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[empathicfault]

"Will Graham here. Leave a message."

[Open for text/audio/action/whatever.]

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[neverwaitslong]

"Of course. But she asked me whether there's anything she should do, even though she and Warren are the only people who are never tiring. Well, Warren's often irritating, but that's different." He likes to cheerfully annoy her for her own good, but he doesn't exhaust her. "I told her she doesn't need to change anything, I just wanted her to know."

She purses her lips. "After the breach, Taylor wasn't the problem. Four years of breaches, and this was the first that gave me a parent. ...He wants to adopt me."

So that's been something to wrestle with.

[empathicfault]

Will sits ready to accept some news, of possibly something with mental health or the breach. But somehow he's still not ready at all when she tells him about a parent.

He blinks, he takes a breath. "Really," he finally says. "How do you feel about it?" And who is it? But they have time for that later. There must be an ocean of mixed feelings she's going through.

[neverwaitslong]

"It's... hard. His brother is easier. I've never had an uncle, so there are no old feelings to untangle when it comes to Istradez. He hugs me and braids my hair. But Mikodez..." Ulla shakes her head.

"I don't know how much I'm struggling with him and how much I'm struggling with the father who raised me. I do know that he's a trained spymaster, and all his instincts are to not be straightforward. But I told him he has to be, where I'm concerned. And he said he would."