Give a Mouse a Cookie

The fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting long shadows across the chamber. The air was thick with the scent of old leather and ink, shelves groaning under the weight of ancient tomes. At the center of the room, seated in a high-backed chair carved with serpentine motifs, was Eldrin, the Shaper of Culture. His eyes, sharp as a hawk’s despite his centuries, glittered in the firelight. His hands, gnarled like ancient roots, rested on a staff topped with a crystal that pulsed faintly, as if alive. Across from him, sprawled in a less ornate chair, was his apprentice, Varyn, a man of twenty winters whose restless energy betrayed his impatience.

“You’re too eager, boy,” Eldrin said, his voice a low rasp, cutting through the silence like a blade. “You think shaping a society is about grand speeches or clever laws. It’s not. It’s about knowing where to press, where to pull, and when to let them destroy themselves.”

Varyn leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing. “I’ve studied your methods, old man. I’ve seen you twist kings and beggar mobs alike. But I don’t understand this… this obsession you have with giving power to those who shouldn’t have it. You’ve done it before—propped up guilds, cults, even those zealots in the southern provinces. Why? It’s chaos.”

Eldrin’s lips curled into a smile, thin and sharp as a crescent moon. “Chaos? No, Varyn. Precision. Let me teach you something your books never could.” He tapped his staff once, and the crystal flared briefly, casting a shimmer across the room. “When a group—any group—grows too powerful, too certain of their righteousness, they become a blade pressed against humanity’s throat. They push, they demand, they reshape the world to their vision. And if that vision is poison, you don’t fight them with swords or laws. You give them what they want… but more than they deserve.”

Varyn frowned, running a hand through his cropped hair. “You’re talking about the Iron Covenant, aren’t you? Twenty years ago, they were unstoppable—private protection agencies, all united, preaching their ‘new order.’ They had the ear of every lord from here to the Sea of Glass. Then you… what? Convinced the emperor to grant them tax exemptions, exclusive trade rights, even seats on the high council. It made no sense. Everyone hated them for it.”

“Exactly,” Eldrin said, his voice dripping with satisfaction. “The people despised them—not for their beliefs, but for their unearned privilege. The baker who toiled at dawn, the smith who burned his hands at the forge—they saw the Covenant strutting about, fattened by favors they hadn’t earned. Resentment is a slow poison, Varyn. It festers. It turns neighbors into enemies.”

Varyn’s brow furrowed. “But that’s only half the story. The Covenant didn’t just fall because people hated them. They… they tore themselves apart. Their leaders started preaching about their suffering, their ‘historical injustices.’ They demanded more, always more, until their own followers turned on them, ashamed, exhausted. It was like they believed their privilege was deserved.”

Eldrin chuckled, a dry, rattling sound. “And that, boy, is the second blade. When you give a group unearned advantages, they don’t just bask in it. They justify it. They convince themselves they deserve it because they’ve been wronged, oppressed, victimized. They weave a story of their own suffering, and soon, that story becomes their identity. They cling to it, worship it. And what happens when a group defines itself by its wounds?”

Varyn’s eyes widened slightly, a spark of understanding flickering. “They can’t move forward. They’re trapped, obsessed with their own pain. They start to believe they’re weak, that they need those advantages just to survive. They dismantle themselves.”

“Precisely,” Eldrin said, leaning forward, his gaze pinning Varyn like a moth to a board. “You don’t need to crush a dangerous group. You just need to hand them a crown they haven’t earned and let human nature do the rest. The mob will hate them, and they’ll hate themselves. It’s a dance, Varyn, and we are the choreographers.”

Eldrin paused, his fingers tightening around the staff. The crystal dimmed, as if mirroring the shift in his tone. “But there’s another side to this dance, one you must never forget. While you let the destructive forces of society unravel themselves with unearned gifts, you must also tend to those rare sparks—individuals with the vision to lift humanity higher. The poets, the inventors, the dreamers who see a better world. They are the ones who can truly shape the future, but they’re fragile, Varyn. Too much praise, and they grow complacent. Too little, and they break. So what do you do?”

Varyn tilted his head, his impatience giving way to curiosity. “You… guide them? Protect them?”

Eldrin’s laugh was sharp, almost cruel. “Protect them? No, boy. You temper them. You oppress them, scorn them—just enough to make them fight for their ideas. You place obstacles in their path, not to crush them, but to force them to sharpen their purpose, to crystallize their resolve. Think of a blade forged in fire. So it is with these sparks. Their struggle is what makes them strong.”

Varyn’s mouth opened, then closed, his mind racing. “You mean… like Lirien, the healer? The one who discovered the cure for the ash plague? I read the histories. She was mocked, exiled from the capital, her work called heresy by the Temple. But she kept going, built her own school in the wilderness, trained others. Her cure saved millions.”

Eldrin nodded, his eyes gleaming with something like pride. “Lirien was one of mine. I whispered in the right ears, ensured the Temple’s priests denounced her, that the scholars laughed at her theories. Not because I doubted her, but because I knew her spark needed resistance to blaze. Every insult, every closed door, forced her to refine her ideas, to prove herself. By the time she succeeded, her purpose was unbreakable, her vision clear as crystal. She didn’t just save lives—she reshaped how the world thinks about healing.”

Varyn leaned back, his expression a mix of awe and unease. “That’s… ruthless. You played with her life, her pain, like pieces on a board.”

“Ruthless?” Eldrin’s voice softened, but there was steel beneath it. “No, Varyn. It’s love. Love for what humanity can become. The destructive must be undone by their own hands, and the visionary must be forged in struggle. Both are necessary, and both are our responsibility. You’ll learn this, or you’ll fail as a Shaper.”

The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks upward. Varyn stared into the flames, his mind churning with the weight of Eldrin’s words. The old man watched him, his sharp eyes unyielding, waiting to see if his apprentice would rise to the challenge—or falter under its burden.