**Concavenator**:

The room in which Kukri and Giya were being hosted was not unpleasant, all considered. There was only one proper bed, the other being a mattress on the floor, and the ceiling was badly stained with soot, but it was warm, reasonably dry, with a comfortable table and a discreet cabinet for the chamber pot. If there was a cause for complaint, it was that the only door and window were locked from outside.

But the door briefly opened, and the sergeant strode in, her uniform now clean from the snow and mud of the forest, clutching Kukri's notes. "Good morning, philosophers. The bats have been sent; we'll see what the guildmasters in Grikaa have to say. Now, since we've time to pass, would you care to tell me what these numbers mean, exactly, and what has this ice done to caught your attention so?"

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri's echo of the sergeant's greeting was quite automatic and polite, and her body language was unambiguously appreciative at the comment about the bats. At the sergeant's question, though, she tilted her head with mild confusion. Speaking of her work was not out of the ordinary, per se, but the questions about it were usually quite different, and the manner of question she was hearing here seemed like the sort that couldn't well be satisfied; not because she wasn't willing to speak of it, but because it suggested itself sourced from a degree of ignorance that wasn't easily banished.

Still, there was no use being rude about it.

"Likely the latter part of your question is the simplest to begin with," she mused, her tone friendly and patient, as she would when teaching anyone. "The ice is a measure of the longer trends of our weather. The philosophers of Grikaa have taken note that the cold of winter seems to be lingering longer as the generations pass, as old written records suggest.

"So we look to the ice, which builds a chronicle of past winters in layers..." - she gestured with her hands to indicate the same - "...telling us much about the variability of the cold over time. It gives us information about whether the records are misleading, because those who wrote them had a different perception of time, or because units of time were redefined, or because they were giving subjective measures rather than objective measures."

She was not at the stage where she was willing to draw conclusions without careful analysis and discussion with other philosophers about it, so she did not yet say what her gut was telling her about the readings, but she did say what science compelled her to say: "I do not yet know what the numbers mean, beyond that they are measurements of the depths of these layers and their composition, but it will take careful analysis to map them to the correct generations and draw the correct conclusions. It's nothing I would want to blunder, and there is plenty of room to blunder. It's not anything like reading a book - but it is valuable data to help us understand if the winter's cold is strengthening."

**Concavenator**:

The sergeant listened to all that politely, stealing some glances at Giya but otherwise fixed on Kukri. When the explanation was over, she tapped the notes and said: "Yyou say you don't yet know what these numbers mean. Not that these winters are cold, surely; I could tell you that, and I don't need to trudge all the way to the Thunder Mountains with observation tools. Mind you, I *have* trudged across frozen mountains with all sorts of tools in my time, but back then it was serious business, very serious business indeed".

She stood up and paced around the room for a while. "So, say the winter is turning worse. When will your numbers tell you that? And what do you plan to do about it?"

**pinkgothic**:

"I would expect it to take perhaps a moon cycle of analysis to be sure of it," Kukri pondered openly. "But if the trend is truly toward longer and colder winters, it is quite beyond me individually to do anything about it. It would provide a seed of discussion amongst the philosophers, though, and then a matter of giving advice to those women and men in the best position to orchestrate necessary changes. If the trend is real, the good news is that our societies have learnt to adapt to the winters we already have now, and it seems possible we may be able to adapt to even longer winters as long as we put our minds to it."

**Concavenator**:

"I see. I see..." The sergeant looked wistfully at the sooty ceiling. "Mighty enterprise, that. I hear philosophers in Grikaa will make such plans, sometimes. And sometimes even succeed; we are a republic now, after all". Her gaze snapped onto Kukri. "And to what lengths will you go, for your plans? What are you willing to risk, to get these numbers to your guild?"

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri tilted her head the other way, now making no secret of her distaste of what this conversation was rooted in. "If there is something you wish of me," she said. "I would ask that you speak plainly. You know quite well that I and my new apprentice are at your mercy here, and that I am low on resources; yet I would hope that I've already made it clear I have no interest in being an obstruction to you, and you should have no reason to think of me as an enemy. I would ask that, should you have an honest gripe, to please be frank about it."

**Concavenator**:

The sergeant snapped to full attention, the apparent distraction melting away like grime under a rainstorm. "Very well. Then I shall be honest, and respect your intellect so long as you respect mine. You were found travelling in criminal company --  not yet apprehended -- with the sort of measurement tools that a military surveyor would use, with no escort but one reticent, uncredentialed local. I will say in your favor that a Takrakaya spy would have prepared a better story, and a Kru'u one would not let herself be taken alive. It may well be that you're telling the truth; we'll know when the bats come back, and until then this is nothing but suspicion. But if you were standing in my boots, philosopher, what would you think?"

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri smiled wryly. "I would think that a spy would be far more reluctant to wait for the bats to return," she remarked with a mild amusement now that the sergeant had revealed her specific concern. "I ask only that I and my assistant not starve in the process. If you can give us that, we will wait as long as is needed - and I will reaffirm that as often as needed. "If your concern is that we might try escaping while you aren't watching, to be entirely frank about it, I wouldn't know how to go about such a thing - not that I expect that assurance to help you any, but it's all I can do to try. On that note, I will gladly tell you whatever else you want to know about climate science, as that is rather more my strength."

**Concavenator**:

"Hm-mh". She was now carefully studying Kukri's stance, as perhaps she'd been doing more subtly ever since she entered the room. "You two are not, strictly speaking, prisoners. But you can see why we must keep you under watch, and why meekly accepting your fate will not make us relax our measures. We've had such people, who thought we'd look the other way if they were obsequious enough. Then again, perhaps this is just the way of your guild, and that is hardly a crime. Let us humor each other. Suppose your foretelling of longer winters is correct; what do we have to fear?"

