by Andrea Höst
It's the submissions stage next, which should be even more annoying. I'm going to try and ignore it, but I'm not sure I'll succeed in concentrating on other things. I'm going to have to start properly planning for my wedding, which is, gods, only five months away. It's weird – I feel like I'm already married to Kaoren – but the idea of the wedding itself makes me nervous. I wish Mum was here. No sign of the gate to Earth becoming active again in the near future, which has disappointed me a lot – I want to send more letters. Probably January, if it really is a Muinan year between each opening.
Maze and Alay's wedding was glorious. Early Autumn, so that the heat had dropped away, and there were berries on bushes, and birds everywhere and a kind of gauzy haze over everything. And it smelled wonderful. Snow is all very amusing and different for a Sydney girl, but it was so nice to be away from it for a day. Keer's property is all ferns and beams of light spearing down through the canopy, and edges around a narrow bit of tea-coloured lake. Most of it hasn't been cleared at all, except around the house. And the whole place is totally infested with different varieties of deer – some where the adults are no taller than Ys and some almost moose-sized. Mesiath is a bit more dangerous to live in than Pandora – more snakes and poisonous bugs, and there's already been a couple of incidents of people finding the local hunting cats – daturs – stalking them or sitting uncomfortably close watching them. And there are lots of smaller hunting creatures like the martens (named for the pine martens shown in the Planet Earth documentary) and hordes of little nut-eaters, and too many birds to count. Mesiath totally seethes with wildlife. It's always great fun watching Tarens deal with 'outside' – they're getting better at it, but the Setari families had some real adjustments coming from Tare to live on the islands. Mesiath is even more overwhelming for them, and there always seems to be someone shrieking about bugs or lizards.
Part of the pre-wedding preparation had been to sweep the area using Combat Sight, and relocate a couple of snakes, and Keer and Maze had been having a lot of fun finding and arranging big stones into natural seating areas, and shaping stone benches to cover enough seating for the wedding. Most of the benches they donated to other people once they were done, but before then the lot of them arranged in two rows did make it feel rather like an enormous cathedral. The ceremony was different from Lohn and Mara's – not so strictly traditional. None of the bathing and painting the bride and groom, or the thing with the blindfolds. Still had the cake-making thing, except both the bride and the groom's family made one (gi-normous flat brown cakes) with incredibly intricate patterns on top made of a kind of dusted sugar which were apparently luck-wishes – wealth, joy, fame, family, all that kind of thing – and there's a great deal of interest in which pattern you get on your piece of cake when it's shared out. Alay wore a gorgeous filmy dress in shades of violet and gold instead of the more traditional robe (somewhat Grecian with a kind of laced bodice) and simply looked fantastic. Completely radiant. Maze was so at peace, and didn't seem able to take his eyes off her the entire time.
The after-wedding party was fun – Maze's mother is a musician, and played nice music with a couple of friends, and there was some light-hearted dancing – Zee and Nils did an aerial slow dance and then everyone who could manage to get themselves in the air followed suit and that was pretty awesome to watch. Kaoren and I didn't dance because Sen had been playing with Ketzaren's hair – she loves trying to do everyone's hair – and Deal had run up and pushed her over and she'd jammed her elbow. Deal used to get on quite well with Sen, but as he's grown attached to his new parents, he's become very jealous of them. And Sen's tendency to treat all the Senior Setari as adored favourites, clambering all over them, makes him particularly upset.
Sen was mainly just shocked to start with, but then found that her arm really hurt when she moved it and burst into tears. And Ys zoomed down from the top patio – literally: she levitated – and snatched her up and I (a little too far away to have done any snatching) fully expected her to turn a total basilisk glare on Deal, but instead she just said sternly: "They're not going to stop wanting you, no matter what anyone else does. Stop being so afraid," and lifted herself and Sen over to me and Kaoren.
