[The quiet with which Liem listens to the god’s brief explanation goes beyond just attentiveness. Her grief and her suppressed anger weighs heavy in the air despite her smile; he isn’t able to return it, even to pretend.
He too had been thinking perhaps her people had been conquered or pushed out by a rival civilization, or had vanished from the world as the Azlanti had: smote from the sky by a meteor that had plunged the world into centuries of darkness. For an entire people’s culture to be ground up and spat out by a country from across a distant sea—]
Yes; I can.
[A country such as Taldor did not get to be so old, so large, or so wealthy without a great deal of bloodshed. All Taldans educated enough to know their history had been told of the empire’s glorious expansion campaigns, led by its numerous Armies of Exploration. Although the empire had fractured long before even Liem was born, Taldane was spoken so widely across Avistan that it was the dominant language as far west as the coast of the Arcadian Ocean.
In Taldor, this was painted as a triumph. The old days of the empire were so glorified that even in the present day, there were those who wished for their return — enough to plunge the country back into war, all for the chance to bring Taldor’s “wayward colonies” back into the fold.]
I cannot fathom what it is like, to be in your position and know such a thing.
no subject
He too had been thinking perhaps her people had been conquered or pushed out by a rival civilization, or had vanished from the world as the Azlanti had: smote from the sky by a meteor that had plunged the world into centuries of darkness. For an entire people’s culture to be ground up and spat out by a country from across a distant sea—]
Yes; I can.
[A country such as Taldor did not get to be so old, so large, or so wealthy without a great deal of bloodshed. All Taldans educated enough to know their history had been told of the empire’s glorious expansion campaigns, led by its numerous Armies of Exploration. Although the empire had fractured long before even Liem was born, Taldane was spoken so widely across Avistan that it was the dominant language as far west as the coast of the Arcadian Ocean.
In Taldor, this was painted as a triumph. The old days of the empire were so glorified that even in the present day, there were those who wished for their return — enough to plunge the country back into war, all for the chance to bring Taldor’s “wayward colonies” back into the fold.]
I cannot fathom what it is like, to be in your position and know such a thing.