In which Syl Vor requests a change of schedule.

The Rule of Succession is, like all proverbs, something of an oversimplification. While it’s true that who wants power most may be someone who shouldn’t be trusted with it, it’s just as possible that who wants it least may do a great deal of damage by neglecting or avoiding the duty that comes along with.

There is a phenomenon called “shipping goggles”, which is a propensity to look at the interactions between two characters and see romantic subtext regardless of whether the storyteller intended any. I don’t have shipping goggles myself – I’ve been known to have trouble seeing romantic subtext that a storyteller definitely did intend – but there are moments when I suspect that, if I did, I would have an opinion about Nova and Michael Golden.

Kezzi’s protest that she shouldn’t be considered a child just because the kompani currently has no children younger suggests that she’s in a similar position to the one Nova was just diagnosing of Syl Vor, with nobody her own age to interact with, which kind of suggests where this story might be going.