>>6178175ohhhh boy was this update a doozy to write.Your hand brushes against the bas-relief, the cool smooth stone. Who knows who carved this, so many years ago.“Master told me about this,” you murmur, raising your luminiferous rod to show more details. The wall shows scenes of Bragia Lacresta’s early life: from when she was little younger than you were when merchants came to destroy everything your family worked for. “These are scenes from Saint Bragia’s childhood. She was born in a destitute family, deep in the Night Lands, so far away from the light of Ansàrra.”
“Another country bumpkin,” Willow nods, her smile showing a hint of that confidence you used to see so often in her smirk. “We know she is so similar to you.”
“Not just to me. Here,” you add, taking a step. As the staircase keeps climbing, the scenes continue, depicting the dreary life of people living under the darkness of the planetary ring, where Her sun is greyish and the day little brighter than dusk. The young girl and her friend working together in the fields, helping the others in their community — without a family to take care of her, at least the village did seem to care for their young.
Willow watches, her eyes lingering over the figurines with every step, just as Soralisa’s excited murmur reaches your ears from below, commenting the Temple’s carvings together with Rubida and even the Asterite.
But you would rather that Willow understood.
“She was born in the mud,” you say, taking Willow’s hand — she jolts — and making her touch the cool hard stone where a young Saint Bragia stands before some kind of rock pillar, perhaps some Kiengiri ruin of old, perhaps some heathen barrow. “And Ansàrra found her and raised her. Not because of what she could do or how great she could be. No matter her faults. A wanderer… uprooted from her land. A stranger.”
Willow sighs, turning her head away from the carvings, rubbing against her chest.
“I have more faults than you know.”
