Rene smiled at Solae across the table. He wondered if he had left Cappela of his own free will what he would have missed. All nobles grew up in a hot house environment, where image and appearance were hyper important. Although he had never really thought about it there wasn’t a tremendous amount about his life that he had missed. Perhaps it was a function of having left at an age before he had been expected to find a calling for himself. It was expected that he would eventually find some way to be of service. The Du Quentain family maintained itself not only by its wealth, but by a tradition of making themselves useful to the Imperial family. There was a world in which Rene served as a member of the Imperial Bureaucracy as a figurehead leader for one of the many branches of government. Perhaps even in the Fleet or the Imperial Guard. Rene wondered what that would have been like. At times, when he was honest with himself, he admitted there was a dark shadow deep inside of him, the part of him that felt vibrantly alive when the bullets were flying and delighted to see his enemies cast down. How would that part of him have lived in his previously gilded life. Even as a Prefect of the Guard his options for anything other than formal duels would have been limited and Rene’s father had impressed upon him his own dislike for the process of dueling.

The wine arrived and the two aristocrats sipped at the sparkling greenish fluid for a few minutes before the food arrived. Rene had ordered a dish which consisted of thin fillets of meat layered with a rich tangy red brown sauce. It was garnished with fruit cut into intricate rosettes. There was also a hot sour soup made with unknown vegetables and a stock that might have been some kind of vegetable or fish origin. It was certainly very good and definitely very expensive even though the portion was prettier than it was filling.

“I don’t know if you would envy me if you had seen us at mess,” Rene grinned.

“With my metabolism I nearly starved the first two weeks,” he went on. The genetic modifications meant that he used energy more rapidly than an unaltered human. Faster reflexes, better muscle development, increased endurance, couldn’t be expected to run without extra caloric cost. It wasn’t typically a problem for nobels because they were designed to keep people lean and toned with no exercise. Nobody ever put their bodies through the kind of full spectrum physical training the Marines inflicted upon recruits. Rene had literally been starving even though he was getting the same nutrients as his fellow recruits. The only solution had been to deliberately cheat the system by targeting nothing but the highest calorie foods, usually starches and breads. Later he had traded extra watches and duty for food. His own peculiarities a side, a platoon of marines eating everything they could as quickly as possible would have outraged the sensibilities of anybody watching.

“Plus we have plenty of absurd rules of our own. If an officer was present, I’d have to wait till he toasted the Empress before I could eat,” Rene replied as he paused to sip some more of the wine, chasing away the unexpected spice of the soup.

“Well maybe this itsn’t so absurd, but if a lance corporal were to walk into this restaurant right now, I’d be obligated to place myself under his command.” The thought had been bothering Rene for a while. Though his former rank was stratospheric, as far as the Marines were concerned he was literally the lowest of the low. If it came down to it Rene would ignore the chain of command if it meant that Solae were better protected, or, more selfishly, to avoid being seperated from her. This was unlikely to be a problem on Zatis, but Rene’s next interaction with any kind of Imperial authority was likely to be complicated.