Nelen gets out of the truck and the next driver gets in, and Nelen goes home.
In the stairwell is a patch of darkness, like an oddly shaped shadow with nothing to cast it. He's a little too distracted thinking of dinner to wonder about it.
When his shoulder clonks against it in the narrow stairs, there's nothing to clonk. He loses his balance; he falls.
"Should I get those laws translated better so you can take them to your people to review?"
"And all the rest of the definitions I wanted would help."
"I will have someone try that. If we don't have enough of your words would you be willing to sit down with them and help us learn more?"
"Yes."
"Thank you."
"Of course."
"Do you need me for anything, this room is giving me anxiety," says Faerval.
"I don't. I don't know if Nelen does."
"...how is the room giving you anxiety?" asks Nelen.
"It's all formal and fancy."
"I think I'm okay. Thank you for showing me here."
"For sure!" She skips out.
Nelen fidgets.
"Does the room give you anxiety?" says Círdan gravely.
"Not more than things in general do."
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"I - don't think so - what should I do for more words -"
"I'm not sure which things we'll get tripped up on but we will ask you when we do."
"Okay."
Elves set to coming up with a better translation of their laws! They need some words from him; Elves apparently have a lot of different words which mean 'reasonable' with slightly different shades of meaning with respect to whether society at large would consider the action reasonable in its own right or reasonable in the context of information about the situation or reasonable in the context of information about the mental state of the actor, and they are not sure what the corresponding Anitami words are.
Anitami has fewer words about reasonableness than that.
Huh. How should they translate it then.
Nelen is not sure, but he will hazard guesses!
Elves also have several more words for topics related to the extent to which an outcome is someone's responsibility. And tons more words for boats. And fewer words for things related to evidence and criminal procedures.
Nelen does his best to accommodate these nuances with his dictionary app and neologisms.
Then he can have a list of the twelve laws and their exceptions, with everything reasonably[to-a-person-without-context-about-the-mental-states-of-other-actors] defined.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post