==>

ah, and here we are. i had been wondering when we would get to the prince, and jade's knowledge of the chaos he has wrought within this timeline, and who knows how many others. i assume she realizes exactly how many resources the prince put in to keeping her still and asleep, firmly out of the game, so as to prevent granting me access to the universe, in order to foil his campaign of endless hubris.

jade knows all of this, i don't have to tell her. she is a very bright girl, and even if she didn't have partial access to my thoughts, she is good at compiling data and using it to fill in gaps. as she herself had rather licentiously mentioned, her brain is quite large.

and all of these reasons are why i know i can count on her to be reasonable and realistic about her situation. i need a body to continue interfacing with this timeline, and her body is the only one that will do.

i hear her wonder, what about kanaya?

what about her, jade? she is a space player, it is true, but her powers are nothing compared to yours. for one, she isn't god tier, and for two, she is dead. a living dead, but dead nonetheless. and a sylph's specializations lie on a different end of the spectrum from my own. a witch is a far closer match.

no, jade understands and sympathizes with my assurance that her body, and her body alone, will do for my purposes.

she does. after all, she would not wish this sort of state of being on anyone else, and especially not on one of her friends. jade may have undergone a lopsided number of narrative hardships in her life, but at least she is used to them. why spread that suffering to another? jade understands and accepts her place in the story, which has always been to enable events to play out around her, just as it has been mine.