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What Old Means Now
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The Argument
first_crossings.doc
Keywords male 1298430, female 1181658, anthro 256426, feral 106843, bear 54201, squirrel 33168, dragoness 14116, mongoose 3973, shapeshifter 2559, story progression 2244, story series 2212, furred dragon 2012, cub clean 279, academy 163, gheval 76
First Crossings

A Silvania Story — SY 4531, Summer

~ I ~
Summer arrived decisively this year. The heat stayed past evening. The whisperwood looked almost tropical in it. Tassa spent most mornings in dragon form for the temperature management she had learned. Lev had strong opinions about the river and was at it as often as Kex would take him.
Wena moved her things to Quarren's lodgings on the far side of town on a Saturday, which took two trips because she had more books than anything else and Quarren's lodgings had shelving that she had spent three weeks reorganizing before she was prepared to call it ready. Jukrit helped with the second trip. Quarren carried the heaviest boxes. No one made remarks.
The miniature Priana foals had begun finding homes in the spring. Gorven had managed the placements efficiently and without fuss. Most of them had gone to working farms in the valley region. Chenar's offspring were proving, in early reports, to be exactly what Gorven had hoped: attentive, steady, with a presence that came from Chenar's line and that no deliberate breeding had previously produced in Priana stock.
One remained unplaced.
Gorven had written about her in his spring letter. She was healthy and well-tempered but she looked wrong, by miniature Priana standards. Her body was the right size for a Priana-cross but her coat had Chenar's brown with beige dapple spots, and also with dark dorsal stripe and the charcoal lower legs, and her eyes were amber. On a miniature Priana frame the coloring looked striking and unusual and not what any of the working farms had been expecting. Gorven was not certain what to do with her.
Veverka had read the letter over Jukrit's shoulder and said, without looking up: "I'll take her."

~ II ~
Ashari arrived at the end of the first week of summer. She left the transport without difficulty and walked into Veverka's yard. She looked at the house and the garden. Chenar's intelligence, in a body three times his size.
She was striking. There was no other word for it. The dapple spots on a mini Priana was nothing like any other gheval anyone on the street had seen, and the amber eyes in the broad Priana face gave her an expression that drew attention.
Veverka walked around her once, slowly, and then put her hand on Ashari's neck.
Ashari turned her head and looked at Veverka with the amber eyes.
"Yes," Veverka said. "That's right."
Jukrit, watching from the gate, had no idea what the exchange meant. He suspected Veverka knew exactly what it meant and had no intention of explaining.
Tassa came to see Ashari that afternoon. She arrived in furfolk form, stood at a respectful distance, and looked.
"She looks like Chenar," Tassa said. "But bigger."
"Yes," Jukrit said.
"Does Chenar know she exists?"
"Chenar knows he went to Gorven's farm," Jukrit said. "He knows there were foals. Whether he connects Ashari to that is—" He paused. "A question I can't answer."
Tassa considered this. "I think he knows," she said. Then she went to introduce herself to Ashari, which she did by standing close and shifting once — furfolk to dragon and back — and waiting to see what Ashari made of it.
Ashari's ears came forward. Her tail moved.
Tassa nodded, apparently satisfied, and went home for lunch.

~ III ~
The Riverside Academy opened informally on a Tuesday in the second week of summer.
There was no announcement. Veverka had decided against a ceremony. The building was not finished — the east wing's second classroom was still being painted, and the library's shelving was complete but not yet populated. What was finished was enough: the north wing, the main corridor, the symbol-interface stations, and the feral studies room that Wena and Quarren had designed and that bore, in small text beside the door, the notation: accessible to all learning configurations.
Seven students arrived on the first morning. They had been told informally, through the neighborhood network, that the building was usable. Three were furfolk of various species and ages. One was an older badger who had been trying to access healer training through the Guild for two years and had been told twice that his application was incomplete. One was a young rabbit furfolk from outside Riverside Market who had traveled two days. One was a feral lemur — not awakened in Kyren's sense, but trained to the symbol interface through a program Quarren had helped design, attending with a furfolk handler who sat in the back and let the lemur work.
The seventh was Aldren's daughter.
She arrived last. She had been waiting for this door to open for a long time and she was not going to make a performance of walking through it. She found a seat. She set out her materials. She was ready before the session began.
Veverka stood at the front of the north wing and looked at the seven of them.
"There are no entry requirements here," she said. "There is no approved curriculum yet. What we are going to do this morning is establish what each of you knows and what each of you needs. That is always the correct starting point."
She paused.
"My name is Veverka. I have been a shaman for fifty years. I am still learning things. That is the nature of the work."
She began.

