"It only snows high up in the north where I come from, and I never sailed that far from home, I had things to keep me busy but a friend came from there. They have ships with prows built specially to break the ice so they aren't entirely cut off since the snows come all year round." Enough that her father rarely ventures there unless he must, since too often it's too long a trip over the ice to and from his ship to make it in a day and back so he can sleep aboard his ship as is his custom. If she can't talk about this to anyone else, it can be a letter, tucked away amidst the stack of letters neatly hidden away in her and Korrin's room. Letters never to be sent anywhere but it does something to ease the guilt in her heart all the same.
"You know, I'm sure there was a salve people were working on in the Western Approach? I don't have to worry so much, but if you get a light loose scarf, you can wear it over much lighter clothing but protect your skin too. Avoiding the worst heat of the day helps; we sleep in the mid-afternoon where I come from, when the heat makes it too much to do anything." Honestly she's probably going to miss her afternoon naps keeping to a sleep schedule on this trip so sorry in advance if she gets grumbly. Doing all your sleeping at once, what a dumb idea.
How to explain a faith that's real when you carry it with you, when so long as you believe it's real but the things in books? Ah, those things, those are just stories people make up. She's quiet for a time, trying to find the right words. "Anything? Everything? No spells...but there is a country called Ebeos where they tell of a monster that would hunt you down if it knew your true name or face, and so it could only be defeated by twins who wore a mask shared a name, and the creature could not attack because it did not know the truth. In the streets magic is card tricks, breathing fire, pulling a thing from behind an ear but it's quick hands and flourish and distraction and reading a person.
"Not magic, not when you know how it works," she explains because there's a difference between the stories of Nerissa's home, the magic in a book, and the street performers who offer to dazzle with magic tricks. "But there are things in the sea you might say are magic, or the monster in Ebeos, or the Snow-Bear Maiden in Albas, tales from Corundus, ZImevur, Estene. Breathe life in a thing, even if you haven't seen it how can it not be real. A mermaid made the moon. That is real, I believe but-" Stopping there, she shrugs lightly as she can because it's real, it isn't faith when she knows it in her blood and bones the way an Andrastian knows their lady freed slaves before she was burned upon a pyre with a knife thrust through her heart but people are people. People don't always make sense.
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"You know, I'm sure there was a salve people were working on in the Western Approach? I don't have to worry so much, but if you get a light loose scarf, you can wear it over much lighter clothing but protect your skin too. Avoiding the worst heat of the day helps; we sleep in the mid-afternoon where I come from, when the heat makes it too much to do anything." Honestly she's probably going to miss her afternoon naps keeping to a sleep schedule on this trip so sorry in advance if she gets grumbly. Doing all your sleeping at once, what a dumb idea.
How to explain a faith that's real when you carry it with you, when so long as you believe it's real but the things in books? Ah, those things, those are just stories people make up. She's quiet for a time, trying to find the right words. "Anything? Everything? No spells...but there is a country called Ebeos where they tell of a monster that would hunt you down if it knew your true name or face, and so it could only be defeated by twins who wore a mask shared a name, and the creature could not attack because it did not know the truth. In the streets magic is card tricks, breathing fire, pulling a thing from behind an ear but it's quick hands and flourish and distraction and reading a person.
"Not magic, not when you know how it works," she explains because there's a difference between the stories of Nerissa's home, the magic in a book, and the street performers who offer to dazzle with magic tricks. "But there are things in the sea you might say are magic, or the monster in Ebeos, or the Snow-Bear Maiden in Albas, tales from Corundus, ZImevur, Estene. Breathe life in a thing, even if you haven't seen it how can it not be real. A mermaid made the moon. That is real, I believe but-" Stopping there, she shrugs lightly as she can because it's real, it isn't faith when she knows it in her blood and bones the way an Andrastian knows their lady freed slaves before she was burned upon a pyre with a knife thrust through her heart but people are people. People don't always make sense.