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"Venli. Where are you going?"
"Back to the Plains. You've made it very clear that they're the only place I can be safe."
"You know that is never what I intended. You will be safe here so long as I am queen," Jasnah responded, fighting to keep the pain from her voice.
"I wish I could believe you," Venli said.
Venli was hurriedly packing up her chambers, throwing books and various scientific implements into bags. She moved around Jasnah, as if she wasn't standing right in the middle of the room.
"Can you just explain to me why my suggestion was so egregious? Why do you care so much?"
"I've told you. The songs are sacred to my people. They are not to be shared with outsiders."
"Surely you would not consider me an outsider any longer. We have grown past that."
Venli's face betrayed little, but she loudly attuned Annoyance. "It is not about you as an individual. What are you intending with these texts?"
"I would compile them, and then share them with other scholars of Alethkar and the wider world. History needs to be recorded," Jasnah said. "It is imperative that your people's stories are preserved beyond the oral tradition."
Venli stopped moving around the room to glare at Jasnah. "I don't think you can understand why this is so important to me."
"Then tell me," Jasnah said. "Explain it to me in full. I cannot understand if you do not speak to me."
"Your people are conquerors," Venli said. "You have the option to write down your knowledge because it will not be destroyed. And even so, you have lost so much in the Desolations and the Hierocracy because of your reliance on the written word."
"But oral histories are so easily altered. You even admit that your own songs do not detail the methods of obtaining other forms and that you have had trouble interpreting them."
"You forget that we could not write," Venli said. "We did not have that option as we ran from the old gods. Orality was a survival technique, as they could not take our voices."
"You have a choice now," Jasnah said. "I am giving you that choice, and you are ignoring it. You are abandoning all that we have built together, and for what? A petty grudge? The anger you still harbor?"
"This is not petty," Venli said. "This is not about my anger. This is about respect, and the history between the Listeners and the rest of the world."
"You know that I would not allow history to repeat itself. The enslavement of the Singers will not happen again under my rule," Jasnah said. "I aim to put structures into place, change our society. The Alethi will no longer rely on forced labor for the functions of our day to day lives."
"The point is not that. The point is the knowledge. It's powerful and you know that, especially in the hands of the wrong people," Venli said. The Rhythm of Annoyance in her voice faded to Resignation.
"I care for you, and I care for the work we have done together. I would not let the songs of your people fall into the hands of our enemies."
"Would you really be willing to keep our studies to yourself? To censor information that I want kept among Listeners?"
"You're asking me to willfully destroy knowledge. That goes against what I've sworn as a scholar."
"Because that knowledge could be used to harm us. How can you guarantee that your descendants will not abuse this information? Can you promise that no one who can access this information will ever wish the Listeners ill will?"
She couldn't promise that, even if she wanted to guarantee that the Alethkar of the future would be better than the one of the past. After all, hadn't she wanted to use the history she had uncovered to justify the purging of Parshmen slaves? At the time, she hadn't given a second thought to what she'd believed was necessary for the good of Alethkar. She would have been willing to see the singers dead or left to starve if it meant preventing a Desolation.
"The knowledge of our forms could be used to take them away," Venli continued. "But it's more than that. I don't feel comfortable with your scholars coldly speculating on my culture. It's sacred."
"I didn't think you were religious," Jasnah said.
"Not in the same way that followers of Vorinism are, but that doesn't mean my people's stories aren't important to me. If I'd heeded those stories, the entire world might be different."
"You cannot fully blame yourself for trying to grasp at power in the face of destruction. Even if it wasn't your most brilliant move."
"It is not about blame, or what us as individuals can do," Venli said. "I was entrusted with the songs of my family, songs we've passed down through centuries. It was a duty I neglected, but now I see why it was so important. The Listener songs are passed down orally so that we can bring them wherever we go, under any circumstance. They are meant to be our people's lifeline and memories. They connect me to what my ancestors did. They are sacred because they are oral and because they are ours."
Jasnah was left without a rebuttal. She thought that she had understood Venli. They shared so much, after all: a thirst for knowledge, a sense of duty towards their families, and more recently, most of their time.
But she had been so elated these past few months by their similarities that she had forgotten about their differences. Jasnah, for all that had been done to her, was queen of one of the most wealthy and powerful nations on Roshar. Venli was part of a people who had been brought to the brink of destruction multiple times, forced to hide from all the forces of Roshar.
Jasnah, instead of trying to force her own argument, tried to think of things as Venli did. She could not always assume that they would be of the same mindset. Despite her stubbornness and desire to win the argument, her relationship with Venli was more than that of a fellow scholar. She thought she could push out of her usual comfort zone for this, or at least she would try.
"Would you be willing to let me analyze the songs without recording their exact words?" Jasnah asked. "I could try to piece together where your history and human history lines up without taking the sacred parts of the song."
Compromise, according to her mother, was key for a loving relationship. So, Jasnah was willing to try it. Because she did deeply want to maintain a loving relationship with Venli.
Venli hummed to Consideration. "That might be agreeable," she said. "I would have to discuss with the Listener's council, though. Decisions that could effect all of us have to be made through a vote."
"I admire that about your government," Jasnah said. "I wish I could get the brightlords and ladies to agree to some type of discursive system without fracturing Alethkar."
"The Listeners were once a fractured scattering of families," Venli said. "It was only war and destruction that brought us back together."
Jasnah looked around the room. Venli had done quite a thorough job of packing her things in her displeasure.
"I have another suggestion," Jasnah said. "I should come with you to speak to your council."
"Most of the Listeners don't exactly trust humans. And my association with you probably won't help your case," Venli said.
"Perhaps I can gain their trust. By living among you."
Venli's rhythm suddenly switched to Surprise. "Are you suggesting that you and I… that you… that we live together? In Narak? Aren't you a queen? Is it not your duty to stay here?"
Jasnah shrugged, though the nonchalance did not come easily. "I am Queen of a nation in exile, which does not particularly need me to rule it on a day to day basis. And there is plenty of precedent for a brightlady to make a visit to the homeland of one she is courting. And I've been trying to get better at doing things outside of my duties."
She knew she had served Alethkar well, served it better than most people knew. Didn't she deserve a momentary lapse? A vacation of sorts?
Venli stepped closer to Jasnah, hesitantly, hand extended. They were not often physically affectionate, but Jasnah took Venli's offered hand and squeezed it in hers. It felt like the right thing to do, and she was getting better and better at going after what she really wanted.
Venli's skin was always slightly cooler than Jasnah's, until it had been warmed up by Jasnah.
Her touch always reminded Jasnah that they provided each other an equilibrium, a balance, in so many ways. They could rival each other mentally, could debate each other until the moons had passed across the sky, but sometimes it was better to settle in the middle. Jasnah was still trying to learn that.
"Staying in Narak would be most conducive to this area of research. And if people become more familiar with you, they will be more likely to accept your idea of analyzing the content of our songs," Venli said
"And, of course, you'd enjoy living with me, right?" Jasnah asked with a small smile. Venli was loudly attuning Joy, so she was fairly certain what her response would be.
"Of course," Venli said. "That goes without saying."
Theirs was not a traditional courtship, not in the slightest. But nothing about the world was traditional anymore, and if anyone wanted to be scandalized about Jasnah living alongside Venli in Narak, she would be quick to point out that they ought to worry about more pressing matters.
She was queen, after all. She could do what she wanted. And currently, she could think of nothing she would like more than doing historical research with the woman she loved.