Fic: Peace on Earth
Dec. 11th, 2011 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalMy annual Christmas fic for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaypeta. Many thanks to ankewehner for beta reading.
The webcomic "Terinu" and related stories, images and concepts are copyright Peta Hewitt and used here without permission.
Nan tried to not wince as she drove the electric cart along the rutted dirt path that wound among the trees to the First One's home. Piled in its small cargo bed were a half dozen plastic crates, from the administration village's warehouse, which she'd retrieved on the First One's orders. Her hips and the base of her spine were starting to ache from the exertion of piloting the walking frame clamped around her legs, but that was a much preferable alternative to what she'd been feeling two months ago, which was nothing at all. She was very much not missing Mrs. Catheter and Mr. Colostomy Bag, either, but she didn't mention that bit in polite company.
She pulled the cart to a halt at the base of the wide village tree. It towered a good thirty meters in the air, the First One's tree house nestled about halfway up, just under the spread of the branches. Nan looked up. Unusually, given how the First One normally valued his privacy, there were at least a dozen ferin in various states of dress and undress sitting on the circular porch or in the branches above. Some were eating apples from the First One's orchard out back, others drinking mugs of something or other, while young joeys scrabbled through the branches, laughing and playing.
Nan levered herself out of the cart, the motors of her walking frame humming slightly as she righted herself. Then she stepped onto a concrete disc about a meter wide that was mounted on the ground just outside the circumference of the porch. Nan pressed her foot pad on a metal button mounted on the exact center of the disc, the hairs of her pelt standing on end as the anti-grav field activated and she was wafted upwards, to stop level with the porch. Grabbing hold of the new railing that had been installed at the same time the grav elevator had, she pulled herself out of the field and onto the porch proper, pressing a button mounted on the railing to shut off the field, as soon as she was sure of her footing.
"Sir, I'm here," she called out.
"Knew that already," the First One said, stepping out onto the porch. "And for the umpteenth time, my name is Terinu. Yer allowed to use it, y'know." Grey skinned and long tailed like the rest of the ferin, he was a little taller than his fellows, and dressed very formally indeed in the buttoned up white shirt and black tailcoat of a Noble vulpine's evening wear. In the wet damp of early winter here in the Ferin Autonomous Region it couldn't have been comfortable.
"Yes, si-, er, Terinu," Nan said, stumbling. While she had earned the right to use the First One's childhood name in the same incident that had paralyzed her legs six months ago, she still wasn't used to it by any means.
"Did ya get all the crates?" he asked.
"All six of them. They were pretty light. I didn't need any help with them." As they talked, the other ferin began removing the crates from the back of the cart, leaping up the fifteen meters to the porch to start unloading them. As the first was unlatched and opened, Nan saw bundles of colorful pin lights on long green wires, wrapped neatly around plastic spools. There were six spools with what appeared to be about fifty meters of wire each, enough to easily encircle the branches of the tree several times over. Nan watched as one of the ferin leaped into the tree branches to start stringing them up, while another began to wrap the railing with a second string.
Other boxes were opened, revealing large multicolored balls and glittery plastic stars, which were passed up into the branches to be hung up with much laughter and gentle admonitions to the younger joeys not to play with them. "What's all this, Terinu?" she asked. "Are you redecorating?"
"It's just temporary. I'll be taking them down once the holiday is over," he said.
Nan frowned. "What holiday, sir?"
"Christmas." At her blank look, the First One added, "It's a human holiday, roughly equivalent to Vulpine Solstice celebrations."
"Human holiday," she repeated. "Why would you bother with that?" Though he had been raised by Lady Melika in the traditions of the Holy Den Mother, and very occasionally swore by her, the First One was a professed atheist. Given the nature of what the ferin could point to as their creator, Nan couldn't very well blame him for that. And considering what humanity had done to the ferin six hundred years ago, it was equally confusing why he'd give a human holiday the time of day, much less celebrate it.
"It's not for me," he answered finally, giving her a familiar "Figure it out, College Vix" expression.
"Oh," she finally realized. Nan cleared her throat. "He's actually coming here?"
"No, the trip is too long for him these days. But this is the next best thing." He gestured towards the tree house door. "Grab yourself a cup of cheer and some snacks. It's gonna be a while yet before everything is ready."
