Bastran is having some kind of emotional reaction to what Caris just said. He's unclear on what it is. It feels - not entirely safe - to poke at more closely. 

"...Did magic research used to remind you of your mistakes?" he says, and immediately feels incredibly stupid because this is not at all a good way to flirt and - is that what he's trying to do here - nevermind he already said it he's just going to sit here feeling like an idiot and wait for Caris' answer. 

"When nearly everything new is bad new thoughts can be predicted in advance to be bad thoughts. When nearly everything surprising is bad, surprising thoughts can be predicted in advance to be bad thoughts. So you - train the habit of not really thinking -"

"...Um. That - does sound like it would be really bad. For, uh, thinking, and also just - bad, as a way to live? ....I wouldn't've said it was one or the other, that either someone could be tremendously happy or - that -" 

"I guess there's also being - bored but not injured? I'm not sure I'd recognize it. Almost everyone I've ever met is the - injured thing."

"...Hmm. I - that makes sense, I guess, with - what I know about Cheliax."

He's making a face about it.

"- I still feel like there are - more divisions than that. I don't know, I just - I think someone can be sort of all right, mostly? Not bored, not injured, but not - tremendously happy, either." 

(He's not making a face about this, not even a little bit, because it's something that he feels personally emotionally invested in, and that's exactly the time when you can't afford to reveal anything.) 

"I guess. But - most of the gain from being happy - it's not just the absence of the penalty from being injured."

"...What is it? Is it mostly just the - space to be curious and ask questions like a child would, or - something else -?"

"It's - expecting that if you think about a problem for a while you will satisfyingly solve it and the solution will be beautiful and applicable to some other problems you had as well. Just sitting down to think, expecting that, and being right so often you start to trust it like you trust your balance."

He's never felt that way in his entire life and didn't know it was possible probably that is not a thought he actually believes. ...Probably. Maybe. 

He really needs to say something or else this is going to go from bearably to unbearably awkward very fast. 

"I think most of the problems I solve are - satisfying, but not beautiful?"

Wow that was an inane stupid thing to say. Though if Caris was going to judge him for his tendency to say inane stupid things then probably Caris wouldn't have invited him to his wizard tower. (Right? probably?)

" - come here," he says, his voice a little strange.

...He'll do that. 

(This may or may not be a terrible idea on multiple dimensions but - he's committed, he's here, and that makes it easier.) 

Caris puts his hand around the Emperor's throat. 

"You're such a puzzle," he says. "You could be happy, in that if there is anything that'd make you happy you could have it. It'd serve the Empire, for you to be happy." He does not expect that Bastran likes hearing that; it's very clear, in his voice, that that's part of why he said it. "You suspect I'm right, that happy people are stronger, better, unafraid, unburdened, that they see farther and build higher. It is your right to be happy and you would be doing the right thing, to be happy. An Asmodean would say that Good chains you to misery, but Good, I suspect, objects that they propose no such thing. 

The throne itself chains you to misery, that's my solution to the puzzle. You are afraid that the answer to the question of how you'd be happy is that you'd be free of it."

Caris' prediction was correct: Bastran doesn't like hearing this! 

...It's weirdly easier to listen to it anyway, with Caris' hand around his throat. 

Right. He should...say...words...probably...? 

He can definitely do that. Say words, that is. 

"I don't think -" 

(that I'm miserable but with Caris' hand around his throat he's somehow suddenly more aware that he has arguably been miserable for a long time. It's not a job anyone sane would agree to, being the Emperor– he still needs to do the saying words thing but he can't remember where that sentence was going) 

"- that the Empire is actually making the world better?" he hears himself say, with an audible question mark, and then is immediately mortified but the words are said and he can't take them back now. 

That is legitimately not what he was expecting to hear! Probably because he still can't actually really predict Good people all that well!

Luckily if he takes a moment to figure out how to respond to it Bastran will definitely interpret the pause as letting Bastran wallow in having said it. 

The cruel thing to say in response is 'careful, now, people die of confessing that'. Because it's probably true, but - not by Bastram's choice, except insofar as he hasn't more highly prioritized fixing it. He has actually on every occasion she knows him to have exercised any discretion chose to be lenient. Caris was, in fact, his, and in plenty of senses a traitor, and it's not just the sex, and not just weakness, that motivated Bastran to forgive it.

