Chapter 306: People Who Want for Nothing
"Going to Crystal Lake City, it’s like, it’s like going to a great city a thousand years ago," the Thistle Witch finally said. "The Ancient Clan is... content. They don’t need to become better at anything to feed their people or clothe their people. Their buildings are simple and they don’t have engineers to make things better. They do things the way they always have because they’ve already found an answer to everything that’s good enough for them."
The words Talauia’s father had once used to describe the Ancient Clan were ’arrogantly primitive and deliberately so.’ When she’d last visited Crystal Lake City, she’d seen a good many bronze-smiths and a few whitesmiths but the Ancient Clan still hadn’t seen the point of learning to smelt iron, much less to produce steel of any quality.
The few professions that made use of iron and steel tools obtained them almost exclusively through trade but convincing one of them they needed such tools was only slightly easier than pulling the fangs of a protesting alligator. They were like that for almost everything they did, and they were as stubborn as stones about changing.
"How could that be?" Ashlynn asked, utterly baffled by the description Talauia had given. "Isn’t a natural law that without strong predators or constant warfare, each generation will be larger than the one before it? If their population keeps growing, surely they’d find a need to invent better things. Better agriculture, fishing, better housing for larger families," she said only to trail off at the end when she saw Talauia shaking her head.
"It’s not like that, not like that at all" the Thistle Witch said. "The Ancient Clan live very, very long lives. They don’t consider themselves ’old’ until they’ve passed at least two centuries and their elders have usually lived for more than three. For them, a thousand years ago is just a few generations."
"Hey Tala," Heila said hesitantly as a curious thought struck her. "Do you know how old Jacques is? Is he considered very young for the Ancient Clan?"
"Don’t tell him that I told you, don’t tell him, all right?" Talauia said as she gestured for Ashlynn and Heila to lean in close. "He just turned thirty last summer," the winged witch said in a hushed, conspiritorial tone. "He’s been here for half his life after... no, nevermind," she said, suddenly realizing that she’d said too much.
"Don’t tell," she reminded them with a finger to her lips. "If he wants to tell, he can tell why he came her, but I shouldn’t tell for him."
"No, of course you shouldn’t," Ashlynn said, hastily waving off the notion that Taluia betray any sort of confidence. "But if the Ancient Clan feels content with what they have, what sorts of things should we concoct for them?" she asked, returning back to the original topic.
"I don’t think they’re all content," Heila said as she thought for a moment. "Maybe the wealthy ones are content, but if you don’t have many luxuries, there’s always something that the richer people have that you don’t. Anyone who sees people living better than they do will spend a little time thinking about what it would be like if they had those things too."