On our way to dinner, I ask Emily, "So, I came up with a lot of... uhh... weird ideas about why you don't talk to your friends." Mostly having to do with her being forced away from them to help me in my efforts to try and fail to fit in here without hardly any idea how. But if she was actually doing it because she likes me, then I have no idea what it could be. "But I don't think any of them are right, so... why do you only talk to them on Shanaday exactly?"

"Uhh, it's a little hard to explain..." Emily mutters. "It's kind of like, we don't want to get too close to each other..." She stares at the passing wall as she speaks.

"Too close? Why not?"

"Well, we never know if Mister Fredricson will kick someone out, or if they'll get sold, or, uhh, s-something else, so..."

"Sold?" I ask. People sell lots of things, but is she talking about selling people?

"Sometimes a business will come and pay Mister Fredricson for one of us. Other times, it could be a rich person that wants a kid for some reason. As long as they pay, the reason doesn't really matter, you know?"

"Uhh, I'm not sure if I understand exactly. He sells people?"

"Well, technically selling people is illegal, but if someone gives Mister Fredricson enough money, he lets them adopt us. Then we're their kid, so we have to go live with them," she explains. Her eyes fall for a few moments. "We can't refuse, because we're still kids. If we really didn't want to go I guess we could run away, but we don't have anywhere to go, so..." Oh, so that's how it is. I'm not clear on all of the words she used, but I get the idea. When someone adopts you, you become their child, so of course you're supposed to go live with them. There just... aren't any other options for orphans. I frown a little at the thought.

"Since anyone could disappear at any time, it's not a good idea to get too close. Because then it'll hurt too much when they leave. It's too much like when we lost our families, so everyone tries not to get attached."

I wince at those familiar words. "Yeah, getting too attached really hurts..." Emily looks surprised by my response. It looks like she wants to know about it, but can't decide whether or not to ask. By the time we've gotten to this point, we arrive at the dining room table. We're kind of late, so the food came out already. We take our bowls and start eating.

I sigh between spoonfuls. That's not part of my past as a rail unit, so there shouldn't be any harm in talking about it. But it hurts just thinking about it. "Just before I came here, I spent a couple weeks living with a nice person. It was the first time anyone had ever cared about me. She taught me almost everything I know. Well, before I came here at least."

Then I sigh again, staring into my bowl. "I knew I wouldn't be able to stay, but I got really attached anyway. Leaving... hurt. A lot." Emily nods.

"I'm sorry about that," she comments.

"But," I add, "I'm still glad." Her frown turns to confusion. "I'm honestly happy that I got so close to her. Those are the happiest times in my whole life, I wouldn't trade them for anything. Those memories are more than worth the pain of leaving in the end."

"Hmm..." Emily seems to be seriously considering what I've said.

"Ah, but that might just be me, I'm so used to being hurt that I'd trade almost any amount of pain for some happiness..." I don't want to make it sound like my way of doing it is better. I know I don't understand things the way people do. The pain of losing someone like that could far outweigh the happiness of being with them for a human, I have no idea.

"Well, I'll think about it a bit," Emily says. We continue eating for a bit.

Something occurs to me as I stare at my stew. "But then... if you try not to get close to anyone, why are you getting so close to me?" I ask. If she only talks to her friends every Shanaday, why am I an exception?

"Aaah, if you ask about that, I'd say it's because we're roommates. We see each other every morning and night."

"Isn't that the same with the other girls? You don't seem that close with any of them..."

"Well, there's a little more to it, but I think I'd die of embarrassment if I told you about it..." But in the middle of her speaking, my attention shifts.

"Ah!"

"Hmm?" She looks back over when I get distracted in the middle of our conversation. I look down carefully at the vegetable in my spoon. I don't recognize this one. It's kind of soft and brownish. I chew it carefully, and swallow. Emily watches curiously. I wait a bit, but nothing happens. I guess that one isn't it.

"Ah, sorry, I got distracted. You were saying that you don't really want to talk about why?"

She immediately looks away, answering, "Y-yeah, kind of. I just have my reasons."