~ IV ~
The message from Tane arrived three days later.
It was longer than his usual correspondence and more careful in its phrasing, which told Jukrit before he had finished reading it that the content was significant. Tane wrote that the Bakiswi Diaspora Council had voted, after eight months of deliberation, to fund and organize a formal scouting expedition to Kiswi. The vote had not been unanimous — the political implications of a return remained complicated and were likely to remain complicated for some time — but it had passed. The expedition would be small. A scouting party, not a settlement mission. The purpose was documentation: confirm habitability, assess the groundmoss coverage, locate and map the old settlement sites.
They wanted to use the portal.
Tane wrote that the council had asked, specifically, that the household which had opened the Kiswi terminal be represented in the first crossing. Not because it was legally required. Because it was right.
He wrote: I would like to be the one to go through first. I think my father would have wanted that.
Jukrit read this twice. Then he went to find Noraxia.

~ V ~
She read it in the yard in feral form. Jukrit held the letter flat so she could read it without shifting.
When she finished she was quiet for a moment.
"Vethran will want to go," she said.
"Yes. He's been waiting for this since we opened the terminal."
"Raskon," she said.
"More complicated. The Iskret government's history with the portal makes his presence politically charged." Jukrit set the letter down. "But he has a right to be asked."
"Who else?"
"Harvet's team should be there for the documentation. Wena, if she wants to come — she has the documentation instincts and she's been part of this since the journal work." He paused. "And whoever the council sends from the diaspora. I imagine that list is already forming."
"You," Noraxia said.
"Yes."
"Me," she said.
"The passage was two meters wide," Jukrit said carefully.
"I know what the passage was." She looked at him. "I fit through a two-meter passage in anthro form. I have been fitting through two-meter passages in anthro form my entire adult life."
"You have," he said.
"I'm going," she said.
"Yes," he said. "I thought so."
She made the sound that meant she found him correct and unsurprising in equal measure.

~ VI ~
Raskon came to the house that evening. Jukrit had sent word asking him to come.
He read the letter at the kitchen table. Once quickly. Once slowly. Then he set it down.
"Tane," he said.
"Yes. He wrote beautifully about his father."
Raskon was quiet.
"You should be there," Jukrit said. "If you want to be. Whatever the Iskret government knew or didn't know, you knew nothing. You have been part of this from the beginning. You are part of this household."
"I know," Raskon said. "I'm not uncertain about whether I want to go." He paused. "I'm thinking about Nesori. And Tarvek."
"They stay home," Jukrit said. "This is a scouting expedition. A single crossing and return. We are not going to be gone long."
"Nesori will want to know about Cygnus Prime's terminal," Raskon said. "Whether the expedition passes through that destination's data."
"I'll make sure the documentation covers it," Jukrit said.
Raskon nodded slowly. "Then yes," he said. "I'll go."
He looked at the letter again.
"A thousand years," he said. "The Bakiswi have been gone from that world for a thousand years. And now someone is going back."
"Tane goes first," Jukrit said. "That's right."
"Yes," Raskon said. "It is."

