Simon's mouth compresses unhappily and then opens to speak acknowledgement but Gregor keeps talking and Simon's mouth closes again. He is utterly still and blank-faced as Gregor moves through the rest of this mini-speech. Equal parts irritation and satisfaction war in him. So he's the Emperor after all. Simon would have to accustom himself to the full implications of that, but there was some relief along with the pain of losing the compliance that had made his job so much easier. This was as it should be.

Buried deep, there's the spark of a more personal irritation which Simon does not examine closely. Those comments were not to address Simon's own role in Negri and Ezar's relationship, because Gregor did not, Simon was fairly sure, know about it. And even if he did, he was thinking about it like a Betan. There was a reason Simon had never confessed any of it to Cordelia. For all that they valued their own free thinking, some of their categories were too narrow. Simon shoved all that aside.

There is a long pause, the only hint that he had been processing at all, but Simon ducks into his usually half-bob bow. "As you wish, Sire."