Episode 9
Travelling Light E009S01 Transcript
H.R. Owen
Hello friends, Hero here. If I can grab your attention for a moment, I want to tell you about Stories from Ylelmore, an all-ages podcast about the adventures of three children growing up mundanely magical town where yetis host annual competitions, witches run book stores, and the librarian might be an oracle. Stay tuned to the end of the credits to hear a full trailer.
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Nine.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
3rd Enu 850.
To the community at Emerraine who carry the light.
I cannot believe we are into a new month already. I feel simultaneously as if I have been away for no time at all, and for the best part of a century.
I have learnt that things move in fits and bursts upon a starship. We hopped from Serran to Adern to Varriel with barely time to catch our breath, only taking days between each planet. But now, we have been out in the black for more than a fortnight, with nothing very much to distinguish one day from the next.
Hesje confided in me over dinner one evening that, when they were planning the expedition, they had been rather looking forwards to these periods of inactivity, as it allowed them time to set aside their financial concerns and work for a while on their academic interests.
They are very much a scholar before they are a financier, and they went into some detail about their work in comparative aerology. I am glad they, at least, have been enjoying themselves. I did not take so well to this sudden idleness.
Thus far, I have rearranged the reading materials in the common room twice – first by author surname, then by genre and subject matter – and programmed fully twelve new meals into the automated culinary system, which can only be for the betterment of all aboard.
Doctor Tsabec did express some… dismay at my attempts to help organise their laboratory, however, and Annaliese has had me cleaning microscope slides for the last two days in what I suspect to be a concerted effort to keep me from offering the same services to her.
There has been one benefit to this quiet period, though. Around the fourth or fifth day of our prolonged confinement, I heard a knock at my cabin door. I opened it to find Óli looking back at me with an uncharacteristically expressive look on their face.
“Ugh. Finally! Where in Ninugat's name have you been?”
“I have not been anywhere!” I protested. “We have been in open space since the start of the week. There is nowhere I could have been.”
“You have not been in your cabin,” they hissed. “I have knocked, several times!”
“You have me there,” I conceded. “I have committed the unforgivable sin of occasionally going into a different room.”
Óli either did not or chose not to hear the humour in my voice. “I am bored,” they said, as if this was some great proclamation. I waited for them to elaborate. “Well? Are you not going to invite me in?”
“I do not want to invite you in. I have no desire to sit in my cabin today. You have only happened to catch me before I ventured forth once more into sinfulness.”
A look of confusion and annoyance passed over their face, quickly replaced with equally annoyed understanding. “Oh. I see. Very well.”
They were a good way down the corridor before they realised I was not following. They stared back at me with frank indignation.
“Come along!” they said, haughty as a thwarted toddler. I half expected them to stamp their foot!
“I have no desire to sit in your cabin, either,” I told them. “I am going to the common room.”
“But I am bored,” they said again, as if I could not possibly have understood the matter.
“Well, you are very welcome to join me.”
“In the… common room?”
“I may stop by the refectory for a cup of tea beforehand but yes, ultimately, that is my destination.”
Their face twisted in a complicated series of emotions. “Who else is in there?” they asked finally.
I gestured the obvious impossibility of my having that information. I know it was not kind to tease them, but it was quite funny. [laughs] And I am afraid to say I have learnt nothing from my experience, as I was, unfortunately, very finely rewarded for my bad behaviour.
With a degree of huffing and eye-rolling that made me very sympathetic towards whoever had had to raise Óli as an adolescent, we made our way up to the common room together.
They did hesitate a little at the door, until I looked in and saw there was only Aman and Hesje in there. I do not know if there was someone else they are trying to avoid, or if they simply did not want to be suddenly thrust into a crowd, but the news seemed to relax them.
We spent some very pleasant hours together, talking and playing one of the other games available in there as I didn't wish to add insult to injury by dragging them all the way up there only to thrash them at gwychyl.
Óli has a surprisingly similar sense of humour to Operator Aman – so dry it is practically dessicated. And they spoke to Hesje with such sincere interest and care for their feelings.
It was good to see them relaxing into the conversation, smiling their quiet smile. And I am glad to say they have joined me more times since then, always when the common room is more empty than not, but I will take my joys where they fall.
The Tola finally landed today on a planet called Peteimos. We are stopping only a short while in the port city before heading some way to the west of here for our actual destination. I forget whether it is another city we are going to or whether it is a more rural spot.
Regardless, when we get there, I am determined to bring Óli out of their shell a little more. Or at least out of their cabin and into the company of our travelling companions.
I fully admit this is not an altruistic endeavour. I would much prefer not to have to choose between spending time with Óli or the others. But I also think it would be good for them.
And good for the rest of the crew, as well. I want them to see Óli as I have been able to see them. Not aloof or distant but rather, a quiet treasure well worth the effort of unearthing.
I will write again soon from, uh, wherever we're going. I really should dig out that itinerary… Love to all. [sighs] No, I should say it properly. I love you, all.
[The click of a data stick being inserted into a drive that whirs as it reads]
The Traveller
Entry EN85003-1
Key words: Apoikos, architecture, ethnography, Garámas, Kissa, Peteimos, Tahos
Notes:
We landed in the southern hemisphere of the planet, in the Apoikos administrative region.
