Do you ponder the manner of things?

M  A   E    A I talked to God to no avail Said, "If you won't save me, please don't waste my time." The girl flinched again, shying away from the crackling light and the unspoken promise of violence in that statement, of conflict brewing on the horizon... Because how could there not be? The Old ones did not wish for the Voice or the Ascended to be free, and they did not wish to be caged. A desire she could understand, as much as she loathed the empathy at this particular point. She knew what a cage was like, and a few minutes underground in that tower had left her scarred and haunted. To be trapped for three hundred years... Yet Maea still bristled at the talk of bright ones, because she didn't understand what it detailed, other than turning people into something other. Something without red blood or breath in their lungs, with vicious sharp smiles... It only sounded strange to her, unnatural and frightening. "What does that mean? You said that before too, that I could have been 'bright'. Why 'could have'?"