Serial, Kherishdar's Exception, Episode 17:

“Right, sorry. What made your Emperor decide to send you? To do this?”

That… was a good question. One I hadn’t bothered to ask Him. Why would I question Civilization about His motives? They seemed obvious enough to me. The aunera had tumbled a noble House, disordered its Gate-complex, and required the exile of a notable lord. Who wouldn’t turn a more careful eye on them afterwards? “You require study,” I said. “Because you affect us.”

“I like that,” Emma said. “Study. It sounds reasonable. Most of us were betting the Gate would just stop functioning one morning and that would be the last we heard from you.”

“That still might happen. But not today.”

She jerked, as if slapped? Taken aback? It was an extreme gesture. She seemed shocked, as if she hadn’t expected me to agree with her.

“Did you think otherwise?” I asked, curious.

“It would be…” The aunerai trailed off and laughed. “I was going to say rude. But you all think we’re performing animals, don’t you? Except worse. You’re not even nice to animals.”

I frowned. “You are not nice to animals either.”

That won me a snort. Was she skeptical? “We treat them like family.”

“You eat them,” I pointed out, having seen Jaran entertain his lovers.

That stopped her. “Well, yes.”

Having this debate across two languages, one which she didn’t speak and one which I could only speak in broken pieces, or with the assistance of a device of questionable accuracy, didn’t stop me from pursuing this inconsistency. “So you treat your animals like family, but also kill and eat them? How is this behavior kinder than what we do? At least we don’t pretend they’re something they’re not before we kill them.”

“We don’t treat the animals we eat the same way we treat the animals we keep,” the aunerai said, but now she was frowning. “We’re humane, of course, but…”

“How do you decide which animals are family and which are food?”

She began to speak and stopped, folding her arms. Then, surprising me utterly, she laughed. “You know, I don’t know how to answer that? Every way I frame it in my head makes it sound completely irrational.”

“Yes?” I said, which only made her laugh harder. I smiled, though. I had expected… I don’t know. Defensiveness. We say bresheq, to attack someone because you are scared or in pain or humiliated. I remember being surprised you had a word for it too, when you don’t seem to have very many useful words about the nuances of behavior.

“All right. I admit explaining it… I could but I’d probably be here for several hours, and I’d have to figure it out for myself first. And it would be cultural and historical and in some cases there probably wouldn’t be any explaining it, like how we can think baby cows are cute and still eat them.” She scratched her head, making her hair move—as a mass, which was fascinating to watch. I couldn’t imagine how coarse her hair was to clump that way, and yet, what a mesmerizing texture it had. “You got me on that one, I admit.” She smiled at me. “I don’t know your name?”

“Haraa nai’Qevellen-osulkedi,” I said. “You may call me Haraa.”

“Is that… I can’t tell if that’s an honor, or if I should be surprised? Should I?”

Surprised, I said, “You would ask me that directly?”

She started laughing again. “I won’t know if I don’t! But I’ve stumbled on another cultural landmine, I see. Why shouldn’t I ask?”

“Because,” I said, “it makes it clear you are focusing on it? Which would be embarrassing, if I hadn’t meant it to be made much of?” I tried to find ways to explain in simple enough words that I could use the ones I had and failed, and Shemena alone knew what the device was making of it. “It makes it sound as if you’re eager for special treatment from me, or proud of it.”

“I shouldn’t be?”

My stare made another noise burble out of her. “You’re nothing like Andrew or Lenore,” I said finally.

“No, I’m afraid not,” she said easily. “I’m not a diplomat or a linguist. Doctors get a lot of passes for behavior that normal people don’t. You forgive the person stopping your intracranial bleeding or breaking up the stones in your gallbladder a great deal.” She cocked her head, smiling wide enough to show teeth. “Does it bother you?”

“You’re very interesting,” I said, and that word hardly encompassed everything Emma was. Puzzling. Bizarre. Compelling—in the same way watching two people having a painful misunderstanding is, and also in the way a beautiful dancer is. She was.. aunerai. And I was here to learn their language, and that meant, inevitably, understanding their culture. Didn’t it?

“Interesting!” She shook her head. “I’ve said the same thing about some diseases. But then, you think of us that way, don’t you?”

Emma was also challenging. But I liked challenges. “I thought you said we thought of you as…” I flipped back through the exchanges on the device, pleased to see it kept a history. “Performing animals?”

“Feisty!” Emma grinned. “I approve. I heard you spent most of your time naked and quiet in a corner from Lenore. It’s good to see you showing some teeth.”

There was so much wrong with that statement… “You don’t understand anything!” I said, because the magnitude of it struck me then.

And she said: “Probably not. But I’m good at learning?” Another grin. “Friends?”

Just like that. ‘Friends.’ As if we might become so, aunerai and Ai-Naidari. As if such incongruities might be natural. My pause must have spoken for me because she started laughing again. “Let me guess. You don’t do that with performing animals.”

“At least I won’t eat you,” I said.

Which is how I learned that humor could cross species.

“Fantastic, Haraa,” the aunerai said, wiping her eyes. “Ooh! I needed that laugh. I could use your humor as a scalpel, though. Rough, very rough.” Grinning, she finished. “I’ll let you get back to what you’re doing. But if you have any questions, or want a quick bite to eat, come find me? I’m in the clinic. Anyone can tell you where it is.”

“Very well,” I said, trying to keep up with her.

She gestured—waved?—and stepped out of Lenore’s office. I looked down at the device and discovered it had kept a transcript of our entire conversation. Somewhere in this office was a piece of paper I could appropriate for myself, and a pen I could use to make notes. I began searching, and finding, went to work.