[IC Inbox -- Snowblind]

[heavensreader]

Is it worki - oh. Ahem. This is Kesara Freamon. Please leave your message here and I will call back on you as soon as I can.







Wait, is it still - argh, how do I ma-

Comments

[devoutish]

[It's exactly the sort of answer he would have expected. It's so Kesara.]

You're not an untrained colt. Yeah? You must know that. You're a two-year-old filly, young but not untested.

And you have learned from this.

[heavensreader]

[To herself, in her most private heart, Kesara thinks that if she's learned anything from someone's death, she's happy that it was here and not in the Game.

She will never say this out loud.]

What do you say the lesson is, Mr. Solomons? If it isn't that I shouldn't interfere, and we still don't know how to, to manage the people here?

[devoutish]

You shouldn't interfere without understanding the possible consequences. You shouldn't act on something like this without knowing all the angles. And I think you know that, yeah? It's something you think about. You miscalculated this time, but you didn't run in blind.

[heavensreader]

[They are good lessons. Kesara can't fault them that. Their only problem, really, is just as Mr. Solomons says - she knows them already. And still she's gone wrong. Why has she gone so wrong?]

So I'll have to do better next time, right? [She sounds resigned, and tries not to sound sullen. She only half succeeds.] But I will. There's a game here too, a small one, and I need to be able to play it well. As well as you do.

[devoutish]

You're already better at it than I was at your age, so you've got a head start, eh?

[heavensreader]

Only if I live as long as you have.

[Very quiet there for a moment, a reedy whisper.]

[devoutish]

[Oh, Kesara.]

If I can do it, with my dangerous life, then so can you.

[heavensreader]

[Kesara thinks about that. All the things she could say. You're not me, Mr. Solomons. You're a man. You're a sahib. You can read and write. You're not me.

She doesn't say them, though, because he can't help any of them. Some things are just her. That's simply how it is, to be Kesara.]

Thank you, Mr. Solomons. I'll do better, you'll see that I will.