Virtual Quill

With all the attention I’ve been giving to Ms. Aura and the portal, life goes on here in Domain. The big news: Gran’s sudden wedding to Mr. Squirrel. I just came back from the happy event down at the courthouse.
It shouldn’t be surprising in retrospect. At their age it makes no sense to wait, and they already lost the time Mr. Squirrel spent in prison. (Meanwhile, I’m still going to hold off marrying Fenton until after we graduate.)
After the ceremony everyone went out to dinner at a local omnivore restaurant that caters to all diets. To make sure none of the patrons get devoured, they stamp your hand when you enter. That identifies you as a customer, and the stamp itself tastes awful in order to dissuade predators that would otherwise ignore the rules.
They didn’t mention a honeymoon. I doubt Mr. Squirrel wants to travel much after his prison stay; preferring to enjoy being back in his own house for a while. Tomorrow, Dad is going to help Gran move her stuff over from George and Danielle’s place where she’d been living. With George Fennec now doing most of the child care for baby Francis, Gran hadn’t been needed as much anyway.
None of Mr. Squirrel’s family was in attendance, so I suspect there’s some disapproval on their part. Of course, Gran being the object of someone else’s judgmental nature is karma of the highest sort.
Today's question: what are some human wedding customs?

Ms. Aura’s tweets have indicated that she’ll remain on the human side, but will change from a dolphin into a human. I have no idea how she’ll do this, but she obviously knows more about this portal business than I do. (When Fenton and I went through the portal that one time, we got lost and kept arriving at random destinations. We were lucky to finally discover the human world!)
Ms. Aura has expressed concern about me and this blog, but she seems more interested in the webcomic from which you humans glean details of life on this side of the portal. I share her curiosity, but unlike her I’m not acting upon it.
As events spiral beyond my control, I’m fighting the impulse to simply pull the plug on this blog. I’m not going to, mainly because Ms. Aura already knows about my activity. I might as well keep blogging in order maintain communication with you humans, and monitor the situation. Please let me know if humans begin experiencing any measurable increase or decrease in your instincts...whatever those may be!
Meanwhile, the household is still buzzing over the release from prison of Grandpa and Douglas Squirrel. While Elanor has rebuffed Grandpa’s advances, Gran and Mr. Squirrel have been spending a lot of time together since he was granted freedom.

Okay, things are becoming clearer. Ms. Aura and Nigel are on the human side of the portal, but living as dolphins. She has a device on her dorsal fin that allows her to communicate to others in her group via Twitter (at her account at catherine_aura), but some defect in that device has resulted in her tweets leaking into the public realm. She’s not aware of this...yet.
Through her tweets it’s become apparent that her role is to monitor contact between our two worlds, in order to prevent our society from collapsing through instinct loss. This is important work, and I don’t want to interfere with it.
She’s now aware of this blog I’m doing, but cannot as yet decipher it on her side of the portal. I fully anticipate an attempt to block it, but to me that’s an unnecessary gesture. It’s my belief that it’s not knowledge or awareness of humans that causes our instinct loss, but instead it’s due to an imbalance that occurs when people physically cross through the portal.
That balance was slighteest disrupted when I crossed over as an infant, and it reached a dangerous tipping point when Martha Fennec returned to Domain in human form. It subsided when Martha’s original form was restored, but then Danielle crossed over. It took Ms. Aura and Nigel going over to the human side to put it all back in balance. Since I began communicating directly with you humans a year ago I’ve been closely following the news and blogosphere for the slightest sign of instinct loss, and none have appeared.
To sum up the situation with the signals, I’m aware of what Ms. Aura saying to others in her group, but not the responses of the others so I don’t know how large the group is. She’s aware that transmissions from me are coming through the portal, but she can’t read them. We’re both concerned with preventing instinct loss, but we may come into conflict despite having the same goal.
Ms. Aura is also monitoring the webcomic on the human side. I don’t know where that fits in to all this.

Because of the online comic that apparently depicts my life in the human realm, I’m aware that you already know that Ms. Catherine Aura and her son Nigel disappeared into the portal to balance the equation caused by the presence of myself and Danielle in this world. I’m indebted to her, since she made it possible for me to remain with Fenton (and for Danielle to marry George Fennec). Danielle and I are two grateful former humans.
I’ve never gotten to the bottom of Ms. Aura’s involvement in this inter-dimensional business, and my basic curiosity (my default setting) is held back by a small inner voice telling me not to try. Yet, something has just come up; you humans know it as Twitter.
I don’t know what role Ms. Aura is playing on the human side, but in analyzing the transmissions from the other side I’ve come across what seems to be her Twitter account: catherine_aura. Her cryptic tweets seem to indicate an interest, an awareness and even some sort of an authority over the nexus between our worlds. Even more concerning, she seems to be referring to the signals carrying this blog, although she hasn’t yet been able to read them. Yet.
I’m worried and confused. Here, we assumed she was an ordinary schoolteacher until she showed up on Danielle’s wedding boat at sea. Logic would indicate that her role was a cover for something else, but then she vanished.
My question this week is somewhat urgent: Can you humans see her Twitter postings?