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I take a few bold steps into the room and stop, stunned by how plain it is.

A room not that different from the guest room we had on our first tour into the Cradle. A room so wide it makes the dark ceiling seem oppressively low, featuring a panoramic window towards the west city. A floor of polished obsidian, clear of obstacles, children's toys, and dog prints. A vast, flat desert.

At a quick glance, you wouldn't believe anybody lives in such a chamber.

The decor is of the ascetic sort. No tricks or glitter. Not so much as blinds on the window, never mind curtains. Near the middle of the floor stands a table without flowers to decorate it; a solid, cylindrical pillar of black marble, a minimalistic tube lamp on top. On the side of the table is a plain drinking fountain. Further to the northwest poses a big bed, or a couch—not sure which—made of white fabric with a smooth matte surface. Furniture like a pie graph, a quarter slice short of a full circle. No teddy bears on it. No cute heart pillows.

The air inside is cool, almost cold, and thin.

The room's in the topmost third of the grand citadel's sphere.

There are hundreds of other rooms in the Cradle just like this one. Nothing about the view says this is the private chamber of the Governor herself, the home of the most important person in the city of three hundred million.

But that's exactly what it is.

Lebennaum’s room.

It’s where the commander retires to chill in those brief few hours a day she's off-duty.

Emiri don't really sleep, like sleep-sleep. They don't need to lie comatose for eight hours a night to stay alive and sane. Fifteen quiet minutes is generally enough. They hang back for a bit, relax, and let their mind wander unchecked, thinking about yesterday, or something that happened 900 summers ago, or what to have for dinner, and then they're ready to keep going. A part of them always remains aware, firmly rooted in the present.

Then why have a room at all, you ask?

Don't need a kitchen to cook fancy meals, or a bed to laze on. Any dressing room shower is fine for washing up. A chair somewhere in a corner does well enough to catch a break.

I guess the answer has to do with what Master Endol was saying before.

Sometimes, you simply need time apart from other people, especially if you're a ruler. You need time when you're not a public institution. For big city managers, loneliness is a luxury, moments of silence worth more than gold or diamonds. And the absolute peace and emptiness—the sheer lack of personality—of this room are precisely what make it superior to fancy castles.

Which makes me realize again how I really shouldn't be here.

The definition of private expects other people don't go in. But it's because this is her private room that it’s also the only available place, where I can talk to her radiance directly without any meddling middle-men to complicate things. I don’t have the lifespan to sit in the line for a formal appointment.

And, strictly speaking, it's not against rules, or anything special.

Any mortal leader would be mortified to know the commander's room doesn't have a lock.

Locked doors would send a bad signal, you know. As if there's some anxious maiden hiding here, worried about assassins' daggers! People would start talking. Is someone jumping at shadows really fit to command the Dominion's armed forces?

That's just how they roll.

Which is why going in, even uninvited, is perfectly okay—if you think you can get away with it.

If it turns out you’re not wanted, you'll just die, or come within an inch of it. Trespassers have no human rights. Not that there are humans around to begin with, or rights drafted for their well-being, but you get the point. The natives understand the stakes and accept the risks, and the consequences. Knowing you're free game if you push your luck tends to work better than locks and keys too.

Half of me wishes I got the time wrong and the owner of the room wasn't in.

I could come back again later. I'd have a day or two longer to enjoy existence.

But of course she's here. I've worked long enough in the capital to know her schedule.

I draw a quiet breath, stand still, and wait for the permission to speak.

I may have come in without an invitation, but that's no excuse to get casual. In this case, speaking without permission is a bigger offense than skipping a greeting. Saying hi now would imply the resident is so blind, deaf, and stupid she’d fail to notice someone entering her personal space—a mortal insult to a warrior. And an automatic game over for me.

Make no mistake: the moment I set my foot across the threshold, the battle was on. Our game of thrones.

The smart and lucky can keep their heads. Maybe even get their wishes heard. And the weak and foolish...I think you know how it works by now.

So I stand and watch the Junoesque figure of a woman pose against the light of day.

She stands like a flamingo in front of the wide window, balancing on the ball of the right foot, the left leg raised high up behind the back. Her spine arched like the crescent moon, she reaches up with her hand to touch the ankle overhead, and holds the pose, completely still. No shaking, or wavering, no excess tension or obvious straining. Not a strand of hair about her quivers, the look on her face is at peace. Eyes closed, she maintains her balance while silently confirming the limits of her physique, mechanically, methodically.

A sword forged too hard is brittle, easily broken.

Flexibility is needed. The capability to adapt by need.

To shift. To flow. To bend. From water to stone, from stone to fire, and back.

Every day, Lebennaum takes the time to warm up, test her mana channels, and stretch all her muscles. So she could be ready to fight for her people, tooth and nail, whenever, wherever, should the need arise. She goes through the same routine every single day, century after century, millennium after millennium. Never questioning the necessity of it. Never once giving in to sloth.

