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26. LOL
[Public]
[The Emperor stands the hallway of Level One, awkwardly clutching a beehive shaped like a small griffon, with soot smudges on his face, dirt on his clothes, a few drowsy bees bumbling around him, and the door of his room, smoke billowing gently through the sliver of open door behind him.]
No need to be - alarmed.
[His breath catches wrong, and he coughs hard for a few seconds.]
Planned incineration. Perfectly contained.
If nobody claims the bees they're going to the greenhouse.
[Private to Barbara]
I'm going to need a new room.
[Spam - deliveries for Bush, Morgana, Hannibal, and Sylvanas.]
[Hours earlier, but not many- On the morning of the 10th, each of them will open their doors to find neatly potted plants. Bush recieves one elegant apple bonsai, less than two feet high. Morgana gets several pots of pansies, in different colors, arranged so as not to block the door, Sylvanas gets catnip, and Hannibal gets herbs - basil, sage, rosemary, and thyme.]
[The Emperor stands the hallway of Level One, awkwardly clutching a beehive shaped like a small griffon, with soot smudges on his face, dirt on his clothes, a few drowsy bees bumbling around him, and the door of his room, smoke billowing gently through the sliver of open door behind him.]
No need to be - alarmed.
[His breath catches wrong, and he coughs hard for a few seconds.]
Planned incineration. Perfectly contained.
If nobody claims the bees they're going to the greenhouse.
[Private to Barbara]
I'm going to need a new room.
[Spam - deliveries for Bush, Morgana, Hannibal, and Sylvanas.]
[
[Private]
Home.
[Not just the planet.]
[Private]
[Private]
The Empire was it for a very long time. But I can't.
I can't fight and hold back. I want not to hurt you anymore. You and Zane and Sylvanas and Bush. If I'm going to be anything but an implosion here, I must learn to live where I am. I must - trust it to get on without me. Trust the people I've left behind with everything else.
[It's so fucking hard.]
[Private]
She knows, because she hasn't entirely managed it. She doesn't want to. Home is not something to be mourned, it's something to fight for. And she's been fighting for a home for so long that the idea of accepting a new one is--
It's not the first time she's thought of it. It's not. But that makes it no lest terrifying.]
Careful. [There's a barely perceived tremor in her voice. She swallows it down, forces a smile instead.] You sound like you're inching closer to graduating.
[Private]
[He sounds very sad, and very tired. He feels ground down, like rocks on the seashore turned slowly to sand, like grain under a millstone. But he smiles, small and wanly.]
I doubt it really makes any difference. No matter how kind I'd like to be, I'll always be too comfortable with my atrocities.
[Private]
[She reflects her own doubts onto him rather than view them on herself.]
What if one day, you grieve them as well?
[Private]
[Private]
[Private]
[For you.]
[Private]
[She laughs quietly. It's a poor argument, she knows that from experience.]
At least, I've known worse monsters than you.
[Private]
[He is a charming monster, a grand and brilliant monster, a well-intentioned and inconsistently-principled monster. He's not sure any of that makes him less than the worst - but perhaps that is just arrogance as well.]
[Private]
[But she won't ask if he would do what was done to her, either. She remembers his memories, and she loved him for what he did for those people. She doesn't want it marred by hidden ugliness, so she chooses to believe instead.]