Erianna burst out laughing. “I thought we were being serious,” she said after a few seconds passed, crossing her hands with a mock frown.

  “And I thought we were done being serious,” Sam said. “We finished covering the topic of your second reason, cue scene transition and mood change. Also, don’t act like you didn’t set me up for that.”

  She looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Here I was, just pouring my heart out for the first time, because it was to the only other person in the Web who knows what it’s like being mentored by my uncle, and he decided to take my straightforward and sincere display of emotions and turn that into a joke.”

  “Oh come on… You’re giving me way too much credit. I’ll take it. But please tell me that the thing about pouring your heart out was a joke.”

  “Which part of it?” She looked at him innocently.

  “I can’t be the first person you told about this shit to. Obviously, Farris knew. Otherwise, he couldn’t have convinced you using those arguments you gave.”

  “Well… Sure, I guess he knew. But…” Her lips trembled. “I never told him about this. He must’ve inferred that by himself. You see…” Her eyes widened as they made contact with his. “I have never actually said that stuff out loud to anyone before. I’ve never been comfortable telling people how I really felt. Until I met you.”

  “Mhm…” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Do all the people Farris mentors turn out like him? Lousy liars?”

  “Hey! My uncle is a great liar! But who you should really see is my mom. We both got it from her.”

  “Gee golly! A monarch who’s good at lying? A political actor that’s good at both meanings of the word? I don’t think the popular masses will ever consent to delegate their natural independence into the safekeeping of such a sovereign.”

  “Careful. Criticism of the institution of monarchy is a punishable offense under Sarechi law.”

  “Indeed. And isn’t it fortunate for those selfish, arrogant, and idiotic nobles that the law only forbids criticism of the institution, and not of the monarch?”

  “See? I told you that you liked politics way better than I do.”

  “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know that.”

  “Of course I did. But I wouldn’t have if I wasn’t who I am. Forced to live and breath politics.”

  Sam let out a non-committed grunt. “You know who you sound like right now?”

  “Please don’t say Farris. Please don’t say Farris.” Erianna clasped her hands and closed her eyes in a moving showcase of her devotion to not ending up like her uncle.

  “Close. According to some people. But even worse: me.”

  “Oh? This is going to be good. Let me guess, you’re going to say something along the lines of: ‘you’re better than you think you are,’ and that I shouldn’t be so critical of myself?”

  “No. I was going to call you a little bitch. Because you’re talking like a little bitch, as I’m wont to do.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You weren’t going to say that.”

  “No. Because I thought we were being serious.”

  “And I thought we were done being serious. Didn’t we switch the topic and change the scene?”

  “We had a small intermission between the two scenes, but the second one is pretty much a direct continuation of the first. In the extended cut, they’ll combine them into a single scene.”

  “Alright then. Give me the monologue. How do I remind you of yourself?”

  He crossed his hands. “I don’t want to do it now. You’ve offended me.”

  “By acting like a little bitch.”

  “No. By acting like me.” He chortled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, it’s hard to explain. It’s a sort of double layered joke. Because we had the bit about me being a little bitch and you by transitivity, that’s the obvious layer. But the second is just that… I do tend to say stuff like what you just said. Deflect from what people are going to tell me by telling them what it is that they’re going to tell me.”

  “That’s not that funny.”

  “Eh… maybe not. But it made me laugh. I didn’t expect it to work as well as it did.”

  “Alright. Forgive me for lacking the context to understanding your multilayered humor.”

  “Guess you don’t know me as well as you keep advertising.”

  “Don’t push it. But I am also sorry for… deflecting from what you were planning to say. I’ll let you get back to it.”

  “Hm… I’m not sure.”

  She waved him off. “Yes, yes, you are. Come on. We were talking about me not liking and thus not being as of an expert in politics as you and Yvessa. And you were saying that I reminded you of yourself. Pick up from there.”

  “You don’t need to remind me of what we were talking about two minutes ago. You’re ruining the flow of the conversation.”

  “Just go already.”

  “Alright, alright. So yeah… sure, I was probably going to say something about how you’re like me because we both don’t like to claim expertise in certain topics and try to downplay or achievements, knowledge, and attitude towards them. But thinking about that now… what you’re talking about isn’t really the same thing as what I’m taking about, at least so far as it would allow me to make that claim. And I don’t know you well enough to make that claim based on other evidence.”

  “You also forget that I don’t have the same self-confidence issues that you’re plagued with.”

