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He’d barely worn his white uniform for a day before Governor Pryce called him from Lothal.
“It’s a political party,” she said crisply after the basic greetings were out of the way. “Everyone who’s anyone along the Lothal Trade Route will be there. As a Grand Admiral, it’s vital that you attend.”
Thrawn muted his comlink and turned to Commodore Faro, who had recently received her new promotion herself.
“Everyone who’s anyone?” he repeated, sounding mystified.
“I’m not your translator, sir,” said Faro a bit stiffly. Then, when Thrawn only stared at her, she relented a little and said, “It means anyone in the area who’s of note will be there. People with money or political power.”
“I see.” He unmuted the comm at once. “You say it is vital that I attend,” he said, interrupting Governor Pryce. “Explain.”
On the other side of the line, she hesitated for a moment, perhaps taking time to process Thrawn’s words.
“You’re a Grand Admiral now,” she told him to start with. “More to the point, you’re a Grand Admiral stationed over Lothal. Your fleet covers all notable maneuvers in and around the LTR. If you weren’t there, you would lose political favor with practically everyone in attendance.”
Thrawn paused, thinking it over. “Why?” he asked.
It was clear this question threw Pryce for a loop. She switched to video feed, and as soon as her image fizzled to life above the comlink, she gave Thrawn a good, hard side-eye.
“Are you being facetious?” she asked him frostily. “Do you really need me to explain why you would lose political favor for skipping the most major political event of the year?”
Thrawn ruffled a little at that, but his tone was mild when he spoke. “Yes. Please do.”
Pryce let out a dramatic sigh that turned into static over the comm. “Because, Grand Admiral, if you do not attend, all those present will assume first that you have higher, better-connected contacts in the political sphere and therefore can’t be bothered to introduce yourself or schmooze with them,” she said. “They will then attempt to discover who your contacts are, whereupon some of them will learn of your relationship with the Emperor and file you away as a dangerous opponent who must be stopped, and others will discover no connections and realize you’re actually nothing but an idiot savant who knows nothing more about politics than a particularly stupid baby.”
Thrawn muted his comlink again and turned to Faro.
“Schmooze?” he murmured to her. “Savant?”
“Not a translator droid,” Faro reminded him.
He turned back to Pryce with a sigh. “You have not explained why it will be necessary for me to attend,” he told her.
“Because if you don’t, you will become the number one political target for practically everyone at this meeting,” said Pryce. “Governors like myself, Moffs, Senators, Chief Financial Officers, ISB agents, bankers—”
“Ah. You could have simply said so from the start,” said Thrawn.
With a great show of restraint, Pryce resisted the urge to end the call. She took a deep breath, centered herself, and let it out in a sigh.
“The party will take place on Nurwa IV,” she said, voice measured. “One week from now. You will wear your dress uniform. I will meet you aboard the Chimaera and we will shuttle together from there, to arrive promptly at 8:15 p.m. Do you understand?”
Thrawn’s eyebrows furrowed. “I have several questions,” he said.
“I’m just sure you do.”
“Why Nurwa IV?” Thrawn started. “Is it the residence of someone of import, or simply a common meeting ground along the Lothal Trade Route? Is the date of the party of any significance, culturally or politically? Why must we arrive at 8:15? The invitation you sent me says quite clearly the party started at seven. Are you quite certain that my dress uniform is the wisest—”
“Thrawn,” said Pryce, her patience strained.
He fell silent at once, waiting.
“Be ready,” said Pryce. “And be in your dress uniform. And for God’s sake, do not ask me anymore questions.”
She severed the call at once.
Thrawn was waiting in the hangar bay when Pryce’s shuttle docked, looking spectacularly confident in his dress uniform — even though he couldn’t possibly have grown used to it by now. Although almost identical to his regular uniform in cut, it came with trousers which sealed on the side rather than the front (for purposes Pryce hadn’t yet ascertained), had gold piping on the lapels and sleeves, a rack for medals where Thrawn’s rank plaque would normally be, and — most egregiously — gaudy gold epaulets on both Thrawn’s shoulders.
She eyed the ensemble critically, from the wide-brimmed white cap which Thrawn seemed disinclined to wear all the way down to the fresh white leather of his dress shoes. He withstood her scrutiny without the slightest hint of discomfort — with the patience of someone who had attended countless military events and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his uniform was perfect.
Pryce pulled the regulations up on her datapad anyway, studying the graphics in silence and then cross-referencing them with recent holos of Grand Admiral Savit at his opera, opening day.
“It’ll do,” she said finally, casting a cool glance over Thrawn’s uniform.
