Episode 45
Travelling Light E045S02 Transcript
H.R. Owen
Hello friends, Hero here, with another new podcast for you. Hope's Hearth is a science-fantasy actual play that explores love, friendship, identity, and being gay in space. You can see why I think you'll like it. Check out their trailer at the end of the credits and see the show notes for more info.
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Forty Five.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
1st Dima 850
To the community at Emerraine, who carry the Light.
I have been away from home for 200 days today. It was almost winter when I left Emerraine – or, what passes for winter in our gentle climate. By now, you will be well into the spring.
The melyn flowers will be in bloom, filling the temple forecourt with their heady scent. What little edge that winter ever has will have softened, with the humid heat of summer sitting heavy as a promise on the horizon.
By a stroke of coincidence, it is spring here, too. This region takes winter far more seriously than Emerraine, committing wholeheartedly to the dark and cold. Fortunately, it sets about the business of spring with the same abandon.
It is as if a switch was flipped and the days sprung suddenly open, like a river bursting its banks. It is light well into the evening now, and while there is still a nip in the air, the days feel so much more alive.
This morning, I took my usual trip to the bakery. Sinséar greeted me warmly, as they have since our expedition to see the godhar a few weeks ago, and I realised I have not made as much of their open nature as I should.
Yes, Clanagh has not been everything I had hoped it would be. But I have been too long a victim of my own self-pity. It is time to act, with all the energy of spring.
“Would you like to come to dinner?” I asked, before I could fret myself off the idea. “Or lunch, perhaps? We would love to have you.”
Sinséar grinned, their wide, flour-sprinkled face well-suited to the expression. “Yeah, why not? I'll check with the wife when we're free.”
“Splendid! [laughs] And I shall check with my- Óli. [laughs] Now, um…”
“Two tarts, a dark horha, and a cup of tea?” Sinséar prompted, my usual order already waiting for me where they had set it aside.
Before I left, I asked Sinséar where a person might go for a day out of doors. They told me of a spot up north called Baravhen, and immediately I made plans to spend my day on a little adventure up the coast.
Óli was, of course, very welcome to join me. But they had their first choir practice this evening and, being less extroverted than me, wished to save their energy.
I arrived outside Baravhen a few hours before lunch and made my way down the winding, switchback path from the upper cliffs to the town. I stopped often as I walked. I saw small, gossiping birds in the hedgerows and animals playing at the edge of the fresh-tilled fields. They were dark-furred with six legs and long, pointed ears, moving like water over and around each other.
Finally, I came to Baravhen itself – a snug little town that clings tight to its harbour. The water was thick, velvety green, glittering with sunlight, with a persistent breeze coaxing waves to crash against the harbour sides.
I had brought my sketchbook, and sat for a long while drawing, lost in the act of creating for creation's sake. Finally, at no signal in particular, I felt it time to move.
The path I had taken down the cliffs continued out the other side of town. It took me away from the buildings and the harbour in a slow curve that hugged the shore. As the path rose, I stopped at its apex, enjoying the view of Baravhen like a toy village down below – though the ocean was as vast as ever.
As I looked, I saw a dark shape against the water. I could not tell whether it was above the waves or below. It was moving fast, faster than seemed possible for its size, for it stretched at least two full arm spans in a wide strip of shadow.
It was heading towards the shore from the open ocean. As it drew close, though, it suddenly changed direction, wheeling around in a wide arc to move back out to sea once more. I stared, transfixed, as it repeated the motion.
Then, a new movement caught my eye – an Nroka person coming up the path towards me.
“Excuse me,” I called, drawing its attention. “Could you tell me, please, what that shape is?”
The Nroka came to stand beside me, turning its body to face the direction I was pointing.
“Ah!” it said as the shape came back into sight. “That's a gastor. A bird,” it added, seeing that the name meant nothing to me. “He's out hunting.”
“Hunting?” I said. “Hunting what?”
“Whatever he can catch, I expect. Oh! There he goes!”
True enough, the gastor was rising, drifting into the sky in broad circles. Suddenly, his tail unfurled behind him in a great plume as wide as his wingspan. Then, with a piercing shriek that echoed across the sky, he was gone, wheeling out to sea and out of sight.
I turned to say something to the Nroka, at least to introduce myself – but it had already moved on, off about its business. What a wonder, to live in a universe where such sights can be taken for granted.
I spent the afternoon at one of Sinséar's local recommendations – the Baravhen Museum, which I have written of in the attached archive entry. Then, finally, it was time to head homewards.
It had begun to rain during the afternoon, a persistent drizzle that left me drenched. But as I climbed back up towards the transit stop, I felt lighter than I have in weeks.
I have forgotten of late the reason I set out upon this great adventure. I wished to see the galaxy and all its wonders, however the Light may fall upon them. To come across the world, not to hunt it out. To turn a corner and meet whatever I found there with an open heart. Today, I feel I met that goal and then some.
[The click of a data stick being inserted into a drive that whirs as it reads]
The Traveller
Entry DM85001-1. Recounting a visit to the Baravhen Open Air Historical Experience and Gift Shop.
Key words: arts and crafts, Baravhen, ethnography, Kerrin, local history, museums and galleries, Tarinaí, travel and transport.