"Ok, I won't ask." If she doesn't want to say, that's up to her. "Well, I'm sorry in advance. Mister Fredricson is always mad at me, so I don't know when he'll finally kick me out..." I bow while I apologize. She grins as if it's a joke, but fails badly at hiding her worry.

"Yeah, you're really weird," she responds, "so you're always doing things to make him mad."

"I'm really sorry about that." I take a deep breath and put down my spoon. "You see, I never learned anything."

She tilts her head, "Anything about what?"

"Well, anything about anything," I try to explain. "You know how I said there was nothing good in my past? Well... there wasn't really much of anything. It was just pain."

"I don't really get it..." Emily looks confused.

"I'm sorry, I can't really explain it," I shake my head. "But basically, no one ever taught me anything. Well, I guess that's not entirely true..." I backtrack since they did teach us things there, just nothing like how to actually go out into the world and live. "I learned various things, but the only ones that actually seem to be useful are speaking and math." Emily nods somewhat, but still looks confused. "The first time anyone ever taught me anything about actually living was about three weeks ago. When that nice woman helped me. Like I said earlier, she taught me everything I knew when I got here."

Emily considers my rough explanation for a bit. Then she seems to realize something. "Wait, three weeks ago?! That's hardly any time at all!" I nod. I mean, I kind of started learning on my own by observation some... uncertain number of months ago, but most of that time was spent figuring out how to think and feel for myself...

I finally pick my spoon back up, continuing to eat slowly. "Yeah, I've picked up a whole lot of little pieces of things, but there are all sorts of things I don't even know I don't know." I shake my head sadly. "Like, a little while ago I walked into the river because I didn't know about drowning."

Emily goes pale. "That's terrifying!"

"Yeah, it really is." I grin to cover how uncomfortable it is just thinking about it, "I get flashbacks every time I go to the river." I shiver a little as I tell her about it. "So, uhh, that's why there are so many things I don't understand. And why I'm really happy that you answer all of my weird questions..."

Emily nods repeatedly. "I had no idea..."

"I'm sorry I didn't explain it properly before." I lower my head again.

"It's fine, I'm glad you told me about it." She smiles. We continue eating for a bit longer. It feels nice now that we've gotten past the misunderstandings from earlier. Now that I've explained things, I start raking back through my mental backlog of all the stuff I haven't had a chance to ask about yet. The main topic is all that stuff about the church and gods. I didn't get to ask yesterday because I fainted just as I was beginning to ask.

----------------------------------------

"So, I didn't get to finish asking about the gods yesterday," I start.

"That's right," Emily says.

"I... don't really know anything about it. I'm not even sure where to start or what to ask about..."

"I don't really know a whole lot, but I can cover the basics," Emily says, "if you want to know anything more detailed, you should ask Jess about it." I nod, and think for a bit before settling on something.

"Well, I guess my first question would just be about the whole... basic concept. From what I heard, this is what I understand: There are gods that have power over the world around us. If we make them happy, they use their powers to make our lives better, and if we make them angry, they make our lives worse. Is that basically how it works?"

"Well, more or less."

"Ok, so then what exactly is a 'god?'"

"Hmm, that's kind of hard. I guess it's basically what you described. It's some sort of being that has power over the world." Huh, that's a pretty vague concept.

"So, they make our lives better or worse based on whether we please or anger them? How does that work? That man talked about stations and order, but I don't really understand what he was talking about."

"Aah, let's see, where to start..." Emily thinks for a bit. As she's thinking, we finish up our dinner and go to put our bowls back. Then we head up to our room to continue our conversation.

"Ok, so the head priest-" I cut her off.

"The head priest was the guy in the, uhh, different looking robe?" I vaguely wave my arms out to my sides, I'm not sure why. Because of his big sleeves?

"Yeah," she confirms before moving on. "He was talking about behavior that would please or anger the gods. The one he was talking about was: 'You must show due respect and obedience to your betters and those in a higher station than yourself.'" She says it as if reciting something.

"Ok, but what does that mean exactly?"

She tilts her head. "It means you do what people above you tell you to do." It seems like a simple explanation, but I don't understand the above and below part.

