Chapter Text
A sun, fast approaching.
Incredible heat, destruction.
No, further starboard.
A neutron star, dense, rotating very quickly, emitting beams of radiation on two sides.
The magnetic field and the incredible gravity well pulling in the ship quickly and crushing it, devastation.
No, a tiny motion of hands, raising the nose of the ship up just ever so slightly.
Then, a course correction towards the destination.
Large rocks floating through space, a cluster of rather big asteroids, a crash, death.
No, pitching the ship’s nose further down again.
Another course correction.
A hand on a shoulder.
Other , smaller hands , twitching against the console.
The hyperspace swirl collapsing into star flares and then into stars.
They were back to space-normal.
Che’ri opened her eyes.
It was never easy to keep track of time when in third sight. However, Che’ri guessed that their last trip must have taken quite a while. For once, stars were travelling from the edges of her visual fields towards the centre. Other than the brilliant stars blazing outside of the scout ship’s canopy these were clearly not real but an early symptom of an overload spell coming up. Though it was not that bad this time, the moving lights disappeared after she blinked a couple of times, and she did not feel overly dizzy either. Also, she was feeling quite hungry.
Senior Captain Thrawn was standing behind her, a hand still on her shoulder. “Are you alright, Che’ri?”
She frowned. She really did not want to give off the impression of not feeling well, not living up to his expectations. They were on a mission, after all, and in the last couple of days, she had noticed that Thrawn put an enormous amount of confidence in her and her abilities, be it concerning navigation, her pilot training or also just the way he treated her. Other than most grown-ups he did not talk to her as if she were a little child and therefore stupid. She liked that. After all, she was already nine and three quarters, and she had spent most her of life on warships as long – at least as she could remember. She was not a small child anymore, she liked being taken seriously. And she preferred it staying that way with Thrawn, meaning that she should not give him any indication that his trust in her capabilities might be misplaced.
“It’s okay,” Che’ri said, suppressing a yawn. “I’m just hungry, and a bit tired.”
“I will prepare some food. Is there anything special you would like to eat?”
Che’ri pursed her lips. She couldn’t really think of anything right now. “Not really, no.”
She was wondering whether she should run another flight simulation while Thrawn was preparing a meal. There was still a slight pressure in her head from hours spent in third sight and she did not want a full-on headache to develop out of that, but she knew that she should take any chance for extra training she could get. On the other hand, she felt a bit mentally strained and yearned for some relaxation.
Both another suppressed yawn and Thrawn leaning in to unfasten her seatbelt and help her out of the pilot seat made that decision for her and she followed Thrawn out of the cockpit.
Half an hour later Che’ri was sitting in the wardroom, her new graph-markers spread all over the table in front of her, drawing on an art sheet. When they had left the cockpit, Thrawn headed straight to the galley to prepare some food, leaving her free to decide what she wanted to do.
Since then she hadn’t seen him, only hearing the occasional sound from the galley. At some point she could have sworn to hear soft humming out of that direction, but she was sure that she was just misinterpreting the noises of the ship. Thrawn might behave differently from all other captains she had served under, but he still was an officer of the Chiss Expansionary Defence Fleet and in Che’ri’s experience officers did not tend to sing or hum. And no matter how different Thrawn was, she had a hard time imagining him doing so.
She was glad that she had met him, not albeit but because he was different from the other captains and grown-ups. He treated her as an actual person with a working brain, not just as a mere asset to be used for navigating the ship. The same was true for Thalias, compared to the other momishes she had had. Thalias gave her the feeling that she really cared about her, unlike the others who seemed to care more for maintaining the capabilities of the useful tool called ozyly-esehembo and less for the actual wishes, dreams and personality of the girl called Che’ri. And actually, now that she was thinking about it, Che’ri realised that the last few weeks since she came to the Springhawk and met Thalias and Thrawn had been the happiest in her entire life.
She could only hope, she mused while drawing, that she would stay with Thalias and on the Springhawk longer than with most momishes in the past. Some had left after only a couple of months, but none of them had stayed for longer than a year before they had abandoned her. And most of them did not seem to care much about leaving her, two of them had not even taken the time to say goodbye, and none of them had ever checked up on how Che’ri was doing after having quit working as her momish. She had always felt like her caretakers might have taken care of her but certainly not cared about her. All, but Thalias. Thalias was different, maybe because she used to be a sky-walker herself.
