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Two wizards and two soldiers appear in the desert, a few feet away from a tired slave caravan.
They nod at each other and disappear again.
sequel to maitimor
"I was going to explain what was going on inside his head. He decided that he would tell me not to do that."
what_was_important
"How do you know what is going on inside his head? Do you read minds too? I did not think you could do that! It does not seem like a nice thing to do."
"People show their thoughts on their faces and their bodies and that almost always tells you what they are thinking. Most humans do not know how to interpret it, though."
"I do not really have a way to not do it. You are harder to understand that way than most people because you do not do any of the people signs of your thoughts."
thesignalandthenoise
"The rest of us can sort of guess what you're probably thinking but just by being similar to you, and you're definitely harder to do this with than the others. And there are surprises like Belmarniss's inexplicable hatred of babies."
"I might also have better guesses with him because of being sort of like him though I do not think I'm very like him."
"I'm actually not a rapist? This seems like a sort of futile argument to get into but I don't punish people for being so compelling they matter to me because that would be self-destructive and stupid. He knows it was self-destructive and stupid but I don't think he actually understands how much, I think he's got a habit of - he writes things off because it's better than torturing himself with the hope he hasn't lost them -"
"That one - hurt people he loved very badly for a very long time. He did it because of some things about him that are not true of me, even though we are the same person. Even though some of my mistakes are sort of like some of his mistakes, I have not made that specific mistake and would not make that specific mistake. The other people will not believe this because it would be a convenient thing for me to say even if it was not true."
"There is an expectation among humans - and other sorts of people - that you not hurt other humans badly in the way that he did. When someone violates that expectation, the other people will punish them. They might kill them or send them to prison or hit them or take their money or make them apologize or turn them into a statue or just express anger in their direction. Since everyone knows this, fewer people will hurt others in that way. This is called deterrence. He did not know that other people would react this way - he was in a place where they would not react in that way - but the way that humans experience the motivation to react in that way is a strong internal sense of disgust and anger, and they still experience it even if it doesn't have any deterring potential in the specific case, and expressing it still helps deter other people around.
So if I had hurt people in that way, and did not want to be punished, I would tell you that I hadn't, because then I might escape punishment. Even if they suspected me of lying they might limit the punishment out of hesitation at the possibility they were punishing wrongly."
truth_is_beauty
"In her case it's just that she wasn't happy and wanted to stop being aware of that. If her one of us appears she wants to wake up again, but she doesn't expect it because she's been dead too long for Khemet to magic her back."
