Pursuit of the Sun 1.2

- This is very rational on the part of the nobility... You previously asked what it means not to be human. This question stems from what it means to be human, and it has worried people throughout the ages, so I have studied it, and I have collected quite a lot of material. For now, this concept seems vague to me. Once, I met a hermit living in a dugout. He was delirious and mistook me for a ghost. And he remembered his past, where he was a skilled orator, a philosopher, and he expressed something along those lines. He said that it is possible to deconstruct it to its most basic components, if one only wants to. Is a person a person if they are of sound mind? If so, then we will exclude the insane, the seriously ill, the sleeping, or the newborn. The hermit recalled a case - it is difficult to say whether it was invented or real - about how he had to sit in confinement, in a closed space with another prisoner, and that one behaved very strangely and inappropriately, irritating him in every way. "After some time, I already felt like I was no longer a human, damn it, but a ferocious beast, and I wanted to kill him or bury him," he said.
He also raised the question of ethics: is a person a person if they live in a hostile tribe or kingdom, do not observe your laws or faith, commit atrocities against you? Is a cruel bandit a person? Many would not call him that, especially the loved ones of those he killed. A tyrant in power will not call his slave or subject, whom he exploits mercilessly, a person, and that one will not consider his suzerain to be one either. Therefore, humanity seems to be overrated. It sounds like something that a "creature" might answer, doesn't it? - her lips curved slightly into a thin, indifferent smile.

- All of his logic can be easily refuted by something very simple and straightforward, for example: "a person is a person, it's obvious." But if such an answer satisfied everyone, would these restless minds ask themselves these questions? - her eyes notice a tiny wrinkle on her clothes, and her hands smooth it out with mechanical precision. - I have no need to fill my stomach with bread or dull my consciousness - is that what it's called? - with beer, emptiness has saved me from the endless running in a wheel. Perhaps some of her adepts would like the idea that I am her eyes, to witness the brief moment of existence of those who were unlucky enough to be born with an awareness of the horror of their inevitable departure to it. I don't know, and it doesn't matter to me. Perhaps your sorcerer was able to find out something meaningful.

Her leg smoothly moves from one to the other:
- Where will we go next - to a new war? I know that many peoples like to warm their blood and replenish their supplies at the expense of others, after long winters.