We did some hugging and found a numbing salve to put on Sen's elbow, and then we had an interesting talk with Ys about the fact that her levitation talent isn't strong enough for her to lift herself, let alone herself and Sen. Seems Ys worked out how to expand her connection to the Ena shortly after touching me when I had my senses fully extended, but decided not to mention it in case we expected her to spend more time training her talents – or trying to train other people to expand their connections – which would cut down on her reading time. She'd tried teaching Rye, and since he hadn't managed it, had kept quiet about it. "Rye is too interested in bits and pieces of what's nearby," she said, shrugging. "It stops him from looking at it all at once."
This was a very interesting development from the Setari's point of view, because Ys is the only person without a strong Sight talent who has managed to make the expansion, and she can also obviously do it very quickly, which is what the Taren and Kolaren Setari who have achieved it have been working on. We held off on interrogating her too much during the party, but she got to have a long conversation with Kaoren, Tsur Selkie and Maze a few days later. I was actually more interested in what she'd said to Deal and told her quietly, after Ketz had brought Deal to apologise, and Kaoren had taken Sen off to fly up to the very tops of the trees, that she had reminded me of Isten Notra. This is a huge compliment to Ys, so of course she didn't believe me, but I explained that while she'd said it a lot more bluntly than Isten Notra might have, it was the same sort of clear-sighted response. Then I threw her further off-balance by telling her how much I envied her for being able to levitate.
Maze and Alay's house wasn't quite ready in time for the wedding, but they'll be moving in soon. It's on the top of one of the small hills on Siriath, and Maze has endless plans for a kind of rock garden and lawn and all sorts of trees and things made of stone. I showed him some pictures of Mount Tomah, back near Sydney, and he was very pleased and inspired by that, and has stolen some idea from it for The Wedding Garden as well.
It feels strange not working while the inquiry is on. I was used to the routine of it all. I still get physical training, and the kids get to train with me now, instead of at the school, but it's a different kind of routine, and I feel very shut in at times. Fortunately it's warming up, and the drifts are melting, and the early flowers should be poking through soon. I've been burying myself in subtitling the last few days. Ages back now I projected a TV and DVD-player and a bunch of DVDs and did my best to make them last a long while, and the technicians have been trying to untangle the DVD coding ever since. We could make the machines run easily enough, but what we wanted was, instead of me spending hours projecting Earth documentaries really slowly, that I just project a DVD and we copy the data off it and then voila! And that meant not just being able to get to the data on the DVD (apparently not too hard – Tarens went through a similar technology stage) but translating the DVD coding. That's taken an age, but they finally did it. I projected and copied Blue Planet and The Life of Mammals and that sort of thing to start with, and then a whole bunch of DVDs for my own entertainment – so nice to watch some of my favourite movies again. I'm slowly going to subtitle these for the kids' benefit, but aren't really planning to turn myself into a film industry, so I'm setting them so they can't be spread about.
I've been working on Spirited Away first, running it in Japanese, with English subtitles, and adding Taren subtitles underneath that. I chose it partly because Ys is still pushing through on learning English (but very annoyed at how illogical it is) and also because the lead character is called Sen. Sen will love it when I'm done, no matter how little she understands.
I've also realised I can project DVDs of movies I haven't even seen, which will be pretty cool.
Twelfth is finally going to be posted here soon.
It's been so long. Zan and I write occasionally, and she seems okay, but I want to see her to be sure.
Chapter 12
November
November 20
Kiddie-palooza
Siame and Rye's birthday this month. Siame went home to Tare briefly for hers (proving a point, I think, though Kaoren didn't try and stop her).
Rye's twelfth birthday was a few days ago (in Earth-time it will be a little later each year, which is very confusing to me), and we had our first party on Arcadia since everything got really snowy. Arcadia's been nicely de-snowed and everything's all over with flowers or buds on trees and it's very nice in the middle of the day, though still nippy at night. Rye wanted a swimming party, much like his first one, except with all his new friends involved, and I'd decided to make it a relatively large party. Lots of kids, First, Second and Fourth – and Third and Twelfth who have finally been rostered here (some of them have moved their families here, but unlike the senior squads they can't choose a permanent Muina assignment just yet).
