( Click of his tongue a little mean, a little forced. Neither bitterness, nor impatience, but their strained reunion. )

I worked there, boy. In Ellethia's finest. If I didn't admire it, I wouldn't have participated, now would have I?

( But he's shrugging, and this round, it's to signal, he did, oh, he did. )

Can't be thinking there's much you can make an old mule do, if he doesn't want to, now can you? Though I wasn't there for any mirrors, me. Sounds too brittle. Too fragile. You don't make good work out of something that breaks.