[Closed] Like I am only a wall

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Afternoon, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

It wasn’t until he’d come towards the end of it that Aremu found he could shift to look at Aurelie. She was leaning her head against the bed a little bit, looking at him, and he didn’t know what to make of the look on her face. Her eyes were very wide – he’d have said frightened, almost, but he didn’t know if that was quite right – and she was very, very still.

The question caught him like a blow, and Aremu’s eyebrows snapped together. He went very still, himself, watching her. You know what it means, he wanted to say; I told you myself. You know what passive means, now, too, if you didn’t before. I didn’t say it, he wanted to protest; perhaps it’s right – it’s fair – that I not speak in court. Perhaps I would pollute – profane – he had believed it, once, that even to listen to him speak might be to invite dishonor.

He couldn’t believe it now; he couldn’t find it in himself, anymore, for all he knew he was as empty as he had ever been, in the way which mattered.

His breath came a little unevenly. Aurelie apologized; red swept over her face. Aremu’s nostrils flared, and he looked away, back towards the window. She asked if it was normal; she apologized again. He saw a blur of movement in the corner of his eye, and she went on; her voice was very small.

Aremu closed his eyes for a moment.

More than anything, he thought, he wanted to go; he wanted to apologize for it, but he wanted to go out on the deck, perhaps, and to climb the rigging, and lose himself in the physicality of it, the patterns of the climb. The sun would be bright at this hour; the chainmail would be hot enough to sting his hands and feet, in the thick of it. He could find the cooler side of the balloon, and tangle himself up in chains of his choosing, and watched the ground beneath go by, until some of the weight of it had drained out of him, and he could be as a man once more.

And Aurelie? What would she do? She would sit here, Aremu thought, forcing himself to look at it, alone. All she had asked of him was that he not leave her alone.

He found that he was shaking, just a little. He took a deep breath. His left hand was tight, very tight, on his right wrist, and the scar that had run along his forearm since last Yaris was throbbing beneath it. He unclenched his fingers, slowly, one by one, and tugged at the fabric of his shirt, as if to smooth out of the wrinkles he’d left.

You’re a little what? He wanted to ask. Is what normal? Of course it’s normal that I’m a liar; I’m soulless, aren’t I?

You are too –

You are too.

He couldn’t say it; he couldn’t go there. It was true, but he didn't want to hurt her. Didn't some things matter more than truth? Shouldn't they? He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, and it was warm beneath his fingers and palm. He looked at her again; it had only been a few moments, he knew, for all that the silence seemed to have stretched for a house. She was very small, sort of curled up against the bed, her pale blue skirt spread out over her legs, and her face was glowing red, her eyes wide, and something tight in the set of her mouth.

Aremu softened; he didn’t know what it was that he had held so tight, but he let it go. His face ached, a little. “I’m, um, not sure what you’re asking,” he said, quietly, after a moment. He couldn’t manage to smile. “What is it you think imbali means?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Early Afternoon | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Whatever it was she had meant to say, Aurelie didn't quite say it. Or she had, and her question was so ridiculous as to cause distress. Something like it--he frowned, at least, again. That seemed to be her fault, somewhere in the shape of the question she hadn't managed to ask properly. She couldn't tell, really, but he did get quiet and looked away from her for a moment. A rather long moment, during which she had plenty of time to try and determine the true depths of her foolishness.

"I'm s-sorry, er. I wasn't very clear. I, uhm. Let me try again?" This was why she didn't say things, she thought rather miserably. It just didn't go well. Unless it was about cooking, there was a limit to how long she could be a part of a conversation before doing something wrong. She looked, and his hand had tightened on his arm. Oh, she was doing this all wrong. Just ask a simple question, Aurelie! You can't possibly look like more of a fool than you do now!

The problem was, saying it out loud made her feel like more of an idiot than usual. Like her world was so shockingly small, she never even thought about more than just not being gated. That was terribly pitiful when put that way, wasn't it? And she didn't want pity, but she'd already opened her big mouth. She had to explain herself now; surely he already knew she wasn't particularly... smart.

