Anon asks: “The City is a /human/ city. You are a /human/ being. Why are you unwilling to settle down in the City?”
Because fuck politics, that’s why.
Settling down in the City means accepting the City (and those that rule it) as being lord over me and pledging fealty to it. Since it became clear that I was not just a random wanderer drifting through but someone that could bring benefits, I’ve been courted by some factions and hunted by other factions. If you follow the dreams, any dream that the Envoy shows up in, is one connected to the City.
And I still have a big chip on my shoulder from the Orphanage Incident.
I have a lot of questions about the City that no one on either side of hypnagogia seems to be willing to answer for me. What are the City’s boundaries? (“A Little Knowledge” takes place at one of the few hard borders I’ve found. The forest is fae, the cabin is City.) Is this the only human city? Why is the Envoy the only representative of the City’s rulers I’ve encountered so far? Is the Envoy the embodiment of the City?
I guess I’m just a ball of misanthropic suspicion. The City is trying too damn hard to be my home. And in the dream worlds I run through, no one is that friendly unless they want something from you. There is a price for everything and blah, blah, blah.
Besides, I’m not an urbanite in the Dreaming. Gimme my wild places. I want to explore the worlds with my best friend draped around my shoulders. I’m a wanderer and an explorer. I sit on my ass enough in the Waking. Let me roam free in the Dreaming.
Leave the politics to those that play that game best.