"...if you're asking me this so you have an excuse to insult me, I can stop talking."

"No, I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention."

"No?"

"I genuinely wanted to know more things about you and then I fucked up."

He sighs. He snuggles her. "All right."

Snuggle. "I'm sorry.

I--it--you seem very lonely. And I want you to not have to be."

Snuggle.

Snuggles and a contrite cheek-kiss.

He curls up and puts his head in her lap again. Flomp.

She pets his hair some more.

Hairpets work out fine even if nothing else seems to.

...Yeah.

"I really am sorry," she says softly. Pet pet pet.

Sigh. "I believe you."

"Okay." Pet pet pet. So many pets.

Pets are good. His hair is very soft. The faint glimmers of red in the black shift when it moves.

Soooo many pets.

"I didn't mean it," she says eventually. "It was just--variations on a theme by 'Kala doesn't approve of rape,' plus a little--wishing you didn't have to be so lonely. I should have been more careful."

"I have noticed that you don't approve of rape," he says, a little irritably. "You needn't worry that I'll go around thinking I'm a good person if you don't say anything. I am not good and I hold no illusions to the contrary. But you can't compare me disfavourably to an alternative when you don't know what the other option is. The man you're asking for when you say you can't be happy about my freedom, the man you're talking about when you tell me I'm just as fucked up as I used to be, is a nineteen-year-old prince to whom power is a drug and mercy a sin. If I was still that person I wouldn't give a shit how many riots I started. If I was still that person I'd burn down cities for the hell of it."

"That's not what I meant," she repeats softly, sounding like she is Very Firmly Not Crying. "I--it was supposed to be a lighthearted thing, that's all--but it wasn't funny and I--I was trying to help and I hurt you instead--I'm trying to think of something stronger to say than 'I'm sorry' that doesn't imply that the problem is that I'm feeling bad and need to be forgiven--"

He sits up and hugs her.

She buries her face in the side of his neck and trembles slightly.

He holds her and pets her hair.

"It's not - you're not - that's not not a problem," he says. "You're a person, just as much as I am, your pain is just as real as mine. And if you think hurting someone once means you never deserve comfort again then I can't imagine what the fuck you think you're doing here. You'd have to live for centuries just to have time to be as awful as me."

"--People expect you to hurt them, it's not the same thing as offering comfort and producing the opposite."

"You clearly didn't do it on purpose."