"I would like that."

Kiss. "I will be right back." 

His music-room isn't far away; he's gone less than two minutes. (Though he detours briefly on the way to call out to one of the servants, who brings over a tray with a bottle of good wine and two cups. He's not sure if Caris wants that, and - won't push - but he could use a little more to drink, to - have a good time, tonight.) 

He comes back carrying a harp. Settles it in place on the floor, grabs a cushion. (It's an instrument that makes sense to play while kneeling on the floor. Bastran has never actually thought much about that before.) 

He starts to play. He's - not, in fact, nearly as good as the previous musicians, but he's chosen a much simpler piece and he can pull it off gracefully. 

...If Caris doesn't seem bored, he'll move on to a piece with a vocal part. He's pretty sure he has a good singing voice. 

Caris is trying to very rapidly cultivate a taste in music, it being a passion of his future husband's. He isn't sure he can distinguish 'okay' from 'good' yet, but he can nod along to the beats and smile when the music sounds happy and try to predict the next notes so he can be surprised when his predictions are mistaken.

He starts drinking the glass of wine. "You do realize that I'm here on purpose and you don't need to get me drunk" seems like a second date sort of conversation, and anyway, he is nervous - actually. Don't men sometimes have performance difficulty from drinking too much? He puts the glass of wine back.

The Emperor looks - much happier, while he's playing. (And he may be mediocre at the harp, but he does have an excellent singing voice, a surprisingly deep and rich baritone for his short stature.) 

He stops after the second song, though, and retrieves his own wine-cup, he's thirsty. ...He stays kneeling on the floor-cushion for a few moments, though, just in case Caris will suddenly manifest some boldness and make everything easy from here, though he's not incredibly expecting that. 

In Caris's defense, here, the problem is even more complicated than correctly interpreting the cross-culturally unpredictable hints!!

- this body is unfamiliar and he's not totally sure what he would even want for himself, if that were a question he was thinking about, which it's mostly not

- if he lights the Emperor on fire he'll definitely die of it and he doesn't know how else to be bold in bed 

- related to that, he - can't? subdue the Emperor? even if the Emperor secretly wants that? he could maybe succeed at that if he'd prepared the magic items, but he didn't and also it's definitely illegal and the kind of thing you get executed for even by nice Emperors. 

Can...he...say that?

It doesn't seem like obviously the wrong genre of thing to say but like it's too many steps away from where his quarry is presently standing. 

Maybe there's a - simpler route. 

"If you weren't the Emperor," he says thoughtfully, "and weren't a mage at all, actually, and you played me that beautiful music and then stayed there like that, what do you suppose I'd do with you?" 

- that is one of the hottest things he's ever heard - where did this person come from how is he so perfect - it's unfairly distracting to have to SAY THINGS OUT LOUD while kneeling on the floor in front of someone attractive, and he wants to say "you would do whatever you wanted" but he does not, actually, think he can say that (yet?) and have it result in a satisfying encounter instead of a lot of confusion and awkwardness. 

(It's so undignified, to be this - stuck on how to make a situation go the way he wants - he's the Emperor, he has more to work with than anyone in the world to make things go the way he likes - and it's not actually like he doesn't know what he wants Caris to do to him, actually he has some quite specific ideas, but inconveniently his mind - or other parts of him - feel very firmly that, while it would be incredibly hot for Caris to fuck him bent over one of the book carrels, it is an enormous moodkiller for him to be doing it because the Emperor ordered him to.) 

Maybe he can be...somewhat less specific than that...if he can give Caris a general outline of what sorts of things he likes, then maybe it won't feel as - fake - 

"Well. If we imagine I'm a - servant, no one important, and you're a lord, then - you might have called me here to play for you. And then you'd have - some ideas about. Other ways I could - please you." 

He is going to die of embarrassment 

Ah. So. The Emperor wishes he weren't all-powerful, so that people could do as they pleased with him. That's a perfectly reasonable thing for people to want, she once tried to convince Keltham, and she doesn't think she was lying.

What would Abrogail do about this - it is impossible to imagine Abrogail having this problem. Not even because she wouldn't enjoy being a prisoner, but because she couldn't possibly have the experience unless she'd been actually beaten by someone actually stronger and in that case it wouldn't matter if she enjoyed it or not. 

Carissa herself sometimes wants people to hurt her until she doesn't have to think anymore. Would it work even if it wasn't real? If she could tell them to stop, and was choosing not to? Maaaybe? Maybe you could still learn things about your own capacity for endurance from things you didn't have to endure. 

