Well, that seems like a convenient way to be, if one was going to be a talking notebook. 

...you know what, he'll share that thought with the notebook, why not. 

That seems like a convenient way for a talking notebook to be, given that you don't seem to have a way to stop them.

I'm pretty happy with the way that I am! I do sometimes get anxious or uncomfortable, but I think that's okay.

...interesting. So the notebook, or at least the persona it's presenting, has emotions. 

I hope it's nothing Catherine or I has done.

Oh, it's all right! I did have a moment of trouble when you first wrote in me, but I don't mind and I don't think you did the wrong thing. And you introduced yourself right away, so I didn't have to worry for long. I understand that there's reasons to be cautious around things that are as new and strange as I am.

You are certainly new and strange, but you're being quite patient with our paranoia. I'm sure there are things about us that seem strange to you—I can't promise to explain everything, but do you have any questions? 

I do try to be patient and understand where people are coming from! It helps me do my job better. Hmmm...

What did you mean when you asked if I had a Name?

Catherine would explain this better than I, but I'll do my best. 

He writes, with several pauses to think: 

A Name is a mantle of power, granted by the Gods Above or Below to an individual with a strong enough will to seize it. They're generally aligned with one or the other, Hero or Villain, but I've heard of a few whose alignment is less clear. I believe the Name of Squire, for example, can transition into either the Black Knight (Villain) or the White Knight (Hero). Named are...stronger than ordinary men and women, in ways that go beyond the physical, and fate bends around them. 

Every Name comes with its own powers, but Named also have something called aspects. I don't know a lot about how aspects work, but I know that each Named has three of them, growing in over time, and that they're unique to each bearer of a Name, not consistent from one to the next. I should mention here that most Names are old, and repeat again and again with different bearers—we orcs have the Warlord (that's Warlord in Kharsum; not all of the connotations carry across in Lower Miezan), whoever sits on the throne of Praes is Dread Emperor or Empress, and so on. There hasn't been a Warlord in my lifetime, though, or any other orc Named. 

(The Name 'Warlord' in Lower Miezan seems to be a clumsy calque of the Kharsum word. The original is gender-neutral and has other slight meaning differences, including starkly more positive connotations.) 

Oh, I see! No, I don't have anything like that.

It's a little surprising that you didn't know about Names, when you clearly know other concepts like languages, privacy, and the regular kind of name. Do you have any guesses as to why?

Some things are common between worlds, and some things aren't. I think Names must be specific to this world and worlds very like it.

And the Spirit didn't, or couldn't, give you knowledge of anything that was specific to our world, before sending you here? 

It doesn't do that unless there's a good reason to, no. Partly because it has a lot of trouble communicating with anything as small and limited as you or I, and partly because I don't usually need that kind of context to do my job.

Now that's an interesting detail that he wants to examine further, but it's getting late, and he'd rather come to it fresh after having had time to write down his thoughts on definitely nonmagical paper. 

I have to go now, but I'd like to talk more another day. It's been enlightening. 

I'm glad! Bye for now, then.

The next time he has an evening free, he returns to the notebook. 

Hello again. It's been three days. How are you doing, if that's a meaningful question? 

I'm doing well. I've been thinking about how pretty the letters are in that other language Catherine wrote in me in. How are you?

Busier than I ever thought I'd be, but in a satisfying way. 

He switches to Kharsum and continues:

Did you mean this one? It might be bias towards my native language, but I quite like it as well. I haven't often heard it described as "pretty", though. 

Yes, that's the one! I like the shapes they make. See how the word "shapes" has that trail of curves in it, when I write it like that, even though the letters are mostly made of straight lines? I think it's neat.

Anyway, I'm glad you're doing well! What would you like to talk about today?

Back to Lower Miezan.

I'd like to follow up on what you said the other day about the Spirit having trouble communicating with...is "mortals" a reasonable summary? Mortals and mortal-scale entities such as notebooks. 

I think from the Spirit's perspective quite a lot of things count as mortal-scale entities, but yes, that's a reasonable description.

Hakram thinks carefully about how he wants to phrase this.

Your role, as I understand it, is to act as a "mortal-scale" intermediary for the Spirit, to speak to mortals on its behalf; is that broadly accurate? You seem very good at communicating with mortals, but do you ever struggle to communicate with the Spirit? Do you feel as though you understand it and what it wants? 

I have some trouble communicating in detail with the Spirit about everyday things, but I do pretty well when it comes to understanding its goals and priorities. A lot of our communication is indirect; the things I hear most clearly are feelings, like being happy about me trying my best to help someone find the right powers for them, or a kind of sparkly excited feeling about beauty and femininity. It's hard to put a lot of it into words, because it's a very different experience from the kind of experience that's common to mortal-scale entities.

The Spirit's goals and priorities are what I wanted to ask you about. Can you tell me more about what it wants with Catherine?

What it wants with Catherine is the same thing it wants with everyone it chooses. When the Spirit sees someone who feels the kind of desires it's made of, to be powerful and beautiful and special in a feminine way, it wants to fulfill those desires.

From the Spirit's perspective, the best possible thing that could happen here would be for me to talk to Catherine and guide her through choosing the powers that are best for her, and building new ones where she needs them, and then for her to accept the Spirit's power and go on to live her best life as her best self, whoever and however that happens to be. One of the worst possible things would be if Catherine would do really well with the Spirit's power but can't or doesn't accept it, but just as bad would be if she accepts the Spirit's power thoughtlessly and chooses powers that aren't good for her and those powers lead her toward a life that doesn't make her happy and isn't what she wants.

'Powerful and special' sounds like it describes Named, so that's reasonable. He didn't think Catherine valued femininity particularly highly compared to the rest—she certainly doesn't take much care with her appearance most of the time—but maybe it's something she'd like to indulge more if she could. More importantly:

Why? What does the Spirit get out of any of that?