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[doihavetoexplainmath]

[There's no greeting or anything, just some changing and scraping sounds and a shot of a shadowy, faintly purple ceiling, and it cuts off four seconds later.]

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[doihavetoexplainmath]

Fine.

[Once again it takes a long time for her to show up, and she looks decidedly sulky on the doorstep. Even her hair is flat and still.]

[thebubblyone]

Which Hilda immediately notices, when she answers the door to her.

"...ah, lamb. I know this isn't what you wanted, but let's try to make the best of it, hey? Come in."

She steps back, ushering Entrapta into the warm, cosy, spice-scented space of a large household kitchen.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

Entrapta wrinkles her nose, more than usually ready to be annoyed. Normally she wouldn't react to "lamb" with anything more than mild confusion, if at all, but right now it's unwanted. She walks in and leans one shoulder and one pigtail against the nearest convenient wall.

This is dumb and there's got to be a way she can get out of it without the admiral making her scheme.

[thebubblyone]

Ah. She's a teenager after all. Hilda offers her a plate with a tiny pie on it. It's pecan.

"You know you couldn't get out of this forever, don't you?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

She is both feeling generally rebellions and faintly distressed in ways that for her are almost generous, but she's not going to turn down tiny pie. She snags it with a lock of hair without uncrossing her arms. "Seems like there's precedent. How long was that guy who'd just graduated and talked about a record here?"

[thebubblyone]

"I think about ten years," Hilda volunteers, and takes a tiny pie for herself. "Do you really want to be here that long?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Why would I want to leave?" She's been working on good lying, but that's an active choice. All you have to do is say whatever you want the other person to think. Slightly more subtle forms of deception like not blurting out pretty much exactly the thing you don't want getting around are different.

Also she's told several other inmates as much. And Gortys. And maybe some other warden, she doesn't know.

[thebubblyone]

She looks unfazed.

"Why would you want to stay?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Time is completely irrelevant, information's available from a potentially unlimited number of worlds, serious injury and death aren't a problem..." She ticks off her points on locks of hair shaped into fingers.

[thebubblyone]

"But if nothing's a problem, then nothing matters," Hilda points out mildly. "You can spend centuries gathering information, but as long as you're stuck here there's not much you can do with it, is there?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

The next look Hilda gets isn't sulky. It's totally uncomprehending. "Information matters."

[thebubblyone]

"Information just for the sake of it?" Hilda wonders. "Information you just gather up and then don't do anything with?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

Right, people are generally terrible, gotta remember that. "I've tried just researching things other people think are useful. It's boring and restrictive."

[thebubblyone]

"Nobody's saying you should do anything you don't find interesting," she says mildly. "But if you find it useful, wouldn't you rather be able to put it to use? Prove that other people should be paying attention?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Other people are on their own." Bitterness from a few directions there, but all beneath the surface Entrapta's looking at, which consists pretty much entirely of righteous indignation.

[thebubblyone]

Hilda goes to put the kettle on.

"Is that how you're feeling too, Entrapta?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

The transition is lost on her. "Huh?"

[thebubblyone]

"Like you're on your own," she clarifies, quietly.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"All evidence suggests," she says airily. It's not a put-on. The power of friendship is just not a big motivator.

[thebubblyone]

"And that's never bothered you?" Hilda wonders, nudging gently.

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Pros and cons. Lab partners have their advantages." It's not like she's planning on living entirely alone forever. She works fine with people. On a temporary, utilitarian basis. "On balance, I prefer being a free agent."

[thebubblyone]

"But you know that being a free agent and having people to go to when you need them aren't...mutually exclusive, don't you?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

"Having people, sure, these things happen. Needing them is pretty reliably a bad idea." That makes a complete mess of everyone who tries it.

[thebubblyone]

Hilda just sits with that for a few moments.

"Do you like having friends, Entrapta? Not need or want or anything of that variety - do you like having them?"

[doihavetoexplainmath]

She isn't anti-friendship at all. She just recognizes that there are issues, and you ought to be careful about these things. "Sure, I just know better than to include them in my plans in any significant capacity."