Promise is leaning on her tree, munching berries that fall from its branches straight into her outstretched hand one at a time.
"I have told the Emperor about you," he reports. "He reacted exactly as expected. Sometime in the next few days I should tell my mother, and she might want to acquire some proof that you can do magic, which she can then convey to him, but there's no rush on that; the Emperor understood my concerns."
"I don't mind proving I can do magic. It's certainly not hard to do here."
"That's convenient, then. I'll ask Mother to nickname herself and come by."
Promise leans her cheek on her tree almost like she is nuzzling it. "I missed it. ...Thank you for not being awful."
"Um. You're welcome? I feel slightly weird accepting thanks for not being awful, but I also acknowledge that there are a staggering variety of ways in which I could have been awful if I were a different and more awful person."
"Yeah. I mean, also thank you for being nice, but mostly right now I'm feeling the not-awful."
"Yeah. Well. You're welcome and I will endeavour to continue in this not-awful vein."
"I am once again struck by how much I dislike the existence of this entire system."
"And getting rid of it entirely would mean I'd have to come up with completely different vague ambitions."
"There's... are you obligated to relay everything I say to your boss and emperor and so on?"
"Only if it's immediately relevant to topics such as people being casually able to conquer this planet."
"Vassalizing her would let somebody who really wanted to fix most of the things about the place. But it's incompatible with vassalization no longer existing at all."