A metaphysical Something sneezes and a person appears in the air, ten feet above a grassy field.
A steady wind blows towards the crisp red sunset. The field is perfectly flat, interrupted only by a stone shed a few hundred feet away.
A metaphysical Something sneezes and a person appears in the air, ten feet above a grassy field.
A steady wind blows towards the crisp red sunset. The field is perfectly flat, interrupted only by a stone shed a few hundred feet away.
"Thank you. ...do you have a person here who talks to people when something bad has happened, to help them think about how to feel about it?"
This is going to suck so much, isn't it.
"Okay. Thank you." He heads deeper into the warren of nooks, looking for more privacy; he won't stop Mirana and Tomas from following but he hopes they don't.
(Tomas slips away; Mirana follows Rafiik as far behind him as the architecture allows her to keep an ear on him, which is only like twenty feet.)
Huh, it seems like she meant that answer to be reassuring, but made Rafiik feel worse, and the weak-nosed humans didn't notice the miscommunication. Honor says Mirana should go straighten it out, but she's not allowed to leave Rafiik or say anything. Hopefully the other werewolf is handling it.
He eventually picks a nook, more out of a sense that he can't go on than because he finds one he's satisfied with, though by that point he's also stopped analyzing them in any meaningful way. He burrows under the blanket, sets his music player going, and breaks down into tears, as quietly as he can.
Concerning? Maybe good if it means he was just upset when he said Lei shouldn't have Jedi?
Mirana doubts there's anything she can do to comfort him, so she curls into a nearby nook and tries to nap.
He cries himself out, halfheartedly meditates for a little while to no particular effect, and falls asleep. He feels a little better when he wakes up and finds this meditation attempt a bit more useful: he doesn't do well with not having control over his life, it seems, alongside his need for travel, and this whole thing situation been a blow to that. He should be able to handle it, though, now that he knows what the problem is; he just needs to step up for himself and not let the FD or the Lei or his own habits come before what he needs to do for himself.
He gets up, then, and makes up the bed, and goes looking for Mirana; she's familiar enough by now that he should have a reasonable chance of figuring out which nook she's in without bothering anyone else.
He calls her name, quietly, when he's pretty sure he's found her and she is, and gestures for her to follow him back upstairs rather than talk in the sleeping area.
Hopefully he won't get lost; he really should have paid more attention to where he was going on the way in.
He figures out the layout of the place after only a couple of dead ends, and gets them back upstairs. "Do you need anything, before we talk?"
She sits attentively and doesn't seem interested in the stale green-latkes or the chamber pot.
"I only understood part of the thing you said to the undine earlier, and I want to go back and ask about it, but I want to hear what you think about it first, and if you want me to say you can do any things."
"They want me to not be a spy for Lei. They could have said that I can't talk to people about Lei, and can't collect information to bring home, and can't hurt anyone or break anything here. But that's not good enough to make me not Lei; just by sitting here, I am saying that Lei exists and is a country that created a person like me. Sitting here is a thing a spy would want to do. They want me to not do anything that a spy would do, which means they want me to not do anything at all, but that would make me not useful to you, and not useful to other people.
They had the idea that I can do things that a spy would do, like sit here, if I do them because someone who is clearly not Lei permits me. I don't know if that was a good idea. If someone says I can go anywhere in the town, I can choose to go someplace where people will see me and think about Lei. Maybe they know that I will not be permitted to do that? I don't know. Maybe they didn't think of it.
It's not important, anyway. I'm not going to choose to do things the way a normal spy would choose to do things, and that's what they want, I think. I will stay near you and answer your questions and be useful to you how I can.
I think that it is dangerous for me to be in the Freedom Democracy. I knew it was dangerous earlier, and I think the same thing now. But helping you learn is the most important thing I can do.
I want you to say that, if you die, I can go to Lei or to another country."
"I don't think you can go to Lei even if I say you can? And - they are being friendly to me by letting me have you here, I want to be friendly to them with what I say you can do. I want to be good to you, too, if I can, but not in ways that might hurt them. So I think I shouldn't say that you can go to Lei or to a country that is friendly to Lei. If I die... if I die not from you killing me, or making someone or something kill me, or from the Lei or the Lei's friends killing me or making someone or something kill me... you can go to a country that isn't friendly to Lei and do any things you want there that don't hurt the FD. And if we find a way to make Lei and FD more like friends I'll probably say you can go more places and do more things. - you might have to tell me I should do that."
"Oh, right, I can't go to Lei."
She probably forgot that part because it's so unpleasant to think about.
"Well, going to any country that isn't friendly to Lei is what I should have asked. Thank you."
"You're welcome. If you want to go to another country that isn't friends with Lei when I'm not dead I will probably say you can, but I might want to say things about how you do it and I don't know what things I should say. If you ask me to say that I'll think about how I should do it. Is there anything else you want me to say you can do?"
She also wanted to ask about leaving his presence when he doesn't need her, but after that embarrassing mistake that totally makes her look like she's up to something, it's not worth it.
"No, thank you."
"Okay," he nods. "I will try to think to ask if you want me to say you can do things, but you can tell me if I don't ask, too. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"
"If you want, I can tell you what I think about the things they've said to you, and what I think about the Freedom Democracy?"
"Okay, let's start with... I think that, when you asked about a person to talk to about thoughts and feelings, the human did not want her answer to make you feel bad, and did not know that you did feel bad about her answer. I don't know what you meant, and I don't know what she thought you meant, but... I should say something."
She crunches a green latke - "Mm!" - and grabs another while she watches his response to what she said.
He nods. "I don't think she meant for me to feel bad, yes. At home we have that, and - Jedi can be dangerous, yeah? Nobody wants the person who can kill everyone to get so upset that he does that. I don't think that will happen to me but it's good to talk to someone when I'm upset even if I'm less upset than that, and good for the person I talk to to be someone who knows what to say."