Virtual Quill

Fenton and I are back at Beige after spending the weekend at home decorating Tree. She puts a great deal of effort into her appearance, which leads me to wonder if she’s unusual in that regard or if other trees are similarly inclined but just aren’t able to express themselves. I especially wonder about deciduous trees and their gaudy fall colors.
Danielle created shoes for Francis to wear, which makes sense. During the brief time that Fenton and I were in the human world, buying shoes was one of the first things we did. If we had stayed for any length of time our bare feet would have developed protective callouses, but that wouldn’t have solved the cultural problem. All of the humans that we encountered wore shoes, and we didn’t want to stand out more than we probably did. “Look at that couple! They’re eating crickets! And they’re not wearing shoes!”
On this side of the portal the only shoe-wearing species is the horse, and purely for protective purposes. The idea of wearing them as ornamentation doesn’t exist here, probably because with all of our fur we have so many other ways of expressing vanity.
I’m not immune from that. Tonight I’m going to find out what it’s like for someone to decorate me.
So, what kind of shoes do you humans wear?

I'm back at school after the Thanksgiving holidays. As usual, Fenton and I had two Thanksgiving meals, twelve hours apart, one with my family and one with his. The major thing to report about the Fuscus meal is that this was the first extended visit I've had with them since I agreed to set the wedding date. Mrs. Fuscus was inordinately pleased, looking like the cat that ate the canary. (Do you humans have an expression like that?)
Over at my family's tree the main event was the presence of Kell's identical cousin Sheila and her date, Kell's office rival Frank Mangle. After a few catty comments on his part (to be expected, I guess), he settled down and was on his best behavior. Sheila was nervous at first, but she was relieved when it was all over. All told it went as well as one could hope. I'm sure it won't be the last time we see them together.
I took the opportunity to compare the DNA between Kell and Sheila. I'd suspected that they were actually twins that were raised apart, but I couldn't imagine why Elanor would hide something like that. It turned out she didn't. Sheila is as advertised, the daughter of Elanor's late sister, while Kell is indeed the offspring of Franklin and Elanor. So, no big revelation there.
The "identical" business really isn't accurate. Their markings are the same, and their scent is close enough to throw off anyone who doesn't know them well, but once you see them together for a while you can observe the differences. I'm pretty sure Mr. Mangle has observed them already. Wink. Wink.
Today's question (for those who celebrated Thanksgiving): How many relations were at your Thanksgiving meal?

By mutual agreement, we’ve all decided to step back and take a deep breath regarding wedding plans. I’ve got my gown and we’ve reserved the Unitarian church for June 5, so for now we’re not going to think about anything more until the holidays are over.
As usual, nothing ever stands still around here. Kell’s identical cousin Sheila has attracted the attention of one of Kell’s co-workers, a lion named Frank Mangle. He’s the father of Leona, part of Rudy’s hunting foursome. They met when Sheila came to a hunting competition to watch Rudy.
Mr. Mangle is on the same level as Kell in the Herd Thinners hierarchy, which means they’re in direct competition. R.L. has engineered his organization as a zero-sum game, which discourages cooperation. Thus, whenever Kell wins, he loses, and vice versa. It’s to Kell’s credit that she doesn’t let that affect her relationships with the rest of the employees. (Of course, it helps that she’s one of the best!)
I won’t even begin to speculate on the inner workings of Mr. Mangle’s emotions that draw him to a lookalike of his workplace rival. Kell, ever agreeable, has invited both of them over for Thanksgiving under the instruction that no one discusses Herd Thinners.
Mr. Mangle has an interesting background. I’ll repeat this part of my blog of 9/30/07 when I reported on Leona’s joining the hunting team: “He’s a single father who (in the eyes of his species) works in the traditionally female role of a hunter. Kell told me the backstory: When Leona was eight, her mother died after a lengthy illness. While she’d been sick she’d been unable to hunt, so her husband Frank secretly learned to take down prey to feed his family and so that people would think his wife was still healthy and active as a predator. It was supposed to be just a temporary arrangement until she recovered, but fate had other ideas.
“Mr. Mangle had become quite good at hunting, so after his wife’s death he applied to Herd Thinners and was hired. This, of course, meant that he was ostracized from his lion pride. Kell has faced similar pressures, but in Mr. Mangle’s case it caused him to develop a rather large chip on his shoulder. He’s surly toward Kell and to pretty much everyone else...except for his daughter.”
And now, an additional exception: Sheila Dewclaw.
This week: What are you thankful for?