Her embroidery kit was still in the pocket of her pinafore, which wasn't next to her now, but rather tucked out of sight. Pulling on the thread in it had been her compromise to herself, to leave her hands alone. Aurelie chewed on a nail nervously while she tried to compose her thoughts.

"I-I know what it means. I think. P-passive. That's not what I--er. I was just surprised, uhm." She tried, she really did, and found herself muttering around the corner of a nail instead. With a grimace she pulled her hand away from her face, clamping the other firmly on top. That wouldn't help at all.

"I could never own anything at all, in Anaxas," she tried, hoping that the nature of what she was saying would become obvious if she just... Just kept going. "It's more than just--Brunnhold. T-that's actually, er, optional. Certainly not--I'm not being any more clear, am I? Uhm. About the p-plantations, ah, on the islands... that's uhm. What I meant. Is that--"

Aurelie didn't cover her face, but she did rather wish she could disappear. No chance of Vita reaching up to swallow her whole up here, of course. They were far too high up for that.

"I was just s-surprised to hear about that part. That--that there aren't many galdori-owned... But instead... er."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Afternoon, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aurelie had apologized again, in the midst of his silence; Aremu was frowning still, and he couldn’t seem to think of how to stop. He nodded, slowly, when Aurelie filled in the meaning as passive, looking at her. “Unable,” he said, quietly. “That’s what it means in Mugrobi.”

Aurelie was chewing on her nail now, one hand at the corner of her mouth. She pulled it away with the other, frowning, both of them in her lap, the light gleaming off a hint of wetness at the corner of her finger.

There was silence for a moment more.

Aurelie kept on. Aremu looked at her, frowning still. He frowned a little more as she went on, trying to understand. Oh, he thought, then, sometime in the midst of it, as he listened: oh. He hadn’t thought; he simply hadn’t thought.

Of course, he thought now, she hadn’t wanted to interrupt him, and so the question had come much later than the comment, and he hadn’t thought to connect them. Of course it should be a surprise to her. He didn’t know what she knew; he had known before, that Anaxi did not… he had fallen into the habit of thinking of her somewhat differently, because she was a passive – she had been educated, he knew, before, though he thought too of Lars in the streets of the Rose, asking Aremu to help him remember how to read.

He hadn’t thought. He felt a fool now – an utter fool – and thoroughly ashamed beside, particularly because he had nearly gotten up and left. The only saving grace he could manage was that he hadn’t done it, and even that was slim; that he had thought of it at all seemed to him utterly honorless. However used to it he should have been by now, it still surprised him, sometimes, the depths of what he was capable of.

There was a particularly painful sort of irony in feeling guilty for displaying a lack of honor after you felt someone had called you honorless, and it was even worse when they had not, actually, done so. Aremu faced that squarely, and he tried to own it, and it seemed somewhere deep inside the emptiness of him, joining all the rest of the darkness that was all he could hope for inside.

“I suppose they wouldn’t tell you, would they,” Aremu said, quietly, looking at her still. Her face was glowing red; she looked desperately unhappy, and he was stung by a pang of misery for having caused it. “No, it’s – it’s all right,” Aremu said. He thought of reaching for her hand again, but he didn’t think it would be right to do it in the middle of the day, somehow. He thought it would be selfish, just now, that he should be doing it to reassure himself as well, and that seemed to him very wrong.

“Yes,” Aremu said, taking a deep breath, “we – imbali – own property, and not only in the islands. There are parts of even Thul Ka which are historically imbali, and even today are imbala-owned. Ours is… a very different history, I think.” He was quiet, looking at her.

Aremu knew he was still frowning. He still didn’t remember how to stop. “I could tell you about it, if you’d like,” Aremu offered, tentatively, looking at her. “I’d um – just… stop me, if you have questions? I don’t know – it’s a history I grew up knowing, even before, but I’ll do my best to try it from the start, if you want.” I’m sorry my best’s not very good, he wanted to say; he swallowed it. He didn’t want to make her feel she should defend him; he knew her well enough to think she would, by now. It seemed to him terribly unfair, especially in the wake of all this.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Early Afternoon | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Not "passive", he'd corrected her; "unable" instead. Aurelie didn't bother to argue the point--"passive" was the kindest way to describe it and they both knew it to be so. And that worked just as well, she thought. Passive. Imbali--unable. They all described the same thing, for all nobody could agree on just what that something was. Other than, of course, not the same. Broken, might as well have said.

