"Today, we begin your training in Ra'hom etiquette," Kay said. "We will start with terms of address."

Jewel was sitting in the grass outside her cabin while Kay paced in front of her. He'd wanted to move this to a plainer room like the guest room she'd started in, but she'd refused, to his frustration.

"Ra'hom have three sets of pronouns for identification," Kay went on. "Oriens, Occidens, and Meridianum. Orientes Ra'hom tend to have cooler coloration and the indicative stripes. Occidentes are usually warmer colored and lack stripes. Merdiana are generally green. But if a striped blue Ra'hom tells you that they are Meridianum, do not call them anything else."

"Okay, simple enough," Jewel said, leaning back on her hands and trying not to look as bored as she felt.

"When you address a Ra'hom directly, initiate the conversation with their caste followed by their pronoun. I would be addressed as Ingenuus Oriens. After that, direct identifiers are considered rude."

"What if I don't know their caste?" Jewel asked.

"Do not talk to them," Kay said firmly. "You will be introduced and told their caste if you need to talk to them."

"Why can't I just use their names?" Jewel said, feeling turned around already.

"As I said before, designations are not like human names," Kay explained. "They are a list of achievements. Full designation is only used in the most formal of situations, such as transitions between castes and other ceremonies. If you are to meet someone important, particularly if you intend to do business with them, it is considered polite to learn their full designation so that you are aware of their achievements. Shortened designations consisting of a person's most notable achievements are used for purposes of simple identification and for school age children without unique achievements yet, and among intimate social groups such as family, mates, and close friends."

"What about babies?" Jewel asked, curious despite herself. "They can't have achieved anything yet, so do they just not get names?"

"Infant designations are generally something like 'Born During the Storm' or 'Youngest of Seven,'" Kay said offhandedly. "These first designations are only used by family until the child is a few months old and begins earning the standard youth achievements. Left the Pool, First Steps, First Words, and so on. It is considered romantic to tell mates your first designation. Some cultural groups have superstitions surrounding them. Mine believe they shape the child's fate. Others think a first designation with a word associated with air in it will cause the child to be stolen by spirits, or that giving an infant an ugly first designation will ward off bad luck."

"Can I know yours?" Jewel asked with a grin. "You said it's romantic, right?"

She'd never seen Kay blush before. It turned his cheeks purple.

"No," he said flatly, and Jewel laughed. "Carrying on. The exception to the rule is the Peritas. A member of the Peritas is never directly addressed except by other Peritas. You do not start conversations with them. You wait for them to start one with you. Members of the Council are similarly not addressed directly, and even when speaking about them you do not refer to their caste or pronoun. Their Council position and shortened designation are always to be used when referring to an individual Council member. Councilors’ shortened designations are always the singular achievement that earned them their place on the Council. So, if Councilor Architect of the Beremont Cascade approaches you, what do you do?"

"Uhhh, say hi?"

"No!" Kay said sharply. "I just told you, you do not address them directly! You wait for them to initiate. You see a red, unstriped Peritas. What do you say?"

"Um, no stripes means an Occidens, right?" Jewel wrinkled her nose, trying to remember. "So Peritas Occidens?"

"Wrong," Kay said. "You chose the correct pronoun, but Peritas, like Council members, are not to be addressed directly. I just told you this."

"How about I just don't talk to anyone?" Jewel grumbled, flopping back into the grass.

"That may be the wisest course of action," Kay admitted.

"Hey, I'll figure it out," Jewel said with a sigh. "We've got a month, right?"

"I'm starting to feel like that may not be enough."

"And Artifex may address Aedificans, but not Ingenuus, and Figulus are considered below all three. But then again, you don't even have a caste, so perhaps you should not address anyone directly."

Jewel groaned loudly, interrupting Kay's lecture.

"You've been talking about nothing but castes and pronouns for hours," she said, lying on her back in the grass. "Can we please move on to something else?"

Kay sighed.

"Very well," he agreed. "I suppose it is probably for the best if you do not talk to anyone anyway. We should focus on preparing demonstrations of your abilities."

