IGNORANCE
M.C.A. Hogarth

aunera [ au NEH rah ], (adjective) — Both a color (emerald green, very lush and deep, with a slight tint of blue) and a description of alien things, things that are not Ai-Naidari, from people and worlds to emotions and thoughts.

      It was good to be stripped on the market's pedestal... good to feel the crowd deepening around me. They were willing to look, to accept my public penance. Behind me, Shame tied me fast and a sigh rippled through the watchers... and we were one, oh at last, after my thoughtless arrogance had separated us, Noble from people. My head sank low enough to make the nape of my neck visible, and their gazes on me were a caress.
      When something disturbed that communion I raised my face. Shying away, the watchers had left a corridor through their ranks all the way to my Regal, accompanied by a figure far too short for any Ai-Naidari, and cloaked—aunerai?
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SPITE
M.C.A. Hogarth

merethek [ MARE-eh-thehk ], (noun) — A ritual in which someone of lower caste-rank pledges fealty to one of higher, and both acknowledge their mutual duties, lord to vassal. During this ritual, the higher-ranked paints a ribbon pattern on the lower with a dye (or bleach). This dye fades over the course of a year, at which point the ritual is observed again. Only Thirukedi uses permanent dyes.

      The knocks before had been frantic, angry, desperate. They'd been accompanied by cajoling, by pleas, by remonstrations. None of them had pried me from hiding.
      This knock was slow.
      Was hard.
      Was inexorable.
      I knew I would give in to it. Knowing made me panic. I faced the corner and chewed on my knuckles.
      Silence.
      Again, the knock.
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"A bizarre question."

I look up. "Oh, you're back then. What question?"

"The one implied by suggesting that one might be attracted to one's ajzelin."

"Does that happen?" I ask.

"Of course." He flips through the dictionary to see where I am with the vocabulary. "Does that matter?"

"Some people would say it matters a lot," I say. "What do you do?"

Shame lifts his brows. "The person who feels it doesn't call attention to it. The person who notices it ignores it."

"That's it?" I say.

"Is that so hard?"

"What if it's really hard to not call attention to?"

He points:

ril [ reel ], (verb) – to relieve oneself; this refers to any bodily need from hunger and thirst, to passing waste, to any sexual requirement

"Just like that," I say. "You walk into a bathroom, take care of it and come back."

"Why not?"

"Isn't that rude?"

He stares at me. "I admit, aunerai... you have defeated me at last. How is that any more rude than emptying your bladder so you can sleep?"

"Because... " I trail off. "I don't know. Do you have frank talks with your ajzelin about... responses? Assuming you have one."

He snorts. "I'm a little younger than him, so yes, it happens. Why would we need to discuss it? Frank discussions exist to set boundaries... but the boundaries of the relationship between ajzelin are already understood. We both know what to expect. Why would we need to talk about it?"

"He doesn't apologize?"

"For my bodily response?" Shame stares at me. "Do you truly apologize for such things? For being attractive? Is it something you do to someone else, to which they become captive and then they suffer?"

"I don't know," I admit, glancing at all the discussions I've been reading for days.

"Do your people have no concept of self-control?" Shame asks.

"I don't know," I say again, because I don't.


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"Strange..."

"What's that?"

I am leaning forward over my desk, tangled hair over one shoulder and all my brushes in front of me. "Well, they've seen you thrown people around. Tie them up and expose them in public. Threaten to rape them—with the implication that you'd follow through if necessary—you've shown you're good with a whip for a reason we'll see in a while. You've sedated people, blinded and gagged them, had them thrown into rooms for solitary confinement, cut them... and throughout all that, people responded uneasily, wondering what keeps you from abusing your power. Now that I've revealed it, some of them think you've been tortured and the sympathy shifts."

Shame laughs.

"What?" I say, looking over my shoulder.

"It's very aunerai, forgive me," he says. "Perhaps you should have used a different metaphor."

"Like what?"

"Tell them it's like a chef having to sample his entire menu before serving it."

I stare at him. "You think this is funny."

"It was a transcendent experience," Shame says quietly. "And I was in good hands. What should I fear from what people think they know?"

"Some people would argue torture can't be transcendent."

"Then you should not explain at all the Ai-Naidari definition of torture," Shame says. "Besides, even humans know better. The book you just read, yes? "In some rare cases, this shift in consciousness [toward spiritual enlightenment] happens dramatically and radically, once and for all. When it does, it usually comes about through total surrender in the midst of intense suffering." "

I eye him. "You're reading Oprah Book Club picks."

"No, you are," he says, laughing. "I'm just reading over your shoulder."

"It really doesn't bother you?" I ask.

"No," he says. "And it shouldn't bother you."

"Right," I say, and drag myself off to start the day.


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CALLING
M.C.A. Hogarth

alurais [ ah loo RAYZ ], (noun) — loyalty, allegiance, adoration

      "Kor."
      The sound of his name raises his eyelids.
      "What day is it, Kor?"
      "It is the second day of my trial."
      I nod. "We are hardly begun, we two."
      "Yes, Thirukedi."
      "Why are we here, Kor?"
      "Because there is no Civilization without Shame, Thirukedi."
      I smile. "Why am I here?
      "Because there is no Shame without Civilization."
      "And you? Why are you here?"
      "Because I would serve You, and to serve You I must feel the touch of every tool I use on those I would Correct."
      "What day is it again, Kor?"
      "The second day of my trial, Thirukedi."
      "We two, we are hardly begun."
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PASSION
M.C.A. Hogarth

ama [ ah MAH ], (verb) — to long or yearn

      It is an Ai-Naidari ideal to love all people equally as manifestations of the same spirit: "aimeth", we say, "oneness." Most Ai-Naidar spend their lives struggling to balance oneness and more singular loves, but I am fortunate: all fathrikedi—Decorations, living statues, bed-warmers—are chosen for this ability to love without jealousy; it is the measure of our beauty, how completely we give ourselves to aimeth. I was twice-blessed, for as a mute I understood implicitly how words can obfuscate the spirit. So exemplary was my practice of aimeth, my Regal made a gift of me to Thirukedi Himself.
      But the moment I witnessed Shame's trial I was lost.
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"What now?" Shame asks as I stare at the lexicon, my pen still in my hand.

