Sime~Gen Roleplaying: Householding Naros Scenario
Episode #146: Familial Serious Deviations (8/8/99)
see note 1
Nick: Just Snake, and Arat, and a few channels from Zeor who tried to help Snake at one point or another.
Riyyh: Farris renSimes are very sensitive, perhaps more sensitive than some lower order channels.
Riyyh: And very dominant in a room, nagerically speaking.
Nick thoughtfully munches on a piece of zucchini.
Nick: That could cause problems, if they don't have a channel's control to go with the strength.
Riyyh considers.
Riyyh: I remember having the impression that control was important to them, [confesses]
Riyyh: Not just nagerically, of course, but it extended to an attempt to control that as well.
Nick: How much control can a renSime manage, anyway?
Nick: ~~ curiosity ~~
Riyyh: Quite a bit, when the stakes are high enough.
Riyyh has worked with many, many disjuncting renSimes in his life.
Nick: And it was a matter of family pride?
Nick is well aware that the Audnes clan seems to be endowed with an overabundance of that characteristic.
Riyyh: That, and also survival.
Nick: Yes. Is that why they... bought... Companions from Fior? 2
Riyyh: In those days, by the radical-minded and by survivalists, it was considered more civilized than selling your own children.
Riyyh: And, I hate to say this, but I believe the economical advantages played a large role as well.
Riyyh: Not having to buy prime kills for every adult in the family is what allowed New Othwol to be as strong a business as it was.
Nick: But if the purpose of the Garlenists on this side of the border was to escort Gen children to the Border or die trying, wouldn't those servants have been Simes?
Riyyh: Ordinarily, yes, Garlenists in Sime Territory would be renSimes.
Nick: But the Audnes family was able to make other arrangements?
Riyyh: I don't know precisely how they began using Garlenist Gens as Companions, although it may have begun when somebody began asking more questions about what the Garlenists did with the rescued Gens.
Riyyh: Garlen danced a very delicate dance with many powerful families. If he required Audnes cooperation, he would have done as they asked, particularly if they held it secret.
Nick starts to think through the logistics of an operation such as Garlen's.
Nick: You mean, the Gen servants he sent to Gen families were...?
Riyyh nods ruefully.
Nick: Did the in-Territory families know what they were sending their Gen children to?
Nick: Or did they just not care?
Riyyh: Garlen told them that their child would be trained in the language, placed in a family home, and have a guaranteed job as a servant or nanny. They could be expected to live anywhere from five to fifteen years beyond Establishment, if not longer.
Riyyh: Given the health conditions pre-Unity, many renSimes didn't think that sounded like a short time to live as an adult. And it assuaged their guilt.
Riyyh: Garlen was not perfectly explicit in the details of the religion, no.
Nick: At least enough that they didn't ask too many questions?
Riyyh: They didn't have any choice, really. This had to be done in secret. If they were exposed, they'd lose everything. In pre-Unity Sime Territory, it was illegal to transport a Gen child to safety.
Nick: So the Audnes Companions were taken from the 30% of Garlen's Gens who managed to survive giving transfer to their assigned family's child?
Riyyh: Perhaps, or perhaps they were children of Garlen's.
Riyyh: There are some things we don't know, because everything we know of Fior's earlier operations came after Garlen was gone and he took some of the knowledge with him.
Nick: Did just the Audnes channels have Companions, or the renSimes as well?
Riyyh: I am not entirely certain there were any channels in the core of the family. You see, Arat killed the Companion that was given him, one that had served his parents many times.
Riyyh: And the extended family, any who did not live in the house, were not privy to the details of their domestic situation.
Riyyh: It is possible that channels died soon after changeover.
Nick winces at the thought of a half-trained Gen used to giving transfer to renSimes being handed a Farris channel's changeover.
Nick: Well, channels wouldn't live long, junct.
Nick: So Arat's parents weren't channels?
Riyyh: His parents definitely weren't. Nor were their parents. But there were uncles and cousins in the area, who may have been.
Riyyh: It's also possible that it took a double-Audnes to make a Farris, and that was rare enough.
Nick: His parents were related?
Riyyh: Yes, they were first cousins.
Riyyh: That was not entirely unusual in those days.
Nick is starting to wonder if there is one reasonably high-placed (or even low-placed) family in the Territory which practices habitual outbreeding.
Nick then realizes it is a moot point, as the outbreeding would have to take place with members of the inbreeding clans, by necessity.
Riyyh: Really, it was more unusual for junct renSimes to have any concept of continuing family lines at all.
Nick: But surely, there would have been indications that Arat was a channel? And likely to be more than a Companion trained to handle renSimes could manage?
Riyyh sips his tea thoughtfully.
Riyyh: Arat's upbringing was unusual. He wasn't under the scrutiny other students are, or when he was it was for different reasons.
