Ramona now has questions exploding in a dozen directions, but she has to pick one direction to go first. She writes quick cryptic notes to herself as reminders, writing as fast as she can but knowing she's losing some of the ideas as she goes, because she can think faster than she can write. They'll come back to her if they're important.

- caste genetic / at birth?
- intermarriage / interbreeding?
- my hair?
- birth / death rate?
- poop?

"So people on Amenta always have hair that matches their caste, by dyeing it if it doesn't come in that way naturally? Is your blue hair significant in the caste system, and what does it mean?"

"Blue hair means that we're part of the caste that does governance, judiciary, land rental, urban planning, that kind of thing. There are seven castes if you count reds."

"Do you think in terms of 'high caste' and 'low caste'? I'm getting the sense that red is low caste, maybe the lowest. Is blue the highest?"

"And is there a purple caste? I'm sure you've realized that I'm outside your system entirely, but I wonder what associations pop up for me when you look at me and my hair."

"The hierarchy gets a little fuzzy in the middle but yes, blue is highest and red is lowest. Purples do a lot of things - farming, retail, shipping, manufacturing. Not therapy. That would be orange. But you're not an Amentan so I assume it's meaningless or means something quite different."

Ramona wonders what happens if she gets a bunch of cheap wigs in various colors and gets everyone to wear a random one each session.

This is probably not a good intervention. She doesn't even know what the problem is yet, nor does she have a great theory of how this helps solve that problem, but it does sound like it would probably get thoughts and feelings flowing in new directions!

She shakes off that useless-for-now thought.

"My hair is not completely devoid of meaning in my culture, but yeah, for our purposes, it's best just to ignore it I think. It definitely doesn't mean the same as in Amenta." (on Amenta?)

"Anyway, let me go back to Meelia. Can you tell me about learning about the Amentan caste system and what reactions you had? Do you feel like you understand it, or did you not really have enough time to figure it out before you were sent away?"

"I don't think I under-stood it that much? I guess I knew different Amentans had different hair colors for different sorts of things they did but I didn't know much else."

"Oh, that sounds important, I think! My current theory is that living on Amenta without understanding castes could easily lead to quite a lot of confusion." Ramona says 'on' instead of 'in' this time, maybe someone will correct her if she's doing it wrong.

"Does that sound right to you, Haemi and Tish?"

She's really having a lot of trouble reading the Amentans. They don't say much. One of them shed a tear, earlier, and they've been making comforting little gestures at each other, but it's not a lot to go on. Does she notice anything about their nonverbals or facial expressions that seems to map to a light bulb coming on, that Meelia was flying blind with castes? Or was this obvious?

"I think Meelia was well and fully aware by the second time she had to take a decontamination shower to get out of the red district that she was not supposed to be there. It was almost two in the morning when she got home. I usually go to bed at ten. She could have waited to talk more about the details. She didn't have any problems with any other caste-related socialization while she was there."

"I think how Amentans treated reds was different than the rest of the caste thing? But maybe all caste sys-tems have that."

"Um. Also I did know some people didn't want me talking to the reds, especially the second time." she says, not apologizing cause she thinks it was important to do even if it made some people sad.

There's definitely something here. It was probably some combination of not understanding and having a different value system, but Ramona doesn't want to chase it too much further at the moment; she's got something else she needs to do first.

"All right, it sounds like there's much more to talk about with Meelia's interactions with reds, and we'll come back to that. Right now, I want to jump back to goals for therapy. Meelia's goal is for you all to come to a better mutual understanding, but I didn't ask Tish and Haemi yet."

"Let me ask Haemi next. Haemi, I want you to imagine that it's our very last session of therapy. In this thought experiment, we've been meeting regularly for a while, and the reason it's our last session is because we succeeded - therapy worked, you got what you came for. What would be different on that day, so you'd know you were done?"

"I think," says Haemi, "that Meelia knows she hurt us, though I'm not sure she understands how badly or why. But I would like it if I could be sure that she didn't think we were wrong to be hurt."

"Let me say that back to you so I can be sure I understand. You want Meelia to know how badly she hurt you and how, and more importantly, you would like her to understand that it makes sense that you were hurt, that your hurt is valid?"

