>>6161294“Hey, uh, while you were down South, did ya’ see any, like… Demonists?”
Martyn blinks a couple times, and then crooks a brown as his lip twitches in amusement.
“Demonists? That’s quite the segue, Cara…”
“Well, ya’ know, everyone says there’s tons of ‘em down there!?” <span class="mu-g">you</span> say, suddenly self-conscious. “Like, they say that’s why it’s so hot down there, an’ why everyone’s all black… They’re closer ta the Hells, ‘n the fire burns ‘em an’ warms the whole place up!”
Martyn laughs aloud at that, and you laugh with him. You know THAT much is bullshit, after all—you know a mage who does all kinds of extraplanar travel, and that it’s not a matter of how near or far you are to any physical location on or under) the Earth! Plus, cheering Martyn back up cheers You up, so why not laugh?
(And it’s not like you don’t have legitimate cause to be interested in a land of weird-looking people who are maybe a little more okay with demons and occult practices…)
“I spent most of my time with the Abatwa, I must admit,” Martyn confesses. “Our people—that is, those ‘demihumans’ or ‘little folk’ most closely related to we Bwbachod and Gnomus—have always been near and dear to me… Our old cultrues, especially. So many of them are disappearing into the culture of the big folk around us… I guess I just wanted someone to document them.”
“So you didn’t learn nothin’ ‘bout the humies down there?” you press.
“I wouldn’t say NOTHING,” Martyn says with a smile, and you scoot closer, eager as a little gobling.
(Gods, he even SMELLS like a meadow… What is that, perfume? Just how he naturally smells?)
“The first thing you need to understand, to understand the Men of the Southlands, is that there is no ‘Southlands’.”
“…Huh?”
Martyn nods, as if apprehending your confusion, and clarifies quickly and without condescension:
“The Northlands and the humans here… They haven’t always been unified, under Hawksong and the paladins. Even three-hundred, four-hundred years ago, they were largely independent polities, connected by trade routes but with their own borders, their own armies, their own kings. As the Paladin King’s power overtook the others’, he and his descendants brought everyone else into the fold, and unified the kingdoms into something like an empire, with a common tongue, and shared understanding of the Gods and spirits… And demons… And how to relate to them all.”
“An’ that never happened down South?” you intuit.
Martyn grins at that, and you feel your heart flutter, eager to be the dutiful pupil.
