She smiles faintly and shrugs, like it doesn't matter. Really it's not uncommon for people who come to the enclave to leave it again, once their wounds have healed, once they've picked up a trade, once the quiet and the quality of the food, half-foreign half-peasant, has gotten to them. They're not usually going quite so plainly towards their own destruction as this boy who's so quiet now.

A horse can be led to water only if it accepts the human's guidance, for the horse is stronger. Trust can't be gained by main force. Sometimes there's no earning it at all. ...Or however the saying goes. Lashan fills his cup again and pours a third for herself. It's a bit thicker at this point and doesn't pour as smoothly.

"It's much like how a family of housefolk barrel-makers are all Cooper. Among my nation, a clan is a family. Children born to one clan are forbidden to, ahem, marry anyone else in it because that's incest, even if their parents aren't related. That's half of why the girls here are expected to be chaste." The other half is See-related practices and expectations, like those of the nunnery. All in all the running of the enclave is quite affected by both religions and a few others besides, even if at a glance or even a very long look the whole thing seems extremely pagan.

"La'tchán is too hard for these people to say. I got tired of correcting them," she concludes. "'Lashan' is fine. Better than some of the other ways. It's got mangled from time to time."