It shouldn’t hurt. It really shouldn’t. You imagine these things so bright, so vivid, and even though you are wrong in so many particulars, you find delight in those dreams despite. But there is a bitterness to the taste, and as that gentle voice runs like a river to the sea, and beyond to France, and beyond to cities vaster than any that have ever been in this land, you feel... wrong.

“If that’s true,” you say, forcing yourself to laugh at the description of a fire-dancer, “why ever would you come back?” Ah. How dangerous. The words have already left your lips. “Why didn’t you stay...?”

Because now the mountains feel small, and the rivers mere rivulets. Because the marvels of Britain are small and grow smaller; because you are a daughter of giants, and you are small, and you are plain compared to dancing-girls and striped cats and cities the size of England...