It was a big guest list, and I'd decided to do a hangi and was rather anxious about how it would turn out. Uncle Steve (Aunt Bet's husband) had introduced hangis to our family and it had become a holiday tradition, but I'd never actually done any of the technical stuff myself. I'd visualised myself a manual (I very tediously have to ask permission to do the smallest thing now), and Kaoren helped me experiment with finding the right sort of rocks, and we'd prepared a small pit a week beforehand for a mini test run, and that had worked out quite nicely (Siame stopped looking at me as if I was insane after we'd sampled the small amount of food I'd cooked, anyway, and Zan and Kiste who were my guards for the day were very complimentary about the flavour). Kaoren – pretty much everybody – was fascinated by the idea of burying your food to cook it, though most everyone's initial reaction was total incredulity, which was very funny. After hearing about it, an awful lot of our guests wanted to come over early to see us assemble the larger pit, and so Rye ended up having something of a party for breakfast as well as for lunch. Thankfully it all worked very well, with that real 'fall apart' texture for the food, and a delicious smoky touch. Of course it made the news, though not immediately, which suggests that none of the people who attended is a direct news source. I got quite a few fascinated queries via KOTIS from cooks wanting to know how to do this, so I've given them a translation of the manual.
I had an interesting time sourcing food close to what I've known used in hangis in the past. KOTIS makes sure that vat-grown food production keeps ahead of immigration, but the population has been increasing far faster than farm output can currently manage – and sparking lots of debate about opening up the platforms to use them for freight and casual day-tripping rather than making people wait for air-ship transport. I managed to get a pile of patta (yam-things that taste a lot like sweet potato but are more purply in colour) and this weird fruit the greysuits had recommended for cultivation which looks a bit like a zucchini the size of a coconut, and is rock-solid inside, but really delicious like a mix between mashed potato and bread when it's baked. And also purple carrots, and some varieties of onion, and also pretty much a whole lamb, and two pigsies (the pint-sized striped brown pigs which are so common everywhere – another of the animals where the name I call them has become common usage) and some spicy sausages. And I had quite a few volunteers to make side-dishes and desserts among those dropping by at breakfast.
We'd done most of the preparation beforehand – scooped out the pit and assembled the firewood and soaked the closest approximation I could find to Hessian sacks and had the food all ready to go (raiding Rye's herb terrarium) – and Kaoren had gone down just before dawn with Par and Glade and set the fire so that by the time we were done with breakfast it was about time to bury everything. Maze and Alay were early arrivals, and were enjoying themselves making a fuss of Rye, when Zee, Ketz, Mara and Jeh arrived all in a group, carrying various food offerings. Sen, busy trying to peek under the cover of the dish Maze and Alay had brought, froze at the sight of them and then it was like she lifted herself up on strings – coming totally alive and bouncing on the seat of the chair she'd been kneeling on and inhaling in this incredibly excited way as if working up to an explosion of joy. And then she caught herself, and stood there looking like she'd been found with her hand in the cookie jar, all frozen and guilty and yet still bubbling with excitement. She very abruptly hopped off her chair and dashed to where I was stacking the dishwasher from breakfast, pulled me down and whispered: "Is it a secret?" urgently into my ear.
I managed to resist saying: "Not any more" – all the senior Setari know by now how Sen had announced Alay's pregnancy. I also knew that Ketzaren had been talking about trying for a baby and I wished I could find a way to get Sen to think before she acts when she's excited. She at least had tried, though, so I patted her head and said: "I don't know. Maybe you should go somewhere private and ask?"
