Chapter Text
Not being a hierarchical species, the Oankali had little use, and no exact linguistic equivalent, for a word like "favorite".
They had different words for "best", most of which meant things like 'most accurate' or 'most useful' and could only be applied to objects. They applied superlatives to living beings only in the observable ways: strongest, fastest. Never most influential, most loved, most important. It wasn't the way their worlds were structured. Such things changed too easily for them to use a language that implied they didn't.
The closest approximation of the "favorite" concept, in Oankali, was a much more transient expression of immediate preference. They could not and would not say that they had a favorite fruit, but they could say that there was a fruit that they wanted most in the moment. Humans who were new to the Oankali language who wanted to rebel against this lack of a direct translation for "favorite" often tried to use the Oankali words for "prefer-right-now" with the Oankali words for "always", to clumsily convey the idea. I always prefer-right-now this food. I always prefer-right-now this shirt. It was nearly as endearing as it was conceptually incoherent.
Nikanj, like most Dinso ooloi (though perhaps to a higher-than-average degree), enjoyed humans with a rapt, obsessive, and at times perverse fascination. Even at their worst, humans were enticing. The talents of humans were irresistible. The violence of humans was awful and intriguing. They were not, Nikanj believed, exactly more violent than the Oankali, and certainly not better at it. (The Oankali had a talent for peace, but also a talent for killing, when suitably threatened.) But as a hierarchical species, human violence was likewise hierarchical. Their violence was a violence of domination. Oankali violence was a violence of...involvement. In human violence, the opponent's premature death was an acceptable or even wanted outcome. For the Oankali, it never was.
On one occasion, Nikanj, deigning to consider its own species from the human perspective, had described the Oankali as "meddlesome", and Lilith had laughed. "Isn't that how you see us?" it had inquired.
"It's such an understatement," had been her answer. So the description was apt, then. Humans found it funny when one expressed the right idea but didn't make it big enough.
About the difference between human violence and Oankali violence, Lilith argued that the distinction was an artifice of Nikanj's own making. "Forcing your own involvement is the same as domination," she said, with such certainty.
"It would be that," Nikanj said, "if you did not agree that I should be involved."
"Forcing our agreement is part of the violence."
But still, when Nikanj's sensory arm reached for her, she leaned in to be held and given pleasure. Both believed they were proving their own point, and both knew that the other believed the same.
Nikanj had a talent for humans.
And sometimes, it found itself empathizing with human ideas like "favorite". The sentiment of it. The promise of it. (Like most human things, it was something so complex, with such potential for contradictions- nothing quite so imposing as the human Contradiction, but the intricacies of it were exciting. An always that was not an always. A self-fulfilling prophecy that could also be empty and nominal. Some Oankali found it bothersome that humans tended to state things as fact that were not the truth of their bodies or minds, but Nikanj found it all the more interesting, for it knew that humans did not say these lies for no reason. The need for the lie was a new truth that they were conveying.) In a manner typical to its species, when Nikanj empathized with the idea of "favorite", it also absorbed the best of it for its own use, adapting it to suit its own way of being.
Nikanj had two Oankali mates and two human mates, and it was when it looked at Lilith that it thought most about the word "favorite". Of course, for Nikanj, the word was not exactly hierarchical. It wouldn't place Lilith above its other mates.
But Lilith was unique. Lilith was for Nikanj in a different way than the others were for Nikanj.
There were the obvious reasons of them having been molded for each other for years. And in one way, it might have been a manifestation of the typical ooloi gravitation toward pain. The need to heal, to improve. Even among the Awakened humans, Lilith was particularly burdened, and it was gratifying to make her feel good instead.
"It sounds like you're saying that my pain is also gratifying," Lilith commented once. Bitterly amused, but on this day the amusement outweighed the bitterness; Nikanj could taste it on her skin.
"You know that I'm not gratified by your pain," it answered. Not in and of itself- no ooloi could bear for another to suffer. But Nikanj could understand the logic in her statement; it could not enjoy the relief of healing Lilith's insect bites if they did not, first, take place.
Likewise, when Tate Marah went to Lilith imploring that she go with the other humans and stray from the safety of the encampment, supposing that the ship was not a ship, Nikanj's physiological aversion to the prospect of Lilith being out of reach was tinged with something else. An extreme alertness that was not wholly unpleasant. If Lilith acquiesced to the humans' invitation- as it believed that she would -then the absence of her and Joseph would be distressing, even devastating, but it would be brief, and the recovery of them would be a great pleasure. And if Lilith opted not to join them...well, that was obvious. Then she would be with Nikanj. Then she would have chosen Nikanj, consciously and deliberately, in much the same manner that she had been chosen for Nikanj.
But it believed that she would go with them. It was intended that the humans learn to survive.
When she spoke with Joseph, Nikanj watched.
"Would you leave me?" she asked him twice, and twice Joseph did not answer, and twice Nikanj did:
I will not.
I will never.
Joseph was also Lilith's mate, and he was as good with her as Nikanj had expected, but he could never be what Nikanj was. Human fidelity was...less than that of the Oankali. Their children would be different.
Joseph didn't need to be what Nikanj was to Lilith. Nikanj already was what Nikanj was to Lilith. Joseph was what Joseph was to Lilith.
As it stood, Lilith would go, because Joseph would go. Nikanj had believed that they would.
Nikanj had a talent for humans.
...
Nikanj entwined with Ahajas and Dichaan, and it was for comfort and not for pleasure, but it was not without pleasure. (Nothing had to be without pleasure, now that it had completed its second metamorphosis. And since nothing had to be, it saw to it that nothing was.) Neither of them felt the absence of Lilith in the way that Nikanj did, but they came closer to understanding the feeling than Lilith ever could, because they were Oankali.
As much as Lilith was, in ways, its favorite, she could not be what Ahajas and Dichaan were to Nikanj. She didn't have to be, because they already were.
...
The Oankali were, Nikanj discovered, both too meddlesome and not meddlesome enough.
To have made no changes to Joseph would have been better.
To have gone and stopped him from choosing as he had would have been better.
For Lilith, the former was no longer an option, but the latter was. Nikanj held her and did not let go. It felt her grief, a sort of catharsis. She asked to feel Nikanj's grief, which she was not equipped to fathom, but it gave her what it could. She appreciated that it did this; Nikanj tasted the appreciation on her skin, and then she showed it in the human way, with an embrace that was slightly overwhelming to its body tentacles. But her ways of externalizing her affection were hers, and Nikanj had grown fond of the human gestures. They grieved together.
...
Nikanj especially empathized with the idea of "favorite" when, in its grievously injured state, its first despairing thought was of the children it wouldn't get to make for Lilith.