"Welcome then, Siasi," he said, spreading his arms wide.  "I offer my condolences that your Expedition bore no success."
	"Some seem to think it has."
	He smiled.  "But I know you are unhappy with the results, as am I."  Derrash walked forward, coming within arm's reach of Siasi.  "I don't know what cause you have for being here, but I would like to discuss your Expedition further.  Would you take lunch with me?"
	Maybe he thought the soldiers watching would keep her from refusing, but a chance to hear what he had to say away from the need to impress a crowd was better than she had hoped to get.  She agreed.  Looking around, Derrash beckoned a red-sashed soldier forward.  After a quick word and a shouted order from the soldier, the others assembled in front of the Hall began to disperse.
	Leading her up the broad steps into the curved front of the building, four soldiers fell in step with them, two on either side.  Derrash walked ahead of her at a brisk pace, leaving her with a view of the heavy medallions hanging from his shoulder cape as they bounced and jostled with each step.
	A fleeting glimpse of the inner Hall itself passed by too quickly for Siasi's liking before Derrash took them down a wide hallway running the length of one curved arm of the crescent.
	"I prefer to eat in the garden when I can," came the clansire's offhanded rumble.  "Birdsong both sooths and saddens me.  I enjoy its presence, but I find it unfortunate and perhaps even shameful that our own species hasn't seen fit to create anything like it.  We have our music, yes, but nothing even close to what Qiiro itself makes."
	As if to emphasize his point, he flung open a door and daylight greeted them again.  The space beyond the doorway was full of dazzling greens, oranges, yellows, reds, blues, and any combination between.
	Siasi walked past him into the garden, though he was quick to overtake her again.  "I can't see how your personal tastes are related to the faults you claim in those you have forced out of your clan," she said, taking the offered seat at a table in the speckled shade of a flowering tree.
	The clansire answered with a gravely sigh.  Beside them, the guards stepped away to the edges of the small space under the tree.  Another two appeared, carrying fine wooden platters of drink and fresh-baked bread.
	"I am hardly forcing them out," he said.  "There are still places for them within this clan, well-suited for those of their status."
	"And why does that status even matter in the first place?"
	Derrash blinked and gave her a keen scowl, as if the answer was obvious.  "Qiiro needs strength, Siasi.  It needs those who can, not those who must be shown how."
	The robe hid the bristles on the back of her neck rising in anger, and she kept her expression as calm as she could.  "Is that so," she forced out from between gritted teeth, well aware of the armed guards watching them.
	"It is," Derrash said blithely.  He took another swig of his drink, then turned his eyes back on her, an uncomfortable intensity behind his expression.  "I find it surprising that you care so much.  Surely you feel the same way; your words about these human creatures suggested as much.  I agree with the actions you took, personally."
	She motioned for him to continue.
	"Your Expedition leader, Chrius, I believe?  Chrius showed the exact sort of weakness I would see removed from our world.  A sentimentality for odd and lesser things is what brought us to this point, and for one such as him to echo that, well," he paused.  "It is disappointing.  That Deyenssa is barely different, so many years after you left, points to it being a clan-wide problem.  And now these lies she insists they tell, disgraceful."
	"Lies?"
	"Of their world," he waved a large hand.  "Their 'Uhrth.'  The supposed miracles they've worked without the influence of Benefactors to guide them.  A ridiculous notion, and one I can see is clearly a ploy to rile those of my clan she has taken from me.  I hope that since you have come here, you could silence those lies and expose these four things as convenient new puppets for a clansire at the end of her resolve."
	All sense of polite compliance slipped away as Siasi sneered.  "I may not have seen the point in staying with them as long as we did, but the truth is as they tell it.  They had no Benefactors, and by their hands alone they have made their way to the stars."
	Whispers rippled through the handful of guards around them.  Derrash narrowed his eyes, but Siasi caught a flash of fear behind them.  "You lie," he hissed.  "We alone have made Qiiro what it is!  Those without our gifts have nothing to offer this world or any other.  You sought to kill them on your Expedition, so why do you now defend them?"