Kroashent Q+A: Ask Gwae 1

Going to try these again.  Ask a question and get a Kroashent character to answer it!

-----------------------------------------------

Q: "Gwae, has anyone ever thanked you, and how did you 'even the debt'?"

A: There’s a wee bit of confusion around thanking the Fair Folk, that the words “Thank you” are some sort of magical anethema to us. In reality, expressions gratitude are a wee bit more nuanced then that. For the most part, explicit thanks are fierce rude or confusing. Only a few individuals become enraged at the words, likely part of a personal ere-hud, or taboo.

The Fair Folk live balanced lives around a concept of dle or “debt”. Dle effects the flow of hud (magic) around one. Negative dle puts one in the powers of others, weakening them, while positive dle puts others in the power of one, weakening the community and world around. Neutral dle allows the strongest position for huderezh, the art of manipulating hud and grants the most options for a better outcome for all. The Fair Folk are quick to repay a debt to avoid negative dle. Some, such as the Boudic and the Hoseguéannet Korrigan, subsist entirely on maintaining their dle, in the form of work for the former and justice for the latter.

When a gift is given altruistically, a direct expression of gratitude establishes the existence of a debt, poisoning the gift by tying it with the dle. An exchange given of equal value maintains the balance, but an exchange with thanks disrupts that balance. It means that an exchange was not balanced, and a slight has been made by one or both sides.

It is vital also, that a payment is equal in personal value. If a Boudic tills the same field, first of a poor man and then a rich man, a payment of a rough hemp shirt may be fitting for the former, but insulting from the latter. Likewise, if a Boudic agrees to take on the threshing of Winterrule in exchange for a cloak and hat, if the payment is made early, they must cease work upon receipt. Do not share a gift. A violation of contract draws heavily on dle, putting the positive dle of a community on one who intended a gift for an individual or family.

I am told that humans thank more casually, which is fierce strange to me. I dinna understand how they can live their lives accruing and dispensing such uneven debts. Most of those around me take great care not to thank me, but they sometimes do. My friend once gave me a small silver branch from a tree of Emain Ablach. I dinna think that she thought much of it, but it was too precious a gift. I haven’t been home for so many cycles. I was so upset I didn’t speak with her for a week, then I spent the next week arranging small boons of faistine to happen around her. It was exhausting and upsetting, and she shouldn’t have done it. It was a kindness that she did not know the value of and I was not prepared to offset it.