"I am sure that it is," she said, in regard to the comment about being parted from her family.<br/><br/>"I understand that.  I miss my own, as well."    Nothing but a straight out lie, that.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">What</span>family?<br/><br/>There was the father whom she could barely abide.   A distant and almost painfully conservative man; so devoted to his concept of the bigger picture, and to higher loyalties, that he'd little interest or time for the younger of his two female children, who'd disappointed him by not being born the other gender.  As well as failed him by reaching a pair of decades in age, and not yet being married off.<br/><br/>There were the various relatives on his side of the family -- most of whose attitudes and views were too alike his, for her to feel anything but faint contempt toward them.<br/><br/>There was her deceased mother's family -- Graecian people, living rather idyllically on the isle of Thassos, in the Aegean Sea -- and little inclined to associate with their daughter's Valesian bred children; unpleasant reminders that it was a Valesian aristocrat who'd taken her life, and a Valesian husband who'd failed in his duty to keep her safe.<br/><br/>And there was her sister, Cassia -- the only other aside from her mother to whom Lorna had truly been close.   Wed to the very same bloodline that had produced the killer who had taken their mother away from them.   And now busy being the dutiful wife to a shallow swine of a man, readying to bring his first child into this benighted world.    Forever mingling their lineage with that of the man who'd dealt them the very worst hurt they could ever have suffered.<br/><br/>Her sister had had no choice...<br/><br/>No.<span style="font-style: italic">No, that isn't true. I too was betrothed...and I chose other than compliance to father's will.  There is -always- choice!</span><br/><br/>And because it was so, she couldn't quite bring herself to forgive Cassia, although she still had love for her.  But Cassia would never again feel truly like family to her.   Not with her first and foremost commitment being to an<span style="font-style: italic">enemy. </span>Not while nurturing and raising<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">their</span></span>heirs.<br/><br/>She briefly considered Mary again; this hopeful aspirant, this probable, would-be climber.  And knew some vague sense of sympathy.<span style="font-style: italic">Yes, welcome to Greenmoor!   Den of climbing, slithering, snakes.  All bent upon reaching the royal bird's nest, and dining upon its bejeweled eggs!   If you've not already relinquished your innocence, I do hope that you place no great value upon it...   </span><br/><br/>"I am certain you will make friends here, Mary.   And it will ease the ache of being parted from your family.   Well.  This food is just fine;  I must dine, then return to my assignment.  I need to be diligent, if I am to complete it in the time I was given.   There is nothing else I need, right now."