ph_logs | Mingle - Emergency Potluck

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Erin flashes a wan grin. "But if it's too much like a favor for ya, I can shake you down later for help planning braille lessons. Back to not reading again, shit sucks."

"...Lost track of you after that announcement, Tayrey. Vanished myself not long after too. Let me tell you, the void between worlds ain't as scenic as L-Space."

She nods eagerly. 'Lesson planning. Or I can put texts into Braille for you, in the meantime. Fair contract.' Something of an overly generous contract, in return for a plate of food, but Tayrey's not in the right frame of mind for negotiation games. Not after what she's just learned. She accepts the plate, setting it in front of her.

'I am... so sorry,' she says in a low voice, 'that we weren't quick enough to spare you that.' Tayrey's terror of the Nothing is no secret, and she decides at once that Erin has suffered far worse than she has. It brings out her protective instincts, and it makes her reframe her own suffering. Her next words, then, are brisk.

'I can't fill you in on much. I miscalculated. Turns out there were a lot of people who liked their captivity more than they liked the idea of taking a risk for freedom. Convinced no good could come of it. Some wanted me dead. Not always the ones I'd expect, either. It got... very rough for a while, I had to go into hiding, and I guess I died of the injuries. Or at least, one moment I'm drifting off to sleep courtesy of the best painkillers on the ship, safely guarded, and the next I wake up being offered that choice. To die or live here. Puncturing a hole in our captor's bubble universe must have broken his hold on us.' Pure speculation, but it seems logical to her.

"One tends to find out after fucking around. 'm sorry you suffered, but I'm not surprised; that's life under siege." Erin hangs her head and sighs. "...Got most of the way here following my Wyrd, trying to aim at the people I'm connected to. Seems like I hit the mark, though I needed help at the end. And now we're here, with like, an actual local culture. And I'm thinking you're gonna need help with that, if you want it."

Fucking around? Not surprised?!

This was a mistake. This was a terrible mistake. No, it's not just life. Civilised people don't behave that way.

Captive Tayrey, broken Tayrey, might have started pleading her case here. How hard she'd worked for freedom, what miracles she'd accomplished. How that animal had literally pinned her down and tried to tear off her face for the crime of wanting more out of life than that imprisonment. The long days and longer nights of agony that followed. She might have practically begged for an understanding that wasn't ever going to come her way.

Now she's not desperate, just frustrated. Angry, even. But this is a new beginning in a new place. She doesn't have to react. She doesn't have to care about other people's judgements at all. Her expression goes blank, dutiful Tradeline Tayrey revealing nothing of her feelings.

'Thank you for the offer, but I'm sure I'll manage fine on my own,' she says neutrally. 'I've been here two days and I have a job and a few trade contacts.' She doesn't waste time! 'This is my liberation and I'm making the best of it, Erin.'

"Mmhm. And if your neighbor brings you a housewarming gift, you do what?"

Erin turns her head to look at Tayrey, and her expression is gentle. Patient. Her ears swivel in the Tradeliner's direction, attentive.

She wants to laugh. It puts her in mind of Savitskaya's questioning, years ago. You fly in-system after a rocky outward transition and there's a signal light in the distance, you do what?

Now, as then, Tayrey's answer is immediate.

'Decline it. Calmly and politely, with the explanation that gifts are not allowable in my culture, and an assurance that my house is warm and they needn't worry.'

Erin does laugh, soft and distant, and shakes her head. "Congratulations, you've deeply insulted your hypothetical neighbor. There's a saying on Earth - when in Rome, do as Romans do. Like most sayings it's pithy and overly simplistic, but it's more what one might call a reminder anyway."

"...You're still my friend, Tayrey. I didn't come here to argue about what happened on the ship, hell, we don't need to bring it up ever again. That shit fucking sucked and I know I'm gonna be dealing with it for..."

"...ever, probably. I came over because I figure somebody ought to have your back. I wanna see you prosper, y'know? I really think you could here."

She still wears that careful, neutral expression.

