Oaths, Debts, and Favors

Several characters now have mentioned things like oaths, debts, and favors. These things have an enormous degree of weight assigned to them in this setting. Given that these things are so significant, there will be plenty more about them later on in the story. A lot of things, notably including why all this is the case, will not be explained in this note. But that still leaves plenty of room to explore things which Kyoko knows, which are common knowledge in this setting, but which will generally not be exposition in the story itself.

Start with oaths, because they’re in many ways the foundation of this whole system. They are effectively (and sometimes literally) held sacred by the supernatural world. It is very rare that someone will break their word, and very few people will tolerate it if they learn about it happening. What constitutes an oath is less certain. Certainly anyone who says words like “oath” or “swear” is going to be counted, but even something like signing a contract is essentially a written oath. They don’t have to take place in language; someone using telepathy, or nodding in response to a request for them to swear to something, would count.

But language is often preferred, because it allows for clearer, stricter definitions than most other means. And an extremely important caveat to that statement that people won’t break their word is that they are not bound to anything at all beyond what they actually swore. Loopholes, errors in wording, misunderstanding that was not the fault of the other party, all of these are to be expected in many circumstances.

This, then, opens the question: How are such disputes as to whether someone did, in fact, break their word resolved? Usually, this is not an issue, because people don’t try this kind of thing if they aren’t sure it will hold up. But when it does become one, the parties will either follow some part of the agreement itself or seek a neutral party as an arbiter.

This will also apply to contracts, which are essentially what produces debt in this setting. These work and can be enforced because they are built on the foundation of a sworn agreement. By knowingly agreeing to an exchange you’re giving your word to follow those terms. This is why people are often very wary about agreements and debts.

Note that this is actually what happened at the start of Seed and Trellis. They describe it as an exchange of favors, but in reality it would be considered a contractual arrangement in which Kyoko provides a given service and Audgrim accepts debt as compensation. This is not actually different from a contract to exchange money for a product, on some level. The product being provided is a service, not material goods, but it is a contract that he swore to follow.

Now, as was illustrated later on in that story, this can be an issue. His agreement that he owed Kyoko something didn’t constitute swearing that he’ll keep her alive to call it in. She also, incidentally, could not have called in that debt to make him stop at the end, either. “Commensurate” is not strictly defined when it comes to services, but it’s clear that “help me find some dangerous vandals” and “spare me and everyone around me at great personal cost” are not a balanced pair. Disputes are rare and resolved by arbitration, but in this case it’s obvious enough that Audgrim wouldn’t even need to wait long enough to consult an arbiter.

This was, then, a pretty strict contract, not a vague agreement. But they agreed to it in very vague terms, at the start. This is possible because they have an existing understanding that there’s a format of contract they’ve agreed to use with each other as a standardized thing. This will be pretty common among people who deal with each other often under similar terms. No one wants to preface every request by reciting the same few paragraphs. This existing contract specified, among other terms, that Audgrim was acting on behalf of his family.

Now, this does not mean that they were going to be obligated to help him cover the cost when Kyoko called it in. He agreed on his own behalf. But given the agreement was made with Audgrim acting in that role, and that the contract did not specify the debt was uninheritable, they would inherit the debt when he died.

Given that Audgrim was clearly acting within his role and the dvergar hadn’t removed him from that role, and that the services Kyoko provided were clearly to the dvergar’s benefit throughout the course of the agreement, they have this responsibility for his agreement. It is still defined by the terms of the contract they agreed to, including various safeguards. The debt is still commensurate based on Kyoko’s actions, even though the agent now carrying the debt is considerably more powerful than Audgrim and providing the same service represents less cost to them.

This is why Kyoko is still glad that the dvergar owe her, at the end of Seed and Trellis, and not worried like she is about, for example, Cerdinen. The dvergar owe her a clearly defined debt based on a contractual agreement. They might still be a threat—as Audgrim showed, assassinating someone before they can cash in on an agreement is a great way to dodge paying—but there’s limited room to weasel around this. Further, the dvergar have a very good reputation for personal and organizational honor, and the odds of them even trying to avoid paying a rightful debt are extremely low.

All of this is applicable there. It is not applicable to Cerdinen, because of something I mentioned a little bit ago. While Kyoko and Audgrim described their interaction as exchanging favors, in a sociocultural sense it actually wasn’t. “Favor” has a very different origin as a word and as a concept than “debt”. A debt is a concrete thing that is owed, and Audgrim agreed to that, but he in no way offered Kyoko a favor.

Cerdinen did. Because favor, etymologically and in practice within this setting, is different from debt. It’s an expression of personal goodwill, usually not defined by a specific, concrete oath. What this means will vary. It might be a gift of goods or services, a form of patronage, unasked-for knowledge, all kinds of things. The fact that he offered it of his own volition means that it isn’t strictly defined. Kyoko does not know what form it will take. If she approaches him to ask for something, she has no clear idea whether he’ll agree that it’s something his goodwill extends to, nor whether he will continue to feel favorable towards her afterwards.

Coming from someone like Cerdinen, a favor is deeply ominous. It’s entanglement. It means that a lord of the Sidhe has thoughts about Kyoko and might talk to other people about her. It means that how people feel about Cerdinen might impact how they feel about Kyoko, for better and for worse. This can be a much more valuable thing than simply being owed a single service, but it can also be a very dangerous thing, and a thing which drags her into significant entanglements.

Could Kyoko have refused? Technically, yes. He might still feel good towards her but she could repudiate that sense of personal value, reject the offer of favor. But given that extending favor towards someone is a big deal, spurning it will damage that underlying goodwill severely. It’s sort of the equivalent of someone saying they want to be your friend and you spitting on them and walking away. You got what you wanted in that they’re not your friend, but they also probably don’t want to be now. Kyoko’s not stupid enough to think that would be improvement, particularly when this is obviously of significant personal meaning to Cerdinen.

Cerdinen is not the only person who comments or alludes to this. There’s mention, when Kyoko has her oracular experience, that one of the previous times this happened it prevented a war between Jacob Snow and the vampire Silas Fleischmann. It’s also mentioned that Silas feels like he owes her afterwards. That would be a favor, because Kyoko had no expectation of reward and there was no contract that would put Silas in debt. Unsurprisingly, Kyoko is also a little creeped out by this one.

Cassie also expressed a similar feeling, here at the end. This one was subtler, less direct, but given that favor is not a formally and explicitly defined thing anyway, actually saying the words isn’t important. But when Kyoko says that there are always consequences, referring largely to these entanglements, Cassie points out that consequences can include good ones. And she suggests that Kyoko not be a stranger to her and by extension the other werewolves. The implication here is clearly that the entanglement Kyoko has with the pack is a favorable one.

In that case I would say that it’s actually considerably better than having a specific, single debt like Audgrim agreed to pay her. They’re local and she interacts with them regularly, making a good relationship very valuable. They have an emotional stake in it given that Kyoko just saved several of their lives. They already know her, and in most cases are neutral-to-positive in how they see her. There’s no real chance this would lead them to become hostile towards her, and it’s unlikely this will bring her more enemies than her existing casual friendship with the pack already does. Cassie is correct that this is a pretty much strictly good consequence for Kyoko.

So, that’s the basic overview. There are a ton of additional details about all three of these concepts, which will be explored more later on. For now, I mostly just want to clarify the distinction between debt and favor, because as is common in current use, Kyoko tends to use the word “favor” to describe an owed service in the narrative. But she does understand the distinction between these two concepts or relationships, and she has very different feelings about the two.