"Yes, sir." Nan headed inside and poured herself a cup of something that seemed to consist of a blend of milk, eggs and a bit of brandy from a punch bowl in the kitchen. She took it back to the porch along with a napkin filled with chocolate coated pretzels, munching on them as another cart arrived and a team of ferin from the village comm facility began setting up a portable holographic projection rig. Another team set up a camera in a position that would show off the brightly decorated village tree to good effect.
As the afternoon turned towards evening, the reddish sun disappearing below the tress, more and more ferin began arriving. Some of them were stark naked, some wore bright and colorful party clothing, or at least had braided their hair with beads of glass or precious minerals. Many were sporting odd peaked caps, made of cheap red felt and trimmed with white artificial fur, topped by a white pom-pom. Nan gave a wave and a greeting to the ones she recognized. Most were residents of the administration village, though many appeared to be arboreal ferin from the deeper parts of the Region's jungles. By the time the sun had set there had to be at least two hundred of them, and Nan found herself busy re-stocking the snack table as they trooped in and out of the tree house.
Terinu had kept himself busy supervising the setting up of the holography gear. Once everything was in order to his satisfaction, he put his fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle. "Listen up!" he called out. "We're ten minutes to air, so everybody get down from the trees and get in position! You know the drill!" The other ferin started hopping down from the branches of the tree and the porch, gathering into ten rows of twenty in front of the camera rig.
"You too, Nan!" Terinu called up to her, so she took the grav elevator back down to the ground to stand beside the camera crew, out of the shot.
In the gathering darkness the director of photography asked, "Five minutes to broadcast, First One. Shall we turn the lights on?" At Terinu's nod, the director touched a button on a remote and the lights wrapped around the tree and his house came alive with all the colors of the rainbow, sparkling off the decorative balls and stars, giving it a Faerieland appearance. There was a general round of Ohhhhhh! from the other ferin, before a look from the First One shushed them. Then the director began to count down, "Establishing synchronization in five, four, three..." He counted off the last two digits silently with his fingers.
At zero, there was a shimmer in the projection field. In the center of the field Nan saw the bedridden figure of Terinu's oldest human friend, Matthew Townsend. The nearly one hundred and twenty year old man was propped up by several pillows, and even through the slight distortion of the field Nan could see he looked considerably worse than the first time she had spoken to him over six months ago, his skin translucent and his face gaunt as he fought the ravages of age. Nevertheless he gave Terinu a bright smile, echoed by several other people visible in the field, presumably relatives. "Hey, Ter! Merry Christmas," he wheezed, raising his hand weakly in a wave.
"Hey, Matt," Terinu called back, smiling broadly. He didn't ask how Townsend was doing. There wasn't any real need to, and Nan suspected it would break the bubble of cheer that Terinu was trying his damnedest to project. "Everybody there?"
A woman, perhaps seventy or so years old, waved at him. "Merry Christmas, Uncle Teri!" she called. "We're all here. The tree looks terrific this year."
"Thanks," Terinu said, then turned around briefly to address the ferin waiting patiently. He cleared his throat and said, "Most of you know this story, but some of you joeys and perhaps the wanderers from forest don't, so I'll tell it again. The first mother I ever knew was a vulpine woman named Melika Softpaw. She raised me from the time I was two years old, until I was taken away from her around age eight by the pirate Mavra Chan, a human." There was a general hiss from the crowd at the mention of the evil pirate, but Terinu quieted it with a raised hand. "She was a bad human, no doubt. But there was another human aboard Mavra Chan's ship, a child slave like myself. That child was Matthew Townsend, the man sitting in front of you right now. If he had not been aboard the Celestial Marauder, had not protected me, fed me, been my friend, I would have either starved to death or gone insane."
Terinu drew in a breath. "We've been given many reasons to hate the other races of the galaxy, the humans most of all. But though many of them see us as nothing more than animals, many do not. Matthew and his family are among them, as are the humans in the Ferin Rescue Society, or others working more quietly to free our brothers and sisters from bondage on the worlds outside of Vulpine space. If we paint them all with the same brush, we're as guilty of prejudice as the ones who oppress us."