"Demonstrations?" Jewel asked, sitting up. "Like what?"

"This is meant to be a display of your skills and the value of your species," Kay explained. "Many of the Peritas who will be present have great sway with the Council or will be Council members one day. How we choose to approach your species may be dependent on the impression you make tomorrow. It will certainly affect how the Council reacts to you during your official presentation. If you want them to determine that you are an intelligent, sapient species, then impressing them is critical. And the first step toward that is to get the Peritas gossiping about your skills. So. A display of advanced mathematics might be wise. I will attempt to teach you a few Ra'hom words, though I am not sure you will be able to say much without the ability to vibrate your vocal cords as we do. Your human singing might turn a few heads. We will run through a few of the advanced intelligence tests. You are very good at the tower one especially. Perhaps something to show agility and the ability to follow complex orders, like a dance or an obstacle course."

"This is starting to sound an awful lot like a dog show," Jewel said, frowning. "You want me to do tricks."

"I want to present you to the Peritas in whatever way most convinces them of your intelligence," Kay argued.

"Well then, here's a novel thought," Jewel said sarcastically. "Maybe don't trot me out and have me dance around like a trained animal."

"And what would you suggest instead?" Kay asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "To prove, definitively and scientifically, that you are intelligent?"

"Let me talk to them," Jewel said at once. "Let me answer their questions. Show them the Diviner's files on the civilizations my species has built. Our achievements."

"What humans and Ra'hom consider to be civilization is very different," Kay said dryly.

Jewel felt her irritation growing, but as she started to get to her feet, Kay held up his hands to calm her.

"I need you to trust me," he said. "I know my people. I know what will convince them. Please, for once, cooperate."

Jewel gritted her teeth against the urge to fight him. He was right. This was an alien species, after all. She didn't know what would convince them any more than Kay knew what would convince a human. She didn't have any choice except to trust that he knew what he was doing.

"Fine," she said, letting her anger go with some difficulty. "I'm a dancing monkey then. Teach me the steps."

"I suppose we could begin with the dance," he said, missing her sarcasm. "Something formal and traditional perhaps."

"I can't wait to hear what your music sounds like," Jewel said, only half joking as she dusted grass off her pants.

"I doubt you'll enjoy it," Kay replied, standing in front of her and adjusting her posture. "From what I recall of your medical records, the human hearing range is optimized for a higher pitch than Ra'homi hearing. What sounds good to us would sound pitched down and unpleasant to you."

"Well, that’s disappointing," Jewel said with a frown, letting him move her into position. "So we're going to dance to silence?"

"I will play something during the performance," he said, raising her arms and opening her hands, palms toward him. "But learning the steps first is more important."

He matched the position he'd put her in, hands an inch away from hers.

"So, what do I do?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"This is an Ingenuus dance," he said. "Developed during a time when Ingenuus were not allowed to breed without permission of the higher castes. Unlike many other forms of Ra'homi dance, the intrigue is the complete lack of contact between the dancers. It mimes actions of affection without ever breaching the distance between us. It also takes much from my cultural group's martial forms, which is where the distinctive, precise motions originate."

"Sounds weird," Jewel said, shrugging. "But I can dig it."

"I will move first," he said primly. "You mirror my actions. If I step toward you to the right, you step toward me the same way, so that we are always circling one another and always facing one another and always maintaining this precise distance."

He moved his hand toward her, and Jewel pulled hers back to keep the distance between them. He smiled and nodded in satisfaction.

"Good, like that. Now your feet."

He stepped forward, turning as he did, and Jewel stumbled a little as she tried to guess where he was moving. His motions were smooth, practiced, with the kind of careful, flowing efficiency of Tai Chi. There was certainly something beautiful in the way he stroked her cheek, ran his hands down her arms, pulled her hips toward him, all while keeping an inch of distance between them. She frowned as she tried to match the moves and failed, bumping into him.

