#he might never cash in on a favor he'd done and he was known to be generous / community oriented

[deathbind]

Canonically, the Yikarian Empire is the longest lived on the continent of Zakhara. My loophole for making Meket predate them is that they do not now, nor have they ever, termed themselves an empire. Whether they fit the technical definition of one may itself be disputed and perhaps depends on time period. How to explain . . .

Their primary method of expansion is not conquest. They have had periods of warfare, and they have emerged from their victories with new territories, but they rarely start wars. They have often provoked wars, often through the most subtle of means, but they'd prefer the other party strike the first blow / take the role of "aggressor" so that their response may be "justified". They are only "defending" themselves.

It adds to their reputation that they supposedly never start fights but always finish them. Their prosperity has caught the eye of many a conqueror — and some have succeeded. By provoking wars they're certain they can win, downplaying their readiness, they make the prospect of war undesirable. Their record of victories is impressive. They also make themselves seem nearly harmless, attacking only when "provoked". Think of it this way: perhaps you could slay a dragon and claim its hoard, but why would you take that risk when it's nesting peacefully in its own domain?

Far more often, though, their expansion is even subtler. They "ally" with neighbors. Usually weaker powers, nations on the knife's edge of conquest, peoples with common religious beliefs or common enemies — whatever gets their foot in the door. They come as a friend or maybe the other party comes to them. They aren't domineering or demanding. They don't attack differing beliefs / traditions, instead strongly emphasizing commonalities. It's a slower form of conquest. The longer the alliance goes on, the stronger it becomes, the more reliant the nation grows on Meket, and the more firmly they are brought under the banner. Everything melds together into one whole. It is arguably more dangerous to be their friend than their enemy.

[purposefully-lost]

There was a note and a few bills on the counter when she got home. If you want to order dinner. Tell Andrew I said hello!

Oh. Right. She'd mentioned that Andy might be coming over tonight. Chris ignored the note and the cash both in favor of moving right for the stairs. Her bedroom door was slammed shut and her shoes were kicked to the corner before she walked over to her bookcase. She barely had to glance at it to know what book she was reaching for. A battered paperback was pulled from its place on the shelf and pulled to her chest as she climbed onto her bed, her back against the wall and her legs drawn up so that she was as curled into herself as she could be. With her head tilted down, her lips pressed to the top of the book, and she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to run.

The Return of the King. She hadn't actually finished it yet. She'd been about halfway through when Rabbit had disappeared; the library hadn't had any copies on hand, and when she'd mentioned it, he'd given her his to borrow. He'd apologized that it was a little beat-up and scribbled in, but she hadn't minded at the time, and now.. now it was a solace to her. Even if she couldn't bring herself to read it, just knowing the pages inside were marked and folded and written on by his hands had been a comfort. She'd been keeping it safe, just so she could return it when he came home.

No matter how hard she'd tried to fight it, the tears finally came anyway. Chris whined, reaching up to rip off her glasses and toss them maybe harder than was safe to towards the nightstand. She didn't glance to see if they'd landed where they'd meant to, instead leaning down further to press her forehead to the book. She could smell the mustiness of the pages, could feel the way they'd softened at the edges as they'd aged. She wondered how long Rabbit had had this particular copy, if it'd always been his or if it'd been secondhand. It wasn't like it mattered and it wasn't like she'd ever get the chance to ask him. He was dead.

There was no one home to hear her cry, so there was nothing to be held back. She choked and cried and yelled in frustration, squeezing the book to her chest like it was a lifeline. She screamed, muffling the sound in her arms, until her voice turned hoarse and her chest felt hollow. There was an instinct to go downstairs and find the phone, dial the number she'd taped up to the wall next to it over a year ago, look for comfort in the only other person in the world who'd really known what she was missing. The thought just made her yell again, wordless and angry, even if it made her throat hurt and left her coughing for breath. What a fucking joke. All those times she'd looked to Andy for friendship and compassion and all he'd done was lie to her. She was tempted to think that he was just as bad as his stupid friends, but honestly, he was worse. Desmond Baker and Alan Nowak had never had the smarts to string her along and make her think they were her friends. Andy had been doing it for a year-- and he'd done it to Jack, too.

Chris choked. He was dead, wasn't he? There was no use in denying it anymore. If he was alive, he'd have been caught by now. She supposed there was the chance that he'd just.. gotten away, he'd always been smart, but his face was one of the most distinctive she'd ever known. Someone would've recognized him. She'd been living for a year with a stupid fantasy of him coming home, alive, somehow with the evidence that it hadn't been him, or that his hand had been forced, and things would ease into normalcy again. This time, she'd ask him out or kiss him stupid the moment she saw him. She'd hold his hand..

She squeezed the book at her chest. She was aching to touch him, just to feel him there beside her. The closest they'd ever been was that formal and it'd been much too brief. The memory of the way it'd felt to have his hands on her waist was starting to fade and there was nothing in the world that had compared to his cheek against her lips. She should've kissed him then, a real kiss, and maybe somehow none of this would've happened.

"Jack.." her voice was meek and broken as she glanced up, taking in her empty bedroom. It almost didn't feel real, this place she'd grown up in and that she saw every day of her life. It didn't feel safe, or familiar. The posters on the wall felt like strangers, the room at the corners felt too small and the whole of it felt too empty and open. The light seemed doubly artificial, more like a movie set than an actual bedroom. Her breath hitched. "Jack, I really miss you."

