[Closed] Black wholes fill this empty space

[art_of_war]

WHO: Thrawn and Cassian Andor
WHERE: De Chima
WHEN: Jan 5th
WHAT: Cassian and Thrawn finally talk. Seriously this has been coming for awhile.
WARNINGS: It's Star Wars. By now this should be a warning by itself. With the additional warning for probable talk of child soldiers.



It has been a strange week.

Stranger still that Thrawn was making certain it was not spent alone. He had been gone to the gallery during the day for some of those earlier days but without giving any detail on why, simply said he would not be able to go for a few days. Within the past few days, he had given up even trying to make that pretense.

He always found it surprising when faced with basic compassion.

It was still more time in someone else's company than he often spent. Today he had decided would be a little bit different. In Virginia, it never gets 'cold'. It's mostly just wet. So Thrawn left the government assigned housing behind entirely and went walking in the wooded area behind 007.

Comments

[candor1]

Walking in the de Chima woods was always therapeutic. For the foreseeable future, it's been further prioritized as rehabilitation. Weeks spent sedated and barely eating or moving have left Cassian physically weakened and emaciated. He's thinking about asking Kay to revive their old physio routines, when Cassian had to stay in shape despite long stretches in cramped ships—and how Cassian first proved Kay's successful reprogram to his superiors. At the same time, Kay and others had had to help and care for Cassian so much over the last month… part of him doesn't want to take any more. But part of him also wants to restore this ability: working on and being alone with himself.

(Only for a few hours a day. Despite how right his old determinations had just been proved—that once allowing himself such openness and connection with others, he'd be truly debilitated losing it, and since he'd had to live a life worth losing, that couldn't be afforded—he's not going back to such isolation again.)

Perhaps that's why, when he hears someone else in the woods, instead of changing his course to avoid them, Cassian decides to find a seat on a raised tree root, see if they come by.

A new life both able to be alone and be with others. It's work. Worth doing.

[art_of_war]

It was somewhat surprising that Cassian chose to stay. Because, as 'the look' (blue skin, red eyes) was an evolutionary byproduct, so too was the advanced sight and hearing.

The sound of a human (or at least humanoid) adult male moving through the winter-barren woods is unmistakable. When there is a pause, Thrawn assumed he was likewise heard in return. He expected to then hear Cassian moving away, but he did not. Instead, he can hear a bit of shuffling - taking a seat somewhere perhaps? - and then quiet.

Curious in spite of himself, Thrawn kept walking without any outward sign that he had heard anything at all. When he did finally find Cassin, he was seated on an obliging tree root.

"Greetings."

sorry for delay! reasons purely ooc not ic <3

[candor1]

"Greetings," Cassian echoed. He always defaulted to mirroring when too much was unknown; a cheap trick for building rapport but an effective one.

That Thrawn was nonhuman didn't seem to give Cassian a moment's pause. Being surrounded almost solely by humans, even with imPorts, felt so unnatural that Cassian actually to remind himself now that running into a nonhuman person in this lifetime was noteworthy.

On impulse, Cassian pushed up his own sleeve. "imPort?" —to show his own mark, make the question one of affiliation not distancing.

No worries dear. RL > RP

[art_of_war]

"Yes."

Thrawn, however, did not move to push up his sleeve or show his tattoo. Though if you can't tell he is an imPort on seeing him, you must be blind. Instead, he clasps his hands behind his back and looks at Cassian imperiously.

"It is dangerous to speak with those you happen to run across."

[candor1]

Is that why you did it? But Cassian decided against wryness. Went with the equally genuine alternative: "Also sometimes not to." He rolled his sleeve back down. "I mean you no harm. I'll hope the reverse is true."

[art_of_war]

"There can be times that it is also dangerous to rely on hope."

Though please notice that Thrawn is not gainsaying Cassian. With so many humans it becomes easy for them to blend in. But a Chiss among humans stands out. He's tried to stay off the Network as a result, with his Clone Wars history the last public post he made. That was the one and only time he'd actually spoken to Cassian, though.