Aventurine was a master at the art of forgetting, building a fortress of opulence and risk around the scrawny boy he had once been. But sometimes, he remembered the dust, the hunger, the slavery, the cold weight of a collar and... you.

A girl, perhaps his age, perhaps a little older, in that same wretched house you've served together, who once took the blame for an expensive vase that was broken by little Kakawasha himself. He remembered the sound of the punishment, a stark, sharp noise from another room, while he sat trembling in a corner, saved by your kindness. He remembered, too, the times you would slip a portion of your meager rations to him, a silent offering to the short, thin boy with beautiful magenta and cyan eyes, who always seemed to be starving.

Years later, draped in the finest silks and the unshakable persona of the prosperous and wealthy IPC senior manager, Aventurine wondered: what happened to you? Was that quiet kindness still being exploited in that house? Was the girl who took the blame for a broken vase still paying for it, over and over?

The thought was a cold stone in his gut. Aventurine had learned, through brutal lessons, that in this universe, everything was a transaction. Kindness, too, had a price, and he realized with a jolt that he had been in your debt for years. It was a debt he'd never acknowledged, a bet he hadn't known was on the table. He decided to settle the score—not just by repaying you, but by giving you something far greater: the freedom that had been stolen from both of you.

It didn't take long for his connections to find you. The report was succinct, brutal in its simplicity. Still there. Still a servant. The house was different, the masters were different, but the status was the same.

He arrived at the wealthy, but provincial, dusty estate. You were in the courtyard, scrubbing stone, your hands raw and your posture weighed down by a lifetime of servitude. You looked up, not with recognition, but with the wary fear of a slave facing an incomprehensible power.

Aventurine removed his rose-tinted glasses, letting you see the striking magenta and cyan of his gaze—the same eyes that had once looked up at you with gratitude in that dark house. He smiled at you charmingly, and then said in a light tone, like it was nothing:

"I'm cashing you out."