'If my neighbor is insulted by me following the basic rule of fair contract and explaining it is a cultural difference then we were never going to be good neighbors. I've heard this advice before, Erin. Conform. Assimilate. Stop being who you are and valuing what you value. But I'm a Tradeliner. That evil djinn couldn't take that away from me, nor could the torturers in the village, and my friends won't do it either. I'm a Tradeliner on my ship, on every planet, every station - even in your Rome. That won't change. You might as well have brought me a plate of meat and told me eat up, it's what everyone else does.'

She looks at Erin directly now, intensely. 'I intend to prosper here. But I'll do it as myself, living by my Code, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it or of me. I'll stay here as long as I must, and then someday I'll get home.'

Tayrey's not going to talk about what happened on the ship because she doesn't trust herself to, doesn't trust herself not to crumble and break down if anyone so much as hints that they think she deserved any of those horrors. There are walls that need rebuilding first. Someday she'll be strong again.

"I know you will," comes the soft murmur. "I ain't trying to take anything from you. Y'know...you're a very inquisitive person, Tayrey, but sometimes it feels like you think trying to understand other people is gonna hurt you somehow. Makes it rough when I'm busting ass trying to understand you. Seen you do this before, shut me out, decide on your own that I don't get it. Lemme show you a trick."

Erin cracks her neck and switches from Emeran, the local language everyone here is currently speaking, to English, which was spoken on the ship: "Peace and prosperity, Lieutenant."

And then she repeats it in Japanese. French. Swahili. Spanish. German. Cantonese.

Tayrey cracks a smile.

'Peace and prosperity.' That's Emeran. And then Tayrey repeats it in Japanese - she didn't spend that long around Nobunaga and not pick up that much. Again, in Sector Standard. In Company Standard, same language family, different in the details. In Siduri'in. In Čiprijan. Then, finally, with spacer hand signals, hands brought together as if cradling something precious, then spread outward in abundance.

A moment later, back to Emeran, soberly. 'You're right that I don't think you'll get it. About the ship - because we've discussed that enough times, it's an irreconcilable clash of values and priorities and I'm not... I'm not saying you can't have yours. I'm respecting yours, by not talking about it. By not going on about what it's like to have everything I worked for reduced in your mind to fucking around, because it's your right to have that opinion. I've just gotta step back and let you have that freedom, Erin. It's alright. But I don't want to talk about it. It's all too painful.'

She sighs. 'The rest... what I'm reading is you telling me there's something wrong with my beliefs about gifts and fair contract. Not just that you don't share them, but that you're suggesting I ought to abandon them to- to fit in. If that's not what you were signalling, not the conclusion I was meant to draw from that, then I'll hear correction.'

Edited 2024-03-07 16:14 (UTC)

"...In a moment. Got something to put on the table here - you know, that's the first time I've heard any of the languages from the Tradelines? They're beautiful." Erin leans back in her chair, tilts her head to the sky. "One of the many, many indignities of the ship was taking people's mother tongue from them. I lucked out, English is mine, but you, Ruby, Darcy, hell even Nobunaga got robbed, and that's. Awful. Legitimately bad for people to go through."

"It'd be my honor to learn yours, if you care to trade for the lessons. I'm not the fastest student of language, but consider me highly motivated."

She shakes her head, quick to reassure. 'It never took that from me. To me, it seemed you were all speaking Sector Standard like me, except when people made a very concerted effort not to. Which is how I learned some Japanese from Nobunaga.' Tayrey smiles at the memory. 'He called me Ari-kun sometimes. In private.' She'd had to ask Yato what it meant, but even before she knew, she'd sensed the significance, Ari Tayrey who understands levels of formality and gradations of meaning better than most.

She doesn't mention that the people closest to her, the people she trusted, sometimes seemed to be speaking another language. The language of her childhood. But she'll explain what she can.

'And thank you! I would be... exceptionally pleased to teach you one of our languages. There are many, in my sector. The story goes that our very first colony, Kishar, was settled by speakers of many languages. They met together and they all decided that it would be best for children to be taught only one language, to unify the colony. But then it came to agreeing on which language it would be. They couldn't! All the languages had value and they didn't want any to disappear. Hub stations have signage in many languages, and Tradeliners - we come from all over. You'll hear so many languages on a ship. But Sector Standard is our common trade language, the one we usually speak shipside. It's my second language. I could teach you that. Or I could teach you my first, Company Standard. My generation speaks that natively, but my grandparents didn't. It's another trading language, but Company executives didn't go the Kisharin route, they adopted it happily.'

