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carissa, somewhere else
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:Uh. Yes. Th....at: 

 

He watches a few seconds longer in horrified fascination.

:....She - seems pretty successful at it. So far. ...Uh, his staff got suspicious and asked me to mindread her. - Him. He's disguised as a boy with magic - like, all the way, under her– his...clothes...too... I didn't know you could even do that! Anyway I kind of don't want to get her in trouble if she has, uh, permission to do this, she's presumably not going to - hurt him: Except maybe in a sexy way no, she is sensibly deciding not to risk that, which he is relieved about because wow is that something his compulsions think he would definitely have to warn the guards about. 

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Meanwhile the Emperor is not exactly bored but he is definitely starting to find this position really tiring to hold, and uncomfortable in a not-especially-sexy way. He tries to shift his weight without making it too obvious.

(He is maybe slightly frustrated but mostly because he has no idea whether or not he's meeting with Caris' approval right now.) 

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:I have no idea if she has permission: says Merda flatly. :It seems entirely likely that she doesn't. I am sure she won't hurt him, she likes her neck and there's no one she could have worked with on a plan to replace him except Altarrin, who doesn't play games like that. She said she intends to tell him as soon as they're in private.:

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Caris can notice impatience and change plans! "Good job, " he whispers, and lifts his pretty harpist up to look at him. "You're the prettiest little thing, and I am so pleased I have you. I don't want you to get me off just yet. I want you to make more beautiful music for me."

And then he can touch the Emperor. This part is less distractingly new! This part works pretty much the same as if you are a girl!

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Oh is he being scooped up - Caris is really strong, even stronger than he looks, and he's always found it incredibly appealing when bigger and stronger people demonstrate it, especially if they're clearly being gentle but could decide not to be... (Normally he would have to ask if he wanted to be, say, picked up and carried somewhere, which makes it way less satisfying, but he is hoooooping that Caris will spontaneously get around to it at some point, if he decides he would rather have the Emperor more to himself.) 

 

He gasps slightly and sighs and looks up at Caris with a wide-eyed expression that isn't exactly adoring, he's still too guarded for that - and kind of tense, he feels on uncertain footing here even if it's really, really, really good, and feeling - small and young and fumblingly inexperienced and - pretty scared, even if the fear is only of making a fool of himself and not of actual danger - isn't not hot. 

"Of course. Anything you want. You are - so good to me -" and it still feels like it would be correct to call Caris by some kind of title but he isn't sure what would feel right. 

He is not practiced enough at playing the harp to avoid making some mistakes when being touched in incredibly distracting ways, and singing is hard because his breathing keeps catching at inconvenient moments, and he is maybe on some level slightly having a panic attack and also kind of feeling far away from his body, but he will try very earnestly. 

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...This does not give Ketar as much wiggle room around his compulsions as he might have preferred. 

 

But. The compulsions he has to navigate are: obeying direct imperial orders, doesn't apply. Receiving communications from the Emperor, also doesn't apply, and if he were he's pretty sure that the Emperor would be ordering him to leave him alone and enjoy himself. Tampering with compulsions, doesn't apply and he doesn't suspect Carissa of it (which he would have to report immediately.) Loyalty to the interests of Empire (first) and Emperor (second)...

- weeeeeell, Carissa wants to advance the Emperor's interests, right, because her entire aim here is for the Emperor to be invested in protecting her, and she - plausibly wants to be his official consort and bear his heir, but that's not treason by itself, and in this case might be actively serving the Emperor since he has not, so far, successfully produced an heir. But Carissa is going to want the Emperor's reign to be as secure as possible, since it will be the source of her security, and she is - quite a useful person for the Emperor to have serving him, it should seem like a very good idea from the point of view of Ketar's compulsions for the Emperor to be on track to have a personal wizard with impossible powers from another world. 

 

Learning of a threat to the Emperor personally, or to the stability of the Empire: nnnnnnno, it seems unlikely and - at least the way he has it set up in his head right now - the compulsion doesn't force him to be very paranoid about a tiny chance of a threat. 

