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But the things he spoke of-- the two sides of her-- she did not know how to explain them outside the context of her life. How could she explain that she had spent her life dreaming of adventure, shile simultaneously hemmed in by fear? She could not explain that she had nver wanted for any material thing-- not clothes or money or food-- but had lacked all the things that came free. Comapnionship. Truth. Choice. She could not tell him that she was so very good at pretending that she no longer knew exactly who she was. Sometimes shw was Aurora. Confident. Clever. Cultured. Sometimes she was Rora. Afraid. Alone. Ashamed. And more and more, she was Roar-- bold, brash, and increasingly baffled by the situation in which she found herself. And sometimes she was none of them, lost and adrift somewhere in between, like the wildlands between Stromling cities.
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