She contemplates this assertion for a moment, then says, "No, I think I know exactly what you mean."

He laughs. "All right. But somehow I doubt you came all this way just to say hello and dare me to murder you. So why are you here?"

"...you're less... intimidating than I expected," she says, instead of answering. "You don't carry yourself like a man who wants everyone around him to be constantly aware that at any moment they could be dead or enslaved at his whim."

"Having everyone around me be constantly aware of that wears thin after a while," he says. "If you've read enough history books you know I used to do that sort of thing a lot more often and then I stopped. Turns out the law of the empire works better when I try not to break it too much, and it's easier to have reasonable conversations with ordinary people when the rumours about me throwing a man off a roof date from a few years ago and not last week."

"Are reasonable conversations with ordinary people something you miss?" she asks curiously.

"...yeah," he admits, sighing and looking away. "I don't know, can you miss something you've never really had to begin with?"

"Seems like you can."

"Don't get me wrong, I do like that I can scare people when that's what I'm after. But... I do wish I could ever not scare someone without having to hide who I am."

"Yes, I did notice you were lying in the grass not looking like much of anyone," she says. "I wasn't sure if it was just that an ignorant bumpkin like myself wouldn't know the Emperor from a hole in the ground, or..."

"No, I do that on purpose. But then if I ever make a friend that way, all I can think of when I speak to them is 'if you knew...'"

She nods sympathetically.

He sighs. "And then either they find out, and they're terrified, and things are never the same again, or they don't find out, and I get so uncomfortable with the hiding that I have to stop talking to them. Or they die. But if I made a friend who still liked me once they knew who I was, I wouldn't let death come between us."

—she blinks, startled. "You can do that? Bring the dead to life?"

"Sure. Don't spread it around, it takes a day apiece and if I started trying to do it for everyone I'd never do anything else again, but yeah."

She nods slowly—pauses, struck by inspiration—opens her mouth to speak—hesitates—closes it again.

"Something on your mind?"

More hesitation. "I'm—not sure if I—"

"...I won't pretend I'm not curious," he says, "but you can keep it to yourself if you'd rather."

"I'm... concerned about overstepping by making suggestions," she says. "Surely any clever idea I can come up with in five heartbeats is an idea you've had time to come up with yourself in five thousand years."

"No, go ahead, if that's all," he says, with a welcoming/inviting wave of his hand. "Sometimes having a long time to think about something just means having a long time to get used to repeating all your mistakes."

"Well—suppose you wanted raising the dead to be something available to most people without you having to do it yourself," she says. "Which I'm not sure you do, but if you did. You could find—or have someone find for you—likely-looking children, sensible ones who seemed like they might make it through, and—is it Life that does it? Death? Both? I bet it's both, if it's not everything—and have them try the self-dedication, and raise the ones that fail, so it's not such a cost to them to try. And then once you have a few they can help with the rest, and soon there's enough of them to take the burden off your hands entirely."

"...huh," he says, impressed. "I could do that. I think the only obvious reason not to is that right now the only way I have of keeping a lid on people who make it through a long self-dedication and come out looking like trouble is to kill them, and if there were hundreds of people out there who could bring them back to life, somebody'd try it eventually and then I'd have trouble on my hands."

"Is this a problem that could be solved with the law of the empire?" she wonders. "Making it illegal won't stop people from bringing back trouble, but—then instead of saying 'don't do that' and murdering them too, you say 'you knew what you were getting into' and execute them, and then anyone who brings them back is in the same boat and knows it, and... I don't know, it's just a thought."

"It's a good thought," he says. "I might not try it, but I'll keep it in mind in case I ever want to."

"Why not try it?" she wonders. "—sorry, that was rude."