Episode 1
Travelling Light S01E001 Transcript
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode One.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
14th Shadoch, 850.
To the community at Emerraine, who carry the Light.
Hello, my friends. I realise it has not been so terribly long since last we were together, but I hope you will forgive my writing so soon. I will write less frequently when I am away, so as to be sure to have some real news for you in each missive and not simply filling the archives with accounts of empty days.
Even as early on my adventure as I am, I have been thinking of you all very often. I dare not take them from my pack lest I misplace them, but I fancy I can feel the weight of your letters of introduction as I carry them. I will endeavour to live up to the trust you have placed in me.
It has been a long time since anyone ventured forth from Emerraine on our community’s behalf. I hope I can report back on the doings of the wide world in such a way that will bring you comfort and encouragement, and that my missives reveal the galaxy and its people to you, as the light reveals the holy substance at the centre of existence.
I am crossing a threshold, one which I will not pass through again. I trust you will not think it arrogant to want the moment witnessed, if only at a distance, and in retrospect. After all, by the time you receive this, I will be long gone, away among the stars, and beginning my journey to Kerrin in earnest.
I’ll spare you the details of the trip here. Suffice to say, we made good time to Port Taroth. I am very glad Marron and Gelth were able to accompany me – please give them my thanks, if they do not beat this letter home. I do not know if I would have had the courage to start my journey if they were not with me.
They saw me safely squared away in a lodging house not far from the docks, and together we set forth to see a little of Port Taroth itself. It is unlike anywhere else I have been! [laughs] The reality of it is so much more than was conveyed in my books. The whole city heaves with people at all hours of day and night, the burn of bright lights making it impossible to see the stars.
And yet, it is equally impossible to forget them. All around, vibrating through my knees, my chest, my very soul – the roar and rumble of ships taking off and landing, scattering themselves to the very furthest reaches of the black and returning home with holds stuffed fit to burst with treasures untold.
And the people! [laughs] I had thought myself terribly cosmopolitan before coming here! I am Emerraine born and bred after all, and no city in the province can compete with us for diversity and culture. But the biggest city in a small province is barely a candle flame to the roaring sun of the planet’s port.
My eyes bounce from Almasi dock-workers heaving cargo to finely-clad merchants haggling over their wares. Adherents of the sect of Mish glide by on their hover-pads, untouched by the profane earth, while Taroth’s children play in the street, singing out skipping rhymes and snatching sweets from the stalls as they race past.
I’ve seen people from worlds I’ve never dreamt of, their scales rippling in the sunlight, and in the next blink of my eyes, they are replaced with huge figures with braids in their fur and precious metal capping their horns. There seems no limit to the combinations of colour, shape or form.
And for every species there is a hundred, a-a thousand different cultures, each with their own food, religion, music, literature, costume. Every aspect of life is filtered through these endless prisms, throwing out an infinite variety of possible outcomes. I itch to walk among them, to hear their stories and their songs.
And they pass me by without a second look! [laughs] As if I am not just as strange to them as they are to me. Perhaps I’m not, perhaps they’ve seen enough humans in their travels to find us mundane.
I cannot imagine it. For one thing, I’ve seen hardly any humans since I got here. But besides that, I cannot imagine growing used to this. Oh, but I should dearly like the chance to!
I shall go tomorrow to barter for passage aboard one of the ships bound for Kerrin. The port authority office informed me that most of the ships travelling in that direction are commercial cruisers, promising comfort, luxury, a home away from home.
But if I wanted to be at home, I should have stayed in Emerraine. I wish to see the galaxy, with all its rough edges and its awkward meeting places.
I got the name of two captains whom the port authority official believed would be willing to take an extra passenger. Each seems as likely as the other to give me a berth in exchange for either the little money provided to me by the community – my thanks again – or what services and labour I might be able to offer.
The first a shoddy old hauler, huge and looming in its dock. It is a merchant vessel, its great belly filled with cargo so that the crew and passengers occupy only a tiny space at the very top – a single deck, I think. It is loaded and waiting only for a go-signal from the port to start its hopping, dotting, darting journey through the galaxy.
The port authority official did not know much of it, only that the captain owns the ship outright, and so is not beholden to any of the shipping conglomerates. He may make his own choices, choose his own routes, his own cargo, his own crew. I do wonder that he does not choose to spruce his boat up a little… [laughs]
The second ship is a far more glamorous affair. She is a research ship, and smaller than the merchant vessel by an order of magnitude, sleek and shining with a gleaming green emblem painted on her side.
