by Tsaba on June 5th, 2013, 3:37 am
"It's sort of how work is done in Sahova. In Sahova, I'd be in the library because I wanted specific information on something. So I'd be scanning an introductory book like this as a launching point to find other books, and there would be a lot of 'focus on this' notes, but they'd be less... broad." She tapped a finger next to where she'd written 'Auristics vs. prophecy?? Now considered dead theory; investigate'. "I'd be unlikely to care about background like that, for example, unless I was specifically investigating a divine connection to Auristics. Which I wouldn't be doing, because other people already have and it's been largely rejected, so thoroughly that even this basic intro book says so. But here, I'm trying to get a good, broad understanding of the whole art, and more importantly, of how it is developed, used and viewed. So random tangents like that will help me understand why people once thought there was a connection, even if it's meaningless now. As for Nuit..." Tsaba paused and gathered her thoughts. She would have to remember this conversation as a whole; Castor's reactions could be useful later.
"Nuit are... well, it depends on your perspective. An Animator might call a Nuit the ultimate in sophisticated golems, at least he might if he probably wasn't a Nuit himself and therefore could find such a comparison insulting. A golem contains the template of a soul; a Nuit contains a true soul. But otherwise, it is basically the same thing. A Nuit is a homeless soul that borrows the homes of other souls that are no longer needed, like... like those little crabs that live in shells they find on the beach? Unfortunately, the process that removes a sould from its home -- death -- destroys much of the internal maintenance systems, so our bodies fall apart rather more quickly than yours." By way of demonstration, she held up her right hand and pointed out the minute stitching around the middle of her little finger. She then bunched her hand into a fist; the top knuckle on the finger didn't bend. "This will never heal. I only had the finger sewed on to seal the wound better than bandages would." She put her hand down again.
"The most important factor about Nuits that is likely to affect you, as a human, is that our priorities and sense of value is very different to yours. We hardly sleep and are functionally immortal, so our time is worth less than yours. We do not eat; our only real maintenance cost is in preservatives and, possibly, shelter, so our day-to-day expenses can also be a lot less. But on the other hand, because we do not heal, minor abrasions for you that are barely worth noticing are serious problems for us. I once lost a foot to a bad pair of shoes, for instance. Of course, so long as we have access to a new body, things that you would consider major problems like the removal of a limb are, to us, temporary inconveniences, provided we do not bleed to death. The ocean air of Zeltiva and the high population of living humans is actually a serious health hazard to me; it presents a whole lot of potential infection factors that Sahova didn't. Sahova is incredibly poisonous to you, which is a blessing to us, because it prevents infection. We, of course, only need to breathe to speak; poisonous gas means nothing to us.
"Another way to view nuit, as a non-Animator, is as a sort of ghost that must always possess a host. We cannot live without a body like a true ghost can. Does that answer your question?" Her eyes met his and she added, "I would in fact be very interested to know how races on the mainland view nuit. The few humans who come to Sahova are unlikely to be a representative sample."
Thanks to Abstract for the lovely boxcode!