Riyyh: By the time he was born, his parents were on the run, their heritage destroyed and their property seized.
Riyyh: They did everything they could to keep him out of Tecton schools, and the Tecton did everything they legally could to keep him in them.
Nick: And in the process, nobody remembered that he was going to be a channel?
Riyyh: Nobody had any idea.
Riyyh: The concept never occurred to his parents, and there were no indications which might have caused anyone else to wonder.
Riyyh: Arat did not announce that he would be one, although he did predict his own changeover date and rather precisely.
Nick: They thought that was just a child's fantasy?
Riyyh: No, they believed it.
Riyyh: Arat's parents snatched him from school and made a run for the hills, so to speak, or actually quite literally, shortly before the date in question.
Nick: If they prepared so well, why didn't they find him a Companion who could handle his draw?
Riyyh: Nobody knew he was a channel.
Riyyh: They honestly did not realize that he could kill the Companions that served them well.
Nick: And when they found out, all they could do was turn him over to the Tecton for disjunction?
Riyyh: Oh no, it was nothing as intentional on their part.
Nick at least assumes that it would have been difficult to get a steady supply of suicidal Garlenists at that point in history.
Riyyh: When Arat disappeared, it was customary for the authorities to hunt down his parents and get him back. This time, though, a school counselor had told them that Arat might be a changeover risk, based upon his prediction of his changeover date.
Nick: But they found him too late?
Riyyh: They were tracked down, and were caught only hours after Arat's kill. What happened after that was shameful, but not unusual in the early days of the Tecton.
Riyyh thinks, or now, although it wouldn't be nice to disquiet Nick with such information.
Nick: Oh?
Nick: ~~ slightly morbid curiosity ~~
Riyyh: The Tecton had been trying to stamp out Audnes influence in the area for years. Arat's parents were considered rabble raisers and a serious security risk. Many of the junct renSimes in the area were still loyal to them.
Nick: Because they had run the local Genfarm?
Riyyh: It wasn't a Genfarm per se, but because it served Genfarms, and because the local Pen was better because of it, they had a good deal of power.
Riyyh: At any rate, the evidence of the kill and the family Gens was the excuse that was needed to do it by brute force; everybody was rounded up and imprisoned, and the official statement was that the family was deliberately perpetuating a junct lifestyle.
Nick is unable to muster a whole lot of sympathy for the elder Audnes.
Nick does, however, have some idea of how this might have affected Arat.
Nick: What happened to the surviving Garlenists?
Riyyh: They were imprisoned also.
Riyyh: Arat was in prison for only a couple of weeks before the family lawyers got him released into the custody of the Othwol School for Channels.
Nick: And Arat was... recruited... by the Tecton?
Nick: No wonder he's such a martinet.
Nick adds a precarious statue to the innate Farris fussiness.
Riyyh: He had a choice. It was disjunct and become a Tecton channel, or go back to prison.
Nick: Die, in other words.
Riyyh: Yes. ~sympathy~
Riyyh: There was also the difficulty that nobody yet realized that the Audnes were Farrises.
Nick winces.
Nick: That must have caused a great deal of difficulty.
Riyyh: Yes. But finally the problems were worked out, and Arat did succeed in both his training and his disjunction.
Riyyh: And in coming over to the side of the Tecton. [wryly]
Nick wonders where Deah and Jeniard fit into this.
Nick: Yes, he is rather fanatical on the subject.
Nick gives an involuntary glace towards his still-bare finger.
Riyyh looks towards the finger also, knowing what Nick means.
Riyyh: Arat hasn't been too hard on you, has he Nick? [gently]
Riyyh thinks that nobody with the fine and gentle Narosian sensibilities should ever be subjected to prolonged exposure to people like Arat, and often worries that 25% Prunida won't be enough to protect Nick.
Nick: He's made no secret that he wants me to pledge to the Tecton.
Riyyh: I am very surprised that they've used your services at all, without forcing you to pledge.
Riyyh: The papers have talked about it. [adds]
Nick frowns.
Riyyh: His own Donor has accused him of rogue tendencies, publicly.
Riyyh: Pylor, that is.
Nick makes a face.
Riyyh: But I don't know, it seems that in the case of a Donor who has already been trained... [notices the face]
Riyyh smiles.
Nick: There's nothing the least roguelike about Arat.
Riyyh: No, there isn't. The very idea is laughable, isn't it?
Nick: And Pylor's an incompetent.
Riyyh thinks back to his recent meeting of Pylor and Darrel.
Nick: He should never have been assigned to Arat in the first place.
Riyyh: He could probably handle me well enough, though.
Riyyh had been thinking that very thing as he sat, Donorless, across the table from the pair.
