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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 1 of 2))
During the wait, Hector was also able to meet the Vanguardian servant and reaper pair that were stationed here. Their names were Carl Rondel and Joviza, and they were about as stiff and formal as could be. Roman and Voreese had departed before that meeting, and despite Garovel's best efforts to lighten the mood of the conversation, the Vanguardians did not appear to loosen up at all.

They didn't express any gratitude to Hector for killing the Beast of Lorent, either. Which was perfectly fine with Hector, honestly, seeing as he'd actually grown a bit exhausted of hearing people praising him about that. He might not have even noticed if Garovel hadn't brought it up after the fact.

'What difference does it make?' said Hector.

'Not much, perhaps,' said Garovel. 'But I do feel it demonstrates a concerning lack of political savvy, if nothing else. That Rondel guy is supposed to be an advisor to the President. It's not very comforting to me when the Abolish advisor is seemingly much more personable than the Vanguardian one.'

Hector found that logic difficult to argue with. Ravi had been pretty polite and charming, which probably went a long way around here. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more Carl and Ravi seemed like complete opposites of one another.

It made him curious to see the two of them interact, but he never saw them together. Maybe he would get to see that either during or after his meeting with the President--which drew close when the wait for the Atreyan negotiator finally ended.

Prince David of House Lumenbel was a man that Hector had come to know fairly well but not seen in quite a while--or what felt like quite a while, at least. Hector was only too happy to have him here now.

Briefly, Hector had thought that the Queen might have changed her mind without telling him and sent Hanton as the negotiator instead, but no, the Sparrow had simply decided to show up in his human form all on his own, citing the reason for his visit to the Lorentians as "a wonderful coincidence."

Oddly enough, they seemed to buy it, which made Hector wonder if Hanton was influencing their minds in some way.