[Estinien wonders if Sam had similar reasons for wanting to enlist so eagerly. It's hard to imagine what conflicts might be happening on these foreign words, or if he'd even be able to understand the culture surrounding them. Then again, as many thing feel the same as they do different.

He doesn't really know how to answer Sam at first, because knowing what to think of himself as has been a major point of contention for some time now. He retired, officially speaking, but has that really made any difference? Is it possible for him to see the world in another way at this point?]

I suppose I am. If you can be a soldier while serving no particular nation. [Of course his heart would always lay with Ishgard, but he hasn't purely kept himself to missions involving his homeland. At this stage of the conflict, everything is hopelessly tangled together, anyway.]

When the war in my homeland ended, I laid down mine official titles, but not long after I was drafted to aid an organization called the Scions. Less a military, and more an organization tasked with solving everyone's problems, regardless of nation.

[He says that dryly, as if suggesting that he finds such an endeavor somewhat funny in how masochistic it is.]

I've never known a time that there wasn't a war to fight. 'Tis the same work, when it comes down to it.