Accidentally learning a state secret he wasn't supposed to know: not applicable because he is cleared to know about Carissa's magic, in fact, it's his main assignment currently - his service to the Empire right now runs through keeping Carissa safe so that the Empire can benefit from her abilities - and the guards aren't cleared to know and it very much isn't in the interests of the Empire for Carissa's secret to get spread around. (Not to mention Altarrin would be so angry with him.) 

 

Okay. What can he tell the guards.

:He's - experienced with seducing powerful people who want - unusual things: he conveys. :That's why he's managing this so smoothly. ...He's keeping secrets about his background but the person he's working for: himself (...herself) :doesn't want to harm the Emperor and I expect their goals to benefit the Empire overall. I can - keep watching - but I don't think this is higher risk than his, uh, usual flings: 

Which are clearly some risk, but it's equally clear that Emperor Bastran is choosing that, and will not thank them for interrupting his fun. 

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Caris now has a useful source of calibration about how distracted his Emperor is (if he can play the harp, it's not enough) and is doing some testing. Mostly he is aiming for very pleasant distraction. But - what is the tamest possible way of hurting someone which would go over tolerably well even if they have the injury tolerance of a prize racehorse. ...scratching? Hair-pulling? Maybe these can be very conservatively tried in a way that is plausibly accidental if it goes over poorly.

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He doesn't react badly to the scratching, exactly - doesn't get angry or seem offended, or like Caris is exceeded his tolerance for pain - but he's mostly startled; he twitches and misses some notes and...is pretty visibly trying to figure out how Caris wants him to react? 

 

...When she pulls his hair, he reacts much more positively! He gasps and melts against Caris and his eyes go out of focus. 

(The Emperor was aware that he likes having his hair pulled, but he has never before had someone do it without him specifically making the request, and it's so much more when it's catching him by surprise and when he - doesn't actually know at what point Caris would stop - obviously he isn't actually going to seriously injure Bastran, and if he did the guards would intervene and it would be incredibly mood-ruining, but there's still a terrifying-but-not-entirely-in-a-bad-way thrill around not being sure -) 

 

He reacts much harder to the same amount of pain than Carissa would. 

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Okay. This is fine. Ketar is learning things about his Emperor that he is not entirely sure he wanted to know but it's fine. 

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If it's helpful for his compulsions Caris is zero thinking of this as hurting the Emperor, and continues to intend not to do that. He's looking for things the Emperor will react well to, things that go well with powerlessness-the-fantasy without in the slightest altering the Emperor's actual access to power. 

 

(Caris is not going to judge the Emperor for his pain tolerance, though he does think it'd be a debilitating shortcoming in anyone who wasn't the Emperor.)

 

 

Unfortunately it won't occur to him, even after a while, to carry his Emperor off somewhere private, mostly because he'd have to ask for directions to the right place and that just seems ridiculous but also because once he's in private with the Emperor it becomes more suspicious not to have told him the truth. Instead he will act on previous instructions to pin the Emperor to the bookshelves for -

- he absolutely does not want to admit he's never done this before even though it makes sense for Caris, who is barely twenty, to not have done this before -

- how complicated can it be, anyway -

- Caris thinks that girls have it better with respect to sex, actually, getting distracted or confused and temporarily less aroused is much less visible and therefore much less important, and in general it's just much easier to lie about how much you're enjoying yourself  -

- when she was having enjoying-herself problems she should've tried being-a-boy therapy for it, where you can't neglect yourself because you're a boy and it'll be very obvious - Keltham would not have been into that, tragically -

 

Caris is enjoying himself, and so manages to figure things out, hopefully without the illusion having been broken for the Emperor that Caris is just doing exactly as he pleases which happens to be the thing the Emperor mentioned earlier that he wanted. He will fuck the Emperor against the bookshelves and whisper how pretty he is and how fragile he is and how well-behaved he had better be. And pull his hair.

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The Emperor mostly does not notice this! He's really distracted! To the extent he notices anything he - mostly interprets it as himself failing to be good at this - but Caris said that was okay - 

It's definitely about ten times more - intense, more...just more, mostly but not entirely in a good way...than other times when he's been fucked in exactly the same way but had to do all the steering. By the time Caris is finished with him, he is mostly not even managing to overthink anything - he is having a hard time completing thoughts in general, or forming the intention to move. He will be flopped and snuggly and inclined to cling and stare at Caris with drowsy amazement. 