Sen immediately dashed around to where everyone was putting their dishes down and to my complete surprise grabbed Zee's hand, but Sen wasn't finished and hauled Zee across and told her "Zee talk Cassandra now," and then gleefully insisted that Jeh, Ketz and Mara come look at the canopy we'd put up over her bed. Ketzaren told me later that she'd then hauled each of them separately into her bathroom and demanded: "Is baby a secret?" All three of them were looking pretty stunned when they came back, but so happy – Mara disappeared off to find Lohn, and Jeh and Ketz came to laugh about it with me and Zee. I was a bit surprised about Jeh, since I gather she's 100% only into girls, but I guess maybe Grif found a turkey baster for her or something – I've never enquired too deeply into the exact complexities of their relationship. They were apparently all only a few days along and didn't know they'd conceived. Zee's reaction had been the best – for a moment there Sen really had her wondering if her contraception had failed. Sen spent the rest of the day pouncing on Alay, Jeh, Ketz and Mara at random intervals, hugging them and going "Happy baby!" Except with Mara she kept going "Happy baby baby baby!" so I eventually asked Kaoren if Mara was having triplets and he nodded. Mara figured this out and asked Kaoren as well and he told her it's two boys and a girl and after that she and Lohn went pretty quiet. Even happier, though, I think.
Sen is a tremendously transparent Macchiavelli. But she's going to be scary once she has some vague ability to be subtle.
Baby excitements distracted everyone thoroughly while Kaoren and I were assembling the hangi, but that was a good thing in my eyes anyway, and soon we had a faintly-steaming piece of ground and everyone went away to calm down. Kaoren and I had another little talk with Sen, but not a very stern one since she did try not to give away anyone's secrets. I did get a chance to talk to Mara just before they were heading back and gave her a hug and told her that she always does things so thoroughly. She tweaked my nose.
Later that day when all the kids came across for the party, Shar seemed pleased for them both, but Fein fairly subdued and both Enna and Deal showed signs of being upset and trying to hide it. Deal reverted to clinging to Zar. I'm glad I'll have had my four a good long time before any question of being pregnant myself comes up.
Rye's birthday was also our cautious introduction to two new Setari adoptees. Maze and Alay, now that they've moved into their house, had decided to adopt a boy and a girl, but only after having a few discussions with me, and me having a very careful discussion with Ys and Rye. The problem was mainly Lianzrenar, who is one of the few other survivors from House Renar – the only one at the talent school.
The important part was how Ys and Rye felt about Lianz. Maze and Alay like him, and wanted to take care of him, but there were other kids they liked and Ys and Rye are far too important to them for them to adopt someone who had been directly or indirectly involved in traumatising my kids. I think if they'd asked a year ago, back around when the talent school was first established, having anything to do with Lianz on a social basis would have been too distressing for Ys and Rye. But I'm very pleased with h
ow they reacted – a bit of startled discomfort, but then one or two positive comments about Lianz generally. The removal of the scars on their backs made a huge difference to Ys and Rye's attitude toward Nurans. They don't automatically like or trust anyone from Nuri, but they no longer have the weight of a shameful secret to hide. And so the possibility that Lianz might know is no longer is a bogeyman to them. From what I saw of him during the party, he's a shy sort of kid, super-obedient and inclined to blush and be anxious and avoid the spotlight. I'm willing to bet that he didn't have too great a time in House Renar either – no-one in a household run by a sadist would be likely to.
Their other choice, Karasayen, was a challenging prospect for a slightly different reason. She was a first child of a powerful house, one which has numerous survivors, and though she's by no means a nasty kid, she is one very much used to being deferred to, to having her opinion taken into account, and to assuming command. I remember very well meeting her that first day of talent school, and really wishing she wasn't commenting graciously on my kindness in taking on Sen's servants. A real A-type personality, she was also one of the main opponents of interface installation within the school, at least until Rye's attitude changed her mind, and then she strongly influenced people in the opposite direction. She's smart, and strong, and rather fixated on the idea of being a Setari.