And that is how you hold an entire civilization hostage. Humans do the same to my people, in my world. I was born to a city just like this, grew up in its gutters, underfoot. When you threaten each individual with the fate of the whole, all are too shamed to act out and rebel. The enslaved do all the work of it. Turns any that do stand up for themselves into the enemy of their loved ones. [ Where no one dared to speak out, rebel, demand justice for a crime against their own, say no when a human with a weapon on them requested something. The neighbor, friend, mother standing next to them would slap them and say are you mad? In a hundred years, the tactic hasn't changed and hasn't needed to. He knows well that that's how it goes. He's just stopped caring. ]
I left my village with five human heads skewered on pikes in the central market, and the guard barracks lit to a bonfire. [ And he'd made it plenty clear that any of his friends and neighbors were invited to come with him. They didn't, for fear of being run down by guards even outside the city limits, outside the country's borders, no length of terrain enough to satisfy their terror. Too uncertain of leaving behind the meager possessions they had. Even knowing the Scoia'tael, and all their warriors, were out there, pledged to take them in if they abandoned the ghettos. That Enid an Gleanna was constructing a safe haven.
In the end, it was only him, with his bow strapped to his back, walking out the gates and into the woods. Whatever they suffered after that was their own making, so far as he was concerned. He wouldn't keep watching his loved ones take abuse and die just because some cowards would suffer for it. If they weren't willing to stand up for his father, his mother, for him, then let them take the punishments too. ]
None that's lived. [ Said after a snort, on the topic of swindling dwarves. He's known a great many of them, called several friend. Most that tried swindling Scoia'tael leaders were human, but there'd been the occasion dwarven trader to attempt it. Usually when they didn't know who he was first. Iorveth wants to say 'sorry they've declined into such pathetic things', but that's him just comparing his memory to his present. some things here are the same as home, some are much, much different. ] Have they always called that 'proper' in your race?
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I left my village with five human heads skewered on pikes in the central market, and the guard barracks lit to a bonfire. [ And he'd made it plenty clear that any of his friends and neighbors were invited to come with him. They didn't, for fear of being run down by guards even outside the city limits, outside the country's borders, no length of terrain enough to satisfy their terror. Too uncertain of leaving behind the meager possessions they had. Even knowing the Scoia'tael, and all their warriors, were out there, pledged to take them in if they abandoned the ghettos. That Enid an Gleanna was constructing a safe haven.
In the end, it was only him, with his bow strapped to his back, walking out the gates and into the woods. Whatever they suffered after that was their own making, so far as he was concerned. He wouldn't keep watching his loved ones take abuse and die just because some cowards would suffer for it. If they weren't willing to stand up for his father, his mother, for him, then let them take the punishments too. ]
None that's lived. [ Said after a snort, on the topic of swindling dwarves. He's known a great many of them, called several friend. Most that tried swindling Scoia'tael leaders were human, but there'd been the occasion dwarven trader to attempt it. Usually when they didn't know who he was first. Iorveth wants to say 'sorry they've declined into such pathetic things', but that's him just comparing his memory to his present. some things here are the same as home, some are much, much different. ] Have they always called that 'proper' in your race?