603. Doubts and Philosophy, 8
I’m playing knights with Nokarlık.
The aim is simply to hit the other sword with your own. Not to target flesh.
Not yet.
It’s just a game.
I’m learning how to educate her too. And I think for this new activity that keeping it as an outside game will be best.
The swords make noise. She laughs. I make her run after the target that is the sword I hold. Then I hit hers by surprise, making it ring like a sharp bell.
I remember good times, in the lush mountains of Anatolia. It’s somewhat similar.
I grab Nok with my other arm as she jumped a little too far. I tickle her until she begs for mercy. That’s the end of today’s game.
~
Thanks to Blume caring for food and shelter meanwhile, we can have all the fun we want.
And thus I learn the fundamental of society, plain as day.
Travelling truly alone is far more demanding.
Blume does a lot, and doesn’t ask for much.
R - What would you want in return?
Blume tilts her head, thoughts in haze, playing the pondering part.
B - A long, long time ago, I would have requested your love. But now...
She acts as if she just ate something nasty and bitter, pulling her tongue in faces and shivering. Nokarlık laughs. Blume simply mocks me to laugh with her at my expense. I let it go with a genuine smile.
Night has fallen now, and Blume looks all the ordinary woman, sitting at her campfire in this wild land. A serious answer never comes.
There is nothing else she would want that isn’t already near her. I give her a good hug and kiss.
Blume melts in my mind as I fall asleep. My one and only daiûa, whom made this world right for me.
~
I have some shades in my dreams.
My limbs feel heavy as I wake up.
Nok is already up and springy. We leave the computer aside for a few more days, and go for another time of exploration together.
Blume yawns. She will explore another part of the industrial area later. We’ll meet back at dinner time, back home.
My backpack is ready. It’s an odd backpack Nok carries, but we made one that accommodates her heavy and unruly hair.
Her lunch has skewered grilled moss balls. She loves them. They taste like sweet mushrooms.
And on we go for another day. We run, we twirl, and my sweetest of Nights is growing.
Nokaranlık grows and learns, and is happy.
A long long time ago, in a very different life, I remember hearing something I didn’t quite understand back then.
I was just a child in another world. Someone, my tutor, telling me about social differences and priorities.
It might have flowed from a discussion about why do we have to study as a child, when poorer children could seemingly play more freely?
I don’t remember how it got to that thing I now recall.
For people with a good situation, the people with some form of power and competition, the priority for their children isn’t their happiness, but their investment. Because social power is selfless. It’s family or dynastic. They live for something virtual, bigger than themselves as individuals.
The children and their education is an investment for the dynasty to prosper and live on. They invest for the future, blindly.
Whereas common folk without power to bequeath, they can live more selfishly, and I don’t mean anything bad with that. It’s just they have less means to grow bigger in this other aspect, so they have more time to give to their personal business instead. And so the priority for their children, is more simply their day to day happiness, eyes open.
I never understood any of this. Not as a child, nor when I had to manage the surreal fortune inherited from my parents.
It took me you, to understand.
The education I build for you comes from that balance I chose for you.
I’m lucky enough to have neither social pressure nor absence of power to weigh on my decision.
I kiss your forehead and you smile. You still have no clue as to how far and wide the world is.
I’m sure that the lord of nightmares wanted to keep the options open too. Because we could shift you, shape you, into an indomitable daiûa; or a selfless and peaceful lamb.
I was hardly ever able to manage and cope with my own existential fears, ideals and guilt. And now your empty path outranks them all.
N - Ros?
R - Hm... I’m here Nok!
I follow her. Unfortunately what she’ll become may not be for me to know.
All I can do is pass on as much of what I think is best for her, until she has enough to grow on...
For now my choice is in between. Giving her as much knowledge and training as possible; while also insuring it follows a rhythm that keeps her happy about her life overall.
Easier said than done.
Reality is, I do what I can, when I can, and I still do mistakes that end up with tears or slaps sometimes.
It’s painful.
Sometimes it really hurts.
Blume is cautious, but not active by herself toward Nok’s education. She’s still a big help, but I get the feeling she doesn’t care that much about Nokarlık. If I were to disappear, they probably would go on their separate ways rapidly.
That evening we returned late.
Me with a gashing wound on my thigh, and Nok with a mark from my hand on her face.
Blume didn’t laugh, but I kind of wish she did when she saw us. It would have eased it off.
I tended to my wound, showing the grounded girl bits of medicine, including how to sew an open wound.
The needle needs to be bent and round. Use alcohol to disinfect and so on.
Between tears soaking the carpet, she watched.
Once all was done, then we had the forgiving cuddle, both ways. Then Blume hugged us both too, because it looked fun I guess, but we couldn’t breathe anymore.
We dined by the fire next to the hollow windows. The night sky was clear.
Nok was falling asleep onto my lap, and itching wound. A few steps aside, Blume was sipping some liquor by herself, lost in thoughts again, and not sharing.
I laughed a little suddenly; she looked back at me with understandable bewilderment.
I just wondered what would happen next.
~
