Tanidio has a warm feeling in his stomach that he is not going to note the existence of.

Bun... seems to think that the way people are in the stories in the Library of Shelyn is what people are actually like. Tanidio's not sure how someone survived to adulthood being that naive.

"I'll talk to the students," he says. "Maybe they'll accept that you're taken by me."

"I'd appreciate that." Hug?

Hug. 

And Tanidio goes to make his report to Chrisor. 

"I've seen that before."

"You have?"

"You might call them 'natural slaves.' Normal people want power, revenge, status. Even Good people do, though they'll deny it, or say they want it to help others so it's not the same--"

Nod. 

"Natural slaves don't. They just want to do what they're told. Good tools of Asmodeus, if they make it to Hell, but they often lack the initiative that makes for a good devil... Still, you can honor them for realizing that they shouldn't have free will, which they shouldn't have anyway."

"So, what, we tell him the truth?"

"Of course not. Sallina might have caught onto something real but she's still an idiot. Maybe if he had grown up Asmodean, but he's had an entire society telling him for more than twenty years that he needs to be nice, and Our Lord is not nice. There's no point in trying to tempt him. We maintain the lie as long as possible and then when it breaks he'll be too weak to say no if we point out that children are dying."

"Thank you for enlightening me."

"Any time, you're better than the other morons I have to put up with. Which reminds me that I need to discipline Sallina."

A few hours later--

Sallina is going to die. 

"You caught on to something that no one else did. We're changing our approach to Bun because of what you noticed. That is good work.

"But when you notice something that confuses you and that you think means that the project should be doing something different, you do not go off and do your new plan unilaterally. You tell me. You give me the evidence that convinced you. You let me decide how to handle it. Because I am old, and I was chosen by Asmodeus, and you are seventeen and you haven't even faced your first demon and you are an idiot.

"I am not a noble. I do not have time for bullshit games. I have a job to do. If you make my job harder, I will hurt you. If you do something that would make my job harder except it happened to work out well this time, I will also hurt you. If you are clever and competent, I will reward you, because I am trying to actually accomplish something and so clever competent subordinates are not a threat to me. 

"Queen Abrogail can do whatever she pleases. You are not Queen Abrogail. And if you don't listen to people who are older and wiser than you and have your best interests at heart, you're not going to get to live to be one hundredth as cool as Queen Abrogail, and when you die your only way of serving Asmodeus will be as a piece of masonry. 

"I want you to remember, for the next hour, that I would not bother to torture you if you didn't have potential."

Chrisor is the very coolest person in the whole entire world. 

At next morning's breakfast there is a distinct absence of flirtatious students. 

... you know, one advantage of a tight knit group is students is that information spreads quickly.

He didn't even have to have any awkward conversations! Well. Not counting the thing in the corridor. (More words would be needed for that to count as a conversation.)

Tanidio sits down beside him and starts eating. 

It's kind of lame to be the sex toy of a natural slave, to be honest. 

"Thank you, " he mouths.

"I live to be of service."

"And have my awkward conversations for me, apparently."

"It's probably less awkward for me since I understand"-- being able to stand up for yourself like, literally, at all, one little bit-- "the cultural context."

"Always good to have a competent cultural advisor."

Over the next few days, the girls are professional. SO professional. None of them reveal anything personal to Bun at all. They are little robots that take in medical knowledge and output test answers. Whenever he runs into one of them, they're studying, practicing magic, or hastily shoving food into their mouths while reading a textbook. 

Awwww, he remembers those days. Nostalgia.