Phei laughed properly then; he was so pleased with her.
There was something strangely refreshing about how freely she spoke about everything:
Maybe that was simply her personality. Maybe thousands of years of existing had burned away the expectation that defeat needed to come wrapped in pride and resentment.
The Queen, Dragonkin and many of the others he'd enslaved were not from Earth.
They came from different Realms where strength shaped life more directly, where being captured by someone stronger or losing everything because your enemy possessed greater power was hardly some unimaginable violation of the natural order.
They had also lived long enough to understand how vicious that world could become when nobody powerful cared whether you deserved what happened.
Still, personality clearly mattered too despite them knowing the reality they'd used to live in.