"There's a part of it I'm still missing though. He talks about 'betters' and high and low stations. I don't know what those mean." I see her finally realize what I'm asking about.

"O-Oh, that's what you don't understand..." She looks really worried all of a sudden. "Basically, it refers to how some people are more important and powerful than other people."

"Important and powerful... how?"

Emily considers the question for a bit before shrugging and answering, "Important in general... I guess. And powerful... in the government, sort of." Her answer makes me pout a little. Every explanation relies on more concepts I've never heard of before.

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"So power in government... what is 'government'?"

Emily visibly flinches at that question. "The government is, uhh, what controls everyone? It's kind of hard to explain actually."

I tilt my head and ask, "Controls everyone how?"

"Like, with laws, and they hire the guards, and control the military. They probably do a bunch of other stuff too?" Ok, at least the guards I understand already.

"Hmm, so then first, what are laws?"

That question actually gets Emily to ask, "How have you survived until now?" She actually looks scared as she asks.

I look down. "Not very well..."

Emily clears her throat to push past that, and answers. "Laws tell us what we are allowed and not allowed to do. Like, we're not allowed to kill people or steal things. If you break the law, the guards will capture you, and you'll be forced to pay a monetary fine, go to prison, or be killed. It depends what kind of law you break." I can understand the first and third of those at least. That just leaves the second.

"What is prison?"

"It's a place where you get locked inside, can't go anywhere or do anything, and they give you just enough food and water to survive. They keep you there for a long time, like years, before letting you out again." That sounds uncomfortably similar to the treatment in the AR program... I mentally shake off the comparison after a moment.

"Ok... So the government makes the laws, which we need to obey, or they send the guards to punish us..." Not too difficult to understand. "They also control the military? What is that?"

"The military is the group that goes out and fights the enemies of our country." That sounds immediately familiar. Is the AR program related to the military?

"What is a 'country'?"

"It's the place where we live. It's made of a bunch of cities like this one, plus all of the land between the cities. Oh, by the way, this city is called Brenton, and our country is called Melphira." I'm not sure if I'll be able to remember those names too well just from hearing them once, but I repeat them in my head a few times, to at least try to remember them a little.

I start working backward with the information I have. "Ok, so the military fights our enemies, the government controls the military, as well as the laws and the guards. And the government is controlled by the powerful people you talked about. Who are these powerful people?"

As I finish asking my question, the door into our room opens and Jannette walks in. She glances at us, then goes to lie down in bed. "Umm, it won't bother you if we're talking will it?" I ask.

"It's fine." She doesn't say anything else, so we move on.

Emily puts up two fingers. "That would be the king, and the nobles. All the way at the top is the king. He can make any decision and everyone else has to obey. He controls the whole country. I guess it's him who decides who gets to be a noble. There are a bunch of nobles. I think there are different types, but I don't really know much about it." She shrugs. "They rule the cities and towns. Our city is ruled by a man named Roger Brennen." I slowly nod as she covers the bits and pieces of information, though she clearly doesn't know much about it herself. "Anyway, those are all the powerful people in the government that control things. We don't really deal with them much though." I nod a few times as I get all the information to fit into my understanding of things.

The other girls arrive one after another at this point. When we ask, none of them have any problem with us talking either. So I move backward once more. "That covers everything about the powerful people the head priest was talking about when he mentioned people in high stations, right?"

"More or less," Emily says, "that leaves the people in low stations. That's us, the commoners."

"Commoners?"

She nods. "Commoners like us are are basically regular people. We don't have any power in the government. We follow all the rules but don't get to make any of the decisions. It's our job to do what we're told by the people above us, because they have all the power." That pretty much sounds like what the head priest said.

"Ok. But there aren't any different types of commoners, like with the higher up people?"

"Well, not exactly. We're all just commoners, but we're generally divided into three types based on how much money we have. The poorest, like us, are called peasants. Then there are the vulgants who have an average amount of money. The divants have a lot of money. It's not really strictly divided though, like it is between commoners and nobles. You can generally tell which type of commoner someone is based on where they live in the city and what they wear. The further south, the more money people have," she explains.

