A Promises Thrayjallus AU...
Chapter 9: Dizzy in the Head
Kallus considers his options, and Dayja helps… after a fashion.
Preview below cut/Link in my pinned post
.
Once back on the Chimaera, Kallus asked for permission to return to his quarters for the night—his own quarters—to consider Thrawn’s proposal. The permission was granted. The rhythmic echo of his footsteps ringing in the durasteel halls brought with it an odd sense of déjà vu… like he’d approached this moment from the wrong direction in time. That strange sense didn’t abate once he sat on his bunk. Nor once he began turning the softly glowing meteorite over in his hands.
It wouldn’t fade for hours, that out-of-time feeling.
Had they all been planet-side, it would have been sunrise when a worn voice pulled him out of his own tangled mind. “That’s it, huh?”
Kallus looked up in surprise. He hadn’t even heard his door open. “Do you ever sleep, Dayj?” he asked, looking back down at the glowing rock.
“Do you?” Dayja sat beside him on the small cot. The warmth of his leg pressed against Kallus’s wounded one, holding him in place—anchoring him in time. He pulled out an ion-pulse mine and activated it before tossing it to the floor. The gentle blue glow joined that of the meteorite’s, casting them in green light. “Well, color me relieved. Here I was thinking I was actually gonna have to murder Thrawn for a minute there.”
“No,” Kallus said. “We only had a conversation. No murder necessary.”
Dayja looked around and asked, “Where do you keep your snacks?”
“I haven’t got any snacks, Dayj.”
Dayja mouthed a silent, “Oh,” with a face that said as plainly as any words: no wonder you’re so grouchy all the time. The bed began to quake beneath them; Kallus shot Dayja a really? look. “You weren’t kidding about the bunks,” Dayja said, bouncing experimentally. “Kinda squishy.”
A faint smile ghosted Kallus’s lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t already know that from personal experience.”
Dayja gave a small snort and muttered, “Like I’d waste my time in a shitty bunk fucking anybody below a commodore, Al, come on.”
Was Thrawn a commodore at the time? Was it on Coruscant? Where was I? With Eli? Did I—
Dayja’s voice filtered through Kallus’s meandering thoughts: “Yeesh. This thing really is tiny.”
“Yes,” Kallus agreed, returning his focus to the meteorite in his hands. “It is.”