Serial, Kherishdar's Exception, Episode 6: The Letter

Episode 6: The Letter

      There was no reading it at home. We lived in a big house, but not so big that there wasn’t always someone underfoot. And I, particularly, attracted attention; everyone wanted to make me feel welcome, as if being rakadhas was some sickness that required convalescence and the subsequent attention of doting nurses. And… maybe it was. In a way. But I didn’t feel sick and I hated feeling smothered, and worse, hated feeling like I couldn’t be irritated with any of them. They were being solicitous; they were checking up on me. They were expressing compassion and familial sentiment. It wasn’t their fault I was no longer used to being a member of a family and was having trouble remembering how to fit in to one.
      I didn’t go back, then. I left Thirukedi’s residence and passed into the administrative ring of the capital, and that’s where I stopped. The parks would have been more private. More intimate. But I wanted to read this aunerai’s letter in the afternoon shadow of Utraenith’s Regal Household, an edifice that looks like one of your palaces. I read it on a bench in the plaza in front of that building, with trees draping thin, cool shadows over my neck and the spring breeze bringing me the scent of warm soil. I read it surrounded by the symbols of Ai-Naidari power, because I didn’t think I could bring myself to read it at all alone.
      So I was angry when I read it, because realizing that was upsetting.
      Even angry, though, I could admit to it being amazing.
      She had written out our letters across the top of the too-slick, too-thin paper, and under them, aunerai equivalents. In some cases, there were multiple aunerai equivalents, which confused me: the same letter under our ‘ah’ sound and our ‘aa’ sound and our ‘ae’ sound, and it made me wonder how you knew which to write. Memorization, probably. But the real treasure was beneath that line of carefully printed letters, because she had translated her own letter and left that translation transparent. My eyes glided over that first, because the revelation of it, of that glimpse into a completely foreign mind, was shocking and enticing.
      But soon I forgot the translation, and was reading.

Haraa,

      Among us, we often start our letters with more familiarity. But I know this would not be welcome to you. And I’m not sure whether to begin with an apology or with thanks, because you were kind to us after the incident at the Gate, and all the way to the capital… but… we took your love from you, and after treating you like a… a curiosity. Something to be understood, rather than a person to be empathized with.
      You don’t know what it’s like to look at that phrase and realize how many ways I could say it in your language. You have so many words for the work of emotional connection. I feel impoverished. And yet I am rich, because I love an Ai-Naidari, and he has condescended, in his greatness of heart, to love me in return. And Andrew as well, who needed it so much more than I did.
      I know that hearing it must bring you pain. But you never seemed the sort to turn from pain when it also turned you from truth.
      I wish I could be there to help you with our tongue. Our tongues—did you know we have more than one? Over two thousand, in fact, enough that some of them have died when their speakers have dwindled and been forgotten or engulfed by other populations. The one we speak on the colony world is versatile and, I think, fascinating. Finding the congruencies between it and your language has been one of the greatest joys of my career, and my career has been my life. You-the-Ai-Naidar would understand. This is my ishas, and never have I been able to fulfill it the way I have on your colony world, among true aliens.
      But in my absence, I will offer what remains. Show this letter to Ruben Falzon; he’s now the administrator of the colony. Tell him to give you access to my office and all my files. Some of those will be on exposed devices that you won’t be able to take with you across the Gate, but I like to write on paper while working out a language’s syntax, so there will be notebooks as well. Those are in the desk drawer on the right unless someone’s moved them.
      Ruben is a good man. He’ll help you. You might also talk to Emma—she was Ajan’s principal surgeon. Laurence… be careful of Laurence but… I know I have no right to ask, but please, take care of him for me.

      I never meant to hurt you. Or anyone. I know I shouldn’t worry for you because Kherishdar takes care of everyone, but… I pray for you, still, that you will find your peace and the place that suits your soul. And if the notes I’ve left behind help the Ai-Naidar and humanity to avoid the pain we’ve all suffered, then… maybe I’ll be able to make my peace with what happened, too. Such peace does not come easily to us. It’s one of the things I envy about you. You are all so fortunate. I can’t even say.

           With best wishes,

           Lenore Serapis

      No, aunera, I didn’t rip this letter to shreds. The impulse, though, was there. I managed to stay seated for all of a few heartbeats, heartbeats I counted because the tremor in my hands made the paper flutter. I carefully folded it and put it in the envelope with my pass, and that I tucked into my sash’s inside pocket, because I didn’t trust it in the hands that were trying to clench into fists.
      I left for the gardens, where my walk would at least take place mostly in the shade, and I strode until my outrage settled enough for me to examine all the emotions hiding underneath. Feeling those like broken shards (toril, remember—do you?), like bits of glass I could see cruel truths through, set me off again, in no clear direction except ‘not here.’
This time I walked until evening fell. The only reason I turned back was because my toes were developing blisters in the boots the Exception had noticed with her too-clear sight. I hated the idea that one single letter had driven me to the point of ignoring my own body like the most callow of fathriked. All my agitation was writ on my body, as if I was a calligraphy Farren could have drawn with a pen. If Nesthae had seen me in this moment, she could have looked from my face to my feet and had all the proof any Ai-Naidari could wish that she was right.
      Haraa nai’Qevellen-osulkedi. Who wore her new caste as poorly as she wore her new clothes.
      I went back in a foul mood, ears flat and shoulders tense, hoping to slip in through the front door while everyone was scattered to their favorite spots for the after-dinner family time. Instead, I stepped into the house and Ajan stopped, caught in the act of passing through the open foyer. Seeing me, he cocked his head. “How now, Haraa?” he asked. “You have storms in your eyes to match your pelt.”
      He said it in an impish way so unlike Thirukedi’s intonation that I blurted out an answer. “My feet hurt.”
      I don’t know what I was expecting. A lecture. Another goddess-damned metaphor. Concern. Leading questions. All he said was, “Don’t worry about it. It takes a while to break in new shoes.” He twitched his head toward the hall. “Coming to the dareleni?”
      And just like that... I was all right. “Yes. Just let me snitch something from the kitchen.”
      He grinned. “Bring us something too. I think Farren missed dinner. Again.”