She twisted her fingers all together, trying to keep herself from putting them near her mouth again. She was ashamed, suddenly, that she had to try so hard. She tried to remember Niamh, holding their hands together, trying to show her that they weren't so different in that way. All Aurelie thought of were Ana's hands, smooth and manicured. Soft, she knew, and smelling like powdered violets when they had come to rest gently against her cheek.

"They don't really tell us much of anything," she offered through the swirl of her own misery. She didn't want to look up, afraid she'd made it worse in her stuttering attempts to correct. No, to clarify--there would be no doubt, now, that she knew nothing about anything. He seemed surprised she didn't know about this, and that made her feel worse yet. If you can't eat it, she'd said--if she hadn't held it in her hands, there was so little she knew anything about at all. Even that didn't help.

But he answered her in the end; Aurelie pulled her eyes up from the knot of her hands. It was hard for her eyes to get any wider than they were already, the green of them bright. Yes, he said, and just that one syllable felt like so much. She knew--she had known things were different. It had hurt then to hear of it, but she had thought--how different could they be? A few things, maybe. No Brunnhold, no uniforms. Could be married, she remembered that too, because it had struck some soft quiet longing she'd never quite said even to herself. This seemed more, and she didn't know why.

To be able to own things--or even, she thought, to have idea that one could do so. Aurelie had thought more than she would admit to of a life outside of Brunnhold; a life still in Anaxas. It was no sort of life at all; she hadn't the strength of spirit to have lived it. She was a coward in the end, and the knowledge that nothing waited for her inside or out had held her for over half her life, now.

Aremu was still frowning, and she was still sorry to be the reason for it. She wanted to go back, to unsay what she had said--whatever it was he had heard, anyway. It couldn't have been the stupidity of her question, with that answer after all. Or maybe it was, and she wanted it not to be.

"So it seems," she agreed, and offered up the smallest of smiles. It left her quickly enough; she felt it inappropriate. Her face was still painfully red. "I... Oh. Yes I t-think I would. If you don't mind. I will, uhm, I will try not to, ah. Ask anything. Too terribly stupid." She shrugged her shoulders, and the clasp of her hands tightened again.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Afternoon, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aremu frowned at her, but he didn’t know what to say. Of course you won’t seemed strange – he didn’t know if it was condescending or patronizing or if it implied – he couldn’t find the words for what he wanted to say, just then. Any question you ask won’t be stupid, he thought, maybe, but even that seemed somehow wrong, as if some trap might lay in wait inside it.

Aremu nodded, instead. Her face was still red; he breathed in deep, and he didn’t look away this time, for all that he wanted to.

My father told me the beginning of this story, he didn’t say, when I was a boy. Long before we knew what I was, this is the story he told me, so that I should know what Mugroba did once to those without honor. The rest of it I learned later, afterward, and much of it I lived.

Thousands of years ago, Aremu thought to say, when imbali were born to the arati who wandered the desert and lived along the river, they sent them into exile, with water for three days and three nights. This was not owed to them, for nothing can be owed to one without honor, but it was a mercy, so that they should have time to wander, to reflect, and to sorrow.

He looked at Aurelie, with her eyes wide and her face glowing red, and he faltered. This was a mercy, he thought to say, and he knew it for truth, for those were the words his father had spoken. And what, he wanted to ask, now, as he never had as a boy: what about when truth is not kind? He could imagine the answer; he would not have taken it, now.

Aremu smiled at her, instead, and he didn’t know where it came from, and he didn’t speak, either, of the children left to die a slow death in the desert.