"- I think that doesn't sound quite right to me but I have no idea how we are all speaking the same language in the first place. I think Meelia already does know that we were hurt. I think that she - feels justified? Thinks that this was the right tradeoff? Believes that we would not have been upset about her running off to commit what would have been capital crimes if she weren't an immortal alien, if only we felt differently about reds? And I think that in fact she should not have snuck out in the middle of the night to cripple our night watchman who has worked for us for forty* years and wasn't even trying to physically stop her, just to wake me up, and snuck into a district full of reds who did not even want her there -"

*ten Amentan

Ramona starts putting up her hand and then actually interrupting partway into Haemi's speech, because it's going into dangerous territory. It has a lot of assumptions and judgments and mindreading and arguments in it, and while she really wants the information Haemi is providing, she doesn't want Haemi to unwittingly do relationship damage while she's saying her piece. She wants the therapy room to come to be a place where clients know they're safe from the verbal attacks of others.

These clients don't know how to transmit the information without transmitting the barbs, yet, so she'll just have to rudely interrupt.

"Sorry to interrupt you, Haemi! I definitely want to know all of that stuff, but at the moment I mostly want to focus on the positive future we're shooting for, rather than jumping directly into litigating how you were hurt and who did what incorrectly in the past."

"It sounds like there's a lot you want Meelia to know. And also, you have some guesses about what Meelia thinks of you, and some guesses about what Meelia believes, and if you're right about those things, you don't like them. You'd like an opportunity to change Meelia's mind by giving her more information so that she understands and then maybe comes to agree with you. Is that close?"

"...It's close."

"Is there something important that I missed?"

"I... don't actually think that 'committing crimes is wrong' is the sort of thing everyone is entitled to their opinion about, so if we are talking about an outcome where I am satisfied with the results, it does not include a 'maybe' there. I understand that you can't possibly guarantee this, but that isn't what you asked."

"Thank you for telling me! I'm glad you're bringing that up early!"

"If I'm understanding you correctly, you hope to arrive at a point where Meelia agrees that she shouldn't have broken Amentan law, and you won't really be satisfied with the therapy if that doesn't happen. You're right! I can't guarantee that will happen!" Ramona is not even especially sure she wants that to happen, she's not sure yet!

"Is there anything else that you would value, or is convincing Meelia to agree with you the only thing you could possibly come away with? For example, would you place any value on understanding Meelia's point of view, even if you never come to agree with it?"

"- it would be useful assuming there is nothing stopping us from telling the people who are handling interplanetary diplomacy. It is conceivable that something about reds needs to change. I am not interested in being told that it was right to attack Poante."

"I will not tell you my own opinions of what was right or wrong unless you ask me. I am here to help you understand each other better and reach your other therapeutic goals, not to judge you or adjudicate a disagreement."

"As for talking to the people handling interplanetary diplomacy, you are free to do that. Meelia, you should be aware that whatever you say in here may be repeated by Haemi or Tish to others; they haven't promised to keep it a secret. And conceivably it could end up affecting relations between your worlds. Are you worried about that?"

"I don't think I am? Would be sorta weird if they said everything I said to lots of people but I don't think they will share things unless it's important to them and that's okay. I might say things to other amaliens."

She also thinks she has some emotions about what Haemi said before but she can wait till Ramona asks her.

Ramona would not be surprised to learn that Meelia had feelings about what Haemi said! Ramona is intentionally not asking about that right now, because at this point in the therapy, nobody knows how to talk about hard things without getting all tangled up and hurting each other even more.

"Thank you, Meelia, that's helpful."

She turns.

"And what about you, Tish? You've heard Meelia's and Haemi's goals. Meelia wants to work toward mutual understanding. So does Haemi, though Haemi also very much wants to convince Meelia of her point of view and will be less satisfied if that doesn't happen, and has some principles that she intends to hold firm on."

"When you picture that last session of therapy, when you picture being glad that you came, like therapy really helped, what's different for you? And I'll ask you to focus on the future that you want, rather than getting into the details of things that already happened, that part comes later."

"I think - focusing on what therapy in particular could possibly do - I would like to feel more ready to let go of what I had built up in my head about an idyllic fostering relationship that I was hoping to have for months or seasons and instead had for less than a week."

Ouch. That does sound hard. Ramona lets a little of the sadness into her voice.

"Do you know what it takes to help you let go, or is that a mystery to you?"

"I'm not sure. I don't think it's going to be very much like when our kids grew up and moved out."