"And sacrifice blooms into new life." He sets the bloodstained cotton aside, taking a fresh tuft of it to clean away the dirt loosened by the oil.

"There are only a few places they truly flourish now. The wars left such beautiful scars, but..." He sighs. Trying to remember how long it's been is folly. History itself is dead here.

"The Lords of these lands brought the land to such exhaustion, none have the strength to take up arms and march again." The surgeons had been so lucky. To think that they might have been hollowed out as the rest of the lands had been. Those that survived the blood were now so blessed.

"You have not seemed surprised by the state of this place." Some were, when they arrived. Affronted, even. "Are your lands much the same, then?"