After resting in my Hallow for the entire afternoon, I was reasonably calm and fully rested when we started to make camp in the evening. The others had found a small hill some distance from the river and the road next to it, giving us some privacy.

“Better now, love?” Sigmir quietly asked after I stepped out of my Hallow. The smile on my face might have been a little gloomy from my disappointment at my mental weakness but when I gave her a hug and kiss in addition to the smile, she accepted my assurance.

Once we were separated, Olivia came over as well, looking a little concerned.

“You don’t look as twitchy as you did around noon,” she observed, her eyes studying me.

“I’m better now,” I assured her, before adding, “On Aretia, if you meet a single traveller during the entire day, it’s a remarkable event. Here, I’d guess if you don’t see one for ten minutes, you should prepare for an ambush.”

She grimaced a little at my observation but shrugged shortly after.

“We are moving along one of the Empire’s main trade routes, of course, there are a lot of people around,” she reminded me and I could only nod in agreement. “And with enough people, you get others preying on them,” she added, looking a little disappointed in her fellow humans.

“Why work hard to achieve something, if you can simply stab someone else in the back and take it?” I rhetorically asked, only for her to shake her head.

“It’s more complicated than that,” she sighed, before explaining, “The Empire is stratified, as you may have noticed. For those born in the upper strata, the nobles and those with the favoured Bloodlines, their life follows an open, smooth road, trod by our forefathers since the first of our people set foot on these lands, looking for the Golden Fleece. As long as we don’t stray from that road, our life is wonderful and we don’t have to worry about those little things, ever.” her sad smile turned a little sardonic with her words and she gesticulated with the stump of her arm.

“But that is only for those born into power and privilege.” she sighed again, her smile fully fading. “For the rest, some can learn the trade of their father, but the amount of tradespeople a city can support is limited. As is the land a farmer’s son can inherit.” she shook her head again, looking into the distance, “For those who can’t inherit a position, they have to find one. Some can rely on their talents and join the Army or Clergy, but competition is fierce. If you want to be more than a simple soldier or wandering priest, you have to compete with some Nobles' second and third sons, who have been trained their whole life. Good luck competing with them.”

“No, for many, simple labour, barely yielding enough coin to feed yourself, let alone a family, is all they can hope for.” she paused, looking at the forest around us, “As long as they stay within the system, that is.”

Her words made it obvious what the other option was. Leave the cities and towns, step outside the law, and try taking what you need from those who have it.

“You only talked about sons,” I frowned, not sure I wanted to know the details, “What about the daughters?”I asked, my curiosity overcoming my apprehension.

“Again, it depends.” she shrugged, “Amongst nobles, the firstborn generally inherit, regardless of sex. There is more than enough healing magic to make sure no nobles have to die in childbirth. Regardless, given that the Imperial Bloodline is inherited on the male side, until you reach Zeus, by way of Alcaeus, there is a certain preference for the male side, and there are times that an excellent match is found for the eldest daughter, giving her everything she would ever want,” she sneered, “everything but her freedom, that is.”

“But that is neither here nor there.” she reigned her facial features in again, “Amongst the common people, it depends as well, on their wealth and inborn talents. But again, given that males have a much better chance to proliferate their line, the preference is there. After all, it is easy for a wealthy male to father about as many children as he wishes, just look at our dear, Divine Forefather,” there was genuine anger in her voice, something I had rarely heard of her, “and look at the tales of Divine Metis, struck down because a child born by her might be a future threat. If even the Gods can die in Childbirth, what chance does a mortal woman have?” she asked, looking up into the sky, a little forlorn.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Hearing her words, I could only glance over to Sigmir, remembering that she had told me about her mother, whom she had never met. Dying to give birth to her daughter, killed by the bloodline Sigmir had inherited so strongly. Sigmir might have noticed my gaze, looking over to Olivia and me, with a curious frown on her face. Giving her a minute shake of my head, I tried to signal that she needn’t worry about me and could focus on her own exercises.

Returning my gaze to Olivia, I had no idea how to reply to her words. I had always been too focused on my own life, too busy trying to make sense of a society I could only understand thanks to long hours of training, to consider bringing another life into the world. And that was without considering the mechanics of that process, that other being that would be involved.

Letting out a sigh, I could only shake my head, “I don’t know what to say to that,” I admitted, making Olivia laugh a little, maybe despite herself.

“You are not of this world, there is no need for you to say anything,” she grinned, her earlier bad mood apparently lifted, “The Gods brought you Travellers into this world, to learn and gain experience. For what you need to learn, I don’t know but you shouldn’t squander the opportunity. You should try to learn what you can, not only about magic but also about the lives of other beings, their cultures and practices,” she reminded me, slipping back into a teaching voice, her earlier gloominess gone. The impeccable switch made me realise just how adept Olivia was at controlling her facial expression and demeanour, making me wonder how much I actually knew about this woman, who had travelled with us for over two months. How often had she shown us a facade, hiding what she truly thought inside, how many of her stories had been lessons she tried to impart and how many had actually happened?

I simply didn’t know.

“What do you think there is to learn from a society that treats its people like this?” I asked, a touch of hostility in my voice.

“That there are times when necessity trumps everything,” she sagely reasoned, before glancing up at the sky, “But that once the necessity has passed, traditions need to be adjusted and not kept in place to benefit those in power.”

“As they are wont to do,” I frowned, thinking about the various traditions and cultural norms I was familiar with. A lot of them had been founded on perfectly reasonable and necessary ideas of their time but the steady march of progress had changed what had been reasonable and necessary into something that could only be described as cruel and unreasonable.

“Though the question remains, how can those without power, force the ones in power to change the traditions they benefit from?” I rhetorically asked, knowing that there was no nice and easy answer. Or if there was, it would be one following the adage that there is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong.

“Slowly, gradually and carefully.” Olivia grinned, “Trying to force such things is how people get burned and lose their touch,” she laughed, raising the stump of her hand.

For a moment, I was flabbergasted, trying to come up with a reply. Her tone seemed to joke, but given that I had heard four different variations of the story of how she had lost her hand, all of them somewhat fantastical and with a lesson embedded in them, I wasn’t sure she was serious. But I also couldn’t assume she wasn’t serious, because she may well be.

While I might have looked the fool, wordlessly staring at her, I managed to keep myself from opening my mouth and removing any doubts she might have had. Instead, I simply nodded without elaborating what I was agreeing with and focused back on Sigmir, who was training nearby.

The question of how to resolve social conflict and problems, either on Mundus or in the real world, was luckily one I didn’t have to solve. If such problems tried to impact me on Mundus, I could simply act first and impact them right back. The consequences of my actions would, ultimately, be limited and if truly necessary, the ‘Gods’ could intervene. Outside of Mundus, no such luck, but there, social problems were luckily even further from my comfortable life. And while I recognised that way of thinking as a coward’s way out, it allowed me to live, without driving myself further insane. It allowed me to focus on the things I was good at and if I focused back on the accounting business, I would be able to make a bit of change, in my own, little way. Or maybe I was deluding myself. There were times I felt I was good at that.