Wordless, I point. He looks and says, "Ah. I wondered when you would find that."

"You wondered!" I exclaim.

He nods. "Since I saw that you make... strange distinctions. "Submissive." "Dominant." "Switch." "

I look over my shoulder at him. "Exactly what were you reading to find stuff like that?"

"A culture's attitude toward sex is revealing," Shame says. At my expression, he says solemnly, mimicking the Calligrapher, "I used the tool of the Firefox."

"Lord preserve," I say, covering my eyes. "Did you...."

"Turn Safe Search off," he says. He nods toward the dictionary. "But you see, we are different."

ieqera [ ee yeh KAIR aa ], (noun) — balance between desire to lead and desire to follow. Every person's ieqera is different, leaning more towards one or the other, but every Ai-Naidari has both qualities in them.

"You perceive," he says as I stare at it, "all of us must have both. As Farren noted, "Ever is there one born below you... and one above."

"Even you?" I tease.

"Particularly me," he says.

"Even Thirukedi?"

"The Emperor answers to his people, does he not?"

"The Exception?"

He smiles without humor. "Is the Exception. That question answers itself, and you should know better, aunerai." He taps the page. "Read on."

naima [ neye MAH ], (noun) — need to lead, be in charge, take care of many others, be aggressive, make decisions (one side of the scale of ieqera).

fijza [ FEE jzah ], (noun) — need to follow, be subordinate, serve one particular person, be receptive/submissive, be given clear direction (one side of the scale of ieqera).

"Taking care of people is in both these definitions," I say, quiet.

"The more responsibility you have, the more people you are responsible for. Yes? And yet the servant serves a master." Continuing the lesson, he says, "The adjectives are manaimas, to be leaderish, and mefijzan, to be followerish. Both are necessary and honorable. It is possible to be bad at both... and very good. A good servant is as invaluable as a good leader."

"My head hurts," I say.

"Is it your head, or your heart?" Shame asks.

I eye him.

He touches my shoulder, startling me. "I didn't mean to wound you. But... this is another form of destructive independence your society practices, yes? Pretending that everyone must be a leader, and that cooperation is somehow accomplished by many leaders coming together and mysteriously deciding to help one another. It's ridiculous. It drives the truth into your bedrooms."

"I'm not sure that's true," I say, quiet.

"I'm not sure it's not," he says, and leaves me with the dictionary.

Ieqera... always someone above and someone below. But that would require more trust in one another than we have, wouldn't it.

I put the pen down and close the book. I'm done for the day.



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CRADLE
M.C.A. Hogarth

atse [ ah TSEH ], (noun) — emotional outlets; anything that allows a person to relieve emotional stress in a safe, healthy and socially acceptable way.

      "Drink," my mother had said, interrupting my packing for my trip to the capital, where I was to undertake my first assignment for the family business.
      Wide-eyed, I accepted the cup from my eldest sister. "But this is until-a-better-time...!"
      "In case you hadn't noticed," my aunt said, "You'll be in town for the Tryst."
      "You can't possibly mean me to... but... the capital!"
      "For your first time?" my sister said, laughing. "Oh you must! What a story to tell!"
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HUBRIS
M.C.A. Hogarth

vauni haale [vauhn nee HAA leh], (noun) — an empty vessel used as a meditation aid; popularized by a historical poem that spoke of filling an empty vase with one's spirit so one could contemplate it from a remove.

      See, I have bad thoughts.
      I know, everyone has bad thoughts. But mine are really bad. Really really bad.
      So, I try to fix them. You know. Correct myself. So no one will notice. Sometimes I'm pretty good at it, the thoughts go away for a week. But most of the time they come back fast, so I do it again.
      I spend a lot of my life trying to fix myself.
      The good part about this is that no one knew. I ended up sick once because I left myself out in the rain and got a fever, but no one knew why I was out there (after that I started doing it in the place-of-contemplation, where I won't catch a chill). But then Father caught me with a whip I stole from the stables and they figured it out.
      It was REEEEEALLY quiet in the House after that.
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BURN-OUT
M.C.A. Hogarth

helun [ heh LOON ], (noun) — camaraderie, particularly among those in dangerous or difficult professions

      "You don't belong here," I said.
      Yes, I was so bad I was turning away students. And if he'd answered with defensiveness or anger...
      ...but he said, "I know."
      I scowled. "Why are you here, then?"
      "You're the only one who can teach me."
      "I'm not the only armsmaster in the city," I said.
      "No," he said. "But you're the best at what I need to know."
      "And what is that?" I asked, ears flattening.
      "Subduing the unarmed."
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TOLERANCE
M.C.A. Hogarth

manais [ mah NEYES ], (noun) — duties a lord owes to those in his or her charge

      "I have called you here because I need Correction," I said. "I submit myself to you for this."
      T