2019.02.10 Page 1056 - Madelyn's Motivation

**Karen:** _17?_ You’re a year older than me?
**Madelyn:** Pretending to be younger isn’t hard. I don’t act much. With my personality, it comes natural.
**Madelyn:** And it’s not as though looking young hasn’t been useful. Working for the intelligence branch, I infiltrated Western Basitin villages many times.
**Madelyn:** Excuse me! Can you help? I’m lost!
**Madelyn:** People often let their guard down around cuteness.
**Madelyn:** It’s not exactly a tactic that garners a lot of respect, but it was my only real option. I don’t have the strength of my mother, or the raw intelligence of an Alabaster.
**Madelyn:** And I’m good solo, but I don’t have the battle tactics of an Alaric. There just wasn’t a path for someone like me to go any further. There was no getting out from under her shadow. But then...
**Madelyn:** Keith... an ordinary Basitin, with nothing special about him, became the first in living memory to return from banishment.
**Madelyn:** I watched him act in ways I’d never seen... even defying the generals, and with the help of Alaric, becoming one himself. A _**new**_ one. And I realized, he didn’t have to be super strong or smart. Being an ambassador... it was another path for me.
**Madelyn:** ...I wanted to do what he did.
**Madelyn:** I wanted to learn everything about the outside world... so I could come back and show them...
**Madelyn:** That I have my own worth... that I’m not just a failed version of my mom...