"Almost three thousand years ago, back on the human homeworld, there was a man born who I think would have also been our friend. He preached a message of love, of peace and of tolerance. On Earth this day, Christmas Day, is named in celebration of his birth. It's a day for spending time with family and trying to be more generous and understanding. Gifts are given and good food and drink are consumed." Terinu smiled slightly. "Well, I can't give Matthew anything material that he doesn't already have, and I don't think his doctors would let him have a beer, but I can at least give him one thing. It's the gift that the old Gene Mage gave all of us ferin, the ability to make music and song." He turned around to face Townsend and his family. "So from me and my family, to you and yours, Matt. As we have every year since the Ferin Reserve was created. We sing for you."
The Terinu and the two hundred ferin behind him drew in their breath and sang, Hark, the herald angels sing/Glory to the newborn king!
After the song ended, then ferin chorus switched off to another about a king named Wenceslas, then to a brighter tune about traveling through snow in a sled, and several more after that. Nan could only marvel as she listened. This very private concert was something that any vulpine would have given a month's pay to hear, and no one outside of Vulpine space would likely hear at all. Ferin did not sing when they were not free, unless ordered. To sing freely to a human, for the First One himself to sing, was a gift beyond price. Matthew Townsend must have known it too, for he was openly weeping, along with many of his family, as Terinu led the ferin chorus through one last, haunting song.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
As the last line echoed through the trees, Terinu stepped forward, raising his hand to meet Townsend's insubstantial one, as close to a touch as they could ever manage now. "Merry Christmas, Matt. I'll see you next year, I promise."
Matthew's smile was wintry. "Goodbye, Teri." Then he and his family faded away, and Terinu was left alone.
As the assembled ferin faded back into the trees or slipped into the tree house to grab one last snack, Terinu stood apart, staring at the blank space where Townsend had appeared. Nan approached him, the motors of her walking frame whirring, to cautiously ask, "Is there something you'd like me to do, Terinu?"
"Not right now," he replied absently, not looking at her. Nan pretended not to see the redness in his eyes.
For a moment she was at a loss as to what to say next, then finally ventured, "This human you sang about, he must have been a very good man indeed."
"Yeah, he was. At least that's what Matt said, and Matt never lied to me."
The End
chaypeta. Many thanks to ankewehner for beta reading.The webcomic "Terinu" and related stories, images and concepts are copyright Peta Hewitt and used here without permission.
Nan tried to not wince as she drove the electric cart along the rutted dirt path that wound among the trees to the First One's home. Piled in its small cargo bed were a half dozen plastic crates, from the administration village's warehouse, which she'd retrieved on the First One's orders. Her hips and the base of her spine were starting to ache from the exertion of piloting the walking frame clamped around her legs, but that was a much preferable alternative to what she'd been feeling two months ago, which was nothing at all. She was very much not missing Mrs. Catheter and Mr. Colostomy Bag, either, but she didn't mention that bit in polite company.
She pulled the cart to a halt at the base of the wide village tree. It towered a good thirty meters in the air, the First One's tree house nestled about halfway up, just under the spread of the branches. Nan looked up. Unusually, given how the First One normally valued his privacy, there were at least a dozen ferin in various states of dress and undress sitting on the circular porch or in the branches above. Some were eating apples from the First One's orchard out back, others drinking mugs of something or other, while young joeys scrabbled through the branches, laughing and playing.
Nan levered herself out of the cart, the motors of her walking frame humming slightly as she righted herself. Then she stepped onto a concrete disc about a meter wide that was mounted on the ground just outside the circumference of the porch. Nan pressed her foot pad on a metal button mounted on the exact center of the disc, the hairs of her pelt standing on end as the anti-grav field activated and she was wafted upwards, to stop level with the porch. Grabbing hold of the new railing that had been installed at the same time the grav elevator had, she pulled herself out of the field and onto the porch proper, pressing a button mounted on the railing to shut off the field, as soon as she was sure of her footing.
"Sir, I'm here," she called out.
"Knew that already," the First One said, stepping out onto the porch. "And for the umpteenth time, my name is Terinu. Yer allowed to use it, y'know." Grey skinned and long tailed like the rest of the ferin, he was a little taller than his fellows, and dressed very formally indeed in the buttoned up white shirt and black tailcoat of a Noble vulpine's evening wear. In the wet damp of early winter here in the Ferin Autonomous Region it couldn't have been comfortable.
