[God says nothing at all. Palamedes looks him in the face and throws the whole of his being behind the declaration, not a Lyctor, and God says nothing. Instead, God delicately picks over Harrowhark and Gideon as if they both aren't fully aware that Palamedes has called them the Ninth on purpose, too.
He isn't fool enough to consider that victory. He isn't fool enough to consider it anything but a pin placed into a thing that he will undoubtedly have to circle back to later, but for the first time since God entered this room with the tea, Palamedes feels like the Emperor Undying has managed to be honest with him. Without airs, without deigning to distract him with notes and baubles— honest, if nothing else in the lack of another nonsensical apology no one has asked for, to obligate him to accept God's ownership of Palamedes' necromancy and his cavalier, and his personhood, and his mistakes, and have him genuflect right back under that coffee table.
How God takes—and takes—and takes.
Palamedes will take what he can get. His capacity for spite is still there after all, he finds, twisting another white-hot stab into his gut that makes his recently-revived head spin, and then — it stops. He picks up his tea again in turn. He hums, placidly interested in who might be hanging around God's own house, although the list of people who would want to see him and people who aren't Ninth is very short.]
I'm going to make a request.
[A pause, to let that hang for just a heartbeat.]
It's nothing major. But you needn't bother sugar-coating death for me; I was there. With respect, I would ask you not to assume I can't handle the grown up topics. I'm a real stickler for detail, after all.
[It's not a request for honesty; he's not going to bother. But if he's to be kept at arms length from the totality of whatever lies behind all those wards, he'd rather not pretend it's for his protection.]
no subject
He isn't fool enough to consider that victory. He isn't fool enough to consider it anything but a pin placed into a thing that he will undoubtedly have to circle back to later, but for the first time since God entered this room with the tea, Palamedes feels like the Emperor Undying has managed to be honest with him. Without airs, without deigning to distract him with notes and baubles— honest, if nothing else in the lack of another nonsensical apology no one has asked for, to obligate him to accept God's ownership of Palamedes' necromancy and his cavalier, and his personhood, and his mistakes, and have him genuflect right back under that coffee table.
How God takes—and takes—and takes.
Palamedes will take what he can get. His capacity for spite is still there after all, he finds, twisting another white-hot stab into his gut that makes his recently-revived head spin, and then — it stops. He picks up his tea again in turn. He hums, placidly interested in who might be hanging around God's own house, although the list of people who would want to see him and people who aren't Ninth is very short.]
I'm going to make a request.
[A pause, to let that hang for just a heartbeat.]
It's nothing major. But you needn't bother sugar-coating death for me; I was there. With respect, I would ask you not to assume I can't handle the grown up topics. I'm a real stickler for detail, after all.
[It's not a request for honesty; he's not going to bother. But if he's to be kept at arms length from the totality of whatever lies behind all those wards, he'd rather not pretend it's for his protection.]