“We have never had a practice of gating,” Aremu said. “Instead, children born as imbala were sent away, to live on islands in the midst of Mugroba’s rivers. This was to keep them away from,” his throat moved, silently, but he had begun, and he meant to go on, “men and women of honor, that they might not make a mockery of it.” He shifted, looking forward; he saw his right wrist, as if for the first time, and pulled it away, and let it rest empty at his side, away from her.

“In Thul Ka, imbala went to the island known as the Turtle, surrounded by heavy walls; outside of the city, they lived along small islands in the midst of the waters, and, in time, on the Muluku Islands. The priests,” knew them for profane, Aremu began to say, and his jaw clenched once more, “denied them services,” the imbala said, quietly, “but though they were isolated, they lived together: they had children of their own, and there was much that no one thought to forbid them, and so they lived as they could.”

“They danced,” Aremu said, looking at her, finding his own way through it. “They wrote poetry, where it did not matter if their words were true. They sang opera, masked, and do still until this day. They found spices, in the islands, where no one had known to look, and there are no lies in saffron, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom and cocoa,” he was smiling now, although something about it ached on his face, though he thought it might split open at the edges. “This time was known as the exile.”

“Two hundred years ago,” Aremu went on, “the exile ended. The walls did not come down, but the gates opened; imbali were offered, slowly, in bits and pieces, some of that which they lacked, in exchange for some of the wealth which they had made. The gates of Thul’Amat were opened, too, although we are not allowed to know anything of the arcane. The rest of life – whatever we can make of it – is ours,” Aremu looked at her, now, shifting. “We can work for anyone who will have us; we can take the coin we earn and buy a house, or even a plantation, if it’s enough. There are imbali on the islands whose families have farmed there a thousand years, who are as wealthy as any galdor in Mugroba; they can trace their ancestry back through every generation, all imbali. Their children are born imbali, and raised imbali, and this is no disappointment to them.”

His hand was tight in the fabric of his pants; it loosened. Aremu thought that he could have gone on – there are those like me, he might have said, born to arati – but the words stuck in his throat, and he thought to let her ask, instead; he thought she must have had questions, by now.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Early Afternoon | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

This was a story, too. A true one. Aremu smiled at her and began to tell it; Aurelie listened, wide-eyed and interested. She hadn't known what to expect, really. She hadn't thought before of the history of such things in Anaxas. To her it seemed there was only Brunnhold, and there had always been Brunnhold. For the first time, Aurelie wondered if that was actually so.

He had smiled, she thought, but the start of it was nothing to smile about. She thought he might agree; as he went on, Aremu shifted his wrist fully out of her sight. Aurelie was starting to wonder what made him decide to do that, move his right arm out of her line of sight. She had never said much of anything, and she did her best neither to avoid the sight or to stare. Maybe she'd just failed, but she wasn't sure. It felt like it had much less to do with her or anything she did in a direct way.

It seemed, really, to have very little to do even with the injury itself. To her it felt like there was more in the way he caught on "men and women of honor", pausing before continuing. She understood that very little, what it meant. Only that it did mean something to Aremu, and that was enough for her to want to give it consideration. That was what friends did, wasn't it? Aurelie had precious little experience to guide her in such things, but it rang true anyway.

Aurelie had said she would ask him to stop if she had questions, but she wasn't sure how to do so. She felt almost like he was trying not to upset her in the telling; Aurelie didn't know how to say he didn't have to. It was a funny thing, to share the weight of what they both weren't, to have just left what she had left, and to have him still be gentle in this way. Unnecessary entirely, but sweet too.

Her hands unclenched while she listened at least; she smiled at the poetry, and it tensed only a little at the idea of there being no lies in spices. Her head tilted, red hair escaping the meager confines of being tucked behind her ear. She left it where it was. Aurelie tried to picture it; it wasn't so hard, though she knew her picture to be inaccurate. To be behind a wall was something she knew well enough.

