"I guess I would learn languages even no school."

Nod.

"Why dancing show not other television shows?"

"It was easiest to understand without knowing Anitami."

"Was there an elementals humans war?" he asks Maurabel, frowning.

"...no. Not really."

He doesn't press it. "Are there other books you'd like?"

"I don't know if I'm ready for anything that isn't intended for children yet but maybe there are kids' history books or something?"

"Probably! I can ask them to bring some." Type type.

"Thanks. The thing where you touch letters so they appear is really clever."

"It is! They spent a long time on designs so people could write on a pocket everything fast, since people do so much writing that way. More than on paper, most people."

"Makes sense. Paper is new, you can make it with wood magic but before we had to write in clay, which would have been so annoying."

"So many new things, it must be such an exciting time."

"It is."

Someone brings illustrated Anitami children's history books.

She picks her way through them and asks questions.

Anitam was a poor country all privately owned by dukes and duchesses with big estates where other people worked as farmers! There were cities for trade on the coast but no way to get to them if you didn't live on a river and they were mostly not governed at all. Anitam got trains and power plants and started growing up, but then the mean evil Oahk Empire invaded. Their soldiers hurt people and they had cruel rules about children. This half of Anitam didn't let the soldiers come and there was war for a long time. Finally the Empire collapsed of being mean and evil and Anitam was free! They worked very hard and became a rich happy modern country with enough for everybody, and now they are safe and strong so no one can attack them again.

"Approximately how dumbed down is this?"

"Exceptionally so - it's not false, but the intended audience has a sophistication to match their vocabulary - do you want clarifications -"

"Yes please."

"Lots of pre-modern countries had a government arrangement with - a monarch, but a relatively weak one, who ruled mostly by appeasing local rulers and could be overthrown if the local rulers managed to coalesce around a different one. Anitam was like that. The local rulers had more-or-less arbitrary control in their lands as long as they paid taxes and raised soldiers on request. That gets you a - patchwork government, a good ruler could be very good and their people thrive, but a bad ruler would not be held to account unless it got so bad their people started flooding into their neighbors' lands. Few places do that today - the downside is too bad - though some do a weaker version where regions can set their own laws as long as they meet basic standards of rights for their populace."

"Okay."

"Anitam was - less developed technologically than most of our neighbors, we industrialized late. That and the weak central government meant weaker population enforcement - it was set differently by region and you could subvert it by moving, and regional dukes and duchesses could have as many as they wanted. We had wealthy trade cities and good farming, our children weren't starving, but the Oahk Empire was invading anyone who didn't have strict enough rules and we didn't. They conquered -" map - "this part. The mountains and this coast were resource-poor and had poor infrastructure and they weren't really worth conquering; occasionally a general would have a go and the locals would shoot back and they would slaughter a few towns in retaliation but it was never properly under Imperial control."

Nod.

"The Oahk Empire really was evil - war generally is, but unusually so even for that. And their child credits system was very coercive - you got them for service to the Empire, so people who objected to what it was doing or wanted a quiet role doing something less harmful could do that but they'd never have children."