The Good thing to say in response - he doesn't know! He isn't Good! Good continues to make no fucking sense -

- no. At some point that's just an excuse not to think, and instead you can always just think. 

"- I'm so sorry," he says, quietly.

...That feels like an even more unfair thing for Caris to say while he still has his hand around Bastran's throat. Because now Bastran wants to cry, which is deeply unattractive. Probably. He is at this point incredibly confused about what Caris finds attractive given that apparently one of the things Caris finds attractive is him.

(- he did on some level notice the brief pause, before Caris' response, he's pretty sure there was some careful calculation going on there and somehow this is even more hot - this is such a bizarre thing to find attractive but it's definitely how he feels anyway -)

"It should be. That was - what it's for. To make the world better. ...I don't think it's just me failing, here, I think the Empire was already - not what Altarrin wanted - before that."

But it definitely does feel like he's failing. ...That is also probably not a sexy topic at all but he can't think very far ahead right now. 

"It was worth it to you, to suffer all of this, if it was for something lastingly good. But it's - so unfair, to have paid so much to swim upriver and keep pace with the shore."

Caris is right and this conversation is terrible and - why didn't he ever notice it sooner - it's actually completely unsurprising that he never noticed it sooner, he's not running into his own compulsion to serve the Empire right now but it's mostly because he's in a very strange mental state that the compulsion is clearly not designed to handle - 

- he really just wants to stop thinking - 

"Mm. ...Want you to hurt me," so that he's too distracted to think, which sounds very convenient, and separately very hot. "- Um. If you - don't mind."

And now he can simultaneously feel mortified because most of his staff would tell him that he's being an idiot, and ALSO because his followup was embarrassingly awkward. 

(- and he is maybe also pretty scared, after the fact, thinking through what kind of hurt Caris has been through, and - he's not going to just admit right here that he can't handle what Caris can, that would be...embarrassing...also being scared is hot, apparently, because his brain is stupid and has stupid ideas -)

"That's what I have been doing" is a great line but Caris is not sure Bastran is in a position to appreciate it. 

Casting Dispel Magic at this point is incredibly tempting but - there is such a thing as pushing too far, and that might legitimately be it, and Caris needs to remember that however much they're pretending otherwise if they fight now Bastran will win. Bastran can afford to forget that; Caris cannot. And even if he were assured of his safety - it could make Bastran regret having made himself vulnerable, feel foolish for having done so, tell himself that his guards were right to tell him not to do this. 

Caris wants everyone who told the Emperor not to do this to be wrong. 

- this leaves him with only the usual problem where the kinds of hurting people that are reflexive for him are too much hurting people for most people. He can dig his nails into Bastran's throat, though, and pull his hair, and then Dimension Door them on down to the sex dungeon. 

Bastran will make very satisfying faces and noises about this! 

- he's mostly too distracted to have thoughts - he feels like there's a thought he was halfway through and it was important - 

...probably Caris will remember it, if it's important. Bastran trusts Caris utterly, right now, it seems like some like of category error not to utterly trust the person currently pulling his hair and digging his nails into his throat... 

he's pretty sure it really was important though

Caris is, tragically, way too inexperienced to be trustworthy with that! Caris was about as bold as he feels he had affordance to be, and then was told to move on from that to the pain, and he's obliging, while obviously not making Bastran feel like Caris is in any sense being obliging!

Hopefully Bastran will bring it up again himself, later, after they've moved from the sex dungeon to one of the bedrooms and worn each other out.

He's not really in the mood to bring it up! He's happy, right now, and relaxed and it feels like the world is half-melted in a good way and he doesn't want to have any thoughts, yet, let alone talk about them. 

(It's still there, in the back of his mind, the lingering sense that he's missing something, that he hasn't fully dealt with the incredibly overwhelming information he's learned in the last few weeks - that he's doing everything wrong because he's not good enough and never will be ever– all right that piece is a thought he recognizes and can set aside as, at the very least, not one that's useful regardless of how correct or incorrect it may be...)

It nags him enough that he can't actually fall asleep on Caris, however much he would enjoy doing so.

"...Think we might be making some kind of strategic mistake," he says, drowsily, after a few minutes.