But that wall had opened, if not fallen. Brunnhold's remained where it was, and they had nothing of their own inside of it. Aurelie brought her hand up to her arm, fingers ghosting over the mark there. The rest of life, theirs. Or as much of it as they could find. Education, she knew, but she hadn't considered what that meant until he said it so plainly--what it said about all the rest. That she still couldn't envy, quite, because she couldn't imagine what she would have done with it. Aremu shifted to look at her. Aurelie couldn't bring herself to look away; it seemed important not to. Even when her breath caught and shuddered on disappointment.

What, she wanted to ask, of children like me--like us, then? The disappointments? Were they sent into exile, too, to the islands? Before the gates were open, where did those children go? And now...? Do they go there still? She tried to remember what Aremu might have told her of his childhood. Very little that she could recall. Aurelie chewed on her lip, quiet. The question seemed like it would hurt to answer.

"Generations," she sighed instead, frowning while she thought. Generations, and all of them imbali. Not just chance, but all of them. Aurelie had wondered what would happen, if something changed and she could... The thought exercise had always been painful and pointless, but she had done it more than once. Not often, but not never. She looked at the thought now, trying not to flinch. If she were to have children--no, she would think it, she wouldn't push it to the side--would they be just as incomplete? She couldn't bring herself to put such an absurdity to words. But she wondered.

The silence of her thinking dragged on a moment more. "And if... they were--not from the islands? Is it..." She trailed off, not sure she should have asked even that half a question.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Afternoon, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Aremu thought perhaps he had hurt her, in the telling. He hadn’t wanted to; above all else, he hadn’t wanted to. It was truth, and for all that he had tried to shape it kindly, he could do nothing about all that they had kept from her. That, he told herself – that is what hurts, what they took from her in Anaxas, and what must be so frightening to look upon, knowing now that it was none of it necessary. That is was hurt her, and not me.

All the same, it was hard to see it on her small face, her green eyes on him and her bright hair still a mess around her face, soft and wild at once. He had made her smile, once very slightly, when he spoke of poetry; he hadn’t expected it, and he didn’t know what to make of it. He had thought then of Adopu, and cringed at the thought of giving him her to read. Tsadi pez Awameh, he thought, remembering the volumes in Uzoji’s library and the cool light of moonlight against the cover, scattered with sand; if she wanted to read, he would offer her Tsadi, for all that her poetry had been written post-exile. He had read some of it himself, and he found it painful, but then he had never known much of poetry. Perhaps she would like it.

She was chewing on her lip; the skin had split a little, earlier, and it was dry, still, cracked, almost standing up here and there. He thought it might start bleeding against, if she was not more careful. Aremu didn’t think to say anything; he knew perfectly well he had no right.

Aremu was quiet, looking at her. He frowned, a little, trying to make sense of the question. “In the Turtle, too,” he said. “There, they didn’t have any spices, but they became bookbinders, printers, and they do it still to this day. There’s a place called the liar’s market, too, where those with honor go to keep it from being compromised, when something less than honorable must be done.”

He thought of the lies he had told for Uzoji over the year; he didn’t want to tell Aurelie about that, somehow. There was nothing in him to be stained; he had done it, and gladly, for it was something he could do. Better him than the rest of them. His right arm hurt in the place his hand was not, the muscles all tense, and he tried to relax it, breathing deeply.

He knew that was not what she had meant.

Aremu exhaled, and he went on. “If they were not from the islands,” he said, quietly, looking away once more, “before the end of exile, they were sent there, into the walls of the Turtle or on ships, and they joined them, there, behind the walls. Now…” his throat moved in a silent swallow, and he looked back at Aurelie with a little smile, which felt like it tore at him.

“It’s more complicated,” Aremu said, evenly. “Some stay with their families, at least for a few years more. There are places, still, in the Turtle and on the islands, which – take in those who – ” he found he could not go on, then; his jaw was clenched, tightly, and he looked away once more. He breathed, evenly, in and out, and his stomach ached somewhere beneath his chest.

“I went to one of those,” Aremu said, very quietly, and he couldn’t look at her. “The same day of my test, on my tenth birthday.”

