Andrea Höst: Gratuitous Epilogue [Touchstone: Extras]

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.

Shon tells me that, though they might review the islands properly at some future date, the work Rye’s doing is genuinely valuable. There’s these tiny, hand-sized brown and black possum-like things which haven’t yet been located anywhere but Arcadia and Siriath (First Squad Island), and Rye named them Restels (for Sentarestel) and he’s borrowed several scanners and is creating his own mini-documentary about them. Rye fills every moment of each day with the thousands of things he wants to do – taking care of his garden, cataloguing the island’s animals (and finding an interesting sonic collar solution which makes it hard for Mip and Tick-Tock to successfully hunt), school studies, and combat training. He’s also very interested in the team sports which the schools have started organising, and has improved as a swimmer in leaps and bounds, and is just embracing his new life so wholeheartedly. Time spent with Kaoren is still his greatest joy, but last week I got this sudden violent hug in return for a whiteberry muffin, which I’m happy to take as proof that Rye is glad of me as well.

Ys' twelfth birthday is coming up and I’ve been struggling to decide on the perfect present for her. Ys already has the two things she wants most: Sen and Rye safe and happy, and access to more information than even she can gulp down. Lira fills any need for social contact beyond Sen and Rye, and the only thing Ys would probably admit to wanting is to not have to go to school because it interrupts her reading. I have an idea about something she’d probably enjoy, and I’m going to ask Isten Notra about it, but I have to work myself up to that because it’s a big favour. I’m also going to get Ys a microscope, which I think she’ll find interesting – I’ve had that ordered for weeks.

Ys and Lira grump at each other occasionally – Lira doesn’t think studying every free moment you have is at all amusing – but fortunately their friendship is proving pretty solid, and Ys always makes time for family events. They’re both still fairly reserved with me and Kaoren, but are growing more confident and less defensive. It helps, I think, that Kaoren and I are very careful to treat their rooms as theirs and never go into them without asking permission. That and the certainty of routine and consistency of rules seems to go a long way. Everyone has chores now, and an allowance if they do their chores, and I’m completely fascinated by the things they choose to buy. Lira seems to want to have her own statue collection, which is kind of awesome.

There’s also very good news about Lira – she’s a tiny bit taller than she was when we recovered her, and the medics say she appears to be growing normally. So, whatever else she might be, she’s not frozen in time. She’s developed an interest in music now, puzzling her way through the massive amounts available through the interface, and I’m wondering whether to start her with learning an instrument, or encourage her into art – she still likes playing with Ys' modelling toy, but I’m not sure how passionate she is about any of it. She’s more inclined to be social than Ys, but still hasn’t adjusted to not being isolated and kept separate and so has a habit of reacting with suspicion to anyone trying to talk to her, and is very imperious with all but the close circle of people she trusts (she’s imperious with us too, but not as consistently).

Sen’s not been having too good a time. She’s transitioning into one of the tough periods for Sight Sight talents, where most of the certainty vanishes, and there’s rarely a night when she’s not punished with cruel and confusing dreams. And her Place Sight has begun to strengthen, which means touching certain objects or being in certain places can be very painful. We’ve been making up a bed for her in a little side-room off our bedroom (which I intended as the "baby’s room", if and when we have any). It works very well for Sen, letting us get through most nights without having her in bed with us, but close enough to help her through the worst dreams. She finds having us within earshot very comforting. The change is sad, though, because she’s no longer inclined to hug everyone and anyone, and will even flinch away from people at times. Kaoren’s wealth of experience with controlling his Sights is exactly what she needs, but there’s nothing anyone can do to stop this from being an awful patch for her.

My own month has been fairly busy. Now that I’m properly recovered from my injuries, I have a regular work schedule. Mostly visualising whole forms of decrepit and ruined books recovered from Kalasa, and sometimes the insides of rooms. They’re being very careful about not overtaxing me, and every second day is still an exercise day. I’ll probably retire for a couple of years after Kaoren and I get married, but even though I’m theoretically rich enough never to work again, I’m happy enough to contribute in these non-dramatic ways. Still rather wary of them plugging me into Ddura-making machines, but they’re keeping quiet about those possibilities at the moment.

My fitness is probably the highest it’s ever been, and I’m even progressing a little in combat training. I do a lot of canoeing – Kaoren’s birthday present to me was canoes for the whole family (we had to build a boat house and a dock – and work out how to paddle). Even better, he arranged limited permission for me to go off on my own. I have to tell people where I’m going, and not go out of the immediate area of the islands – and my guards of the moment get to stay on alert and track me via the interface, ready to fly off and rescue me – but it’s still a taste of independence which I really appreciate. Mostly I go with people anyway. Kaoren and I like getting up just before dawn and going out just the two of us, and I think the group trips are one of the things that all the kids really look forward to, even Ys and Lira. Each weekend we paddle to a different island to explore. I’ve even paddled the kids to school a few times, though mostly we use one of the floating sleds to take them because it’s a fairly long trip.

I visited Siriath frequently while Lohn and Mara’s and Jeh, Ketzaren and Grif’s houses were being constructed. They’d designed an entire little neighbourhood – seven broadly expansive multi-family houses – in anticipation of contact with Tare being re-established, since they knew that not only their parents but most of their siblings were going to apply to settle. Housing is so cheap and easy with whitestone, and they built quite close to each other so that they can share the power, water and recycling installations which are the costly part. Each house has land about the size of four suburban blocks (I think that would make an acre of yard for each house) and in the centre of them all, leading down to the lake’s edge and a dock is a big semi-cleared space which will be a grassy parkland once it’s recovered from being weeded of trees. Lohn and Mara plan to get married in their park, and Maze and Rye had a great deal of fun consulting on the design. A few more Setari house clusters have been seeded about Siriath, and also on the furthest-out island, Nula, but none have been finished yet.