[Unlike "friends"... this is the sort of conversation that Hayame understands much more clearly. Since she was old enough to curl her fingers around a bow handle, since she had understand that most jinba mares were fated for the breeding post or life as an Armless mount, she had dedicated herself to becoming a warrior. She understood the hunt, how to fight, how to win, and everything else...

(Everything else...)]

What else could I mean for the measure of a mercenary?

[Skill and success rate, obedience... that was simply what one measured both mercenaries and warriors by. Though she viewed mercenaries as inherently lesser for their lack of honor in favor of coin, unlike the fantasy of serving a lord she had imagined for herself... there was no denying that the similarity was there.

He says he had been feared... but Hayame, someone who had never possessed her own power, who had never been free and could only dream of it... couldn't see the power that came with fear as anything but "good". Life was lonely. For someone like her, unable to reach out, it would surely always be lonely, so why not be feared as well? He speaks of reputation, and-]

You are incredibly strong for a human.

[She'd learned that in Alenroux. She'd acknowledge it.]

But that is a good thing.

[Because to not be strong was to be nothing.]