[he couldn't blame him. if rey and kylo ren were after him, and he was supposed to be on "their side", he was a liability. for exactly what had just happened.
not that he was on thrawn's side, either.
he was on his own side, for whatever that was worth. not much, apparently.
it still hurt. it hurt more than walking away like "peace out guess we'll never talk again." but, you know what? he still didn't regret it. because at least thrawn knew. it wouldn't come as a surprise betrayal when rey and kylo ren decided to give his brain a root canal or whatever the fuck. he laid out his betrayal all by himself.]
i understand. i'm still sorry.
[not that he's really expecting a response, but since thrawn is apparently banning him from his life, he goes for it anyway--]
why did you never ask me anything about back home the way you did with rey?
Strange that she did not mention it, as I had already explained my reasoning when she first posed this question.
It is personal for you, the war. We are not removed from its divide, as a scavenger from a desolate world would be. To ask you to explain what had happened would be to ask you to betray your loyalties, your people. Perhaps more.
I did not wish to place you in such a compromising position unnecessarily.
i figured it was something like that. i just wanted to know for sure.
[even after what had happened in the training room ... he still figured if he did ever try to confront thrawn, it would be an actual confrontation. with him getting up on the table and being angry while passionately throwing accusations in thrawn's face. not sitting on the magitek asking "why not me" like a child who didn't get candy at a birthday party. it's wholly unsatisfying.]
if you're never gonna talk to me again, i just wanna say something. you don't have to say anything back, i guess.
i put away my reservations. like you said. i meant it in the training room. i mean, obviously, because i couldn't lie, but. thank you.
i know that you want to preserve the empire. i know that's your incentive, or what you're doing here, or ... whatever. and i know that's bad and that rey wants to stop you. my parents fought in the war to end the empire. you don't have to hear what i think about the empire, because you probably already know.
but i'm here doing the same thing for the resistance. if we're not
if i'm thinking about it critically, how can i go against you when i'm trying to do the same thing? i wouldn't have even thought about it before. it wouldn't matter, because i would know it was the right thing, and i wouldn't have to look at it any closer than that.
so, i don't know. i'm not on your side, but i'm not on rey's side either. i don't think i can be. i'm on my own side, whatever that is. maybe i'll figure it out.
[Finally the glass is turned, viewed from another angle with clarity and foresight. Thrawn had expected it to be Rey to notice it first: to comprehend those deeper parallels— that to all that enlist into Hathaway's service beyond their own time, they are the catalysts for change. For destruction, if they so choose.
Or rebirth.
Only by remaining here do they stay their hand, and none are so willing. Not Thrawn, not Rey— not Poe Dameron or Kylo Ren, likely not even Finn. The stakes are too high, the galaxy's balance teetering perilously across the edge of a blade. But here, now, his overwhelming frustration and disappointment is turned on its head, for the most unlikely student has mastered what others could not.]
What I do, I do not do for the Empire.
[It is the most he can say, knowing that it would be all too easy to pierce through the brittle armor of their memories. Humans are more fragile. More fallible.
It feels like parting ways with Nightswan once more.]
[maybe it was just a small scrap of information — and poe knew that even giving him that much was probably dangerous when rey and kylo ren are out for blood, apparently — but for poe it was total justification. he had made The Right Choice.
it wasn't for the empire. rey had said he outright admitted it to her, but — first of all, rey's word isn't carrying a whole lot of weight right now. but, second of all, and more importantly — he can draw another parallel here. maybe his incentive was about the empire, but really about something else.
wasn't his wanting to save the resistance just as much about leia as it was about the resistance itself?
he was right. his initial read of thrawn was right. even if he was an imperial officer, there was something more there. some ounce of good. his worldview had never been wrong.]
Maybe it's never that easy. Everything's always about something else.
[ ^ ruins the moment with his dumb words. oh well. the intent was there.]
I'm sorry, too.
[he'd already said it twice at this point, but it warranted a third time. he wanted to say it out loud. to show that he meant it.]
That rising pitch, that uncharacteristically invested inflection— Yularen had witnessed it from afar, yes, but not heard it. Had he truly done so, the Colonel's assessment of Thrawn's near-tireless investment in an enemy of the Empire might not have been so dismissive. Batonn might have been the end of it. Of everything.
But such risks are always the difference between diverging paths and missed opportunities.
And Thrawn has learned from the past, enough to know better than to repeat it.]
It is sometimes said that we never truly die. That echoes of what we are carry on, long after we cease to exist.
[A slight pause, his segue left entirely and purposefully unexplained.]
However this engagement ends, know that you do credit to those that came before you.
