Midway Relics and Dying Breeds by Seanan McGuire

Author:Seanan McGuire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor.com
Published: 2014-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

Morning woke me with birdsong and the distant sound of the camp being torn down, filtered by the trees between me and most of the camp. I blearily raised my head, bracing my palms against the wide sweep of Billie’s skull as I peered down from my high platform at the cousins who scurried even now between the ponies and the mules, getting them fed, getting them into harness. I yawned, sinking back down into the tangled nest I had made for myself from the hair atop the Indricothere’s head. Feeding and tack were jobs for younger cousins. I might not be a Big Man—I might never be a Big Man—but I had status enough that I hadn’t overslept. Not quite, anyway. Judging by the angle of the sun and by the timing of our Portland show, it was time for me to start moving.

Billie continued to methodically chew her latest mouthful of the local foliage as I tucked my pillow under my arm, kissed her ear, and finally swung myself hand over hand down her side to the ground some twelve feet below. She didn’t so much as flinch as I suspended my entire bodyweight from fistfuls of her hair. Knowing Billie, she might have not even realized that I was there.

Everyone was too busy tearing down to acknowledge me as I walked back through the camp to my tent . . . and paused, looking in bewilderment at the open flap, at the footprints in the mud. “Hello?” I called, feeling instantly foolish.

No one answered, and after a long moment of holding my breath, I stepped forward, pushing the flap aside.

I didn’t have many possessions, and what little I did have was usually stored in the howdah on Billie’s back, since there were many reasons for me to need a change of clothes without having the freedom to leave my position. What little I did have was strewn around the tent: the blanket thrown to the floor, the mattress liner pulled askew and stomped on, the screen curled at the edges where someone had tried to pry it loose.

We were supposed to be more respectful than this. We were supposed to leave one another’s temporary homes alone, because all homes were temporary if you didn’t share them with the love and consideration of your family. I looked uncomprehendingly at the mess, petty as it was, as I counted slowly to ten. Then I turned and stepped out of the tent, pressing my thumb against the tag that would cause it to collapse again. In a matter of seconds it had been reduced to a small square sitting in the forest mud. I turned my back and walked away from it. One of the cousins would pick it up, read the tag, and return it to the pile. That wasn’t my job, and hadn’t been for years. That was for the best. Right now, I would have been tempted to discard it in the underbrush, and let the local constituencies hit me with a littering penalty.

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