Trust and honesty were values left for groups like SpringClan. Hilo should be smarter than that, should know better than expect such values from cats who could see little past their own nose. Self-interest was a characteristic of every spinless creature of the League, and self-interest and trust seldom went hand in hand. Perhaps this was why she trusted no one. She was honest with most, though. There was no reason for her not to be. Perhaps that was due to her position. She was allowed more room to say what was on her mind, and she saw no harm in doing that. The only exception to her honestly came when it was time to work. If, in her studies, she needed to lie, it was false to assume she was a saint, and lying was not against a hidden moral compass. She just didn't do it often.

"Your philosophy will get yourself killed, dearest tom," she meowed simply, flicking his tail. "I suppose, though, the answers to the questions of life depend on how one wants to lead. The old saying is that it is better to be feared than love. It is in fear that power truly flourishes. Would this not be the most key dimension in keeping a dynasty going? The rule of fear is the rule that Vera is most comfortable with. It was bred into her with meticulous nature, and it has yet to fail her. Is it perhaps the best? Time will tell."

"As for morality, what, truly, is morality? Is any of this moral, the very structure that we were in? Even if we were run as a democracy as you fantasize about, would that prove a sense of right and wrong? Or would the rule of the masses be just as corrupt as a leader who's claws are just a little too sharp? I believe that there is no such thing as goodness in this world. There is no evil, either. Power does not exaserbate the presence of either." She paused for a moment. "And what is justice? Forcing what one believes onto another feline? Is that just?"

"I fear for you that there are few answers to your questions, and each question only leads to more. Such is the result of trying to think, to learn, to understand Perhaps, then, it is better not to think at all."

Speaking to him made her curious, curious indeed.

It would have been too easy for her to kill him. Well, maybe not. He had a size advantage on her, as the mage had always been a relatively small creature. Even then, though, all she would need to do would be to mix a herb into his prey for such a statement. Yet, she had no intention on doing such. In fact, his responses had the opposite effect on her. It did not make her feel any more murderous than normal, but it made her even more determined to pursue the creature to be her partner. Her ear flicked at the thought. Of course, she had little room for romance, but eventually, she would have to pick a mate, if only to produce the next mage. His words made her choice rather clear; he would be the one. She would not say that, though. Not yet.

"I suppose you are right. What is born must die," she nodded. She thought for a moment about her lab, and the creatures that had died in the name of science. She had no remorse for any of them, under that principle exactly. They would have died under other conditions eventually, and at least now, their lives meant something. "You might as well die for something in which you are impassioned." A look flashed through her eyes, but it was of indeterminate nature. "Is freedom ideal?" she posed when he suggested the word. "Are any of us truly free? Or do we walk the footsteps in which fate has left us pre-destined to walk?" Perhaps she said this simply to ignore the rest of the nonsense that he said before his contented sigh. "Would speaking to the two ages really prove any sort of difference?"

"I have no reason to allow the Nemesis to know that you used to think she was subpar in her skills," she meowed with a noise that could almost be considered a laugh. "Perhaps she is an exception to the rule? An outlier? Perhaps your rule that an iron claw relies on cowardice and fear of loss of status is not permanently broken by her reign. Perhaps, she, too, is a coward in her own way, so afraid of uprising that she must run the rivers of this group red." She noticed his elevation in tone and speed of his words, and she smiled at him a smile that was perhaps the first genuine smile that she had ever given to a cat she was not forcing to eat nightlock.

"Does there? What makes you think so? Can we not exist on a plane of morally grey? Let me pose myself as an example. I have done research into asphyxiation that includes seeing how long a feline can be without a direct flow of oxygen to the brain before they die. There is blood on my paws. That would make me evil, hmm? Yet, I do it for science, and in my research I look to find ways to use this knowledge for the good of the clan. That would would make the end product one of morality; I do my research to better the League. In a dichtonomy, where, then, would I fall? Am I good, or am I evil?"

Xithymia didn't consider herself a philosopher, and there was a part of her that probably would have smacked him had she known that he thought of her that way. She was a eline who was critical about the world around her, that was all. However, she would have agreed that she was more intelligent than most. It was the only thing that she strived for in live: intelligence. It was to her what power was for most felines. It was her seductress, the focal point of any sin the feline would ever commit. In a way, she was Eve, ready to at any time to take a bite into the fruit of knowledge. Her tail flicked at the thought.

"No reason for fate?" she meowed with a flick of her tail. "Part of me disagrees. Perhaps that is because fate has led my life to all of the heights in which it has received. It was my fate from birth to bare the wounds and the jobs in which I am dedicated to. It was of no free will of my own. I was brought into the world, and Piroska decided from my first breath that I was to be the mage. Do you believe, the, that I had any chance of denying the role in which it appears to me I was predestined?" She blinked her emotionless eyes. "Is the pursuit of everyone's life, then, knowledge?"

She then considered the words that tumbled out of his mouth. Although his quickened in pace, she found no such excitement in the conversation. She was able to easily contain herself, but perhaps that was simply her nature. "Is morality a desired quality? Even if it is only found later in life, is it something worth even striving for?"