Finally!

Pylo was so tired of going through one step of drudgery after another.

But the initial rigmarole was finished. Now came the final step before the proper opening ceremony would be engaged and she could finish sculpting the payload for The People’s Tradition.

She was skewing herself a bit with it all, the opening greeting was barely begun and yet she had been grinding through the repetitious terminally boring status displays and little posturings and tunings. If they were not actually people she could have drifted serenely through the whole exchange completely unaware.

Just executing a simple and elegant little perturbation of the cultural experience and then inoculating and correcting a few drifts. Basic hygiene for the people and everything would be simple.

But that was a paradoxical absurdity and vapidly empty.

The People’s Tradition could not exist without the people. And Pylo could not engage with it without honestly and directly engaging with them. Individually and in their multitudes.

As a figure and person herself.

As both a stimulus vector, an intrusive memetic payload and in her workings minute and broad a comparable structure as well.

It felt boring to be so slow and grating on and on as they approached.

It was barely an instant to be on the brink of a whispered friendly greeting.

All of it was skewing her as the necessary temporal textures filled into each other and built off of each other.

And then there was the periodic punctuation of the discussions she was having with the Terrans. The ongoing thread of back translating near thoughtlessly the results of the ceremonies so far.

So many things though were culminating here and now at this moment though.

The reveal!

The smothering pooling fluids and the trembling vibrations of actual auditory language and music.

It was slow going but the seals had been finished, the great cocoon was finished and as she engaged now with the elders, the core that stood as a pivot and focus to reflect and reveal their nature in all the people.

The thick hugging smothering pressure would finish saturating her every crevice. Honestly if not for the Terran’s habitat this would be the first time she got this squeezed and scummy with the sizzle of oxygen since the stop at their home polity.

But here it was, the contests were over.

The music died down.

“Ho-eh Elders, Long since we spoke. I am gladened that I see no new faces and no missing amongst you since last. It is good you have fared well between since our parting.”

In stages they moved. It was as they always had moved and also was a cover for preparations performed by the people.

A cover for the transition from one set of instruments tuned to long light and the languages of void to another that would carry in the fluid of the arrival tent’s newly built atmosphere.

The Elders acknowledged her and took up their preordained places.

Doreidorefa was the veteran of the elders of this council in experience with Pylo and age. Having been there for seven of Pylo’s visits.

Although this would be the third consecutive time she had been awake for the exchange.

The keepers of the deepest wisdom of the order of pathwrights. Those that reinforced tradition’s foundations.

A counter part of the significantly younger Feireilatala, Elder of Sacred Heretics, those that thought what others were forbidden and shaped new orders into being.

There had been two who held her position before Doreidorefa ascended to it. One lost to plague and another to a misstep with the alliance to their host tree.

Then there was Lafasoreitirei who was something of an anomaly, there were hardly enough disciples of this elder to warrant the naming of an order. Yet they had a seat in this council.

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Their work was a paradox of being far too rarely applicable and yet too important and vital to set aside in storage. They spoke to those beasts which could speak, those wanderers that were from beyond the hollow, the trees which thought in ages to life times and the tidings and messages of long past missives from afar.

The small knit band of students and apprentices was tiny as a result, pulled from likely candidates in all the others and nominally unimportant and un-needed in the lives of the people or the functioning of most of the orders.

But either Lafasoreitirei or one holding her place in the council was always here to greet Pylo and arrange the ritual of Exchange.

To speak for the people and the Council.

Lafasoreitirei extended a hand to Doreidorefa and Pylo watched the passing of and confirming of the limb song between them. The encapsulating and reaffirming of the old ways via the Veteran to the speaker.

“Pylo Daughter of the Mother Courtesan. Kin to she now unknown who did bring us the first rights of our order and gave us the seed of the Mother Courtesan.”

Pylo was very tempted to omit most of this from the terrans but that would be wrong on so many levels and it’s not like she could avoid revealing her family’s esteem here for the whole trip.

Oh she also probably already messed up any of that anyway when she was doing the requisite dueling.

Yeah she probably had.

She watched how Lafasoreitirei performed the role of a siren admirably in conveying the essence of the preserved passages of greeting.

“Who forged the compact of the people here amidst the boughs of the Doreimeefasolati. Securing us with its own alliance that it may punish and protect us all.”

Pylo gaped in agreement, a bit of a reaffirming of their own stakes in the hidden origins and knowledge of the people, clarifying and reinforcing the truth that Pylo had hinted and suggested on her approach to quell and overwhelm her ‘adversaries’.

“We welcome you back to our place, the home of the people and declare the great exchange begun.”

