Melting the divine

He opened one eyelid and nearly jumped out of his skin when he was met with four beady eyes staring back at him.

"I told you not to disturb Eli," came Thrawn's voice, gently chiding, and the yellow lizard was plucked up with a squeak. Eli turned around to see the Chiss holding the lizard high and close enough that it could play with his nose.

"Humans need six hours of sleep to function optimally," Thrawn was warning it, even as it evidently paid no attention to his words or the commanding tone of his voice. "If you disturb Eli again, I am going to have to leave you with Bridger, or keep you in an enclosure for the night. We don't want that, do we?"

*I kind of want that*, Eli thought, but sat up on the bed with an agreeable smile. Annoyed as he was with Thrawn for choosing a thrice-damned lizard over him the previous night, he couldn't deny that it was criminally endearing to watch the usually stoic, serious Chiss former Grand Admiral melt like chocolate the moment the diminutive ysalamir did anything cute.

Thrawn, thankfully, set the lizard down on the floor where it scampered off and went underneath the curtains, and turned his glowing red gaze on Eli.

Eli grinned. "Good morning."

~

Stars, I did it again.

Shame, shame, shame on me.

I even already shared this excerpt in my captions before.

And, still, after all this time, here it goes uncredited.

I wouldn't say I like that AO3 is not indexing the actual content of the stories, so I cannot search for it, as instead, Google allows me to do with books.

Dear author, I am so incredibly sorry!

I promise I will credit you as soon I find you.

I can (partially) compensate for my offense, acknowledging instead the lovely art of this charm by iovitus (on Etsy).

Back to the quote, I can actually hear Thrawn's low, calm, warm voice (yes, yes, I know it's Marc's) while he addresses the cute ysalamir in the most charming tone.

And, folks, I find that it is kind of a capital crime that we will never witness him and Ezra, after months of hilarious banter, finally bonding, heart-shaped eyes and all, over an irresistibly adorable uber-fluffy pup from whatever remote planet they are stranded in.

But we can dream.

[or open AO3]