By the time I finished telling Mera my maudlin, almost mawkish story, she’d developed a familiar-to-me look on her face. It was a look of revulsion, but it was more than that; it was a statement in body language that she couldn’t really grasp, couldn’t comprehend, the story I’d told.
That made a lot more sense here in Shem than it ever had back on Earth, so I did my best to forgive her that reaction.
“You talked mostly about your father,” Mera said eventually, her face settling back into neutrality. “He sounds pretty fucked up, and obviously it’s hard to move on from that kind of betrayal. Harder, in the short time you’ve had and in the conditions you’ve lived in.”
That rankled, and my voice went sharper than I intended. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t gimme that, you know perfectly well I’m right.” Her voice was just on the edge of being so tart it was offensive, and I half expected her to roll her eyes at me. “Healing from trauma takes space, emotional energy to spare, and a support system. A real one, not the occasional warm bed—people who you trust not to re-traumatize you, people who can model being less emotionally twisted around their history. Are you saying you had that?”
“Well, no.” I snorted, leaning back. “If anything, I had it better than most of them. I had advanced credentials and a real job, one which paid enough to comfortably live on; I had access to medical care and a mom who was still in touch. Which, well, okay, those were all good and important things, but it’s amazing how resentful people can be when you share an identity but not their primary problems.”
“We should go, by the way.”
I blinked at her seeming non-sequitur, then looked around. “Shit. How long has nobody been here?”
“Eh, not that long. C’mon. Let’s take a walk through the inner quints, hang out behind Rise. It’s got a nice vibe.”
“It does, at that.”
I followed her up out of our chairs and out of the refectory door, expecting her to ask a question. For a long moment in which the only sound around us was humming and our footsteps as we left the building, she didn’t—and then, when I’d stopped expecting one, she spoke. “So, let’s take a step back and talk about intent.”
“Sure?”
“You’ve obviously talked about this stuff with people before, so you’re coming into this with ideas about what this even is. Yeah?”
“For any given thing,” I said dryly, “one interacts with the thing while possessed of an impression or opinion. Even ignorance has a flavor.”
“I don’t hate how much of a smartass you are.” Mera managed to say that in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, without any humor at all, leaning against the outside wall of the refectory. “I bet it was a good coping mechanism. You can hang on to it or trade it out for other mannerisms, up to you, you’ve got time. In the meantime, I’ll be blunt, not that that’ll be a surprise to you.
“I’m not here to be your friend. Which is great, because you wouldn’t be able to stand me, but you’d be surprised how often people make that mistake! And I’m not here to take you apart and put you back together, how would that even work? No, I’m here to do three things. One is to assess whether you need a specialist, which I’m not, to be clear—I mean, I am a little bit, but if you need a specialist kind of specialist, you get Mom.
“The other things, the two that’re me actually helping you? One, I use my Skills to shove you down the path of fixing your shit, and two, I use my skills to help you build better coping mechanisms and strategies and a plan for your recovery. Well, I guess three, I sit down with you, James, and Kelly—good kid, be glad she wasn’t still wiping Matti’s ass—and we figure out what that recovery plan looks like in the context of Kibosh. With me?”
It took me a moment to place Matti’s name, since Kelly’s previous charge had left Kibosh at the end of his year in her care and I hadn't yet met him. Mera gave me that moment, waiting patiently for me. “Yes, I think.”
“Think about it while we walk,” she said, pushing herself off of the wall and starting to walk across the road. “Ask me questions, whatever. If you want someone to come in and just untangle your mind and unwind all of your trauma or whatever, Mom can literally do that. It’s not a coward’s option, there’s no stigma about it. I went that route when I needed help, except that I went in-ring because she can’t deal with me having a skinned knee, forget how I got all this.”
I walked after her, head spinning. I did my best to shove my thoughts to the side, as I usually did when I was trying to process too much in too little of a time, just taking in the moment. It gave me enough space to not think in circles, and usually the answer would bubble itself up as I focused on anything-other-than-that anyway.
It wasn’t like I was going to get anywhere thinking about it more directly, anyway. What the fuck were they doing, just springing this on me? I’d been having a glorious morning! But I wasn’t so lacking in self-awareness that I didn’t recognize that my reactions were unproductive and proved their point.
At least it was a good day for focusing on the moment. The sky wasn’t as brilliantly blue as it usually was, but the sun was shining with a warmth that sank into my bones and the trees were still mind-bogglingly big, huge to a point where I kept forgetting how big they were. The clouds that had been hanging around the town, not so much threatening rain as being dourly present, had left after dropping just enough mist for all of the plants to brighten and practically glow. And even with the social bubble around us—wait a second.
I wasn’t hearing any sounds from other people, only the environment. The leaves rustled, the wind whispered, and a rakin call echoed across Kibosh from the west, but I heard not a whisper nor a footfall from other people. They were there, and I could see them and see them talking, but Mera—because obviously it was Mera—was doing something.
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Something surpassingly subtle, since I hadn’t noticed it. Spark, I sent, trying to listen for the underlying music of the effect, I don’t even know what question I have.
There is great difficulty in the provision of an answer, in such circumstances. Spark gave me a couple of beats to chew on that and appreciate the double meaning. Can a net be sunk into the water, such that not a ripple or splash can be seen?