  “Hm… did I? Who knows. It all depends on what I do actually know about you. But anyway, we don’t need to get into that, because I’m not making that claim. However, I’m still making the claim that you and I are similar. Because of your whole ‘expertise with politics’ hangup.”

  “Oh?” She crossed her legs, seeming genuinely intrigued. “Alright. I have no idea where you’re trying to take this now, so go ahead.”

  Sam bared his teeth with a smile. “It’s quite simple. We both dislike—or at the very least, like less—doing stuff that we’re forced to. It’s the old Tom Sawyer work-play dichotomy if you’re familiar.”

  “I’m not. And I’m also not sure what you’re getting at. You’re saying that I hate politics, and am less inclined to dealing with it than you or Yvessa, because I’m forced to take part in it? Yvessa’s position isn’t all that dissimilar from mine, you know?”

  “Sure. But her personality is. Her outlook and disposition towards doing stuff that she’s forced to do is.”

  Erianna rubbed her eyes. “Alright. Go ahead and present your case. I’ll stop interrupting.”

  “You can keep interrupting. It’s never a good idea to let me keep talking unopposed.”

  “Now that’s something that we might have in common.”

  Sam clicked his tongue. “You just fell for the oldest trick in the book. Promise broken in barely a couple of seconds.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him but said nothing.

  “Alright, so I’ll keep going now. In essence, you got it right. What I’m trying to say is that one of the reasons for your attitude towards politics and your presumptive ability in that subject is because you were forced to live and breath it. Let’s take me for example, alright? I don’t really like math. But I had to do it all of my life. And at a higher level than what the average person deals with. Yet always say that I’m shit at math, despite the fact that I’m, obviously, not shit at math. But I say that I am, and feel like I am, because I’ve been forced to learning it, and forced to meet and hear about people who were better and more suited to it than me.

  “Now, obviously, I didn’t live and breath politics. And I didn’t really have to study math, at any level higher than the minimum. At least not until half a year ago. So it’s not exactly the same thing. But let’s try something a little more similar: school. I was forced to go to school, same as you were forced to go to balls and statecraft lessons. Not doing that for either of us would’ve really… went against our position in society, which forced us to do these things. And after eighteen, we both had to continue studying, right? Higher education. University for me and Royal Academy for you. But… we probably had to do that a little less than what we had to before, yeah? Because we were already adults; it was no longer just our family, law, and cultural norms that forced us into action, but also ourselves. And I don’t know about you, but I liked uni way better than highschool.

  “But you know what? Let’s go with an even easier and simpler example. Did your mother ever ask you to take out the trash? Empty the dishwater? Or do something that you were already planning to do? The latter example is a real psychological phenomenon that’s been observed. At least, I think it’s real. Never actually looked into it. But my point is: that not only are we the kind of people who would suddenly dislike doing something we were planning to do if told to do it beforehand. We are also the kind of people who will always want to do something less if we were told to do that, no matter our attitude towards the act. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. We prize our free will. Our ability to allocate our own time as we wish to. Stuff that prevents us from doing that, we instinctively don’t like.”

  She looked at him with pursed lips.

  Sam chuckled. “Alright. I finished. You can talk now.”

  “You just had to use the dishwasher example, didn’t you?”

  “Look, it’s close enough. Clean the dishes or go to some duke’s kid birthday party. It’s both to help our parents, isn’t it? Now imagine that instead of living in a house with one dishwasher, I lived in like… a laundromat for dishes. And I had to spend everyday doing at least an hour of other people’s dishes, helping my parents bring bread to the table. There are people out there who looove doing the dishes, they get off on it. Even if I had the blueprint to become that sort of person, there’s no chance in hell I would’ve turned out as one of those weirdos if you brought me up in that environment.

  “It’s the same thing with you. Maybe, if you weren’t forced to live and breath politics, if you didn’t have to know the names of every powerful noble and the manner of election of every different World-Guide. Maybe then you wouldn’t think the same thing about the subject. Sure, maybe you’d still dislike it just as much. But maybe you’d also not feel compelled to point that out, and say that you’re really bad at it when you aren’t. If, for example, you could somehow take our personalities and switch around our experience, so that I had lived through your life and you through mine, maybe your attitude towards politics would be pretty close to mine.”

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  “Can’t take our experience out of our personality, though,” she said.