There were wars in the past and there will be wars again in the future. Unlike humans, she can't take solace in wishful thinking, that another calamity might not go down in her lifetime. Her lifetime is the lifetime of the planet. Disaster is inevitable. Inescapable. Today one day closer than yesterday. But nothing to make a number of. Only another part of the job description.

“...”

It’s heavy.

This person's whole existence is—too heavy.

Even as I stand enamoured by her sublime, voluptuous figure, I'm terrified sick by it.

If you suddenly found out you can live forever, how would you burn away eternity?

Probably not in such a relentless, unforgiving, self-punishing pursuit of perfection for the sake of an ideal. I'd tell her to stop it—I'd stop her by force, if I could—but I was born far too late. She's been at it for too long already. By the date, an insurmountable gap has been pulled between this woman and all the other living, and every day, she stretches that chasm a little further by any means she can.

Who could possibly catch up with her at this point?

Who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her, and sympathize with and understand her?

She's thrown away the crushing fear of loneliness that defines humans, and instead chases that abyss with a ravenous hunger.

Just how much deeper does she plan to plunge into that void?

Somebody——please, make her stop.

Lebennaum returns her shapely leg down to the floor, drawing a long, unhurried arc across the morning sky, like a flexing panther. Moving her shoulders up and down, she exhales a deep breath, turns and heads across the room to the fountain. Not with a gesture does she suggest she can even see me as she goes by. She holds her long hair back with a hand as she bends over the silvery basin and sates her thirst, her lips lightly kissing the running, crystalline water. Who would’ve thought you could be jealous of water?

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Finished, she wipes her lips lazily with the back of her hand and walks on. And as she walks, I witness a bewildering change take place, that makes me doubt my eyes. Her figure starts to grow smaller on each step, shrinking in front of my stunned face, until her height closely matches my own.

Magic to manipulate the spatial scale of objects, even living bodies—that's possible? The high and mighty Governor of the Cradle has disappeared, and in her place is only an innocent classmate, a mischievous sister sharing a naughty secret with you and only you.

What a killer move! My heart is on the ropes.

And as Lebennaum steps on, she asks me a quiet question,

“—Do you hate me?”

A wave of cold despair washes over me. It's like a priest asking you, have you turned your back on God? A sense of heart-aching abandonment and loneliness wrenches my chest. Before I know it, my knees have hit the floor, trembling in terror.

“No. Of course not,” I mumble as I hug the floor. Perish the thought!

Lebennaum sits down on the edge of the pie-bed and looks at me with unmistakable disappointment in her eyes.

“You were given a leave of seven days,” she says. “On the first, you departed to see your friends across the sea. You stayed with them for three days, and it is only now, on the fourth, that you come to me.”

Now that she said it, it does seem wholly irrational. What was I thinking? How could I have my priorities so backwards? Why didn't I take the first available opportunity to come here? What could be better use of my time? Am I mental—No, I can’t let her charisma overwhelm me again! Keep it together!

“I had to,” I mumble a frantic excuse. “There were old promises to keep...”

“'Promises',” she echoes with disinterest. “Did you think such words would appeal to me? Did you think you'd have me melt with displays of virtue and selflessness? What is a promise? I despise the very sound of it! One who is truly loyal makes no note of it; she doesn't need to. Her every act reflects the commitment of her heart. Words of assurance always ring only of deception. This is what hear: 'you are all the same to me'. Is that how you treat your soul's friend?”

My head spins. I'm glad to be flat on the floor, because I'd be too dizzy to keep on my feet.

This conversation isn't going at all like I thought it would.

A swirl of mixed feelings tugs my poor heart in opposite directions. Guilt, for not valuing this precious being above anything and everything, and giving her so much unnecessary trouble with my stupidity; and soul-tickling pleasure and joy, for having her name me a friend! Could there be a greater honor and privilege in the world? I want to cry.

At the same time, my rational mind screams at my gullible primate body to not be fooled. It's all part of the game! She means none of it! It's only a ploy!

“That's not true,” I still insist, my forehead firmly on the floor. “You're my liege and sunshine. You're the most important to me in the world. Everything else comes only after you!”

“I am not your liege,” she says with heartbreaking indifference and looks away. “Your commander is Danthelin. I don't know you.”

“You're the only one I want to follow!”

“Yet, you hate me and bring me nothing but sorrow. Perhaps you are a liar.”

“I could never hate you. You're everything just and right in the world.”

“You throw around fair words like trinkets, and are heartless, and lie.”

“I mean it! Tell me to do anything and I'll do it!”

“And what if I tell you to forget me?”

“...I can't do that.”

“See?” she asks with a triumphant leer. “It's only lies with you!”

