A M A L I A
It is we who have been removed.
Six words. One sentence. A whisper of doubt builds steady and certain, a snowball rolling into an avalanche as the words replay in her mind. "Removed?" Amalia's tongue forms the word mechanically, her lips whisper it reverently, but her brain still struggles to reconcile it all. "We were... removed?"
The goddess' attestation that it has not been much time matters little to a mortal: Amalia was born within this cage, as were her mother and grandmother before her. That she may not die within it is a foreign thought, amazing and beautiful and terrifying all at once. "What were we removed from? Are there... others? Outside? Are the Old Ones out there?" Her low voice quivers, but does not break. Hope and fear wage a war within her; she is still too nonplussed for one emotion to win.
That this situation could be temporary amazes the girl. That it may not be temporary appalls her. Though mere minutes ago resigned to her fate, to have freedom offered and snatched away is more than the girl can quietly take. Anger blazes righteous in her heart, agonizing aspiration biting at her heels. "Why not?" Amalia questions, demands, though she is quick to add a note of reverence. "Your Radiance- if there's a world outside, if the gods are outside, why can't we be? Why are we here?"
