Drafted a little more of the Patreon story on the plane. My current plan is to get it to a stopping point — maybe 3-4 more scenes? And then decide whether I like it enough to want to write more of it every week for Patreon.
I think, given my general chaotic schedule, that it’s best if I have at least a month or two’s worth of material written in advance, before I start promising to drop new scenes every Sunday or anything like that.
*****
Selah slipped through the open doorway and slid into a chair in the back of the room, thanking every little god that it was a giant lecture hall. Maybe the professor wouldn’t notice her late arrival, among hundreds of other students.
Professor Marwenn turned to face her; glinting golden eyes fixed on her face. “Now, Sera Sorrayah, would you care to give us a short précis on the history of the Varnic recorder consort? Just a few sentences will do.”
He had noticed. How had he even known her name? No time to worry about that now…
Sorrayah felt as if her head were about to explode, but she slowly pushed herself to her feet, feeling her palms stinging as she did. She still hadn’t had a chance to take care of them. Everyone in the room had turned to look at her – humans and humods and aliens all mixed together, all dressed in undergraduate blue, a sea of curious and critical faces. Waiting for her to stumble, to fail. The young man seated beside her had a look of pity on his face; at least they weren’t all out to get her.
But this – this was finally something she had studied, something she knew – Selah had even been to Varna, had attended a concert under glittering peepna trees, dusted with silver pollen trails, carried by Varna’s ever-present winds to the Sundering Sea. When she opened her mouth, at first, she was too dry to speak; terror had sucked all the moisture out of her mouth. But Selah coughed a little, and closed her eyes for just a moment, so that the pages of her textbook might reinscribe themselves on her eyelids. She opened her eyes and began to recite:
“On Varna, the recorder consort, an Old Earth musical tradition, was refined into its most tragic form. Varna suffered through a devastating plague in the third century after its discovery of Jump drive, losing ninety percent of its population in just a few weeks. Many initially blamed recent contact with humans for the spread of the plague, but later research has shown that the disease was native to Varna, and had only been triggered by a recent temperature rise that allowed pathogens to evolve and flourish in Varnese hosts. What humans did bring them was an exchange of musical traditions, and the recorder consort became a treasured element of Varnic mourning rituals. A quartet of musicians, ideally romantically bonded, improvise a series of laments for the fallen friend or family member, playing without food or drink or respite for as long as possible, until they collapse from exhaustion. It is a great honor to be invited to perform the mourning ritual.”
The professor grudgingly nodded. “Fine. Though please refrain from superlatives such as ‘most tragic,’ in the future – none of us knows what this wide universe has in store for us. Using such language tempts fate.”
Selah wanted to protest that she hadn’t been the one to write ‘most tragic’ to begin with, but she bit her lip instead, and sank back into her seat. She’d had a narrow escape already – no need to tempt fate. The professor started lecturing again, and gratefully, Selah woke her tablet and started taking notes.
*****