Andrea Höst - Gratuitous Epilogue [Touchstone: Extras]

Wednesday, December 3

Home-making

Wow feels like forever since Ive written. Decemberalready. Kaoren asked me to start a new diary, for all Im nowhere near finishedreading him even the first one. But hes right that I place less of a filteron myself in these diaries than I do in any conversation, and we both lookforward to our reading sessions. Im finding myself with a lot less time tosit about writing though, so hell have to make do with a monthly catch-up.

The past few weeks have been all about planning ourArcadian house, tweaking and finalising the rough design wed blocked out withthe program I gave Ys. Kaoren, with his usual efficiency, had carted out adrone and obtained a proper topographic scan of the site for the house abovethe waterfall and curving down one side of the little hill. It was great tosee how into the project he was: the kids arent the only ones who have beenthinking long and hard about just what theyd like our home to be.

Beyond a shelf built into the bed, I left our bedroomsdesign to Kaoren, since he has the best idea of what his Sights can cope with.I amused myself with a retreat room an idea Kaoren liked and promptlycopied for himself. We ended up with a stack of three octagons which werentquite sitting directly on top of each other. The bedroom is in the middle, onwhat would be the main floor of the building, with windows above thewaterfall. Theres a side door to a stairwell up and down, as well as out tothe patio. Kaorens retreat will be one floor down, and positioned toward theback, away from the central body of the house. It will be windowless with lotsof shelving, and a rear exit to what will be a tiny sunken garden room where hecan meditate. All those things in his quarters back on Tare will end up on thenew shelves, presuming we ever open the way to Tare.

My retreat will be an eyrie, a kind of rooftop pagoda withwindows in every direction, an excess of window seats to loll about in, and adoor to a walkway across the top of the centre section of the house.

The centre of the building has the kitchen and the loungeand a workout room, and a couple of guest bedrooms and laundry and storage areaand all that kind of practical stuff. The very large lounge opens on to asprawling, multi-level patio overlooking the waterfall.

The far tier of the patio connects to the kids' domain,which will be the largest part of the house. Two stacks of octagons linked bybathrooms. I was logically thinking of one room for each of them, but thisturned into quite a debate thanks to Sens insistence that Kaoren and I fillher life with babies. That isnt going to happen any time soon, and definitelynot in the numbers she would like. But because it was easy to do, we addedanother two spare rooms in the kids' area to appease her and cope with overflowguests.

Rye very definitely wanted the rear, lower room, openingonto the proposed back yard. This wasnt simply copying Kaoren he wants agarden of his own, to grow vegetables and keep pets. Sen decided she wantedthe room beside his I suspect that this is all about being closest to theaction in the main lounge room, or perhaps whatever pets Rye produces. On topof these two rooms is a play room for the kids, which opens out on the rooftopwalkway leading to my retreat, and also onto the kids' part of the patio, andthe two spare bedrooms, which will overlook the back garden. Sen has decidedto lay claim on these in the interim, so they wont be lonely.

Ys and Lira opted for the top two rooms, which will be thehighest point. The whole house will be sheltered by the mass of trees on theisland, and partially shielded by the hill on the Pandora side, but withamazing views across the lake toward the water bird nesting grounds. Yssectioned off her room into little roomlets, so that the bed isnt visible, andtheres a sheltered study area each section with its own set of windows.Lira, by contrast, didnt want anything interrupting her ability to see out,and wanted stairs down the outside of the building to the upper garden.

Sen treats it all as a joyful game, with her playingprincess, but Ys and Rye go through overwhelmed patches. Theyre beginning toaccept that we mean it about becoming a family, that were not going to changeour minds, and that theyre important to us and warrant a room of their own,just the way they want it. Liras a more confusing case she obviously grewup privileged and protected, but also terribly isolated. And shes been havinga bad spate of dreams about fading out of existence. Sometimes the planningsessions leave her angry and upset, because shes not sure shell be here tosee the house.

KOTIS Command has at least not objected to the idea of usmoving. And, despite the enormous demand for construction professionals, wellhave our design back from our chosen architect soon and have been able totentatively line up construction dates. Thats a side-benefit of being Caszandra:something I vacillate between finding convenient and embarrassing. Its notgoing to go away, so either I work with it or I practice my pouting.

At least the extra-special treatment seems to extend toall of the Setari is a way of thanking them for putting their lives on theline. And theres a lot of prestige for the architect and builders, too. Impleased with the architect, Tel Sevra, because our house plans havent appearedon the news. Yet.

I want to make the house happen sooner rather than later,particularly to give us all more outside life which doesnt get reportedwithin minutes. One decision Ive yet to make is whether to employ someone tohelp with the cleaning were going to try on our own at first, but itll be abig house and it might be a bit much for the two of us. While I dont mind thekids having some minor chores to do, I dont want them scrubbing bathrooms, orany of the other things Ive been fortunate to have KOTIS staff doing for me.Still, well have our own cleaning snot, which is, uh, a good thing, I guess.

Also on the staff front, Maze tells me I might want toconsider some kind of assistant. On Tare the interface made it impossible forpeople to actually post things addressed to me. Theres a postal ruleset up about unsolicited gifts to the Setari which has covered me as well youneed a verification code to send anything through the Taren postal system. Thesame set-up is in place here, but is a lot harder to manage, and the KOTISsupport staff have had to deal with people just walking up as close to thebuilding as they can get before greensuits intercept them, and leaving packagesand presents for all of us. Id never actually thought that through in detail,but of course Raitens fan club alone could probably fill a room each month.The island and Setari guards will make it harder for people to do that, butnon-KOTIS staff are becoming more mobile and will eventually have their ownboats and flyers. The presents are just people trying to be nice, but I guessif we started accepting them wed need a house twice as big to put it all in.And KOTIS is still blocking random mail and invitations and things, which isconvenient, if impolite. But hiring someone to deal with that means lessprivacy.

Among the pile of things Id like to keep private is thetreatment Ys and Rye have been going through to remove the scarring from theirbacks. We celebrated its conclusion by going to the island for a swim (Mazeand Alay as our escorts this time), and even though Ys and Rye still wore thesame shorts and shirt ensemble, I noticed a certain air of freedom which Ithink may be because now theres no risk of anyone seeing the scars throughtheir wet clothes.

As we grow to understand Nuran culture better, were beginningto see why they wanted so much to hide it a whipping which scarred was anextreme punishment, suited for some deep and heinous crime. The scarringmarked them not as victims, but as monsters. For eavesdropping on a lesson.The expression on Ryes face when the blue bandages were taken off for the lasttime and they showed him an image of his back was enough to have me hidingtears, and Kaoren went incredibly quiet. He and Maze had a discussion about itafterwards, and neither of them could properly speak they were so angry. Notmany people know about the scars, fortunately, and I mean to keep it that way.