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[ninefox]

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[ninefox]

[The reply comes almost immediately.]

It's not your fault I'm such a self-hating mess that I go rabid when people are nice to me.

[magician_king]

you weren't rabid. I was just overstepping, and it was the right thing to do to let me know it.

I really hope you're going to be okay here.

[ninefox]

It wasn't right to do it like that.

[magician_king]

I'm fine. This is what I signed up for when I chose to come on board; you're the one who counts. Just- try the spell and let me know if you get at all stuck. It'll take some revisions probably.

[ninefox]

[The next message is maybe ten minutes later. It is not a report on spell progress.]

Did you really think I was beautiful?

[magician_king]

Amazing. Like Chihuly glass.

[ninefox]

?

[magician_king]

Beautiful, fragile, sharp, fantastical.

[ninefox]

[Another pause. Two minutes, this time.]

Are there smart machines in your world?

[magician_king]

Nothing that can beat a Turing test.

[ninefox]

Maybe they're just hiding it?

[magician_king]

Why, Jedao?

[ninefox]

My friend is a servitor. I couldn't leave it behind.

Hemiola could hide, it isn't big. But I don't want to take it away from all of its kind, too.

[magician_king]

I can ask around, but I don't think so, I'm sorry. But Hemiola and its' kind could come, more than one of them.

[ninefox]

I don't know if others would leave their posts. Or if you'd approve of what they came to Earth for if they did.

But it was in an enclave of just three for a long time. I could ask around, carefully.

[magician_king]

Okay. Think about it- and when I leave, I'll come find you, and make sure you have a choice.

[ninefox]

The Kel and the Shuos are sister factions. They're responsible for security, just as Andan and Vidona are responsible for culture, and Rahal and Nirai are responsible for administering the logistics of ordinary life.

Low factions deal more directly, and more in the short term. The Kel are the army, the Vidona are Inquisitors and schoolteachers, Nirai are engineers.

And high factions are more long term, more elaborate. Spycraft. Art and diplomacy. The law. All the symmetries and resonances have to be built in - the Calendar is basically a way of leveraging mass ritual to impose a universal framework for - what did you call the modulation factors? Circumstances.

All of which is to say, if you look at the intersection of its roles, being a disingenuous shithead is more a symptom of being a Shuos than a prerequisite. Being a Shuos means being concerned with security in the long view. Not just in winning battles but arranging which battles will be fought, which sides will even exist. And where the Kel have to be willing to be nobody to work spells through perfect cooperation in formation fighting, Shuos have to be willing to be anybody, to have the right pieces in the right places for a long game.

I did it for a little while, to finish the war. And I'll do it when I'm back there. I'll be him, even though I hate him. Because being him scares the kids off things like pulling the switch to crash the station. Helps dramatize everything.

But it is the role I was made for. You're right that I'm not very smooth.

[magician_king]

You know, I don't-

I pray and hope that you get out of there. Either to another place in your world, or to where Jedao and Fives are going, or to my world.

I don't think anyone should live being told they have to be so much. To be anybody as a Shuos, to be Jedao with his scars and his dreams. I hope you can go and learn the shapes of your own desires. On some planet or deep out in the black.

[ninefox]

To be fair, most of them just write occasional reports from a listening post, or sit in an analysis office. Jedao is sort of an ur-example.

And I think he would have done anywhere.

[magician_king]

Do you ever get tired?

[ninefox]

Yes.

[magician_king]

Me too.

[ninefox]

What do you get tired of?

[magician_king]

I wish I could tell.

[ninefox]

Why did you want to find me a totem? Just because he's mad for his?

[He thinks of the nine eyes worked into Fives' fresh tattoo, and feels some kind of way.]