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You know there are people here who have been experimented on? Strapped down and cut open by the callous and curious? Including me, for the record.

[He still doesn't sound mad, just mild and dry, which definitely makes it worse.]

[okay... okay she’s getting it. Hange sighs again.]

No, I didn’t know that. [Although she probably could have guessed. Though, to be honest, even that might not have stopped her.]

Jedao... you might not like that I won’t say I’d never do it, but I wouldn’t do it to someone without their consent, and I wouldn’t do it improperly. He wouldn’t take the anesthesia and I wouldn’t drug him without him accepting that, and if he weren’t numbed, I wouldn’t cut either.

I don't give a shit what you do to Betelgeuse. He's a masochist and a provocation junkie, and he deserves whatever he gets himself into.

But I'd appreciate if you didn't let yourself be used for his fix at the cost of hurting other people aboard.

Alright. Fair enough.

To be very clear: I'm asking you not to broadcast anything like this again.

"Like this" being the experimentation, or...?

"Experimentation on live subjects in specific, vivisection in general."

Even if that's a reversal of the way someone else might phrase it.

"Anything that might make someone from a culture of ceremonial public torture feel right at home."

Not broadcasting it isn't the same as not doing it, which is good, and she suspects deliberately phrased that way; she's a scientist and will probably carry on experimenting on live subjects at some point. Also, she suspects Betelgeuse will want to perform; this will allow him to perform.

"I can commit to that."

"Thank you."

He doesn't smile, but it's sincere; he accepts the assurance.

Let it be made clear: Hange is kind of an asshole, in that she places her priority on people's physical health and safety far, far above their mental health and safety. That said, she likes Jedao enough to express concern.

"Are you alright?"

Currently, Jedao is slightly relieved and pitifully proud that he got through this conversation without straying from the mission brief: deterrence, not reprisal.

He wonders how much he hoped to preserve their friendship. He wonders how much he has, and turns the sound of Nirai Zoe over in his head, tasting copper like a child tonguing a loose tooth.

"One of my very fondest memories," he says softly, and smiles warmly to match it. "Is the time my keeper forgot he'd installed me in a body with nerve damage for humiliation purposes. He shoved an exquisite crystal needle right into the brachial cluster and I didn't even twitch. He was livid. I laughed and laughed and laughed."

He drums his fingertips.

"If I'm not alright, Hange, then it's little enough to do with you. But a scientist should be better than thoughtlessness."

How much friendship he has - that is a good question, isn't it? Not in so many words, nor clearly expressed at the moment, but Hange wonders the same thing.

This anecdote produces a burst of rapid, reproving tongue-clickings from Hange, not directed towards Jedao but towards this absent handler. Of course it's ethically wrong, but what strikes Hange most is not the ethical horror of it all but the sheer inpragmatism of such an action. Was this person trying to make Jedao hate them?

"What were you doing at home?"

To be so feared. To be so kept.

"Having the time of my life, I just said so," Jedao tosses back wryly. If she wants details, she's going to have to be specific.

"You were so feared. And so tightly controlled, and transferred between bodies? That all sounds like so much work, for someone so fearsome and dangerous." It's slantwise acknowledged: someone like that might more practically be killed.

"What was your craft?"

She's not wrong. He flicks the golden wings at the shoulder of his uniform.

"I'm a general. And I don't lose. No matter how many no-win scenarios they threw me at. Not since I was a mud-covered corporal dealing with someone else's shit-for-stars orders. In four hundred years as a ghost on a leash, I didn't lose. I know what the enemy is going to do before he does it. And all the best psych surgeons in the world couldn't tease the talent out of me, so they had to make do with a madman."

It must be said, her first thought is I wish we'd had you.

"You don't come across like a madman."

Compatriots and enemies alike called Hange crazy.

He smiles with all his teeth.

"Everyone wishes they had me." It's not anything actually psychic, but he is very, very good at guessing, and he's seen that thought before. In the jawline, in the rhythm of breath, in the eyebrows.

"And I'm well trained enough that I almost never seem mad unless I intend to." Almost.

Wow. "Well, it's just a wish. I can't seriously wish the problems of my world on anyone if they have the good luck not to have to deal with them."

Hange doesn't want to win the current war, anyway. She wants to avert it.

"That would do as a motivator to keep someone around, though..."

The big, obvious problem here is, if your one-hit-killer despises you, as he must, given these anecdotes, and he wins every war you throw him at, isn't it only a matter of time til he turns his one-hit-kill sights on you?

"That's why it was important to stay mad. I didn't commit the massacre at Hellspin Fortress because I had a plan. I'm just crazy. All good weapons are dangerous. No risk, no reward. Give the attack dog enough meat and it'll be fine."

Enough war.

"And Kujen never really imagined anyone else could out-think him anyway."

So, either painfully sane or productively mad. That's respectable.

"Did you succeed and then die? Or did you die in the middle of the campaign?"

Of all the wars to possibly lose, he couldn't be looked down on for losing a one-man war against a nation that spans more than one planet.

"I died and then succeeded. Although it was more of a gamble than I'm making it sound," he admits.

Hange nods, then presses her palms together in thought.

"I wonder if Iris mentioned a particular thing to you..."

"Not particularly enough for me to guess from that description," Jedao answers wryly.

"Alright." Hange tends to be very, very blunt, so she just plunges on in. "You remember titans. For a long time their origins were mysterious, but actually titans are transformed humans of a particular heritage - my heritage. I'm Eldian.

I'm telling you this because it's possible for me to be transformed into a titan as well. You could consider the transformation needing to be primed first, and then cued by a user. I'm possibly primed and all the transformation would take is the cue. I don't know that someone here could make the cue work, but I'm guessing probably, or that it might just happen because of the way things around here are. If that happens, I won't be able to stop the transformation or control myself once I'm transformed. I'll just start devouring humans. I need some people who are capable of stopping me if this happens. When I told Iris about this she mentioned you."

His face folds with concern, but by the end he's smiling. He reaches over and squeezes her hand gently.

"I'd be honored," he tells her, with disconcerting sincerity.

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