"Dealer's choice really -" Erin pauses, and then laughs, bright and merry. "Christ, of all the things we debated about I never actually asked if your crews have a gambling culture or not. Anyway, your pick, Lieutenant. The idea is to provide at least something from home for you, not that I'm gettin' nothin' out of it. People think in language, y'know? It'll be good for me to flex the ol' noggin again."

Tayrey grins. 'When you're in deep space most of the time there are... limitations on what you can do with your spare time. Gambling? Very popular. I never got into it heavily, because of the fine I got hit with after I signed up, but I won a lot of kalixtri games.'

She thinks for a moment. 'I'll teach you Sector Standard. It's what I got used to hearing, the whole sector uses it as a trading language, and it won't make you sound like you just stepped out from a Company Tower.'

"Sector Standard it is. I'll level with you, I don't remember the going rate for language lessons back on Earth, but I just fuckin' got here, I can't be hashing out payments. Consider it...damn it I used to know this phrase...not a pre-negotiation that's setting up the meeting and procedures..." Erin snaps her fingers a few times in rhythm, trying to remind herself, and then straightens up with the epiphany. "Declaration of intent, there we go! Formal contract later when we've had time to be at our best."

Deep breath. Erin steeples her fingers. "...Now, I said I'd circle back around. Our contract of friendship, I dunno if it's still valid by your lights. We had it pegged to time, with a duration, and time just got fucky from our perspective. But...I still value it. I'm still holding to it, on my end. I'm half-starved for Glamour, Tayrey, and I've been autocannibalizing my fuckin' selfhood as a result."

"What I'm saying is, I'm not at the top of my explanation game here. Can I ask you to strain your remarkable mind to extend me the benefit of the doubt here?"

'Right. Formal contract later.' That's easy enough, for something as simple as language lessons. Easy to make fair. But the rest...

Tayrey frowns. 'I wasn't going to say anything, Erin, given I know I'm hardly any better, but you do look rough. Within the boundaries of our contract, I've got to ask if you'd rather hold off on the difficult conversations, because - I can extend the benefit of the doubt, but you know me. If I don't like what you have to say, I can't pretend I do. And by rights I should be robust enough to hear anything. Freedom of speech matters. But I'm... damaged, Erin. I can't tell how bad. I might not be up to it. I can't do anything about that right now, but I- is there anything I can do for you? Materially, to help?'

It's a hard admission for her to make. Freedom was supposed to solve everything. It hasn't. The scars on her body might be gone, but there are people here she can't even look at without a jolt of panic. Hard to keep it all in proportion, and criticism of basic Tradeline customs would only be a reminder of how alone she is.

Although nobody on the construction site had cared about those differences, just that she pulled her weight at work, and she was more than capable of doing that. Maybe it's just a matter of finding the right places, she thinks.

"I can't ask you for what I need most. I'm not gonna harvest your Glamour, not when it unavoidably breaches your privacy." Erin hangs her head, but she's smiling. It's fragile, but it's there. "...The offer means a lot. I know we'll talk again after I can sleep and eat and maybe get a bar fight and cuddle Ylva and...all that, but if I don't say this now I'll forget, and I can't be having that. So. Before I start, this is a matter of...strategy, and dignity, not of our frequent debates. I'm not asking you to believe anything different."

It still takes her a bit to work up to it, stretching with audible Popping Sounds and faint groans of both pain and relief.

(We've got to try.)

Yeah. I know.

"...We've taken a job," Erin murmurs. "With a pretty good paycheck. To live again, that's a big ask, and more importantly, we can leave. I remember that part of the deal, and it's not something we could do on the ship. If the work doesn't seem worth the payment, we can die, really die. Everything we ever argued about, I never disagreed about the right to die."