  “Of course not, but I’m just trying to illustrate the point. If you’re not convinced, think about it this way: I’ve never had your experiences. Nothing like it. Yes, my personality did make me so that I held a favorable attitude towards learning and participating in the political realm. It makes me have certain delusions. Like being a head of state, a powerful politician like your mother, who can shape the lives of millions, for the better, in a single statement.”

  “But I don’t know what it actually entails, you know? Fuck, when I think about being in a position where I’m forced to live and breath politics, I don’t actually think of living and breathing it. I think of sitting in a room and writing a law that would make the world a better place. Or holding a speech where I’m both characteristic and logically coherent and that somehow helps me carry out my political agenda despite fierce opposition and institutional inertia.

  “What’s the difference between my current attitude towards political science which led to my ‘expertise’ in it, and a kid that wants to become an astronaut so he reads a ton about space? Maybe just like that kid would deflate in a second once he experienced what staying in space is really like, I would dispel all my political inclinations after being forced to attend a fundraising event. So again, if you took my personality and gave me your experiences, if I had to go through what you went through, I might have a different perceptive on the whole thing.”

  Erianna nodded. “I don’t think you will, but you’re right. Who knows? Besides, I already got your point. It made sense even before you broke down the impossible personality exchange into something that is physically possible. Not that I’m saying that I necessarily agree with your claim about us being similar—”

  “God forbid. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “Agreeing with you or being like you?”

  “Can’t have one without the other. I’m that much of a mess.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me—something I would never do, I must add—you might have a point. Maybe being forced to live and breath politics might have made me develop certain attitudes towards it. And maybe the reason Yvessa didn’t is due to a difference between our personalities.”

  “Also… you might just be dumb. Like I am with math.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You just had to ruin it, didn’t you? Fine. It’s my just desserts, I suppose.”

  “Sorry. But I was also trying to prove the point. The whole point is that I’m not dumb at math, yeah?”

  “Oh… you poor thing. You really believe that. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but that’s just what they wanted you to think. We’ve all been lying to you. You’re actually the most mathematically inept person in the Web.”

  “That might’ve worked if I had led a sheltered life like you did. But I met people. I saw just how dumb certain individuals can be.”

  “The whole point of the last conversation sort of opposes the notion that I’ve led a sheltered life, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose it depends on how you define sheltered. Like, you didn’t need for food, or warmth, or any of the classic ‘hard childhood’ necessitates.”

  “Poor childhood, you mean.”

  “Yeah. I suppose you’re right. And we can’t really count sheltered as being the opposite of poor while growing. I mean, if your parents are assholes and beat you every moment of the day, but they’re doing that in a super lavish mansion while showering you with money, it’s still a hard childhood.”

  “So the question is whether being forced to endure what I had counts as a ‘hard childhood?’”

  Sam tsked. “Nah, I didn’t have a hard childhood, but I also didn’t live a sheltered life. It’s more about whether the childhood you had was easy enough to count as sheltered. But honestly, the actual definition doesn’t matter, because it still relies on subjective analysis. You certainly don’t think that you’ve led a sheltered life.”

  “Do you?”

  “Hm… I don’t know. I suppose it depends. I don’t really know much about your childhood. More importantly, there is the question of personality and mental fortitude and their compatibility to the type of childhood you’ve had. Now that I think of it, even coming up with my own subjective view is really fucking complex.”

  “It really isn’t. Just decide whether you think that being forced to attend birthday parties, where you got great food and sometimes mediocre entertainment, counts as ‘easy’ and then go from there.”

  “OK, but that requires me putting myself in your shoes and thus divorcing the question from your own subjective experience, which should hold for something.”

  “If you put yourself in my shoes, aren’t you just thinking like I am?”

  “Well, I meant it as just switching places with you. The same personalty but different experience bargain again.”

  “I feel like you’re really overthinking it. Most people would just look at my background and say, ‘Yep. That’s a sheltered life, alright.’ Why does my own perception of my childhood matter?”

  “You’re looking at this from a sort of… objective cultural standpoint. But if we take sheltered life to mean people sheltering a child from the things that the child does not like, then the subjective experience of the child has to matter. It’s not the end of the discussion, but it is a facet we must consider. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry for calling you a sheltered brat.”

  “You added that last part just now.”