She's overthinking this. If the Emperor wants to pretend to be his own helpless lowborn page then that's just a test of her acting ability. She doesn't need to psychoanalyze him. The thing he wants doesn't need to make any sense.

And maybe he would, someday, want his lover to have real power, so that it could be real. And maybe that's how one ends up running the Eastern Empire. Though obviously he cycles through boys quickly, to avoid precisely that -

- long term strategic planning can wait.

He seats himself beside the Emperor and smiles gently. He should've picked an older face and body, for this - no, the Emperor almost certainly chooses inexperienced young men on purpose -

"That seems like a dangerous situation, for a pretty servant boy who plays the harp. Why, anything at all could happen to him. Or maybe he's hoping that it will, wouldn't that be something? Maybe he knows in his heart that he's fragile and beautiful and helpless and that his whole purpose in this court is to make pretty noises and spread his legs for his betters. Do you think so?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah he was not expecting that to WORK and this is absolutely something he's fantasized about and in his fantasies it was nice and not INEXPLICABLY TERRIFYING - though not entirely in a not-nice way - and his heart is sort of pounding and this is ridiculous - he's not actually in any danger he is still in control of the situation it's actually impossible for him not to be and it would be absurd to have a panic attack because the thing he wanted to happen actually happened aaaaaaaaaaah– 

Yes, my lord, is what he would say in the fantasy version of this, but it feels like saying that out loud with his actual mouth will just end up sounding incredibly stupid. 

His breath catches. "Maybe it's - not so dangerous - if, if all he wants to please his - betters and keep them happy - and he's...good at it... But, if he's not good at it yet, because he - needs practice - then that might be dangerous, even if he's. Hoping for it." 

Was that the right thing to say? Is he doing a good job of this?

Huh, he wants this but he doesn't usually get it? Maybe it ruins it if he has to spell it out in detail and most people can't take a hint because it's admittedly a quite bizarre hint to need to take. But still, Caris would expect that after a few decades someone hits on the right formula and then the gossip mill takes care of the rest, like how the Emperor's physical preference was extremely well-known despite it being technically a secret that he prefers men at all. 

Overthinking yet again. 

"Well, sometimes men prefer their lovers fumbling and inexperienced, I'm told. So they can train them just right, instead of risk that they've already learned wrong. ...or so they can hurt them for failing, sometimes it's that. I don't suppose our helpless harpist would have any way of knowing.

Suck me off."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah it continues to be ridiculous that this is almost MORE terrifying than it would be if it were - real - no he's not going to try to chase down that thought right now, or dwell on the fact that he's very confused about how someone like Caris exists  - this has got to be someone's plot, it's impossible this could be happening by accident - what is Merda playing at - 

(The fact that he's pretty sure Caris is part of a plot and it might be a hostile one is honestly not making this less incredibly arousing.) 

He will do exactly as Caris asks. It doesn't even feel like a decision, it's just the thing happening and he feels dizzy and half out of his body but it's fine, better than fine really...

He will be so small and harmless and obedient and try very hard to do a good job and, for this particular part at least, he has a lot of practice. 

Okay Caris is going to be momentarily limited in ability to plan further events because new interesting things are happening. (He did practice with his new dick before he tried this, to make sure it worked and wasn't going to surprise him or anything, but there were some limits on his abilities to try stuff.)

This is...going fine??? Seems like it's going fine. Seems like it's going really well and it's fine if he just relaxes and enjoys himself. Which is not one of the sex skills he excels at, but - well, this isn't Carissa, who may have given herself some hangups in there, this is Caris, and Carissa's hangups don't map very well to anything about this interaction and maybe Caris can use that to just have a really lovely time.  He's going to avoid thinking about what happens if he fails to have a sufficiently lovely time; that sounds like a self-fulfilling line of thought.

And having obedient Emperors at your feet is objectively really really hot. 

It is not, actually, something the Emperor can afford, to ever stop being paranoid, even when he's - playing a game, or imagining a hypothetical - where he's in danger and also powerless to protect himself and in fact can't afford paranoia, can't afford to look like a threat, has to keep his superiors happy just by being sweet and harmless and someone who would never dare to hurt them - 

- he has kind of a lot of practice at running two threads, the calculating one distant and separate from his racing heart and palm sweaty against the floor where he's holding himself steady and his thighs burning and foot cramping but he certainly doesn't have permission to shift into a more comfortable position. 

