17- Video

[bodilesswarrior]

[Her hands are clasped in front of her, lips a thin line. She looks more irritated than traumatised.

She can still feel the press of a mask, if she tries.]

Well, that was fun. [Her voice is dry and flat.]

Status, everyone?

[Private to people who went through the door]

What did you see? What do you remember?

[Private to the Emperor]

[A wry smile curves her lips.]

Guess the breach was prophetic.

[Private to Bond]

[It's a different sort of smile, this time, slight and sharp.]

I would have beaten you eventually.

[Not she; it would be easier, to think that way, but not particularly honest.]

Comments

[heisrisen]

[He tips his head back, closes his eyes. He's just - he feels very weary, sometimes.]

The human mind isn't really built to understand the scale of a galaxy. We cheat, of course, we're very good at that. Marks on a stick. Scientific notation. Cross-dimensional calculus. Bureaucracy and demography and retinal ping census databases. So we can find out, we can say there are approximately 20 trillion people in our care and we're even right but neither one of use really has any clue what it means.

You have to understand, Barbara. We love Anastasia. Despite everything, we still love her. And the only thing we regret about her assassination was its ultimate futility.

We didn't forget. We didn't forget what her life was worth. She was the Reason. Everything was for her. Except it can't really be, can it? My dear heart is not worth chaos ripping through trillions even if I can't really conceive of it. Even if I'm only delaying the wound, not preventing it.

We didn't forget. We chose. And in similar circumstances, we would not choose differently.

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara's silent for few long moments, hands clasped loosely in her lap, gaze heavy.]

I do understand. [How many times has risked Dinah's life for the greater good?] Sometimes - our hearts, our love, have to come in second to our responsibilities.

[heisrisen]

[He sighs.]

I'm sorry. I don't...regret.

[He only regrets, slightly, not being ruthless enough to pull it off. If he'd destroyed Legis XV as planned - but that's not helpful.]

I don't expect to graduate. But I'm not trying to fight you. I want to cooperate.

[And he hopes, with some tiny, fractious, childlike part of himself. With the part of him that is in love, that wants to go home with Zane at his side, with the part of himself that remembers the relief of abdication from his mirrorverse self, even if it's not an option for him. If anyone is sharp enough to do it - maybe. Maybe Barbara.]

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara smiles, just slightly.] That's a big step by itself. [It won't be easy, she thinks; not for either of them. But few things worth doing are.

The smile fades, as her brow furrows.] Regret - it can be dangerous. It drags you into the past, when you need to focus on the present. It makes you hesitate.

It makes sense, for you to stop doing it. Everything about you makes sense, for an Emperor.

Things is - you need to remember how to be a person, too. I think you've already made progress, with that.

[heisrisen]

[He considers his hands. They look warmer than they are, a little burnished from his father's side and sunshine, smooth, hale, without the usual wan pallor of the dead. But still cool to the touch.]

I don't feel anything I don't fight for.

[Calm, conversational.]

We didn't talk about this there because I was alive. But it's - it's not as bad as it sounds. It's a matter of focus and will. And I fight for most of the things I...start to feel, would have felt, because the more you let go of the less you are yourself, the less you are part of the world at all.

But it hones a person. Everything frivolous is sheared away. Everything is deliberate.

I don't think that precludes what you're talking about. But you ought to know.

[bodilesswarrior]

[Barbara is silent, for a moment, as she considers the implications. That's one thing she can't understand, not truly; she can shut her emotions off and struggle to find them again, but they're always a part of her.

She thinks, perhaps, he's stronger than she is. And it makes her smile, just a little.]

I think the fact that you're still holding on to that - means we've definitely got a good place to start.

[heisrisen]

[It doesn't feel like a start, to him. It feels like an infinite, asymptotic end, his struggle with his symbiant, the equilibrium they maintained for so long, the trenches they've carved in his neural landscape, everything whittled by long struggle to what he will surrender, and what he won't, with very little left to be dealt with. But he makes a wry face and doesn't contradict her. This is his idea of cooperation.]

I've known a lot of walking ghosts.

It's not bad, mind you. No fear, no hunger, no pain. But it's not the eternity I want.

[bodilesswarrior]

[She considers, for a moment, before she answers.] Not the one she wanted, either.

[heisrisen]

Don't generalize. It wasn't immortality she rejected. It was dying, again, writ slow.

[That's how he interprets it. And he's at least partly right.]

[bodilesswarrior]

All right. [Or maybe that's what he tells himself, or maybe it's a bit of both. She doesn't let the scepticism show, not yet.]

Either way, though, shouldn't it have been her choice?

[heisrisen]

That depends on the cost, doesn't it?

Even so. She chose to die.

[He has always been in the business of giving his sister what she wants. Despite the tangle of bitterness, this is still what he tells himself.]

[bodilesswarrior]

Couldn't you have arranged something discreet with her?