And so I told him tales, every tale I ever knew, tales that you'd know from the lips of your own mother and tales that I'd never told before, tales from the north and tales from the south, bought for drink on the docks of Blaine and bought for coin on Chorus's bazaar, tales I'd heard Oriental from the lips of caravans and told on the ancient isles in the southern sea, ancient tales from the Council times and tales from just the other afternoon, tales from the mouths of men and wolves and apes, tales from the cities piled in the south's green seas and writ on wind and water in the west, tales from empires forgotten but for coin, and tales breaking in the ice from that one enchanted night that was and can never be again.
I've been writing.