"Did I - do well -?" he manages to say once words are working. 

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.....Ketar kind of has feelings about watching Caris' mind during all of this. He isn't sure what his feelings are. It's confusing. (He is also trying very hard to avoid, himself, getting aroused - it helps that he's not really attracted to men, but it's Caris' mind that he's interacting with, not his body, and he is definitely attracted to Carissa...) 

 

 

 

He had really not expected his life to get this weird. 

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Caris pets his Emperor. "You were lovely. You were perfect."

 

He's very much not out of danger yet and he's accustomed enough to worrying about tropes that he tries not to think 'that went perfectly' but it did.

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Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh he was good

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...Also the Emperor is now kind of completely out of...people energy...which honestly usually happens after sex, but it feels like this time for different reasons. And he's significantly more off-balance than usual - more off-balance than he's been since well before he was the Emperor at all - and is going to have a hard time being entirely graceful about shooing Caris while not - being discouraging, making it seem like Caris could be in trouble, now that those parts of his brain are sort of in working order again he's very aware that Caris was - extremely bold - and this was exactly what he wanted but Caris cannot read his mind and may not be sure if his guards, who are visibly stationed just outside the library, are going to agree. 

 

"I would like to see you again," he does manage to say. Aaaaaaand it feels very incorrect to be the one who proposes a time, so - "Why don't you send a note, once you decide when would be convenient?" 

(He has also suddenly sprouted a fantasy of Caris showing up unannounced at random times and expecting Bastran to drop whatever he's doing to - please him - but that seems like a lot to ask for after a first date and also he does, actually, have a lot to do, and if it was the middle of the day then it would take him candlemarks to get himself back into the headspace where he can handle meetings.) 

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......Ketar should really tell Caris that he was reading his mind during that, not because his compulsions are making him but because they're friends or at least that's what he - wants to be - and it's understood that sometimes you'll have to mindread people you're on friendly terms with but there's no reason to do it secretly and also Caris could probably use the context. 

 

However, the thought fills his entire mind with s c r e a m i n g  so he is not going to do that. He will give Merda an update that Caris seems to have had an extremely successful initial seduction and the Emperor wants to see him again and the guards are probably going to gossip about him and his mysterious seduction skills and unknown background but he doesn't think they're - suspicious in anything close to the right direction. Merda can decide what to tell Carissa about it later, because Ketar is a coward. 

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Right okay that's a very unambiguous dismissal and no one could reasonably argue that Caris should have told the Emperor certain facts. He nods, and stands, and bows, and says, "I'll write." 

 

And then he departs. 

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The Emperor does not dwell on how things went or daydream about Caris. Being distracted by feelings about his sex life would be an enormous weakness and liability, and he has arranged not to have that problem. 

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Ketar skims unguarded minds for any hint of thoughts or gossip about Caris! 

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It has not failed to attract notice that the Emperor spent an entire concert with a gorgeous young man - un-Gifted, of low birth and no particular importance, but with an intriguingly mysterious history? And certainly bold! The odd conversation with the minister was overheard by several different people scrying it, and speculation is rampant. It's no surprise the boy is clever, the Emperor likes that, but he sounded educated, just - clearly not by the Empire. 

There's a rumor that he's the younger son of the king of one of their southern neighbors, sent under a false identity to learn the Emperor's secrets (which won't work, obviously, and is relatively unlikely even to get him executed.) - no, actually he's the son of a southern king who fell in love with the Emperor from a distance and ran away in secret of his own will. 

- he's a slave from a different southern country, purchased by a particular powerful and wealthy noble who noticed his handsome looks and intelligence, and saw a way to earn the Emperor's favor... 

He was in fact raised by ordinary farmers, but is the secret bastard of a noble lord, who arranged for him to have lessons in seduction as well as economics. 

His looks aren't natural and were sculpted by years of effort by a skilled mage-Healer outside the Empire. 

...that, but also he's much older than he appears and this isn't the first ruler he's seduced. 

