"How does everyone learn them?"

"That is a fine question," she says. "A fine question."

Oh, it's one of these places.

<This is a common pattern in human societies,> says the person who is not a human and whose society never does this at all (privately to her teammates), <This could simply be certain phrases obtaining symbolic meaning separate from their literal meaning and thus causing the literal meaning to gain the symbolic meaning of 'I am a fool who cannot use symbolism,' but in the strong form presented here it also suggests that there is censorship, enforced either by their government or by a large and angry portion of their population. I suspect she is at least one of an unusual person, or treading close to the bounds of what can be said.>

<Huh, I don't think I would have thought of that. We don't have a lot of that in heaven; there are some things people will get mad at you if you talk about in certain neighborhoods, I guess, but that doesn't seem like the same thing. Should I try and contact them telepathically, or do you think that would panic them?>

Remember, thoughtspeak doesn't do conference calls. Use the chat for private conversations - if that's too slow for Havvi, of course Xinai can relay.

I do want to see if we can solve this problem with mind-reading if we can do it consensually but I don't know what the best way to broach that is. Also maybe someone should be talking about something less fraught with her while we try to figure this out, if it's going to take a while?

Sure, I can take point on that; I'll keep an eye on the chat for any comments.

"So what does art look like around here? I've always found that to be one of the most fascinating parts of going to new worlds, learning about what people do for architecture and singing and clothing and painting and so forth; you get to see all kinds of things I wouldn't ever have thought of myself!"

"Huh. Well, I don't know any painters, but I dye fabric with rust and herbs and onionskins and so on."

I don't know if we need specifically to read her mind, or if discussions with others will clarify what we need to know

And then Rubiel gets started before she finishes composing.

The obvious test for my theory is to see if others are incapable of mentioning the same topics.

"That does sound interesting! I mostly just change colors directly when I'm experimenting on new designs, but some humans I talked to a century or so ago introduced me to ways to do it manually and I think the limitations add a lot of fun. I think my favorite is tie-die, which gives rise to some fascinating colors - it looks something like this."

Rubiel changes their shirt into a blue, green, and purple spiral coloration to demonstrate.

"I can imitate it now that I know what it looks like, but none of my designs had anything like this until I had an example to work from, and of course it's just fun to do."

Using a handcomp is a little slower, but not prohibitively so. (Hopefully the "locals" aren't bothered.)

If we want to test Xinai's theory, it might be a good idea for some of us to split up.

Does anyone else in the "pointedly ignoring each other" category look promising?

I think it's wise to talk to more people but it sounded to me like the woman's spouse just isn't seeing eye to eye with her about this topic.

The laundry person seems less likely to be bothered by being interrupted. She walks over to them. (What color clothes are they wearing?)

The laundry person is wearing yellow and washing clothes of all colors. "Morning."

"Good morning! My companions and I" (she gestures) "are envoys from another civilization very far from here. I was hoping to get some more context on the war, and on anything else you think would be helpful for us to know about."

"...why're you here talking to us?"

"The civilization we represent wants to explore the inhabited worlds, establish trade and free movement and the flow of information between them, and improve the standard of living for all sapient beings," she recites from memory. "We are very new to your world, and we don't know who we ought to talk to."

"Well, I'm a laundress, but over there is Chaplain Maaru." She points at a fellow wearing white.

"Before I talk to them, could you tell me a bit more about what it means to be a chaplain here? I don't want to accidentally give offense."

"Do you not have chaplains? Goodness, what do you even do?"

"The place I currently live has city governors elected by an unweighted vote of all citizens in that city and a national council elected by a general vote, as well as various appointed administrative positions. The place I lived before that also had an elected national council, but it was a lot smaller, only certain people were allowed to run, and in practice everything important was controlled by -- the people chosen by the Council to allocate a scarce resource."

"...sounds complicated."

"It works for us, but I don't think it would be good for everyone. In any case, it leaves me without much understanding of what a chaplain does."

"Well, he talks to the spirits. More than everyone does, I mean, he manages our - relationship with them."