Vara settled down by the fire and listened to him as he responded to her question.  She still was not sure she saw eye to eye.  Her gaze was pulled to the window, and she watched as the snow fell outside.  It almost helped add to the feeling of calmness she was trying to conjure within herself.  Once he finished, she smiled softly and shrugged.<br/><br/>"I suppose you should have been a philosopher in the Old World.  I've read about them, I think you would have fit in well."  Even if she was not sure that she agreed, it was probably best not to argue.  Vara got the sense that she would not convince him of anything.  She wanted to believe deeply that there was more to all of this than brutality and death.  It was a marked shift, a recent one.  When she worked for Blackvayne that was what her life was, but now it felt like other possibilities had opened up and she did not have to believe that was her only option.  It was interesting how this small sense of freedom had shifted her perspectives in so many ways.<br/><br/>"I guess this shows that the connection between us is not the end-all-be-all.  We still have a lot to learn about one another..."  That part should have been obvious perhaps, but it had been easy to think it would be smooth sailing from here.  "I think I would still like to believe there's some kind of order in the chaos, something bigger than all the pain and suffering, but perhaps you're right." The last part did not have as much truth in it as she had hoped, because she still wanted to cling to the belief that there was more out there.  That she was more than just an abused puppet.