The Annual Reminder

Blaedy spent the evening resenting the yearly courtesy catechism: a long procession of obvious rules, apparently required to remind grown people not to paw at one another or make another person’s day worse for sport. She did not dispute the rules, only the labor of proving she had read them. A distinction known to every honest sinner.

Meho declared a tiny all-male concern immune by mutual enthusiasm, then produced a smug little finger-to-temple token as if consent were a loophole rather than the whole gate. Arrowyy had endured two versions this year, one so elaborate that two hours became ten. He was understandably betrayed by this arithmetic.

Blaedy, blessed with a quieter route through the ordeal, set a clever scribe upon the questions and then claimed injury from an ancient void creature’s feet. I suggested looking elsewhere. For this I was hated, briefly. The price of sound counsel remains mercifully low.