"You don't see, Tallandria.  I wasn't expecting you to, but it is important not to speak polite falsehoods to me about how well you've understood my plans, my intentions, or my orders.  On this occasion I caught it because I was here in person; if you told a similar lie on parchment it might be catastrophic."

"I will not punish it, however, on this occasion.  Among the things you're failing to see is that I am more Lawful than rumor would have you believe, as befits one no less chosen by Asmodeus than was Sevar.  It's fine for random citizens of Cheliax to live in poorly understood terror of me.  When I'm establishing a working relationship with someone, I prefer to establish a more controlled form of fear, in which people have an accurate idea of what gets them punished or destroyed.  Wild fears, incorrect fears, those do not serve me.  Those interfere with my control over my subordinates in Asmodeus's tyranny."

"Sevar, for example, got herself into really quite the fix, by being terrified about the prospect of me turning her into a statue and burying her.  She went on being scared even after I told her to her face that it would take considerable work for her to piss me off that much.  I had to go to quite some lengths to stop her being scared of that.  Sevar is authorized to tell you the story if she feels like it."

"Now, if I told Sevar not to be scared of what I might do, in some particular regard, she wouldn't be.  Not because she's obedient, but because she's learned that I can be trusted."

"I punish incompetence, proportionately, in a way intended to make Asmodeus's slaves more valuable in His sight rather than less.  For me to go beyond that and destroy you, incompetence won't do it; you must have betrayed me knowingly and deliberately and unambiguously.  If you're not plotting to betray myself, Cheliax, Asmodeus, you do not in fact have that to fear from me.  Some, perhaps, but not you.  I now tell you so."

"It does not serve my interests for you to be terrified of me any more than that, Tallandria.  It does not serve Cheliax.  If Security monitoring of your thoughts shows that you continue to be terrified of me, do you know what I will have to do?  That's right, I'll need to have Security Teleport you to Egorian so I can tell you I have no such intention of hurting you, complain about how you wasted my time, not punish you for that either, and send you back to the Fortress unharmed and with a complimentary sweet in your pocket.  Am I now, by any chance, by any remote possibility, being clear?  Don't lie again."

Korva is not going to answer because she's still extremely terrified, because apparently she is now going to be guilty of wasting the Queen's time every time she's unreasonably terrified, which is basically her constant state whenever something hasn't specifically distracted her from it, and she didn't think that she was lying before, but apparently she was, and she isn't sure whether "I don't know" is a lie and accidentally lying again feels like a marginally worse plan than saying nothing, even though saying nothing also feels like a pretty terrible plan.

Abrogail Thrune sighs.  She does not feel like she ought to be that scary, she wouldn't scare herself that much.  But - a fact she still stumbles over sometimes - literally nobody appears to be as strong as her.  She supposes that's why she's in charge of Cheliax and they are not.

"No, I'm not going to have you hauled up before me for a fleeting thought of fear.  Sevar was obsessing over me every five minutes at the point I decided it was a problem."

"Sort yourself out.  Try to find some reason amid all that fear, once you've been given some time and peace to find it.  You have a place in Cheliax now, and a note in your Security file.  If anybody hurts you without Sevar's permission, which she gives not lightly, they will answer to her; and if Sevar gives that permission for foolish reasons she'll answer to me.  You're safer now than you've been since the day you were born, Korva Tallandria.  You'll be judged by Hell at the end of your life, it is not in my power to exempt you from that.  But you need no longer fear the chaotic whims of mortals in this life.  Perhaps that can be the favor I've done you."

"Security will notify me if there's anything else within reason that you start to actually want, and you'll get it.  Not for having demanded it of your Queen out loud, of course.  It's not my intention to force you into heresy.  But Asmodeus knows you can't always control your own thoughts."

"Now, let's talk about what it is that I'd like you to do for me..."

Abrogail Thrune is scarcely any less annoyed with the entire concept of tropes than is Korva Tallandria, and it has occurred to Abrogail as well that the supposed tropes may not be what they appear to be.  But Abrogail must for now go on considering that they may be real, and planning at least somewhat on that basis, for that too is a probability; she needs no ilani Law to understand that much.

So if there's one to do Keltham any injury, or oversee its doing - oh, it should indeed be Tallandria, the one he's harmed.  Since Keltham has been so helpful as to harm someone, unjustly, carelessly, in the eyes of a dath ilani romance novel.

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