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#after i finish the book on orcas and then the devourers
fablecore · 9 months
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ahhh i'm so euphoric... and very impressed by how fast you've devoured these books! i'm still at the beginning of braiding sweetgrass and only halfway through metropolis (after spending, like, a year reading it on and off... ah well we slow readers deserve representation too...)
when i finally finish these books, i plan to try paper houses by dominique fortier (tr. rhonda mullins), a semi-nonfiction (?) novel about emily dickinson that reconstructs her life through her letters and writing, and we are bellingcat, which is an autobiography about the eponymous internet detectives.
previous nonfictions i really liked are crying in h mart by michelle zauner (korean food, trauma, grief, love, more korean food), and beyond words by carl safina (elephants, wolves, orcas <3)
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mariashades · 1 year
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An Unusual Family- Gordon
Ao3 link here CW- swearing
It’d only partially been a joke when Jeff had bid his family goodbye and added ‘now don’t be finding any more brothers or sisters or any other family members without me around, okay?’ before he went into quarantine for his trip to Mars. 
He knew his wife and he knew his boys, things just happened around them. Walking Murphy’s Law, the lot of them.
It was with not a little bit of relief that he got back from his two years away to find three sons, one Lucille, one Grandma, one Kyrano and one Tanusha waiting for him. The six months of rehab after Mars was hell, the media storm was worse, and he was very, very glad that they’d been able to line up a little February vacation in New Zealand for them all afterwards. After so long away and being surrounded by doctors, specialists, scientists and the media, some peace, quiet and privacy was needed by all of them to reconnect as a family.
Scott spent the entire plane trip either asleep or smooshed up against the tiny window, fascinated by the sight of the clouds and water far below. Seeing that, Lucille murmured to Jeff that Scott would need flying lessons once he hit puberty- not the little fixed wing that Jeff had been teaching him to fly before he left, flying flying. Meanwhile, John used the time to devour a stack of books on his tablet about Te Reo Māori and Maori mythology and culture, and if he wasn’t eating, Virgil just slept through. Their youngest was having a growth spurt, sleeping and eating was all he did right now. Kyrano and Tanusha also slept for most of the trip- they only just made it to the airport in time after one of Kyrano’s errands took up more time than he’d anticipated.
At last they landed, spending three days in Auckland to get over jet lag and adapt to the switch of seasons- February being in the tail end of summer on this end of the world- before taking a train north to the tiny town of Russell, the first capital city of New Zealand. 
“This is perfect.” Grandma declared to Jeff and Lucille as she finished her inspection of the house that Jeff had booked for their week-long stay- a sprawling beachside villa. While it had been updated and expanded over the years, the original building was almost two centuries old. “You two go have a walk on the beach, I’ll wrangle the kids and get everything unpacked while Kyrano makes dinner.” 
“Kicking us out, Ma?” Jeff teased, but he picked up the cane he still needed and put his shoes back on. 
“Yep, now shoo.” Grandma smiled at Jeff and Lucille. “I don’t want you back for at least an hour, preferably three.” 
“Yes ma’am.” Jeff chuckled, offered his arm to Lucille and the two of them followed the deeply worn path down from the house to the small cove ringed with pōhutukawa trees. The beach was what had secured Jeff’s decision to hire this house. It had golden sand, the calm and sheltered water was a deep blue and tall cliffs on either end gave the air of privacy. 
Arm in arm, they strolled in the warm afternoon air, exploring the beach and talking about everything and nothing as they reconnected as a couple. When Jeff’s legs started to protest the level of use, they picked a spot under one of the wide-spreading trees and laid down in the grass, fingers intertwined and just cuddling each other as they listened to the birdsong, the buzz of cicadas, the lapping of the water and the sigh of the wind. 
They lay like that for at least an hour until an ear piercing shriek split the air. 
Lucille bolted upright, Jeff a split second afterwards, and they both scanned the horizon, searching for the source of the cry of fear. 
“There!” Jeff pointed as a small, pale figure breached the waves, followed by the tall, dark triangle of an orca’s dorsal fin. “What is that, a seal?” He stood up to get a better look, his cane forgotten with the adrenaline rush. 
“I don’t know…” Lucille began. “Seals don’t shriek like that, do they?” 
There was another squeal as the creature split the water again, the orca swinging around to intercept it. 
“I can’t watch…” Lucille turned away, but Jeff suddenly kicked off his shoes. 
“That’s not a seal!” Jeff threw off his shirt and trousers as he ran for the water’s edge, lunging forward to dive into the tide. He popped up once, looking around for the orca, then ducked under the waves again.
“JEFF!” Lucille screamed out his name, wading after him as deep as she dared to go- unlike Jeff, she couldn’t swim. Cold water swirled around her thighs and soaked her cut off jeans  as she searched for her husband, heart in her throat when she realised that he was nowhere to be found. “Please, Jeff, please, love, please be okay, please, please, please be okay…” 
Further out to sea, the orca surfaced again, the tall dorsal fin cutting the waves like a flag as it blew out a breath before diving back underwater. 
