Every family carries a story: that we descend from a king, from royalty, from someone the world remembers. Nia brings back the legend she mentioned weeks ago — and asks the elder, at last, if it's true. Jeliba won't answer true or false. He teaches her to weigh it: where did the story come from, and what kind of knowing is it? A tale can be false without a single liar in the chain — memory grows in the direction of dignity, and for a people whose names were taken, "we come from kings" was not vanity but armor. Then the reframe: kings are cheap in a story; to trace a real ancestor, by name, from a real record, is the harder and greater thing. One is a wish; the other is a resurrection. And a second story handled with more care still — the claim of Native ancestry — because a nation is not gone, and belonging is the nation's to grant, by their roll ...