The answer was obviously yes, if you were good enough, and that made me reevaluate Mera yet again. So, I thought to myself, why am I not going to take the first option, which she’s obviously recommending while being already aware of what my choice will be?
I didn’t have an actually-adequate explanation. I found the idea revolting, and all of the reasons that were coming to mind were… inadequate. Sure, it was a vulnerability to a stranger. But judging by everything about Shem, not to mention the pretty extensive diligence with which Singer Tayama’s… thing had been handled, I still didn’t understand what she’d done at all, there really wasn’t any reason to worry that Mera’s mother was going to do anything untoward in the process of whatever treatment was on offer.
And what else was there? A feeling like I didn’t deserve to not have my traumas? An insupportable moral position that the suffering involved in overcoming my shit was somehow inherently righteous?
That’s… close, I thought to myself darkly. There was something there, not exactly that but adjacent. Because while trauma and injury didn’t ennoble a person, not by a long haul, I wanted to be the person who conquered my own problems.
We were collecting nods from people around us as we walked, and Mera was nodding back in a way I recognized, something along the lines of don’t mind us, we see you but we’re busy. I let her deal with that while I focused on the vividness of the fruit hanging from the trees, the brilliant green of the leaves of the vegetables, and the lush darkness of the berries that ranged from black to just-shy-of-black in reds and purples and blues.
“I want to be the hammer,” I said eventually, testing the words and frowning as Mera waited patiently. “No, that’s not quite right. I want to be what swings the hammer.”
“Forging.” She didn’t phrase it as a question—not a comment at all, really, just an I’m listening and paying attention statement.
“A God once asked me if I was wood, iron, or glass,” I said slowly. “But I don’t just want to be the raw material that the world works. I rebuilt who I was, as best I could, mind and body; and yeah, I had help, and I was given the tools and wherewithal. But plenty of other people in my situation became just these complete fucking disasters, or they got bitter and angry. I didn’t do a perfect job, and to some extent I’m still a bunch of coping mechanisms in a topcoat keeping company with a bucket of glass shards labeled danger, traumas, but…
“I am who I am.” I breathed in the glory of the air, still not tired of it, still able to deliberately appreciate its clarity and purity. “I didn’t do the best job with my life. I got stuck in a rut, for one. But being the person who reforges myself is important to me, because…” I trailed off, trying to figure out where my thoughts were leading me.
Mera just walked, body language all active listening, and then it came to me.
“Because I’ll need to keep reforging myself until the day I die, if I want to do things right,” I said with a confidence that surprised me, “and if I abrogate that responsibility at the beginning, I’ll be undermining myself. I can’t just be the metal; I need to be the smith and own the tools, too.”
“Bold words from a woman not learning to smith.”
I looked over at her, glaring at her smirk with some degree of genuine annoyance. “What even was the point of saying that? It’s a metaphor, and it’s not like it can’t serve as a stand-in from any of the crafts I’m actually learning.”
“Provoke a reaction,” she supplied with a wider smirk, “reinforce your decision, enjoy the moment, remind you sideways that you’re already executing agency in your life, genuine curiosity as to why you picked that specific metaphor. Take your pick?”
“All of the above,” I snorted after a moment, turning too late to hide the smile I couldn’t repress. “You really are nothing like anyone I’ve ever worked with. I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
We walked a bit longer, passing the Library. I glanced over at it with a smile, thinking of the afternoons I’d spent sitting in sinfully comfortable chairs there, starting to work through the literary canon of Shem. Romances, mostly, to start with. They were unsurprisingly sweet and surprisingly complex, stories which ranged from coming-of-age stories to doubles opening up to the idea of spending a future with someone. They were, all of them, hybrid stories; thrillers, occasionally, but usually something involving The Discourse, which was—and this was possibly the most Shemmai thing possible—nuts-and-bolts civic policy as a national sport.
My favorite to date was the one with the two rivals from opposing trade school… debate teams, basically, falling in love. Their hunger to both prove themselves to their new partner and their need to show respect to that partner drove them both to further heights of rhetorical and policy excellence, which was great. The way they parted ways with fond memories and the intent to keep in touch and have the occasional toe-curlingly-hot round with each other… but I was distracting myself, and I didn’t even know why.
“You know,” I said suddenly, “the God who reforged my body is relatively shit with the fiddly bits of biology, but relatively says a lot for the God of masterworks in craft. If you want, I can ask him to take a look at what you’ve got going on.”
“What.”
I turned to see that Mera had stopped in the middle of the path, expression poleaxed. That’s probably the single most honest expression I’ve seen on her, I thought to myself, and immediately felt bad about even thinking it. “I mean, it’s just an offer.” I kept my voice casual, though I wasn’t sure why it felt so important to do so. “Won’t be offended if you don’t take me up on it. But, like, nerves are kinda like conduits for fire, muscles and tendons you can’t craft without, I dunno, might be worth a shot.”
She stared at me for a long moment before her body started to, ever so slowly, lose its rigidity. “Sophie,” she said eventually, “you have no fucking idea how weird you are.”
She started to walk along the path again, shaking her head. I matched her pace, grinning a little, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she and I were going to get along just fine.