~ VII ~
The preparations were a summer project.
Wena took the lead on documentation — what to record, in what order, with what instruments. She consulted Harvet by terminal and they built a protocol together that covered everything from atmospheric sampling to structural assessment of any surviving pre-evacuation buildings the groundmoss had not reclaimed.
Quarren contributed the section on communicating with the Bakiswi diaspora council members who would be present — several of them used symbol interfaces, and the documentation protocol needed to accommodate that from the beginning rather than retrofitting it.
Vethran arrived in Riverside Market in the third week of summer, having apparently decided that correspondence was insufficient for the level of coordination required. He occupied Jukrit's study for three days and produced, with Noraxia's assistance, a navigational assessment of what the Kiswi terminal's position relative to the known pre-evacuation settlement sites implied about where the first scouting party should move once through the portal.
He was, Jukrit noted, the happiest he had ever seen Vethran.
"You've been waiting for this," Jukrit said.
"Since the formation showed me the plague scar," Vethran said. "Since I understood that the formation had been registering the portal for three thousand years and that the portal had been waiting for someone to find it. Yes." He looked at his maps. "I have been waiting for this."

~ VIII ~
On a summer evening toward the end of the month, Jukrit sat on the porch with Noraxia in the warm dark and thought about crossings.
Ashari was in Veverka's yard next door, visible through the fence, standing in the last of the light. Veverka was at the window. She had been watching her foal every evening since she arrived. Not anxiously, but with attention.
The academy had seen twelve students in its first week and a half. The badger who had been turned away twice by the Guild had come back three days in a row. Aldren's daughter had not missed a session.
Tane had written to confirm he would arrive two weeks before the expedition. He would bring two members of the diaspora council, both of whom had family names recorded in the pre-evacuation settlement logs. He did not write about what it meant to him to have those names about to mean something different than they had meant for a thousand years. He did not need to.
Tassa came out onto the porch in furfolk form and sat between them. She had held furfolk form for the entire day. Jukrit had noticed at noon and had not said anything. She had not noticed at all.
"Veverka's foal is looking at me," Tassa said.
"She looks at most things," Jukrit said.
"She looks at me like Chenara does," Tassa said. "The same way."
He looked across the fence at Ashari. The amber eyes in the broad dappled face. The composed attention.
"Yes," he said. "I think she does."
The summer night settled around them, warm and full of sound. Next door Veverka moved away from the window. Down the lane the catwalk carried the sound of Nesori and Raskon's voices in conversation. Somewhere toward the river Kex was still out, which was Kex.
A world was going to be re-entered. An academy was open. A foal with amber eyes was standing in the summer evening, looking at a three-year-old dragon-squirrel cub with shared recognition.
Jukrit put his arm around Noraxia and she leaned into him and neither of them said anything. There was nothing that needed saying.
The two moons rose over the whisperwood, and the night went on.

— End of Episode —
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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What Old Means Now
The Argument
Summer is decisive this year. Wena moves her books and herself to Quarren's lodgings across town. The mini Priana foals sired by Chenar have mostly found homes on working farms. One hasn't. She is dapple spotted with a dark dorsal stripe, charcoal legs, and amber eyes on a mini Priana frame, and no working farm knew what to make of her. Veverka read Gorven's letter over Jukrit's shoulder and said she would take her. The foal is named Ashari. She and Tassa size each other up on the first afternoon and arrive at a mutual understanding. The Riverside Academy opens without ceremony in the second week of summer. Seven students come. The badger the Guild turned away twice comes back three days in a row. Aldren's daughter doesn't miss a session. Then a letter arrives from Tane. The Bakiswi Diaspora Council has voted to fund a scouting expedition to Kiswi using the portal. They want the household that opened the terminal to be present for the first crossing. Tane wants to go through first. Noraxia states she is going and does not invite discussion. Raskon agrees to go after thinking about Nesori and Tarvek. Wena leads the documentation protocol. Vethran arrives and is happier than Jukrit has ever seen him. The preparations are a summer project. But with a foal who looks at Tassa with Chenar's eyes, an academy with its first students, and a world that has been waiting a thousand years for someone to come back to it, which of these crossings will matter most?
Keywords
male 1,298,430, female 1,181,658, anthro 256,426, feral 106,843, bear 54,201, squirrel 33,168, dragoness 14,116, mongoose 3,973, shapeshifter 2,559, story progression 2,244, story series 2,212, furred dragon 2,012, cub clean 279, academy 163, gheval 76
Details
Type: Writing - Document
Published: 1 week, 3 days ago
Rating: General
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