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[droppedstitch]

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[droppedstitch]

[The fear doesn't ever leave. Jedao is a boogeyman, the scapegoat, especially in the Citadel. Just because her nephew wears his face and she loves him dearly doesn't mean that the presence of Jedao with that signifier fails to startle her.]

I know that.

[It also means that she is a little petulant.]

[ninefox]

Do you?

Gosh. I thought that would be harder.

[droppedstitch]

[She laughs, a little relieved, a little nervous.]

I should have expected you. But since retiring, I have been letting my brother handle all of that.

[ninefox]

'All that'?

[droppedstitch]

[She waves a hand.]

Infosec.

[ninefox]

Smart. It does sort of turn us into electrified rats gnawing our own tails, doesn't it?

That's not why I'm curious about you, though.

[droppedstitch]

[She regards him a moment, then scoffs.]

Then at least use his cards and open the door for me so I can have a drink while you tell me.

I will meet you there soon.

[ninefox]

[He doffs the hat in a faux-bow to the screen.]

As my lady commands. Congratulations, by the way.

[He'll be waiting on deck.]

[droppedstitch]

She meets him there, her arms folded as she takes him in. It's odd how much he looks like her nephew, and also...doesn't. How different his face is. His expressions.

Like brothers, not twins. Father and son, but not the same.

She greets him with a bow.

"What is the congratulations for?" she wonders.

[ninefox]

He bows back with a flourish, not bothering to suppress his natural hamminess in the slightest, and lets them inside.

"I don't know if Mikodez remembers his first time here, but there was a flood..."

He frowns for a moment, because even with someone he knows understands, it's still a hard thing to parse.

"A possible life, where he'd wrangled me away from Nirai-zho early in his career. Mostly to use for intimidation rather than letting me far enough off the leash to do any real work, but it didn't matter. So I have a memory of knowing you, but of course you hadn't got your own face back. It's nice."

[droppedstitch]

She doesn't ask how he knows her or how he found her. She's been around Shuos for four decades and her greatest accomplishment was fooling most of them. But now that she is - herself, it just isn't a priority to try and fool anyone.

She follows him inside. "He doesn't remember, but he knows," she answers quietly. "I - I'm sorry that you met that version of me."

[ninefox]

"I quite liked him," Jedao admits. "We fucked a lot about being insane about Mikodez in very different ways, and also trapped in very different ways. But you look happier."

Not that any of it really happened. But Jedao is pretty good at holding onto his breach lives; all that Shuos compartmentalization.

He hops the bar and grabs a bottle of top-shelf scotch for himself.

"What'll you have, my dear?"

[droppedstitch]

She eyes the scotch, but points to another bottle as she settles against the bar. "That whiskey there. With the red label," she says.

"And I am not insane about him."

She is and she knows it. "But - perhaps I could stand to be less..."

[ninefox]

"Cages make everybody insane, in one way or another."

And the barge is a very different kind of cage that the citadel. He gives her a generous pour.

[droppedstitch]

She scoffs. "Then what is the point of this one?"

She is happy yo take the drink. "Why? If it makes everything worse?"

[ninefox]

"I didn't say worse, I just said crazy," he points out. "And the barge certainly made me crazy in new and fascinating ways. But I did need to be nailed down long enough to accept some of its gifts, too."

[droppedstitch]

"Quite daring of you to reclaim that mad moniker," she remarks with zero fear now. "But I never understood it anyway. You're all crazy in different ways."

She watches him. "Do you want to tell me the gifts it gave you?"

[ninefox]

"I'm not reclaiming anything, it's just the truth. Just because I was manipulating people by letting them see some of the ways I was crazy doesn't mean I wasn't really crazy," he insists. "Some of my wardens had a hard time accepting that, too."

He sips his whiskey pensively.

"For me, the most important ones were a war worth my talents, and a brother in arms so I wouldn't have to fight the next one alone."

He tilts his head, regarding her. "Have you asked Mikodez what your ledger page says?"

[droppedstitch]

Years of mimicking her brother means that she doesn't flinch at the question, even if she wants to. It does mean that her face wears his expression, though. A sort of shadow falls across her eyes, the smallest of changes.

"No," she tells him idly, sipping at her drink.

[ninefox]

"Okay, Miss Sensible," he grumbles, very gently teasing.

[droppedstitch]

She rolls her eyes. "Have you seen it? Did you go snooping?"

[ninefox]

"Of course. And now I'm dying of curiosity for the details."

Truly, has any Shuos ever been so unjustly tormented?

"I won't tell you if you really don't want to know, but pleeease?"

The absolutely shameless puppy dog eyes do make him look more like Cho Jedao.

[droppedstitch]

She straightens up. "You are very fortunate that I am a fuller and more complete version of myself according to the standards of this place," she says with a put-upon sigh. "Yes. Tell me."

[ninefox]

"It says you died a hero's death, for one." If she wants the full thing, he'll tell her, but that's the part he's interested in.

"Jed'ika told me what he could about the end of the war, but he didn't know your part."

[droppedstitch]

She takes another casual drink, tapping her fingers against the glass. A hero's death.

She hates that a lot. Her voice is soft as she speaks into the table.

"The explosion? The one that killed the hexarchs? That - was me. They were all meeting together, Mikodez included. Only it was - it was me. Not him."