  Sam lowered his head in apology. “In all seriousness? No, I don’t think you’ve led a sheltered life. The poster child for a sheltered childhood is Siddhartha before he became Buddha. Don’t know if you’re familiar, or how correct I am, but it’s about going outside alone for the first time in your life, after you’re already an adult, and seeing poverty. You knew what poverty was before coming here today, right?”

  Erianna laughed. “So this is my ‘going outside alone for the first time?’ And just where along the way from the portal in Transit to here was I supposed to learn that poverty exists?”

  “Well, I have this friend. His name is Felix…”

  “How cruel. I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “First you have to bear my company long enough to not decide you’re going back before he wakes up. Oh, and now that you mention it, how did you actually get here? And you know… are here?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Are we finally moving on to your part of Farris’ reasoning?”

  “We’ll get to that. But we’re still on you for now. Like… shouldn’t you have bodyguards or something? Unlike me, people might actually be out to get you, you know.”

  “Who exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Fringe elements. Terran, Sarechi, whatever. Wouldn’t the Epiraks want to kill you?”

  “Sure. Just as much as they would you. And anyone else here. Unfortunately for them, they can’t actually get us this far from the front. Besides, they’re never going to throw away whatever spies they might’ve managed to get through by sending them after us. We’re too well defended.”

  “We?”

  “Everyone in this academy is. But you and me, we’ve got even more protection going for us than most people.”

  “Like what exactly?”

  Her lips curled into a devious smile. Sam suddenly had a bad feeling. She shook her head at him while tapping her finger on her thigh. “Now, now, Sam. I know you’re anxious to start studying, but you have to calm down. I’m not going to tell you anything about threads before we start properly studying them.”

  Sam’s eye twitched. He tried to muster all the venomous energy in his body before projecting it onto his face and voice. With a huff, he said, “I take back all the jokes I’ve ever made about you not being able to stand Farris.”

  She gasped, her eyes widening. “No! You can’t seriously mean that!”

  “Alright. You said serious. Time to answer my question seriously. Then we’ll go back to jokes.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Boo. Stop flip-flopping and pick a lane.”

  “I would’ve been fine with walking the middle road until you brought Farris’ humor into the mix. Just so you know, that joke got really old half a year ago. Now repent by telling me why I shouldn’t worry about your safety while you’re here.”

  “Why only my safety? What about you? Or your friends?”

  “We’re not royalty. And we’ve already been here long enough without trouble.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “We’re not as famous or important as you.”

  “Says who? You, at the very least, are very famous in certain circles, just so you know.” She smiled. “But fine, I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t worry all that much about my safety. And yours by extension. So… we first have to ask, who can kill me, right?”

  Sam nodded. “Except that most of the people that can’t kill you, can probably kill me.”

  “No fucking way. Just because you’re level 1 doesn’t mean you’re not stronger than most Terrans. Think about it, how many people are actually in as good of a physical shape as you are? How many of them know how to fight? How many know how to use magic offensively? But fine, let’s say that you’re the most fragile thing in existence; anyone can kill you. But they’ll have to get through the people around you first, yeah?”

  “That’s fair. I’ve never actually been outside the academy grounds alone before.”

  “Yeah, exa—wait, you’re serious?”

  “I mean, yeah. Like, there was the day I was returned. There were other people there. And then, every time I left, I went out with… you know, the group or parts of it.”

  She chuckled. “That a fun bit of trivia. So technically, you haven’t actually been alone in this world, in the Web, outside of this guarded and catered complex. Sheltered much?”

  “We’re not doing jokes, remember?”

  “Screw that. If you can pivot at the drop of a hat, so can I.”

  “You can. But you won’t. Because you’re a better person than me.”

  She blew a raspberry. “Anyway, back to the point I was trying to make. Who can actually kill me, and thus you? Not a lot of people. They’d have to at least be level 5, because I’m probably the strongest level 4 in the Web. But more than that, they’d have to either be much, much stronger than me, be a Thread-Weaver, or have experience fighting Thread-Weavers in order to manage to kill me before other people intervene.”

  “I get the point. There aren’t a lot of people that can kill you.”

  “Right. But that wasn’t always the case, obviously. And there are still people out there that can kill me. What if, say, certain fringe elements currently stationed on New Terra for their Home Command rotation decide that they wanted to off me? There’s only one other person in New Terra who could hold them off. And he couldn’t both of them.”

  “Really? Just the one?”

  “How easy do you think it is for a leveled to bridge the gap to Ruler? Dan is an anomaly because most people who can do that… well, they can also become Rulers.”

