[ It's less that Emmrich doesn't consider failure to be an option than that he accepts the possibility of it, the same way he accepts that death waits for all of them, in one way or another. He'd tortured himself about that inevitability, once, twisted himself into endless knots, but— he doesn't need to fear it, now. Doesn't fear it, when he wears proof of devotion around his ankle.

Gently (surely): ] Of course it matters, August.

[ But he lets that go for the moment. Purpose is better served by its own discussion, not as part of another whole. ]

There's always a reason. Perhaps not the kind of cosmic, all-important reason we'd like, but— it can be as simple as, "We are warm, because it's summer." "He bled out, because he was wounded." We are here because something brought us here. If we know what that something is, does that not leave us better off than we began?

[ Emmrich shrugs, as if to say he isn't trying to impress his own views upon August, but rather to explain his own path, why he's chosen to go through the metaphorical woods rather than around them. ]

All that to say, I shall hope my fool's hope that you'll find something in your research. And I'll be sure to share my own discoveries with you, in turn.