanted you to leave." His voice comes out almost like a whisper. "I did not want it back then, and I do not want it now."
"And nor will I ever want it." She smiles, as if she had read his mind, but keeps walking around his cabin.
Serene, carefree and so attuned to the memories he had that Thrawn could almost believe that Maris Ferasi was really there with him. On board the Chimera, as she had been at Crustai and at the Springhawk. Alive. Close. Again, that sharp pain inside. And all because his brain could not give up this delirium. This compulsive need of keeping Maris' memory alive, to keep her with him somehow. Not even his contempt for the ideal for which she had given her life prevented him from doing so.
In such a situation, it was impossible not to think of the many times he had allowed the word "if" to dominate his thoughts when it came to her. What if he had asked her to stay with him in Crustai? What if they had had a couple of years together? And what if...
"It wouldn't have worked, Thrawn," she says and it becomes clear to the chiss how intimate she was to his thoughts. Which was obvious, considering that figure to be a projection of his mind. "What kind of life would we have? You had your mission, I had mine."
"Indeed," he concludes. "But I do not think you would have gotten involved with the Rebellion if-"
"If we had shared a life?" Maris walks back to him and puts herself on his lap again. "Do you really think I would have followed you? Do you really believe I would have accepted the Empire?" Her unreal hands run through his hair. "No, dearest. I would have joined the Alliance anyway, it would just have taken a little longer."
"I seriously doubt it."
"And why is that?" She asks. "Because of your ability to anticipate the enemy?" Her voice takes on an incisive tone. "Be careful, Thrawn. Your geniality has limits. And we all have a blind spot" Silence hangs in the air. "And I fear for the moment when you realize yours."
Turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all that I'll be, yeah
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky,
But why? Why? Why?
Can't it be? Can't it be in mine?
Maris's prophetic words became real in that last battle against the Rebellion.
In Bilbringi.
When victory was within his grasp, but the blind spot the woman had mentioned became evident. As evident as the knife that pierced his chest. In those moments before death, when time loses meaning and nothing else matters. She appeared again.
Beautiful. Solemn. As the chaos spread through the Chimera and all his work collapsed. The illusory Maris knelt before him. Peripherally he hears what would be voices. But it did not matter anymore.
"Are you here to gloat, Ferasi?" He knew it was not her nature.
"No".
"Then why are you here?"
A melancholic smile appears on her lips.
"For a genius, you can be quite foolish. Is it that hard to understand? I only show up when you call for me, Thrawn."
Yes, that made sense. He called for her in exile, and she came in memories. He mourned for her, and she came visited his dreams. He thought of Corellia and all that that planet represented, and Maris came to him. Now, in the last moments, and even without realizing it, Thrawn had called for her again.
"I warned you about the blind spot, dearest." She says. "And it was so obvious."
"Indeed," he agrees. "I should have paid more attention to the Noghri."
"You should have set them free, but your theater of war needed them."
"Theater of war, Maris?" If he could, he would have laughed at the comment.
"Yes, Mitth'raw'nuruodo. A theater." She rests one hand over the red that gushes out of his white uniform. "Intense, precise, and visceral; but still a theater. And, like every show, it must come to an end."
"But it was so artistically done"
The smile disappeared. The glint in the red eyes faded ... and Thrawn, the Grand Admiral, was gone.
We, we, we, we, together! Together
(Our place is with one another! Together.)
[END]