I ended up with five engrossed listeners, since Kaoren is very interested in Earth's stories as well. I want to read them every story I loved growing up. I think that more than anything else will finish making this home.
Kaoren's asleep now, busy looking gorgeous. The squads are all back on duty tomorrow, and the platforms have been very obliging about starting to work again. Kaoren will be working at Kalasa. They want me to do some visualisations of Tare and Kolar as well, but the "she's too injured" people are currently winning the argument.
Saturday, November 8
Education
Kaoren was at Kalasa most of the day, while almost every strong Telekinetic and Levitation talent was off in Mesiath clearing trees and seeding and feeding whitestone. Mori and Alay were my guards – I failed to win the "I don't need babysitters" argument, but so long as I stay inside the building I don't have to have them sitting right on me. Alay says I can consider them the day's trainers, though with an arm in a sling and ribs protesting whenever I bend even slightly, it's more training for the kids at the moment.
Rye's fine with anyone giving him combat training, but both Ys and Lira are very doubtful about the whole thing. I told them that knowing how to beat up anyone who might attack them is a good thing, and Alay laughed at me and said I should take my own advice.
Alay's laughing a lot more these days.
We've set a tentative date of five days from now for the kids to start attending the talent school again, since that should give Lira some time to adjust to the interface, and to just be more comfortable with being here. I can tell that Ys hates the idea, but is being very good about not arguing or showing how she feels. If anything, she seems even less eager to go than before.
Discussing the school has started me thinking about Rest Of My Life issues. I'm sure to have a fairly full schedule being Mum and whatever touchstone duties I can't get out of, but I am thinking through a few possibilities for other things to do.
We're waiting up now, until all the kids are thoroughly asleep, and we can put Rye' birthday present in his room.
Sunday, November 9
With Candles
Rye's reaction this morning was so much fun. He woke before we did, and came running into our room, excited beyond words and then was too overcome to wake us up and stood there gasping, which
did
wake us up. And then he couldn't speak, and when Kaoren sat up and put a hand on his head and said: "Welcome to your honour day" (the Taren equivalent of 'Happy Birthday'), he flung his arms around him, and then got incredibly shy and tried to pretend he hadn't. Kaoren hugged him carefully, and helped me up so I could too.
Rye's present was a terrarium – one we'd had great difficulty fitting into his room and inspired by Taarel's particularly magnificent one. We'd spent the last few days arranging for the plastiglass tank and the lights, and consulting with the botanic experts about plant selection. Once it had been assembled and planted up, Lohn and Mara had kept it in their room, and brought it in to us when the kids were asleep. They got a big kick out of the whole thing, and it was definitely a present which Rye appreciated. He was particularly amazed by one of the plants, a small-leafed ground cover with some little daisy flowers sticking up on slender stems. This was something called "gilly", which is a Nuran herb, and which the technicians very kindly resurrected from the flower Sen had given me, way back when I first met her. They're actually quite pleased with it, and I gather it was a useful cooking ingredient on Nuri. Rye has one of the first clones they managed to construct, and most of the rest of his plants are Muinan herbs. Looking after them all will be exactly the kind of thing he most likes.
Even Ys approved, and showed it by leaning briefly against me as I watched Rye showing Kaoren each and every plant, and going over the information the botanists had provided. For Ys, that's extremely demonstrative, and I squeezed her shoulder in return, but didn't annoy her by actually saying anything.
Nor was this the only birthday treat we had in store. Since Maze was in charge of the duty roster, he had no trouble arranging for a couple of hours in the middle of the day so we could have a picnic lunch at Arcadia. Well, actually, given how complex the duty roster is, I think it was a lot of trouble, and it was extremely nice of him. But he looked so relaxed and happy that I think he was glad to do it. First, Second and Fourth were invited, and we brought huge picnic baskets of food (including a cake with candles, which is an Earth tradition I insisted on, although I had to get the candles specially made). They'd brought breathers this time, and Kaoren compounded Rye's ecstasy by giving him a personal underwater lesson. I wasn't in the condition to do more than sit in shallow water, but that suited Sen just fine, and I don't think Ys is quite ready to go swimming underwater either, although she'd probably have nerved herself up to do it if pushed. Lira has never even been allowed to go near something as dangerous as a large body of water, and was very stiff and doubtful as Mara and Zee took her through her first swimming lesson, but Ys was quick to take her in hand, and I think helping Lira increased her own confidence.
After lots of swimming, we ate ourselves sick, and I taught everyone a translated version of "Happy birthday to you" and we all sang it to Rye, who went crimson and blew out his candles very enthusiastically. Then we went for exploratory walks, and checked out where the house would go according to our tentative plans, and looked at the forest behind it (discovering enough little animals to make Rye even more enthusiastic about living here). More than a few of the Setari went and had a look at the neighbouring islands, and the one south of Arcadia could pretty much be renamed "First Squad Island", judging from some of the discussions I overheard.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone as unremittingly joyful as Rye was today. He radiated full-wattage joy until finally running out of steam around bath-time, and then he went all tired and sweetly shy again. It was a marvellously happy day for everyone, and I was particularly pleased with how much Maze enjoyed it. Houses and plants and children and animals he doesn't have to kill.
Best of all, no pictures of us showed up on the news. The islands are far enough away from shore that if the Setari go ahead with their plans to snap up all the available land there, it will be an enjoyably private place. And with the generosity of the lands grants, they have enough to split the grant to a house there, and also land somewhere else. It'll be quite a neighbourhood.