"And people's clothes also change based on how much money they have?" I ask to confirm the last bit. She nods.

"Yeah, the more money people have, the more they can spend on their clothing. You can tell if someone has more money based on if their clothing has a lot of extra cloth, which costs more, and if it's dyed in bright or unique colors, because the best dyes cost a lot of money. Then there's the quality of the cloth. Thicker, more well made fabrics are a lot more time consuming and expensive to create. Actually speaking of that, what's with your clothes?" Emily suddenly gets sidetracked in the middle of her explanation. "They're dirty now, but they were all white before. I've never seen white cloth like that before."

"Ooh yeah, tell us about it," Helen suddenly chimes in from her bed. No one else says anything, but with just a glance, it's clear they're all listening to the conversation closely.

"I don't really know." I shrug.

"What do you mean? Where did you get it from?"

"I've always had it. I don't really know anything about it though. It's just what I've always worn."

"That's... extremely weird..." Emily comments. I nod. Everyone else nods too. I know it is, but I can't say anything more about it.

"Anyway..." she awkwardly gets back on topic, "clothes are the easiest way to tell what class someone is."

"Wait, class? Is that another word for their station?"

"Yeah, station is a kind of fancy way of saying it. You'd normally hear someone refer to it as a social class probably. But their clothing is the best way to tell. The better the fabric, brighter the colors, and more extra layers of fabric, the higher class someone is. This is the most important part to remember, because you have to obey people of higher standing than you. If you don't, you'll offend the gods, and it's against the law as well. Probably because it offends the gods actually..."

"Anyway," she continues after trailing off for a few moments, "lower class commoners aren't exactly required to obey higher class commoners, but higher class commoners probably won't bother to listen to you or anything if you're a lower class than them. But you absolutely have to obey the nobles. If you don't they can have you killed if they want. I've heard some nobles will execute commoners for just annoying them. So if you see someone in super fancy clothing, especially if it's dyed with unique colors, be really careful, you're dealing with a noble. Though most of the time it's best to just stay away from them completely." With that, she finally finishes her explanation.

"Ok, I think I understand now. Wow," I huff, "that's a lot of information, just from that one thing. What was it? 'You must obey those in higher station than you?'" That alone spread out into topics of how this whole country is run, and the social classes that separate people. It did explain the huge differences in clothing and housing I saw throughout the city at least.

But who would have thought there were people out there you absolutely have to obey or they could just kill you? It seems kind of crazy that there can be such a huge power imbalance between different people. Not to mention that strange, super powerful beings enforce it as well.

"Uhh, you said the other way to tell people apart is by where they live. What do you mean by that? I noticed bigger houses further south like you said, are there certain areas in the city where people of different classes live?"

"Pretty much. Everything gets more expensive when you go south, so the poorest people live in the north, like us." That's right, we're only a block from the North Gate, so we live in the poorest section of the city. "In the middle of the city is where all the vulgants live, and down by the castle are the divants. The nobles live in their own area next to the castle. And the Duke Brennen lives in the castle."

"Duke Brennen?" I ask. Didn't she call him a different name earlier?

"That's Roger Brennen's title, because he's a duke." Emily explains. "I guess that means something among the nobles?" But she just shrugs since she doesn't know anything beyond that. I nod a little, then move onto the next new word.

"Then, what's a 'castle'?" I ask.

"It's a place down in the south section of the city with the huge wall around it. There's supposed to be a huge building in there, that's the castle."

"Oh, that building!" I remember that huge stone building I saw when I was walking to the south gate. So the most powerful person in the city lives there. Now that I know about the different social classes, it makes sense that the most impressive building would belong to the most important person.

"You've seen it?!" This question comes from most of the girls in the room at the same time. Even Jannette's eyes go wide as she sits up in bed.

"Umm, yes? I only walked past it one time though."

"When, how, why, tell us about it!" Helen sits up and asks suddenly. Everyone else leans forward in bed, not even trying to sleep anymore.

