Ai-Naidari Literature

The Ai-Naidar are storytellers and writers. Their civilization's focus on educating a member of society creates a need for books and literature that will serve this function.

Aphorisms
Aphorisms are expressions of wisdom or succor crafted by artists, such as calligraphers. Some consider it in poor taste to rephrase an aphorism.

Incense Stories
Fil ekain are incense stories, short but lingering. They are a form of fiction of 500 words or less. Incense tints the air of an entire household, and yet the source of the perfume is so insignificant you may overlook it. What is implied by an incense story is greater than what is written.

Notable Fil Ekain

 * The Aphorisms of Kherishdar (collection)


 * The Admonishments of Kherishdar (collection)

Maraleva
A maralevani ekain is a reverse guided-tour story, where those who read indicate to you their points of interest, and so enrich the narrative.

Notable Maraleva

 * Black Blossom

Parables
The Ai-Naidari have parables and sometimes many versions of the same parables. One popular parable with many versions is "The Parable of the Broken Pot," sometimes called the fable of the cracked pot.

Notable Parables

 * The Parable of the Broken Pot
 * The Pot That Would Not Mend
 * The Tinker's Broken Pot
 * The Cracked Pot
 * The Beloved Pot
 * The Mender of Pots
 * The Pots of Broken Pieces
 * The Plant and the Broken Pot
 * The Pot that Would Not Hold
 * The Unbreakable Pot
 * The Regal and the Farmer

Shard Stories

 * toril: “broken piece,” that is to say, or “shard,” particularly a shard of glass, through which one can see refractions.

There are tales called torili ekain—”shard stories”—named thus because they come in pieces, broken off from the same truth, and when we look through the shards we see a facet of that truth which we would otherwise be blind to. There are truths one cannot bear, save to see in pieces, to grasp them obliquely, to know them, like poetry, before they are understood.

Notable Torili Ekain
Shard stories a style of literature rather than a form and its examples are called also under other names.
 * The parables of the broken pot (see above) are a torili ekain; they are all variations that speak to us of a single truth. That we are all the pot, and we are all the potter, and we are all the break and the mending. We crack, and in the pieces we find an opportunity to see what otherwise would be unbearable when witnessed as a whole.
 * Black Blossom is also a torili ekain; the Calligrapher's and Shame’s and Haraa’s and the lord’s… all of us, we were all the pieces that a loving hand put back together, and we made sense of our truth in those pieces.

Poetry
Poetry is frequently sung and comes in several varieties, including spiritual poems, pastoral lyrics, and historicals.

Notable Poets

 * Ereseya
 * Farsha Far-Sighted
 * Kuleketh
 * Senjan

Wisdom Tales
Wisdom tales may be collected and are used in the painting of philosophy floors.