[now come on thrawn, even with all these life lessons learned, you know that poe dameron is a simple boy and it's gonna be another four months before he figures that one out.
i'm kidding, i'm kidding. he gets it, on some level. or at least he thinks he does.
when leia had grounded him, after the death of l'ulo l'ampar. she said she saw something in him. admitted that she wouldn't be here forever. he thought she was priming him to be the next leader … and then the chain of command fell to holdo. his feelings about that aside (and also that wasn't her choice, now was it), what she was getting at then feels like the same thing thrawn is getting at now.
legacy. if she did die, the things she left behind still mattered. reached beyond her. if the resistance was wiped out, they'd still had victories. still helped people along the way. it wasn't all for nothing.]
Yeah. I've always believed — we're not just flesh and bone. We're more. We're luminous. The stuff is gone, but the people aren't. You still feel them. You carry it on.
[now that he's thought about what the words mean, he has to parse the intent behind them. (this is a whole process.)
if it's not about the empire, then ... what? he, deciding thrawn was Just Like Him, decided it was about a person. maybe thrawn had his own leia he was trying to save.
he was thinking of some other legacy. not about the empire, maybe he was using it as a means to an end, but ... something else. someone else.]
I don't — I'm not gonna tell you good luck with the Empire, don't take it that way. But I hope you get whatever you're looking for.
[There is a lengthier pause this time. Something that might even match the drawn-out breaths between Poe's own trains of thought— or eclipses them. It's difficult to say when so much of this conversation is like an exercise in splintered timelines and fractured expectations.
[ FUNNILY ENOUGH, it's at this moment in time that his brain is like "wow. maybe i should tell him i've actually been a captain all this time but was too ashamed of being demoted." he's not going to, but the thought crossed his mind because sometimes your brain tries to desperately escape feeling feelings. and he's not good at them. more of the type to shove jackets at people and run away.
it was weird, mapping the whole thing out mentally. using thrawn as a stand-in for guidance and approval, feeling betrayed when told that everything he'd been doing was part of some big manipulative game. and then ... maybe it was, but maybe it wasn't.
that was what he took away from all this. the lesson. there wasn't just black and white. not empire vs. rebellion, maybe not even resistance vs. first order. for fuck's sake, his boyfriend used to be a stormtrooper. he didn't have to trust him when finn broke him out and asked to help him escape, but he did. finn couldn't be some anomaly, could he? there had to be more. others.
maybe, instead of being driven by good or evil or ... whatever, everyone was driven by base needs. even imperial officers like thrawn.
his own base need was to do the right thing. not what was right because it was Good, but what was right to himself. and maybe sometimes those things didn't align, but that was okay. they didn't have to. he'd done the right thing here. even if it probably wouldn't matter ultimately, it mattered to him. ]
Goodbye, Grand Admiral. May the Force be with you.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[That moment in the training hall, when Thrawn could easily have chosen to fail and suffer no consequences for it. A poor choice, in hindsight.]
Maintain your distance from me, Commander. We will not speak again.
no subject
not that he was on thrawn's side, either.
he was on his own side, for whatever that was worth. not much, apparently.
it still hurt. it hurt more than walking away like "peace out guess we'll never talk again." but, you know what? he still didn't regret it. because at least thrawn knew. it wouldn't come as a surprise betrayal when rey and kylo ren decided to give his brain a root canal or whatever the fuck. he laid out his betrayal all by himself.]
i understand. i'm still sorry.
[not that he's really expecting a response, but since thrawn is apparently banning him from his life, he goes for it anyway--]
why did you never ask me anything about back home the way you did with rey?
no subject
It is personal for you, the war. We are not removed from its divide, as a scavenger from a desolate world would be. To ask you to explain what had happened would be to ask you to betray your loyalties, your people. Perhaps more.
I did not wish to place you in such a compromising position unnecessarily.
no subject
i figured it was something like that. i just wanted to know for sure.
[even after what had happened in the training room ... he still figured if he did ever try to confront thrawn, it would be an actual confrontation. with him getting up on the table and being angry while passionately throwing accusations in thrawn's face. not sitting on the magitek asking "why not me" like a child who didn't get candy at a birthday party. it's wholly unsatisfying.]
if you're never gonna talk to me again, i just wanna say something. you don't have to say anything back, i guess.
i put away my reservations. like you said. i meant it in the training room. i mean, obviously, because i couldn't lie, but. thank you.
i know that you want to preserve the empire. i know that's your incentive, or what you're doing here, or ... whatever. and i know that's bad and that rey wants to stop you. my parents fought in the war to end the empire. you don't have to hear what i think about the empire, because you probably already know.
but i'm here doing the same thing for the resistance. if we're not
if i'm thinking about it critically, how can i go against you when i'm trying to do the same thing? i wouldn't have even thought about it before. it wouldn't matter, because i would know it was the right thing, and i wouldn't have to look at it any closer than that.
so, i don't know. i'm not on your side, but i'm not on rey's side either. i don't think i can be. i'm on my own side, whatever that is. maybe i'll figure it out.
that's it, i'm done.
delayed— voice;
Or rebirth.