But honestly, apart from Thalias and Thrawn, who still were quite recent additions to her life, who had ever really cared for her? Certainly not her other momishes, nor the captains or crews of the ships she served on in the past. She could barely remember her family anymore, but she figured that they probably hadn’t cared for her either. Why else would they have given up their daughter to serve as a sky-walker? There was a very distant memory of her family debating with the person who took her, but Che’ri thought that if they truly had cared they had fought harder. Also, if giving her away had been unavoidable they could at least have gone out of their way to stay in touch with her, if that was allowed or not.
Che’ri sighed. All she could hope for was not to be taken away again, this time from Thalias and Thrawn. And other than a real family, these two would not have any obligations to start with to try and stay in touch with her, would they?
But there had been a thought nagging in the corners of her mind for the last couple of days. She trusted Thrawn and he had given her his word that the worst that could happen to her for running off to the Chaos and Lesser Space with him was getting a scolding, but what about him? She had no idea how the fleet or even the syndicure punished officers who stepped out of line, but what if she was taken away from his ship because he had endangered her with this trip? And to make matters worse, what if they assigned a new momish to her, too, because Thalias had failed to stop her from going with Thrawn, and also was not around to care for her right now? She knew enough about grown-ups to know that some of them might see that as proof that Thalias was unfit for taking care of her, and that thought was scary. Even scarier than being out here alone with Thrawn, without Thalias or any other momish to look after her.
All of a sudden, Che’ri’s stomach rumbled loudly and pulled her out of her thoughts. She had already been hungry when she had left third sight earlier, but Thrawn took quite some time for preparing dinner today and she was even hungrier now. She noticed a delicious scent was wafting from the galley, which was not making it better.
If only dinner was ready soon, she thought. She looked down at her almost finished drawing. If only…
Her eyes widened as she sensed Thrawn approaching the galley door. She grabbed her drawing and started to quickly roll it up. Thrawn had somehow figured out her dream of flying just from looking at the birds, flashflies and landscapes she had drawn. She was uncomfortable with the thought of Thrawn deducing even more private things by looking at her drawings, but she was especially uncomfortable with the thought of him seeing this particular one. Che’ri was certain that he would think lesser of her for it, and that he might find it stupid and childish.
The door opened and Thrawn stepped out, a tray full of steaming food in his hands. Che’ri, still struggling to put away her drawing and markers, felt his eyes on her. She really hoped he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her artwork.
Now that Thrawn and the food were in here, the delicious smell spreading from it was even stronger. Her stomach made another loud growling noise and Che’ri felt the blood rush into her face as she saw the corners of Thrawn’s mouth twitch.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No need to apologise. On the contrary, it is up to me to apologise for not providing you with a meal any faster.” He sighed. “I should at least have supplied you with a juice packet earlier.”
“That’s okay. I mean, you are still learning how to be a caregiver, don’t worry about it. Look, it is just like me and piloting. Whenever I get something wrong, you don’t want me to apologise because I am new to it! You just want me to try and remember what I did wrong, so I can improve. You said it yourself: When you are a beginner, you are eventually gonna make errors, you just mustn’t let them become mistakes!” She paused, hoping she hadn’t overstepped. After all, they might be on this mission together without anyone else and that gave the whole situation a certain air of connection and intimacy, but in the end he still was the Captain of the ship she served on, a high ranking military officer.
But Thrawn just inclined his head. “I see. Nevertheless, I am responsible for your well-being and should have provided you with what you need. My apologies.” He put the tray down on the table. “I made you some spicy yubal stew with vegetables and some meat striped fruit squares for dessert. I was told you like these.”
“Okay. Thank you. Let me just quickly bring those to my bedroom, then I’m gonna eat,” Che’ri said and lifted a stack of graph-marker boxes and her folders of art sheets off the bench for emphasis. “Be right back!”