The other elders, many of them that Pylo had never seen but once before, and a few of those several visits earlier than her last took up their posture. They did not wield the metal peripherals of most of the people. They used other artifice to move in the weft of the cocoon. Later they would be swimming through the comparatively thick fluid that was filling up the space.

But for now it was a magic of a primitive sort. All played into cementing their mastery of hidden arts beyond the ken of their lessers.

"So we do come together to trade and grow. To enrich and know, To become and prosper!"

Ah at last!

Now it was Pylo’s turn, she mustered the packet, and spread her voice out, it echoed and flowed to every single being in attendance. Ringing her message and dealings to all so that Tradition could fully know her.

“First of trade is this!”

She sang the words among their languages, in the limb song of closest contact, in the open song as cast by void, in the fluid song of creches and youngling teachings.

In the song and words of lovers nestled together in a cocoon of air and of parents humming to the children nestled in their throats.

In every language of the People she spoke.

“I bring you fine and fresh new magic, extract of an ancient beast afar. honed for the storage of knowledge and spirits.”

Schemata were provided to the Elders most closely tied to manufacturing but the deepest specifications were for Feireilatala so that the necessary work of divining a fresh tradition to work the raw material could be done.

“Carved and used crudely by those that harvested it before.”

A few inclinations to draw attention to the terrans to indicate.

“Potential for the working innumerable, a wonder for the people to know. Seeds of an entire minor order, For mastery I am confident you will sow.”

The terrans (Quarti and Omega in Particular) made a lot of noise about that but Pylo huffed several assurances more privately to them so.

She was well aware of which stores she had acquired for her own trade and which were marked for delivery to their destination. Really she was a trader of nominally good standing with her peers!

That drew several of the Elder’s interest but they did not inquire to Pylo on that yet.

A gesture from The Eldest of Sacred Heretics brushed against the Speaker and Lafasoreitirei intoned.

“Just so? Just so. New magic is welcome among the people, for you can never know when a fresh spear or wonder will serve to counter or calm the beasts and trees. The Elder Feireilatala accepts the challenge of this new magic. On your next visit we will discuss whether it forged wonders worthy of us.”

The jab was friendly and Pylo replied with a sharp bark of laughter. It was interesting how there was such a close expression for Terran and the words of the People.

“I expect then that Feireilatala will be long since asleep by then, having mastered the newest traditions. Such is the skill of the Sacred Heretics.”

There was noncommittal eye contact from the elders before as a unified front every elder withdrew and contracted their necks and limbs to show they were ready to lunge into the next item.

“I have also procured the words, songs and stories of all in my travels.”

The highest ranking orders of the council showed only the minimum required interest for decorem. But Pylo could feel the boring interest from those that had followed her in the procession at her dorsal sides.

“To be sung to the relevant orders at your direction. Tales of beasts, tales of love, tales of craft and tales of woe.”

Waves of more interest of all kinds flowing and bubbling in the lesser Elders and masters.

“I promise and swear as in the past I have sifted and supped every curse and vengeful spirit from these words and they are clean and safe for your knowing.”

That brought eager looking gapes of ascent from the elders. Eyes opening wide in covetous want and then closing in serenity and comfort. Calm and assurance that they trusted her ascent. However Pylo knew that was all for show to those watching and to no belittle the efforts and needs of the less central orders.

Pylo too mirrored them, friendly gape and then gentle measures of expressing her comfort and assurance that they were not foe or predator.

There would likely be among them those that she would never see again, and others she would meet with or at least be passed on as a tale to their replacements.

Lafasoreitirei spoke up, her words and the expansively coiling braids behind each eye looping and coiling in a manner that Pylo had noticed seemed vaguely inspired by her own posturing many visits past.

The lineage of the practice mirroring her.

Tradition was being coy and silly again.

“Are there new items of trade for the People unknown and unspoken of before in any legend or lore?”

Pylo swayed her head in the officious partial commitment of truth on t echnicallity.

“It is such that there are no further goods unknown, but there are yet matters of exchange after.”

The speaker gaped ascent and agreement and curiosity and consideration flowed in the people and the elders all. She had not had unprecedented business of this nature with them before.

“So we move on to the matters known and solid.”

The elders all shifted and arranged themselves, brushing fingers and hands against Lafasoreitirei to speak their measure and position.

It was mostly for show, the Council had discussed this at length consistently and were ever hearing complaints and open quests and statements of loss from all the other orders.

But to show that even here and now the council convened for the sake of the people was necessary. A punctuation of tradition showing that the ways of the people were always followed by those at its heart.

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“you have the sacred metals? Which are sparse and empty of all but the most terribly guarded hearts of the beasts of the forest? Or the forbidden cores of the trees? To what degree have you brought us such precious gifts?”

