Kallian Tabris, Commander of the Grey (cityelfwarden) wrote in the100, @ 2015-12-05 08:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !network post, alistair theirin, grantaire (musical), han solo, kallian tabris, sera |
It's strange how people who have always been able to rely on the rule of law react to a mess, as opposed to those of us who haven't.
The people here who grew up in stable societies or in the dominant group of their society tend to assume that nothing's going to "go too far." It never occurs to them that "just a little brawling" is going to end up with a few corpses at the end, or that "getting a little disorderly" could land them in any greater trouble than a night in the gaol.
When I was seventeen, a bunch of drunk human lords showed up at a wedding in the village square. We asked them to leave, but the law was on their side, because they were humans. The law was still on their side when they kidnapped several of the women and carried them off to their estate to be abused. The law was still on the humans' side after the women fought their way out. And that sort of thing was a regular occurrence: humans doing whatever they wanted, particularly the wealthy ones, while those of us at the bottom tried to either de-escalate any situation that looked like it could turn bad, or keep our hands on our blades and our feet ready to run.
I've spent a lot of time with humans, and even in my own world their casual approach to a lot of things remains strange to me. Here, most of the humans are completely alien to me. You start a fight, and it never occurs to you that anyone might end up dead in it. You get drunk and belligerent, and it never occurs to you that anyone would look at you and think they'll probably have to put a knife through your ribs for their own safety before the night is over. You walk in a room and it never crosses your mind that someone might report you to the guard for stealing just because your things are too nice for you to have--and if such a thing did happen to you, you're sure you can just explain and they'll let you go without a scratch. I don't even know what to make of feeling that safe all the time.