"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation (dath ilan) claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women, it was a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how special and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)."

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would have invented a universal conspiracy about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to do that.  It would not be done as a joke or as your personal convenience."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this [Outer God]'s work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.

"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation (dath ilan) claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women, it was a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how great and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)."

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would invent a culturally dominant conspiracy about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to go to that difficulty and expense.  It would not be done for your personal convenience."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this [Outer God]'s work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.

"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women, it was a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how great and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)."

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would invent a culturally dominant conspiracy about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to go to that difficulty and expense.  It would not be done for your personal convenience, and if magic does not exist there could be no #ritual# reason for it."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this Outer God's work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.

"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women.  It is a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how great and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)."

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would invent a culturally dominant conspiracy about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to go to that difficulty and expense.  It would not be done for your personal convenience, and if magic does not exist there could be no #ritual# reason for it."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this Outer God's work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.

"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women.  It is a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how important and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)?"

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would invent a culturally dominant conspiracy about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to go to that difficulty and expense.  It would not be done for your personal convenience, and if magic does not exist there could be no #ritual# reason for it."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this Outer God's work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.

"The point at which I realized, was the point at which Cultural Adaptation claimed to me a thing about dath ilan's culture that was impossible to the point of plain absurdity, centered on you personally."

"The rule that Cultural Adaptation claimed to me was this:  You don't tell Merrin that she's special, or act around her like she runs in 7th-circle company.  You pretend that she is just another completely normal person.  It is not a rule for talking to young people, or a rule for men talking to women.  It is a rule about Merrin specifically."

"Need I remark on exactly how important and famous you would need to be, before a culture -- that by your accounts is not divided into #countries#(*), and spans an entire planet of a billion living people -- would have a special rule like that about you particularly, the way that a #country# has rules about how to address its #Queen#(**)?"

"Were you special enough, were you important enough, that a planet or even a single #country# would invent a culture-wide rule about everyone pretending that you were a very normal person and not at all special?"

"I liked to tease my Merrin, the real Merrin, about how I thought she had the potential for greatness someday.  But she wasn't that special already.  And in your stories, neither were you."

"Cultural Adaptation is screaming at me, right now, that I was absolutely not supposed to tell you that this rule existed.  Would it be remotely realistic, in real life, for such a conspiracy to be so universally adhered-to that nobody ever told you before now?  #Governments# can enforce that kind of rule successfully, with extreme enough penalties for violating it.  But there would need to be a strong motivation for the Governance you remember to go to that difficulty and expense.  It would not be done for your personal convenience, and if magic does not exist there could be no #ritual# reason for it."

"Dath ilan is not real.  It, or rather your memory of it, is a shadow of your fantasies -- your personal dreamworld to tempt you, except that you cannot live there, only remember it.  To be more exact, dath ilan is a shadow and projection of the original Merrin.  There is rare magic like that, and I had already heard of the general category; the difference in this Outer God's work lies in its completeness and its scale."

(*) Taldane:  Medium-sized cities that control large amounts of surrounding countryside and act as top-level authorities instead of answering to a planetary Governance.
(**) Taldane:  Female sorta-unilateral sorta-dictator of a #country#.