Character Pondering: What Do I Want...? (Cadenza)

"I was born into a poor country. When I was growing up, I saw all around me people who didn't have food, people who didn't have homes, people who were sick... some who were mentally ill. They had nothing. I wanted to change things for these people... make Rubato a place people wanted to live. I went to school and studied hard, thinking that if I learned enough, I could change things. But as I got older, I did just the opposite. I made Rubato a place to be feared, a name whispered in back alleys... and when he needed me, I couldn't even help my own pai. It took me years to get him out of prison and set things right... thirteen long years before I found out the real problem that had thrown him there in the first place. The country had gotten even worse in those intervening years, had slid further into poverty and into the grasp of other nations. Finally, I had money, and I had influence... I hoped that those would finally be the tools that would help me to do something. To fix things. To at least change the lives of the people before me. I couldn't help everyone, but I could at least do what I could for those I met, I could use that money... spread it around, make it work. They always had said money and power could fix anything. You could buy cooperation, or information... you could pay enough for a solution. Money seemed magical. It was the thing I'd never had.

"But nothing I ever did that mattered took only money in the end. It helped sometimes, but... it never resolved the whole thing. It would pay for Kate's new bedroom, and clothes, and toys, but it didn't give her the love she needed. That was more complicated. And it could close down Marcus' old place of work, but... it couldn't help him start anew. That took something more. Not a dollar could wake Luminari up, shake her up, make her open up... you could throw all the zecca you wanted at the people of Medina, and they still wouldn't give the mages a second look. Louis couldn't find a real companion with just cash... Fabi and Chris and Alex needed more than just that to find families. Money's not the key to life's troubles... so why did I go around amassing it? Why did it seem to be the root of all my problems as a kid, the reason I was looked down on at Blancwood, the reason my family struggled along...? What really is the tool that can help the people I see around me...? What's going to change their lives...

"I've spent thirty years now trying to find a solution, but I still know no better than when I was a little girl on the streets. I can't keep lucking into answers. It just leaves me hopeless and clueless when another problem arises that I can't help... I don't want to be that powerless kid staring up at the empty sky while people suffer around me. I don't..."