"She's bored and complaining, but other than that she's fine - and seeing nothing out of the ordinary."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
He sighed. "That's a relief. I was worried that something might have happened to her. It seemed like she came back sooner the last time she left." He looked up at the sky. "What do you think the other people here are like? We know they can make traps. That means they're intelligent. But I don't think their civilization is too advanced - otherwise the ruins would have been treated as a prized part of their history and would be heavily guarded." It was something that the more advanced civilizations seemed to have in common. Earth was a perfect example of this, as well as several of the other worlds he had visited.
"If it's the people making the traps and not something else," Rowan points out.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"But if something was making traps of that magnitude, wouldn't they be sentient enough to deserve the term 'people'?" he questioned, tilting his head to the side as he glanced over at her. The technicalities of the word were hard for him to comprehend. Seeing that he was sentient and could make decisions, he had considered himself a person - despite lacking any biological trait that would make him a human. How could he draw the line between what made a person a person when he would be standing on the other side?
"Maybe, but I'd consider them rakhen. They're obviously out to kill."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"I'm not sure what a rakhen is, but that looked like a hunting trap to me," he said. He looked back in the direction of the trap; he had seen similar ones on some of the planets he had visited. "It's larger than the ones that I'm used to. Still, that could just mean that there's a large creature here that the creator of the trap uses for food. Some large enough to fall into that hole would be able to feed a family for quite some time."
"Maybe, but I'm in no hurry to label things as people."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
"Fine, give me a better word in Common and I'll use it," she replies, agitated. "They're smart, obviously, but that doesn't mean they have a conscience."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
He slipped the tablet back in his bag. It was stupid to think he could work on it now; it was impossible to focus on it with their current conversation.
"I like to think that whoever made that trap is smart enough to have a heart," he quietly said.
"Intelligence has nothing to do with conscience," she replies simply. "It might have one, might not."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
Maahes is getting a little upset because he struggles with the whole not being human thing a lot, and he's always worried that he'll be perceived negatively because he's so different than most living things.
He started to dig through his bag again; it made it more difficult to get too worked up about what they were discussing. "So when do you label someone as a person?" he finally asked, still keeping his eyes on the contents of his bag.
"When they prove to me they're more than...rakhen. When their intelligence leads to more than cruelty. Mercy, loyalty, kindness, perhaps...but not...not what humans are. Not what demons are."
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
The word stung. He ducked his head even further down, digging through his bag with even more focus than before. He bit his lip. The word shouldn't have hurt. It hadn't hurt when the Ancients affectionately called him that, and hadn't hurt when Annie had introduced him as her demonic best friend. But to hear Rowan spit it out with such disgust and hatred made him feel like he would cry if he could.
"I see," he said. It was all that he could muster.
She notices his instant change in demeanor but doesn't know why, or how to fix it, or what she should do about it, so instead of awkwardly trying to figure it out, Rowan simply falls into silence and finishes bandaging her ankle.
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost."
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