"He's saved a lot of lives, too."

"I know. Millions, almost certainly. But - okay, saved millions, pointlessly executed tens of thousands, the math comes out in his favor, right? If tomorrow he goes out and sees a woman whose nose really annoys him, she has a really annoying nose, so he orders his people to murder her on the spot - it doesn't seem like the having saved millions of people has anything to do with that. It doesn't seem like we say that as long as he finds fewer than a million peoples' noses annoying he's not a murderer on balance."

"I'd really like to draw a distinction between 'murder innocent person' and 'execute people for attacking an occupying force, which they were warned carried a death sentence' - it is not unreasonable to object to the latter but the rhetoric is really loaded. In return I will not refer to you as having 'mindraped' Shasali Aven."

"I mean, if you use that for a reversible memory charm then you've got nothing in reserve for worse spells, but I'm not going to disagree that memory charms are horrible and justified only under extraordinary circumstances."

"You're not leaving much in reserve for if somebody actually goes hunting for people with offensive noses."

"I know. ...could he just have them shot or would he have to make something up."

"It sort of depends on how he does his hiring. On paper I'm bodyguarding his nieces here and I didn't even bring a gun, let alone a willingness to shoot the unfortunately nosed, but presumably he normally selects for somewhat more military qualifications. It'd definitely be illegal but we've previously noted that Anitam is fairly corrupt."

"If someone's personal security were killing people in 'self-defense' frequently that'd start causing them problems but once probably wouldn't. ...Veritaserum is going to change a lot of this."

"Well, that's good, I guess."

"Even with that it needs to rise to someone's attention."

Sigh.

"Aitim wouldn't, though."

"I do know that."

"Neither he nor Kan has particularly sinister rumors going around. Not that they're credible when they appear but their absence is suggestive."

"What sort of rumors do go around about them?"

"Uh, occasional lurid speculation about the age gap and how long they'll have known each other being half cousins, Aitim is said to be irrationally fond of Voa, there's an old post about how he never referred to his security by job name and one of his guards started changing hers to increasingly strange things on a weekly basis until he switched just for that one and he always kept up with it, some wild accusations of anti-yellow bias because none have made it into his otherwise rainbow family, Kan hasn't attracted much muttering except by way of being Isel's brother or Aitim's husband."

...Timothy giggles.

"What?"

"The names. Very - do people really refer to their security by job name, it seems awfully impersonal."

"Job names aren't like family names, it's more of a context thing mostly. People do it because they're easier to remember if you're addressing someone in a professional capacity."

"That wouldn't be a problem for a Timothy."

"Names are hard to forget. How far apart are Aitim and Kan, Fredrick's only two Earth years younger than me..."

"Uh, I'd have to look it up to be sure but I think two or three Amentan years. Even one year would attract some attention, it's a little strange to be with somebody who was a child and someone you knew at the time you first sprung."

"The whole thing is kind of icky."

"Uh huh."