worth an oat

[alicornucopia]

In this soup kitchen sits a nun in partial habit, sipping water and frowning at a desk. It is very irregular for adults who aren't volunteering to be at the soup kitchen. It is very irregular for expensive electronics to be in the soup kitchen. The volunteers do seem to know her; they call her "Carlotta".

Comments

[pythbox]

"I make guesses about them on purpose, but not by accident. Sometimes the guesses are right, but they aren't so... comprehensible."

"This is very strange," says Sindri.

"Yes! It is!" says Oat.

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe your mutant power is kicking in and doesn't work on everybody. One like that definitely wouldn't work on me anyway, I'm an antitelepath."

[pythbox]

"I don't think so," says Oat. "Why would it only work on him?"

"...Well, I'm a mutant too..." says Sindri.

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe it only works on mutants. Hey who else in this launch is a mutant?"

Nobody else in this launch is a mutant.

[pythbox]

"I don't think it's that, though," says Oat.

"Why not?" says Sindri.

"It being a mutant power would explain why I understand you but not why you're understandable."

"...I'm not sure I follow."

"If I was a telepath I would know what you were thinking but that wouldn't make the things you were thinking seem obvious and natural."

[alicornucopia]

"It might if you were the right sort of telepath."

[pythbox]

"That's - that's a wrong sort of telepath for there to be," says Oat.

[alicornucopia]

"Well, I know that."

[pythbox]

"Do you? What do you mean exactly?"

[alicornucopia]

"I mean that it's kind of awful there are telepaths who can know things about people without asking and the more they know the worse it is and I'm glad they can't do it to me. What did you mean?"

[pythbox]

"There are lots of ways people can do undesirable things to other people, and there is a solution to all of them in principle, which is for people not to do those things," says Oat. "If just being this sort of telepath changed the entire way I think so that telepathic guesses were always more understandable than ordinary guesses, there would be no solution to that at all."

"...Do you not like understanding people?"

"I haven't done enough of it to know if I like it or not. But if it's a mutant power just making me feel like you're more understandable than anyone else, without you actually being more understandable, then that's horrible."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, then you should tell Sindri your guesses and see if you're right."

[pythbox]

"What would that prove?"

[alicornucopia]

"Whether you were understanding him right or just thinking you did."

[pythbox]

"...That would be interesting to know but it's not what's bothering me."

"It's kind of hard to tell what's bothering you, then."

"I know. I'm trying to explain and it's not working."

[alicornucopia]

"It'd be a better mutant power if it let you be understandable back."

[pythbox]

"I wouldn't want it to if it did the same thing to him."

"What is so bad about this thing?"

"It's, it's not just a feeling that you are understandable, it's not just the fact of understanding you. The way you seem to think - fits into my head neatly. Like that is where it is supposed to go. I don't have to puzzle over it, it's just there."

"That... does sound sort of telepathic."

"I'm not explaining it right. Again."

[alicornucopia]

"Like there was already a Sindri-shaped hole in your head before this even happened?" ventures Bella.

[pythbox]

"Yes. Only I never noticed it before. But there it is. If I grow a new hole in my head every time I meet a mutant who isn't you, I expect I will kill myself."

"Uh," says Sindri, slightly alarmed.

Oat winces. "Sorry. Don't worry about it. I don't like being alive that much to begin with."

"Uh???" says Sindri.

"That was also the wrong thing to say, wasn't it. Sorry again."

[alicornucopia]

"Usually if people especially small children don't like being alive people get really worried," Bella volunteers.

[pythbox]

"Why?"

"It's really worrying!" says Sindri.

"I can tell that, but not why."

[alicornucopia]

"...Well, I think if people didn't want small children to be alive they probably wouldn't have any in the first place," says Bella.

[pythbox]

"Neither you nor Sindri is a parent!"

[alicornucopia]

"Well, I'm not especially worried because I suppose it's your business if you want to be alive or not but I'm sort of concerned that you might be having a bad enough time for the answer to be not?"

[pythbox]

"Is that what the matter is for you, too?" asks Oat, turning to Sindri.

"Yeah, I guess. I just - I don't like it when people are unhappy."

"I don't either."

Sindri smiles tentatively at Oat. Oat attempts to smile back, then flinches and stops.