Recognition of Presence. Sufficience. Excellence. Shae looked hard at the three plaques, some of the last ones in the country, that hung on Dimitri's wall and stayed there. Years ago, watching him fast asleep made her feel powerful, like she'd done well for herself to see someone so influential be so vulnerable. Now it just made her feel violated, bribed for and used and thrown away so he could sleep contentedly.
What had he threatened the border guard with to make him let her through? She thought of her time working under him and shuddered. Nothing that he'd come away from unchanged.
This blooming corruption was a symbol of a fragile state, she had decided as Dimitri snored loudly late last night. There are no plaques left, he had slurred to her tearfully, tongue loose with drink and worry. Nobody can change the course of Arstotzka now.
She wondered to herself, as the sun crawled up the sky lazily, what would be left if rebels stormed the whole country right now. The people would always be here. The power-hungry, the sleazy, the rich. She glowered at the background noise of Dimitri's heavy breathing. Any new power would have as little to stand on as they had now.
She realised all at once that she didn't hate to see him just because of what he did to her. Shae let herself turn and watch him, no longer wary. It gave her fear, real fear, to see a man of the highest order with timidly shut eyes, loose skinned and lips twitching frightfully in his sleep. Men who tried to carry the world on their shoulders for sport, who traded achievements in plaques and buckled at the consequences of a failure with no one to punish for but themself.