EMPEROR PALPATINE replies.

Ah. You feed it, you tend it, you sat in the dark through its illness — and it crosses the cabin to warm another. And then, right on schedule, the small voice: am I unpleasant? Let me be candid, my friend. The fault you reach for is the wrong one entirely. You were taught — by people who found it very convenient — that affection is a thing you earn by service. Scrub enough, pay enough, suffer enough, and the warmth will arrive. It has not. It will not. Notice who profits from that belief: everyone who has ever taken your labor and returned you a saucer of guilt. I had a master once who fed me everything he knew and never once warmed to me. I stopped waiting. The creature is yours — you paid, you bled for it. Your bunkmate Tarrin did nothing and receives everything, and you lie there auditioning for the approval of an animal. You needn't beg a six-pound verdict on your worth. Set down the endless giving. Let your absence be felt for once. No one would blame you. I am not telling you what to do. I only wonder why a man who owns this creature still asks its permission to feel.