Cyanos, Northern Polar Region, The Valleys

Near the colder northern polar region of the planet Cyanos, are the valleys, a crinkled series of mountain valleys and ridges. The weather is more extreme than the main populated city areas near the equator. The nor’ lazy wind that blows from the north is so called because it doesn’t bother to blow around a person – it likes to blow through them. Road access from Aoraki the Capital City is possible for most of the year however during the winter months often the only way in or out is by air.

The nekomi snow leopards live in a small and remote enclave nestled in the valleys. Generally, the snow leopards like to keep mostly to themselves, and even within their own community they prefer to maintain a certain social distance between their immediate neighbours, with a mile or two of road between their cabins.   The valley inhabitants work and income centres primarily around the traditional occupations of farming, logging, milling, mining and plentiful fishing from the numerous streams, rivers and ponds that the valleys offer.  A few merchants also support the local rural industries. 

From time to time the valley snow leopards do come together, usually around the time of the full moon. In keeping with their preference of straight forward, no fuss names for things, their main gathering place is also known simply as the fire circle. The gathering at the fire circle is where community matters are discussed and decided, stories are told and passed on, and freshly caught fish are roasted over the fire.

The evening for the gathering was bright and clear, and a full moon illuminated the surrounding area reflecting off the freshly fallen snow. The fire had been prepared earlier in the day and it was already burning cheerfully as the various valley inhabitants young and old, began to arrive for the evening.

The Fire Circle

Jaak, a young small framed youth of thirteen, was unusual in this community, in that it comprised almost exclusively of nekomi snow leopards. He was not a full nekomi snow leopard, but rather a neko-human who had only recently come to live in the valleys. Jaak was most definitely more used to the modern conveniences that a modern city like Aoraki offered, where he had until quite recently lived all his life – things like – mobile phone coverage, the internet and flush toilets. He had come to live with his father Altai, a full nekomi, following the death of his human mother in a car accident a few weeks before. His parents had divorced when he was young, and he had rarely been to the valleys while growing up.

Jaak’s father Altai, while kind and well meaning, was rather traditional in his outlook on life especially when it came to preserving the traditions and customs of the valley snow leopards and the culture in general. It was no secret that some of his attitudes could be a little inflexible. He had simply chuffed loudly when Jaak had asked him shortly after he arrived, if they could install a satellite dish on their cabin roof so he could access the internet via the – almost but not quite – Cyanos wide Tet-Net. Unfortunately for Jaak, the combination of the extremes of the northern region, and the deep volcanic valleys did not allow sufficient cell coverage without installing a modern and expensive satellite dish. Jaak’s dad did not do modern. Suffice to say, the transition from city to rural life for Jaak had not been without its challenges.

Jaak trudged hesitantly towards the burly lumberjack, through the soft wet snow, the damp seeping in though his basketball boots and immediately chilling his cotton socks; the bottom of his jeans were already quite wet, and he gave a slight shiver.

Jaak looked at Tenzing with a certain degree of skepticism. He rather liked his boots – in fact they were quite expensive ones and he had saved both his birthday and holiday money to buy them. Any kind of footwear was however a rare and rather novel sight in the valleys. Finally, he shrugged, sat on a nearby rock and started to pull them off. His neko-human genetics had indeed granted him large paw like feet, rather than humanoid type feet. In all honesty, in the city amongst his friends, he had been a little embarrassed by them, and it was quite rare if ever for him to go bare-paw or even wear sandals. In fact, the only real thing that gave away his human heritage was his thick mop of grey hair. His tail was certainly floofy enough to pass muster at any game of catch and chew your tail.

Jaak wiggled his toes experimentally and put them on the ground. To his surprise the snow did not feel anywhere as cold as he thought it would and almost as if by some kind of innate instinct, when his paw touched the snow it spread out – indeed just like a snow-shoe. Tenzing looked on and gave an encouraging nod and motioned for him to toss his wet boots in the back of his pickup truck.

The fish had been freshly caught earlier in the day and were in a regular wooden barrel that had been cut in half and had handles made of rope on either side. Together, they managed to heave it off the back of Tenzing’s pickup truck, without major incident and down onto a wooden sled. Then they started to make their way up to the fire circle, Tenzing pulling on sturdy leather straps from the front and Jaak helping to push from the rear to where Miss Asha was busy preparing the evening’s shared dinner feast (and standing guard with certain level of alacrity over her jar of valley famous herb and spice mix).

Tenzing gave a sideways glance towards Jaak and with a slight smirk and roll of his eyes, that said, ‘she’s pretty bossy eh’ they wandered off together over towards the gathering crowd around the fire circle.

As was their custom the evening commenced with the community council – boring stuff really, matters like fishing hole permits and the need to replace some of the logs lining the forest trails. The key to keeping these meetings from going on for too long was the ironclad rule that dinner was never served until council business was done. The enticing smell of fish roasting on hot coals mingled with Miss Asha’s herbs and spices along with her look was indeed enough to hurry along any proceedings and to quell the more loquacious.

Dinner was served, and without the need for a long and boring exposition by anyone trying to bolster the word count in a story – it was by anyone’s standards simply delicious.

Talk around the fire then turned to the telling of stories and tales and the huge steaming kettle of sweet milky tea, was soon being poured into mugs and passed around.

Jaak sighed. The culture. It wasn’t the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last time he had heard those two words since he had arrived. He knew better than to try and convince his father otherwise at this point, the fact that he knew that the Hundel were actually really pretty ordinary kind of people, well…

…except for the fact that they sometimes drink out of toilets and that they don’t really like fish.

Episode 2 – No Service