He had not quite meant to say it; he didn’t know that he had ever said it aloud before, with all the words in the correct order. On the day of my test – the moment they knew – they sent me away. They knew what I was, and so did I; perhaps it was the lack in me that made me want to stay, so badly.

He found something like evenness in his breath once more; his eyes closed, because he couldn’t quite bear the light, and he didn’t want to know what was on her face. He didn’t know what would be worse, whether pity or understanding. Aremu took a deep breath.

He had thought to go on, to speak of education – of Thul’Amat, and the preparatory schools; he found he was trembling, instead, and he didn’t know that he could do it smoothly, or well. I haven’t celebrated a birthday since, he hadn’t said, but he wondered if she would hear it, all the same.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Early Afternoon | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye'ki

Bells and chimes. One day, Aurelie resolved to learn to finish a whole question properly. To ask all the pieces of it from beginning to end, in order, with none of them left out to be divined by some unknown power. Even the ones she didn't think she should ask. They were no easier when pulled out in fragments like this.

The taste of her own blood was bright on the tip of her tongue when he started to answer. Not the question she had asked, but perhaps one he would rather she had. Her lips were cracked and dry. She was doing them no favors, chewing on them like this. No more than she was helping her hands by biting at her nails. The sum total of all her bad habits proved overwhelming sometimes.

"Bookbinders?" That was a small question, at least. Or so it seemed to her. Bookbinding stood out to her as odd, mentioned in the same breath as the liar's market. Aurelie didn't understand, quite, what was sold there. She didn't think she wanted to ask, at least not right now.

Maybe she should clarify. Fill in the pieces of her not-question. Aurelie hesitated, no more adept at adding what had been missing than she was giving it whole in the first place. In her hesitation, Aremu took a breath in and out, and he carried on. He'd understood without all of the parts in it, after all.

"Ah." That was what she might have thought, but somewhere she'd hoped... Aurelie didn't know what she'd hoped. For something else, a little better. Not so familiar, or easy to understand. Her stomach dropped out when he went on. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And she'd asked--she'd said-- What a careless creature she was.

"Not completely different, then," she offered, and winced. What else could she say? She shouldn't have asked, and she had anyway. Aremu had looked away from her, and now his eyes closed. Aurelie worried at a corner of her mouth, trying to think of something to say. Something to do, or offer, or...

Aurelie was sorry she'd asked, but she didn't think it was right to apologize. Anyway, she could think of no way to do so without making it sound like she was sorry to have heard the answer. Maybe she was, or more like, she was sorry that this was the answer to hear. He'd fallen silent.

They weren't so close as they had been last night, but not too far away. Slowly she reached out her hand; halfway there she had paused, curling her fingers back as if she were afraid. Then she settled it very briefly on top of Aremu's, lightly. Almost not there. After a heartbeat she took it back, face as red as it had been before. It was just harder to do, in the light of the afternoon. It shouldn't have been, but it was.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Afternoon, 17 Hamis, 2720
Aurelie's Room, The Tsuqeqachye’ki

Not completely different, Aurelie called it. Aremu wasn’t sure what to say; his throat moved, but nothing seemed to come out.

It isn’t always that way, he wanted to say, again, as if he hadn’t already said it.

It is different - it was, he wanted to say. We understand why it must be so, in Mugroba; in Anaxas, it is fear and ignorance. Surely that makes a difference.

It is different, he wanted to say, because of what comes after that. I am grateful; I am. I am grateful.

No, he wanted to say. Not completely different after all.

He said none of them, in the end, only sat, and wondered how any man who loved honor could choose his truth, when so many things felt true. And yet, he supposed, such a man would know what to say, and would not feel this yawning gulf beneath him.

There was a brush against his hand - a warmth, for a heartbeat, which rested against it. Aremu looked to see Aurelie’s small, callused hand drawing back, her face glowing red. He smiled.

“It’s all right,” he said, quietly, somewhere between a truth and a lie. Then, more honestly, “it was a long time ago, and a good deal has happened since.” His smile warmed a little more, looking at her.