“Delighted that you approve,” he said, voice dry. “Your attire is also acceptable. Shall we go?”
Bristling, Pryce led the way back to her shuttle. Of course her attire was acceptable. More than acceptable, in fact, but then again, she didn’t expect Thrawn to have much appreciation for Core World fashion. He probably didn’t even own civilian sleepwear, let alone civilian fancy dress.
The shuttle was small, but certainly more well-adorned than Thrawn would be used to from the military. The seats in the cabin resembled plush armchairs more than the plastisteel bucket-and-harness one saw on Imperial shuttles; the drinks cupboard was well-stocked, and the staff were uniformed and friendly. Thrawn eyed them all almost warily as he stepped inside, allowing Pryce to select his seat for her: the one directly opposite hers, of course.
Once they were both buckled in for the drop, Thrawn crossed his legs elegantly, folded his hands, and looked out the viewport at the hangar bay. From his posture, Pryce guessed that he intended to do nothing else for entertainment for the entire ride.
“Didn’t you bring a datapad?” she asked with a frown.
“Shoulder bags are not authorized in dress uniform,” Thrawn replied. “Thus I would have nowhere to stow a datapad if I brought one.”
Pryce’s own datapad was tucked into the mesh pocket along the side of her seat. “You could have brought something,” she said, a note of disapproval in her voice. “A deck of cards, at least. You’ll look like a droid sitting there doing nothing the whole trip.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why should I make attempts not to look like a droid?” he asked, voice mild. “The only one here to see me is you.”
Pryce grit her teeth. “And the waitstaff.”
Thrawn shrugged; the gold epaulets on his shoulders jostled with the movement. “I see no harm in it if they consider me droid-like,” he said.
He was impossible to work with, Pryce decided. Despite the well-pressed uniform, he clearly didn’t care one bit about appearances — and appearances were everything in politics. She smoothed out the hem of her shimmersilk robes, considered a dozen or so arguments/well-aimed insults, and then decided against them. Like Thrawn, she stared out the window. Or rather, glared out it.
They’d only just dropped from the dock when Thrawn commented, “You are looking very droid-like yourself, Governor.”
She shot him a harsh look. “I’d keep that sense of humor in check, if I were you,” she said, and immediately the faint traces of amusement disappeared from Thrawn’s face, as if he could eliminate his emotions on command. Perhaps he could. “The patriciate of the Lothal Trade Route won’t appreciate any jokes you make at their expense,” she added.
A small line appeared between his eyebrows, but he only nodded. If he had any questions, he didn’t ask them.
Silence descended upon them. Pryce retrieved her datapad from the mesh pocket and powered it on, determined to ignore Thrawn for the rest of the trip. She forced herself to focus on the political reports and ordinances she’d downloaded for perusal prior to leaving Lothal — but under her eyelids, she found herself continually glancing up at Thrawn.
He uncrossed his legs. She glanced up at him.
He re-crossed his legs. She glanced up at him.
He cleared his throat. She glanced up at him.
He dimmed the viewport, then un-dimmed it. She glanced up at him.
He pulled his right ankle up over his left knee and picked dirt out of the creases in his white leather shoes.
“What are you doing?” Pryce snapped, her concentration completely broken now.
Thrawn raised his eyebrows at her. With one hand, he dug a lighter out of his tunic pocket; with his other, he held a loose white strand aloft from the lining of his shoe.
“I am fixing minor flaws in my uniform before we arrive,” Thrawn said, burning the piece of string away.
“You couldn’t have done that before we left the Chimaera?” Pryce asked.
Thrawn examined his shoe carefully, running his fingers over the lining until he found another string. This one wasn’t quite loose yet; he pulled an old-fashioned pocketknife out of his tunic and picked at the string until it was long enough to burn away.
“I did, in fact, do this before we left,” he said evenly. “And now I am doing it again.”
“An efficient admiral completes his tasks the first time around,” Pryce said.
“A bored admiral completes them again,” said Thrawn without rancor. He studied his shoe a moment longer, and Pryce found herself strangely hypnotized by the sight of his long blue fingers trailing lightly over the white leather, searching slowly but inexorably for any flaws. Then, without ceremony, Thrawn uncrossed his legs and switched them, bringing his left foot up to examine that instead. He did this without making a single sound, Pryce noticed — no rustling of fabric, no tap of his shoe against the floor.
He studied his left shoe for a moment, with Pryce’s eyes boring a hole into his face — or what she could see of it, which was mostly the swoop of rigidly-styled blue-black hair over his bowed head. She was frowning at him openly when he glanced up and met her eyes, raising his eyebrows as he did.
