It`s safe to love you. You won`t fail me. You won`t die. And I know the price upfront.
He`s been smiling for hours: teeth clenched, lips drawn back, eyes crinkled so the crow`s feet show. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.
The ending of one story is just the beginning of another.
"You`re firemountain-glass, Dama." He says this very softly. "You`re a gift of the earth — but Father Earth hates us, never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe. If we pick you up, hone you to sharpness, treat you with the care and respect you deserve, then you become valuable. But if we just leave you lying about, you`ll cut to the bone the first person who blunders across you. Or worse — you`ll shatter, and hurt many."
"Don`t look back," Schaffa advises. "It`s easier that way." So she doesn`t. Later, she will realize he was right about this, too.
Much later, though, she will wish that she had done it anyway.
You`re still trying to decide who to be. The self you`ve been lately doesn`t make sense anymore; that woman died with Uche. She`s not useful, unobtrusive as she is, quiet as she is, ordinary as she is. Not when such extraordinary things have happened.
Syen takes another sip, trying not to grimace at the chalky grit near the bottom of the cup. Safe is nutritious, but it`s not a drink anyone enjoys. It`s made from a plant milk that changes color in the presence of any contaminant, even spit. It`s served to guests and at meetings because, well, it`s safe. A polite gesture that says: I`m not poisoning you. At least, not right now.
"You weren`t born here," he says, cold now. Belatedly she realizes it`s a question.
"No." She doesn`t like being the one on the receiving end of the questions. "Were you?"
"Oh, yes. I was bred to order." He smiles, and it`s strange seeing a smile layered over all that hate. "Not even as haphazardly as our child will be. I`m the product of two of the Fulcrum`s oldest and most promising lineages, or so I`m told. I had a Guardian practically from birth." He shoves his hands into the pockets of his rumpled robe. "You`re a feral."
This comes out of nowhere. Syen actually spends a second wondering if this is some new way of saying rogga and then realizing what he really means. Oh, that is just hte limit. "Look, I don`t care how many rings you wear—"
"That`s what they call you, I mean." He smiles again, and his bitterness so resonates with her own that hse falls islent in confusion. "If you didn`t know. Ferals — the ones from the outside — often don`t know, or care. But when an orogene is born from parents who weren`t, from a family line that`s never shown the curse before, that`s how they think of you. A wild mutt to my domesticated purebred. An accident, to my plan." He shakes his head; it makes his voice shake. "What it actually means is that they couldn`t predict you. You`re the proof that they`ll never understand orogeny; it`s not science, it`s something else. And they`ll never control us, not really. Not completely."
Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at these contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they`ll break themselves trying for what they`ll never achieve.
Невозможно забыть сказки, которые мы себе рассказываем, даже если их должна была вытеснить правда.