"I couldn't have, no," he says, simply. "I do not have a 'destiny' or any such thing. I am an outgrowth of an office, I have a kind of mythic level power that few things on my home world can match, but I am beholden without question to what I am. I could no more stop being the Lord of the Underworld than a flower could voluntarily stop being a flower," he pauses a moment, smiles slightly, "I don't expect that to be something that could be easily understood. Every human I have told that is horrified. But it's what makes all of you fascinating. You have all of the choices I do not and yet, you often close off those choices until there is only one option left."

"And yes, in fact," he thinks about it for a moment, "I'm sure such contracts exist among LIERs but I haven't met anyone who was brought here who I would say is in an abusive pairing. It's by far the norm that these contracts are, at worst, mostly indifferent and for survival, but usually mutually beneficial." Again with the smile turning warmer, "My lady and I do seem to be unusual in the opposite direction, in that even in my long life, I have rarely found such a sense of partnership as with her. If we did not have to be contracted by the city, I imagine we would have formed other contracts by now. I gather that is fairly unusual in this place, for LIERs and the native citizens alike."