“Question, Governor?” he said.
As a matter of fact, yes.
“Are you always this fidgety?” asked Pryce with a frown. Thrawn opened his mouth to answer, sitting up a little but not releasing his left foot. “Because I assure you, the people at this party will notice if you fidget, Grand Admiral. I will not be seen with someone who stands by the punch bowl wringing his hands and dancing from foot to foot all night.”
The line between his eyebrows was back. He studied Pryce’s face, maybe checking to see if she were serious or only nagging him for the sake of nagging. After a moment, he sat back, uncrossing his legs and tucking the lighter and pocketknife away.
“Very well,” he said evenly. “I won’t fidget.”
He sat very still after that, his face unreadable, his eyes searing into her. Pryce cocked her head, eyebrows furrowed, and waited for him to say something, but he never did. As time stretched on, she was forced to admit that he was just staring.
“What are you doing?” she asked, patience strained.
Thrawn hunched his shoulders in what must have been a shrug. A shade of uncertainty crept into his face. “Meditating,” he said. “Waiting for the shuttle to arrive at Nurwa IV.” Then, after a moment of thought, “Not fidgeting.”
“You’re staring,” Pryce corrected him. “My God, Thrawn, are you really so socially inept that you don’t know not to stare?”
“Is staring considered impolite in the Empire?” asked Thrawn mildly, as if he didn’t know. “Everyone certainly stares at me.”
Pryce started on a tinned scathing reply, then shut her mouth when the first word soured on her tongue. People probably did stare at Thrawn, she thought, studying his deep blue skin and glowing eyes.
“Well,” she said eventually, not softening her tone, “just because impolite people stare at you doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to stare at the Lothal Trade Route’s elite in the middle of a party. Remember that.”
The line between Thrawn’s eyebrows was back again. He averted his eyes, but the damage was done.
"What? ” Pryce snapped.
He looked back at her in confusion.
“That damn look on your face,” Pryce said, pointing to her own eyebrows in exasperation. “What is that? Stop making it at once.”
“As you wish,” said Thrawn. His features became as blank and unreadable as a wooden mask. He gazed back out the window, his chest rising and falling in a shallow sigh. Looking down, Pryce saw that he’d crossed his legs tightly and was kneading his fingers; the posture struck her as odd, almost defensive, on someone who usually radiated confidence and calm.
“What is it, then?” she said, this time attempting to soften her tone. Her voice still came out cold and a bit clipped, but at least it wasn’t quite so harsh as before. When Thrawn only looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate, she said, “That expression. What is it?”
He raised an eyebrow, and immediately Pryce felt like her intelligence was being attacked. She tamped down on the defensiveness that rose within her.
“You must remember I’m not familiar with your species,” she said with as much patience as she could muster.
“You must remember I cannot see my own face,” Thrawn replied. “What expression do you mean, Governor?”
“This…” She furrowed her eyebrows slightly, while keeping the rest of her face cold and composed. Thrawn studied her, his eyes flickering from the top of her forehead all the way down to her chin. “You’ve made this face three already,” said Pryce. “When I told you it’s impolite to stare and earlier, when I told you not to fidget so much. Before that, when I told you to lose your sense of humor.”
He said nothing for a moment. “If you find the expression itself offensive,” he started, “I will endeavor not to use it for the duration of the party.”
Of all Thrawn’s expressions, Pryce supposed this was probably one of the least offensive, but she didn’t bother to tell him that. She was thinking hard, something tugging at her memory.
“I’ve seen that expression before,” she realized. “When I was on the comm with you earlier this week. You muted the call and turned to ask Commodore Faro something.”
“Then it seems obvious the expression is one of confusion,” said Thrawn. His tone was neutral, as if he wasn’t interested in the topic, but he was studying Pryce with intense, narrowed eyes, as if her obsession with it very much was of interest.
“No, your confused look is different,” Pryce insisted. She felt immediately chagrined; shouldn’t have let him know that she could categorize his different expressions so easily. Or at all. It implied a certain level of intimacy, when really, they were barely even acquaintances.
Then it dawned on her.
“Is this because I told you not to ask questions?” she asked, her voice sharp.
Thrawn gazed back at her. The line between his eyebrows was subtle but present, and finally Pryce could identify it. It was an expression of faint — but unmistakable — discomfort, as if holding back questions physically distressed him.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Pryce said, collapsing back into her seat. She shook her head mutely, struggling to put her exasperation into words. “I — you — fine, Thrawn. What are your questions?”
