Zee leaned down and said something to him which actually made him go pink, and Ketzaren and I exchanged amused glances. I’m not the only person pleased and fascinated by Nils and Zee. First and Second are full of plans for the future, of adjusting to being planetary Setari instead of constantly working in the Ena. And of the details of Lohn and Mara’s upcoming wedding, and First Squad Island, and the question of how they felt about some of the children at the talent school.
I must admit I invited Squad One not only because they’re fun to talk to, but because I suspect Sonn (I still haven’t reached the point of calling her Fiar) of being more than a little interested in Arad Nalaz, and trying not to let herself be. Fourth, like most of the younger squads, haven’t thrown themselves into a welter of romance and plans for houses, but they seemed to enjoy the party well enough. Mori’s been down lately because she misses both her family and Ro Kanato from Eighth, but otherwise Fourth has been rather focused on not losing their edge. They’ve been pathfinding through the Ena, charting courses from Pandora to places without working platforms, like Oriath and Arenrhon. This leaves Kaoren rather tired in the evenings, but I was fairly successful in keeping the bulk of my party-planning from landing on his head as soon as he dropped down onto the patio.
I haven’t just been playing house and planning parties, but my day job has been relatively stress-free. KOTIS Command has kept me to light training, irregular visualisations, and enhancing the Setari assisting the Mesiath construction. The only thing which I’m currently annoyed about is my hair, which is growing out super-slow. At the moment I have all these feathery wanna-be curls and look like a fuzzy duckling.
I’m up in my eyrie right now, with the wind blowing the super-sheer gauzy curtains about. Jeh and Grif are guarding me by sitting down on the patio chatting. Kaoren is at Kalasa, and the kids at school, so there’s no-one else in range of my senses. The kittens are chasing the curtains, which I should probably teach them not to, but I think it’s too cute to stop. The next important task on our schedule is voting on names for them.
Guess I’ll go make Jeh and Grif some lunch.
3 - February
Friday, February 6
Stood Over
The kittens are getting leggier and more mobile, and I’ll probably have to find some kind of bells to put on a collar, because they’ve definitely got strong hunting genes. They’re called Mip and Tick-tock. Mip was Sen’s suggestion. I suggested Tick and Tock for names for both of them, but Sen liked it better as a single name. For the moment family votes are mostly still boiling down to Sen’s preferences, but I’m glad to see that Ys and Rye are being positively influenced by Lira. Lira likes Sen, but she doesn’t put her whims above things she really wants, and just occasionally Ys and Rye at least consider doing the same.
Lohn and Mara’s house will soon be at the fit-out stage, and Jeh, Grif and Ketzaren’s won’t be too far behind them. The rest of the Setari aren’t moving so quickly, though most of them have taken their land grants to ensure the islands stay Setari. But for the moment barracks are just easier, and houses are something that the senior squads want more for family than for privacy. Lohn’s fretting about the question of adoption, and Mara says it’s because he likes so many of the children he’s been tutoring at the talent school. They’ve included a lot of extra rooms in their house design, but that’s mainly because they have tons of relatives back on Tare, and want them to visit or stay. And they’re going to try to have a baby fairly soon after their wedding.
I had a fair bit of stress a week ago. I’ve been on-and-off discussing being a touchstone with Lira (who still won’t admit to being able to do anything any more), and told her about how I’d once made Nils dream about things which had happened to him in the past, and hadn’t been able to break out of the dream. She told me that people with Illusion talents are the ones best able to guide projections, and they were deeply involved in the construction of the machines for the grand projects like the Ddura. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to mention this, and of course the technicians were fascinated by the link and wanted to set up some experiments to see whether Nils could make me project stuff. It’s one of the few things I’ve really, absolutely refused to do. Not with Nils, not with anyone – but especially not with Nils. I was pretty calm about it when they suggested it initially, but when they sent Maze back to have a deep and meaningful about it, I got all stressed and barely stopped myself from asking him if he’d appreciate being forced to relive Helese’s death, and could only say: "I really mean it. I can’t hurt people that way." And of course had nightmares, and I guess Kaoren and Maze between them told the technicians to back the hell off firmly enough that they decided to leave it be (for now – being able to create things like the Ddura is something they’re very interested in).
Fortunately Nils wasn’t around for any of this. He and Zee are in charge of the Setari out at Oriath, assisting with the slow excavation of the massive pile of rubble and keeping the site clear of Ionoth, so I haven’t had a chance to see much of them.
It’s my birthday tomorrow. I’ll be nineteen, which feels really old and really young to me at the same time. I’m feeling very lucky that Kaoren changed his mind after only six months.
4 - March
March 9
Stepping Forward
KOTIS Command still haven’t managed to map a path through to Tare or Kolar, though according to Tsur Selkie’s whiteboard Tare and Kolar have managed to reach each other. The route isn’t really very different – it’s just that it’s now like working your way through an invisible maze which wiggles about, and if you touch the walls you might get swished through a rift into real-space. The trip will be very Indiana Jones in future – all a matter of timing, of pausing and dashing forward to roll under the swinging blades, and then stopping again at the next roiling obstacle, but not waiting too long in case a huge rock comes rumbling up behind you.
It does wiggle in a predictable pattern, rather like a very complex tide, but I can see why the old Lantarens thought the Pillars worthwhile. I’m more than astonished that they ever managed to put them in place. It’s not like they had scanners and computers which would remember the patterns of the changing landscape.
The exploration group is nearly there, though, and expect to meet up with the Tare group in the next couple of weeks. It’ll be weird when we start getting new settlers again. After months of being cut off, people really are beginning to consider themselves Muinan. Even Pandoran and Mesian, now that both settlements are up and running. It’s so extraordinarily strange watching the continual expansion – new buildings going up, old ones painstakingly restored, animals and plants discovered and half-remembered names given to them, or new ones made up.
Rye’s named several species. Kaoren and I are continually impressed by him, by his methodical cataloguing of the flora and fauna of the island. Shon helped him with understanding the initial requirements, and he’s been producing reports on Arcadia ever since. He asks Kaoren to review them for word selection before he submits them, but while there are plenty of errors, his reading and writing skills have improved immensely and it’s hard to believe they’ve been written by an eleven year-old who couldn’t read at all six months ago. It does help that after basic lessons the interface allows you to do whole-word selection rather than spelling individual words.