[Competition 6A]: Collaborative Interaction

[Alicorn]

This is a collaborative contest. Someone from your statelet, and someone from another statelet, have a conversation, with you writing for your native(s) and your partner writing for theirs. (Are they pen pals ever since they were kids? Are they trapped in a cave-in together trying to decide who gets to eat the other to survive? Is one of them trying to convince the other to purchase Archipelago Scout Cupcakes? Is the one a double agent trying to keep the other from blowing her cover? Answer me, do.) Handwaving away the applicable language barriers is acceptable. You may enter more than once, but any given pair of statelets may only have one submission. Participants in the winning entry share equally in the credits awarded. More than two participants in an entry is okay if you want, too.

If you are being an Internet hermit this week and absolutely can't stand the idea of interacting, you may enter this contest with a conversation between two persons of different backgrounds or subcultures from within your statelet (or as different as your citizens get, however much so that is), but if you do that, you can only enter the once, and if you win, you get only half as many credits as you could have won with an interactive entry. So I do not recommend being an Internet hermit this week.

If you don't know who to ask, try posting here to look for partners.

This contest is a two-week one. It does not end until June 26.

[Aryeztur]

Well Chris, do you want to do something about the contact?

[Alicorn]

I am extending this contest by one week. It will conclude and go to voting, not on Sunday the 19th, but on Sunday the 26th.

[Alicorn]

Entry from Mevwan and Safiria.

[Adelene]

In the caverns of Xalt, in Kennerext, a Deep Singer happens across a very lost young Zaee.

"Are you feeling all right, young one?"

Avana nods, keeping her eyes on the woman, and speaks quietly, "Yes, I think so. Can you help me get out of here?"

Antil Xen glances around briefly. Her reply is accented, but entirely comprehensible. "Yes. I don't often come in by this route, but I remember the way." She turns her large eyes back to the girl. "You... came here through the docks, I would think? How did you get up this way?"

"I fell," Avana wraps her wings around herself, careful to keep her injured wingtip from pressing against anything, "from up top. I was looking for my skitterling and didn't see the hole."

"I'm amazed you didn't-" She glances at Avana's wings, at first merely with surprise, but noting the blood on the one tip. "Oh. I can, ah, bandage that for you if you wish."

Avana pauses for a moment at the offer, considering. "Just bandages - human medicine is no good for Zaee. But thank you." she extends her wing forward, allowing Antil to work on it.

Antil carefully lays her light pole against the wall, unslings her pack, and took out a roll of... not fabric, really, but what looks like a tight weave of long green strands. She wraps a strip of it around the extended wingtip. "What is your name, young one?"

"I'm Avana. My wingmother is Teloura - she's the perturber on our ship." Avana pauses a beat, to consider whether this human would know what that means, "She makes the ship go."

Antil nods politely. Only a few Deep Singers had ever mastered knowledge of boats, and she is not among them. She supposes, from what she's heard, that Teloura does the rowing. "And I am Antil Xen. I scout the World Outside for this Beacon. ...I think the bandage is tight enough now. I can loosen it some, if it is too tight."

Avana flexes the tentacle-like wingspar, and nods "It feels okay. Thank you, Antil Xen. Can we go? I don't like the dark."

"Not many Outsiders do, I think. This is not so dark to us, but..." Antil takes up her light pole again, looks at it thoughtfully, and then takes a small jar from her pack, emptying some orange powder into the globe on top of the pole. The pale light grows somewhat brighter, causing Antil to squint in mild annoyance. "Maybe this will help as we go. You said you were looking for a... skitterling?"

Avana's large, mobile ears, which had been plastered against the sides of her head in near-terror, relax a bit at the brighter light. "Yes, my pet, Dell. He went into the woods, and I was trying to find him."

Antil listens to this with a look of bemusement on her face. "A... pet? This is some kind of animal?"

Avana nods, and indicates with her hands: "He's about this big, with black fur and green eyes, and wings - like mine, not like birds - but they're too small for him to fly very well."

Antil cocks her head to one side. "It was that urgent to hunt him all the way up here?"

Avana nods, hesitantly. "I didn't want to lose him." she replies, a hint of sadness in her voice at the prospect.

Antil gets the distinct feeling that she's missing something. She tries to figure out how to phrase her next statement without being terribly offensive. "I, uh, I don't think I quite understand. You don't sound like you want him as food."

Avana stops short for a moment (but only a moment; she's moving again as soon as she realizes she's stopped), and blinks. "No... he's a pet." She considers "like... a friend, kind of? He keeps me company when the grownups are busy."

"Oh." Antil seems embarrassed. "We... don't have animals like that." It occurs to her, rather uncomfortably, that a prey-sized animal roaming around the caves is likely to at least be considered as a meal if found. "Maybe we can find him. Is there anything that will attract him?"

