Pardon? No, there is no quarrel between us. I have been simply observing and listening to others and I noticed... noticed that well... they talk to him sometimes like... well not quite a child but... I do not rightly understand it at all.
For us, to be a man or a woman, is to be part of your community in all functions. You are expected to be held to your word, you will support your family with full labour and returns on your fields or fishing ship, soon you ought to marry and have children of your own, your voice is counted at the village governance, for men it often comes with working fields more directly, and for women after children, to tend the house, in either case, both are taken with full responsibility.
This happens for us at your announcement, at around sixteen or so, this is also when you receive your first offers of marriage. Typically you will be learning under your family from about twelve or so, previously, to make you ready to take your place as an adult.
So Junpei and a bunch of other people are from places where you don't really have to do that stuff. Work gets less about farming and fishing and more about technology and money. Which means that you need to stay in school longer, because there's more stuff you need to learn to be able to do that work, and you can stay in school longer, because there's tech that helps with the farming and stuff. It's different, different places, but a lot of kids don't usually finish school till eighteen, maybe later if they go to university or something.
People also realised that our brains can get really screwed up from puberty till... twenty? I think? So there are legal ages on big choices, responsibilities, like getting married. Where I'm from, you weren't legally an adult until you were eighteen. Which is technically why I'm still alive.
[ Spirits, that is so much. So late? What about their parents? To stay in education so late? Certainly Nikolai spent his whole life in study, but that was because he was to be First-Child, and scholarly persuits of philosophy were considered integral.
Her mind is still clicking, this is all so much to take in. ]
So they see him as... as barely a man then? A day over boyhood?
And yet still is expected to have more learning to do? That makes him still not quite a man at all?
[ There is a discomfort, an unhappiness that twists in her mind that echoes in her thoughts for once. That could only be understood as bitterness. ]
Depends what work he wanted to do. But yeah, that's why a bunch of the older people try to get bossy with him and me and the others around the same age. We're kids, we're supposed to shut up and do what we're told, screw whatever we've already dealt with.
But I suppose it is not so easy to do when the one you speak too is ruler in her own right, and has been doing so for years now.
Esppecially when, now with what you have said, I have been bearing my responsibilities since younger than they were.
[ another pause. Longer, and she supposes if anyone is going to forgive her snippiness, it's Murphy. ]
And from what you are saying, with less education and less resources. I was not an heir, so I did not receive tutoring until I was ten and four to know my letters and numbers for the first time.
By ten and five I was finishing my studies as Singer to take the role publically as a woman at ten and six. Then I was announced and and I assumed public duties to the people under my mother and then my brother, and I did so as a woman.
By ten and nine, misfortune came, and I was Queen.
Which was to say, I was all but Master Junpei's age, truthfully.
You already knew people were from different places, Gil. You definitely already knew a load of us aren't used to living like this. Don't get me wrong, I think kids should get to stay kids, but you think Junpei's finding everything he was in school for useful right now?
Junpei has never treated me or spoken to me as anything other than an equal, even when we quarrelled.
How others treat him or me is their own minds, not his. I do not fault with that...
[ It's not the part that bites in her throat. ]
I thought perhaps it was pride, at first. I am not clever, I know this, even to my own people, I am not regarded... as... as being so wise. To hear me speak knowledgeabley over others who are far more worldly than I could ever be... must not always sit well, and I have known those who it surprises.
... but I watched them talk to Master Junpei and it seemed quite a different matter, entirely.
Yeah, well, that's bullshit anyway. You're smart as hell. So's Junpei, just different. If everyone was the same kind of smart, we'd be even more screwed than we already are.
[ Somehow, she is not completely surprised that was his crime.
But still, most of reaction is just, what the fu- ]
That is... that is... I can only say but that is awful, and I fear that is not at all enough.
Did someone die in the fire for the price to be so steep?... And what of a person's remains? Does someone retrieve them? Time's Realm is fathomless and empty, I know at least that, all drift in it without end, who would help the soul transition from such a place? Unless the crime was so great I cannot believe they would leave a soul to wander like that?
