"Did you ever consider what a chicken thinks?" Jigano asked after a brief pause of his own to organize his thoughts. He thought back to his interactions with Ludo and Safrin, to what he had read in Safrin's Books and what he had learned from Amalia. "About anything at all, really, but about humans in particular?" He chuckled softly, though he couldn't glance at Granger where he sat on the bard's shoulder. "How powerful we must seem to them! How strange and inscrutable. We move through their world like giants, we can make food fall from the sky, or move them into shelter from the rain and snow that they never even realized we spent time building for them. For them it just appears like magic - or a miracle. And we hold the power of life and death over them, to maim or heal, to help or hurt."
He adjusted his hat against the sun, making sure to keep the mouse in its shade as well as he walked to the west with purposeful strides, unless and until Granger directed him differently. "But we aren't always there for them, are we? Sometimes they see us, but often they don't. We're near their lives, and we take care of them, but we also have other things that require our attention. Crops to tend, other animals to care for, families to feed and clean and sew for, houses to build, and times when we need to rest. Sometimes we're so busy with other things that we don't notice when a chicken is sick or injured, and it dies before we can intervene. Sometimes we're asleep or doing some other task when a fox attacks and kills some of the chickens, and by the time we get back it's too late. Sometimes we know a chicken is hurt or sick, but so is the pig, or there's been a flood or a plague on the crops, and though we might feel bad about it we have to leave the chicken to live or die on its own while we deal with the larger problem - a problem the chickens will never see and never realize exists."
He felt his lips quirk into a faint smile and gave a slight shake of his head. "Obviously people aren't chickens, and gods aren't farmers. I warned you it wasn't a perfect analogy. But think of the scale of it, rather than the specifics. What we are to chickens, that's what gods are to us. A chicken can see a human and knows some of what that human does for them, especially when it impacts their life directly, but there is so much more going on in that human's life and world than the chicken can ever really know or understand. So it is with gods and humans. They take care of us, and they see far more of the world, of existence, than we can ever comprehend, but often they leave us to our own lives, and sometimes... sometimes bad things happen and for their own reasons they can't or won't help us, and we don't understand why. But that doesn't mean their reason isn't good, just because we can't see it."
It was a lot, he knew, for a grown man to take in, much less a young boy, but Granger had been forced to grow up far too fast and he was older than his age might indicate in the experiences he had lived compared to other children his age. He was bright and quick enough to survive, and Jigano hoped that his words might make some sense to the youngster - if not now, then later in his life.
He adjusted his hat against the sun, making sure to keep the mouse in its shade as well as he walked to the west with purposeful strides, unless and until Granger directed him differently. "But we aren't always there for them, are we? Sometimes they see us, but often they don't. We're near their lives, and we take care of them, but we also have other things that require our attention. Crops to tend, other animals to care for, families to feed and clean and sew for, houses to build, and times when we need to rest. Sometimes we're so busy with other things that we don't notice when a chicken is sick or injured, and it dies before we can intervene. Sometimes we're asleep or doing some other task when a fox attacks and kills some of the chickens, and by the time we get back it's too late. Sometimes we know a chicken is hurt or sick, but so is the pig, or there's been a flood or a plague on the crops, and though we might feel bad about it we have to leave the chicken to live or die on its own while we deal with the larger problem - a problem the chickens will never see and never realize exists."
He felt his lips quirk into a faint smile and gave a slight shake of his head. "Obviously people aren't chickens, and gods aren't farmers. I warned you it wasn't a perfect analogy. But think of the scale of it, rather than the specifics. What we are to chickens, that's what gods are to us. A chicken can see a human and knows some of what that human does for them, especially when it impacts their life directly, but there is so much more going on in that human's life and world than the chicken can ever really know or understand. So it is with gods and humans. They take care of us, and they see far more of the world, of existence, than we can ever comprehend, but often they leave us to our own lives, and sometimes... sometimes bad things happen and for their own reasons they can't or won't help us, and we don't understand why. But that doesn't mean their reason isn't good, just because we can't see it."
It was a lot, he knew, for a grown man to take in, much less a young boy, but Granger had been forced to grow up far too fast and he was older than his age might indicate in the experiences he had lived compared to other children his age. He was bright and quick enough to survive, and Jigano hoped that his words might make some sense to the youngster - if not now, then later in his life.