"He's probably still in the forest - he'd be able to fly out of a hole like the one I fell in, I think. He can fly a little, just not for very long. But if he is down here, he'll probably come if he hears me - he won't like this dark any more than I do, I bet."

Antil thinks about this. It's too bright to go out looking for animals right now, and anyway... "Let's keep heading back to the docks. You should be near your ship. Maybe he'll be down here and will hear us as we go."

Avana nods, and keeps going. After a few minutes, she asks, "So what do you do?"

"My people have lived in caves for a very long time. We have trouble living with the Outside... light, heat, dangerous animals. Sometimes, we can cross it in groups, even if we've never been Outside before. That's how these caves were found, so far from the great Beacons of the mountains. But too many people get hurt that way if they don't know what they're doing, and there are too many places we need to explore. A generation ago, a new Guild was founded for people to learn how to live Outside for long periods, so they can map the land and find valuable resources. I am a member of that guild."

Avana considers this. "You live in these caves, you mean? That's... that sounds hard."

Antil shrugs. "For us, living Outside all the time would be harder. We get sick very easily in the daytime." She pauses for a while, and then says, almost shyly, "I have heard that, in the lands far away, people make shelters Outside? Like built caves?"

"Yes, most people do that - buildings, they're called. There are all different types, too - houses, and shops, and temples, and offices, and all kinds of different things. I actually have a book about architecture from different places - maybe I can show it to you, when we get back, if there's time."

"I... would like to see that. None of us have ever been to the other lands. We don't have boats big enough to go far." Up ahead, another light source gleams from an intersecting passage. As they approach, it becomes clear this hall is artificial: it is straight and squared off, and dim lights are set into the walls every twenty feet or so. Antil extinguishes her own light.

"This will take us back toward the Beacon Hall. ...What is it like, the place you came from?"

Avana grins at the new light, practically bouncing as she lollops along. "Well, my eyemother is from Kensedo, in Mevwan, which is has lots of whitegrass fields for making paper out of. But I haven't been there since I was a baby, and we don't spend much time in Delo-Kyan where Teloura's house is, so I don't know very much about it. But it's colder than here, and there are mountains, and reindeer - big animals, with long legs and no wings, and the males have horns on their heads, and humans ride on them."

Antil nods uncertainly. She knows that, in the far north of the land Kennerext claims, it is not too dissimilar from what Avana describes; but she has never seen even that. She finds it all difficult to imagine. "You and she travel in the boat most of the time, then? Since she makes it go?"

Avana nods. "Yep. She's the perturber, so she has to be on the ship for it to go, unless they find someone else - but Lalinyo, the captain, likes her, so I don't think he'd do that."

Antil's voice sounds a bit distant. "It must be nice, to be able to see that many places." A faint noise can be heard in the distance; although the echoes make it indistinct, it sounds like many people singing. Antil doesn't seem to be paying much attention to it, but her ears twitch toward it nonetheless. "Has your bo- um, ship, ever been to..." She frowns, and tries to fit her tongue around the alien syllables. "Drak- Drachumphan?"

"In Drachumve, right? Yes, we go there a few times a year. That's where I got that book I was telling you about."

"I wish we had boats that would go that far over the water. I would like to see it someday." Antil's voice had already been quiet, but now it has gone almost to a whisper. They walk on in silence for a few minutes, Antil not really seeming to see where she's going, until at last she seems to snap back into focus. "Watch here; there are some steps ahead. Be careful not to disturb the singers when we get to the bottom." And, indeed, from the top of a broad set of stairs, one can see an enormous set of doors standing open, with robed individuals singing - almost chanting - in marvelous harmony.

Avana balks slightly. "Steps? That might be a problem." She follows Antil to them, though, and after a wide-eyed pause to take in the music, tests the stairway's central banister and slowly makes her way down.

Antil pauses briefly to watch Avana; it hadn't occurred to her that the child's gait would be unsuited to steps. She slows her own stride to keep pace with Avana, and together they slowly make their way down to the bottom of the stairs. They pass between the lines of singers; the melody seems a very sad one. The singers themselves are evidently moved, some of them visibly misty-eyed. Once they have moved through the doors and beyond the range of likely disturbance, Antil says quietly, "We keep time by the Songs, and we named ourselves after them: the Deep Singers. That one is the Song of Sorrows."

Avana nods, not unmoved herself. "It's beautiful."

"Very... but it is also the hardest of them all for us to listen to. The words are about a time when we were all in much pain. It was long ago, but we have never forgotten..." Antil trails off. Ahead is a much larger chamber, dominated by a very large source of soft light: the Beacon Hall. The floor of the hall is filled with merchants and vending stalls, and the air rustles with the sound of many murmuring voices all speaking at once. At the far end is a very wide, very high tunnel filled with water. "You should have come through here earlier, I think. The harbor is through that tunnel yonder." Antil rouses herself. "Maybe your pet made his way back here. There are all sorts of interesting smells; animals tend to gravitate here."

