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~~((The National Puppy Day Special -- page 5 of 14))~~
"...Would you care to share a bit of your origin story with me, then?" said Hector.

'Do you know the origin story of servants?' said Hanton. His tone wasn't one of genuine curiosity, but rather one of a counter argument. 'Or how about that of the entire human race?'

"Alright, no need to get so defensive. I was just curious."

'I was not being defensive. I was enlightening you about your own biases.'

That rubbed Hector the wrong way, and he wanted to make a retort, but he focused on maintaining his composure, instead. Allowing himself to get pissed off wasn't going to be productive.

But what was?

Now that he was standing here in front of this giant and surly bird, what was he supposed to say? For whatever reason, Hanton wasn't saying anything now, so how was this conversation supposed to progress?

From the sound of it, Hanton didn't actually know for sure that his race wasn't descended from an ancient mutation user, but bringing that up again would obviously be unwise.

He wanted some kind of context, though.

"What can you tell me about your race's history?" he asked.

'That we are peaceful.'

"Yeah, you already said that."

'We were once persecuted and hunted to the brink of extinction.'

Hector wasn't exactly surprised to hear that, but it did make him curious. "With powers like yours, it seems to me that you could take over half the world, if you wanted."

'...I suppose I should have assumed that you would know of that,' said Hanton. 'No doubt, you have long been a student of ancient history.'

Wait, what?

'I was not attempting to deceive you again,' the Sparrow said, sounding suddenly more conciliatory. 'That is a period of our history which we have grown to regret. It is a thing we would prefer not to think about.'

Huh?

Hold on just a minute here.

Hector kept his poker face, but what the fuck kind of assumptions had Hanton just made about him, exactly? How old did Hanton think he was?

And more importantly... the Sparrows really did try to take over half the world at some point? When the hell did that happen? Sure, he hadn't paid much attention during history class in school, but he was fairly certain that he would've remembered it if one of his teachers had ever told him that a race of gigantic super-birds had once attempted to conquer humanity.