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[Ingrid's looking uncharacteristically somber today, staring into her coffee mug as though it held the secrets of life.]

I'd always thought myself as someone who could adapt to anything. Working with the children I did, living the life I have; I thought I could handle any change. But it seems I've grown so accustomed to my routines without realizing it.

The people, places, and the things of grand significance. Those things are easy to miss when they are taken. I expected that; I was ready for that. I thought I was ready for that. But I find myself missing the small things too. The way my husband made a cup of coffee, the walk to school, reading the morning paper in the courtyard, listening to the students chatter about things that always seem so intense and important when you're young. I think I may miss those small things more than the big ones.

[She chuckles, but there's no joy in it.]

This may just be the talk of an old lady feeling her age, but indulge me so I don't feel so dramatic for this little episode. What are the things, big and small, you miss?

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Mm.

[Oh man, is that a bit of guilt there?]

It was not too much of a loss, I assure you. He was never very close to me. I suppose I miss more the idea that we could have been close, if I hadn't been taken here instead.

[She nods, sighs, and stares back into her coffee.]

As parents, we just never seem to be able to get it quite right do we? One day they're tots and we're they're whole world. The next, we've on two different planets and can't seem to connect.

Ah, well. It was more like 'one day they're tots and we're lying to them and telling them that their parents died in a tragic sausage-clank accident and the next they need to know the truth for political reasons and we have to awkwardly dodge around why we didn't tell them they were our child twenty years ago'.

[Cough.]

[Staring. And more staring. And-wait is she going to say something? No, she's just doing a fish impression. It is a quite good one too. Then the staring continues. She has to take a quick look at her can of Folgers to make sure she was drinking coffee and hadn't dipped into her minimal alcohol supply so early in the day.]

[....]

[Finally:]

Excuse me?

[Ingrid you are judging stop judging stop that]

You are not the leader of a volatile and war-torn country. Think. If I had told him who he was -- if I had presented him to the world as my heir when he was a child -- he would not have been equipped to handle either the power or the stress.

Instead, I let him grow up away from my influence. He learned to hold his own, to manage himself without needing me to hold his hand or keep the assassins away from him.

And now I can rest assured that he is running the country back home and doing it well, rather than running around like a headless mimmoth because he's used to living in my shadow.

And just whose influence was he under? Who was taking care of your child while you were off playing king? There are so many other ways to handle the situation.