So Arialla's assumption was right: he was an Outlander. Arialla gave him a sympathetic look. "The Voice brought me here too -- against my will. I can't say I like her for it. I can tell you what others have told me, but I've never actually met her personally, though I have met Safrin -- one of the Old Gods."
She took a breath and thought for a moment about how she could answer his question without letting her own bitterness at the Voice's intervention in her life shine through -- though if he felt the same way, she would gladly commiserate. Even if she'd adjusted to life in Caido, accepted that she would never go home, she still would have preferred to be home than here; the things she was coming to like about Caido were not just compensation, in her mind, for everything she'd lost.
"Someone told me that the Voice's magic reached out across worlds and brought us here because, by some criteria, it decided that we were people who could help her," Arialla said. "They framed it as being chosen for this special purpose, though I personally think she should have asked first."
OK, she let a little of her anger into her voice there -- though not nearly as much as she actually felt. Pausing, she thought of something else that a new Outlander might want to know. "Osozo told me that when the Voice takes someone from their home, she doesn't leave an empty space behind -- that we're all ... copies, of the people we believe ourselves to be. They said not to worry about our families missing us, because there's still a version of us at home; no one even knows we're gone."
please don't take my sunshine away