Nick: I think that's the reason that the Tecton hasn't issued me an ultimatum, yet: there just aren't many Donors who can handle a Farris channel.
Nick: But I suspect Arat is under considerable pressure about it.
Riyyh nods.
Riyyh: If Arat is capable of forswearing your services in the name of the Tecton's policies, then you may have to make a decision soon.
Nick pushes the remains of his meal aside and stands up to pace.
Nick: I can't. Not as things stand.
Nick: I can't desert either Arat, or Snake.
Riyyh leans back on the couch.
Riyyh zlins Nick and thinks about the situation.
Nick: ~~ frustrated anxiety ~~
Nick: Neither one of them any anyone else to turn to.
Riyyh: It is a difficult position to be in.
Nick: There's grandmother, too.
Riyyh winces.
Nick isn't surprised: That is a very common reaction when Prunida's name comes up.
Nick: She came to visit me in New Othwol... I'm afraid she may be seriously ill.
Nick has mixed feelings about this possibility.
Riyyh's expression goes through various expressions before settling on eager-to-please, something which he can maintain in most circumstances.
Riyyh: Oh, dear.
Nick: I've never seen her act so strangely.
Riyyh: She has seemed distressed recently, but I hadn't realized....
Riyyh is a bit awash in consternation at Nick's having fallen for Prunida's act before it was perfected enough to permit actual friendship.
Riyyh hopes Nick won't be hurt by this, it would make Riyyh feel unbearably guilty at having been a part of it.
Nick: You've seen her lately?
Riyyh: She has visited me quite a bit, to be honest.
Riyyh: She has spoken of you constantly.
Riyyh thinks, well, not quite constantly, but at least constantly when vertical.
Nick pauses in his pacing to pin Riyyh with a suspicious look.
Nick: Do you have anything to do with her strange behavior?
Riyyh flinches back from the look, with a startled look of rabbitlike timidness.
Riyyh: I'm not sure, what was she doing? [quietly]
Nick: She stayed for three days, and didn't mention my paycheck once.
Riyyh: Is that... bad? ~~cautious~~
Nick: She didn't demand that I officially take up the career of a Tecton Donor, either.
Nick: That's never happened before, even when I was a child.
Nick: Not three whole days.
Nick: That sort of radical personality change isn't normal.
Riyyh: Well, I... I have been telling her that may be part of why she doesn't get along with you. [confesses]
Nick: ~~ worry ~~
Nick: ...you?
Riyyh: She is terribly worried, you see, about growing old and having nobody, and nothing. I wanted to reassure her that you didn't hate her, that things had just gone awry and it was in her power to make amends over time.
Nick: I see.
Riyyh zlins Nick anxiously.
Nick remembers a few particularly "odd" instances.
Nick: You've been coaching her?
Riyyh: She... [doesn't want to say "doesn't know how to make a friend instead of just demanding something"]
Nick: It was all a bit of bad acting?
Nick: ~~ indignation ~~
Nick would rather have an honestly vicious Prunida than one pretending to be nice.
Riyyh: I don't think it was acting, Nick. [gently]
Nick thinks that it certainly wasn't acting, as any self-respecting actor would define it.
Riyyh: In her heart, she really doesn't want to die lonely.
Riyyh: It's just that she isn't prepared, she has never known how to be only your friend. Or... anybody's.
Riyyh: When a person has to try to express feelings they have never expressed before, it does come out a bit wooden at first. But that doesn't mean the feelings aren't genuine.
Nick: She's never felt anything but possessive greed for me in her life.
Riyyh: Yes, I know.
Riyyh: And yet, people change. Especially as they get older.
Riyyh: She doesn't know how to feel another way, but she wants to. She wants to reach out to you, Nick.
Nick: I'm sure she does--at least long enough to pick my pocket.
Riyyh looks saddened.
Riyyh: I have known her for many years, Nick. Since before your mother was born.
Riyyh: [well, needless to say]
Nick: I'd gathered that.
Riyyh: And I do believe this is something new in her, that she has changed.
Riyyh thinks, anyway, that Prunida was never willing to even go through the motions of trying to befriend somebody before.
Nick: She must have been more frustrated by missing her lifelong goal of breeding a Donor than I'd thought, if she's desperate enough to try something so radical.
Nick supposes that Prunida doesn't have much choice, since both she and his mother are too old to try for another child, even if Riyyh were willing.
Nick supposes that if they weren't, any unwillingness Riyyh might muster wouldn't count for much.
Riyyh: You are a Donor, Nick. She has succeeded in that much.
Nick goes back to the couch and flops down.
Nick: Not yet. Not... quite... yet.
see note 1
Notes:
1) This is the middle segment of a three-part episode. [return to top]
2) Garlen, and the Garlenist cult, are from Kaas Baichtal's unfinished novel Vale of Tears. [return]