You've always been dutiful to a fault, Lorenz. [The smile Claude gives him is complicated, but not without affection.] Anyway, even if you had been willing to throw over your familial duties completely, I wouldn't expect you to make that kind of stand over a simple summons home. And then he dragged you into whatever designs he had going, I assume? Or I guess if you were trying to work on him, you did have some say...although compared to the idea of letting him keep doing what he was doing, you probably didn't feel like you had any better options than to try and soften the blows. Right?

Unfortunately, and no offense, but your father's a real piece of work. I can't say you had no impact, since he did eventually concede to what I needed and I can't gauge how much of that was thanks to you, but he's about as flexible as a mountain. It took having the Empire on our doorstep and me practically locking the council up in a room with me while I threatened to talk them to death to get even as much as I did. So whatever you tried to do and couldn't, I don't think that's any failing of yours. He's not a listening or compromising type of guy - evidently not even with his own son.

[But Lorenz's words give him pause, and he frowns.] Wait - fall? You were fine the last time I saw you... [He pauses.] Although I guess that doesn't mean much here.

This place - sometimes it brings people here from different times, or where they remember different versions of events as being true. We had a Teach here for awhile who'd taught our house back at the academy, if you'll believe that - and a Lysithea who remembered that, too. Kind of like a different timeline, where people made different choices. So...what I remember and what you remember may not line up perfectly.

Were you at the battle of Derdriu?