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starsailorstories · 2 years ago

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*slithers into your inbox* ⭐️ for the ask meme!

@theobhan Ok it's a longie but Nen is kneeling at the low table squeezed between the boundaries of the wood stove and two beds, worrying the overbent starter of a self-heating vapor-tea can with a pocket knife, spark after spark. She’s undone her braids for visiting, and her crimpy hair arcs down unnaturally, like a headdress molded in lilac-blond and silver. When she gets frustrated with the tea-can, which is quickly, she ties the strands up one handed with the rubber band that held the hose on.

Overhead their one electric lamp flickers as wildly as the lantern flames outside. “This is doing no good,” she says, putting the knife down, and then, as if it were her plan B for getting the tea open, ��let’s say the verse for passage.”

Wordlessly the three of them--Bash, Ilde, and Li (Nen’s daughter too, from the genvia after Bash’s)--take each one side of the table and join hands at its corners.

“Spirits of the mercies of the storm, bind these timbers.

Spirits of the mercies of the storm, bind these hatches.

Spirits of the mercies of the storm, bind these walls.

Spirits of the mercies of the storm, bind these rivets.

Sterobys of the storm, pass the heads of all my sisters.

Sterobys of the storm, pass the houses of my sisters.

Sterobys of the storm, pass the sails of my sisters at sea.

Do what must be done and do no more.”

The steady words of the old chant, written back when the harvesters were held back from the pull of the great blue wall by stabilizer rockets fired in perfect time, keep time now with the creaking of the house’s frame. The lamp continues to strobe. For a moment, without discussing it, all of them listen, as if waiting for the planet to give them a grudging reassurance.

“So!” Nen pipes up then, her voice slightly raised in an attempt to ignore the wind. “You girls are down another school term, huh. Last one for you, Bash!”

“Yeah, guess so,” Bash replies. She takes the tea-can from beside Nen’s hand and smacks the starter tab open on the edge of the table before handing it back, dented but functional.

“Much obliged, dear,” Nen murmurs with a smirk as she takes it, then continues: “How’s the works treating you, now it’s your first full-time season? Mag-the-Elbow had good things to say.” (The night shift supervisor on their branch of the pipeworks got her moniker for her involvement in some drawn out, evidently complex incident tens of quinturns ago, in which she’d been holding something together on a turn. Every Mag in the neighborhood has to be effectively surnamed, as there are fifty of them in Bash’s colony alone.)

“It’s fine. I mean, I sort of knew what it would be like, from going out there with sennami when I was younger.” She tilts her head at Ilde. “Gets a little scary sometimes on that lower walkway in the old part. I swear the winds are stronger now than when I was a kid.”

“We’ve had a few rough years. You’ve got to keep your head out there. She’ll do whatever she wants to do, ‘specially to a girl that don’t show the proper respect.”

“There’s some research out of Ovaiakon saying it’s rougher on the opposite of those big harvesters around the Atya side. That’d be right around here I think, from the surface map in their little brochure.”

Nen smiles again and huffs, a little storm through her own pale teeth. “And what shiny new ship in Fila Fenaeta does this Ovaiakon prophet’s benefactress own?”

“That’s a point, I guess. But doesn’t it feel--” She pauses for a bone-rattling windblast that would make a shout inaudible. “Doesn’t it feel sometimes like everyone’s picking this place over and then pulling up anchor? Even Sia Matari left.”

“She has family in the Rings too. It’s none of our business what she does with her inheritance.”

“Sure,” Bash falters, “but if it was mine I’d do something about what was right in front of my face before I went chasing comets. Eshe up in the main office says she lost out in the deal she made, she might as well have had the walkway redone or in a while they’ll have to close it.”

“What was she meant to do, cheat them?”

“No! The company knew they got a bargain, Matari knew she’d get out of here. Only ones getting cheated is us. By the time I’m twenty there’ll hardly be anything left to operate. That’s what happened when Globa’s management moved off-world.”

“Well for arch-heaven’s sakes, isse senna, maybe you should go knock on the door and see if they’ll let you run the place.”

Bash turns her head sharply to the sound of Ilde’s voice, takes in her warning look, and can’t bear it for some reason. “If it can even be run,” she says to the tabletop, feeling other concerned stares from her family collecting on her.

“My child, this is your home.”

