Author's Notes

This story requires another round of editing, which I will complete at a later date.

On the worldbuilding:

1. The Farishi do not have a culture of books. Instead, they have an oral tradition of passing on knowledge and stories to the next generation. They do have a writing system, but it has historically been used only for scrolls and slabs for scientific and historical observation.

2. The Farishi reproduce asexually. They are also what we would call asexual as an orientation, but they are not necessarily aromantic. They did not have any concept or word for “gender” until they made contact with humans. They did and do have a term for sex, but it is applied only to animals and plants.

2. The planet has many names according to its own peoples and cultures. Within the IPL, it is called “Farishitaal”, which translates to “land of the Farishi”, since it is one of the most common terms used on the planet for itself.

I originally had three other characters, including one human nb character, but in such a short story, I couldn’t develop them. They also did not have any effect on the plot. So I removed them, and found myself staring ironically at the “alien is the only ace/nb person” trope. Well. I compete for dumbassery with all my characters.

Many thanks to my beta. Any mistakes are mine.