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[ninefox]

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[magician_king]

You know, I don't-

I pray and hope that you get out of there. Either to another place in your world, or to where Jedao and Fives are going, or to my world.

I don't think anyone should live being told they have to be so much. To be anybody as a Shuos, to be Jedao with his scars and his dreams. I hope you can go and learn the shapes of your own desires. On some planet or deep out in the black.

[ninefox]

To be fair, most of them just write occasional reports from a listening post, or sit in an analysis office. Jedao is sort of an ur-example.

And I think he would have done anywhere.

[magician_king]

Do you ever get tired?

[ninefox]

Yes.

[magician_king]

Me too.

[ninefox]

What do you get tired of?

[magician_king]

I wish I could tell.

[ninefox]

Why did you want to find me a totem? Just because he's mad for his?

[He thinks of the nine eyes worked into Fives' fresh tattoo, and feels some kind of way.]

[magician_king]

because fuck their categories

[ninefox]

How heretical of you.

Maybe I could adopt some Liozh trappings, that would flip everyone right out.

[And he is an Ethics Instructor. What more Liozh than that? He imagines stitching a star-white web on the shoulder of his red uniform, as if to call himself a transfer. He imagines Zehun's face -]

[magician_king]

Do it. I mean, if you want to. Just- you're at this point in your life where you seem like you get to pick which way you go. No one painting someone else's scars on your body any more, no faction you have to fit into- just think about a life that would make you happy and work backwards from there, then make sure every step you take leads you towards it.

[ninefox]

It's more complicated than that.

[magician_king]

Why? How?

[ninefox]

I don't even know if I'm really here, or if he's just...turned into me? I can't calculate the odds of whether I'll remember this.

I'm a prisoner of war. I'm not allowed outside Shuos headquarters. The Hexarch's secretary still thinks it was a mistake to let me live, they always have eyes on me, unless Hemiola is scrambling the bugs. And I have to be the Immolation Fox for my students. Helps things stick.

I only get any of that stuff if I leave. And I know everyone thinks I should just cut and run but it's the only thing I've ever done that I only hate myself for a little. And I'm guilty of everything they would have charged me with, if Shuos-zho hadn't averted the execution. I earned my sentence.

[magician_king]

What if I told you I believe you've paid for things you didn't need to pay for? That by now, for all you've been and fought and lost, you're allowed to be what you want and not what you're told you should be?

[ninefox]

If you told me that, I'd think you were being nice to a favorite, and not making a sober judgement, especially since you don't know all of the things I have to pay for.

[magician_king]

Maybe.

If you remember this, know I'm out here thinking that with all my heart though.

[ninefox]

Thank you.

[magician_king]

No, it's the least I can do.

[ninefox]

Does it bother you that I feel gratitude for what you consider a small thing, or that I'm expressing it?

[magician_king]

I think it bothers me that you don't know that it's something the universe owes you, just a drop in the bucket of the massive cosmic debt of good things that you should be owed. Like, you shouldn't thank me, you should be railing at me for not being able to make things close to right.

[ninefox]

I'm not thanking you because of what I think I'm owed or not owed by you or the world or anybody.

I'm thanking you because it makes me happy.

[magician_king]

Really?

[ninefox]

Yes.

I may be ambivalent about being saved, but I like being cared about.

[magician_king]

Well, that is something I can give you, unreservedly.