House Darsha's great hall was filled with afternoon sun that had been magically cleansed through enchanted prisms to provide the optimum atmosphere for Very Important Noble Conversations and Occasionally Momentous Political Exposures. Sunlight poured across gleaming marble in carefully aimed shafts of brightness, reminiscent of godly spotlights crafted by an unhealthy stage manager with a passion for symmetry. The overall result was less "regal court" and more "really pricey performance art.
The beams shone down on tapestries that weighed centuries: lions engaged in endless battle (suspiciously posing like they were trying out for a motivational poster), scrolls of justice (that likely had more loopholes in the fine print than actual justice), and blades wrapped in flames so over-the-top that their original creator had more than likely been compensating for something.
[🐧VISUAL ANALYSIS: IF HUMANS COULD TURN SELF-IMPORTANCE INTO FABRIC, THIS IS WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE.]
Sharath lay on a velvet play mat that cost more than most merchant houses, carefully placed at the side of the dais where Lord Varundar imparted wisdom, settled disputes, and on occasion heard petitions that pushed known boundaries of human ridiculousness. He gnawed on a duck-shaped blanket with intense concentration appropriate to someone refining his "harmless infant" cover while unconsciously generating higher-level political pattern-detection in the background.
[🐧SURVEILLANCE STATUS: IDEAL. CURRENT LOCATION AFFORDS OPTIMAL ACOUSTIC ACCESS TO NOBLE DISCUSSIONS WHILE RETAINING OPTIMAL PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. ALSO: BLANKET IS NOT TOXIC, 47% COTTON, 53% INFANT SLOBBER.]
Nobles around him indulged in the kind of furtive, self-satisfied gossip that implied they all thought they themselves were at the center of history's most momentous decisions. A baron visiting argued tax levies with the intensity of a man who had never paid taxes in his life. A steward read out a list of inventory with such dramatic seriousness that "three crates of salted fish" sounded like a heroic victory.
One of the elder vassals insisted on a leave to officially discipline a maple tree for "shedding too many leaves in a manner not befitting its station."
[🐧THREAT ASSESSMENT: THIS PERSON SERIOUSLY BELIEVES TREES CAN BE DISOBEDIENT. LOWERING LOCAL RATIONALITY INDEX BY 14%.]
Sharath's internal monologue fell silent for a moment. These are the individuals managing an empire. Either this was the safest kingdom in the world or the most paranoid. Perhaps both.
[🐧NOTE: CHANCE OF "BOTH" OUTCOME = 63%.]
Aside from the self-evident histrionics, Sharath overheard the actual business: the less obvious transactions below the courteous veneer. He picked up the hesitations, the strategic coughs, the micro-gaps where an individual weighed the political cost of their next word.
— Who cut in on whom, uncovering latent hierarchies.— Which titles warped the conversation like gravity warping light.— How some names sucked the air out of the room completely.
A masterclass in inherited politics—centuries-long protocol meant to pay dividends to bloodlines rather than ability, convention rather than innovation.
[🐧POLITICAL STRUCTURE ANALYSIS: SELF-SUSTAINING ARISTOCRACY WITH INTRACTABLE RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. REFORM POTENTIAL = LOW. CORRUPTION RESILIENCE = HIGH.]
Sharath knew: one wrong push here would trigger every conservative defense mechanism the nobility had honed over generations. The solution wouldn't be revolution. It would have to be infiltration. Slow, subtle, and invisible—at least until the right moment.
[🐧RECOMMENDATION: "TROJAN INFANT" STRATEGY. MAINTAIN COVERT OBSERVATION UNTIL OPPORTUNE POWER WINDOW.]
And then there was the cruelty. Not the in-your-face, sword-at-the-ready sort, but the loose, structural sort—threaded into language and routine. A servant who tripped with a load of scrolls was scolded not for inattention, but for "forgetting his station." A messenger who bore news too slowly was warned of reassignment to the stables as if dung work was the inescapable punishment for flawed promptness.
Even the jargon reeked of hierarchy: plebeians called "the rabble," taxation cast as "harvesting the livestock."
[🐧SOCIAL LINGUISTICS ANALYSIS: TERMINOLOGY REINFORCES SYSTEMIC DEHUMANIZATION. THISN'T JUST HABIT—IT'S A CONTROL MECHANISM.]
They don't even believe they're being cruel, Sharath understood. They believe this is just the way things are meant to be.
[🐧CREATOR, ELEVATED HEART RATE DETECTED. SUGGEST CONTROLLED BREATHING PROTOCOL TO REDUCE SPIKE IN CORTISOL.]
It was one exchange that had his complete attention: two aristocrats talking of fresh mining laws as carelessly as if they were deciding whether to serve trout or pheasant for lunch.
"His Majesty's introducing stricter safety measures," said one, straightening his gem-studded collar with the nonchalance of a man who had never handled a tool in his life. "Something about ensuring workers' welfare."
The other laughed. "Protecting profits, more like. Every safety precaution drains productivity. If the miners are scared of cave-ins, they should've become a different profession."
"Like inheriting titles," said the first, and the two of them cackled as if they had just come up with comedy.
[🐧ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION INDEX: 87%. HUMAN DECENCY INDEX: BELOW DETECTION THRESHOLD.]
Sharath's face hardened. These men aren't monsters—they're worse. They're insulated. They've lost the capacity to match cause with consequence.
[🐧AGREED. PRIVILEGE BREEDS PSYCHOLOGICAL BLINDNESS TO THE HARM ONE CAUSES. COUNTERMEASURES: STRATEGIC EMPATHY EXPOSURE OR STRUCTURAL INCENTIVE CHANGE.]
He continued to listen. A nearby group was having a "debate" (read: thinly disguised power struggle) regarding grain tariffs. The duchess of Greenmere advocated increasing them "to encourage urban dependency." Her justification: rural self-sufficiency "emboldened the wrong sort of people."
Another group debated a then-proposed "vagrancy ordinance" that would criminalize unemployment lasting longer than ten days without evidence of attempt at finding employment—never mind the noble-controlled guilds rigidly regulated access to each trade.
[🐧NOTE: THIS IS LEGISLATED POVERTY MAINTENANCE. INTENTIONAL STRUCTURAL TRAP DETECTED.]
Farther along, Sharath overheard the chancellor discussing with an aide "discreetly reallocating" army patrols from border areas to the capital—not to defend, but to deter "assembly of dissenters."
[🐧DEMOCRATIC HEALTH INDEX: SUBZERO.]
Sharath did not miss the irony that the very same nobles frightened by leaf-shedding trees were completely at ease squeezing whole towns until they burst.
[🐧HYPOTHESIS: PARANOIA IS SELECTIVE. THREATS TO POWER = IMMEDIATE ACTION. THREATS TO PEOPLE = IGNORED.]
And then—another pearl. A marquis was outlining, in sincere pride, how he'd been able to "acquire" three fishing villages by purchasing their debt and conditioning repayment on "service to his estate."
That's indentured servitude, you parasite.
[🐧CORRECTION: FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT TO SLAVERY. LOCAL LEGAL SYSTEM RECLASSIFIES IT AS "BENEVOLENT PATRONAGE."]
Sharath's fingers clenched on his blanket. This wasn't a failed system—it was an optimally functioning one… for the people it was meant to serve.