[He has to decide what to say. It helps that he has something to do with his hands. There are a fair number of people coming. There's a lot of meal prep.]
[This whole situation is...weird. Back home, his friends know about his upbringing. It takes some of the pressure off, when he talks about anything to do with the Emperor's coven. If he brings up anything that they find messed up or horrifying, they might be sympathetic or sad for him but it doesn't get weird.]
[Here...it's strangers or relative strangers. Here, they have no context about his world and have no idea that he took such an awful role in it for so long. Here, they don't understand the reality of the Emperor enough to understand why being raised by him was bad. Here, he's not sure if telling them things will get odd looks or pity.]
[(It doesn't help that he doesn't entirely know what's normal and what isn't yet, just that a lot of his upbringing was probably the latter.)]
[That means he isn't sure what would count as oversharing, what will cause horror, and if it does, how much it will cause.]
[At the very least he doesn't feel shame about some of it, though. About his role in it, sure, about the awful things he did as the Golden Guard. But there is a lot he is soundly able to put at the Emperor's feet. And he knows that accepting responsibility for his actions and being open about who he was and how he's done wrong is something he owes any of the people he hurt (including the Palismen he handed over to Belos). It's a no-brainer that he should sometimes admit the fault that was squarely his.]
My world has a system of covens, that were put in place by the Emperor. Most people have multiple types of magic, but after they became adults they were forced to pick a coven and use only one type. They had to get coven brands that limited their magic.
[Which may explain what looks like a tattoo on his right wrist. Not that he had any magic to limit, but Belos had marked his ownership of him and set him up to die on the Day of the Unity all the same.]
The Emperor... turned out to be terrible. And a liar. And the whole thing was done for something awful.
[That's not too much information, right?]
I used to be in the Emperor's coven, until I learned the truth and joined the resistance. Usually in a leadership position on missions. There were a few others that were too. [Like Kikimora.] When it came to anything that required real leadership we weren't actually that good at it. Just bossing people around isn't the same thing as really leading. People only obeyed because they didn't want to upset the Emperor.
[Which is why ragtag rebels like the Owl Lady and Luz could sometimes thwart them.]
[...Okay, when it came to the Owl Lady, she thwarted them more than sometimes.]
Compared to that, you did well.
[He sounds older than he is here. What sixteen-year-olds dealt with missions and leadership, had once had to fulfill duty, had the self-awareness to understand the nature of command and what it should really entail?]
[It's not a good thing, even if he's scraped together some wisdom because of it. He's a teenage boy, he should've gotten to worry about normal homework and making friends and who to ask to Grom dances and winning flyer derby games instead. Even he knows this.]
no subject
[He has to decide what to say. It helps that he has something to do with his hands. There are a fair number of people coming. There's a lot of meal prep.]
[This whole situation is...weird. Back home, his friends know about his upbringing. It takes some of the pressure off, when he talks about anything to do with the Emperor's coven. If he brings up anything that they find messed up or horrifying, they might be sympathetic or sad for him but it doesn't get weird.]
[Here...it's strangers or relative strangers. Here, they have no context about his world and have no idea that he took such an awful role in it for so long. Here, they don't understand the reality of the Emperor enough to understand why being raised by him was bad. Here, he's not sure if telling them things will get odd looks or pity.]
[(It doesn't help that he doesn't entirely know what's normal and what isn't yet, just that a lot of his upbringing was probably the latter.)]
[That means he isn't sure what would count as oversharing, what will cause horror, and if it does, how much it will cause.]
[At the very least he doesn't feel shame about some of it, though. About his role in it, sure, about the awful things he did as the Golden Guard. But there is a lot he is soundly able to put at the Emperor's feet. And he knows that accepting responsibility for his actions and being open about who he was and how he's done wrong is something he owes any of the people he hurt (including the Palismen he handed over to Belos). It's a no-brainer that he should sometimes admit the fault that was squarely his.]
My world has a system of covens, that were put in place by the Emperor. Most people have multiple types of magic, but after they became adults they were forced to pick a coven and use only one type. They had to get coven brands that limited their magic.
[Which may explain what looks like a tattoo on his right wrist. Not that he had any magic to limit, but Belos had marked his ownership of him and set him up to die on the Day of the Unity all the same.]
The Emperor... turned out to be terrible. And a liar. And the whole thing was done for something awful.
[That's not too much information, right?]
I used to be in the Emperor's coven, until I learned the truth and joined the resistance. Usually in a leadership position on missions. There were a few others that were too. [Like Kikimora.] When it came to anything that required real leadership we weren't actually that good at it. Just bossing people around isn't the same thing as really leading. People only obeyed because they didn't want to upset the Emperor.
[Which is why ragtag rebels like the Owl Lady and Luz could sometimes thwart them.]
[...Okay, when it came to the Owl Lady, she thwarted them more than sometimes.]
Compared to that, you did well.
[He sounds older than he is here. What sixteen-year-olds dealt with missions and leadership, had once had to fulfill duty, had the self-awareness to understand the nature of command and what it should really entail?]
[It's not a good thing, even if he's scraped together some wisdom because of it. He's a teenage boy, he should've gotten to worry about normal homework and making friends and who to ask to Grom dances and winning flyer derby games instead. Even he knows this.]