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Hector could appreciate that--or the sentiment of it, at least. Previously, he’d thought that he and Garovel were more in line with the Vanguardian mission of proactively engaging the enemy, but after all they’d been through, he was starting to wonder if they might actually have more in common with the approach that Ericoros was describing.

Not that it always had to be one or the other. Context certainly made a difference, he felt.

‘At the risk of sounding like a contrarian,’ said Garovel, ‘I am not sure you can rightly say that she fosters those sentiments in ALL of her followers when we were just talking about how much of a problem Ariana was.’

‘Hmph. Yes, you are semantically correct. I should not have said all. But the broad point remains true. And I’m sure I do not even need to begin listing examples of how certain Vanguardians throughout history have not lived up to their purported ideals, either.’

‘No, you do not.’

The conversation continued on the same subject for a bit longer, with the reapers going back and forth but not really giving much ground or providing new details. Eventually, however, Garovel shifted topics with a new question, addressed to Grigozo.

‘Oh, by the way, I was meaning to ask, how old was Banda, exactly?’

‘One hundred and forty-one,’ said Grigozo. ‘Why do you ask?’

Hector’s eyes widened, and he blinked a couple times.

‘Just curious,’ said Garovel. ‘Do you know how old Bloodeye is, too?’

‘One hundred and seventy-six,’ said Grigozo.

Wait, what the fuck?

The reapers were still talking, but Hector had stopped listening. All of his thought processes were suddenly stuck on what he’d just heard.

Those ages.

Banda had been that fucking old?

But even more importantly...

Hector had thought he already knew how old Bloodeye was. One hundred and thirty-three. That was the information that he’d pulled out of the Candle. He still had no idea where the Candle had gotten that number from--and maybe he never would, either--but now that Grigozo was contradicting it...

What did this mean? Hold on. Didn’t it mean... that...?

Oh god.

It meant that the Candle wasn’t always accurate, didn’t it?

So all the information that had been fed directly into his brain by the Forge...

He had to take it all with a grain of salt now, didn’t he? It wasn’t just some kind of magically perfect reservoir of indisputable knowledge, was it?

One of his hands slowly found his forehead as his gaze sunk to the nightrock floor.

Aw, fuck, dude...