[ self-righteousness is such a heady drug, isn't it? it inoculates against doubt. it guards from criticism. it is the poison that leads you to be blind to any belief that detracts from your own.

to the end, walhart believed himself true. he cannot have been the only one of his kind, for him to have amassed such a following. on an academic, purely utilitarian level, robin can understand walhart's logic, but not the means.

chrom, though. now, there's a topic both more and less fraught. ]

... Chrom was my friend. He wanted to be nothing like his father, a man who he later related to me must have greatly resembled Walhart. [ says robin, carefully. ] I supported him, yes. I swore to, when he threatened to waver and break in the wake of his sister's death.

[ and perhaps, what may not be a surprise to jing yuan, who has already noted the traces of sorrow in his gaze earlier, and may now note the continued used of past tense: ]

He has, however, been dead for longer than I actually ever knew him for.