[ text | posted anonymously ]

[goblinemperor]

[ Maia is unfamiliar with advanced technology, so he checks and double-checks and triple-checks to make sure the message he is posting will not bear his name, before he asks: ]

What would you do with your freedom, if you had it for the first time in your life and never learned how to use it?

[ The question is awkwardly phrased, true, but he really is pretty desperate for advice. One way and another, he's been pent up and under supervision since he was born, and now he doesn't really know how else to be. ]

Comments

[anon]

[goblinemperor]

I am afraid I do not know any more about making friends than I do about being free. I do not believe I have ever had one.

[ There are people in Maia's life who he cares about... but he had not found them and won them over. His bodyguards, his secretary, his political allies - they are people who help sustain his reign, but he can never be open or entirely free with them. He is their emperor. They are loyal to him. It is different.

And now, they are nowhere to be found, and he is alone. It's not a cheerful thought. ]

[glowfeelers]

Well, maybe I could be your friend! [ Nevermind that she's talking to someone who is currently anonymous. ]

[goblinemperor]

It is very kind of you to say, but I would not have you decide so out of obligation. I have little to offer. I am not cultured, or intelligent, or interesting, or clever. People called me 'half-tongue' behind my back in my home, because I had no talent at conversation.

[glowfeelers]

I am not cultured and do not have much talent at conversation, either! [ The sincere innocence behind her words may be a little lost in text, but she really does mean it as genuine excitement in finding a common thread. ] I was not raised to be very familiar with the intricacies of social interaction, but I am learning many things now that I am free to travel the galaxy with my friends. Have you not been free for long?

[goblinemperor]

I also was raised with very little social interaction. I was taught about etiquette, but the place I lived was... very isolated.

[ VERY ISOLATED. ]

You are a traveler? That sounds very exciting.

I do not wish to be deceitful. I have not been a prisoner, in the technical sense. I have merely, due to the circumstances of my life, not been allowed to make many choices regarding my own life.

[ It looks foolish, like petulant whining, but he does not know how to explain without giving examples, and that might give away his identity. Not that anyone in this place really knows him. And he is rather unaccustomed, still, to explaining his own life. ]

[glowfeelers]

[ Her experiences aren't quite the same as his but - still, she feels there are similarities. ]

I was not taught more than what my master wanted me to know. But, making choices for myself has been very nice.

I am! I have seen many places and planets and things!

[goblinemperor]

[ It sounds to Maia like she was definitely some kind of servant, and he has seen first-hand how petty tyrants (there were so many of them) at court treated their servants like possessions, rather than people - rather than their family. ]

I also spent many years under the power of someone who neglected my education, apart from what he deemed necessary. It sounds as if the two of us have many things in common.

[ Almost, almost enough that he might reach out to her, in a little while, without the shield of anonymity. ]

That sounds wonderful. I have seen very few places, and admit to a great curiosity about other worlds and peoples. You must have learned a great deal, in your travels.