"Yes. I - I think that the fact that that is my favourite book will tell you a lot about me," he says wryly.

"Okay. Then I guess I'll go read this, then."

He nods.

Little smile.

"Door to my room to read, please?" she requests of the castle.

Human-sized door to her room!

She waves to Tarakova, and then in she goes. Flomp, onto the bed.

What's Tarakova's favorite book about?

Well!

There's this palace clerk with strong opinions about improperly filed paperwork, and the Emperor (definitely not literally Tarakova but, at the same time, clearly meant to bring him to mind) takes a liking to her. So he rapes and enslaves her. She is conflictedly into it, but keeps trying to escape despite how much she enjoys being raped and tortured, because she is a reasonable person who doesn't want to die as the Emperor's sex slave. He doesn't seem to want her to die either, though, because every time she thinks he's definitely really torturing her to death this time, she wakes up fully healed afterward. At the end of the book she makes a final escape attempt, and it's implied but not outright stated that this one succeeds.

That.

Is definitely itself, isn't it.

...

Well, it's very well written, isn't it. And the main character is very likable. One might even say sympathetic.

It might be smart for her to turn off her enhanced memory so she does not remember every single word from this book perfectly. Because she can do that, she doesn't need to remember every single detail of what the Emperor does to this palace clerk with her strong opinions of improperly filed paperwork.

She does not do that.

Navethae finishes the book and takes a few minutes to be able to intelligently string words together, and then she quietly requests a tray to put the book back in the library where it belongs. With that done, she then asks for a door to Tarakova.

He's sitting under that tree that he was climbing earlier.

Trying to act normal after reading that book is difficult. It is difficult. She wants a number of things, some of them contradictory. Some of them inadvisable.

Gingerly, she sits next to him.

"Hi."

"Read my favourite book, did you?"

"No, I'm all shy and bashful on account of something completely different, the valley decided to ambush me with a very explicit picture book," she says, deadpan. "Yes, I um. I did."

He laughs.

"Well. Learn anything?"

"You're into women that like properly filed paperwork?"

Snort.

"Sorry, I'm nervous, I deflect with witticisms when I'm nervous. Um. Yes it was very educational. Also very well written, I like Nimire?"

He laughs.

"Yeah, I like her too."

"She was very sensible and likable and - and I mean the book was really - I didn't think the content in it would be entirely - damn it I thought I was up to speaking in complete sentences again apparently I was wrong."

"You didn't think it would be what?"

"Um. I mean I would find actually being raped highly distressing partially because I would on some level enjoy it a little but, um, after reading it I didn't think all of the things in the book would be - only possible in the realm of fantasy?"

"...I have half an idea of what you mean by that, but only half."

"Right, yes, sorry, I'm talking in circles, sorry." She scrunches her eyes closed and tries to string a sensible sentence together.

"I was into it too? And would, um, would probably enjoy some of the things that happened to Nimire, ah, happening to me? If I also had a loving consensual relationship that made every terrifying thing that might occur safe enough, I mean."

"I wasn't expecting that," he says after a moment.

"I can also self heal and probably give myself some truly impressive amounts of masochism if I've got incentive so that's a thing too," she blurts.

"...well." He smiles.