He leaned forward sharply. “Earlier you said the patriciate of the Lothal Trade Route would not like it if I made jokes at their expense. I understand the etymology of the word patriciate but not its exact parameters in this scenario. Who belongs to the patriciate? What specific powers do they hold? Broadly, what function do they serve in society, and in the Lothal Trade Route in particular, if indeed there is a difference? Can you identify each member by name, or is the group too large? And this phrase you used later, carte blanche — from context I assume it means something similar to the Basic idiom ‘free rein,’ is that correct? Is it Basic? It seems quite different to me. A Lothalian dialect? And the words ‘schmooze’ and ‘savant,’ which you used earlier this week—”
Didn’t this man own a dictionary? Pryce wondered. She listened to Thrawn’s questions without speaking, waiting for him to finish — and not listening to each individual question so much as she studied him while he spoke. There was an edge of tension along his shoulders, a peculiar hardness to his face.
Discomfort, she thought. Only amplified by ten. Making it not discomfort at all, but … what? Nervousness? Anxiety?
Over a party?
Thrawn stopped talking suddenly, and Pryce realized too late that he’d cut himself off because he was now studying her. Meaning he’d noticed she was studying him and now he wanted to know why.
“Governor Pryce?” he said, a bit sharply.
Pryce took a deep breath. She’d talked this party up a bit too much, she realized now. Following the incident at Batonn — and her pointed words about his political skills — she’d perhaps accidentally given Thrawn the impression that this party was an immense battleground, and one which he was entirely ill-equipped to win.
So, crisply and without an ounce of care in her voice, she said, “Don’t be nervous , for God’s sake. You’re an admiral. It doesn’t become you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Nervous?” he repeated, his voice icy.
Pryce snorted and waved her hand at him dismissively. She turned back to her datapad, feigning disinterest in the conversation. “Oh, please,” she said as she scrolled through a statute on public HoloNet records and which Imperial employees were exempt. “One look at you and everyone there will know you’re quaking in your white leather shoes. It only makes sense, I suppose; anyone is frightened of that which they don’t understand. Yet somehow it never occurred to me.” She looked up, gauging Thrawn’s reaction so far, and then went for the kill. “I knew you were inept at politics, Admiral. I wasn’t aware they scared you.”
Thrawn practically bristled at that. But strangely, his argument wasn’t ‘politics don’t scare me;’ instead, it was, “One look at me and you can tell I’m not trembling in the slightest.”
He held his hands out to prove his point; they were steady and immovable as rock. Pryce gave them a quick, unimpressed glance.
“Good for you,” she said. “You’ve managed not to tremble in fear over the prospect of a political party. What a brave little soldier you are.”
Thrawn snatched his hands back with an unamused twitch of the eyebrows.
“Perhaps it’s not too late to turn around,” said Pryce, her tone dry as the grainstalk fields in Lothal.
“No need,” said Thrawn, voice clipped.
“Don’t tell me ‘no need.’ It’s not your comfort I’m taking into consideration,” Pryce informed him. “I’m only concerned with how it will look for me to be seen with someone so blatantly incompetent and distressed.”
Thrawn gave her a cold look. He was the absolute picture of composure now; from the faintly judgmental look on his face, Pryce just knew he was thinking about her actions at Batonn, perhaps comforting himself by thinking that, while he might be bad at politics, he’d never become so nervous on the battlefield that he deliberately exploded a shielded city with 30,000 civilians inside.
“What will you do, drink the nerves away?” Pryce asked him, cocking an eyebrow. She didn’t allow the thought of Batonn to show on her face. “Or will you hide in the fresher until everyone’s gone home?”
Thrawn’s eyes hardened again. “This is juvenile,” he said, turning to look out the viewport. Pryce took a look as well, and felt a spark of malicious glee when she saw the Nurwa IV spaceport hovering in direct view. “Not to mention entirely transparent,” Thrawn continued, his eyes glued on the docking ships below them. “You are attempting to goad me until I forget my nerves and must grapple with anger instead.”
“So you admit you’re nervous,” said Pryce, satisfied as a Loth-cat.
Thrawn shot her a look that could have frozen Mustafar to cold, hard ice. The thin line of discomfort between his eyebrows stayed conspicuously absent as their shuttle docked on Nurwa IV. In fact, it didn’t even make an appearance when they stepped off the shuttle, with Moff Tringic’s manor in sight. With obvious distaste, Thrawn offered Pryce his arm, and she took it at once, feeling the coiled thread of carefully-hidden anger in his muscles.
Well, she thought triumphantly, he certainly wasn’t nervous anymore. She really didn’t give a damn if he was angry, so long as he didn’t embarrass himself at the party — or worse, embarrass her.
She put on a smile and allowed him to lead her inside.