“My readers are threatening me with your Correction if I don’t relax properly,” I say.
Kor mms from where he’s reading by the window.
“What would you do?” I wonder.
That makes him look up from the book. “You’re asking me if I would Correct you for not taking time off from your work?”
The suddenness of his change in focus takes me off guard. “Well… yes, I guess.”
He makes an exasperated sound. “And how could I possibly do such a thing?”
“Isn’t overworking bad?” I ask.
“For an Ai-Naidari, certainly,” Shame says, and this is definitely Shame talking. “If my ajzelin was working past the point his health permitted, it would be my duty to stop him. But you are not Ai-Naidari, and your society creates an impossible situation.”
“It does?” I ask, bemused.
“Tell me,” he says. “Could you support your family alone on the money you have made?”
“Nooooo,” I say slowly.
“But you have the ishas of a Public Servant artist, don’t you?” Shame says.
“I… think so,” I say.
“You remember the concept of gaul?” he asks.
A situation when two duties conflict, I think. “Yes,” I say.
“So,” he says. “If I Correct you for overworking and you cease to work, you cannot feed your family. But if I don’t Correct you for overworking, then you work yourself to the point of physical and mental failure, and you cannot fulfill your caste duties.”
I start playing with my pen, uncomfortable.
“If you were assured of a basic level of support,” Shame continues. “Then yes. I would tell you to rest. But you are aunerai and your society gives little to artists. So you must work. And you will succeed. But until then, even I cannot remove the guilt you will feel for taking time away from building a business that can support your basic needs. And you would not ask me to do so.”
“I wouldn’t?” I mutter.
“No,” he says. “Because you know that asking would create gaul for me as well. There is no way to Correct you without forcing me to split you in two and condemn one half of you. Which shall I condemn? The part of you that needs to buy groceries? Or the part of you that needs to rest?”
“There has to be a balance there somewhere,” I say.
“Then you will have to find it on your own,” he says. “We have solved our problems in a way very different from how aunera have chosen to solve theirs. All I can tell you is…”
I pause, hopeful.
“Our way is better,” he finishes. And grins at my expression.
“Oh, you,” I say. “Too much time with Ajan!”
More seriously, he says, “I cannot solve this problem, qiqirini, save to suggest that, perhaps, if you could not feed your family anyway, the loss of three weeks during which you would not be able to make up that difference hardly matters. But you and I know that it does, and I will not lie to you. Enjoy the rest, because you need it. But don’t look to me to enforce it. Not when we both know its cost.”
I sigh. “Give me a new word, at least.”
“Muril,” he says.
I write that down. moo-REEL. “What’s that mean?”
He smiles. “Respect. One more. Oseven.”
“And what’s that mean?” I say, quickly putting that one down.
“Busy,” he says. “Overly so.”
“One day, osulkedi,” I mutter.
“…you’ll what?” he asks, still reading.
“I’ll write another book about you! And you’ll regret it!”
“You need to work on your threats,” Kor says. “That one was singularly unmoving.”
Hmph. -_-
