the tyrant in Auradon
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There are a lot of places for cover and improvised weapons. Someone has just put a sword in the hand of this suit of armor for some reason?

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What, seriously, why? She thought the book of rules said that weapons weren't allowed, why are they handing them out for free?

... Okay, probably if the sword hasn't been stolen yet, whoever wants it to be there is strong enough to stop everyone from running off with it. So probably she shouldn't go "hey, there's a weapon right there" when she next sees Asher.

(Also, what's with the consistent color scheme? It's really weirding her out. Things aren't covered in graffiti at all, it's really weird. is it just that the king is the only one allowed to use paint and he likes things blue and gold?)

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And when Alida gets back there's a very short, very small girl reading a math textbook in her room. 

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That would be her roommate. Well. She was warned she'd have to share.

"Hey." She nods. "Alida."

What's Hellevi doing other than reading the textbook? Has she crossed the invisible line down the room's middle?

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Hellevi's eyes widen and she looks up from her book."

"I... promise I won't do anything you don't want me to do just please don't hurt me I didn't sign up for this."

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... Wait, what? Her mom isn't a name villain.

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... Sure, whatever, free minion. Probably.

"... Okay, so, on the Isle, mostly people hurt people when they have a reason. Sometimes this is 'I like hurting people!' But not usually. I don't like hurting people unless they screw with me or mine." She will totally enjoy the sound of King Beast being tortured for, like, the first hour, though. "So, you want to do me favors, fine; I'll owe you, and that's worth something. But all it takes for me to not screw with you is that you don't steal my stuff or stab me or any bullshit like that. Okay?"

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"Oh! No! I would never."

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"Great! No problem, then."

She'll sit down on her bed. "So, couple questions if you have the time?"

Which are, yes, favors she owes to her new minion; let's let the debt accumulate, then she can over-repay it, then they can get a nice cycle of rapidly growing mutual debt going and that'll be that.

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Very miserable new minion. 

"Yes! Okay."

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"Relax. Just something simple - 

"Is, in fact, the student handbook a list of the rules the school works on, or is that just super goddamn naive and it's a list of the rules people are supposed to pretend to follow, or not even that?"

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"Of course you're supposed to follow the rules! They're the rules!"

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"Huh. Good."

She'll start assembling her own library, stacking it on her desk and loading the more advanced books into the chest of drawers. (The amount of it that's just math, physics and chemistry might be surprising to someone who doesn't know Alida.)

"... So, uh... gotta say... what did you do to get stuck with me?"

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"I don't know. I don't think I did anything evil? --Um. Not to say that it's bad to do things that are evil. I think that evil is a valid alternative lifestyle! Um. Maybe they want me to be a good influence...?" She sounds doubtful.

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"You can relax," Alida says. Then she pauses, and tries to decrypt what Helledi said.

..."I think you're going to do a better job of talking to me if you assume I don't know what the word 'good' means, and probably that our words for 'evil' are, like, two separate things that just sound the same? On the island they basically just mean 'their side' and 'our side.', with, you know, some suggestion that their side is lame and our side is cool."

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Hellevi has no idea how to relax! Her roommate wants to kill her more than any person Hellevi has ever talked to in her entire life wants to kill her!

"Evil is when you, like, build a theme park that turns children into donkeys, or skin puppies so you can have a fur coat, or try to kill the king so you can be king?"

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Alida doesn't want to kill her! Where did Hellevi possibly get that idea???

"... I guess those are things people I have ever met have done?" she hazards. "I can't say I see the connection between them?"

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"Well, they're bad? And you're not supposed to do them?"

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"... So, you know how there are things like - you notice that the digits of 18 and 27 and 36 all add up to nine, and what do you know they're all products of nine, and as long as you need to remember them as individual numbers that's three facts you need to memorize, but if you can reduce it to the rule of 'the digits of products of nine always add up to nine' you only have to remember one rule and then you can generalize from there to other products of nine you didn't know about? Is there anything like that for good and evil, or are they just bins to fit The Side Of People Who Go To Auradon Prep and The Side Of People Who Get Sent To Garbage Island in, with lots of different items but no connection?"

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"I think you're supposed to... not do things that hurt people a lot for no reason, or if the reason is bad like wanting a fur coat. And if someone is hurting people a lot for no reason you should stop them. And you should find your one true love."

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"I follow the first part," she says slowly. "I can understand how people can do that." It's clearly missing a lot of stuff - like, there are ways to harm people other than by stabbing them, like taking their stuff or their respect, or turning them into donkeys though they've apparently got that included... which is a sign that she's misunderstanding something, but all this does match with the absolute ban on violence... She can... imagine someone trying to do it? And it makes sense of why they throw everyone they hate on Garbage Island instead of killing them the way a sensible person would? She thinks she's following... "I don't understand where not overthrowing kings or only caring about one person fit in."

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"The child of the previous king is the rightful ruler of Auradon. If you let anyone murder the king and then become the new king, there wouldn't be stability and predictability in the government."

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"What if the king hurts people? Aren't you supposed to stop him then, by the rules you gave?"

(She can tell she's missing something with the stability and predictability bit; "stable" means, like, a well-made table, and "predictable", sure, everyone being able to exploit the king sounds great for them, less so for the king... but that's not her first response.)

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"That seems right. You can overthrow evil kings but not good ones."

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So, Good's rules say she's allowed to overthrow King Beast, since he hurt people a lot without a good reason. Great! Good is admitting her justness ridiculously fast!

"... Still bet I'm missing some stuff," she says, "Like why the king being predictable is good, and how you handle harm that's not direct or hard to measure, and how much is enough you need to stop. But I think I understand where you're coming from."

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