I put down my cup of coffee, black naturally, and give the golden-haired woman before me a long-suffering look. There was a time when that look of pleading desperation in her eyes would have stirred something in me. I would have bathed in that delicious agony for as long as I could, savouring her torment like a fine wine. Now, there was nothing. Not even pity. I shuffled the papers besides me idly and, as the moment stretched on, it became increasingly clear she was not leaving. I sighed again, “Marihka, I am not sure what silly little game this is, but I am not returning. I quite like it here, actually.”

She stared at me, her eyes of amber so utterly pure and utterly shocked. Ah, there was some stirring at that. A hint of a yearning to pluck them from her head. I tamped that down immediately; I would not give her such satisfaction as to try. “You like it here?” She asked, voice flooded with utmost disbelief, and she made a wide, sweeping gesture to beige walls and sad, peeling motivational posters about kittens hanging from tree branches, and the scent of stale cigarette smoke and weeks-old coffee, “Here? I know that to be a lie without even needing to use the True Seeing. I am not above begging. What I did was a mistake!”

I pursed my lips, an eyebrow twitching upwards, “A mistake? You spent two decades in war with me, Marihka of the Sundered Vale. You swore upon me eternal vengeance by the blood of your mother and the bones of your father. You rallied half a continent against me and wiped three cities from the map in your quest to undo me. Yet now…. Now you regret it? I am many things, child, but I am no fool. I do not believe you.”

Hah, and there was the old anger, sparking bright in her. More fitting and familiar than her pathetic begging. She’d always hated when I called her a child. “Damn you, Nukhri I am telling you the truth! Do you have any idea what it is like, back home? The balance is broken completely. Everything is… stagnant, stale. It was fine, at first. Peaceful. Rebuilding. Everything prospered… but now? It just… keeps going. There’s no change any more. There’s no striving! It’s like there’s an indolence growing in the very heart of the world. The colours are too bright.”

I paused, frowned at her, tilting my head, “You’re going to appeal to some fantasy of cosmic balance to justify the fact that you are bored?” I couldn’t help it, laughter bubbled forth uncontrollably in a way it hadn’t for so very long. Stereotypically evil laughter, mayhap, but we all have to have our vices. “Oh! Oh that is delicious. You, who were always going on about the burdens of being Chosen. You, who always spoke of what would come after. You, who dreamt so dearly of peace. And now it is come, you cannot stand it!” The smile that came then was a cruel thing, I admit, a smile like a knife, a smile that had drawn blood once, “Then why should I not leave you to it? Oh certainly my standing in this plane is much reduced… but it is worth it if it hurts you my dear old enemy.”

Her lip curled, anger flashed in her eyes like lightning. Oh, her righteous anger had always been so beautiful. “You always were a spiteful little prick!” she spat, “But no, I do not miss the fighting. The dying. The friends I’ve lost. But I see now that we need you. Or something like you. Something to remind us that we must always strive for a better world. Without you, without something like you to encompass their darkness the people lose sight of themselves.”

I stood up, rounded the desk. She tensed as I drew near, but she did not flinch when I touched her chin, stroked her cheek, “Oh my dear, that’s not my problem.” I let go and she growled low in her throat. It sent a shiver of the old anticipation down my spine – would she draw blade upon me, here? Would it be that easy to get a rise out of her? Ah, but no, I could see her exert that vexingly adamant will of her’s. The dangerous moment passed. I tried not to allow that to disappoint me; if I allowed myself to get drawn in by that seductive memory of truly striving against a worthy foe… well, she might end up getting her way, and I couldn’t have that.

“Besides,” I drawled, “I can do far more evil here than ever I could back home. Here, in this petty little company, I have spread misery to thousands with their far-speaker devices, and with a stroke of my pen I have consigned a million to languish in suffering. Medical insurance, on balance, is far more efficient to draw power from than any continent-spanning tyranny. I even have a dental plan.”

She looked disgusted, and I indulged in her despite for an all too brief moment until it curdled into something sour. I hid a grimace and… wait, what was she doing to her face? What was that? Was that… was that pity? She dared?! “Is this what you are reduced to in your exile, Nukhri? Middle management spreading petty misery. I do not think that can long satisfy you. You were an emperor, a god-king who reigned fifteen centuries upon a throne of obsidian and sacrifices. Where you walked, people knelt in supplication, and when you spoke your words resounded to the four corners of the world. Your slightest whim was the life-command of a million servants and a thousand legions. You cannot tell me that you are content here, having lost all of that. You were many things, but small was never one of them.”

I sneered at her, “I sentence people to slow and painful death more often than not I shall have you know. Besides, that throne was one of the most hellishly uncomfortable things in all Creation. I am well rid of it. I mean, have you ever tried sitting on obsidian?”

She gave me a long look, “If you come back, I’ll buy you a cushion.”