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Concavenator:
Most of the day-cycle went by with little worth noting. The Sun briefly rose once more behind the travellers' backs and turned the landscape red: flame-red the hanging clouds, copper-red the misty sky, cinnabar-red the waving snows. Ochre-red even the coats and boots of Kukri and Giya, and dark bloodclot-red their feathers, made stiff by frost and grime. Then, shrouded by a gust of powdered snow, the empress star lay once more below the horizon, and let darkness creep again over the land.
The frozen peaks of the Thunder Mountains lingered for a while longer, burning red over the murky darkness, as their elevation allowed them to catch the last sunlight. The travellers could not hope for a better guide to their objective. Even the wind seemed to have become quieter, and the low-hanging clouds had formed a gentle blanket over the land. Perhaps the expedition could succeed, after all. As long as the ground held.
Somehow, Giya's warning about the traitorous ice allowed Kukri to walk faster and less burdened by fear. They marched as long as they could, by the light of the alcohol flame, until they found another convenient resting place; a narrow snow-free fissure where the rock had split, going down for a few paces into a pile of gravel. A place undisturbed, most likely, for a thousand generations.
pinkgothic:
Kukri's muscles ached and her joints yearned to return to a place of warmth - any place of warmth. Even the frosty shack they'd called a hotel back in Yakak'ratu was better than this prolonged torment. It was hard keeping one's motivation steady in the face of physical stress. Ironically, the relative ease of the day had made it worse - with no events to cleave the monotony into smaller chunks, it had simply be an arduous trek, no more, no less.
Giya's resilience was a remarkable miracle to Kukri. Kukri at least had her scientific curiosity and stubborn belief in the good of the data to guide her. Giya presumably only had her pride and the meagre details of their deal.
Exhausted, Kukri settled in the fissure once they had set up cover and a shield for the wind, should it return, and took some moments to simply gather her breath and enjoy the blissful sensation of not having to move.
“Have you ever ventured this far out of Yakak'ratu before?” she asked, intent on making some conversation before they surrendered to sleep. Precious though their time was, it was hard to talk during the trek itself, given the strain of it, and she found herself more curious about Giya and her strange, patchwork family.
Concavenator:
Giya studied the rough stone walls for a while before answering. Curled as she was in the narrowest part of the crevice, barely keeping her balance on the loose gravel, she must have been less than perfectly comfortable; but her breathing, too, had become much slower and cooler since the two of them had been able to stop walking.
“Yes. Yes, I… even the Polar Fields, sometime. I know how to go there; I eat little, even less, before. I go with the caravans, the long astrapothere caravans that go to Yakachai”. She used the Chaatai name for the pass of Yqsal, that parched corridor in the mountains that leads east from Yakak'ratu into the vast ocean of sand of Kulla-Tag. All the commerces between the proud states of Chaatai and Kru'u had to cross there, but for the lowliest helping tasks, people were preferred who could be left to the snow or the sand with little grief. “Most of all we brought salt and gut-soup to the ghost-people who live there.” She shivered, a memory colder than the air. “And woven feathers back. I didn't see them”.
pinkgothic:
'Ghost people', indeed. Kukri could vividly imagine the impression the exchange must have left on Giya, given her description of it - a trade with the trading partner absent. What else to call such people, other than 'ghosts'? It wasn't very polite, but it was evocative.
The trek along the route was much longer than the one they were on - but bringing beasts of burden would lighten the effort, as would embarking on the journey during summer months. Still, that amount of travel was impressive - Kukri could certainly not claim having crossed that much distance in her lifetime. Yakak'ratu was practically a neighbouring town of Grikaa by comparison, especially factoring in how well-kept roads eased passage.
“What's the farthest you've gone and what was it for?” Kukri asked, still curious about her companion's adventures. In the privacy of her own mind, she added another question: And what did you get out of it? Did you do all this purely for food?
Concavenator:
“Just past Yakachai, where the sand starts. I saw their smoke, and some of them, they– they look like the sand, true. The caravan women give me gut-soup and cabbage, and one or two go to talk with the ghost-people, and the others wait. I don't like to go there, but they gave the most coins of all. We went there and then back several times every season. Winter, I mostly stay home, or go help with penguin herds, with making gut-soup to sell next summer.”
She scratched her neck feathers, in a patch that had become particularly knotted. After pouring out those words so freely, she seemed to regret having done so, as if she'd given away too much. After several heartbeats of silence, she turned to Kukri and asked, in a very even voice: “… Why do you go to the glaciers? Why do you go now? What do you care about them?”
pinkgothic:
It was a fair question, of course. She had said before that she was here to take measurements of the ice before it waned, but that was the what, not the why. “Perhaps it is best to think of me as an extension of the Society of Natural Philosophy and then ask what it is they want, although it is also true that I want the same thing.
“There are many discussions back home about the future of this world of ours, some of which are quite outrageous in consequence. The truth of the one or other can easily help shape the decisions of Chaatai as a whole - and the measurements of the ice are an integral part of determining which of the theories are correct.”
She paused, realising that this was all very abstract, perhaps more than was fair to simply spring on Giya. But she wasn't altogether sure she wanted to speak any of the theories out loud - it felt a little too much like summonning the demon from which you wanted to defend yourself, even if she knew, of course, that it was absurd to think it would have an effect on the truth value of those theories to merely speak them.
She debated it with herself for an eternal second, then said: “Specifically, some think Tagra may be… cooling further, until even the summer months no longer have the strength shrink the glaciers, but the winters will see them expand their territory.”
Concavenator:
It was hard to guess what how Giya would have conceived the world and her place in it, and for that matter in the outskirts of Chaatai there were still people who thought the stars shone on the inner surface of a cosmic eggshell. Even in the best case, inducting her into the Guild (and how could Kukri refuse it, after all this?) would take plenty of extra schooling.
And yet, even now that darkness had completely filled their shelter, the last glint reflected in Giya's eyes suggested that Kukri's words were not lost on her. “Then they must grow”, she said, “And the yachakri go live where 'ikra do, and the 'ikra go where the ghost-people are”. She was fallow ground, but not barren. “But the glaciers are the same as when I was a child, no more large, no more small. Four handfuls of winters. Why do people say they're larger?”
pinkgothic:
There was a certain urge to dismiss the line of enquiry, given the variables involved each themselves invited yet more questions - but it was the essence of science, and they might as well start now.
“Some of my colleagues believe there are indicators from history. A great many generations prior, there were claims that the ice would disappear completely during summer, not merely shrink back as it does now.
“Others of the Society have observational and historic data about how far south different plants thrive. Those data suggest that the boundary of their territory creeps further north each year. Yet it also hasn't been observed for quite long enough to be conclusive and old records, initially kept for other reasons, often prove vexingly ambiguous.
“And so I am to take measurements of the ice itself, to see what it will tell us of itself.”
Concavenator:
Giya simply replied: “I will help you as you wish”. She was not convinced. Kukri would have liked for both of them to see the truth with their own eyes, whichever it would be; but this was not a matter one could observe with their own eyes, for if the glaciers were indeed growing, this was a process that had started long before there were 'ikra at all. A few leagues of difference per octade, perhaps, easily concealed by seasonal changes.
If only there were a way to reach back to their ancestors in the age of brutedom, closer to yachakri in temperament than to the fine peers of the Guild, and see their world as they saw it then! But the song of epochs could only be heard through layers upon layers of indirection. Tables of numbers, here's what Kukri could offer to her future (perhaps) student; subtle shifts of colors in buried rocks, changing forms in the bed of creeks. How much more satisfying, at least, if doom were to come from the Great Being of the Takrakaya cracking open the eggshell of heavens.