Serial, Kherishdar's Exception, Episode 20: Power

I apologize, that was probably harsh. Let me tell you what happened, after I breakfasted and walked—very far away from center—to Lenore’s office to resume my efforts. That was my plan, of course… to sit again in the place where she had sat so frequently and see if an aunerai place can foster domiyev, which is… I have tried three times to explain this and hated all three explanations. We believe places shape the mind? That’s why we like beautiful spaces. Or spaces appropriate to one’s work. Why our word for clutter refers to both physical and mental impediments. We abhor mess. We don’t call disorder which exists as a potential to be ordered the same thing.

I am drifting onto a tangent. I am still uncomfortable with what happened, I guess.

The colony’s new administrator had not come to greet me yet, as would become his daily habit, when I passed into the building. I assumed the Guardian humans at the entrance would inform any superior of my arrival, if it was necessary; seeking more humans when what I wanted was to continue sorting through Lenore’s office was the last thing I wanted. I had work to do.

So I arrived to her office, which was locked. Or I assumed it was, because it opened at my approach. I paused at this, and was evaluating it, when I heard footsteps behind me.

I assumed them to belong to one of those Guardians: they were lighter than Ruben’s, but heavier than Emma’s. But then I turned and… it wasn’t.

It was Lenore’s brother.

Who had one look at me and said, “You… BITCH.”

I didn’t recognize the word. I didn’t have to, though. I could tell by how he used it, and the snarl in his voice when he delivered it, all the important information about it.

“So it wasn’t enough to seduce my sister and Andrew. You had to come back for more?” He stepped toward me, hands fisting at his sides. I wondered what I would do if he attacked me.

“You have to speak slow,” I said in your tongue, and didn’t recognize my voice. Far too calm. Mocking, even. “Or let me use the device.” I tapped my temple. “Better language in here. Than yours. No space left on shelfs.”

His eyes widened.

“In fact,” I said in my language, but I exaggerated my bodyspeech in the hopes of putting across my complete lack of distress at his manner. “I think that’s an excellent idea.” I took the device out and held it between us. “There, now, continue. You were insulting me, I believe.”

“What… what the hell,” he said, staring at it. “You just… did you just…”

I watched the words scrawl across the glassy surface. “The translation works better if you actually complete a sentence.”

“You really are a bitch,” he growled.

I ignored that, because the device, tucked away under my arm, had somehow been listening to our entire conversation, even before I tapped it awake, and I was reading the transcription. “You think I seduced your sister and lord?” I laughed. “Maiden! You think I’m your enemy! Really! You and I should be on the same side… we were the injured parties!”

“I… what?” His eyes were still angry, but his expression, if I was any judge, was more confused than belligerent. “Are you making a joke?”

“No,” I said. “I loved the lord and he dropped me for an alien. Well, two aliens, so I guess I have the small consolation that it took two of you to replace me. But you loved your sister and lord, and they dropped you for an alien.” I lifted a hand, splayed the fingers in an eloquent gesture. “We were the abandoned ones. Why you’re angry at me, I don’t know.”

“Because… because you were complicit, damn it!”

I huffed. “Maybe you were complicit in your loved ones leaving by being so obnoxious.”

“I… what!”

“I think I like you,” I decided. “You’re rude, but I like honesty in aunera. I get the feeling you’ll tell me when I offend you without being nice about my sensibilities.” I smiled at him, sweetly. “I don’t suppose you’ll help teach me your language?”

He stepped back, but by then I could tell he was both angry and intrigued. I hadn’t had months of observing Jaran’s aunerai lovers without learning to read them, particularly signs of ambivalence. And then he said something, and it appeared on the tablet as “---- off.”

I stared at it, perplexed. Had he used a word we had no word for? Or was the device broken? Why did it not translate this word, despite translating apparently every other word in natural conversation? I looked up to ask but the man was already down the hall and turning the corner.

Puzzled, I went into Lenore’s office, sat in her chair, and started shaking. Not anger or fear, but just the body reacting? We call it sholdi. I shifted my shoulders under my robe and hugged myself to still the tremors. No one enjoys being yelled at, though some shrug it off better than others, and agitation among us is a sign of disorder, which we like even less. But there’s an understanding that such agitation doesn’t lead to violence, and I couldn’t make that assumption about aunera. 

Why hadn’t I backed down? It would have been the smart thing to do. Why could I never back down from a challenge or threat, like a normal person? Lenore’s sibling did not make me want to flee her office. It made me want to claim it and then throw the evidence of that claim in his face.

The lord used to call me his firestarter, among other love names. He used to love me for his boldness. The aunera, it seemed, were even bolder. Something we had in common, if not enough in common to save Jaran from exile.

And the aunerai dared accuse me of seducing his loved ones.

My indignation made me giddy, as did the realization that I had spoken the aunerai language. Poorly, no doubt; I had felt the vowel sounds sloshing in my mouth like a too-large swallow of wine. But I had done it, and an aunerai had understood me. Me! Who for so much of her life had chosen to remain mute! I sat back, staring at the wall. How many Ai-Naidar could speak the language of aliens? Jaran had spoken Ai-Naidari with his lovers; they preferred our tongue, I thought, even Andrew Clark who’d been less facile with it. We took as given that even learning your speech was a pollution, and that naturally you’d want to learn ours… until Thirukedi had bestowed this assignment on me, that had been my assumption as well.

But what I felt, having spoken at last rather than listened, was a swell of power.

And I liked it.