"Indeed, had that been my goal, I would've had no reason to do so," he agrees, polite. If, for instance, he had wished to go home and viewed his time here as temporary, as is so common to those who arrived the way he did. "This is the world that I live in, however, and food and shelter do not a life make."

He considers how to put it, and then says, matter of fact, "I have the same thing in common with those who arrived here as I did that you do, Seeker; my life has been interrupted and threatened by these rifts." And that's the only thing they have in common, but he doesn't feel an urgent need to dwell on it. He's illustrating a point, and his distance from the other rifters isn't really the point. "This thing in my hand has one use to it, and that is putting me in a position to contribute to the efforts to make sure there's a world to have a life in where that's not true. It's not in my nature to sit back and expect that others will do all the work while I simply enjoy the benefit later on."

He also doesn't delegate well. It's something he'd have had to work on, were he still on track to become Lord Preceptor of the Pandion Order, but as he's not, he totally hasn't.