Maea
The kind of flawless they think I should be
Nodding quietly while she listened, Maea struggled to wrap her head around his turn of phrase at times. His way of speaking was different, är though his tongue was used to a different way of forming the words, another language and pace very foreign to the speech she was used to. But though it was more of a challenge, Are did get his point across and Maea frowned into the distance, thinking as they meandered over the region so long forbidden to their kind.
"I think there are more skilled crafters here than it seems. We're... very isolated, you know. I don't know how much you've learned of this place yet, but the barrier that surrounds the Spire has been in place for three centuries now. No one leaves, and the only ones who ever entered was the occasional Outlander. Influence from the outside has been minimal, and trade is reduced to neighbors borrowing from each other."
Pushing a stray lock of ivory hair behind an ear, she tried to imagine a system larger than this, more complex... but imagination failed her, and all the saw was more of the same ruins, the same people shifting the same wares. Though logic and history taught her there ought to be more, Maea had never experienced it, and could not wrap her head around it.
"Because everyone needs to look after themselves, many skills are passed on rudimentarily to everyone. Some specialize of course, but out on the farms you have to be a farmer and a hunter, a builder and thatcher, weaver, sower and tailor all at once. Otherwise you won't get by. So the people have grown independent, stubborn and unyielding. And the result..."
She gestured with some exasperation towards the people gathered around the tower, too distant to make out any individuals but not far enough that the general pig-headed mood could be missed.
"When someone tries to force their hand, this happens. All it took was someone acting in their name without consulting them... and now it would take weapons and violence, or some magic of the gods to move them."
It was maddening, frustrating, because what she wanted to do was just as much forcing their hand as the attack on the demon.
"I think there are more skilled crafters here than it seems. We're... very isolated, you know. I don't know how much you've learned of this place yet, but the barrier that surrounds the Spire has been in place for three centuries now. No one leaves, and the only ones who ever entered was the occasional Outlander. Influence from the outside has been minimal, and trade is reduced to neighbors borrowing from each other."
Pushing a stray lock of ivory hair behind an ear, she tried to imagine a system larger than this, more complex... but imagination failed her, and all the saw was more of the same ruins, the same people shifting the same wares. Though logic and history taught her there ought to be more, Maea had never experienced it, and could not wrap her head around it.
"Because everyone needs to look after themselves, many skills are passed on rudimentarily to everyone. Some specialize of course, but out on the farms you have to be a farmer and a hunter, a builder and thatcher, weaver, sower and tailor all at once. Otherwise you won't get by. So the people have grown independent, stubborn and unyielding. And the result..."
She gestured with some exasperation towards the people gathered around the tower, too distant to make out any individuals but not far enough that the general pig-headed mood could be missed.
"When someone tries to force their hand, this happens. All it took was someone acting in their name without consulting them... and now it would take weapons and violence, or some magic of the gods to move them."
It was maddening, frustrating, because what she wanted to do was just as much forcing their hand as the attack on the demon.
The kind of flawless I wish I could be
