Roofrats 19

"Instar", she completed, shifted her weight to one leg, tilted her head, and smiled amusedly at him, eyes nearly closed. Inquisitiveness was something she could realte to.

"Have you come here to hire one of them?" asked the youngster.

In the interworld common language.

After a moment of surprise she switched languages, too. "One of whom?"

"Th-- us, I mean. Monks," the boy said. "Only, we don't get many visitors just stopping by."

Nico gave a thoughtful hum and sat down on the end of the next bench, facing him, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles.

"I'm here to talk to one particular individual monk, so I'm not sure that passes as 'just stopping by'. What do you think?"

"Maybe not, if you're prepared to sit around and wait instead of talking to the nearest one, and didn't get put off by the 'we're all interchangeable' line. Who's the lucky fellow?"

"He's called Weft. So, is the interchangable part specific to slashers, but not other monks, or do you just know that the idea may sound strange to aliens?"

"Oh. Him." Disinterest at that information. The youngster thought about the question for a moment, put his sheaf down carefully out of the way of the little bird, and tucked his feet up so he was sitting cross-legged, leaning forward a little.

"It's pretty strange to anyone who hasn't encountered the idea before, or grown up with it. If we hadn't already known as much, our offworlder friends' reactions have shown us that.

"But, I mean, if you think about it, it's pretty much a logical extension of living in community, sharing information and being trained to the same standards. He knows any of his brothers would do as good a job as he would, because he trusts them.

"Superficially we're different, yes. Look at that guy, for example." He'd lowered his voice for a second, playfully conspiratorial. "I'm taller than him - hi, brother - and he's more blond than me..."

"Hi, little brother," said the passing honey-blond, responding to the part the novice had said in Instarrian.

"But inside we're all people, and all working as best we can towards the same goal," concluded the novice. "Does that make sense?"

"If you look at it from a strictly job-oriented angle, yes, mostly.

Otherwise it depends if you consider training and abilities more superficial than personality, or the other way around." At "training and abilities" she held one hand flat, palm down, level with her shoulder; at "personality" at about waist-level and loosely closed, as if holding something between thumb and two fingers. She ended with a palm-up half shrug.

"Well, I love looking at things from new angles." The novice smiled at her. "So what's your angle?"

Nico shrugged. "Personality's the core, or at least closer to it, than training and abilities. Of course the latter influences the former, but it's not all there is to it." She paused, considering an example, and sort-of returned to the question he had not answered. "What is your job?"

He listened closely to her. "I'm a novice. I'm going to be a greeter or a negotiator one day. I think if I introduced myself to someone that way it would give more useful information than saying 'I'm sometimes curious and my favourite colour is orange', don't you?"

She smiled amusedly and nodded, but said, "Presumably your favourite colour is useful information for a shopkeeper helping you pick out clothes, for instance," before getting to the point. "You're curious and, judging from the fact that you are talking to me, you like talking to people, therefore you have an affinity to certain jobs. Personality steers towards a choice of job, training for which turns your interests into abilities. Does that sound about right, or am I too clueless about how your order raises and teaches its charges?"

"Which would only be useful if my favourite colour happened to be in fashion," he batted back playfully. The youngster certainly seemed to like debating, at least.

"Regarding personality, not really. If I'd been too stupid to learn, I'd have been trained in one of the physical ranks, no matter how much I liked people - and I can't think of any unfriendly slasher brothers, either. That's knocked out of us pretty quickly.

"Certain things do count as raw material, mental or physical capacity for instance, but personality is much more mutable - and hence, practically, an irrelevance. Do I talk to people because I like to, do I talk because I was rewarded for it when younger, or do I like talking because I was rewarded? If I'd been ignored instead, would I be as talkative?"

"Good point, I didn't really take into account how early people join here. Still, I got the impression that even monks belonging to the same rank have different personalities, so they don't seem interchangeable to me." She frowned momentarily. "Or, what ranks are there, anyway?"

"Well, they're people, not machines," the youngster grinned. "They just happen to be really good at their jobs, and really committed to them. Making a positive difference in the world is... important to us. More important than ourselves. I can see how that's confusing to people who follow more individual paths.

"Incidentally, don't think because our slasher brothers are essentially morons-plus that everyone else doesn't love and value them. Their brothers would be lost without them, just as much as the slashers would be lost without someone telling them what to do. Everyone accepts each other here. It's part of what makes this such an agreeable place to belong." He looked over the outside wall for a moment.

"Pardon me, though, you asked about ranks. Broadly speaking, there are monks who perform physical and skills services, like your slasher friend but by no means all violent. Then there are ranks who primarily talk to people, like I'm going to be, and then administration and other tasks. That's something of an arbitrary division, I'm afraid."

"Thanks." Nico fell silent and stretched her neck, eyes nearly closed. Watch it that you're not developing some kind of paranoia - Not every thinking-pause of them is phoning home and asking for instructions...

"Lends itself to one of those 'no part of a body can exist alone' simile-thingies." Something had been quite off about the little warm and fuzzy speech, but it took her a bit to put her finger on it.

"There are plenty such instructive examples. Another popular one is hiving insects. Ah..." Hesitation or approval, it wasn't quite clear, but he glanced outside again and seemed satisfied this time.

A second later, outside: "Brother, you look ghastly," said the doorkeeper in Instarrian.

"Thanks, brother," Weft's voice replied. The much-anticipated slasher trudged in through the gates. There was a little blood around the base of his right eye-socket.

When he saw Nico his face lit up, followed quickly by confused guilt. He kept several paces back.

"Nico, it's nice to... um, are you here to see me? Hiya, Tort."

"Afternoon, Weft," said the novice. It wasn't quite midday.

"Mornin', Weft. Yep, wanted to talk to you, or ask if you have time for a chat soon." She smiled, somewhat regretfully-crooked. I want to grill him a bit, and he gets himself in other trouble. Unfair.

"Oh... 'kay." That was on the quiet end of 'comfortably audible'; Weft was still keeping some distance away and didn't seem to be going to move any closer.

He looked briefly confused in Tortile's direction, who gave him an affectionate smile in return.