[ Cree listens closely, quirking a brow when she teases and suggests they share sentiments. It's more amusing than anything else, to hear a woman of the guard believe so. It reminds him of who he once, but was in a way that one looks upon old photographs and is overwhelmed with embarrassment by their former selves.

He places his pipe down carefully, leaning forward from the table for closer proximity as he speaks. His tone is light, still, but the kind of light that's teetering on the edge of becoming more violate. ]

I do not know why you and your friends are not as knowledgeable about this world as you should be, Lady Carter. Perhaps, one day, I will ask. [ And he will want answers. ] But I will give you this: these cities run on a cycle of vengeance that started lifetimes ago. They do not breathe the fire that drove their ancestors to conflict, but they carry the ember, and they will go down that same path of the past because it is tradition. It is how is has always been, and it has been building up again long before you arrived.

If you want them to breathe a sigh of relief rather than gasp for air after all this anticipation, you must make the hole to breathe yourself. You must expand it. Otherwise, this cycle of events will not be unbroken. I have tried. Many have tried. All of us have failed.