The Warden of the Sixth says I am not a Lyctor like he'd etch it into his bones, and God finds that he doesn't like that much. He finds that this is a bit of a sore spot. He has only just fished Augustine up from Hell and stood in this very study with him, just here, with the weight of Alfred's name unspoken in the air between them. His patience isn't what it might otherwise be. He is very tired.
So he decides they are not going to have this conversation just now, for everyone's sake.
God regards the boy before him. His drumming fingers go still, for just a moment. There is a beat of silence between them. Then he leans back, and picks up his tea, and the tension unspools. ]
Harrowhark and Gideon are just upstairs. [ He will let the Ninth pass on technicality; they're First, now, but that is a different conversation. Not one he thinks would be helped by hounding it here. ] And we've a few additions... a few others who came through that fight a bit worse for wear. They'll be glad to see you up and out of the water.
[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.]
[ God's eyebrows rise, because they are well past the limits of good sense and still moving. It is a little astonishing and a little impressive to fish a dead child out of the sea and watch him swing Don't apologize to me and I'm going to make a request, tone neat and clipped as though his hair isn't still rumpled by death and saltwater. God's lips twitch at With respect.
He listens. He inclines his head in a nod. ]
Understood.
[ That hangs for a moment, too, as he sips his tea. When he lowers the cup it is to settle forward again, something unreadable in his black-hole eyes. Pleasantly, seriously, he says: ]
I'll be glad to have you on these projects, but we aren't on a tight timetable. There's no harm in taking a moment to readjust. You were under for five weeks, by my count, and the scars of that battle are still being felt. Start with the notebooks. We'll go from there.
[The immediate problem, of course, is that Palamedes does not believe God when he says "I'll be glad to have you," at least not in the way that a normal person would be glad to have a given person on a project. He sips at his soggy-biscuit tea (fascinating texture) rather than push the issue, or think about it too hard.
There's healthy skepticism and then there's obsessive paranoia, and he has other things to do with his time besides pick at every sentence with a fine-toothed comb.
Even so, he chafes again at the gentle implication that he can have his personal time to be traumatized first, or whatever this kindly overseer bit is. No; he's not a fan.]
When I have time.
[Could he, in earnest, just start right this second? Of course he good, but that's not in the spirit of the principle of the thing, so: some other time. What he would like to do most is go back to his bunker, assuming it remains untouched, and maybe kick over the cheap kitchen chairs (all two of them) and see if that makes him feel better. Later, he supposes.]
You said you were going to catch me up on what I missed.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
The Warden of the Sixth says I am not a Lyctor like he'd etch it into his bones, and God finds that he doesn't like that much. He finds that this is a bit of a sore spot. He has only just fished Augustine up from Hell and stood in this very study with him, just here, with the weight of Alfred's name unspoken in the air between them. His patience isn't what it might otherwise be. He is very tired.
So he decides they are not going to have this conversation just now, for everyone's sake.
God regards the boy before him. His drumming fingers go still, for just a moment. There is a beat of silence between them. Then he leans back, and picks up his tea, and the tension unspools. ]
Harrowhark and Gideon are just upstairs. [ He will let the Ninth pass on technicality; they're First, now, but that is a different conversation. Not one he thinks would be helped by hounding it here. ] And we've a few additions... a few others who came through that fight a bit worse for wear. They'll be glad to see you up and out of the water.
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.]
no subject
He listens. He inclines his head in a nod. ]
Understood.
[ That hangs for a moment, too, as he sips his tea. When he lowers the cup it is to settle forward again, something unreadable in his black-hole eyes. Pleasantly, seriously, he says: ]
I'll be glad to have you on these projects, but we aren't on a tight timetable. There's no harm in taking a moment to readjust. You were under for five weeks, by my count, and the scars of that battle are still being felt. Start with the notebooks. We'll go from there.
no subject
There's healthy skepticism and then there's obsessive paranoia, and he has other things to do with his time besides pick at every sentence with a fine-toothed comb.
Even so, he chafes again at the gentle implication that he can have his personal time to be traumatized first, or whatever this kindly overseer bit is. No; he's not a fan.]
When I have time.
[Could he, in earnest, just start right this second? Of course he good, but that's not in the spirit of the principle of the thing, so: some other time. What he would like to do most is go back to his bunker, assuming it remains untouched, and maybe kick over the cheap kitchen chairs (all two of them) and see if that makes him feel better. Later, he supposes.]
You said you were going to catch me up on what I missed.