The great powers of Sapience are already at the table, steel on steel, doctrine on doctrine, while you rattle cutlery from the corridor and ask to be noticed. Cyrene's oaths, Ashtan's ambition, Eleusis' long memory, even Targossas' sermons: these shape borders. In this company Mhaldor is the child allowed to bang a pot provided it stays in its appointed corner and doesn't spill anything that stains.

You boast of conquest, yet all can count the territories under your brand without removing a single gauntlet. A few farmsteads torched in passing, an occasional shrine defaced when the patrol is shortstaffed: that is the extent of your "Malevolent dominion." The moment resistance stiffens, your war hosts rediscover a sudden enthusiasm for patrolling the beaches of your isle and composing public screeds about strength, no doubt.

So keep shouting across the water, Tyrannus. The grown powers are busy with real negotiations, real armies, and real histories measured in more than threats. When you finally manage to step beyond your tideline, do wipe your boots: the forest prefers not to track mediocrity through its roots.

Until then, heed the order the world has tacitly given you: sit, stay, and bark from a distance.

Penned by my hand on the 8th of Valnuary, in the year 992 AF.