Hesri is better educated in certain matters than most of the enclave. She immediately assumes his name was intended as a version of Gustaf and not as the local vernacular for intestines, which it unfortunately sounds like and all the Plainsfolk have assumed. Pronunciations tend to drift.

"I was born there. I'm not surprised it got annexed by someone or other, that was always... people talked about it." She blinks sleepily, the medicine making her feel calm and placid and vaguely happy, and gets first one, then the other hand totally unwrapped. There's quite a lot of scar tissue in shiny keloid swellings there, and not a lot of meat. "Memento mori. 'As I am, so shall you be', all of us who are flesh will fail, in our various ways, and we will die," she says, distantly self conscious.

She puts them in the ewer of water and swishes them in an unfocused way. "Well, there was a fire... and you know, it was beautiful." Hesri sighs, an odd light coming into her eyes. "I know it was an evil thing to happen, I know that, but the fire itself was so pure. It didn't want anything but to exist and grow, like a living thing. There wasn't space to feel anything but how great it was, how terrible, and everything else was just... ugly. Meaningless."