When I walked into my advisor’s office on Monday I had no idea that less than a week later I’d be here at home looking at my wedding dress hanging in my closet. It’ll stay there until June 5, the day I’ll become Lindesfarne Fuscus.
What happened is that during my first three years of high school I was a herbivore, during which I’d taken a large number of Advanced Placement classes in foraging Then, just before my senior year I switched to my natural hedgehog insectivore diet. (Long story) Things may work differently on the human side (since you’re all one species), but here a college degree involves instruction in both your field of study and your diet. I thought I was still looking at two years of insectivore courses after I’d finished my genetics studies, but that all changed due to recent reforms in species classification. Suddenly I was cleared to graduate in May.
This knocked me on my quills. While I’ve never doubted my love for Fenton, I wasn’t prepared for a wedding so soon. My initial instinct was to rebel against Fenton’s mother who would surely hold me to my vow to marry immediately after graduation. It took my roommate Rachel to direct my view to what was really important, which was Fenton himself. (This also means that next fall Rachel will be available to room with her girlfriend Joan Hoof when Joan enrolls at Beige.)
I gave Fenton the news in flight, which meant that I’m still finding pieces of billboard in my quills. We flew back to Domain for the weekend to give the word to my parents, his parents and Tree, and on Saturday we visited the dressmaker. I’d actually picked out the gown a while ago, so the silkworms were able to complete the job by the end of the day.
We’ll be back at school by nightfall, and of course we’ll return next week for Thanksgiving. I’ll be trying to keep Fenton involved in the wedding preparations, but he’s not shown any great interest in the details. It’ll probably end up being an estrogen thing, planned by me, the two mothers and my posse of Rhonda, Rachel and (via long distance) Tammy. With my bridesmaids being a tiger, a rhino, a moth, a fennec fox (Fiona) and a sheep (Corrie), it’ll be a challenge finding a gown that’ll look good on all of them.
Any suggestions? (today's question)

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with comments last week! Danielle has been taking your advice, and she’s found she can fashion infant-safety devices by adapting products made for keeping predators out.
Life in Domain has calmed down, according to Dad. This does tend to follow a pattern. People get riled up, go out yelling and ranting over something, and just as suddenly it dies down and life goes on as people adapt to the thing that they once thought of as intolerable.
We’ve gone back to our usual routine. Every morning Danielle, George and Francis come over to the treehouse and head down to the Hare-Link office. George spends the morning tending Francis, and around 1:00 the preschool bus drops off Coney. Coney then spends the afternoon with Francis as George takes care of them both. Dad, Ralph and Danielle keep the ISP running, and send any tech problems to me and Fenton. Customer service is still handled by Candace down in New Zealand.
Here at Beige I’ve finally begun writing papers for possible publication in peer-reviewed research journals. Meanwhile, tomorrow (Monday) I have an appointment with my academic advisor. This is unusual; she said it was something she had to tell me in person.
The weekly question is for those of you with preschoolers. What childcare options do you have?

I heard all about last night’s Halloween back home, how Francis dressed up as a rabbit while Coney and all of the neighborhood kids went as humans. (They used the characters from Rudy’s webcomic as models.)
In light of Francis’s metamorphosis, Rudy is now even more reluctant to return to his human-themed webcomic “Rondo and Viola.” He put it on hiatus to focus on the hunting team, which led to his becoming co-captain so the move seems to have worked out. Still, he probably needs a creative outlet of some sort. He did get a lot of positive attention from “R&V,” which was really important to building his confidence in general. He was a Guest of Honor at Manthrocon in Pennsylvania and got e-mails from all over the world. Heady stuff.
Meanwhile, the main change in Francis’s behavior is an increase in his curiosity, which first became evident during the incident where he was going over to the Fennec boarding house and stealing food from traps. That was before his transformation, and he was climbing and swinging like the primates that normally reside in this world. Now that he’s fully human he’s ceased climbing, but his urge to explore has gone off the scale.
Danielle told me this was normal for human babies, but she’s frustrated because she had so little experience with them during her life on the other side of the portal. She was the youngest of her family, and she left her world before becoming a mom, so she only has the vaguest idea on how to human-proof a home. So, today's question is for Danielle: how does she keep Francis from getting into everything he's not supposed to?

