as long as there were people

Tell me about it. I want to know.

Na'el never knew her great-grandmother. She knew that she'd had one, certainly, and that she'd passed away shortly after giving birth to Grandad Ghondor - like all of them do, the peaceful ones, dissolving into a million golden motes of light.

Because that's how it works. Everyone has a great-grandmother, and a grandmother, and a mother, and then you. And then there are kids. Someday those kids'll be wrinkled, but there'll always be young people, fighting for their lives.

Before their great-grandparents, had there been another set yet? Was it possible?

Mio couldn't have told Na'el. Nia found herself unable to tell Mio. And Rex, this guy Matthew seems to trust, he's stiff-lipped too.

Maybe that's where all his anger comes from. He knows something, and it hurts.

Oh, it hurts so much more, knowing. Knowing the kids who get killed, knowing the plans that'd been laid before getting overturned in one red-hot swipe.

Knowing that there's something about Glimmer, and Nikol, that hurts those two. Matthew doesn't seem to notice, and when Matthew notices something, he says. But Na'el, even in the short time she's spent with them all, can tell.

It's different, with the Liberators and their mentees. That's just trust, top to bottom. Trust is something you earn, or give readily to a child. It's not something you just give to people. Not ever.

But Na'el won't ask. Even though Rex'd given her a look something of the same.

And if he could tell her, what would he say? Before you, there was a girl, who loved so fiercely and died so sadly, because people make choices, in this world, but at least she got to give...

Before that, another, who didn't die, but got choiced into something all the same.

Before that, long before, another, who died, horrible and bloody, and even that wasn't enough to save her, even though she didn't want to go, just like M--

Just like people always are. And I've heard it said she had hope. But hope can't exactly live on one person's dreams.

They lived. We tell beautiful stories about 'em, because they lived, and they changed our world. For better or for worse...we're standin' on 'em.

Stand on my shoulders, Na'el. That'll tell you all you need to know.