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Nhim certainly hopes that this is the right farm. She's visited several on her way here with no luck, and the deer she carries in her maw is starting to taste a bit off. The dragon lands in an ungainly fashion at the Cooper farm, dropping her catch with a thud and peering into the house's upper story window. "Hello?" she calls, experimentally, then mutters to herself, "I hope no one has those damned sticks again, if this isn't the right farm..."

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Nhim chuckles, in an odd, throaty way. "We won. It wasn't exactly a deciding battle in that particular war, but we won, and it did help."

"A climb over briar and jagged rock to reach that glorious peak," Oliver mutters, his urge to be poetic overcoming his urge to be comprehended.

It does that sometimes.

Nhim just blinks, her ears pricking forward. "Pardon?"

"I meant--" then he shrugs, smiling a bit, "little matter. I was testing my poetical sensibilities - not that they were terribly sharp to begin with."

"Oh. I'm not much for poetry, I admit. ...Though I suppose songs could be considered poetry, in a way. Perhaps that just means I prefer it with music."

Oliver's tone has an extra layer of warmth to it that very rarely has.

"Poetry and music enter the same room - that being the soul - through different doors. One is auditory, the other visual. But the truly great works become as twins; a great song will be poetic at its core, a great poem will have music in it."

Nhim tilts her head as she listens, then nods. "Yes, I can see your point there. I take it that you have a particular enjoyment of both?"

Oliver's smile turns a bit embarrassed. "I fancied myself a poet before I realized the Lord called me. Obviously God wished to rid the world of wretched verse."

"Better to try than not, though, I suppose."

"Anything was better than the Army - following the family tradition was Henry's job, not mine. Only got one or two pieces published, though I'd written enough to cover my walls twice over."

A light, amused snort. "Youth and its follies."

"You didn't want to join the Army?" she asks, sounding curious. "In my world, being called to fight is generally something unavoidable."

"Fremmanland is not officially at war with anyone, we have no draft. They always need men in the colonies, however, to keep peace and order."

That's what they're ideally there for, at any rate.

Nhim sighed. "I wish I could say the same for my world, but generally there is always a war occurring or brewing somewhere, and it often spreads rapidly. Often you find yourself fighting simply to stop things from spreading farther."

Oliver tilts his head and looks up at Nhim.

"I cannot imagine anything more terrible," he tells her, sincere for all that his words are simple.

Fremmanland is the most powerful land in his world - and an island. Such wars were far back in his land's past.

The dragon shrugs, unbothered. "That's just how things are. Evil attempts to-and often succeeds-in taking over for a time, and then good fights it off and keeps it at bay for some time. The wars change, the fighters change, but good always prevails in the end, no matter how bleak things seem."

Such certainty

("Since you're so keen on the truth, have it! They make while we sire. There are thousands of them, and every normal has the potential to become one. We will not win this war.")

is utterly foreign to him.

That may explain why it's a moment before Oliver manages, "I assume you have seen such patterns emerge over the...centuries, did you say?"

"Centuries," she says, nodding. "I am almost six hundred, and have seen it many, many times. But it happened long before I hatched, and will continue to happen long after I die. It's simply the way of my world."

It turns out there is one thing Oliver is not happy to discuss with Nhim - the patterns of her blessed world being one of them.

The conversation undoubtedly flows on, but if Oliver has his way, not about that.

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