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Chelsa buries herself in her friends, and the warmth of the world that Harley isn't on anymore. She doesn't understand him. She never will. But there's Corona, sun-scorching and intense; there's Amdon, her oldest and closest; there's Anneia, sweet and smiling; there's Sandre, cuddly and fun; there's Tima, pretty-kindling and empathetic; there's Pacco, bright and deferent; there's Jony, hot as a kiln; Lionara hot as molten glass. And Aelise herself, who makes so many compromises but who does love Chelsa after all.
Harley wasn't like that one cold, cold girl, who - she wasn't even technically a sociopath. Sociopaths kindle like everyone else. She was just - cold. Like an airless environment in which no fire can burn.
But Aelise had her killed, and Chelsa made sure no one would miss her, and if anything like that ever happened again, Chelsa has every confidence that Aelise would make it right. Harley's one thing. He can just be - out of sight, out of mind. Aelise would never expect Chelsa to compromise on the existence of such a terrible cold.
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warmfeelings
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"Yes you did," says Aelise. "The problem we have now is that if Chelsa finds out that you exist, or that I spent all this time talking to you about how to get rid of her, she's going to be very upset. Making sure Chelsa doesn't get very upset is one of the ways I make sure everyone doesn't die."
"I won't tell her that you're thinking of how to get rid of her. Or that I am," says Mehitabel.
salus-populi
"That doesn't help at all," says Aelise. "If you were even in the same room as her, she'd be very upset already. If she heard somehow that there was a person in the world who didn't like her, she'd be very upset already. And you're a person, and you're in the world, and you don't like her."
"...So, nobody should tell her?" says Mehitabel. "You can tell Mommy and Daddy and the doctor that I'm not sick and they shouldn't worry. They'll all listen to you."
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"Could you go home and pay attention to the morning announcements every day, and pretend that you like Chelsa as much as everyone does, and never talk to anyone about getting rid of her, or say that it would be better if she wasn't making everyone like each other, or anything like that?"
"...Ever?" asks Mehitabel dubiously.
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"There are two people you could ever safely talk to about any of that. One of them is me," says Aelise. "The other one is my aunt Kerestine. And you wouldn't be able to talk to either of us for a while, if you went home. You'd have to pretend everything was normal - normal the way it is for most people, not for you - without any help, for at least a little while. And once you were grown up, you'd have to keep pretending for as long as it took to find a way to get rid of her. It's been three hundred years and I haven't found one yet; it might take you your whole life. You couldn't ever go anywhere that Chelsa might be, because if you ran into her by accident she'd know you didn't like her and she'd be very upset. That's one option."
She pauses.
"The other option is, you could go somewhere that you wouldn't have to pretend, and grow up there and live there until you solved the problem. It would be lonely, but it would be safer. And you could read whatever you wanted without anybody interrupting you. And you'd have my aunt for company."
She pauses.
"The other option is, you could go somewhere that you wouldn't have to pretend, and grow up there and live there until you solved the problem. It would be lonely, but it would be safer. And you could read whatever you wanted without anybody interrupting you. And you'd have my aunt for company."
"What about my mommy and daddy, though?"
"Either which way what would I tell them?"
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"If you went back to pretend for the rest of your life, you'd tell them that I took you to a doctor and I let you read your book all the way there and back. If you went to live with Kers, I would tell them that you'd been terribly sick and died."
"...Oh."
Mehitabel considers her book.
"I don't like lying."
Mehitabel considers her book.
"I don't like lying."
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"You would have to do a lot of it, to pretend you liked Chelsa and everything."
"Chelsa is spoiled," Mehitabel asserts, "if she can't stand having even one person not like her."
"If I were picking somebody who I had to keep happy or everyone would die I would not pick her," Mehitabel says.
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"Me neither," says Aelise. "But things like 'somebody you have to keep happy or everyone will die' usually don't come with a wide range of available choices."
"Things like that? What other things are like that?"
Mehitabel giggles. "I dunno," she says, and she sighs, and reaches for the borrowed tablet again and doodles incomprehensibly on it some more. These meaningless symbols are in something like a chart format.
"My mommy and daddy will be very sad if they think I died," says Mehitabel after a few minutes.
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"Yes, they will," says Aelise. "Chelsa could do something about that, but I don't think either of us wants her to."
Mehitabel shakes her head firmly. "She's done way too much to them already."