'signs' the Prophecies spoke of… We've denied that they ever happened, but they did happen and we still don't know who was responsible for causing them."
"And we don't know who was responsible for bringing us all together," Lorand took his turn to point out. "A minute or two ago we were refusing to accept all those dreams as a coincidence, but we never questioned the even bigger coincidence that we all ended up in the same residence. We are each of us the strongest practitioner of our respective talents, and we all just happened to end up in the same residence and made into a Blending? If you can believe that , then you must also believe that the Highest Aspect leaves a copper coin under our pillows as a reward for having gone through the five-year-old tests successfully."
"It looks like someone's been makin' a lot of things happen around us," Vallant observed, vexation showing on his face as strongly as I felt it inside me. "So there's some group, large or small, makin' these things happen, but we don't know if they're friend or foe. Until we find out just what their aim is, we can't call them one or the other."
"Well, one of their aims was to bring us together," I suggested, thinking about it even as I spoke. "If they're friends of ours, they did it so that we could win the throne and get rid of the nobility. If they're enemies, they did it to put us all in the same place so we could be gotten rid of with a single effort. If we get taken down, everyone knows that no one else is as strong as we are and so they might not even put up a token struggle. By winning over us, the enemy would win over everyone else at the same time."
"I see a flaw in that logic," Lorand said, another of us almost lost to distraction. "These unknown someones have obviously known about us since before we got together in Gan Garee. Putting us all together just to conquer us at the same time makes no sense, not when they could have killed us one at a time before we knew what we were doing. If they had, there would be no 'others' to worry about, only the Middle Seated Blending the nobles picked out. Even an arrogant enemy would never go to such lengths just to best six people."
"I'm forced to agree with that," Vallant said even as Jovvi nodded her own agreement. "What's the sense in havin' almost a dozen more enemies, when killin' a few people will give you no enemies to speak of at all? These invader leaders just rolled over all opposition until it was crushed, and then it took over the people and used them for their own purposes. That means there's definitely someone else in the game."
"And we're being used by them," Jovvi said, closing the circle that I seemed to have opened. "There has definitely been someone interfering in our lives, and that fact suggests that the someone is also interfering with Naran's talent. There are things about to happen that they don't want us to know about in advance, but it shouldn't be because they're our enemies. If they weren't on our side, we would hardly be standing here discussing the matter now."
"That idea isn't very flattering," I had to point out when no one else said anything in response to Jovvi's conclusion. "Keeping us in the dark suggests that we do better reacting to a situation as it happens than we do after we think about the circumstance. If they're trying to tell us that we're not built to think, I'm definitely feeling insulted."
"I really don't believe that that's what Jovvi - or our mysterious others - are saying," Naran told me with a laugh that had everyone else joining in. "It's probably just a matter of their wanting our entity to do the reacting and thinking rather than us as individuals. Our entity does things that sometimes horrifies us afterward, and if we knew about the need in advance we might be able to influence the entity against doing what was needed."
"That makes sense to me , at least," Lorand said, looking a bit shamefaced. "The rest of you have found it easier to accept
"And we don't know who was responsible for bringing us all together," Lorand took his turn to point out. "A minute or two ago we were refusing to accept all those dreams as a coincidence, but we never questioned the even bigger coincidence that we all ended up in the same residence. We are each of us the strongest practitioner of our respective talents, and we all just happened to end up in the same residence and made into a Blending? If you can believe that , then you must also believe that the Highest Aspect leaves a copper coin under our pillows as a reward for having gone through the five-year-old tests successfully."
"It looks like someone's been makin' a lot of things happen around us," Vallant observed, vexation showing on his face as strongly as I felt it inside me. "So there's some group, large or small, makin' these things happen, but we don't know if they're friend or foe. Until we find out just what their aim is, we can't call them one or the other."
"Well, one of their aims was to bring us together," I suggested, thinking about it even as I spoke. "If they're friends of ours, they did it so that we could win the throne and get rid of the nobility. If they're enemies, they did it to put us all in the same place so we could be gotten rid of with a single effort. If we get taken down, everyone knows that no one else is as strong as we are and so they might not even put up a token struggle. By winning over us, the enemy would win over everyone else at the same time."
"I see a flaw in that logic," Lorand said, another of us almost lost to distraction. "These unknown someones have obviously known about us since before we got together in Gan Garee. Putting us all together just to conquer us at the same time makes no sense, not when they could have killed us one at a time before we knew what we were doing. If they had, there would be no 'others' to worry about, only the Middle Seated Blending the nobles picked out. Even an arrogant enemy would never go to such lengths just to best six people."
"I'm forced to agree with that," Vallant said even as Jovvi nodded her own agreement. "What's the sense in havin' almost a dozen more enemies, when killin' a few people will give you no enemies to speak of at all? These invader leaders just rolled over all opposition until it was crushed, and then it took over the people and used them for their own purposes. That means there's definitely someone else in the game."
"And we're being used by them," Jovvi said, closing the circle that I seemed to have opened. "There has definitely been someone interfering in our lives, and that fact suggests that the someone is also interfering with Naran's talent. There are things about to happen that they don't want us to know about in advance, but it shouldn't be because they're our enemies. If they weren't on our side, we would hardly be standing here discussing the matter now."
"That idea isn't very flattering," I had to point out when no one else said anything in response to Jovvi's conclusion. "Keeping us in the dark suggests that we do better reacting to a situation as it happens than we do after we think about the circumstance. If they're trying to tell us that we're not built to think, I'm definitely feeling insulted."
"I really don't believe that that's what Jovvi - or our mysterious others - are saying," Naran told me with a laugh that had everyone else joining in. "It's probably just a matter of their wanting our entity to do the reacting and thinking rather than us as individuals. Our entity does things that sometimes horrifies us afterward, and if we knew about the need in advance we might be able to influence the entity against doing what was needed."
"That makes sense to me , at least," Lorand said, looking a bit shamefaced. "The rest of you have found it easier to accept
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