[He scoots the second mug of coffee towards Hunter - it's his if he wants it - and settles in. Lasardhi is awful and the continent is a mess - where does he even start?]

[Where he'd left off is probably the best place. He sighs.]

I told you we all look alike, and we can't modify our appearances, so we can't be mistaken for civilians. That's...because homunculi are weapons. We're made for war, out of corpses of actual people. Dead civs.

They make us and give us numbers, teach us how our bodies work, and put us through training - we don't get names unless we survive it. Troops, spec ops, officers - we're most of the military, and almost everyone who gets sent to the front lines, unless there are civ engineers we need to escort.

And we're supposed to be loyal. [The twist of disgust in his tone is impossible to miss, and his gaze is no longer on Hunter - it's over his shoulder and far into the past.] Protect the city, especially now that the continent is overrun with Corrupted. Everything to keep the city safe. And if we start thinking something is off - if we say Lasardhi is wrong, or that maybe protecting the city shouldn't involve killing refugees-

[He catches his hand shaking and thunks the coffee mug down on the table, splashing coffee onto the finish. It's better than the fit of rage he'd had when he'd first realized how wrong it all was, how right about everything Joba had been-]

[His voice had been rising with his anger; when he speaks again, it's flat - still angry, but not controlled so much as beaten.]

Then we get executed and recycled. They use the parts for someone a little more loyal next time.

[He finally looks back at Hunter.]

We're not people; we're government property. That's what it means to be a homunculus in Lasardhi. I...don't know if that's better or worse than being mostly extinct.

[He doesn't know what Hunter's situation back home is like, but he at least knows Hunter can hide it. That's got to count for something.]