"I'm afraid I'll have a hard time budging on that one, but I suppose I can refrain from mentioning it," he whispers back.

"Yeah it's not evil but... Even terrible kings eventually die, right? Fates don't. That's the concern. Anyway, next game we can talk about this after."

Next game is a viciously competitive trading and bidding war type thing.

Sadde very heavily and obviously favours trading.

People will take rather cutthroat advantage of this. Including Terel. He doesn't have a fictional population to protect and help here, just a group of fictional shareholders.

...oh well, duck it, he'll go for the throat, too, then. Maybe too late, but what can you do.

Neither of them win, though Terel comes close.

It's getting a bit late. Some of the people here wander off as second round games start finishing. Sandy leaves.

"What do you think, one more game or call it a night?"

"Up to you, love, I don't actually need to sleep."

"I'll say one more game then."

"Okay!" And no kissing because Terel doesn't wanna.

"Later," he whispers.

They play a game where they pretend to be competing airship captains. It's not really eventful. And then - time to go back to the apartment.

Back to the apartment!

...where they can kiss, right?

Definitely! Not one of those kisses - the kind that usually leads to more things - just yet though.

Nope. Sadde's curious about a thing.

"So about Fates and rulers..."

"Penelope, one of the original six, is the only one who isn't regarded as a ruthless dictator. And she doesn't rule in name, only effectively. I'm not sure why the thing started - maybe fears of an eternal terrible monarch, maybe the fact that Fates can be so terribly destructive if they want to. But it's definitely a thing."

"Well... the problem with monarchy, as far as I can tell from my world's history, is exactly that kings and queens die. So you have a good one who could lead forever, but they die and their kid isn't that good, there is no guarantee that it'll last."

"That makes sense but - hm. I am now re-examining some assumptions."

"Which?"

"About - political things. Whether steadiness or change is best. Whether it would really be so bad to have an immortal king, if he was good at his job."

"Well a good enough king would be one who did change," and he turns blue for a second before looking normal again, "but honestly as a vankire I'm not sure I have a leg to stand on, there."

"What, vankires didn't interact with politics on Earth either?"

"Oh, no, we have an Empress of the whole underworld who will probably eventually become also Empress of the world, but I just mean that vankires don't—change. Psychologically. My personality will be the same, forever."

"Huh. This should probably go on the list of things to tell people who are considering turning."

"Yeah. I'll remember it for next time—I have an eidetic memory but that doesn't mean I remember everything relevant to a specific thing at a specific time. I don't typically consider this a drawback—I don't want to become a different person, I like being myself—but, yeah."

"Yeah it's not necessarily a drawback but I've always assumed I'd look back on me in my twenties as strange and silly in some ways."

"Yeah. And anyway I've yet to actually notice any impairments—and I got turned when I was twenty-three, I'm pretty sure personality-wise I'd change little from then on."