Just as she started to lose hope, some distance away Jeff broke the surface with a gasp, something clinging to his back. He swam towards her, and when he got close enough to stand she was able to see the blood staining his shoulders from the claws of the terrified mer-child that was holding onto him with both hands, the long, golden-scaled fish tail wrapped as far around his torso as it would go. “C’mon buddy, let’s get you to Lucille, then you can let go.” Jeff was pale, but he was doing a remarkable job of not betraying an iota of his pain to the mer-child. “Got damn lucky,” he said through gritted teeth as he turned his back to offer her the mer-child. “Orcas usually travel in groups, but this one was alone.” 
“Come here, little one.” Lucille waded over and reached out to take the golden-haired child as soon as Jeff was close enough, the sing-song cadence she used soothing and calm. “There’s a rock pool over there, let’s get you over into the nice rock pool, hm?” 
Jeff hissed as the little claws let go of him and the mer-child flattened their fins, letting Lucille pick them up under the armpits and carefully cradle them in her arms, avoiding the spines of the fins running down their back and forearms. They huddled up close to her chest, wide brown eyes staring at them. 
“Jeff, are you okay?” Lucille freed up a hand and reached out to touch the wounds on Jeff’s shoulders. “No burning or numbness?” she asked. “Mer-folk have venomous claws, I’m not sure if this little one is old enough to control it.” 
“No, nothing like that. I’ll be okay, beautiful.” Jeff winced as salt water dripped off his hair and trickled over the punctures in his skin. “But I’ll be a lot happier out of the water, just in case that orca has some shark buddies around here. What do we do with kiddo here?” 
“Over there.” Lucille nodded to the base of one of the cliffs and started wading towards the beach. “Mer-folk use rock pools as creches, I saw a big, deep one that’ll be perfect. With any luck they’ll come and find little one overnight. At my guess, they’re two years old, that’s the normal age they’ll leave their children in a creche, but usually there’s at least five or six of them, depending on how big the family group is,” she added with a frown.  
“We’re keeping a watch, right? I don’t feel right about leaving someone as little as this kid all alone, mer-folk or not.” Jeff frowned. 
“Of course. The parents will sing us to sleep as soon as they come to get him. Mer-folk are gentle people.” Lucille nodded, then turned her attention to the mer-child. “Little one, do you know how to sing for your family?” she asked gently, getting a solemn nod in return. “Good. Once you’re in the water and the moon’s up, sing for them so they can find you, okay?” 
There was another nod and the mer curiously pawed at the fabric of her shirt, investigating the unusual texture.
A few minutes of walking, then they were at the irregular opening of the rock pool. It spanned at least three metres and was just as deep, with a thick coat of various seaweeds around the sides and bottom. Lucille had just placed the mer-child in the water when Kyrano dashed up, a medical kit in hand, the kids close behind and Grandma bringing up the rear. “Jeff, Lucille, we heard the yelling, what happened?” Kyrano asked, dark eyes first flicking over both of them, then going back to Jeff, standing in soaking wet underwear with blood on his chest. 
The kids had immediately gone to the edge of the tide pool, peering into the depths with astonishment at the mer-child who immediately dove for the bottom, then twisted to peer up at them in equal fascination through the bulbous tendrils of Neptune’s Necklace seaweed. 
Jeff found a seat on a handy rock and explained the situation as Kyrano cleaned and dressed his injuries and Grandma tutted about infection risk, fossicking through the kit to check on her supply of antibiotics.
When the tale was told, with one eyebrow raised, Scott looked between the adults and the rock pool and asked “So…new brother or new sister?”  
“Neither, right now anyway.” Lucille told him. “We’re waiting to see if their family comes for them first. The best place for them is with their people.” 
Even as she said the words, Lucille saw the knowing look that Scott and John exchanged and had a suspicion about what they would find in the morning. 
Sure enough, when Lucille came out at dawn to relieve Kyrano, the mer-child was still in the rock pool, a mournful cast to their features when they realised that their family had not come. Lucille kept her thoughts about why that was private- orcas lived in pods, and rarely hunted on their own. The rest of the pod had probably been busy with the prey they’d already caught. 
When she sat beside the pool, the mer-child pulled themselves out of the water and laid their head in her lap. Tears in her eyes, Lucille put her hand on their back, whispered the words, and fins and scales fell away to reveal a chubby-cheeked two year old boy with golden hair that she wrapped in a beach towel and carried back to the house. 
While Jeff booked another plane ticket for their trip home, Kyrano had the papers for Gordon Cooper Tracy worked up in record time. 
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purrfectly · 3 years
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finished reading Learning to Die in the Anthropocene (or, well, listening to) and it filled me with similar emotions to Parable of the Sower, which I suppose makes sense because they're both about collapse. More importantly they both also connected to why I feel I've been wanting to read more, and older, books
I think our cultural inheritance, our stories, is perhaps the greatest think we've accumulated. This time is amazing because of the access we have to the stories of the world, to tell our own stories, to become together. Its what I think must continue no matter what, our stories. I read the Epic of Gilgamesh and I see humanity just like now. I hope humans will always have that. Anything people can do to ensure stories persist is righteous.
To the you a hundred years from now, from a millennium ago, hello, we are the same and our struggles and our joys and our love and our humanity, and in that connection I think is endless warmth
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