SC.2023.08. Skipper's child
"We go on location to Innu City tonight."
"Thank you Laissa, I am here in Innu City where the wind is howling in my ears, it's a night out not fit for man nor beast here. When the black winds blow."
"We can see that, it's howling, dust is being blown past you at incredible speeds."
"Now, the cooling effects of large amounts of moisture are known and well-defined."
"That's true."
"What's less well known is when that cooling is going to affect a particular area, or move. Of special interest is when something like a very deep low pressure front, like a cyclone, will move."
"Every seven years, like this year though, it's expected the cyclone will miss Innu Province, going briefly over Megamisama Province, and then over the open ocean. In what's called a Skipper's child. Pre-elemental religions on Seylon Island were thought to sacrifice children below the age of then to the gods, to allow the skip to happen, at least, once, we have documentation that this actually occurred. But we also have documentation they realized the phenomenon was cyclical, and they stopped sacrificing children. Innu still received the bulk of the rainfall though, but the winds dropping from black-grade to indigo do mean they are more survivable.
Skipper's child
"I hate skipper's child!"
"Hm, not a fan myself, but what's got you so riled, wife mine?"
"Ugh, this skipper's child media coverage, did you know it's considered unseemly for flag officers to have children, just because of this?"
"Ugh, yes and no."
"What do you mean?"
"Because, despite being a mostly progressive, open-minded society, Kagomine has its biases..."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it wouldn't apply to you, because a 'skipper' can only be male, according to the traditionalists. You shouldn't let it get to you anyways, no one is going to mess with you over this."
"Why call this skipper's child?" Mako, who was visiting Responsible Disclosure with Piersa Ouranos and Dentrag Aixpee, asked as she burst in.
"It is an old innu superstition, that the storms are fiercer, the years where the ship's captain has a get."
"Oh, I see."
"What do your people call it?"
"Rainbow tearer, because it is beautiful, violent and dangerous. It is the only weather that we conclusively share, according to my people, actually. Our legends of it said, even before we knew much of weather, that it came from where the trees grow tallest."
"Where do the trees grow tallest?" Flora asked, having never been to Innu's wilder side.
"In the forest of Innu, in the Vale of the shadows, grows the trees of tallness unmatched, the quiet giants. Ere long they blot out the sun though, the Innu artisan measure their limbs, and choose to cull a few. Living among them, I spent a year, rigging and climbing, never setting foot on dry land, but eating porridge in my bunk, overlooking the sun's setting mien. Long and tall of stem, growing in wide bands, but slender of trunk, they grow in the shadows away from men."
Amarat quoted the poem, the same way it had been quoted to him, when he visited the vale itself.
"You've seen it?" Mako asked, the place was a legend among her people, the lair of the shipbuilders.
"Aye, I've been, assessing the damage of the Skipper's child of 812AK, which killed twenty thousand."
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