"Obligation is not just expectation, but that is where we must begin. Society has expectations of each person, of degrees of importance; we might say the minimum expectation is made up of three facets, the first being that a person, let us say you, does not cause physical harm to others. The next facet is that you do not cause mental harm to others. And the last is that you do not cause social harm to the community. You may see some overlap with both etiquette and ethics here; they are all part of the same fundamental structure.

"The easiest expectation to meet for most people is to not cause physical harm, as for most people, it is usually the case that it would require deliberate action and intent to cause harm. You must exercise more care in this than most, as for most people, it takes some effort to harm in such a way; for you, it is sufficient merely to be careless. Care is something that comes more naturally to the loop-born, and so it is only necessary to ensure you do not develop habits that lead to carelessness.

"For most of us, carelessness results in mental harm, so others are also expected to take care. By care, I mean not taking action without considering what the effects of that action may be, and particularly not taking action without intending to take that action. Mental harm can take the form of an insult, intentional or not, or it can take more complex forms.

"Social harm is the most complex, both to understand and to avoid, and is the root of much of our obligations. Zana's most important obligation is the choice of names, of obligations, of others; if Zana were to choose poorly, this would cause social harm. Trust is important here; trust is a way of describing ... hm." A small white object, grasped in both hands, was lifted to Efre's mouth and tilted, making an unfamiliar noise. "I haven't tried to describe trust before." A pause commenced, as Efre raised the object again, face turning up to the ceiling.

"Trust is ... when your concept of somebody is that they will meet their expectations, their obligations. It can also be applied to objects; you may trust that ... well, you may trust that your clothing is the color it is. Or it can be applied to more complex things; if Zana chose the wrong names, our society would lose trust that the community would be able to meet our needs, because people would not be doing what they are best at.

"Social harm is a way of describing things that cause us to lose that trust. As long as we have that trust, our community can function; if we lose that trust, our community may fall apart. Zana chooses our names well, and listens when we feel we need a new name for ourselves, so our community functions. This requires a few things from us as well; I spoke up when my name no longer suited me, and Zana listened, and I got a new name. Again, it is generally considered rude to talk about someone's past names, but you need to understand that names can change, in order to understand this, so here, with me, you may ask such questions if it will help you to understand.

"Sometimes people ask for new names, and do not receive them. We have trust, in our community, that this will not happen without good reasons; usually because there is something that only that person can do, or only they can do well, and no replacement could be found. That is, it may happen if there is an obligation that could not be met, if they were to have different obligations instead.

"Other societies have different ways of doing things. The peri have their contracts, and an individual in their society is likely to do one thing their entire lives, on threat of the penalty of violating their geis. The div have a leader, who chooses other leaders, who in turn choose other leaders, who decide what each person is to do. Their highest leader, who they call an emperor, decides what they want from the leaders under them, who then decide what those under them must do to accomplish those tasks.

"Man has many different ways of doing things, and they coexist to some extent; they have contracts, like the peri, but their contracts are just obligations written down, and do not have the magic. They have leaders like the div, although they have no emperor, only many different leaders of different communities. And they have obligations, like us, but different.

"Their obligations are handled through tokens; a token represents an obligation met. So someone who hunts brings food to a group of others, and they give tokens in exchange for the food, to say that they have been given food. The hunter can then trade these tokens for other things the hunter needs.

"It's an overly complicated system with many drawbacks. The djinn have been working on adopting parts of it, however, because it enables the different societies of man to coordinate obligations between communities, which has become necessary of late owing to the conflicts between the djinn, the peri, and the div; the div have their emperor, and the peri have a chain of contracts up to a small number of people who make decisions." Efre halted, then, looking down into the white object, and placed it with a small sound on a platform, made up of a disc and three vertical bars that connected the disc to the ground.

"I digress. I have explained etiquette many times, I have never tried to explain obligation, and my mind rebels, seeking things that are easy for me; my apologies. We have expectations of each person; part of that expectation is that they fulfill the obligations that have been placed upon them. I have tea because somebody grows tea; should they not do so, I would not, and my life would be less.

"They depend upon me to teach the loop-bound, our protectors. Your obligation is to protect our community, which again, includes yourself; you are of us. You do not drink tea, you do not eat meat. Much of our society is built around obligations that do not pertain to you, because your needs are different from ours.

"Those of us in this building have obligations that do meet those needs, different from our own. You need to learn; that is my obligation. You need to interact with people, to have companionship. That is all of our obligation. When we have finished these lessons, you will start others, but they will not fill all of your time; you will need other things to do. We are obligated there, as well.

"We have other loop-bound, who spend their time in many ways; although their obligation is protection, some spend their time fulfilling other needs in our society. The oldest among you, Harabi, likes to make clothing; you are wearing the product of that work. It is not Harabi's obligation, but it is Harabi's pleasure to do so.

"Hvare writes poems, which on completion are burned in a candle's flame. I do not pretend to understand. Mehr enjoys the company of others." Efre paused for a second, head shaking slightly. "I will explain that later, it would be a significant diversion. You will have time that you will seek to fill, and your obligation to the community would mean nothing if the community had no obligation to you. Let me pause there, do you have questions?"

Self had several questions, mostly about what words meant, and Efre answered each in turn, which added new questions. After some time, Self had that same sense of half-understanding, that things made sense, but not in a way that Self could specify; like a concept that Self was aware of, but had no conception of.

The lesson ended for the day; Efre indicated that some time needed to be spent preparing for the next day's lessons, as the need to teach the three subjects had been unexpected and unprepared for. And then Self was alone in the room again.

Obligations; Efre hadn't really explained where expectation ended and obligation began, but Self was starting to get a feel for it. And perhaps a sense that Zana was correct about Self's obligation; Self wasn't certain why the loop-bound could provide protections that others could not, but it seemed that both Zana and Efre took that this was the case for granted. Perhaps a question for the next day's lessons.

Self certainly didn't understand the idea of needs, except that the others needed Self not to touch upon their minds, as that would cause their minds to stop vibrating correctly. In general, that seemed to be the common thread of the needs; what was necessary for a mind to be a mind. Self, and the other loop-bound, apparently had needs, but it seemed to be about the minds themselves, whereas the others had needs that were unrelated to their minds.

Self was curious about the other loop-bound; what were their minds like? Could they touch, in a way that the other djinn's minds could not? Probably not, or they would have had Self take the necessary concepts from their minds, instead of this lengthy process of explaining using words, which was slow, and required lots of questions.

Self looked around the room, and was startled by a question that seemed to come out of nowhere - the question was of what was outside the room, but it was lost in the surprise that the question was there at all. A vibration had arisen which Self had not been aware of.

Awareness vibrated, and Self exerted effort to still everything else, trying to identify where the question had come from. It was speech-thought, Self thought, but it had arisen without awareness, without ... direction.

Where did the direction come from? What vibrated awareness? What chose? It would be incorrect to say that Self asked these questions, but these were the questions Self now sought the answers to.