stormaktstiden | Some time ago, in a jamjar far, far away....

"We don't have many of them where I'm from either. They're on the mainland."

For all her patriotism as a kid, she doubts that there are too many real communists in her country.

"They're..." She bites her lip. They're bad, they're evil, they're saboteurs... That's what people like Instructor Bai say. But she's never learned too much else about them. "The people who live on the mainland. A lot of the people in my country used to live there, but they chased us off. You've really never heard of them?"

"No."

...And that's really not very informative on why they're dangerous. "Why did they chase you off?"

"There was a war."

A war that they lost, if you read between the lines. Ray smooths some invisible dust off of her skirt and takes that opportunity to avoid looking into his eyes. "...I wasn't born yet, so I don't know much about what happened. But people are worried that they'll keep coming after us even now."

"What was the war about?"

And what side was who on? He is aware that sometimes, there are no right sides in a war. Sometimes, oneself can be on the wrong side. Sometimes others will tell you that you were on the wrong side when your side was justified. But even if she was born later, she should know. Things like that are important, as much as humans like to deny that by making it "far away history".

It's important for knowing what to think of that list, in this case.

Betrayal and rebellion and disrespect, her history lessons would say.

Mr. Chang would say something very different.

She breathes in--shakily, and she doesn't quite know why. "Ideology. The hearts and minds of the people. The Nationalists want everyone to think one way, and the Communists want them to think another.

"The books are... not what the Nationalists would want people to read."

Okay.

"But you only have a list of the books, and not the books."

Doesn't sound dangerous at all to him. You can just burn books, anyway. They catch on fire easily.

"And this is neither the place where you're from nor the one that you were at war with, right?"

"The list is dangerous enough on its own." She wrinkles her nose. How does he not get it?

"No." She pauses, then realizes the connection she has to make. "I've heard it's not the same everywhere, but I have no idea what it's like here."

"Nobody here has talked about books or commies."

Sure, people don't talk about everything important all the time, but he has noticed a distinctive lack of books. Usually they seem to be everywhere where humans are, after all.

She sighs. In spite of her wariness of him, she almost finds herself wanting to relax. To her, he seems strangely naive about life under martial law--she doesn't know any other kind--and that's hard to reconcile with the beast who killed her. Maintaining alertness for so long in front of someone who seems less dangerous... it's tiring, and she knows it'd be very easy to let her guard lapse completely.

But he did kill her, she has to remember that. She lifts one foot, then the other to keep them from falling asleep. Just in case.

"Just because people don't talk about something doesn't mean it's not important. Haven't you experienced that too? Often what really matters is hardly ever spoken out loud."

Well, he is. He knows life in the middle of a war-like situation, but it's still very different from marital law. For one most people in his world aren't even aware of the multi-party conflict bloodily fought in their midst. But there also isn't much censure or tightly defined rules in his society - there are rules, but they almost always grant some open leeway, and while he is aware of politics going on and affecting everything, he's rarely felt that they were threatening him personally.

"No, the really important things need to be taught to the cubs. Why would you not talk about them?"

Perhaps it's different in societies that people as a rule enter before they're teenagers, but he can't really imagine it. There has to be some point in your life when the basics are laid out for you, right?

She sets her jaw; Mr. Chang probably would've said exactly the same thing, back when he--

Ray wraps her arms around herself and shakes her head. "Don't assume I disagree with that. Things are different where I live, but that isn't because they're how we'd all like them to be."

But why would you not, that's just...

"More of them will die if you don't teach them." And death comes too many of them before they ever have children of their own even with the added advantage of the additional knowledge. More often when you refrain from telling them more than the three absolutely necessary things, as he's heard the Weaver Rutters do.

...Somehow, they seem to be talking about different things here, almost.

Ray blinks a few times as she tries to process his words. It's the complete opposite of everything she's heard or experienced.

"People die all the time for knowing or thinking things. At times, people have been, ah... taken away simply because someone thinks they know or think things. That's why people don't talk about these things."

...That makes absolutely no sense.

"Your people don't want other humans to be able to avoid danger and defend themselves and their people?"

For her, the key there is other humans. She thinks of all they said in school about the communists. And what Mr. Chang said of what he'd seen in the outside world.

"For some, that would be true. They wouldn't want their enemies to be able to defend themselves.

"What was it like where you lived?"

Well, enemies. That's different. But the way she said it, it sounded like they were just spreading misinformation among their own people.

"But it sounded like you don't teach your own cubs what they need to know."

He shrugs - more a rolling of his shoulders than a shrug, like a piece of body language not learned correctly. "We protect our own by teaching them what they need to know."

"That's precisely what I said.

"Even at school, we--" Were encouraged to rat out other students. The words catch in her throat, but she's not sure why.

"...It sounds like your parents and teachers expected you all to be much more independent."

"The point of teaching someone is that they can act independently. And if you ever want to be considered mature, you'll have to be able to act independently." Or well, independently of the teachers. Not necessarily alone.

To teach and not aim for independent acting is... something he finds hard to conceive.

She huffs, impatient. "I didn't say that these were my choices. I can stand on my own."

"My school... And all the others, I think--they all wanted to teach people the opposite of that. To work together, to think the same way... That's how it always was."

She used to be good at it, even if her mind was always a little too rebellious. She used to be able to hide that under an enthusiasm for their patriotic activities.

"But they are the choices of your people, so they'll eventually become your choices, too."

That's the problem with humans. Even if some of them might try, they really can't stop being humans and thinking like the humans that came before them. Not in the grander scheme of things.

"And you can work together despite being independent. Especially if you are independent, then you can bring more into the group you're working with that isn't already there."

Maybe it's time to switch tactics. They have completely different pictures of the world; his sounds more like the ideas in countries her counselor had once visited. She shrugs, "Do you get to decide what the adults do in your world?"

Adults, because he looks like he can't be any older than her or Wei--weird as it is to think that the guy who killed her is another kid.

"I'm an adult." Well, at least within wolf and Garou society. The ID that he uses to interact with humans seems to indicate that he's not of age yet among them, which confuses him - he's as independent as any adult, physically mature, and has enough knowledge to survive alone.

Humans have weird criteria. "But I don't get to decide what the elders do." That seems to at least hold some similarity to what she is talking about, and even if this place is some kind of place that tries to spy on him, that's not particularly new or exciting information. Everyone knows that you can't tell someone above your own rank what to do.

"And we don't get to decide what the government does. It sounds like the same thing." Finally--at least there's a way he can hopefully understand.

She's curious about something else now; she scans him carefully from head to toe. "How old are you?"

"Six."

He blinks at her.

"Why?"

Ray blinks back and resolves her mouth into a rather stern frown. He's definitely kidding her; her annoyance at that fact meshes with the relative civility of their conversation to make her temporarily forget much fear of him. Right now he's not the guy who killed her--instead he's just a boy fooling around.

"I was asking a serious question! I'm 17 and you don't look any older than me."

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