Page 23 of Family Found

Little Sonyo went on for a good minute before stopping and looking at me with his big blue eyes. He had his hands clasped in front of him and rocked back and forth on his little paw feet while sucking on his bottom lip. He reminded me a little of Nokim.

“Uhm?” I looked at Inkiri, who was tilting his head while he looked through the notebook.

“Please,” little Sonyo said in English, his eyes imploring me.

“Ink? I’m sort of lost here. What does the kid want?”

“Well, sadir. He made his case just now to be… It used to be senhanmen, but the Raiken just calls it hanmen. It’s similar to the servants Zeddira wanted you to have, but those servants would’ve been older, of course. It doesn’t even matter what the Raiken calls it or what Zeddira wanted. I think steward or a child fostered to a family for training is what you might best understand. Maybe a page? Like medieval knights used to have.”

My eyebrows shot up. I wasn’t sure what Sonyo was reading in the expression, but the kid clicked at me, swallowed, and said “Please” again, making the word longer and more imploring. Had his eyes gotten bigger? He had really big eyes.

“He’s—he still goes to school though, right?”

Inkiri waved the notebook Sonyo had handed him. “This is a record of his schooling. He’s ahead of Raikengana his age, and he has recently taken up English. The moment visdena Hove got a teacher here, he says. He makes the argument that being on Earth will help him learn the language, and that bagua who speak it well will be more important very soon. He is right.”

I gestured at Sonyo. I wasn’t sure Weirdo Mate was understanding. “He’s a kid though. Who should go to school. And not—what does he even want? We don’t need a servant, especially not a child. No one does.”

Inkiri said something to Sonyo. I picked up “Raiken” and that was it.

Sonyo stepped even closer to me and rattled off something in Lugarra again, then looked at Inkiri when he was done.

Inkiri clicked. “He says that the veils have been broken in several places, which means even someone like him who isn’t a koa can pass through, which is how he intends to get to the Raiken for his lessons. He’d never embarrass you or our sentenmen by neglecting his schooling.”

“Please, Rory,” Sonyo said when Inkiri was done speaking.

Damn, where had the kid learned begging? Was he doing the eye batting thing I had only recently learned was a good survival strategy? Yup, yes, he was, and now that it was directed at me, I could really appreciate what a powerful tool it was.

“He knows there are monsters on Earth, right? And why—I don’t get it. What does he want with us?”

Weirdo Husband tilted his head. “I’m not quite sure I understand, sadir. Vergis or even Kinnek would happily take the child to the Raiken, I am sure. He could learn much from the sentenmen. I would have liked such an opportunity at his age, especially for the language.”

My jaw dropped. “Uhm, wait. You’re saying we should tell the kid he can, what, come live with us and help around the house? Take him away from here? From his home?”

Inkiri tilted his head, but I got the sense he wanted to nod. “If he does not feel like he belongs, he can always return. Hanmen positions for someone his age are only permitted if the Raikenga is exceptional and shows consistent progress in his studies. Sonyo knows that.”

Sonyo tilted his head, and said, “Please?”

I was so not built for this. I was being made to do adulting, and doing adulting well wasn’t me. Was I supposed to tell the kid no and look into his face when I crushed his dreams? That was not in my skill set.

“Okay, look, Ink. I’m not even sure why the kid is asking me. I honestly don’t know enough about Lugarran culture and norms to know what is best for him, so can you please… I don’t know. Can you please handle this?”

From the way Inkiri tilted his head this time, that tripped him up as much as the thing about me wanting him to be safe had.

“If you were bagu,” Inkiri began carefully, “if you were hangu, and a koa, most would expect you to decide things for the senfesmen, but also for our sentenmen.”

“The senfesmen, that’s you and me, right, just to be sure? And the sentenmen, that’s…the guys?”

He nodded. “Yes, sadir. It’s just what is expected. Interacting with others is easy when everyone knows how things are done, but of course not all hangua wish for that kind of influence, while some hangu-naga crave it. I’m not that kind of hangu-na, sweet thing, you must know that.”

Okay, I could tell when I was being given important cultural information, at least most of the time, and this was that. As far as I understood it, he was telling me the definition of what a bagu jerk looked like, in essence, and confirming that he wasn’t one, according to the cultural standard.

I nodded. “But, you know, seeing as how I’m human and don’t know the ins and outs of, uh, the culture and the Raiken ways? If I tell you to make a good decision because you know more stuff that’s important in this situation, that’s me making a decision, right?”

Inkiri visibly lit up. “Very true, sadir. It’s how all Raikengana work in the field.”

“We’re so in the field right now.” I nodded, which—fudge.

Sonyo made a happy little sound, his mouth falling open.