with a reverence unimpaired

Obstinance met with obstinance is rarely a healthy match, and it is the only the magic ministrations of the whale which keep Amalia from collapsing into tears, though whether from frustration or exhaustion would be hard to say. Has she not been clear in her guilt, the weight of the mistakes that rides on her shoulder, weighing her down until she might drown? "I want to learn from the old mistakes, so we don't repeat them. And from the new ones, too. I don't know how the world works, so teach me, so I can keep my people from breaking it again." My people- as though she has any say. How bizarre, that the anxious baker who lives in loneliness should find herself in position of emissary, trying to fix a mistake she tried so desperately not to make. But here she is, staring down a magical creature and standing at the precipice of disaster or alliance, utterly lost as to how to tread. What would her mother say, to see her here? "I won't let you sacrifice my friends. There has to be another way." Amalia Her eyes, they know too much. She'll treat you like somebody but you just can't touch.