"Try again," he said, not seeming nearly as annoyed as he'd been when she messed up with the terms of address. "Do not think about it too hard. Do not try to assume where I will be. Focus on where I am. Focus on nothing but me."

Jewel swallowed around an unexpected tightness in her throat and tried to follow his advice, but it was easier said than done. Eventually, he stopped and began showing her the moves by themselves, putting them together slowly. It was frustrating. She'd never been much of a dancer and she couldn't seem to get the hang of it. But it was definitely more enjoyable than pronouns.

* * *

They practiced dancing for more than an hour before Jewel begged to stop and eat, and then they returned to etiquette. How to hold herself, where to look and stand, what was offensive and to which cultural groups. Jewel hated all of it. Politeness was not exactly something she'd ever cultivated. But in the evening, she'd go for her run and he would follow, and for a few blissful hours, he would forget his stiff formality and lie beside her, laughing at her dumb jokes and insulting her food. That was worth a few hours of aggravation.

* * *

A month slid by that way, as others had before it. There was no day or night here except for the fake sun in the Earth habitat. It was easy to lose time, especially when she stayed as busy as Kay kept her. They were together nearly every moment of the day, and he slept beside her at night despite his complaining about the discomfort of the flat bed. Jewel found herself telling him things she'd never told anyone.

"It was stupid," she said as they practiced dancing, moving smoothly away from the slow sweep of his arm, mirroring the motion with her own. "I pretty much knew by the time Basic ended that I'd messed up. I get angry too easily and I don't like authority. Not a good mix with the military. But I pressed forward with it anyway like an idiot, racking up disciplinary charges. Nothing major at first, until . . ."

She shifted uncomfortably and screwed up a move. Kay's hand was meant to pass gracefully over her head and whacked her in the ear instead.

"Are you all right?" he asked, frowning. It wasn't just about her ear, which she was rubbing in annoyance.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Just not great memories."

"You do not need to tell me," he said. "I don't mind."

"It's not a big deal," she said, shaking it off and starting the dance again. "It happens to lots of people. I had this superior officer. He wanted to . . . you know. And I didn't have the luxury of saying no."

This time, it was Kay who missed a move. Jewel didn't give him the option of stopping, continuing the dance until he caught up.

"So I acted like it was my idea," she went on. "Bragged about it even, bagging a superior, like I wanted it. And he kept coming back. For a minute, I even thought we were in a relationship. But it was . . . messing me up. I started getting in more trouble. Doing stupid shit. Trying to get someone to notice, I think. Because you didn't talk about that kind of thing. Nearly got myself killed a few times. Sometimes, I think that's what I was after. But he kept covering for me, and he had a lot of reach, so . . . then one day, we got these new recruits in and there was this girl with them. Really young, stupid. Pretty. Shouldn't have been there any more than me. And I saw him looking at her. And I lost it. I’ve never been good at controlling my temper. Might have killed him if I'd had the chance. Still kind of wish I'd gotten a few more punches in before they pulled me off."

Kay was silent, still dancing but not really paying attention to the moves. He watched her instead, his expression unreadable.

"The worst part is," Jewel said, pretending she couldn't feel the angry tears in her eyes. "After, when I was waiting for the disciplinary hearing and the discharge that was coming, everyone was saying I did it because I was jealous. Like I was just some crazy, possessive girlfriend. I can't blame them with the bullshit I came up with to justify going along with him. But it stung. The thing is, the thought of him doing to her what he'd done to me made me so sick I couldn't sleep. And the thing is because I went and got my dumb ass kicked out, I don't know what happened to her. I couldn't even warn her. I don't know what happened and I couldn't do anything—"

She had to stop dancing, breathing too hard as she struggled to bring herself under control. Kay reached for her cautiously, asking without words, and when she didn't move away, he pulled her into his arms and let her hide her face in his shoulder until she stopped shaking. They sank down into the grass, and he was silent until she could breathe normally again.

"Sorry," she muttered into his shirt.

"There is nothing to apologize for," he said. "You did nothing wrong."

