Setting a heavy hand on the gravestone, or rather memorial considering that Vernasus's actual body was put into the tombs, Morr was overcome with some nostalgia, remembering when he saw the hives after whatever had killed Vernasus also quite damaged the hives, now regenerated, the worker bees, as he had learned, working at the behest of the queen, gathering resources.<br/><br/>Slaves from birth, or so it would seem, as well as slaves in death. A moral debate could perhaps be taken from this, could such selfless living truly be called slavery?<br/><br/>Alas, such controversy seemed sometimes so easy to answer, in theory: the purpose demanded, their purpose demanded, thus they followed, thus he followed. In a way, he was closer to these beings than to a human one, he supposed. If he had looked into a mirror, what would he have seen? A suit of plate armor, on its side a sword. From afar, nothing else, it mattered little what was inside this suit, only that the purpose of the armor, together with the sword was fulfilled.<br/><br/>All in all, what was required was sheer muscle.<br/><br/>He had to realize, there was nothing left of him. He had no personal items, no memorials, he had sold off all his personal belongings long ago, was still highly indebted, almost starved to death several times as a result. Involuntarily setting a mailed hand onto his helmet's visor, he also no longer could say that he even possessed that what a human would call a face and, metaphorically speaking, identity.<br/><br/>There was nothing that could yet be taken from him. He no longer even possessed belief, neither in himself nor the purpose. And this was also why he was the demon's and evil's utter bane, because nothing could be taken from him, nothing about him yet possible to be corrupted, his mere purpose was set in goodness. One was not capable of taking a purpose, one might fail at it, but it can never be taken.<br/>Perhaps it was this single certainty that had left him going in his life, even before... before his daughter, but that would have been nothing but cynicism. No, when he had been younger yet, questing, atoning, so full of belief, knowing that his work made the world a better place.<br/><br/>It was not wrong, certainly not. The pathetic state he was currently in, the one that makes him unable to look at a little girl in need and feel that simple wish to protect her against whatever the world and its foul gods may throw at her, instead only to see an object, thus knowing how wrong this was and then, as a result, the self-hate, that was wrong.<br/><br/>And he could no longer even feel anger about this.