"Your entire family is dead."

Snort. "True."

"Didn't like most of the other ones anyway."

"Most of the other..."

"Dresses."

"Oh. Get them to make them something you like, you're not a palace whore and they have no right to make you dress like one."

Sigh.

"Sure."

"Or you can wear mourning, I don't care, I'm not trying to - there's enough rules here."

"Yeah.

"Seemed appropriate enough, under the circumstances."

"I'm not dead."

"No. You're not."

"So long as we're clear on that."

She stares at the ceiling.

He's not dead. He's just - under a curse that he has the resources to break and will be able to break as soon as they can find someone else to take over. So it's temporary. Has to be temporary on some level. Can't keep him on the throne forever.

She wishes he were better. He would hold her and tell her he was sorry about all of this, and he wouldn't make her prostrate herself at least when they were alone, and he wouldn't give her orders, and probably he'd say anything about how all of this is bad for him instead of not letting her know anything about how he's doing, and he would ask if she needed anything and then ask if she wanted anything and maybe he would even actually clarify what he meant when he claimed that she was safe.

(She's not a hundred percent confident in all of this, but probably he'd be fine with her telling herself he would, if he were here, if it helps her stay sane.)

She doesn't say anything else to him.

"Is there other stuff you wondered?"

"Is there any legal form of contact with Fazil and Mahdi?"

"You can write them letters. You could, hmmm, I'd have to look it up, probably there's other stuff that's more complicated than writing them letters but I don't offhand know what."

"I'd like to write them letters, then."

"You may write them letters."

"Okay. 

"Thank you."

"I don't want you to be unhappy. I know you will be, and I will be too, because this is bad, but I'd like to make things nice for you."

"I'm very unclear on - what all of the rules are and what all of the expectations are and which of them are negotiable, still."

"I need you to - be my wife, and remind me that there's things in life outside this stupid dome, and tell me how to keep you safe, and follow the rules about the pharaoh even though they're annoying. I can change most of the rules if we have a good reason."

" - I am not upset about the pharaoh rules because I think they're annoying."

"Why are you upset about them?"

"Because - 

"I realize that the reason people treat the pharaoh like this is because he's considered an aspect of a god. And I understand the impulse to emphasize the greatness of a god and one's own insignificance in comparison. Asmodeus demands it. Self-abasement and perfect obedience out of an understanding that one's own desires are worthless is one of the cornerstones of the Asmodean faith.

"But - I don't do that, anymore, in part because you taught me not to."