"Uhh, sure, I guess." I don't know why they're so interested in this. Didn't Emily just tell me we should try to avoid all the important people like nobles? So why do they want to know about the duke's castle? Not to mention, how is just walking past it interesting? "It was eleven days ago, I was looking for the South Gate, and I asked a guard for help. So he led me to the South Gate, and we walked past the castle on the way there." I just shrug. "That's it."

"What do you mean, 'that's it'? There are way too many strange things about that!" Emily exclaims pointing and waving at me. I blink a few times and tilt my head. What's strange about it?

"Wasn't there a big gate? Didn't you have to go through there?" Eve asks. I nod.

"They don't just let us commoners through there, you know!" Mary shouts.

"They don't?"

"No, of course they don't," Emily explains at a more reasonable volume. "They're more important, so they don't want us in the nice areas they build for themselves." That kind of makes sense in some way.

"Wait, then why did they let me in?"

"That's what we want to know..." Eve sighs.

"Don't you have any idea?" Emily asks.

"Umm..." I think about it. What reason could they possibly have for letting a commoner just walk through there? No, maybe I'm thinking about it wrong. What about me is different? That I'm a rail unit of course. But no one can tell, so that shouldn't be it, right? Maybe it was my robe? But Francis didn't recognize me by it... Are there different types of guards then? That one was dressed way better than Francis, so maybe he was part of a different group of guards for the rich and powerful? Then maybe they also know more and were able to recognize my robe? But they didn't look scared of me...

"Are there different types of guards?" I ask.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Emily looks confused.

"Uhh, it's kind of complicated. In that case, I might have an idea, but there are way too many problems with it, so I think it's unlikely. And uh, I can't really talk about it..."

"Something from your past?" Emily's eyes fall a little.

"Yeah, I'm sorry..."

The conversation hits a lull for a bit.

Emily breaks it with a voice almost at a whisper. "Hey Aria... You... you weren't some important person before, were you?" Emily doesn't meet my eyes when she asks.

"Haha!" I clap a hand over my mouth when I start laughing involuntarily. Emily looks halfway between shocked and hurt.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh," I put a hand out and speak quickly, trying to console her, "it's just the complete opposite. I don't matter at all." As soon as the words leave my mouth, I flinch and cover my mouth again. I said too much without thinking.

"What do you mean you don't matter?" This time Eve asks with a worried look. I keep my hand over my mouth and shake my head. I absolutely can't say anything else.

Emily speaks up next. "Don't say you don't matter! You're my friend, you matter to me."

Seeing a way out, I grab onto it. "Y-yeah, sorry, I wasn't thinking. You can just forget about it..." I try to laugh it off, but Emily doesn't seem convinced. From the corner of my eye, is Jannette glaring at me?

"Anyway, it's getting late. I'm sorry for keeping you all up," I say to everyone.

"Don't worry about it, it was really interesting," Eve grins. Mary nods along emphatically. Everyone but Jannette chimes in as well. Everyone begins to turn in, but Emily clearly hasn't let go of the last part of the conversation. I hate that I can't tell her anything. Even now that we're friends, there's always something that I won't share with her at all. As bad as it feels for me, it must be way worse for her. It must feel like I don't trust her. Which... is fair, since deep down, I don't. As much as I want to. I can't.

But I still want to make her feel better, so I go over to her as she sits up in bed. "Thank you for teaching me so much today," I say and hug her.

"A-Aria?" She looks all around at our roommates, who all giggle as they watch. "Ahh, what am I going to do with you?" she laughs and hugs me back. After a bit, we let go and I return to my own bed. It's later than normal, so I try to get to sleep as soon as I can. It's not that hard, I'm tired after all of the ups and downs today.

There are still lots of problems I don't know how to fix. Lots of things to learn. I'm always walking blindly into situations without realizing it, and I'm still guilty about lying to everyone. But there are lots of good things coming up as well. I mean, I made my first friend! That alone helps ease my mind as I drift off to sleep. And just like with Marrianne, warm, comforting hugs with my friend make me feel so much better. It would be nice if I could sleep with her like I did with Marrianne but... somehow it feels embarrassing. I guess that's what Emily was talking about earlier... I grin as my thoughts get sleepy and muddled. Soon enough, I fall asleep.