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~~((The 7th Anniversary Special -- page 3 of 24?!))~~
She sometimes wondered what would've happened if, somehow, Prince David's father had chosen him for succession. Pauline would've certainly been pleased, but there was a fair chance that Prince David would've simply abdicated and ruined the whole thing, anyway.

It had all happened in such slow increments over the years, but with the benefit of hindsight, the last decade had been an absolute mess for this nation.

If only her father hadn't been removed as the Director of the Agency of Foreign Affairs. To Pauline's mind, that seemed to be the inciting incident that allowed all of these other things to follow.

If only Hanton Gaolanet had remained an advisor to King Martinus III.

Even now, nine years later, Pauline still wasn't sure why that had happened. Her father rarely spoke of it. And as she wasn't one to shy away from awkward questions, she had of course tried--multiple times by now--asking him about it directly, but he never really gave her a straight answer.

He just told her that Martinus had stopped listening to him, that their relationship had been damaged beyond repair.

Pauline hadn't really understood how that could be the case. Her father could manipulate minds. Surely, if there'd been a problem like that, he could've simply made Martinus forget about it.

But apparently not. Her father told her that things weren't always so simple. That relationships were complicated.

And that some memories couldn't be erased.

She'd pressed him for more details, of course, but he hadn't provided them.

In a broad sense, her father was obviously correct. There were certain types of memories that Sparrows could not remove from a person's mind. In general, the older a memory was, the harder it was to wipe away. Memories over time became a tangled web of interlocking images, ideas, emotions--and perhaps more. Removing all of that was incredibly complicated. If you missed any part of it, the smallest fragment of the memory, then the whole thing could be regrown, one day. Randomly, perhaps. The entire memory could rush back to the person in an epiphany-like moment--or deja vu, even.

But Pauline didn't think that was what her father had meant.

Because there was one other type of memory that was very difficult to get rid of. The type that was deeply etched into the mind, usually by way of powerful emotion.