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carissa, somewhere else
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"What does 'irresponsible and dangerous' mean, in terms of things you actually care about."

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"Er. I...might get assassinated? I might be uncontactable when an emergency happens? One of the players at court might try for a power grab?" 

He sighs. Drags a hand over his face. "I'd - feel better about it if Altarrin were there, but. Um. I think - without the compulsion - it just feels wrong to be doing this to him. It's sort of tempting to blame him for - the Empire being the way it is, and for it being - my problem - but, I mean, he's also been making it his problem for. A lot longer than I've been alive." 

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"And I think a lot of the prospects of really and truly fixing it come from...him being free to work on that."

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Why does he want to cry again. This is so stupid.

...Caris wouldn't judge him for it. Or, well, he would, probably, but surely all of Caris' crying-related judgements have already been made very thoroughly. 

- he'd still prefer not to start crying because it gets in the way of talking. 

 

"...I feel like I don't know what it'd mean, for him to be - free to work on it. It's always felt like he was - more tightly tied to the Empire than me, and not just by his compulsions." 

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"Well, the options, as I see it, range from - find someone who'll be a worse Emperor than you, but who is paranoid enough they'll live out their whole life, no civil wars - and then all of us vanish - 

- to, I give you lots of magic items so you can hold the place together without Altarrin and you do that - 

- to, I guess, I learn to run the stupid Empire -"

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"You shouldn't have to run the Empire! That's not the best thing you could be doing even...uh..."

That also sounds stupid now that he's said it. 

 

"- Um. I think if giving someone lots of magic items is - on the table - then probably Altarrin has people in mind? Who he wouldn't think are - adequate, or ready for it - under normal circumstances, but maybe with the right headband and a lot of other magic items?" 

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" - well, then, that seems promising and we should probably do that!"

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"What kinds of magic items are you thinking of, other than the headbands? - though honestly I am assuming you can also make much better headbands than anything I have heard of so far -" 

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"Headbands and protection against poisons and good fire and lightning resistance and good magical armor and spell resistance and contingent healing really ought to make a person...nearly impossible to assassinate, I'd guess? And I am happy to put down civil wars as needed, that's generally the kind of thing one has a friendly high-level wizard for and sixth wouldn't do it at home but I think it would here, I could invisibly go in and statue all the ringleaders. Makes the point very neatly."

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Blink. "- You can turn people into statues? ...I might've already known that, sorry. Um." 

A hesitation.

"- I think Altarrin was worried I wouldn't want you to be more powerful than - this - but maybe that was because of the compulsion. It - just seems good, actually, that you're - powerful enough to do that. And, um, I guess there are other reasons you'd maybe - prefer not to push it further. But -" 

 

An even longer pause.

" - but I think I'd trust you with the power. Even if it's...destabilizing." No, that's a cowardly way to say it. "Even if it's bad for the Empire."

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"I want to be a ninth circle wizard and bend all reality to my will and become a god and make the after-lives. 

 

 

- and it - means a great deal to me - that you'd trust me with that. It is a trust I will really try quite hard to repay."

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...He knows that and also wants to kiss him about it. This wasn't at all the mood he was in until five seconds ago but apparently Caris is - good at that. At something. Bastran isn't sure what. Maybe just being objectively an amazing person. 

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It's probably mostly the having shapeshifted into the hottest person imaginable, with a little bit of the 'having exotic magic that solves many of his problems', but he's happy to have the Emperor believe it's all about his personality. And also happy to kiss the Emperor. No one else is going to enjoy the sex dungeon, here.

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This is a huge improvement on being confusingly miserable and vaguely wanting to be dead! Bastran does not especially trust the non-misery to last but this mostly makes him more enthusiastic about kissing Caris while he can. 

 

He will be somewhat more assertive than usual, in terms of making it clear that he would like to take it further than just kissing. 

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Caris is happy to oblige while also making it seem like this was entirely his own idea and not Bastran's. Probably in the long run they should figure out something that's a little more resilient-to-Bastran-learning-the-wrong-piece-of-true-information than this but it's only the fourth date!! 

 

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Caris is very good and Bastran is having an excellent time in the moment. He even feels...mostly okay...and only needs to stomp on the urge to start crying or shaking uncontrollably a couple of times. 

 

It's late afternoon by the time they're done. 

"...Think I could go back now," Bastran says, without lifting his head from Caris' chest. "Should - probably have Altarrin replace the compulsion, for now, it'd be pretty bad right now if...someone noticed." 

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"Would it? What would they do about it? ...I was thinking maybe he could give you a slightly different one, something like - 'consider the interests of the Empire', so you can - access that state of mind, or lean on it, but it doesn't control you -

- letting Altarrin get his own compulsions put back was a mistake -"

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"Um. Kastil would panic if he found out and - I guess the Office of Inquiry can't actually do anything against Imperial orders but I don't want to have to arrest him again, I felt terrible about it the first time. Altarrin could probably manage a version that's less...controlling...and still sort of looks the same at a glance?"

Sigh. "Why do you think it was a mistake, with Altarrin?" 

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"Because he couldn't let me do it again, and he couldn't act on a lot of the stuff he'd realized while free of it, and he couldn't notice that was the problem he was having, except very indirectly, and so he just kind of miserably worked himself to death?

 

 

- the Office of Inquiry presumably already believes I'm puppetting you, I think whatever costs are associated with that we've paid them."

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"...I should probably try to avoid accidentally miserably working myself to death, yeah." It's not currently tempting but he suspects the mood where it would be is not that far off.

"I, um, do think I was - leaning on it, before. Maybe in...ways that were bad for me...but it was at least good for getting things done, and - I'm going to need to get a lot of things done, if I want to - arrange a successor who won't be terrible for the Empire." 

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"I think you definitely want something there you can lean on. I don't want it to be - something that'd make you not want it taken off later."

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"My standard one actually - doesn't do that as much? Altarrin would've had additional compulsions against tampering with his other compulsions, even indirectly, but I just had the one. I guess it was still - sort of self-protecting inherently, just in the normal way where - caring about something usually means not wanting to stop caring about it? ...I think most of it was that I'd never considered whether not having it was an option." 

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"It doesn't ...serve the Empire to think about whether serving the Empire is actually what you want to do, or if it's best for the world and everyone who lives in it. Honestly I think there's an argument that even from the Empire's interests there should be someone among your advisors who can think about something else, but I recognize that in practice then the gods maneuver for them to kill you."

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"...I think Altarrin can manage to think about it, but he's - doing a different thing, I think? He can - distinguish the spirit of the Empire that he wanted to build, I guess, from the actual one as it is now."

He closes his eyes. "I think it'd just be a lot easier in general to have the Empire be a good place - to have anywhere be a good place, probably - if the gods wanted to help. Or even just - not get in the way." 

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"Yeah. It's - hard to fight gods. I think I can maybe add - enough redundancy to make it possible without being maximally paranoid at the expense of everything else all the time.

What was - your and Altarrin's - long-term plan before I arrived? Just - wipe the gods' followers off the whole continent and then maybe they'll stop meddling?"

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