The emblem is that of a private university whose name I did not recognise, but which the owner of my lodging house tells me is very highly respected. They do not seem to be wanting for funds or resources, so I think it would be a comfortable journey – at least physically.
Science and religion have not always been the most gracious bed-fellows, even if our faith is hardly one to fly in the face of reason and research. Then again, who better than a scientist to understand my task? I do not seek to convert the galaxy, after all – only to see it, and understand it better.
I shall make my decision in the morning. [sighs] For now, I am very sleepy [laughs] And must go to bed before I fall unconscious where I sit!
Please find attached my first offering for the community archives, gathered when Gelth and Marron were giving me a proper Emerrainian send-off, complete with fried pansa nuts and plenty of beer.
[The click of a data stick being inserted into a drive that whirs as it reads]
The Traveller
Entry 805SH14-1. Recipe for tmosk stew, collected in Port Taroth
Key words: diaspora; food and eating; Mieksu; Miroski; recipe; tmosk stew; occasions and ceremonies
Notes:
My lodging house in Port Taroth was run by an elderly Mieksu woman named Ezlaw, who migrated from Mirosk some eighty years since. She seemed to take a shine to me, telling me I reminded her of her youngest grandchild – though presumably the resemblance was not physical. Humans and Miroski have little enough in common on that front.
One trait we do share, however – indeed, I suspect it is common to most, if not all, cultures across this galaxy – is an appreciation of home-cooked food. Ezlaw explained that, back home, the Mieksu people are known for a particular type of stew that uses tmosk – a root vegetable native to their traditional homelands.
The tmosk is most remarkable for its colour. It dyes the entire dish a fabulous, shimmering purple, and the addition of salt – sprinkled on as the dish is served – causes a chemical reaction that sends up little sparks of green and silver light.
Unsurprisingly, given this flamboyance, the stew is considered a party dish, served at every Mieksu gathering, from naming days to memorial feasts. It has become a cornerstone of Mieksu culture.
But when Mieksu emigrants tried to take cuttings of tmosk with them on their travels, the plant simply withered, unable to find what it needed in the dry, recycled air of the ships or the strange new soil of other planets.
As the Mieksu diaspora continued, these far-flung people felt more than ever the need to gather and connect, to build community through shared experiences and shared life-events. And a Mieksu gathering is simply not complete without tmosk stew.
So the emigrants turned to the local foods of their chosen homes, and created new recipes to mimic this precious dish – and its dazzling party trick effects.
In Port Taroth, Ezlaw served us bowls of stew that changed from red to gold as she stirred in a dollop of bereth paste, while her sister, who lives on Adern, tops her stew with edible metallic flakes that catch the light like tiny mirrors.
Other Mieksu communities set the stew aflame using alcohol, while still more serve it up in a kind of steamed bun that, when pulled open, mixes the parts of the meal together in a bright swirl of colours.
Every Mieksu community has their own recipe – and each one is as much an authentic tmosk stew as the last.
This is Ezlaw's, taken from her as she cooked for us that first night in port:
Take vegetables and wash them and remove their peel. Slice them not too fine and fry with butter until soft.
Add spices and cook until flavoured.
Note: when I asked Ezlaw which spices she used exactly, she held forth for some time – Gelth reckoned it about fifteen minutes in total, but he was laughing too much to measure precisely – about the myriad ways in which I had erred, and my good fortune in resembling her grandchild and thus provoking her mercy, and in her own great patience and forbearance in putting up with such abominable prying and poking. All I can say is… I think there may have been aniseed.
Add broth and the harder vegetables, cut up small or shredded per their needs.
Acid for flavour.
Cook until thick and serve with bereth paste, added at the table.
[Title music: rhythmic instrumental folk. It plays throughout the closing credits.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light was created by H.R. Owen and Matt McDyre, and is a Monstrous Productions podcast. This episode was written and performed by H.R. Owen.
This week’s entry to the archives was based on a submission by Jeebs, with accompanying artwork on Twitter @Monstrous_Pod, on Instagram @Monstrous_Productions and on Tumblr @MonstrousProductions.
Submit your own entries to the archive at monstrousproductions.org, by email, or through our social media accounts.
This episode includes an audience decision. Vote on whether the Traveller should take passage on the merchant ship or the research vessel through ko-fi.com/monstrousproductions. Supporters will also receive bonus artwork, additional content, and an invitation to the Monstrous Productions Discord server.
This podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The theme tune is by Vinca.
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