[ Maia knows things will probably be easier if he explains his circumstances, but for now he's going to just be grateful that Billy is not prying, and put it off for another time. ]
So your parents sent you away, but it was with the hope that you would find a better life?
[ So he had been wrong, thinking he understood how Billy must have felt. It must be very different, being parted from parents who thought they had no other choice and wanted to protect him. Billy had left behind loving parents, to a famine and untold chaos. How hard, that must have been... ]
Your friend sounds like a very good man.
[ Again, Maia thinks that he could speak up: explain about his mother, about goblins and elves and the names Setheris had called him, how his mother had been forbidden to teach him anything about her culture. But it is so much easier just to listen, than to speak. ]
no subject
So your parents sent you away, but it was with the hope that you would find a better life?
[ So he had been wrong, thinking he understood how Billy must have felt. It must be very different, being parted from parents who thought they had no other choice and wanted to protect him. Billy had left behind loving parents, to a famine and untold chaos. How hard, that must have been... ]
Your friend sounds like a very good man.
[ Again, Maia thinks that he could speak up: explain about his mother, about goblins and elves and the names Setheris had called him, how his mother had been forbidden to teach him anything about her culture. But it is so much easier just to listen, than to speak. ]
You died? Surely, that is not possible...