Pylo gaped ascent, it was not strictly speaking the best mass to profit ratio cargo, as there were only a few ports like this one that the dross was worth anything close to Interstellar rates.

But the local ecology around here sucked up and guarded every scrap of the elements involved for use in their own metabolisms.

Which meant that beyond risking terrible retaliation it was all but impossible to get anything but specks of the stuff locally.

The people actually referred to almost a dozen different elements as Sacred metals, but in the latest haul she only had three of them in any bulk and most of that was alloyed or aggregated with less valuable things.

But still in a form that the people could use their own means to extract and refine it to what they needed.

Equally the metal was a vital ingredient in many of the very same crafts she was going to be procuring here.

So it was not strictly speaking unprofitable either, and they always threw the necessary feeding to absolve Tunie’s expenses in sweeping through here.

Which helped considerably.

“I have filled a store of Tunie’s hold with the sacred metals, they are in many raw forms diverse but hold all the forbidden forms and will forge well if purified.”

Lafasoreitirei whose path and mastery was that of dealings between the caravans and great hunting flights that sometimes entered from beyond the local hollow gaped ascent and agreement.

“And of the knowing stones? The deep magics which even strain your great mastery and riddles? We are running sparse on all of them, but most deeply do the orders of Boring of the far tree of Kahrkauloindi wish for the stones of Igni, Soli, and Veritanin.”

Pylo slapped her maw apart and flapped her tongue once sharply. Negation and then a solemn apologetic clench down her body.

The flap of understood and acknowledged negation mirrored her.

“While I have some of many. But not all, with remorse I say that I lack any known to the people as Igni, Soli or Veritanin.”

A brushing of hands across all the elders, sending words of the limb song in cycles and loops through the entire council. This was not for show, a disruption from hoped for prediction.

After the flurry of motion Lafasoreitirei took position again.

The speaker intoned with the grave proclamation.

“It is with Remorse then that all people and masters who work Kahrkauloindi will be recalled and retired until such time as you can bring the stones. We must set what remains of the magics into reserve and have their elders entombed to secure the knowledge of their working for the future.”

Then the call went out and other speakers echoed the tone. The message was carried out beyond the tent to those that could not attend.

“The Borers, Canopy Hunters, Delvers, Bark Cleavers, Trackers, Wood Forgers and Watchers of the star who lived by the Leaf of Kahrkauloindi shall halt all training. Shall cease all breeding and call their kin and kind home for the feasts of mourning and remembrance.”

There was pain and a sense of betrayal and despair among the announced lesser orders. There were waves of dismay in the people of those groups. The livelihoods and futures snuffed out.

Pylo focused on the dealings before her and tried to ignore the whispering words. She knew they would not unduly suffer.

Those that could be apprenticed in other paths would be reduced.

Those that were learned enough to hold secret knowledge would be sent to the tombs.

Those that could not serve as either were to diminish in serviceless obscurity until natural death.

The meetings continued

“Do you have the seeds to enrich our beasts? The far distant and foreign stock to bring them great resilience to our devourers? Our wyrms? Our threshers and carvers?”

Pylo gaped ascent and flexed in delight. This was always an easy deal, practically free clout with the People.

“I have tasted the variance of many beasts and know their flesh. I will be able to enrich and foster fresher and better lines in your stocks. As it has been.”

The speaker bowed and intoned.

“So it shall be.”

It was a given she could always trade this, Pylo was a Siren after all.

But still needed to be said, it helped the drift of genetic lines in the people’s various animals. And it always boosted things nicely whenever she could not get a port to manufacture the necessary trinkets for the People in her route.

Lafasoreitirei considered carefully then drew back into the furled spiraling nest of her own braids.

Forward came an eldest of war and the grandest of hunts, who saw to the guardianship against the beasts and the awakening of flights and great motions against the enemies and parasites of themselves and the grove that only tolerated the people’s presence for their compliance in such.

Again Pylo had only ever seen this elder once before. But that had been several visits ago.

There was a single slap against the cheek of the speakers’s cheek. A sharp curt and compact digest that they nodded and then sang forth. The words were now flowing lightly in the tinny rarified fluids of the inner atmosphere.

“Now it is time for you to tell us of the curses you have learned oh Pylo, Daughter of the Mother Courtesan, Legend and terrible slayer with words. Who once was called the foulest of beings among the people. Terrible and Beautiful as the branches of Doreimeefasolati itself.”

That was one of the issues with Tradition always tweaking the narrative of how Pylo would be received. Sometimes it swayed an elder here or there to a particular mindset.

Then again that was kind of the point.

