"It's fucking me asking you, what the fuck do you think, that I want him strewn about the courtyard?"
Zevros storms off to go do that.
"I would prefer it, but you're the wronged party here so if you leave him in multiple pieces I will only make disapproving faces at you."
"What are you going to do with him if I tell Cricket to restrain himself to hysterical growling?"
"Tried for treason, tossed into the tallest tower with all of his friends and then I throw away the key."
"I'll take it." She starts murmuring to her familiar, who seems disgruntled but compliant.
(Fuck, how could he have missed this?!)
"I guess this explains why you didn't try to punish Zephrys when she slapped you. You are not in fact a sociopath."
"Not in the slightest," agrees Edarial. "Mind you, I'm a huge fucking idiot, because I fucking noticed things that were off and I didn't investigate, but a sociopath, no."
"I suppose that flustered survey-taking fellow never got to you in person, either."
"Flustered survey-taking... What, did he show up, hear that your familiar was poisoned and kidnapped and then give you the fucking survey anyway? Please tell me that is not what happened."
"That is exactly what happened. I gave him real answers because it was faster than coming up with incompetent-sounding lies and I wanted him on his way being helpful as soon as possible, and then spent months kicking myself for not saying I would solve the housing crisis in the eastlands by printing more money and giving it to the poor."
Edarial laughs one of the most pathetic, wretched laughs possible. It's not a happy sound, more similar to a sob than actual laughter. "Oh my god, this is all my fucking fault!"
"Maybe thirty percent. It's increasingly clear you didn't actually orchestrate it."
Okay, he is maybe sounding a little unhinged now.
Edarial's head gets buried in his hands and he makes a sound that sounds similar to an actual sob.
The man is not currently capable of making words that aren't curses or pleas to be let go.
"Hello," he says, to the guard. "We have questions for you, do please try to answer them."
The guard makes a pathetic whimpery sound that sounds like, 'Please don't hurt me.'
"Sword," demands Edarial.
He leans down next to Scratched McScarserson, sword out, but not pointed near the guard in any way. "Let me repeat that. We have questions."
"Please- your majesty-"
Edarial fixes him with a cold, emotionless stare. "Who were you working for, and who were your associates?"