Notes:
The Baravhen Open Air Historical Experience and Gift Shop – more commonly known as the Baravhen Museum – consists of a small, enclosed park and a handful of the buildings that line the park's exterior.
With little fanfare, the museum throws its visitors into an imaginative world where present day Baravhen melts seamlessly into the Baravhen of one, five, even eight hundred years ago.
The staff are all got up in historical costume, and interact with the guests in characters as people from various walks of life in Baravhen's history.
I was very entertained to meet a táslabh harvester from the 1st century, and took a photo of her suit to show Sinséar when I returned home. It is remarkable, how little the design has changed over the centuries.
Some of the characters are drawn from real life. I met one young person who was having enormous fun playing a historical land-owner from the previous century, and dropping increasingly unsubtle hints about their future fate.
“Ooh, I am so glad my tenants are so cowardy!" they cried, fluttering themselves with an ornate fan. “It would be such a frightful thing if they were to rise up in protest of my extortionate rents! [giggles] How glad I am to live in a world where my purse is fat, my crimes are unpunished, and my fragile skull is surely immune to blunt force trauma!”
The buildings of the museum were all decorated for a different era of Baravhen history, from the busy prints of the 2nd century to the emphasis on natural colours and daylight in the 4th.
There was more to see outside. I ventured out, though it had started raining by then, and found there my favourite of all the exhibits – a restored antique caravan, known as a tarinakul – or, a wagon of the Tarinaí.
The Tarinaí are, in essence, travelling performers. They were once common all across this region of Kerrin, moving from settlement to settlement, bringing news and entertainment with them.
Anyone might choose to join a troupe, whatever their background. Indeed, running away to join the Tarinaí is often used in fiction and folklore to explore ideas of self-determination, disruption of the status quo, and the creation of one's own fate.
With members from every corner of the continent, troupes often developed their own dialects, grown from the various roots of its members mother tongues. Tarinaí would often move between troupes as well, mixing the dialects of one caravan pack with another.
Over time, this led to the development of a vernacular all its own, called Tarinaiis, with loan-words and grammar from every other language spoken in the region – as well as a few quirks all its own.
The caravan at the museum was set up with a stage before it, and about the stage were the various theatrical masks used to represent different archetypes.
A performer might don the snake mask and immediately be understood as a healer, while the gastor mask is associated with thunder and a hot temper.
Of course, these symbols were not universal. But just as the Tarinaí brought together different patterns of speech, so the plays they performed brought together different regional stories and tropes.
Nowadays, most people would recognise the mask of Shvasto, a stock villain who brings trouble to the hero through overestimating her abilities, making outrageous wagers and otherwise bragging her way into trouble.
However, the Shvasto character is actually based on one of the divine beings in the Shytri people's mythology – a cultural group far to west of Baravhen.
At some point, one or more troupes of Tarinaí chose to incorporate the Shytri's canon into their repertoire. The Shvasto character was then brought to people all over the continent, and eventually evolved into the archetype still known today.
The museum took great pains to emphasise that the Tarinaí still exist today, and shared a directory of upcoming performances by various troupes.
Some are highly traditional, travelling in caravans not dislike the one in the museum and performing the same fables and folktales as their predecessors
Others have updated their practices, and travel by ordinary transit routes, putting on performances of plays contemporary writers and filling their acts with references to current events and popular culture.
Whatever form their practice takes, it must be something, to step into that wide river of historical continuity. To take to the stage in a mask that would have been familiar to people in this region down the generations.
And yet, to know that this is a tradition built on change. That you can bring your own stories, your own language, your own perspectives to this craft and it will find room for you beneath its vast, spreading wings.
[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 a submission by Sophie B. You can see Matt's illustration for the entry on our social media accounts.
If you've got an idea for the archive, we want to hear it. We accept 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.
If you want to support Travelling Light, please consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice. You can also make a one-off donation or sign up for a monthly subscription at ko-fi.com/monstrousproductions.
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This podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The theme tune is by Vinca.
[Fade to silence. Hope's Hearth Trailer begins. Soft, hopeful music consisting of a steady beat, piano, and a low midi tone plays underneath.]
Narrator: [spoken in a US Southern accent] Now I don't claim to be a master storyteller. Quite the opposite honestly. But if you join us around the hearth, you might hear some fantastic tales. Tales of bravery…
Dirk: [serious tone] There is… [pause] an enormous wave of magic. And for just a moment, everything goes still.
Narrator: Tales of kindness…
Izze: And gives the gardener a piece of toast.
Dirk: [giggling]
Izze: [In character, speaking like a small child] You feel better, eat the toast.
Narrator: Tales of loss…
Maleah: [melancholy] No battle should ever be worth the cost.
Narrator: Tales of lives bein' lived…
Will: “You know,” Sophia says to Long John Silver, “Some people say I'm weird.”
Narrator: And tales of creation.
Danielle: [softly] Once upon a time, there was a dog.
[Music ends]
Narrator: Listen to Hope's Hearth, a sci-fantasy solarpunk actual play podcast where friends explore identity, community, and the ways people find strength and love in dire situations. Catch it every Wednesday wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on socials at Hope's Hearth Pod. We hope to see you around the hearth sometime soon.
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