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

[alicornucopia]

"Huh."

[pythbox]

"I don't think there's actually such a thing as something so horrible that I'd kill myself if I knew it," says Sindri. "But if there was, and if I thought it might be true, I'd try not to find out. Because if I found out it was true then I would die, but if I didn't find it out then maybe it would stop being true without me, or I'd stop feeling that way about it."

[alicornucopia]

"If there was such a thing I'd still need to know because it would have to be the kind of thing where it mattered if I was dead or not."

[pythbox]

"...What?" says Oat.

[alicornucopia]

"Like, if I found out that maybe buggers were going to kidnap me and torture me for information and I actually had any information," says Bella, "then that might make me decide to kill myself if they were really going to do that, and it wouldn't help at all with the actual problem of buggers getting information to not know for sure, and I think all the things that might make me want to kill myself are like that."

[pythbox]

"That's not a thing about it being horrible, though, that's a practical thing, it's different," says Sindri. "There's practical things like that for me too, probably, but they're not the kind of thing I was thinking about."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh. I don't think I have any of the other kind of thing, then."

[pythbox]

"I don't either," says Sindri.

"I think you like being alive more than I do," says Oat.

"I think so too. I don't know what to do about it," says Sindri.

"Why do you need to do anything?"

Sindri does not have a good answer for this, or at least, if he has one, he doesn't immediately say it.

[alicornucopia]

"People don't like it when other people seem to be missing out on things they like," says Bella. "It's usually a book or something and not being alive but still."

[pythbox]

"It's not that," says Sindri, and also Oat, simultaneously.

"...Okay, what is it, then?" asks Sindri, staring quizzically at Oat.

"I don't know. It's something I don't know about."

"It's... I'm probably the only person in Battle School who's from Thule, I'm not sure I can explain properly."

[alicornucopia]

"What's being from Thule have to do with anything?"

[pythbox]

"Because if you were from Thule I could just say 'it's the þainneið,' and I wouldn't have to try to remember the words and explain what it meant."

"What's that?"

"See?"

[alicornucopia]

Bella goes and gets her desk and asks him how that's spelled.

[pythbox]

"Thorn A I N N E I eth," says Sindri. Her desk is not set up to type the first or last letters.

[alicornucopia]

She finds the international characters with a little poking and identifies thorn on her own and has him point out eth and looks it up.

[pythbox]

The þainneið is an oath which, in the properly witnessed taking, makes the taker a thane of Thule if they were eligible for that office. Here is its text, in Thulic; here is a translation into IF Common:

I take as my charge this country and its people, and I swear none shall go hungry that my hand can feed, and none shall be killed that my hand can protect. With this oath I become a thane of Thule, servant to its ruler and friend to its people. May I never forget my duty.

[alicornucopia]

"Well, that's interesting but I am not sure how it interacts with this specifically."

[pythbox]

"It doesn't feel right in Common," says Sindri.

"What should it feel like?" says Oat.

"It should feel like... like it's exactly the right thing," he says. "The translation says what the words mean, but it doesn't really say what the oath means, and what the oath means is definitely about helping people with more than just avoiding starvation and murder."

[alicornucopia]

"Huh," says Bella.

[pythbox]

"I'm not actually in Battle School to fight buggers, I'm in Battle School because I think it'll make me a better thane," says Sindri. "But if some buggers show up, I'll fight them, because," he recites part of the oath in Thulic.

"'None shall be killed that my hand can protect'?" guesses Oat.

"Yeah."

[alicornucopia]

"I guess it wouldn't make a very pretty oath if you were very careful about exact words," muses Bella.

[pythbox]

"It's old, it has cultural connotations," says Sindri. "It's not just about what sounds pretty."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah. I'm probably just too literal to appreciate it."

[pythbox]

"The things about people starving and being killed are more like examples," says Sindri. "And they were really relevant examples when it started being a thing, so they stuck."


"Avoiding starvation and murder are good things, generally," says Oat.

"... Yes," says Sindri. "But they're not the only good things ever."

[alicornucopia]

Nod, nod.