Aremu cleared his throat. “After that,” he went on, finding it easier, “it’s - uh - much the same. Those who can afford it attend Thul’Amat. Some live in the Turtle, still; the rest of the city isn’t closed anymore. I lived for three seasons in Three Flowers, when I worked at an airship yard there.”

It seemed wrong, then, not to tell her the history between them, for all that he knew Uzoji would never have asked it of him. It was even more important now, he thought, that it was upon him to share what Uzoji had left behind.

“I was very fortunate,” Aremu said, quietly. “Uzoji and I were friends as boys, as I told you. He, uh,” Aremu smiled a little more, “he convinced his family to pay for my schooling. We start at Thul’Amat at sixteen, after an entrance exam - the secular sort. His family paid for my schooling at a boarding until then - he and I attended together - and at Thul’Amat as well.”

“Someday I should like to pay them back the cost of it,” Aremu said, quietly. They don’t expect it of me, he wanted to say; they know what I am. It seemed too self-pitying, and he couldn’t manage it. He smiled at Aurelie instead.

“You asked about books,” Aremu said, after a moment. “Historically, I think, there was some uncertainty among arati about whether it was sufficiently honest to print another man’s or woman’s words. That is the reason I always heard for why bookbinding resides in the Turtle, at least. It was the same logic for opera, as I understand it, although that performers may be liars is still felt today.”

Aremu paused, and tried a sheepish grin. “There’s a lot about Anaxas which Mugrobi find confusing,” he told her. Without thinking of it, his right wrist had come back up to his knees; he settled his left hand closed around it once more. “I think the converse must be true as well.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

17th of Hamis, 2720 - Early Afternoon | Someone's Room, The Tsuqeqachye'ki

Had that been the right thing to do? It hadn't really been much of anything, honestly. The most of what she was capable of, which was hardly anything at all. But he smiled at her anyway, and then it grew warmer still. So it must have been at least not the wrong thing, if not the right one. She smiled back.

He went on, and told her a little more. She thought to ask what that was like, working in an airship yard. What the Turtle was like, and what Three Flowers was. A neighborhood, a street, a building? But he went on and she thought she could ask later if she still wanted to know.

"Ah!" Aurelie smiled a little more, too. Fortunate, indeed; at least in this. And in other ways, besides. Privately she wondered if the kind of devotion and friendship that would have driven Aremu to come all the way to Brunnhold just to tell her he had died didn't count just as much as any support given. Not that she would know. From many angles and directions, how could she know? So she didn't say anything, for once.

And it seemed a noble enough ambition anyway. Whether or not it needed doing in any kind of practical way. Or even an impractical one that she could understand. There was a lot that seemed important to Aremu that she found hard to understand.

"I see," she said softly and with a smile, and she left it at that. There was nothing else she knew to say, and trying seemed destined for failure. More didn't seem necessary anyway, and after a pause Aremu continued.

"Oh, yes! I did. I wasn't really sure what that... had to do with anything." Books, at least, seemed a safe topic. Harder to accidentally find some soft spot for her to prod at talking about things like bookbinding. At least she hoped so, or she was truly more ignorant than even she thought herself to be. Aurelie made a face, trying to puzzle out that sort of very... specific uncertainty. For both books and opera, both. The words of the explanation certainly made sense enough; Aurelie just didn't know if she could follow the logic.

She giggled a little when he paused and declared much about Anaxas confusing. The sound was quiet, but her smile stayed on her face when she was his wrist come back to his knees, where it had been before she had opened her foolish mouth. At least it had turned out all right in the end. Aurelie thought it had, anyway. They could both smile again, and she felt a knot in her stomach untie.

"Yes," she said and grinned, "I think it is." Her smile was wide for a moment before it collapsed to something smaller and more managable. She didn't, after all, want to seem like she thought it was all too strange. That would be rude. Probably.

"...How is kofi processed?" she asked, winding the conversation around to where it had left off before. She wouldn't mind, either, to hear more history, personal or general. Just... She didn't know what questions to ask, that wouldn't get twisted in the asking of them. And she had time, now, to ask them. Once she'd thought of how.