My best friend — what a childish notion. I am very much older and wiser than anyone who would ask such a thing. I am one of a court; I remember those soirees and airship-parties when I was a student at the Academy (the grubbers are always cadets, but many of us are merely students, for we have choices other than the much-vaunted Road of the Stars).

There were always rivals, and any bond was more an alliance than a friendship. I saw naifs devastated by the first betrayal, but then they were naifs no more, or they did not survive in that circle.

Temn stood above it all, smiling with his beautiful ageless face. Let me be clear; he is not my friend. My ideal, my passion, the force that drives me, even after all these years, but not my friend. I could no more imagine confiding the secrets of my soul — not that I have any — to him than … to the Sarronny grubber with whom I was infatuated years ago.

***

Character interview with the interstellar diplomat Iric Desnaray yr Astok, from NaNo 2013, Inside the Jump. Weekend Writing Warriors offers eight-sentence excerpts from a variety of writers; see the other excerpts here.