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Serg is the prince for a Sleeping Beauty
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"... So you fought a cursed city?" she says, staring.

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"I can't really say it was fun but it was definitely satisfying."

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...

She giggles, a little.

"Remind me not to piss you off."

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He smiles wryly, and looks away. "Yeah."

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"Do you do this a lot, then, or was this just a special case?"

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Snort. "No. I'm - I don't know what you're imagining but I'm probably not it, whatever it is."

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"Damn, there go my visions of a sword wielding madman, throwing himself into cursed places to see them set right," she teases. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't push. We can drop the topic if you'd rather."

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"It's, uh. Let's go with complicated. But I'm probably going to have to tell you eventually, if I don't just run off and leave you here, and - I'd rather not run off."

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"Thanks. I would hesitate to go out into a cursed city, even if it's, ah. Unfucking itself. So if you run off, please drop me off outside?"

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"You might like it better in here."

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"... In the castle. Surrounded by cursed city. Alone. For the rest of my life. Okay? How bad is it out there?"

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"It was pretty bad when I came in, and this place timeslips, the day I spent getting to the castle could've been a hundred years on the outside. Which might mean everything's fine now or might mean it's even more fucked, I don't know."

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"Ah. Okay. Spellfray, or has everything devolved into horrible chaos and if I went out there I'd be chattel?"

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"...some of both?"

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"That's... great." She eyes him, looks about to ask a question, and then hesitates and keeps her peace.

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"—mm?"

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More hesitation, then:

"Did you have something to do with that?"

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"You could say that, yeah."

 

"—My name's Siran Tavaryse."

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"... You're an heir to that empire with the succession issues? It's still around?"

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"It was doing really well, until, uh, recently."

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"Oh. All right. Succession crisis?"

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"In a manner of speaking."

He turns away from her, looks out the window again.

"I don't know when you knew Isettavar, but it's ruled the world on and off, mostly off. There was a long string of disasters before my grandmother was born, and she grew up in a world that desperately needed somebody to tell it to sit down and shut up and stop tearing itself to pieces, so she did. Reconquered everything, got it all straightened out. And my father built on that. And then - I'm the best caster you've ever seen, I can hang onto a spell long after anybody else would've been swept away - I went after him. I thought - I don't know what I thought. I don't think I even really want an empire. Which is just as well, because there isn't one anymore."

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"Ah. All right. ... I'm sorry."

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Snort. "I don't see what right I have to anyone's sympathy."

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"I don't think sympathy works like that," she points out. "Granted, I have been stuck in here for thousands of years, so maybe it's different now. Do you have little offices that give stamps of approval to people applying for the right to feel sympathy?"

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