The adults click in acknowledgement again.

"That's a very good point," Penþa agrees. "Does it change what the right thing for Organizer Kastal to do is?"

"I don't know! This is hard."

The adults chuckle.

"So it is," Penþa agrees. "Being organizer is hard work, just like fishing or farming. It's just a different kind of hard."

They clap their hands.

"Alright, let's recap. Koralhi wanted the blanket to go to Ganemki, because he was mad at þoni. Ganemki wanted the blanket to use for his own child. þoni wanted the blanket because she had complex feelings about her mother's death, and saw the blanket as being partially the cause of her death. Koralhi thinks the blanket is worth more than þoni does; Ganemki hasn't said how much he thinks the blanket is worth. Traditionally, the worth of the blanket should have been split between them, but legally it doesn't have to be, and there's an argument that it should have gone to þoni with the other physical goods," Penþa summarizes.

"Daskal has suggested that Ganemki could pay þoni to make things fair. Are there any other solutions?"

The children think.

"I want to know why we didn't clean up the inheritance laws in the wake of all this," one of the adults asks. "It sounds like something that should have been taken care of."

"Well ... part of the problem is that the whole trial got very involved. þoni and Koralhi were both popular with different sections of the village, and there was a lot of discussion and arguing before it actually went to the organizer for judgement," Penþa explains. "My guess is that feelings were sufficiently raw once everything was concluded that people felt as though revising the inheritance laws in a way that would have made one party or the other clearly in the right would have been seen as taking sides. And by the time that died down, people had mostly forgotten about the issue."

"Which is another reason I think this was an excellent story to bring up this year. It's been three sixes of sixes years — so maybe the drama has finally died down enough for us to clarify things," they continue, inciting scattered laughter. "We can talk about how the law should be re-drafted once the story has finished."

"I think þoni should get the blanket, and then give it to Ganemki," Andresi decides. "Since she wants to get the blanket, but he wants to have it."

Penþa nods. "Alright. Anyone else?"

The children issue various denials.

"Alright. Here's how old Organizer Kastal solved it ..."

Kastal ruled that everything had been conducted according to law, and therefore nothing illegal had happened. However, that still left the matter of politeness.

Koralhi, when he gave the blanket to Ganemki, had done so explicitly to snub þoni. Had he done so simply as a matter of course, it would not have been impolite. As things stood, however, he had been impolite to þoni — as þoni had allegedly been to him.

So Kastal said that þoni should apologize, and acknowledge the work that went into constructing the blanket. Ganemki should give the blanket back to Koralhi, who would, upon accepting þoni's apology, give it to her.

Many people were unhappy with this decision, and grumbled that Kastal was not being fair. But she had been their organizer for many years, and they trusted her to be right.

Ganemki returned the blanket to Koralhi.

þoni apologized to Koralhi for insulting the value of his work, and acknowledged that it was a beautiful blanket.

And Koralhi gave the blanket to her, and told her how sad he was to hear of her mother's passing.

At that point, people thought the matter resolved, but Kastal had one more thing to say: although Ganemki had not brought it up, it would also be polite to let him have some of the things from his mother's estate. After all, he had visited her and cared for her as well, and it was not wholly fair for everything to fall to þoni.

Kastal suggested that þoni and Ganemki take the time to decide what he could keep, to remember their mother by.

They had that discussion privately, and that is the end of the record of the trial.

But five sixths of a year later, Ganemki had a child, who he and his spouse named Soltanes.

"In turn, they grew up and had a daughter named Margesi, who had a son named Domer, who had a child named Penþa."

They half turn on their bench to show off their shawl. There is a worn and faded rose woven into one shoulder.

"And that is the story of how the matter of the blanket was decided," they conclude. "Now, I have one final question, before I let everyone get back to dancing. Who was right?"

"... I don't think anybody was right. Everybody knew Koralhi was a good weaver; it shouldn't matter that þoni didn't like him. And þoni kind of made a big fuss, if Ganemki ended up with the blanket anyway," Daskal opines.

"þoni was right," another child replies. "Organizer Kastal thought so, since she made Koralhi give her the blanket."

"No, Koralhi was right — he didn't do anything illegal, and he was only rude because þoni was rude first," a different child interjects.

"Is that always what it's like to be an organizer?" Andresi asks.

"Oh, no. Most of the time, things go perfectly smoothly. We have a prosperous and peaceful village, and I rarely have to solve disputes like that. But every year or two something complicated comes up, and it's important to have someone who everybody trusts to find the right answer," Penþa replies.

"Well — I think we're done with the story. You all did very well. I was impressed with how many useful questions you thought to ask. Now it's my turn to think. Artem, Lhemur, would you two start us in on another song?"

And as the musicians strike up a tune, Penþa steps down off of their bench, and finishes the rest of their berry juice. They won't approach the child tonight — too many kids who don't actually want to be the organizer would feel bad about "losing" — but they think they know, now, who would make a good apprentice.

They look out over the village, the firelight making the jumping and whirling dancers look almost like flames themselves. They feel the pleasant fullness that lingers from the harvest feast. And they think that everything is exactly as it ought to be.