Monday, November 10
No Secrets
Kaoren and I have succeeded in arguing against Lira being on second level monitoring on the grounds that it will distress her. I have vague hopes of arguing my way off it as well. But she needed to know that everything I see and hear is recorded, and that if she tells me something important enough I'd have to tell at least Kaoren, who would then have to decide whether we can choose not to pass it on. That the things which were reported to KOTIS were theoretically private, but that stuff like my file being stolen could very well happen.
As you can imagine, Lira wasn't terribly pleased, but was nicely sympathetic about me being stuck on second level monitoring. And, even more fortunately, Ys and Rye already knew about the monitoring from watching
The Hidden War
, since I belatedly realised that I'd never discussed this with them. I'm not altogether sure Ys would have forgiven me for telling Lira things she doesn't know, and of course it hadn't been necessary because KOTIS doesn't feel the need to have reports on what any of the kids but Lira might say.
Tuesday, November 11
Settlers
Having my arm in a sling is driving me crazy. It's awkward and clumsy and makes getting dressed and undressed a complete pain, and I'm very tired of doing everything one-handed. Today I've been wearing my uniform just because Kaoren was gone early and I couldn't stand trying to put on anything more than my harness. I've got it in Summer mode, and it made me realise that I've been making an unconscious decision not to wear my uniform generally. Although it was very useful when I was kidnapped, overall I've just been happier to dress in my own clothes.
I've been doing schoolwork with Lira. She can read and write, but in Old Muinan, and she was very frustrated with the sudden leap backward. She doesn't have Ys' absolute love of knowing things, and was finding Ys' explanations frustrating. Ys is relatively patient, but she's so smart that remembering new words is incredibly easy for her, and in some ways it's simpler for her, Rye and Sen because they haven't learned slightly different characters, and slightly different spellings, and slightly different rules.
Lira's no more of a fan of getting things wrong than Ys is, and more likely to get frustrated and give up, so I spent the morning doing basic kindergarten lessons with her, and laughing over the things I got wrong, and talking about what it was like when I first got here, having to repeat infant-grade school a couple of months after doing my high school final exams. And I managed to settle a convenient arrangement where Lira would do her lessons with Sen, to try and encourage Sen to pay a little attention in school. And Sen, of course, wants to be helpful to Lira.
We're all getting quite good at understanding each other speaking, in Taren, old Muinan or Nuran, though often the subtleties of what we're trying to say is lost. And I was disconcerted to discover that I seem to have introduced a few English words into the general language here – 'okay', and 'cool' particularly – and I've been trying to work out
how
since
The Hidden War
didn't have details of my actual speech, and there's very little publicly available of me speaking. I think it's gone out from the Setari and the support staff who work in the Setari building – maybe describing how I speak to people?
Wednesday, November 12
Future
Today was the weekend, and when we asked the kids what they wanted to do, I wasn't altogether surprised to find that Arcadia was top of their list. Ever since our picnic on the roof was live-streamed, they've become extremely reluctant to go outside in exposed places (except possibly Sen, who thinks people being fascinated by her is a right state of affairs, and would probably most like to go visit the café again).
Nils and Jeh were my guards for the day, and Lohn and Mara came along too, but they all stayed off out on the shore while we had another swimming lesson. Lira was more confident this time around, and even Sen started paddling about as they played a game of water chasies. I sat paddling my legs in the water and leaning against Kaoren and feeling a weird sense of achievement every time one of them laughed.
After a group lunch, we all went on a walk to the island's centre (Nils carrying Sen) and found a grassy meadow not quite in the middle which had things like partridges which shot off into the air and gave me a near heart attack. But it also had butterflies, and Sen revived and ran about trying to catch them. Nils was in a very laid-back mood and teased me mildly, but mostly just watched the kids with a smile while Mara told me about some of the work the senior Setari have been doing with the kids at the talent school. Assisting with talent training is something they're used to, but the focus is rather different with the Nuran kids – not so intense and purposeful and disciplined.
"Even though the Kalrani were away from their families, they still had a home and returned to it during holidays," Mara said. "And always there was the focus of our purpose. The school here couldn't be more different. Harder, in a way, for us to deal with."
"It doesn't help that they think we're shopping," Nils said. "Or want us to be. It adds a raw edge, although also some high entertainment. Most of the Kalrani try to impress, but they don't try to sabotage each other in the hopes of winning some secret competition to be adopted."
"There's only a couple like that," Mara said, with a wry glance at Nils. [I'm getting better at not picturing them having sex, but I'm always going to be aware that there's history there.] "The Nuran household structure, full of feuds and rivalries and alliances, hasn't quite let go of them. Those who have other household members here or in the town seem more secure and comfortable, grouping together. In some ways it helps, but it's causing a lot of issues because some also tend to act as if they've inherited control over anyone who was once of their house. That group that took off to Nurenor, for instance, were almost all from three of the larger houses, and some of those of lower status were simply unable to bring themselves to disobey orders from seniors of the house. And belonging to a major household meant immediate prestige, even if you weren't at the head of it, and so there's children who no longer have any semblance of a house and miss it terribly, and even when they have others of their house with them, find that their house has no power here, and they're in a culture which heavily emphasises individual merit. All this on top of losing their parents."
"And the news service is constantly providing touching adoption stories," Nils said, dryly. "Where lucky brat number 4000 catches a family's eye and is no longer just one of many powerless orphans herded about with the mass. An immediate gain of security, prestige. The oldest ones are finding it hardest – less likely to be adopted, struggling with schooling requirements they would never have dreamed of, and facing the prospect of filtering to the bottom because no-one is going to reach out and pick them and they'll be transitioning to being responsible for themselves soonest. And then we go and dangle ourselves in front of them – beyond you showing up and saying 'I need a few more', we're probably as close to instant prestige as they can see right now."