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After. This first.
Master Junpei... Junpei is not that much younger than... than you or I, is he? Something near... ten and eight, or twenty there about? That age?
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Second, has he got snippy at you about whatever this is yet, or are we heading that off?
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For us, to be a man or a woman, is to be part of your community in all functions. You are expected to be held to your word, you will support your family with full labour and returns on your fields or fishing ship, soon you ought to marry and have children of your own, your voice is counted at the village governance, for men it often comes with working fields more directly, and for women after children, to tend the house, in either case, both are taken with full responsibility.
This happens for us at your announcement, at around sixteen or so, this is also when you receive your first offers of marriage. Typically you will be learning under your family from about twelve or so, previously, to make you ready to take your place as an adult.
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So Junpei and a bunch of other people are from places where you don't really have to do that stuff. Work gets less about farming and fishing and more about technology and money. Which means that you need to stay in school longer, because there's more stuff you need to learn to be able to do that work, and you can stay in school longer, because there's tech that helps with the farming and stuff. It's different, different places, but a lot of kids don't usually finish school till eighteen, maybe later if they go to university or something.
People also realised that our brains can get really screwed up from puberty till... twenty? I think? So there are legal ages on big choices, responsibilities, like getting married. Where I'm from, you weren't legally an adult until you were eighteen. Which is technically why I'm still alive.
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Her mind is still clicking, this is all so much to take in. ]
So they see him as... as barely a man then? A day over boyhood?
And yet still is expected to have more learning to do? That makes him still not quite a man at all?
[ There is a discomfort, an unhappiness that twists in her mind that echoes in her thoughts for once. That could only be understood as bitterness. ]
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I... I am your age?
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I think they intend too, sometimes.
But I suppose it is not so easy to do when the one you speak too is ruler in her own right, and has been doing so for years now.
Esppecially when, now with what you have said, I have been bearing my responsibilities since younger than they were.
[ another pause. Longer, and she supposes if anyone is going to forgive her snippiness, it's Murphy. ]
And from what you are saying, with less education and less resources. I was not an heir, so I did not receive tutoring until I was ten and four to know my letters and numbers for the first time.
By ten and five I was finishing my studies as Singer to take the role publically as a woman at ten and six. Then I was announced and and I assumed public duties to the people under my mother and then my brother, and I did so as a woman.
By ten and nine, misfortune came, and I was Queen.
Which was to say, I was all but Master Junpei's age, truthfully.
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Junpei has never treated me or spoken to me as anything other than an equal, even when we quarrelled.
How others treat him or me is their own minds, not his. I do not fault with that...
[ It's not the part that bites in her throat. ]
I thought perhaps it was pride, at first. I am not clever, I know this, even to my own people, I am not regarded... as... as being so wise. To hear me speak knowledgeabley over others who are far more worldly than I could ever be... must not always sit well, and I have known those who it surprises.
... but I watched them talk to Master Junpei and it seemed quite a different matter, entirely.
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But at least I have the clarity to understand better now how I am spoken to, and it certainly does make some things more understood, somewhat.
[ :> ]
What did you mean, by chance, when you said it was the only reason you are still alive...?
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[A beat, and realising he's used a term she'll probably misunderstand:]
That's executing someone by putting them in an airlock and blasting them out into space. "Floating", cause they float.
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But still, most of reaction is just, what the fu- ]
That is... that is... I can only say but that is awful, and I fear that is not at all enough.
Did someone die in the fire for the price to be so steep?... And what of a person's remains? Does someone retrieve them? Time's Realm is fathomless and empty, I know at least that, all drift in it without end, who would help the soul transition from such a place? Unless the crime was so great I cannot believe they would leave a soul to wander like that?
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That is monstrous!
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And no one retrieved the bodies. I don't know about souls and whatever, I never really believed in any of that stuff.
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... On a mountain you can just go and talk too. ]
And now?
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If? You are not sure?
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Getting to see people again after they're dead always seemed like too much to hope for, for me. I'm not even great at a regular amount of hope.
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ambush hug time
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