Nod. Smile.

"Your name is Carissa?" A pause. "Altarrin's latest girl." 

(Her tone is...hard to read, maybe deliberately so. It's not unfriendly or hostile, though.) 

Even for fake Carissa, the identification has stopped stinging, by now. "Mmhmmm. You know him?"

"Well – I did, once. He's...a hard man to know, right? You must have noticed that by now."  

" - yeah. I - frequently wish I could read him better. It's not - I'll be fine, right, but it'd be nice to have any idea what he's - looking for -

- if he's getting bored -"

"I still don't know what he was looking for, with me. I don't think he got it, but I - think he wasn't expecting to." Shrug. "I doubt he's bored of you just yet. He's - patient, and you seem clever - he likes that, it'll keep him happy for a while." 

"How long is 'a while'?"

"Six months? You've got time. ...You should think about what you want after, though. He'll - try to set you up somewhere that's all right for you, if you tell him what you want." 

Six months.

She'd in fact been hoping it'd be longer, though of course hoping for things is stupid and pathetic and a reasonable person only has bets they'd make and bets they wouldn't, trades they'd take and trades they wouldn't.

Might be longer because she's very very valuable. Might be shorter since she's not actually sleeping with him and he's already visibly tired of her. 

"I wanna be safe and get to spend most of my time on magic research."

Dianta nods, her expression serious. She leans closer. "Working on magic research shouldn't be hard, Altarrin's brilliant and he knows all the best mage-researchers in the whole Empire - and everyone who'll pay for a researcher."

She pauses. Frowns. "Hmm. Would you rather he set you up with someone important - doesn't need to involve marrying them or sleeping with them, he'll arrange that if you ask but it's not what I wanted, he got me a position as a house-mage for a merchant family in the city - or do you want a place nice and far outside the capital? I know he figured that out for one of his women - I think that one was a marriage arrangement, but I'm sure he could get you something else, if you just wanted to be far away..." 

Somewhere quiet in a port city where she can run a magic item shop and be comfortable and she isn't small enough to want that anymore -

"What if I want him to give me to the Emperor."

Dianta blinks. Looks surprised, maybe, but quickly smooths it away. 

(She's discreetly checking who might be nearby enough to overhear - no one, it looks like, even the mage-guard who Altarrin assigned to his new girl is currently in a conversation with several young nobleborn mages. Which doesn't mean they're not being watched, but it's not like Altarrin would mind this conversation if he hears of it.) 

"Is that what you want? You should tell him, then, so he can figure out what your options are. He likes to have some lead time - he always said he works best like that, if he can plan things out in advance." 

Well he's not giving me lead time by warning me he's getting bored, she doesn't respond because she's not a whiny child. "I don't know! I don't know anything about him, our meeting was brief and scripted. But - I don't think I want to be sent off to a farmhouse in the country. So I guess I'd better find something better than that."

Dianta pats her shoulder. "Well, he's not going to send you off to a farmhouse in the country if that's not what you want! Seems like it'd be a a poor use of you anyway - you're smart and you have that Wild Gift too, right - and he doesn't like wasting people's talents, he– I think he was a little bit disappointed, when Lethia just wanted to be as far away from the capital as possible, he...thought she could've been more than that, you know?"

She leans closer. "And you seem sharper than her, honestly, so - he'll probably try to talk you into something where you can put your talent toward helping the Empire." Fond eyeroll. "He's like that, right, he wants to put people where they'll be useful. ...Don't let him push you too hard, he doesn't mean to hurt people that way, he's just– I think maybe he doesn't get that not everyone has that much energy, you know?" 

"Well, I don't have energy problems. Tell me about the Emperor!"

Conspiratorial smile. "He's young – I mean, relatively speaking, I'm sure he's much older than either of us but he's younger than Altarrin. He'll probably rule for another century at least, he's a mage, he can make himself age more slowly - he'll probably even stay handsome for most of it." Shrug. "He's not as clever as Altarrin, but I'm not sure who is. He's - good to his friends and ruthless to his enemies? I don't know what other sorts of things you'd want to know." 

"Oh, come on." Carissa's tone is conspiratorial and friendly, now; whoever sent this girl, this is not a particularly dangerous kind of ambitious to be, except insofar as it gets back to the Emperor and he's a person like Abrogail in which case Carissa can handle that and will in fact prefer it to Altarrin being tired of her. "Does he have any girls? How long do they tend to live? What're they like?"

Blink blink. 

(What do you mean, 'how long do they tend to live?' is what Dianta is thinking, but she has enough poise not to say that out loud.) 

"He's...had girls before, I think, but he's not casual about it? I don't know, I - actually haven't heard much. I'm pretty sure none of them ended up...badly off, afterward." Shrug. "He's supposed to marry and have an heir, I guess he takes that seriously." 

"But he's older than us, without an heir yet? Does he have to marry within the nobility? Why's he supposed to have an heir, is the succession - direct to his children -"

"I mean, not technically - the Emperor appoints the heir of their choice, doesn't have to be someone related by blood at all - but it's sort of traditional, for the Emperor to marry and have children and consider them first - he could still appoint someone else if none of his kids are any good -" 

She lowers her voice. "...This is just hearsay, don't go telling everyone, but - I've heard he likes boys. More than girls." 

(It's substantially more well-known than that, actually, she wouldn't be saying it out loud in a scryable room otherwise.) 

Well, that's technically not prohibitive. In a sense it might be an advantage, in that Carissa has Alter Self and she thinks no one else has Alter Self. Though she only has nine minutes of it. ...there's a hat of Alter Self. Some adventurers have it, she's seen it. She does not actually know how to make it, but how hard can it be?

"Hmmm," she says aloud, and then realizes the woman's going to think she's insane. "I miss home. Things were less complicated there." They really, really weren't. "I wish Altarrin liked me. - I know that's stupid. He was entirely up front about it and I'd have known anyway." She's glad he doesn't. She thinks. She's not sure if she's glad he doesn't.

"Oh, he likes you! I mean. As much as he likes anyone."

Wiggly-hand gesture. "He's - just not the type to get attached. But he doesn't - do this - with people he doesn't like. And he'll make sure you're all right afterward. Really." Pat on the arm. "Though - you'd do all right anyway, I think, even without his help. You're pretty and clever and you have a Gift no one else has, I don't know what else you could possibly need." 

"What you need depends on what you want. But - sure. Thanks."

She'll ask someone else to tell her about the emperor's boys.

Dianta smiles at her and meanders off. 

Ketar is not really succeeding at being present in the conversation he's currently in, because he's been reading Dianta's mind the whole time that Carissa was talking to her (it's his job! what if Dianta had been reporting to someone who wanted to kidnap Carissa???) and now he has so many concerns. 

- Altarrin is away. If things with him and Carissa are...bad...then now is one of the best times to talk to her about it. Probably. 

He lingers and makes halfhearted listening noises in his current conversation and watches Carissa to gauge when she's planning to head out. 

She stays a while longer, has some drinks, tells some meaningless well-vetted stories about Aksell.  Doesn't press on the Emperor thing. You have to be subtle, with that sort of thing. One mention could be a joke.

Once it won't be notable she's leaving early she'll duck out. She wants to try that hat.