Only by remaining here do they stay their hand, and none are so willing. Not Thrawn, not Rey— not Poe Dameron or Kylo Ren, likely not even Finn. The stakes are too high, the galaxy's balance teetering perilously across the edge of a blade. But here, now, his overwhelming frustration and disappointment is turned on its head, for the most unlikely student has mastered what others could not.]
What I do, I do not do for the Empire.
[It is the most he can say, knowing that it would be all too easy to pierce through the brittle armor of their memories. Humans are more fragile. More fallible.
It feels like parting ways with Nightswan once more.]
I am sorry.
-> voice
it wasn't for the empire. rey had said he outright admitted it to her, but — first of all, rey's word isn't carrying a whole lot of weight right now. but, second of all, and more importantly — he can draw another parallel here. maybe his incentive was about the empire, but really about something else.
wasn't his wanting to save the resistance just as much about leia as it was about the resistance itself?
he was right. his initial read of thrawn was right. even if he was an imperial officer, there was something more there. some ounce of good. his worldview had never been wrong.]
Maybe it's never that easy. Everything's always about something else.
[ ^ ruins the moment with his dumb words. oh well. the intent was there.]
I'm sorry, too.
[he'd already said it twice at this point, but it warranted a third time. he wanted to say it out loud. to show that he meant it.]
no subject
That rising pitch, that uncharacteristically invested inflection— Yularen had witnessed it from afar, yes, but not heard it. Had he truly done so, the Colonel's assessment of Thrawn's near-tireless investment in an enemy of the Empire might not have been so dismissive. Batonn might have been the end of it. Of everything.
But such risks are always the difference between diverging paths and missed opportunities.
And Thrawn has learned from the past, enough to know better than to repeat it.]
It is sometimes said that we never truly die. That echoes of what we are carry on, long after we cease to exist.
[A slight pause, his segue left entirely and purposefully unexplained.]
However this engagement ends, know that you do credit to those that came before you.
no subject
i'm kidding, i'm kidding. he gets it, on some level. or at least he thinks he does.
when leia had grounded him, after the death of l'ulo l'ampar. she said she saw something in him. admitted that she wouldn't be here forever. he thought she was priming him to be the next leader … and then the chain of command fell to holdo. his feelings about that aside (and also that wasn't her choice, now was it), what she was getting at then feels like the same thing thrawn is getting at now.
legacy. if she did die, the things she left behind still mattered. reached beyond her. if the resistance was wiped out, they'd still had victories. still helped people along the way. it wasn't all for nothing.]
Yeah. I've always believed — we're not just flesh and bone. We're more. We're luminous. The stuff is gone, but the people aren't. You still feel them. You carry it on.
[now that he's thought about what the words mean, he has to parse the intent behind them. (this is a whole process.)
if it's not about the empire, then ... what? he, deciding thrawn was Just Like Him, decided it was about a person. maybe thrawn had his own leia he was trying to save.
he was thinking of some other legacy. not about the empire, maybe he was using it as a means to an end, but ... something else. someone else.]
I don't — I'm not gonna tell you good luck with the Empire, don't take it that way. But I hope you get whatever you're looking for.
no subject
In exceeded ones, as well.]
Goodbye, Commander Dameron.
no subject
it was weird, mapping the whole thing out mentally. using thrawn as a stand-in for guidance and approval, feeling betrayed when told that everything he'd been doing was part of some big manipulative game. and then ... maybe it was, but maybe it wasn't.
that was what he took away from all this. the lesson. there wasn't just black and white. not empire vs. rebellion, maybe not even resistance vs. first order. for fuck's sake, his boyfriend used to be a stormtrooper. he didn't have to trust him when finn broke him out and asked to help him escape, but he did. finn couldn't be some anomaly, could he? there had to be more. others.
maybe, instead of being driven by good or evil or ... whatever, everyone was driven by base needs. even imperial officers like thrawn.
his own base need was to do the right thing. not what was right because it was Good, but what was right to himself. and maybe sometimes those things didn't align, but that was okay. they didn't have to. he'd done the right thing here. even if it probably wouldn't matter ultimately, it mattered to him. ]
Goodbye, Grand Admiral. May the Force be with you.