god I’m once again thinking about that conversation between voski and thi on the edge of camp by the light of their altar candles. voski says, i don’t know that i believe in the dawnfather or the everlight as my mother does. but it reminds me that i am small in the world and that is a good thing. thi brings a wooden mask to share with their ancestors—their father’s family, people who were not made of metal or wood but whom they’ve been taught they come from, somehow, nonetheless. voski says, i hope your message goes where you want it to, and thi laughs not unkindly and says, i hope so too. i’m doing it in the wrong place. voski wants, deeply, the same comfort her mother finds in worship. thi has tried, deeply, to find the rootedness and confidence that their dad has in the ashari that keeps him from leaving. but ultimately voski has not yet found their peace with the gods in ehas. and ultimately the difference between thi and an is that thi will die in an alley out in ehas and feel like they haven’t failed so long as they left and tried, and an will live his whole life in the wastemarsh pouring all his magic into its soil.
just. something about two people working hard towards a brutal sense of hope. about two people who respect dangerous things but who also respect the tenuousness of candles flickering at twilight away from camp. people who feel, acutely, the difference between their parents’ rituals and their own versions of them but who try anyway. a fundamental sense of disconnect and connection at the same time.
man i just. they’re so different in so many ways and they have such different relationships with their family they’re almost opposites but somehow? there’s something here about two people on the edge of camp lighting candles and offering honey and flashing mirrors. and they didn’t get to know each other for that long. what voski wants to be in the party right now is a friend.