  “Oh, on that subject. Do you know why Dan isn’t a Ruler? I asked Farris that before, but he gave me that stupid joke as an answer.”

  “And so should I. Because becoming a Ruler is very advanced material. Stuff that even I’m not fully aware of. But that doesn’t matter, because I have no idea. Dan’s situation is just as a mystery to me as it is to you.”

  Sam twisted his lips sideways. “Mhm… But I guess that it isn’t to Farris. Based on his answer.”

  “Probably not. Scratch that. Definitely not. But can we go back to the matter at hand?”

  “Alright. Why aren’t you afraid that some rogue Ruler will kill you?”

  “The first reason is the same as anyone else living in polite society. We don’t expect people to kill us for no reason. And there are only two reasons to kill me: One, to weaken our forces and help the Epiraks. Two, for political reasons like hurting the Sarechi Kingdom, or the royal family. The same as any political figure, I suppose.

  “Now, the best medicine for actors driven by both of those answers is the same: counterintelligence. For one, my grandmother is always keeping an eye on me. And she’ll see someone gunning for me long before they’ll actually come close to me. Two, there are more… traditional, for you at least, security agencies at work. The same people who foil terrorist plots and whatnot. But besides that, we are in a guarded compound. It’s not easy getting in here. And I had an escort accompanying me all the way from Maynil here. And they didn’t leave. They set up in the Sarechi embassy in case I ever want or need to go outside.”

  “So you can’t actually walk outside alone?” Sam asked.

  “I can. They’re only for show. My main protection is magical. Information takes a lot of space, and it’s not easy hiding a plan to kill someone like me. Especially not with how many people are looking out for me and people like me. But if someone does manage to hide it. Say an Epirak Ruler that somehow slipped through the front lines? I’m not my mother. My escort doesn’t have any Rulers in it. They won’t be able to help me.”

  Sam nodded. “Alright. That’s pretty much what I wanted. Just the confirmation that threads do play a role in… VIP protection, I suppose.”

  Erianna chuckled. “Sam, you should have probably realized by now that threads play a role in pretty much everything that you should be concerned about.”

  “And how would I have realized that if the only person who I could ask about threads kept giving me the same stupid answer?”

  “You could’ve looked up that information yourself. Unless… don’t tell me.” She smiled mischievously. “You were too afraid to do that because of Farris? He told you that you shouldn’t and you listened?” She cackled.

  “Alright…” Sam crossed his hands. “I’m telling both Felix and Yvessa what you just said.”

  “It was so funny when I asked her about that for the first time.”

  “You asked her?”

  “Yeah, Farris had to be the one to tell me.”

  Sam laughed. “That is pretty hilarious. I’m definitely going to be using that fact in the future. But no, I’m not like those two goody-two-shoes. I did go online and look for information about threads and Thread-Weavers. But there’s pretty much nothing. Just conjecture and dry articles describing what’s supposedly common knowledge. I just don’t get why something like that is censored. I mean, what makes it confidential information?”

  “Alright, so the deal with most confidential, ‘general,’ magical information of that kind is really simple: The powers that be want to make sure that the people who learn that stuff, do it under their supervision and in a particular fashion.”

  Sam nodded. “The first kind I already got. Security reasons. Want to make sure we’re not teaching everyone how to build bombs. But what’s the point with the second? Just uniformity? Making sure everyone’s the same?”

  “Maybe a little. But the main reason is much more practical. Let’s go with your bombs example. Let’s say studying threads made you able to build really powerful bombs. You don’t have any malicious intents. You just want to build bombs. The military loves bombs. They want you to be able to build the best bombs you could. But, if you learn by yourself, or based on sources out of their control, you might end up learning only how to make mediocre bombs. Or even worse, you might end up exploding yourself or other people by mistake. So by controlling the flow of information, we can make sure that everyone studies and trains in the way we want them to, a way that’s designed to be the most safe and effective.”

  “Hm… That does makes sense. I guess the next question would be who actually determines what’s the best way to teach each subject, and what type of subjects need to have their information controlled. But, luckily for us, I don’t actually care about that all that much. So let’s finally get down to business and discuss why you’re really here, yes? Why did Farris pick you to be my threads teacher?”

  “Would you believe me if I said nepotism?”

  “Of course not. That would hinge upon the fact that coming here to teach me was something positive for you.”

  “Ooh. We should talk about whether it is before we get to why I got picked to be here.”