When we say that “the world has ended,” remember—it is usually a lie. The planet is just fine. - N. K. Jemisin

I will not beg your forgiveness, she said. Only her voice betrayed her fear; it was not its usual strong, clear tone. I did what I felt was right.
Of course you did, I said. It was the wise thing to do.

The pasts that I draw upon tend to be mythic pasts. I’m not super interested in writing historical fantasy. I have done that a few times in the case of subject areas that I felt like should have been explored more, like the Haitian Revolution, for example. But for the most part, I’m more interested in exploring the gods that we could have had. Or these are the creation myths that we could have explored. I’m not super interested in existing mythology, though existing mythology does inform just about everything that I’m coming up with. But that’s more along the lines of, This is how mythology should be structured, so you need to look at existing mythology to understand that. If I’m trying to come up with a secondary world, the goal is to use not too much of the existing world…

Magic is merely communication, after all.
Communication, and conduits.