“Is it? I’ll never have any say in anything that goes on here, neither will either of you. The Aula could have them tear the domes down tomorrow and we’d have nothing to say. As it is they’re letting time take their toll for them. We’re no use to them, so they’re no help to us. We can’t even shoot rockets for the Avi-fora anymore,” she trails off, unsure what she’s trying to make clear.

“Bash, sit down,” her sennamia says, putting her own recently produced tea-can down with a soft but exacting clank. “I won’t have you talk of your queen and country like that under this roof. You cannot possibly know what it’s like for them, with so many people and interests to look after. Would we be better off living like the ante-dome worlds, people getting stabbed on the steps of the temples and whatnot? We’re lucky to be under the protection of a wise counsel.”

“But what if they make a mistake?”

“Well, what if? They’re mortal too. But the goddesses don’t make mistakes. If it is, it’s meant to be.”

“Do what must be done and no more,” Bash repeats furiously, letting her words be lost on purpose under the rumble of the wind.

Not to give something I really wanted to work on a worldbuilding and poetic level the political cartoon treatment, but the emotions of this scene are the compressed buildup of a lot of tornado seasons, a lot of those kitchen table conversations politicians like to talk about so much, and a lot of family arguments about climate change and capitalism I lived through as a Teen In Ohio. A lot of what I wanted to capture in this story was the feeling of youthful rebellion in a very homogeneous rural area and how it can seem futile, but at the same time it was like the more rural you went the more dangerous and life-and-death the stakes of the rebellion got. I grew up in a newly-suburban area on the edge of a rural area, so I experienced the futility more than the danger, but I drew on stories and conversations with friends from the next county and other parts of the state. Ilde's words about the state they all but deify being led by fallible mortals are almost my mother's, and I think they come from a kind place but a stubborn place, an unwillingness to take kindness past the line that's been drawn for you all your life. I've talked before I think about this story being about the seed of Bash's radicalism before it germinated and I do think that contradiction was part of my own seed. So in a way this scene is extremely personal--it deals with the pull between the fresh perspective you have as a young person and the pressure you feel from people you love who think they've seen it all (but really they've just seen various small towns in Ohio).

Other things in here:

The storm-prayer they say is an old Shalian tradition that has its origins, a hundred generations back, in Ket takeoff-chants. Most of Shali's modern day population comes from Glasmiri, and Glasmiri's first settlers were Ket speakers from Tarega who came fleeing the invasion of the Saiven Channel by Ixavol raiders. Not a lot has survived all of that, culturally, but there are echoes, such as this very repetitive and mantra-like prayer format.

I explained this a few years back I think but "tea-can" is the English translation I've settled on for a ubiquitous product in astraea civilizations, namely air/gases that can taken into a stellar fusion reaction but compressed and packaged with the aim of tasting (smelling?) good. These would not taste like anything to a human but they're meant to evoke atmospheric conditions from nature that astraeas are drawn to because they're relatively rare +in space+ and there's stuff they need to run their central nervous systems in there, although they're not always as good for a star-powered body as the real deal. They ARE however cheap and a helpful supplement when dealing with a leaky or otherwise sub-par artificial atmosphere, making them a common sight on especially older orbiting settlements.

Fuck absentee landlords, amiright?

The economic system of Basilea, while in theory a welfare state, disenfranchises the rural poor almost completely due to their lack of contact with their alleged benefactresses and inability to spare memorable gifts and tributes to reinforce the relationship over a distance, as rural owners of capital might. Despite the disconnect a lot of Shalians, in particular, cling to their Altamaian and Basilean identity because it's a source of ethno-religious pride that allows them to downplay their class circumstances. Also despite the disconnect the Aula has no problem making laws with total disregard to the Shalian culture or lifestyle

Weird xenophobic perception of the Ante-dome specifically as lawless and violent, as if the rest of the empire isn't

I wouldn't say Nen knows what's really up here but she's got a lot of common sense and isn't about pretending the powers that be are absolutely benevolent. They are what they are, in her eyes. I created her just for this story and I love her now oops

I've talked before about how the worldview of conservative cosmonism is kind of inspired by the seventeenth-century idea of the "celestial clockwork" and the "best of all possible worlds" school of religious philosophy and this scene kind of explores what that looks like for regular people outside the scholarly and priestly classes.

#sweet chariot #asks #ask meme #theobhan #the stormrunners #bash #culture - basilea #culture - shali

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