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri shook her head mildly. "I haven't asked you to relax your measures," she reminded the sergeant, now with a mild shrug to her body language. The sergeant's ignorance of what was even happening in the plain reality before her could certainly be a danger to Kukri and Giya, but by now she had established she wasn't trying to extort or torture them, and so Kukri felt rather more at ease about the situation.

To the question, she considered how to respond. "The longer the winters, all else being equal, the shorter the season where the plants replenish that feed our livestock," she revealed. "The effects on the aquatic life in rivers and at our coastlines are less immediately obvious, but at the base, they too feed off of nutrient run-off from the lands where they are not also dependent on the greenery within the water.

"Though they are a body of water, the glaciers are effectively a desert - the water is locked in a form that cannot be easily extracted, and while our kind may know how to do so with fire and machinery, nature does not. The more land that is ceded to the glaciers, thus, the less crucial water for the cycle of life as we know it.
"All of this is to say, in the worst case, we may need to focus our planning on enabling future generations to move beyond this continent to warmer lands. Or rather, ah, the real worst case - although I consider this unlikely, myself, though the measurements may yet make a liar of me - is that it is also true that a white surface reflects sunlight more than a dark surface... so there is some concern about a feedback loop, where the process of colder winters becomes self-sustaining, until winter is all there is to go to. ...it is less clear to me what we could do about that, but that is what spirited debate is for in the halls of Grikaa's guilds."

**Concavenator**:

The sergeant quietly pondered these words for a moment. Perhaps considering them as words for the first time in that conversation, rather than as lines in a play with a set ending; there had been a note of alarm in her stance, though she must have been trained to conceal it. Her fingers twitched toward the teratorn sigil, where resided 'Au'a the Vow-keeper, to Whose service she had sworn her life. "What... exactly... do you mean by 'winter is all there is to go to'?"

**pinkgothic**:

"If the ice reflects too much of the light of the sun that would melt it once more away from the ground and back into the sky, it becomes colder, and the cold would enable more ice to form, which would reflect more light away from us, and so forth. Hypothetically the glaciers could grow to encompass not only our continent, but any other continents as well." Kukri made it clear by her tone that she did not endorse this doomsday scenario, but equally tried to convey the respect that implied it was part of her philosophic honour to at least consider it, and let the numbers be the judge, rather than her personal opinions.

**Concavenator**:

After the brief wavering, the sergeant had steadied herself. Perhaps she had simply conquered her unease, or perhaps the vision had become so terrible that it felt less real. " 'Flames extinguished, breath arrested, the Egg as one is still as frost.'." She had quoted old scriptures about the world-egg cosmology, slowly developing as the hot primal chaos, which still churned below the ground, yielded pace by pace to the cold stillness of the stars. //Closed the summer-day of 'ikra, the deepest heat as well is lost//.

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri knew better than to speak of the scriptures as one might of superstition - and besides, the citation had thrown her off guard, an unexpected cultural ally amidst a tense scene that had felt more like a public debate than anything that might yet yield an ally. Respectfully, she remained silent, gathering her thoughts. Then, haltingly and gently, trying to dampen what might well be the sergeant's cosmological terror: "I don't think we're at that stage."

**Concavenator**:

"I should imagine not", she responded, somewhat more brusquely. "Spring seems to be coming as well as always. I doubt my generation will be the one see its end, for all that I'd like to see exactly where the sun will stop to move. I know what you're thinking: I'm not under the impression that the world is actually a plate between two half-shells. or the sun a floating candle. I'm well aware that there is more nuance to those words. If you're telling the truth, it is uncanny that the end of all may be so straightforward."

**pinkgothic**:

"I would hope it's a little more complicated," Kukri smiled weakly, nodding mildly. "I think we've already achieved a lot as a civilisation," she added. "And if we have generations, even if the worst comes to worst, I would think we could find a way to perhaps darken the ice and reverse the process with the tools we have forged for ourselves." A brief pause. "And A'ua's blessing," she added. "But all of this is speculation. We shall see what the numbers say. Perhaps all is yet well."

**Concavenator**:

"Perhaps. Thankfully it is not up to me to think of all the ways this Republic may be saved or lost. But among my many duties, philosopher, is to imagine the ways one could harm this district and use its defenses against it. Which is why I must consider the possibility that you thought me more superstitious than I am, and made up a story to appeal to that. But I suppose we will know once the bats return, and you do not seem as concerned as a criminal should be in such a situation. And if that is not the case, and your threat of winter is true, than I certainly wish you success."

**pinkgothic**:

Kukri took it as encouragement, and smiled amicably. "Thank you," she said, and left it at that. It was quite a relief that the sergeant was reasonably level-headed about her religion; that whole topic was a minefield that Kukri was hardly an expert at, though she at least knew to respect it. It calmed her considerably that she could have a reasonable conversation about the sciences instead.

**Concavenator**:

The sergeant paced around the room, perhaps pondering this exchange. Her posture was unnaturally rigid, as if she were straining to stop herself from fiddling with her uniform. After a while she said: "And your associate, there, can she be trusted with this momentous task of yours?"

**pinkgothic**:

"I already owe her my life," Kukri remarked, not altogether sure if she had already said so before, keeping it short and matter-of-fact if it was indeed a reminder. "But necessarily, only time will tell whether she will make a good protégé of philosophy. I have no reason at all to doubt it, though. She has already put a great deal of effort into it so far, and it is perseverance a philosopher needs most of all."