#abiajan

"Such a curious memory," she said. "That life feels like a dream now. I remember pain. Confusion. A stern figure bringing me more pain-- though I now recognize you were seeking to heal me. So much trouble to go through for a slave child."

"I have never cared who I heal, Brightness. Slave or king."

"I'm sure the fact that Wistiow had paid good money for me had nothing to do with it." She narrowed her eyes at Lirin, and when she next spoke there was a cadence to her words, as if she were speaking the words to a song. "Did you feel for me, the poor confused slave child whose mind had been stolen from her? Did you weep for us, surgeon, and the life we led?"

"A surgeon must not weep," Lirin said softly. "A surgeon cannot afford to weep."

"Like a stone," she said again, then shook her head.

I'm just. Abiajan was the only one of Hearthstone's former parshmen to come back. She's back in the city where she was born, where she grew up, with an ancient singer name and a sleeve over her safehand, living among the people who saw her as livestock while she was a slave trapped inside her own mind. Her mind was restored one year ago. How much can you learn in one year about running a city? But she's trying her damndest, because she may not be human but she sure as shit is Alethi, and Hearthstone for all its faults is her hometown.