Bronya "Rand"

He learned to hide his thoughts at an early age. Every day he walked the same paths as the other children, playing the same games and gossiping about the same hobbies. But he never felt overwhelmed by the trivial and unpleasant nature of life - whenever he was alone he would sit on a grey stone bench, look up at the sky and imagine a perfect and complete sky unobstructed by that flat disk. As the workers worked, he could see the pressure of survival crushing their passion for life. When he saw the tired but sincere look in their eyes, he slid into a swamp of confusion: Was life really doomed to be like this? Just as the vastness of the sky was being shattered by that terrible steel disk, perhaps the freedom he longed for was also doomed to be incomplete. He struggled to escape this swamp, silently recording the ideals he had begun to apply to his life on that dusty stone road. "Make the world a better place." Sitting on her mother’s lap, her arms cold and wrapped around her neck, she felt an indescribable sense of security. Her mother’s voice was gentle and deep as she told the girl an old folktale—the ending was not very satisfying, but she enjoyed it very much. Her mother knew what she liked, and those stories with happy endings made her feel bored and raised too many questions. Telling stories with bad endings was a great way to get her to fall asleep at night. “Mother… why can’t Lord Grey live a happy life like Catherine?” “Do you want him to be happy, Bronya?” “Lord Grey is a kind man. Kind people deserve to live happy lives.” The conversation ended there, but she remembered her mother’s gentle smile. Years later, when she remembered that warm afternoon at Castle Qlipoth, she felt that her mother’s smile might have concealed a tinge of regret.