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“If that’s how it’s gonna be every day…” Eli swore as he kicked his boots off and landed with a heavy jump on the first bed he could see.
“It was,” Thrawn stopped to take a deep breath, “informational.” Eli groaned and turned around. He watched as the man placed his backpack on a desk and started taking his books out and rearranging them back in the drawer beside his bed.
“Aren’t you gonna be studying?”
Thrawn shrugged. “Already studied this back at the Chiss Ascendancy.” Fair enough, Eli figured, though a part of him still wanted to tease Thrawn a bit. They were stuck together either way, he may as well have fun while at it.
“And what if there’s a difference in the material? I mean, do you just suppose Chiss and humans do things the same way?”
The Chiss glared at him. It seemed like that was a thought that had crossed his mind before. “I will be,” he finally said, and opened one of the books on the pile as if to prove his point. Eli couldn’t help but giggle a bit. “What’s so funny?”
“Your textbook,” Eli said, pointing at it, “it’s the other way round!” Eli had gotten up now, ready to do some work of his own, when Thrawn dropped the bomb.
“It’s not like I would have a way of knowing.”
“You…what?!” The human turned around to stare at him. “Thrawn… do you know how to read?”
“I don’t see why this is necessary.”
“You don’t see why it’s necessary to learn to read the language of the people you’ll be living with?”
Thrawn thought it through for a moment. There certainly was logic to that statement. “You’re just doing this to ridicule me,” he accused Eli blankly.
“Do you want to learn or not?” Eli asked in return. When Thrawn failed to respond, he took it as a yes, and started writing on the piece of flimsi. “Okay, so, there are 26 letters in Aurebesh. Obviously, like with any alphabet you use them to form words and sentences. Any questions so far?”
“How many tones are there?”
“None?” Eli replied, slightly taken aback by the question. He almost wanted to ask whether the Chiss language had tones before Thrawn shot his next question.
“Is it true you don’t read words as you see them?”
Eli sighed. It was going to be a long, long study session.
“Is this how you write N?” Thrawn asked, pointing at the notes he’d taken on the datapad.
Eli raised an eyebrow. “Well, yes, but kind of the other way round? This looks more like И.”
Judging by the way the Chiss nodded and went back to work, Eli could guess he hadn’t done that good of a job explaining it. “Listen,” he said, “let’s work on this together, shall we?”
Carefully, Eli wrapped his fingers around Thrawn’s as he guided his stylus down on the datapad. The man squeezed the stylus a bit at first, and began relaxing it towards the end of the letter.
“There, you see?”
Thrawn hummed. “Could you perhaps write a few more words with me like that?”
It didn’t take a lot for Eli to figure out the answer to that question.
Thrawn had called him to his office after working hours. More precisely, Thrawn had written to him to be there. Eli found the note on flimsi by his bed in the morning, the elegant handwriting marking it as Thrawn’s before he could even get to reading it.
“Eli, I’m so glad you could come,” the man greeted him at the door, leading him to the desk. He had let go of the rank. Eli relaxed - it meant Thrawn hadn’t called him for business.
“Is there something you would like to discuss,” the human asked nonetheless, out of duty and politeness’s sake.
“Yes, actually. Come, sit with me.”
On his desk, sitting on a chair he had pulled up beside Thrawn, Eli watched as the man took out a few notes of flimsi.
“Years ago you taught me Aurebesh,” Thrawn said, and Eli nodded. “yet I never repaid you. Would you perhaps like to learn the language of my species in return?”
Knowing now what those study sessions back then had led them to, Eli couldn't help but smile as Thrawn started teaching him the basics of Cheunh tones.