There wasn't any response. Of course there wasn't. Tears slipped down her face that somehow felt cold.

"And I'm really sorry," she said, squeezing at the book as if the boy himself would be able to feel it. "I- I didn't know. I didn't know anything." Not about what Andy had done, not about all the things he'd actually suffered through outside of what she saw at school. Her chest hurt. "We- we should've gotten dinner, after the dance. I..."

She trailed off, closing her eyes. How fucking stupid. He couldn't hear her and she knew it-- what more was there to say to an empty room? Trembling, she pressed her lips to the book again and bowed her head, waiting until it passed or she fell asleep one. It was going to be a long night.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Chris was shaking as she spat the words out, staring wide-eyed and wild at Andy. Just a moment ago she'd been sitting next to him, listening with a slowly sinking heart as he told her about Jonathan's love letter. That had stung, just a little bit. She'd spent the last few months of their time together pining hard over Jack Stone while he'd had his eyes on someone else. But that was fine, that wasn't his fault, and she would be happy to just be his friend, but before she could even fully process that, her heart wasn't sinking so much as dropping violently to the bottom of her stomach. She'd jerked away from Andy and stumbled a few steps across the floor, turning on him while she went through the stages of shock.

Andy looked ready to cry. His eyes were as wide as her own and his shoulders shook like he couldn't catch his breath. "Chris, I--"

"Shut up!" They were less words, more of a scream. If his parents had been home, she didn't doubt they'd hear them storming into the living room at that one. Not to demand anything of Andy, of course, he was perfect, to their eyes and everyone else's, but glad to finally have a reason to send her home, demand she never spoke to Andy again. Honestly, right now, that didn't sound too bad. Her vision starting to blur, she wrapped her arms around herself. "Why would you-- fuck! You're such a dick!"

"I know!" He yelled back. "Chris-!"

"No you don't!" There was real panic in his eyes, something she wasn't quite sure she'd seen there before. She'd seen sorrow and heartbreak and frustration and everything else in-between, but this was something like fear. She didn't like the way it made her chest tighten. "No you fucking don't, Andy! You- you fucking--" She choked, not quite breaking into tears yet, but close. She remembered Jack getting all beat up more clearly than she'd ever admit; it'd worried her to death and he wouldn't even talk to her for weeks after it'd happened. She'd been worried that she'd done something wrong, somehow, like she'd been insenstive or pushy and had pushed him right away from her when he could've used a friend. And she remembered Andy, too, the first time he'd ever really talked to her, asking if Jonathan Stone was alright.

God, she felt sick. Something heavy and aching settled in her gut, her gaze hardening into a glare. "Are- are we even really friends?" She asked, her voice bitter and her breath hitching. She watched the shock move over his face, turning panic and upset into something confused.

"What?" Andy shifted on the edge of the couch like he wanted to stand. "What do you mean?"

Chris' hands dug into her jacket at her sides. Her skin crawled. It'd been a little weird, hadn't it? Andy giving a shit. It'd surprised her to learn that he and Jack had been friends and maybe she shouldn't have ever taken it at face value. She shook her head. "You're such a dick!" She yelled again. "Did you ever even care about him? Or- or were you just guilty?" The tears started to spill, causing her to almost snarl as she continued on. She hated it- all those times Andy had seen her break, had carried her home and coaxed a laugh out of her. She wondered if it'd been some kind of act, at least at the start. Some half-hearted attempt to make himself less guilty by befriending Jack's stupid friend. "How much have you been lying to me?"

"I..." There was a look on his face that she recognized now. Pure and utter heartbreak, the kind of look he got when they'd driven out of the city for Rabbit's seventeenth birthday. They'd sat on the hood of his car in some field somewhere and had traded a beer back and forth, letting music play from the radio while they talked about the boy they were honoring. It'd been a sweet idea and a good memory, but right now she wished she'd never gone. "I didn't tell you about this, but that's it," he finally managed. "You've gotta understand, I was scared. And I- I thought..."

"Liar!" She shook her head again. "You- you hurt him! How could you fucking say you were friends? God, Andy, what if it's your fucking fault?"

He looked taken aback. "Chris-"

"Don't fucking talk to me! Don't you dare!" She yelled. She was taking a step back, realizing that she needed to go. She couldn't be around him any more. "He's dead! He's dead 'cause everyone treated him like shit and you were apart of that! What if it's your fault, Andrew?"

"Don't you think I've thought about that?" It was the thing that had finally gotten him to snap back. It went unnoticed, though, because Chris' eyes had widened. She wasn't even really looking at him, anymore.

In the year and a half since he'd gone, she'd never once really let herself consider the possibility that he was dead. But it'd slipped out as easy as nothing and suddenly the tears were coming on much stronger than before. Andy started to stand and move towards her, but she stumbled back with a frustrated noise that was mostly just a broken-sounding scream. Desperate to put distance between them, she ran for the front door and slammed it hard behind her, barely aware of anything she did until she was sitting at a stoplight on the way back to her own home, her hands gripping hard at the steering wheel. It dawned on her that she wasn't ever going to talk to Andy Campbell again.