"Yes, si-, er, Terinu," Nan said, stumbling. While she had earned the right to use the First One's childhood name in the same incident that had paralyzed her legs six months ago, she still wasn't used to it by any means.
"Did ya get all the crates?" he asked.
"All six of them. They were pretty light. I didn't need any help with them." As they talked, the other ferin began removing the crates from the back of the cart, leaping up the fifteen meters to the porch to start unloading them. As the first was unlatched and opened, Nan saw bundles of colorful pin lights on long green wires, wrapped neatly around plastic spools. There were six spools with what appeared to be about fifty meters of wire each, enough to easily encircle the branches of the tree several times over. Nan watched as one of the ferin leaped into the tree branches to start stringing them up, while another began to wrap the railing with a second string.
Other boxes were opened, revealing large multicolored balls and glittery plastic stars, which were passed up into the branches to be hung up with much laughter and gentle admonitions to the younger joeys not to play with them. "What's all this, Terinu?" she asked. "Are you redecorating?"
"It's just temporary. I'll be taking them down once the holiday is over," he said.
Nan frowned. "What holiday, sir?"
"Christmas." At her blank look, the First One added, "It's a human holiday, roughly equivalent to Vulpine Solstice celebrations."
"Human holiday," she repeated. "Why would you bother with that?" Though he had been raised by Lady Melika in the traditions of the Holy Den Mother, and very occasionally swore by her, the First One was a professed atheist. Given the nature of what the ferin could point to as their creator, Nan couldn't very well blame him for that. And considering what humanity had done to the ferin six hundred years ago, it was equally confusing why he'd give a human holiday the time of day, much less celebrate it.
"It's not for me," he answered finally, giving her a familiar "Figure it out, College Vix" expression.
"Oh," she finally realized. Nan cleared her throat. "He's actually coming here?"
"No, the trip is too long for him these days. But this is the next best thing." He gestured towards the tree house door. "Grab yourself a cup of cheer and some snacks. It's gonna be a while yet before everything is ready."
"Yes, sir." Nan headed inside and poured herself a cup of something that seemed to consist of a blend of milk, eggs and a bit of brandy from a punch bowl in the kitchen. She took it back to the porch along with a napkin filled with chocolate coated pretzels, munching on them as another cart arrived and a team of ferin from the village comm facility began setting up a portable holographic projection rig. Another team set up a camera in a position that would show off the brightly decorated village tree to good effect.
As the afternoon turned towards evening, the reddish sun disappearing below the tress, more and more ferin began arriving. Some of them were stark naked, some wore bright and colorful party clothing, or at least had braided their hair with beads of glass or precious minerals. Many were sporting odd peaked caps, made of cheap red felt and trimmed with white artificial fur, topped by a white pom-pom. Nan gave a wave and a greeting to the ones she recognized. Most were residents of the administration village, though many appeared to be arboreal ferin from the deeper parts of the Region's jungles. By the time the sun had set there had to be at least two hundred of them, and Nan found herself busy re-stocking the snack table as they trooped in and out of the tree house.
Terinu had kept himself busy supervising the setting up of the holography gear. Once everything was in order to his satisfaction, he put his fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle. "Listen up!" he called out. "We're ten minutes to air, so everybody get down from the trees and get in position! You know the drill!" The other ferin started hopping down from the branches of the tree and the porch, gathering into ten rows of twenty in front of the camera rig.
"You too, Nan!" Terinu called up to her, so she took the grav elevator back down to the ground to stand beside the camera crew, out of the shot.
In the gathering darkness the director of photography asked, "Five minutes to broadcast, First One. Shall we turn the lights on?" At Terinu's nod, the director touched a button on a remote and the lights wrapped around the tree and his house came alive with all the colors of the rainbow, sparkling off the decorative balls and stars, giving it a Faerieland appearance. There was a general round of Ohhhhhh! from the other ferin, before a look from the First One shushed them. Then the director began to count down, "Establishing synchronization in five, four, three..." He counted off the last two digits silently with his fingers.