With a voice at times gentle, at times cold, she whips me to pursue her and then knocks me back. I'm not used to this kind of games, and I'm losing it, badly. Unable to tell left from right, I go quiet and wonder if there's any way I can reasonably recover from this.

“Then, what comes next?” Lebennaum asks me with a smile of pity and scorn. “Will you sing me songs of my boundless beauty? Will you wax lyrical of virtue, even as your eyes molest my shapes? Will you regale me with lyrics of wisdom, you who are barely literate? Will you tell me of deeds you weren't alive to see? Like the countless wretches who have sought my favor in the past.”

“Would you like that?” I ask.

“I would hate it very much,” she declares with a voice like liquid honey. Then, in a flash, her appearance turns stormy and dark with wrath. “Valios crafted my parents by his own hand to match His ideals of heavenly beauty. That is why I look as I do. Where is the excellence in the appeal of a thing born to appeal? Would a stone be flattered to be called stone? Such things do not concern me. What is this body but dust of the earth!? I am that I am, even if I wore the flesh of an ogre! I am not just, I am a tyrant! I am not wise nor fair, I am mad! And the deeds I have done pale compared to what I will yet do! And what are you?”

“...”

Finally, I think I'm starting to see it.

I unwittingly came here the way I'd go to granny after breaking a window. Humbly, with a lot of chocolate.

When you're in a good mood, it's easier to accept things you don't want to hear. That's how we humans operate. But our tactics don't apply here. You can’t butter up this person. There’s no beating her at her own game, no strategy or a method that could turn her head. No lubricant that could make the message any easier to sink in. She's heard it all before a million times with all the related variations.

The only winning move is not to play.

I only ever had one choice and must now face it.

“My liege.” I try again without decorations. “—I need a huge favor.”

I didn't want to say it. Not like that.

I've worked close to four years to help the people of the Dominion. But that was the people of the Dominion. People far from this place. I've done nothing for her. I still know next to nothing about the person I wanted to serve and understand even less. The Master of the Cradle remains distant to me like a star in the night sky. We showed up at her doorstep looking for help, and that's what it comes back to, despite the effort: asking, begging. Onesidedly demanding, unable to promise the investment will be worth it later, that we'll definitely deliver.

She was right the first time.

That's not something you do to anybody you care about.

But it has to be done. Because there's no other way.

Lebennaum leans her elbow on her knee, rests her chin on the open palm, and goes all cold.

“So I have not favored you?”

“...”

“I have dressed you in silk and fame. I have adorned you with gold and authority. I have made you stand peer to Immortals, you who are but shadows and ash. And you tell me it's still not enough? Yet you hunger for more? Ah, has anyone ever seen a creature more gluttonous? One of these days, you are sure to devour the stars.”

“You can have all that back, if you want,” I answer. “If only you'll do this for me.”

“Look at me,” she commands.

I wrestle myself up from the floor and face her charms directly.

“I will have it all back,” Lebennaum tells me. “You will be nobody again, and there will be no place left in my Dominion for you. That is the price of your favor. Even so, do you wish to have it?”

To be banished from Eden for the second time—isn’t that a bit too tragic?

Another Paradise Lost. Myself aside, can mankind collectively endure such a chapter added to their chronicles?

“There are other ways,” she continues, to my surprise. “Speak no more of this. This day, I will lift you by my side and grant you glory unlike anything mortals have known before. And you will never know darkness in your remaining days. I guarantee it.”

I blink my eyes, stunned speechless. Is she serious?

She must be. You can say many things about this person, but she wouldn't tell such horrible lies for no reason, or give baseless guarantees only to torment you. I don't know what prompted an offer so staggeringly unbalanced in my favor, but it's there. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think such a proposal would come, but it did.

And what braindead idiot could say no to that? Isn't it everything I ever wanted?

“...”

Oh, let's be real. What am I stalling this for?

Of course there's no way I'm going to agree.

This is why I went back home to get my heart beautifully smashed to pieces. So my feelings would be just about dulled enough to not cave in now, when it matters the most. In the apathy and emptiness left by Irifan’s rejection, even promises of utopia lose their best shine. Since I got the hang of throwing my happiness away, what's doing it a few times more? Hell, I'm already starting to enjoy my misery!

So it's with an easy smile that I give my reply. For the world.

“—Where do I hand in my badge?”

Lebennaum studies me in silence for a moment. The tornado of emotions that swirled about her only a moment ago has gone quiet, like it was never real. Basic feelings, anger, pride, sadness, indifference, indignation, amusement, they're nothing but tools for her, chopsticks to poke her food, set aside at will.

She then leans back on the bed and points at me with her beautiful, slender foot, pale and bare, and draws inviting circles in the air with her toes. A hungry look in her eyes, a beastly smile on her lips, she says,

“Is that how you ask for favors?”

My jaw is on the floor, once again.

“Really? Can I?”

I came out of this deal on the plus side, after all.