 

 

It is remarked that Merda was involved in hiring him as a page. Merda could be working for just about anyone - though probably not the king of a southern kingdom - and, as usual, gives cryptic answers that vary widely based on who she's speaking with. 

 

 

- it is also noticed fairly quickly that Caris is often unfindable to scrying? Which mostly hints that he has a powerful patron; anti-scrying wards aren't unheard of, but a page with no other interesting traits isn't going to get access to them. 

 

Thoughtsensers are rare but Ketar isn't the only Thoughtsenser at court, and some of the others don't just report to Merda and will sell information incidentally gathered - or even take on special assignments - in exchange for favors. (Merda should perhaps warn Caris that when he's scheduled for messenger duties and scryable, probably people will be trying to read his mind.) 

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Caris is well aware of that. He's been working on thought discipline; when he's Caris, he thinks only of his duties, and most of his attention is occupied in...to Thoughtsensers it looks kind of like he is imagining putting tiny pins in a bracelet he wears so that currents can flow through the pins in desired patterns. 

Hopefully this will be widely regarded by the Thoughtsensers who notice it as a weird hobby he's learned to be hard to mindread. They can in any event rule out that it's a Wild Gift; Caris is very obserably not Gifted.

 

He writes the Emperor not the next day, but the following day. He's not trying to play all that hard to get but he does have to be careful to keep the Emperor intrigued and not to seem too desperate. (He genuinely isn't. It's immensely helpful how this entire plan is not in fact strictly necessary.) He proposes that the Emperor show him around the gardens, if it pleases his imperial majesty etcetera etcetera. 

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The Emperor would be delighted! He allows himself an entire five minutes of happynervous while he dictates a response.

He unfortunately cannot make tonight (this isn't playing hard to get, he actually has a conflict and he cannot afford to get so thoroughly - distracted - which will definitely happen even if he blocks in a short assignation.) They set a time for the next evening. 

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The reason the Emperor cannot make that evening is that they have news from down south, and Ellitrea is back to make a report. Altarrin has, in service of his Emperor blah blah, successfully rooted out the religious extremists that were causing all those difficulties in Taymyrr, including a ring in the southern half, the conquest should now go much more smoothly. There was minimal collateral damage in terms of infrastructure; there was a higher rate of unrelated civilian casualties than ideal, because the priest-mages of Atet are really fond of Final Striking when cornered, what a horrible religion even compared to the baseline expectation of horribleness, the people of Taymyrr are so lucky to have been taken under the protection of a much better administration. They lost some troops but no mages. 

 

Altarrin has gone directly to the north to handle some minor issues with an unrelated project, but hopefully it shouldn't take long. 

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Oh good. The Emperor was never in doubt that his Archmage-General would get their minor problem sorted out efficiently, and he's glad to know that Altarrin will be back in the capital soon. 

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(Things that were not said: Altarrin is injured - not catastrophically, or to the point that it would have been remarked on by any servants or guards who don't report to him personally, but definitely to an extent that Velgarth Healing cannot instantly address. He's exhausted. He ended up casting the stupid pastwatching spell, like, twelve times over the course of three days, pinpointing where to have Ellitrea Thoughtsense, and he's functional but mostly running on adrenaline and trained habit. 

And there's been a rash of suspicious accidents and missing supplies at the site of their spellsilver mine in Isk, which is unfortunately very important and also - delicate to delegate, since so much of the context of the project is a secret and he's trying not to make it salient that he's directing a lot of resources that way. But most of why they're operating out of the Eastern Empire at all, and paying all of the other inevitable costs, is to have that infrastructure. It's worth some personal intervention to salvage it.) 

 

 

He did also tell Ellitrea that she could relay to Carissa that he's aware of her Emperor-seducing plan and does not object to her pursuing resources and security, though he very much hopes that she's being careful and has the support she needs. Ellitrea can pass on her requests if there's any way he can help. 

(This is...perhaps not exactly what he wanted to say, or what he would have said if they could speak privately, or the message he would have drafted if he had been less utterly exhausted. But it seemed important to acknowledge some sort of reaction. They can talk more in private about Carissa's plans, and what Carissa needs to feel secure in her work, once he's back.) 

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