At zero, there was a shimmer in the projection field. In the center of the field Nan saw the bedridden figure of Terinu's oldest human friend, Matthew Townsend. The nearly one hundred and twenty year old man was propped up by several pillows, and even through the slight distortion of the field Nan could see he looked considerably worse than the first time she had spoken to him over six months ago, his skin translucent and his face gaunt as he fought the ravages of age. Nevertheless he gave Terinu a bright smile, echoed by several other people visible in the field, presumably relatives. "Hey, Ter! Merry Christmas," he wheezed, raising his hand weakly in a wave.
"Hey, Matt," Terinu called back, smiling broadly. He didn't ask how Townsend was doing. There wasn't any real need to, and Nan suspected it would break the bubble of cheer that Terinu was trying his damnedest to project. "Everybody there?"
A woman, perhaps seventy or so years old, waved at him. "Merry Christmas, Uncle Teri!" she called. "We're all here. The tree looks terrific this year."
"Thanks," Terinu said, then turned around briefly to address the ferin waiting patiently. He cleared his throat and said, "Most of you know this story, but some of you joeys and perhaps the wanderers from forest don't, so I'll tell it again. The first mother I ever knew was a vulpine woman named Melika Softpaw. She raised me from the time I was two years old, until I was taken away from her around age eight by the pirate Mavra Chan, a human." There was a general hiss from the crowd at the mention of the evil pirate, but Terinu quieted it with a raised hand. "She was a bad human, no doubt. But there was another human aboard Mavra Chan's ship, a child slave like myself. That child was Matthew Townsend, the man sitting in front of you right now. If he had not been aboard the Celestial Marauder, had not protected me, fed me, been my friend, I would have either starved to death or gone insane."
Terinu drew in a breath. "We've been given many reasons to hate the other races of the galaxy, the humans most of all. But though many of them see us as nothing more than animals, many do not. Matthew and his family are among them, as are the humans in the Ferin Rescue Society, or others working more quietly to free our brothers and sisters from bondage on the worlds outside of Vulpine space. If we paint them all with the same brush, we're as guilty of prejudice as the ones who oppress us."
"Almost three thousand years ago, back on the human homeworld, there was a man born who I think would have also been our friend. He preached a message of love, of peace and of tolerance. On Earth this day, Christmas Day, is named in celebration of his birth. It's a day for spending time with family and trying to be more generous and understanding. Gifts are given and good food and drink are consumed." Terinu smiled slightly. "Well, I can't give Matthew anything material that he doesn't already have, and I don't think his doctors would let him have a beer, but I can at least give him one thing. It's the gift that the old Gene Mage gave all of us ferin, the ability to make music and song." He turned around to face Townsend and his family. "So from me and my family, to you and yours, Matt. As we have every year since the Ferin Reserve was created. We sing for you."
The Terinu and the two hundred ferin behind him drew in their breath and sang, Hark, the herald angels sing/Glory to the newborn king!
After the song ended, then ferin chorus switched off to another about a king named Wenceslas, then to a brighter tune about traveling through snow in a sled, and several more after that. Nan could only marvel as she listened. This very private concert was something that any vulpine would have given a month's pay to hear, and no one outside of Vulpine space would likely hear at all. Ferin did not sing when they were not free, unless ordered. To sing freely to a human, for the First One himself to sing, was a gift beyond price. Matthew Townsend must have known it too, for he was openly weeping, along with many of his family, as Terinu led the ferin chorus through one last, haunting song.
And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give us a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
As the last line echoed through the trees, Terinu stepped forward, raising his hand to meet Townsend's insubstantial one, as close to a touch as they could ever manage now. "Merry Christmas, Matt. I'll see you next year, I promise."
Matthew's smile was wintry. "Goodbye, Teri." Then he and his family faded away, and Terinu was left alone.
As the assembled ferin faded back into the trees or slipped into the tree house to grab one last snack, Terinu stood apart, staring at the blank space where Townsend had appeared. Nan approached him, the motors of her walking frame whirring, to cautiously ask, "Is there something you'd like me to do, Terinu?"
"Not right now," he replied absently, not looking at her. Nan pretended not to see the redness in his eyes.
For a moment she was at a loss as to what to say next, then finally ventured, "This human you sang about, he must have been a very good man indeed."
"Yeah, he was. At least that's what Matt said, and Matt never lied to me."
The End