"But the people we've been hired to help, they don't have that choice. They can't leave, and they can't die. They're prisoners in their own home, maybe the only home they've ever known. They can't work hard and save up their money to hop a ship to another city, they can't be safe in their own houses, they can't import new technologies or even new ideas." Her fingers curl into a loose fist; her arm is shaking. "All they have left is their dignity, their idea of doing right by others, their idea of being good people. This potluck is part of that. A housewarming gift can be part of that...if they couldn't take care of each other, if they couldn't show hospitality, well, then they'd really be wretched. Things would really be bad."

"Please tell me I'm making human sense."

Ari Tayrey listens. She doesn't interrupt, doesn't say a word, just listens carefully to all this. For a long moment afterwards, she's silent. She clasps her hands together, wearing an expression of deep concentration. Careful thought.

'I follow,' she says at last, slowly. 'To a point.' Tayrey takes a breath. 'I willingly signed that contract. It's not perfect, no contract ever is, but it was more than good enough. I mean to fulfil it. I certainly want to protect the essential rights of the local people, so far as I can. And to free them from this... situation. It matters to me, and you know why. But what I don't think you see-'

Here's the tricky part. 'They have the right to their own customs. I'd be a monster if I tried to prevent them from giving each other gifts or following their religion or doing anything else that seems right to them and doesn't harm anyone else. Their rights matter. But so do mine, Erin. Being here under some kind of agreed indenture doesn't alter that. I didn't sign away my culture. If I had to accept charity, no fair contract in return, then I'd be wretched. Yes? I did day labor so I could purchase a dish to contribute to this gathering, and attend it. I'm participating in their community, as I can, without betraying my own beliefs in the process. You can't ask more of me than that.'

"I'm not asking more. Just for some flexibility, and for once in my life my experience with growing up poor as hell is helpful here." Erin's expression goes almost nostalgic. "...Growing up we had these neighbors for awhile, the Robinsons. Down on their luck. Mom used to go over every now and again, right, and the thing is we'd have 'em over for dinner or give them leftovers from Dad's job at the diner, and Mom would go over and ask to borrow something little. Some sugar, cleaning supplies, stuff we had but wasn't expensive. When I was a kid, confused the hell out of me, but after I became Lost I saw it for what it was. Taking charity from us would have shamed the Robinsons, but Mom made them feel like they were paying back what was owing. She gave them their dignity. What I'm getting at, or trying to, is there's ways to navigate this, yeah? Fair trade, wearing a different hat."

Now she's confused. Possibly as confused as the child Erin had been, albeit for different reasons.

'You're almost talking about generosity and goodwill in contract,' Tayrey posits. 'If someone offered me a full meal in trade for a bit of sugar, I'd be offended. Because I'm not needy and the imbalance is obvious. If I were truly needy, that sort of arrangement is a way to give charity without having to say it, and I'd be grateful my benefactor did it that way.'

She shakes her head. 'I'm not sure which side of the equation you're trying to put me on, but I'm not needy. I'm not going to play poor little refugee happy to get a culturally inappropriate gift because it makes some local feel better about their situation, having some worse off stranger to care for.. I'll work flat out to pay my way. At anything.' Tayrey speaks with a fierce sense of pride, but there's no anger in the words, just determination. As if she needs to prove herself.

"Heh. Lieutenant, you've got it backwards. If I know you even a tenth of how well I think you do, you're gonna be the one well off soon enough, and people doing worse than you will be bringing gifts so they don't feel indebted." Erin looks up, flashing a smile. "You're about to learn real fast how many people on that fucking nightmare ship never had a real job. Think it over while you meet people. And do spare a thought for the fate of your inevitable business empire once you cash out and go back home, yeah?"

That's unexpected enough to take the heat out of her insistence entirely.

'If what you're asking is for me to show goodwill in my contracts with the locals, I will. Friendly face of the Tradelines. I can be tactful about it. No tough negotiations, they don't carry well.' She shrugs. 'I'm still not accepting gifts without reciprocity.' The mutually beneficial contract is the fundamental building block of society. She won't let that go.

A small smile, then, because she won't say it, but Erin's faith in her counts for a lot. 'And if I end up running my own Company here I'll be sure to appoint capable Directors who can step into the breach at need. Local people. Something sustainable and lasting. But that's a long way off, and the work I'm contracted for has first priority.'

Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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CW ethics of suicide

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