"I hate that it still messes me up this much," she said. "I left the whole damn planet behind and it's still—”

"I know very well how we carry these things with us," Kay said softly. "Even light-years away. Would you like to hear how I was assigned to the Diviner?"

"Is it funny?" Jewel asked, voice rough with emotion.

"Not unless you have an unusually dark sense of humor," he replied. "Do you still want to hear it?"

"Yeah," she said, relaxing against his chest.

"I was part of an attempted coup," he said plainly. "Our government is not as simple as I have made it seem. Before the Council and the castes, we were divided into our cultural groups and ruling families made the decisions. When things changed, the first Council came from those ruling families. But not all cultural groups supported the change, and so they were not represented in the Council and now live in a system that was designed to advantage others over them. The old ruling families still have much influence and fight each other for power and for seats in the Council. I told you before that a member of my cultural group has never been on the Council. That is because our ruling family was one of those that rejected the change. I am descendant of that family."

"So you're a prince?" Jewel asked, impressed.

"The term is inaccurate," Kay replied. "But for the sake of argument, yes. It did not really affect my upbringing, however. My cultural group, and thus my lineage, had little power. But then I began to rise through the ranks of the Ingenuus and the Duelists, and it began to seem as though I would be promoted to the Perita. I was approached by another of these old families. They were planning a political upset that would oust one of their rival families from the Council. In return for my help, they promised to use their influence to ensure me a seat on the Council, the first for my people. I agreed. But I underestimated the ruthlessness of their politics. The families would do anything to gain an advantage over each other. It was an art to them, and as all Ra'hom, they each strived to be the very best at their chosen art. I saw murders and worse, people bought and sold for just an inch of leverage. But by then, it was too late for me to back out. The family that had approached me was gathering more support. Other families were allying with it, and soon, there was a tangible split between those supporting one family and those supporting their rivals. At last, an attempt was made on my life, and I killed my attacker, not knowing he was a prominent member of the rival family. Everything erupted into chaos as revenge spurred revenge back and forth until, before I knew it, I was standing at the heart of a civil war.”

"Holy shit," Jewel said, wide-eyed.

"Holy shit indeed," Kay agreed. "I cannot understate the horror I felt or the carnage that resulted. I struggled to find the right side, some meaning in all the bloodshed so that I could fight for something meaningful. I became a figurehead to several factions who supported my claim to the Council, all for their own convoluted reasons. I led armies and won the kind of glorious victories I had once dreamed of being a part of. Even now that I am shamed, they were impressive enough to still be part of my designation. But I took no joy and found no glory in any of them. Eventually, I came to realize the only right choice, the only cause worth fighting for, was an end to the war."

"I'm guessing you didn't win though," Jewel assumed.

"Any end to the senseless slaughter was a victory," Kay said. "But no, the family I was originally allied with was defeated and their rivals took power. Most of those who had incited the original conflict had died in battle or were executed afterward. An exception was made for me. I could not be set free. The family hated me for going against them. I had personally killed many of their number. And it would have been a scar on their honor, considering my role in the spark that started the war. But neither could they execute me. Their support was still tenuous, and many groups which had considered me a hero still remained, their allegiance up for grabs. And for the common Ra'hom, unaware of the political nuances, my victories in battle and my skill at my chosen art deserved to be honored. They could not kill me without risking starting another war. So I was spared and 'honored' with the title of Curator of the Diviner. And then they removed all other crew and assigned me enough long, lonely missions to last the rest of my life, exiled to the fringes of space where I could be of no further influence on their power games."

"That sucks," Jewel said emphatically.

"It really does," Kay agreed. "But I am at peace with it. I never wanted to fight my own people. I wanted to make the world a better place. Now, I just want to earn my freedom from this ship so I can rebuild my life."

"You're welcome, by the way," Jewel said. He surprised her by bending to kiss the top of her head.

"Are you ready to dance again?" he asked. "I think you almost had it that time."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Let's do it."

"We do not have much time to waste," Kay said, standing and offering her a hand up from the grass. "The party is tomorrow, after all."