Dalliance lay down to bed that evening, feeling despondent. Walking home, he'd been alone with his thoughts, and upon review, the day was worse than exhausting. So, after a brief prayer, he cast [Obscuration], drawing its veil of privacy around himself, and turned the lights out.

  "Am I a brute?" he asked the darkness.

  And in the quiet dark, Topaz answered.

  Her voice was tinged with concern. It often was, these days.

  "Well. Let us consider. You have power. You use your power to pursue your goals. Is this brutish? Everyone does."

  "I know that much. But . . . do you ever feel like the rules we live by are pointless? Preferences, not really based on anything, and yet backed by the solid belief of thousands of people, so we have to . . . do what they want anyway? Who says men don't wear corsets, or . . . you can't pants someone in a duel? I think I hate propriety."

  His petulance wasn't his favorite trait, and he kept most of it from his voice. But it did sting, that Sterling could have the final word, or that he'd said yes to the date, but didn't know what he was even doing, and Flora hadn't been any help.

  "Dalliance, I think you're approaching this from the wrong framework. Had you asked your little friend, she might have told you that you are living out the principle that 'Might makes right'—some people confuse this for a system of morality, but it is merely a description of reality. The two cannot be substituted one for the other.

  And thus you have those who do not believe in fixed principles—who say that what's right varies by circumstance, by culture, by convenience. They point to the world and say: "Look, these people speak with this accent, wear ribbons in a particular shade of green, follow these customs—and they prosper. So what's right for me and what's right for them may differ. This proves that right and wrong are not fixed. They are whatever we make them."

  "What does this have to do with me?" asked Dalliance.

  "You are dashing yourself against the cliffs of social expectation, moored only by your instincts, and they are failing you. This is because you and the mob around you differ in your instincts. And so: The mob and its beliefs make up society. The weight their beliefs carry becomes communal implementation: laws, social expectation, custom, ritual. These are all fa?ades for power. Different groups enforce different standards, and we call this civilization. And so we may say that, in practice, might does make right. One might not wish for this to be so, but simply looking at the world, indeed it does.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  And you, Dalliance—you use what I gave you. The System. You predict very nearly as much as you're capable of predicting—except when it comes to those closest to you, whom you trust."

  Her voice, already low, began to sound sorrowful.

  "And it does pain me somewhat to see your reliance on this thing which I gave you to escape your father's whims. I awakened you to the System years early so you could have the use of prediction and deflection—so you could survive. I had never hoped it would grow to be indispensable. That is not the fashion in which a mortal mind is made to perceive the world and its flow, after all. You were meant to use it as a tool, not a crutch.

  But you embrace your might to implement your vision for reality. You think: "If all is not right with the world, then at least all that is closest to me will be as close to right as possible." You use what power you have to protect what you care about.

  As ought we all. If it all comes down to power, surely we each should grasp as much as possible to enforce what is right for ourselves and the protection of others? But without standards to defend, a desire for power is merely another appetite.

  You were certainly not wrong to have a vision or to seek to implement it. Loyalty to those you care about—that's not a wrong. That's good.

  However—"

  She paused, and her voice took on an urgency.

  "I do not see you pause to consider an unchanging ethos, one enduring regardless of circumstance, whose principles hold true whether the mob agrees with you or not, your loyalty beside. You have—and this is partially my fault—more of a half-formed quasi-ethic, born as much from instinct as from anything else. You protect those you care about, yes. But beyond that? You improvise. You react. You use your might to solve problems without always asking whether you should."

  "So I am a brute."

  "Yes, Dalliance. You are rough in your thinking sometimes. You pursue your half-formed ethic with violence when you're angry, with cleverness when you're calm, but always with force. You impose your will on the world around you because you can, or fail, trying. Thus, in the most important ways, you are still a brute."

  A pause. When she spoke again, her voice was warmer.

  "But you are young. The substrate of your character has only half-formed. You shouldn't mourn this fact—everyone is unfinished at your age. There's something charming in the unflinching pursuit of an honest goal, even if sometimes your methods could be refined. You are loyal. That's a foundation worth building on. Just . . . consider that others are not acting merely by strength, but strength married to principle. Justice, or honor, or noblesse oblige, or even baser sorts like greed, or lust. They are moored by principles, and you are awash without your own. You are a brute, because you are erratic. That is different, Dalliance, than 'bad', but that is the reason for the rules of propriety. To aid in avoiding precisely this trap. Oh child."

  Her voice was softer still, now. "You are what you are for this little while, but you will grow. I know you will."

  It stung, and Dalliance realized there were tears in his eyes, but he listened, even as faerie footsteps, pacing across his shoulder, stilled, and at his whispered thanks withdrew.

  And then he lay there quietly in the dark, waiting for sleep, and wondered.