Behind them, C'Baoth groans. He seems like he's waking up.

Thrawn doesn't comment, but a hint of a smile does touch his lips at 'idiotic superweapon.'

"No? And where was your Empire centralized? Who ruled it?"

Callida eyes her idiotic charge. She considers, weighs the likelihood that he'll have anything of import to contribute to the conversation, and then promptly begins choking him with the Force. Not to kill him, just to keep him quiet. His betters are talking.

"It was ruled by the Emperor, of course. Though the Dark Council handled most of the mundane business even prior to his assassination. The capital is Dromund Kaas."

C'Baoth gurgles. But quietly. He might be trying to say something.

"I'm afraid I don't recognize the name." He glances at C'baoth, a trace of amused.

Callida looks at C'baoth, then at Occlus, and raises an eyebrow. Hear what he has to say, or?

"Has the Ascendancy cut ties so thoroughly, then? Not that one can quite blame them."

Occlus shakes her head in response to her apprentice's unspoken query.

"I wouldn't know. How large is your Empire?"

Well, C'baoth doesn't get to talk then, does he. Just as well, he probably doesn't have anything important to say. She'll make sure she doesn't kill him or give him brain damage, but air is not a thing he's going to be well acquainted with right now.

"Large enough that you ought to have heard of it."

"Lord Callida, the 'fate' glyph you saw. How many turns was the spiral?"

"Four."

Of course, she's wondering where Occlus is going with this, but will let her explain.

"Four... and the trefoil edging, of course! How did I miss that? They were using the poetic register. The proper translation is not fate, but time."

"Ah," says Callida, not sounding at all thrilled by this revelation.

"Not a where, but a when? Intriguing."

"A hypertemporal wormhole, the stuff of spacers' legend. Not the first impossibility they would have actualized, but still." Occlus shakes her head. "They must have been trying to return to their heyday, to warn of the problem and gain more time to solve it, using the Ourobouros as an anchoring point. But it can only anchor for as long as it exists and so could send them only forwards..."

Callida has enough composure to keep C'Baoth right where he is, pinned to a wall and with a highly limited air supply, but also: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

"Then might I offer you and your apprentice a place in the modern Empire?"

"That would depend on what sort of place you had in mind."

"I believe the discussion on that subject would be best held in private. Would you be so kind as to accept an invitation to my ship?"

Callida takes a few seconds to pick up the cocktail of emotions running through her head at the thought of being stranded in the future, with everyone she's known - except Darth Occlus - long dead, and then shove it wholesale into her mental equivalent of a cargo hold. She will untangle that later. Right now, she can't afford to be distracted.

She looks Thrawn over cooly, and her eyes fall to the furry, snake-like creature attached to the backpack-like apparatus currently on Thrawn's back. It's - obviously not the sort of pet one would take with them on the go. Nor the sort of pet that one would take on any sort of mission that could involve combat. If it isn't completely helpless, it's not for a lack of trying, and it would absolutely be in the way in any sort of confrontation. Unless it did something very, very useful. She notes the edges of the Force void, and where it's centralized, and makes the obvious conclusion.

The Grand Admiral notes her gaze, smiling slightly.

"While there are other ysalamiri on my flagship, they are not so numerous as to make every section of it empty to the Force," says Thrawn, answering her question as she formulates it. "You would not be powerless aboard it."

Occlus files 'ysalamiri' away for future study.

"Is your shuttle similarly capacious? I trust you understand my hesitancy in this matter."

"Of course. If it is not capacious enough I can always send for a private one."

"Very well. We accept." Occlus turns to where Callida has C'Baoth pinned. "Kill him."