Chapter Text
What can sever a friendship?
Time and distance?
Irreconcilable differences?
Betrayal?
Death?
No. Not for a true friend. There may be moments of disagreement, periods of anger, some necessary separation. There may even be an altercation, harsh words exchanged that pierce deeper than any physical blow. But that cannot damage pure, abiding friendship.
Not unless one allows it.
Friendship cannot be broken by any external source. Only when one chooses to abandon it will it be truly lost.
I cannot forsake a friend. Perhaps it is a failing of mine, but I will embrace such a weakness without regret. True friendship is far too priceless to cast aside when the tempests of life threaten to shatter it. When my own actions bring another to the breaking point.
Even as I watch him walk away, perhaps forever. As long as he remains true to who he is, to the one I have come to respect, I will be content.
Even if I am not happy.
_____________
The brush made a soft scraping sound as Thrawn laid it gently aside. He stared intently at the strokes filling the page spread out on his desk, the stylized Cheunh letters flowing in a swirl of black and red. He had done nothing to blot away the blood that had spilled as he wrote, allowing it to mix with the ink. It was fitting, he thought.
By the time the Chimaera jumped to its next assignment, the words hung framed on the wall beside the door to his private chamber.
He would never forget.