Avana listens respectfully as Antil talks about her peoples' history, then follows her to the Beacon Hall. "No, I haven't been here before." She looks around, more comfortable in a place with a familiar kind of bustle and purpose. "How do you do your trading?"

"Mostly it's among ourselves." Antil leads Avana around the edge of the hall to avoid plowing through the crowds. "The other Beacons bring wares here by railcar, sometimes boats. The merchants set up stalls and try to get attention. But it's only recently that boats have come from over the water."

Avana looks a little disappointed at the first bit of news, but nods. "What kinds of coins do you use? I collect coins." She pulls a small copper piece from a pouch around her waist and holds it so Antil can see it. "Or do you use something else?"

Antil looks at it curiously. "We have coins, but not quite like that." She fumbles in a side pouch on her pack, and holds up a pair of small squares. One appears to be made of a plain gray stone, while the other is of black stone delicately inlaid with what appears to be steel. "There are coins of higher worth," she explains, "with silver or gold inlay, but usually only the rich have those."

"Oh, I've never seen coins like that before. Most places use metal ones, like this. I'd love to have one for my collection... about how much is that worth? What can you buy with it?" She indicates the plainer one.

"It's a muan. Enough food to prepare one meal, but one already prepared is usually two. A decent piece of clothing. A book, though ours are metal instead of your paper. Maybe a simple ornament or decoration." She hands Avana the plainer one. "You can have this one; I don't spend very much anyway."

Avana looks vaguely surprised at the offer. "Thank you! Hold on a moment..." she rifles through her pouches, eventually producing a simple metal ring with a banded green-and-white stone set in it. "I got this in Kaodiitten, where it's very warm and the people are furry like animals. It's worth about the same as your muan, there. I'd like you to have it."

"Oh! Are you sure?" She takes the ring, looking at it from various angles. "Is that really all this is worth there? It's a beautiful thing."

Avana nods. "Different things cost different amounts in different places, because different things are common everywhere. That's how we can make a living as traders - we buy things in places where they're common and inexpensive, and take them to places where they're rare and expensive, and then when we sell them, the difference is enough to pay everyone and keep the ship in good shape."

"Oh, yes. That's why our traders move around between Beacons... but this would be valuable in any of them. We have many minerals and strong stones, but not so many stones that are beautiful." She holds the ring up to the Beacon-light, and then looks down at Avana. "Did your ship bring goods here?"

Avana nods. "Yep. I'm not sure if the grownups were planning on doing any trading here, though - Lalinyo might just have wanted to see the local market, to check if there was anything interesting, and find out what things might be worth bringing here. They don't usually tell me."

"You might want to let them know that ornamental stones would do well here."

Avana nods, grinning. "I will. So, can we head back to the docks now?"

"Oh, yes." Antil turns in that direction, and blinks. Is that... someone?... flying over the crowd? Various astonished noises start erupting around them. "Or... maybe someone from your ship is already coming for you?"

Avana gasps, and begins bouncing up and down on her tail and flapping her wings as well as she can without endangering anyone nearby. "Teloura! Here I am! Teloura!"

In short order, the larger Zaee lands, and wraps Avana in a hug. "How did you manage to get down here, Avana? I know you know better than to wander into a cave."

"I was looking for Dell and I fell in a hole. Antil Xen helped me." she indicates the human.

Antil bows slightly to Teloura. "It was not any trouble."

Teloura returns the bow. "I'm glad to hear it, Antil Xen. I suspect I owe you a debt in any case, though. Perhaps you can visit me on our ship some night soon, so that I can repay you?" Avana chimes in "And don't forget I want to show you that book."

"Oh. Ah, yes. Certainly!" Antil smiles. "I will see the both of you later."

Teloura nods to Antil, and then turns away, spotting her Beacon Watch entourage approaching through the crowd. "Come on, Avana. Let's go home."

Antil watches them head back toward the harbor. In truth, she had originally planned to have a quiet time in her own chambers... but she suspects that this will be far more interesting.

[Scott Alexander]

I would like to offer as a very late entry to this contest two posts from "The Trial of Eith Korphorin".

In Friday's post, Eith, Ere, and a mid-ranking military officer named Manch enter the Colony and negotiate with Plato to gain passage through the rails for the Drachumvelin refugees. After a non-collaborative portion on Saturday, in today's post, the Drachumvelin ride the rails through the Colony, and encounter several Colonists - some sympathetic, others less so.

Although the writing in both posts is mine, they were written after an exchange of private messages with Fides in which he suggested some of the characters and many of the plot points. I've adapted those and I consider both posts a collaborative effort. I guess it'll be up to the voters to decide whether that's collaborative enough to count for the contest.