"H-he, he was executed -"

"Is any part of 'self-dedicated Death' confusing to you? It didn't take."

"Y-you got, you went and got." He waves a hand at Solekaran, then hisses and shrinks. "I-I'm sorry, your, your majesty, I. I." The sentence doesn't come, but tears do. They're not very dignified.

"That's good to know," he says, cheerfully.

Whimper, shrink.

'I don't know about you," he says to Sekar, "but I would like an explanation. Sit down."

The judge meekly sits.

"See, it just being about money doesn't make sense. I would not accept any amount of money to piss off someone like me." He plops himself, casually, into one of the judge's empty chairs. "So what was it?"

He doesn't say anything, shivering and quietly blubbering in his chair.

"...I really don't think you want to play this game," says the Emperor. "I really, really don't."

Whimper.

"I-I thought, I thought. The city could just be rid of you," he mumbles, into his lap.

"... You're going to have to be more specific about the why. What, is my face weird? My cheekbones intimidate you?"

"I don't give a shit about your face," he hisses. "You - you - the people like you, who dedicate Death and think it's fun, you terrorize everyone around you and make children think it's safe to - to."

... This actually stuns Zeothe to speechlessness. He leans back in his chair, looking at him thoughtfully.

The Emperor sighs.

"I'm pretty sure nobody thinks self-dedication is safe."

"No, but they think that because someone else turned out with ultimate magical power that they can have it too, and, and. The world doesn't need you, we can get by with dedications at birth and what people are born with. You just - you just make everything worse."

"You're really in the wrong city for that. Objectively speaking. Just to clarify, you live in the magical flying city held aloft by the omnipotent Emperor."

The judge sniffles in an annoyed fashion. "N-no one's going to think they can become another Emperor."

"I think you might be underestimating how useful it is to have self-dedicated mages in the world who aren't me," says the Emperor. "The world would be a much poorer place if I was the only person in it who could put up a building in an hour. Or heal someone from the brink of death."

"My daughter would be alive."

"... So you try to kill someone else's son?"

"Ha. And how much did you care when you decided you wanted to risk your life for magic? And what good are you going to do the world, hm? Death and Fire, skirting around the law as you please, doing whatever you want -"

Zeothe considers a possible reply.

"My sister got sold into slavery," he says, flatly. "Because I got tried and - well, almost executed."

"What?"

"It could've gone very badly for her," the Emperor contributes. "Didn't, but could have."