Mordred is SO smart. Lev has questions about comparative linguistic development.

Inaaya, meanwhile, keeps getting distracted comparing the grammar of English and Hindi.

He can talk about comparative linguistic development, and knows zero Hindi but will eagerly follow Inaaya down grammatical rabbit-holes.

(Thank you, ability to refocus to topics that are not cult-related.)

"You know," Inaaya says thoughtfully, "you are very weird for a cultist."

Ah. Fuck. "Mm?"

"We've been talking for more than an hour and you haven't done a dominance game at me once."

"No giving me orders and seeing if I'll listen, no dropping names of all the powerful people you know, no establishing that you're much more magically powerful than I am, no veiled threats--"

"No supplication so I don't hurt you either."

Well you see it's very hard to drop the names of powerful people you know when you don't know any powerful people. God, fuck, what do you say.

After what he really hopes is not too long a pause, he goes with "What's even the point of power if you still have to play stupid social games with it, when I could use that time and energy doing literally anything other than stupid social games."

(This is plausibly the wrong answer but just not responding would definitely be the wrong answer.)

She is so so careful in how she moves, in a way that looks like she's casual and relaxed. "That's exactly what I think. Everyone is so busy backstabbing each other that they don't have any time to advance the goals of our God."

There's... something weird about that statement (it's the "that's exactly what I think," followed by something that is not really what Mordred said) but Mordred is not going to respond to that. "Honestly my feeling is less about that and more about how if I still have to do things I don't want to because they're what everyone expects you to do, what is being powerful even for."

"I think people in the cult mostly want to establish the pecking order. This is the sort of thing they think is entertaining."

Mordred makes an entirely unfeigned face at the idea of social dominance pecking order games being fun. "Yeah, you're not wrong about that."

"Bangkok is less bad for that, when people want to establish the pecking order they just punch each other."

"That does sound like it would help." Also, the more Mordred learns about the cult, the more concerned he is about everyone in it.

"Mm." A pause. "Joan would be so unhappy about me talking to you like this."

Joan is -- the one with all the guns? He's pretty sure she's the one with all the guns. "Mm," he says back, in lieu of trying to come up with anything substantial to say.

"I'm supposed to be showing you how strong I am so you won't bring it back to Captain Walker and hurt me."

Wow! That is incredibly concerning! Mordred is very concerned! Why the fuck does anyone join this cult! That's not a real question he is aware of several reasons.

"I like you," he says, instead of any of the very unhelpful and un-cultist-like things that he wants to say. "--Margaret would hate me talking to you like this too, for whatever that's worth."

Her head should be on his shoulder. "I like you too."

"Joan is going to revise down her expectation of my life expectancy by at least two months."

His hand hovers over her hair for a few seconds, and then he takes the invitation and touches it. "Does she seriously have estimates about people's lifespans in units of months, that's -- I don't know what I think that is but it's very whatever it is --"

"Well. People at the Emporium of Bangkok Antiquities kind of die a lot."

"People in LA too, but I don't usually make guesses with that level of precision about it and I don't think I know anyone who does--"

"She doesn't like to get connected to people, I think. It's important to her to remember that we're all going to die soon."

Literally everything about the cult is so incredibly concerning -- actually that might just be a feature of Mordred's life in general these days, he did get murdered a few days ago -- anyway.

He pets Inaaya's hair. "Fair enough."

"But I figure that if I'm going to die soon I might as well have something nice beforehand."

"Tell me more about Shakespeare?"

God. That's heartbreaking, he doesn't say, and I want to be the best nice thing that's ever happened to you, he doesn't say, and he keeps petting Inaaya's hair and he talks about the Henriad.