Mage-sight. Caris is supposed to not be Gifted and to be under the basic compulsions - not the full set that nobles and mages get, but even lowborn un-Gifted pages get compulsions to be loyal to Empire and Emperor, and compulsions against trying to change that fact - and Bastran is pretty sure his people would have checked but he would still feel incredibly stupid if, in fact, Caris or Caris' sponsor has suborned enough of his staff that Caris was able to sneak in with a magical weapon to assassinate the Emperor. 

(His body language will give absolutely no sign that he's doing this. It's tempting to feel like this is disobedience and he should confess and submit to whatever punishment Caris thinks is appropriate for his impertinence, buuuuuuut the Emperor is not actually an idiot and this is not actually a good idea.) 

He did think about this, obviously. The Greater Hat of Disguise is taking the form of his hair, and his headband is underneath it (he should really have left it off, but he didn't want to). Both are under a Nondetection. It wouldn't stand up to a mage meticulously trying to pry a disguise away, but it passes casual inspection.

He could absolutely assassinate the Emperor if he wanted to, aside from the compulsions (which limit him to only doing it if it serves the Empire.) He'd have additionally made a Slaying arrow, easy as that. He hasn't made one. He is mostly relying on the fact that he's too useful to kill but it seems additionally valuable to have no actual means to do any killing. 

A mage can also tell, easily, that Caris is not Gifted, and the clothes that he's now hardly wearing aren't concealing a weapon.

Oh good. He didn't actually expect Caris to be an assassin but it would be incredibly embarrassing and undignified to get assassinated while sucking someone off, and somehow even more embarrassing to need rescuing by his mage-guards. 

Communication-spell. Target to his senior mage-guard. 

<Assume usual precautions taken but - might be good - if someone did some more digging. He's. Very surprising> 

Pause. 

<...Don't interrupt me unless it's an emergency> 

The Emperor's senior mage-guard is currently scrying the library and making a series of very interesting faces. 

- yeah, it seems like a good idea. And it also seems like a good idea to detail someone on reading the page's mind, this is definitely not just because he's extremely curious and it would make excellent gossip. Can he get a Thoughtsenser over, please. (There are servant passages laced throughout Bastran's suite, so they can station someone in range without, you know, actually disturbing the Emperor during his fun.) 

A fairly junior Thoughtsenser who is nonetheless experienced with discreet spy-duty work can be dispatched for this! He'll be there in five or ten minutes, if that's acceptable. 

(....He's being assigned to WHAT????) 

And the Emperor will go back to focusing all of his attention on pleasing Caris, and feeling sort of shivery about what might or might not happen if Caris decides he's insufficiently pleased. 

This isn't actually having power, this is selling the Emperor the fantasy of being powerless. They're entirely different games (though he thinks he likes both of them, and might even prefer this one). If the Emperor seems to be getting bored he'll decide that he's done. If the Emperor seems frustrated he'll change that. Even if he was displeased he would not, actually, hurt the Emperor for it; he isn't sure what would make the game no longer seem like fun, and he suspects himself of being miscalibrated for this world about how much hurting people is reasonable. 

Anyway he's not displeased and so their game need not involve his displeasure. This is great! This is going about as well as it possibly could be!

Uh.

He...thought...that plan was not a serious plan. It's not that he was confident Carissa was joking but he didn't expect her to ACTUALLY TRY IT let alone try it by TURNING INTO A BOY SOMEHOW WITH MAGIC and, uh. Whatever seduction strategy this is??? What are they even doing. Ketar was not aware this was a thing you could do in– ...not technically bed, he supposes. Library floor. 

Uh. Probably...someone...should be aware of this? Like, he doesn't think Carissa intends to assassinate the Emperor but if she - he? this is so weird and confusing - can get this close to him while presumably still wearing her magic items, she could absolutely get a weapon in too. And the Emperor, uh, certainly seems distracted. 

What is he supposed to do now - he really doesn't actually want to get Carissa in trouble but his compulsions are really not going to let him away with failing to report this -

:...Merda?: He really hopes it's a good time for her but he doesn't actually pause for her to think back whether it is. :Uh. There's a - thing - that I wanted to make sure you knew about - uh - Carissa is...: This is the most AGONIZINGLY AWKWARD CONVERSATION OF HIS ENTIRE LIFE 

: - seducing the Emperor? She told me. I told Ellitrea, though I don't know if Altarrin knows yet or not.: