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Perhaps you've never had the opportunity to feel them. I don't believe you lack the capacity -- even if it's not a natural emotion for you, I believe you could feel it.

[A long, thoughtful pause.] Do you have any ability to sense or share the emotions of others?

[Perhaps feeling those stronger emotions directly would help...]

[Hrm...]

I would say I can detect the emotions of humans. A vast majority of the people here have suffered great trauma; they are full of anger, grief, resentment... As a consequence, they smell most appetising. [He raises his eyebrows and adds, dryly:] My deepest apologies if that is a shocking thing to say.

[Anyway. Snark aside,] The few humans I have encountered in my life with little to no negative emotions... they, meanwhile, smell utterly dull.

I have heard worse.

[Dryly. That said, more seriously:]

Which emotions do you find it most difficult to empathize with? The positive ones, or the negative ones?

Asking it like that...

That is much akin to asking "is it more difficult feel what a pig is feeling by smelling pork, or to feel what cow is feeling by smelling beef?"

[It's not that empathising is difficult; it's that Sebastian doesn't empathise period. And also that Sebastian perhaps has a rather shallow understanding of what both empathy and sympathy entail.]

I have mentioned to you the emotions I know for sure I am capable of experiencing, have I not? I am incapable of feelings that typically cause humans distress.

[As if anger and frustration aren't potentially distressing emotions.]

You listed a few distressing emotions. [Dryly.]

Do you think you need to feel the same thing as a human in order to empathize with them, Sebastian? That's not what I would mean by empathy, myself.

[Sebastian raises his eyebrows, skeptical.]

Did I, now. [Anger, resentment, disgust? Surely these are all motivating emotions? (As if Sebastian has done anything but stew in his own frustration for the last ten months.)

He takes another sip of his tea, considering. The finer details of compassion and its adjacent feelings are, admittedly, not exactly his area of expertise, so...]

What would you mean by it, then?

One doesn't need to feel the same emotion that the other person is feeling, but to me, empathy means... hmm.

To feel pleased that someone else is happy, and to feel regret that someone else is unhappy. To understand that someone else feels good or bad, and why it's a good thing that someone else feels good and a bad thing that they feel bad.

[It's possible he's simplifying this to a degree that's insulting, but sometimes explaining too little is also a problem -- and he really doesn't know where Sebastian's understanding of human internality takes him.]

[No, no: the toddler level explanation is appropriate, and Sebastian clearly doesn't take offense at it. For once.]

Mm. And would you have me adapt deontology or utilitarianism for my method of attempting to make people feel good?

[It's not a serious question and it's not even what they're currently discussing - he just means it as a "even humans can't even agree on why and how to try to ensure people are happy". Anyway...]

I am fully capable of understanding when a person feels good or bad, you realise. A great part of my life is spent granting people what they want and what will make them happy... or, as is more often the case, what they think will make them happy. I am well familiar with human contentment and suffering both.

But thus we circle back to the fact that, to me, humans feeling "bad" is... well. It is quite a pleasant sensation.

I think you've already mastered deontology, so there's not much point in pursuing it further, is there? [Lightly.]

But no... it does seem that the sticking point for you is that you do enjoy suffering. If you don't mind my asking, is that something like a power? Do you still experience it on board the Barge?

[So, in other words: is this pure sadism, or is it simply conditioning because suffering is delicious?]

The Admiral has not seen fit to limit my powers to the point of changing my very nature, no.

Rather than saying I 'still experience it' on the Barge, it would be more accurate to say I experience it even more strongly here than at home. The majority of the people here have experienced such horrific, repeated trauma-- they smell absolutely delectable.

Were I but younger and not spoken for already... [he'd be having such a feast, you don't even know.]

[--!!

Hang on.]

[He sees where this is going, and NO.]

Before you suggest it - the answer is no.

[Does this kind of ruin the edginess of implying he'd like to eat most people on the Barge? Yes, well.]

'No' to taking away your sense of trauma as delicious for a while, then?

[He clicks his tongue.]

I won't force it on you, but I do think that might make it easier for you to change your reactions to the suffering of others.

[...Ah. Apparently he didn't quite see where this was going.]

--Sir Trevor suggested to me not long ago that I should have the Admiral turn me human for a time. [That's where he assumed this was going.]

Your suggestion, meanwhile...

[Well. It's considerably less offensive. He isn't sure if he wants to agree to it, regardless.]

[Hakkai looks down at his hands for a moment before meeting Sebastian's gaze again.]

I won't ever suggest to you that you should change what you are in order to graduate. First -- because I don't believe that it will teach you anything useful. Second -- because I was once changed against my will.

But I think that the fact that human suffering is delicious and you can smell it does make it difficult for you to see suffering as negative. If you found it less pleasurable, for a time, it might be easier to develop sympathetic responses.

[So that's what Hakkai meant by "it wasn't long since I was human" earlier in this conversation.

Sebastian is quiet for a while, staring down into his tea.

The idea is unpleasant, violating - as much as he knows the Admiral has already altered things about him, the thought of asking him to do it...

But at the same time, what Hakkai is saying makes a certain kind of sense.]

Your suggestion is not that it be permanent?

No. If you find it intolerable, I'd revoke it at once.

Otherwise -- if it works well enough that you can start to develop the habit of not enjoying suffering, I would like to return it slowly, because when you are able to leave you will have that sense back. [And so, the final goal is for Sebastian to be able to not enjoy suffering even when it does smell delicious.]

If it doesn't work at all, then after a few months, we can decide to take a different path and I would ask for your senses to be returned.

[For a while. That might be... acceptable. He can't fathom the idea of never having his sense of taste returned - Sebastian obsesses over how things taste, after all. Losing that completely for the rest of his life would be... hateful.

Hrm.]

May I think it over? I will say it sounds... reasonable enough.

Of course. Let me know when you've made a decision.

Thank you. I shall not keep you waiting long.

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