After dinner and spending some time in the freshers, Che’ri was brought to bed. The girl had insisted on him telling her a good night story but had fallen asleep after only a couple of minutes of listening. Thrawn had tucked her in and left for the dark cockpit, where he was sitting now, his questis in his hands, journaling. An exercise which in his experienced helped to sort and clear out the mind, reflect about the passed day and the overall situation as well as to evaluate the path he currently was on. He did not only use to take note of his daily experiences, his successes and errors but also liked to muse over these and other events going on in his life.
The experience of taking care of a child was a new one for Thrawn. He had been the youngest one of his siblings and he did not have any younger cousins living close by as a child, either. He was not married, nor did he have any children fathered out of wedlock. His brother had died before he could have a family with his wife and he did not know what had become of his sister. And since his brother’s death, he had no blood-family left.
Yes, back in his academy days he had supervised younger recruits from time to time, but teaching a young person who nevertheless was part of the military was hardly the same as taking care of an actual child.
He remembered having a pet avjosi for a while as a kid, but he remembered, too, that Thrass had probably fed the poor newt on more than one occasion because Thrawn had forgotten to do so. But children were no pets, and he was not a child anymore.
Yet, on the other hand, he had always enjoyed being around kids. In his experience, children tended to be much more curious than adults. But first and foremost less stuck in their ways and able to think out of the box far better than most grown-ups did. They were like little sponges, still eager to absorb all the experiences and knowledge they could get, at least as long as they were treated with respect and being taken seriously.
Sadly enough most people he knew did not do that. Too often, children were treated as unintelligent, ignorant beings unableto keep up with the adults, nuisances if they spoke up, dared to ask questions or even tried to gain insights, try out new things and learn something that was not part of their school curriculum.
In Thrawn’s opinion, it was the adults who tended to be ignorant, not the children.
Additionally, it was pleasant how straight-forward most children were, different to many grown Chiss with their political games and scheming, trying to outsmart each other whereas they actually only managed to waste both resources – mental and physical ones – and time.
But all these insights did not change that – although having had the occasional conversation or interaction with one of the sky-walkers on the ships he had served on, or even other kids elsewhere – he never had been solely responsible for making sure of a child’s well-being in their everyday life.
If he was being honest with himself, he was weary about having to do so now. Not because he was not used to being responsible for other people – as an officer and especially a captain he was doing that all the time – but because it was out of his area of expertise. It was something very new to him and for most people, new things tended to be a bit intimidating at first. Thrawn himself was no exception. That did not mean, of course, that it should therefore be avoided.
Quite on the contrary, when struck by such feelings, one should always try to overcome them. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone would expand one’s experiences and thereby get rid of such blind spots of competence and confidence. If one never tried something new and potentially scary, one would never learn new skills. Sometimes, one had to take a leap of faith into the water to learn how to swim.
It was just like with Che’ri and flying. Of course, Thrawn was not surprised when he had heard about her nightmares and her fear of flying though clearly dreaming of it as well. She had been sheltered all her life and nobody had ever let her try something new and exciting – apart from her duties as a sky-walker, and schoolwork, of course. How could she have confidence in herself if nobody else ever had shown any confidence in her performing any task but her usual ones?
She was a bright girl though, and a quick learner, and apart of her fantasies of flying he did see quite some talent for piloting in her, too. Yes, her being able to fly the ship on her own might become vital at some part during their mission, but he also found it important for her development to get the chance to learn and expand her abilities in a field that was interesting to her. And he couldn’t deny he also quite enjoyed teaching her or helping people expand their abilities in general.
And now that she had had quite some piloting lessons already and spend close to every free minute running through the simulations, her fear of flying and falling seemed to have almost entirely vanished.
Nevertheless, he would need to overcome his wariness concerning him having to take care of her, and learn quickly from any errors he might make for the sake of keeping Che’ri happy and well. Making the child uncomfortable was nothing Thrawn wanted to do, and be it by accident or because of a lack of foresight on his part.
He looked down on his questis, rereading what he had written.
Experiences are an unmeasurable resource, more precious than many other resources people tend to perceive as valuable. To gain experience one must not only expand one’s horizon to see the chance of an experience arise but also take the risks, efforts and discomfort stepping out of one’s known perimeters might take. The threat of the obstacles will diminish with every step inside unknown territory, as one will be able to look back at the hurdles already taken and therefore acknowledge one's grown expertise. The lessons taught by the experience tend to be invaluable.