“Tell us what curses of slaying you have brought in word and thought, what weapons of flesh and plagues of malice you burden your mouth full with the terrible spawn of war with? What enemies can you slay with the diseases of your breath?”

The Eldest of war snapped sharply without the softness of ascent. But the speaker softened it to something more beseeching.

“What fruits of doom do you bring us?”

Pylo spoke only to the speaker, her voice muffled and silent, she even held back from the words even reaching the terrans. The silence was stifling.

She told them of the many ways she had learned to kill a polity and a people with rumor and thought alone. How to wound the fabric of tradition, how to lacerate the bonds of the people.

And even then she held back from all the secrets, she left metaphor and placeholder for even more terrible dangers that only the most tightly trained minds of a specialist guild or sisterhood could ever hope to contain without becoming the very poison they sought to understand.

There would be another longer council with specific and selected orders to finish bestowing these payloads.

Held in a place secure from the eyes of the people.

“Truly you are the bringer of terrible wroth and madness oh Pylo daughter of Courtesan.”

There was a solemn silence for all to consider which the Terrans asked questions in but no one paid them attention so it was not insulting. Much.

Then after that pause they continued.

“Do you bring with you the cargo of shimmer spore and hold room for the matured adults ready and waiting?”

Pylo gaped happily and waggled her head as if eager to snap up more morsels.

“Yes! And ready to take on a full harvest, how many have come to the people ripe and ready to be ferried?”

The speaker bowed and disappointingly informed Pylo that only half of the better yields seemed to be forthcoming this visit.

A pity but the payout to the right buyer was well worth the mass. Even if she had to haul the adult’s spores all the way back to the People to keep the exchanges going.

And so it continued, each of the eldest brushing, slapping or gently pressing their own concerns to the speaker.

Lafasoreitirei honed and softened the words even though Pylo knew the eldest knew she could read every one of their requests made before her. It was a kind of theater for them all. A performance for the betterment of the audience.

The deals could have all been exchanged before she arrived.

Technically quite a few of them already had.

But the Festival and via it Tradition needed this.

Pylo dealt and parceled the favor of the people and the fruits of their labor for all to see. The treats and tricks and little wonders that were mere trash elsewhere and were priceless treasures here.

The equally mundane to them crafts of the people that when handed off to even the most esteemed of urban polity would be all but priceless raw materials or art-matter.

And then as they finished treading over the familiar and expected Pylo came to the last item of discussion for the Exchange before they could finally be done with this step of the whole process.

“And there is one other matter that I can offer the People, though it is of no obligation to them to take on this exchange. It is of no mere good or matter to be parceled like metal or seed.”

Lafasoreitirei took the position and gaped ascent for Pylo to continue. The rest of the council prepared to engage her if it was involved in their own masteries.

“Tunie now carries a hold of living people from beyond the forest, who seek asylum and lives among those along my journeys. If the people so wish to take them on they are clever in mind and thought and well ordered to deep wisdom and memory.”

The council considered that striking one another, running grazing digits along each other’s flanks and limbs. Wrestling the discussion between them.

At last a consensus of sorts was made.

Lafasoreitirei closed all four eyes before speaking, a position of vulnerability, trust and submission.

“That is a matter that will require a more detailed convening and deeper dealings than is the matter of the Exchange. If it does not insult you Daughter of Courtesan, could we hold a council on this business after the feast?”

Well it was not a negation but Pylo supposed trying to inject an entirely new kind of person into a monoculture was probably going to be trickier than she could swing in the traditional venue.

“I give consent to you Lafasoreitirei and the Council. Let this Exchange be closed and move on to the Feast! I am sure all the people look forward to that.”

There was cheering then filling the cocoon, the teeming multitude of the people laying into the prepared atmospheric instruments. Filling the volume with trembling vibrations and noise.

Oh that reminded her!

Pylo directed the attention of Feidoreila the eldest master of the order of hospitalitors, marketeers and smiths to the Terrans, Their pet clerk and ▙◀.

“Now that it is settled. I have brought guests! They will require more restricted diets and accommodations from the People in their own feasting than I.”

The eldest hospitalitor gave them a considering eye then gaped and threw their head to direct the attention of Reilafeifei most esteemed master of the care and rearing of all beasts amongst the people.

The two shared a glance with Pylo and she spoke the words of training that they would know what she did of the Terrans.

The two masters gaped in thanks to her and then Reilafeifei after consideration rumbled.

“I can manage them for the feast but send for the masters of the Apeshearers to be pulled from their crypts. We will need their nuance and insight afterwards I expect.”

Pylo supposed that sounded well. It was nice the People had something in their labyrinthine hierarchy to handle the terrans!