I am the master of my fate

Disappearances are seem to be the order of the day.

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Ah, well... not surprising, I suppose.

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Everyone seems to leave eventually. It's amusing how people get so worked up when people do go though; at least most of those recent arrivals were expected to leave soon so we might all be spared the usual crying and wailing, to a degree.

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It's in the nature of men to grow close quickly and to hope for the best. If any will mourn, I cannot rightly blame them.

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Attachments are foolish in the best of circumstances. In this place, forming deep bonds can only be considered masochistic.

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People are people, dome. They do what they do, and they cannot change.

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People can change, or then must change, eventually. Without adaption there is no progress.

It's Itachi.

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A fancy hope, but no - people never truly change. If there is anything I've learned in my years, it's that people are essentially the same, all over, always.

Itachi. A strange name, but aren't they all? You likely know who I am.

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A pity, so soon in our acquaintance and we must already disagree.

Quite an assumption. No one has spoken to me about you, though I've seen you around the network for some time now.

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Mm. Not much of a pity. Conflict is the stuff of life, all that.

I am Saul Samaren. If that means nothing to you, clearly I've grown slack in my dealings.

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An interesting idea.

Is it your wish to be well known, Samaren-san?

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A necessity. Peace makes men boring and soft.

Not in itself, no, but I find notoriety follows the things I do wish for.

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I do believe both are gone. It is a shame, he seemed intelligent.

Though she believed herself to be a threat to you.

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Yes... he is a good man, Duncan. Has his faults... but a good man as few men can boast of being. A shame it may be, but I am glad that he is back where he belongs.

Amika Stattenholme is a cowardly child who is a threat to no one.

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Easily frightened, it seemed, but loyal. And loyalty counts for much.

To no one? She said she was the only one who could defeat you, saying that her center was unbreakable.

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He is a soldier, doma, and under fire he was solid steel. But this is an altogether different challenge, here, mm?

Did she? She might have. Who knows what her Land's Own might have told her to give the poor mouse courage to stand on the battlefield.

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A good point. Few seem ready for what they face here.

The poor child, if she was indeed set up for failure by her own people.

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Can anyone be ready? But one moves on.

Hah. Festus Detrich is an old and desperate man. Nothing he might have done would surprise me.

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Indeed, one does.

At the very least, I do not believe she was very free with details of your strengths and weaknesses, nor how to defeat you. So in theory she did not do much in the way of damage. I cannot say for sure, though.

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... tell me, doma, how much did she say, regarding Centers?

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That Guardians all have Centers, something you trust completely in, but if you lack a Center, you are unbreakable. She had none, from what she said.

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Ahh... well, I will not deny it. She has no Center, and cannot be broken. But she can be killed, and in the lands I come from, that is quite good enough.

Something to look forward to when I return.

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It is most certainly adequate in any place but here, from what I have seen and heard.

I congratulate you on finding something to amuse yourself with upon your return.

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It's no amusement, it's work. She is a Hyemi princess, I've been hired by Adalas, not much more to it.

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Work can still be amusing. After all, is it not your desired course of employment? Though now I do have a fraction of respect for her; it is not often that one of the nobility takes their country's problem upon themselves.

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Well, it might be a challenge, at least. Her power is an interesting one... ahh, you needn't be impressed, doma. The princess Stattenholme would have done nothing had she not gained a Guardian's power. Before it, she did not even know her country was at war.

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