Apologetic shuffle.

"How does he get from 'I have a charming smile and know everybody's name' to 'if I say "keep my completely innocent ex-boyfriend under closely scrutinized house arrest, drag his completely innocent friend kicking and screaming out of his room, etcetera"' - Findekáno was covered under the thin centuries-old veneer of 'lost a war', not that I think that's much excuse -"

"Wars don't work if everyone is second-guessing their generals based on incomplete information and doing whatever seems best to them. Where you're from do they not make arrests without the arresting officer and all the prison wardens fully informed about the circumstances and allowed to let the prisoner go if they happen to disagree with the government?"

"Where I'm from they do not arrest foreign nationals except to evict them without a treaty saying they can do that. Where I'm from charges are public. Where I'm from - admittedly for other reasons - no single person holds absolute power such that it doesn't matter if they do horrible things and there's no way to stop them."

"Well. I can resign my commission in sixteen years if I don't like the things I'm ordered to do."

"Where I'm from it's customary but legally optional to give six weeks' notice."

"After the war there'll be less justification for asking people to swear for a term."

"You're sworn to this? I guess that's more encouraging in some ways than him running this entire shitshow on personal charisma."

"Can't disobey orders for no reason."

"He forced Findekáno into contradictory oaths and has admitted to having no excuse, is that not a reason?"

Shiver. "The - the reasons are if I think my orders aren't really coming from the King, if I think the King has been compromised by the Enemy, or if I have more information and am out of range to convey it and get updated orders. That's - that would be horrible if it were true but unless it's the Enemy doing it it's not a reason."

"Do you realize that's fucked up."

" - I mean no one's ever accused the King of something like that before so it hasn't really seemed like a problem."

"Findekáno goes around with hair as short as mine, I suppose that doesn't seem like a big deal, it's only if he's being tortured more than a certain amount?"

"The King should marry like a decent person but it'd be insane to overthrow him over that. But forcing oaths is evil."

"Yours is a fascinating lens into the variety of possible ways someone might convince themselves they were doing moral reasoning."

Awkward shuffle.

"Do you actually think that's the problem - and if you do actually think that's the problem, do you actually think that I think so too?"

"That is the problem," he says confidently. "Humans are just different, which is why you wouldn't have realized."

"Given that, obviously, I have now realized there is a problem, what do you think I think it is?"

"You don't like how the King handles his consort. You thought it was like a normal relationship with a woman and then you found out that it wasn't."

"I didn't care for how Elon treated Ranary either."

"Well, I don't think Elves should have human women either but it's not nearly as bad."

"Ugh," concludes Cor.

His guard returns to watching him. The city is being evacuated down to essential personnel.

A while later - 

Corbelan?