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sandry

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There's a young girl sitting in Milliways with a steaming mug of tea in her hands. With summer wearing on in Emelan, Milliways is a bit chilly by comparison. Enough to make her glad of the extra layers of black cambric she's wearing this evening, and even of the black veil covering her hair.

Sandry has spent the day visiting her great uncle at his citadel in Summersea. It's for this reason that she's wearing her fine mourning instead of a more comfortable dress. Duke Vedris is not the sort of man to fuss at her over her clothes, but Sandry knows that he appreciates his niece being turned out properly.

It had been a very nice visit, and Sandry looks happier than a child clad all in black should rightly look.

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"I believe there's a reason I was brought here. I don't know whether it's to teach people about my world, or to learn from people here and bring those lessons home with me, but it can't just be an accident that I'm here. That all of us are here." He nods.

"What do nobles do? I don't think we have any."

"Well they...they're...."

Sandry pauses, looking stumped. Royalty and nobility are the normal order of things in her world. She's never thought in terms of how to explain the system to someone.

"Well," she ventures. "In my world, countries are ruled by families--and rule is handed down through the families. That's the highest form of nobility. Dukes and duchesses, kings and queens, emperors and empresses."

"And the countries are divided up among lesser nobles who are responsible to the ruler, and responsible for the people and the lands that they govern."

"I'm probably not explaining it very well," she says, looking a bit chagrined.

He listens attentively, never having heard of the idea before.

"Who chooses the families? Are they gifted at leading people, are they particularly wise? We have city-masters, but they are chosen, and it doesn't run in families."

"I....I don't quite know," Sandry admits. "No one chooses them, really. It's a birthright."

"I suppose that at some point in history they were just the families who had the power to lead. Many people say that ruling families hold their power at the will and pleasure of the gods."

"My great-uncle is the ruler of Emelan. He's very wise. And kind."

Granted, Sandry is a bit biased, but Duke Vedris is well respected as a ruler by people other than his young niece.

"Sometimes, things happened so long ago that nobody knows why they still are, but they're tradition and so they continue. Are the people happy? Do they have someone to go to if they have problems that need to be fixed?"

People are pretty much equal, in his world, but it doesn't seem to be the case in most other worlds he's heard about. Still, as long as the people have a voice...

"Well," Sandry shifts a tad uncomfortably. "I suppose it depends on the ruler in question."

Duke Vedris? Yes. Sandry's cousin, the Empress of Namorn? Sandry might hesitate to endorse her quite so heartily.

"But my uncle is a very fair man, and always willing to listen to people."

"How does it work where you are? Is no one really in charge?"

"We have our city-masters, they're in charge of the cities. Our priests were in charge of them, and of everything else, but we don't have them now, so we have the Council instead. I suppose that's who's in charge of everybody, but nobody... nobody really chose us. We chose ourselves."

He takes a sip of tea. "You know, in a way, I'm surprised that they follow us."

"Why?"

People--even the ones most devoted to equality--need someone to follow.

"They're afraid, they're worried, some of them are still angry. Many of the Council are former priests, and after everything that happened, the people may not trust us."

He shrugs. "But on the other hand... all that most of our people know how to do is follow. They have been sheltered and protected all their lives, kept away from anything troubling or unjoyful. They'd probably follow anybody who played the part of a leader... which isn't good."

"Only if you're a bad leader."

This seems a reasonable enough line of thought to Sandry.

"But they need to be able to do things for themselves. We all do. What good is it if everyone just does what they're told, because they're told to do it? Wouldn't it be better if they thought about it, and then did it because it's the right thing to do?"

He shakes his head. "We had dishonest leaders for hundreds of years. We need to learn from that, and not let it happen again. I know the people on the Council are good, but that's now. What about ten years from now?"

Sandry does not know the answers to all these questions. She's quite young after all, and sheltered herself in many ways.

But that does not stop her from taking a stab at it.

"Then you'll learn. And you'll help them learn, if you're a leader."

"Maybe that's why you're here."

"Most of what I've seen here, we don't have at home. But I've learned so much already--some good things, some troubling. Hopefully it'll be enough to keep things from going very wrong, back home."

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