For Kaden, it's a risk to venture those words; for Athena, it's a well-worn conversation. No, she has reassured many a wide-eyed young person yet to understand the quest their feet have been set upon, you're not. And to others, yet to earn the truth, to those who need to be asking more questions or, in a few instances, have been asking too many: What makes you say that?
But the the boy she offers neither a smile nor a confused frown, only a level, clear-eyed gaze. "It might be argued," she muses, replacing her cup in its saucer, "that the pyramid itself is a human construct. Every stone in the structure was quarried and carved and brought across the desert by human hands. So if there is a higher point on the pyramid, surely it's only because humanity set it in place there."