Apoikos, like most large population centres on planets as well-frequented as Peteimos, is home to several hundred, if not thousands of distinct and diverse cultures, both native to the region and imported from elsewhere on the planet and beyond.
However, there are three particular strands of native culture which have been historically dominant in Apoikos. These are the Garámas, the Kissa, and the Tahos.
Like many of the native people in this region, they are all basically avian in their physical form. But beyond this superficial similarity, their philosophies and attitudes to life, their homes and their habits are all quite distinct.
Garámas culture tends towards the highly formalised, most notably in language and in family structure. Each individual is part of a complicated web of formal kinship dynamics and obligations, and the language reflects this.
There are different pronouns for an older person who is part of the speaker's matrilineal line or their patrilineal line; different verb forms for friends and cousins, and different again for those friends with whom one feels such a bond of kinship as to consider them, essentially, one's cousin.
(The Garámas word for this particular phenomenon is to speak of one's 'serkinos,' which I find rather charming.)
Of course, the degree to which these formalities are followed varies wildly. But nevertheless, it does stand in remarkable counterbalance to their close neighbours, the Kissa.
For the Kissa, family is a very moveable feast. The children spend the majority of their childhood in different community homes, hopping from one to the other as the child wishes.
This sense of motion continues into adulthood. Adult Kissas travel a great deal, falling in and out of various social groups with no particular distinction between family, old friends, new friends, lovers, or colleagues.
Above all, Kissa culture celebrates experience. A person is considered to have lived well if they have done a great many different and diverse things.
There is an idea in some strands of Kissa philosophy that a person becomes someone new in each new setting, and that one can never speak of a single person because each individual will have been so many different people even in a short and relatively sheltered life.
I must say, the more I travel, the more I feel I can understand this perspective.
Finally, there are the Tahos. As Garámas culture centres formality and Kissa culture experience, Tahos culture centres aestheticism and the pursuit of beauty.
Despite being the smallest of the three in population, Tahos culture has long been the dominant influence in Apoikos art. Tahos produce more artists, designers, interior decorators and architects than any other single cultural group in the region.
Individuals from Tahos culture can often be recognised by their propensity to personal adornment.
Their feathers are often oiled to a lustrous sheen, while their beaks and claws are frequently painted in bright colours or decorated with gems. And their clothing is frankly remarkable – even for someone such as myself who has really no eye for such things.
One of the clearest expression of these distinct cultural emphases is in each culture's different style of home.
Garámas roosts are sprawling, many layered things, built to last, with every expectation of multiple generations living together. One roost might be occupied by the same family for upwards of ten generations.
Meanwhile, Kissa homes have what seems to my eye a rather temporary air. Their roosts are lightly built, incorporating a great many moveable partitions and even cloth or paper walls that can be dismantled and rebuilt as the people living there grow and change.
Entry points are habitually left not only unlocked but wide open, inviting friends and neighbours to drop in as they wish.
Tahos roosts, on the other hand, have a far greater variety of styles. Some are long, elegant affairs, settling beautifully into their surroundings. Others are great blocky, bolshy statements meant to stand out and demand attention.
All that I have seen, however, are styled to perfection. They are homes which invite one to live more beautifully, to consider the art of daily life, not only its practicalities.
What I find particularly charming, though, is how all three of these cultures blend together like unlikely spices in a meal. Each sings out in its own particular voice, but taken all together, they create something new – something unique, and entirely its own.
[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 an idea by Snazzycrow, with accompanying artwork available on our social media accounts.
If you've got an idea for an archive entry, we want to hear it. You can send us anything from a one line prompt to a fully written entry through our website, by email, or on social media. For more information, see the show notes.
This episode includes an audience decision. Vote on whether the Tola should travel to the city or to the countryside by making a donation at ko-fi.com/monstrousproductions.
Supporters will also receive bonus artwork and 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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Transcript for Stories from Ylelmore Promo
[soothing music]
[ratcheting sounds]
KERYTH: Is that good?
RION: No, it's cramped.
KERYTH: That's why I said we should do this at your house.
RION: Your house is closer.
KERYTH: Hi, I'm Keryth and this is my assistant-
RION: Assistant?
KERYTH:...Rion...we talked about this...
[audio clicks off]
[audio returns with jaunty guitar music]
KERYTH (overlapping): I'm Keryth/This is Keryth(x2)/And I'm Keryth and this is my co-host Rion!
RION: Hi.
KERYTH: This is stories from Ylelmore! And today's episode is about [drumroll]
KERYTH (overlapping) The new kid. A murder most foul! Yeti hunt!! Actual werewolves. And our assistant, Elas.
RION: Why are they still here??
ELAS: Why wouldn't I be?
KERYTH: Yeah…Rion's not going to like you...
ELAS: We have to run!!
RION: That's literally the worst i- AGGGHHHHHHHHHH
ELAS: Are wraiths even real?
KERYTH: I don't know, but ghosts are!
[Rope tightens and Elas screams in the background]
KERYTH: I told you to keep an eye out for traps, Elas.
RION: Stalker trail.
KERYTH: We're not stalking.
ELAS: R-Rion?
KERYTH: Elllaaassss
RION: Keryth!!
KERYTH: I didn't think we would actually get this far.
RION: I still don't like you.
KERYTH: Join us on Stories From Ylelmore, available on most podcatchers.
--END TRANSCRIPT--