Yes, in addition to analyzing Francis, pondering the implications for my own future and maintaining my classwork, I’m also preparing Hare-Link for the release of MicroTalon’s new OS. And here I thought “nocturnal” meant you actually got to sleep during the day.
On the subject of Francis, further data hasn’t altered my original finding. If I have children here, they may spend a year or so as bats or hedgehogs, but they’ll become human within a year of their birth. My own genetics are similar to Danielle’s in that regard. Without getting too specific; it’s well known that there are many genes in every genome whose purpose is thus far unknown. Comparing the profiles of Danielle and myself, I’ve found some gene sequences that aren’t shared by the rest of the Domain population, of any species. My conclusion is that those are human genes that are recessive for one who crosses the portal, but become dominant in their offspring.
Fenton has been surprisingly supportive about this finding, although it’s true that he hasn’t told anyone in his family. I’ve told my family, of course, and their attitude is to be expected: At this point, what’s a little more diversity? I do wonder if Fenton’s reaction is one of slight relief: as Dad can attest, diapering a quilled species is a challenge.
So, do Francis and whatever daughters I have eventually lead to a race of humans on this side of the portal? Now, I’m inclined to doubt it. The issue of the Westermarck Effect was mentioned here this week, that says that children raised in close proximity don’t establish romantic relationships in later years. I also take a dim view of arranged marriages, for obvious reasons, and I can imagine them rebelling against the expectation of procreation.
As for my genetic duplicate on this side of the portal? Many social, legal and logistical forces stand in way of that, but none so much as my desire to eventually have children of my own.
I’d like to thank everyone who has replied with messages of support during the past week; I’ve needed them.
Today’s question (and returning to the title topic): How many of you are planning to immediately upgrade to Windows 7?

With the public outcry over Francis, I don’t want to add to the increasingly abrasive discourse over his presence. There’s nothing we can do except hope things blow over, and that the media will be distracted by other events (like unmanned balloons over Denver).
I’m taking the long range view on this, as is my nature. Thorough analysis of the DNA of everyone involved leads to this finding: when someone crosses the portal they are changed to adapt to that dimension. That change is apparently permanent, as I’ve been here twenty years without reverting to my original human form. However, the act of conception, with its chaotic mingling of genes between mother and father, triggers the latent human genome within the resulting offspring. These genes are apparently so powerful that all other genes become recessive. Thus, George is indisputably Francis’s father, yet Francis has no observable fennec traits.
I explained last week why Francis’s human traits did not fully manifest themselves until after his birth. It follows that if Catherine Aura were to have more children on the human side, they would either be born avian or become avian shortly after their birth. ...Or hatching. The same goes for Nigel.
And me.
Yes, if Fenton and I have children, they’ll be human. We’re both grappling with the consequences of this outcome. I haven’t mentioned one way around that: an egg donor. From someone on this side of the portal. Who shares my identical genetic profile...
On the other hand, maybe we’re meant to give birth to a human child, to grow up to be a mate for Francis. I don’t know...
Do you?

Reading the comments from last week, I see most of you know what the entire world knows by now. Francis Fennec has developed into a human.
I’ll give you the chronology of how my week has gone, beginning with the phone call I got from home. Francis, who had earlier developed human teeth when his baby teeth came in, began showing other signs of becoming human. His ears and tail were slowly shortening, and he was losing fur. Danielle took him to Dr. Caduecus, who couldn’t find any signs of illness.
After the visit the changes accelerated exponentially, and in the middle of a grocery store they became complete. The metamorphosis was caught on a cell phone video made by another shopper, which was soon all over the web.
I arrived home and immediately analyzed his DNA. It was unchanged from that of his birth, and I immediately compared it to the human DNA I obtained from Martha Fennec when she briefly attained human form on this side of the portal. Yes, Francis had been human all along. The fur, ears, tail, paw pads and other non-human aspects had been temporary traits.
I have a theory as to why he was born with them. There’s an old saw in biology that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,” In other words, before birth one retraces the steps taken through evolution. In Francis’s case, he had a larger journey that continued after his birth. He not only had to retrace human evolution but also his mother’s transformation from human to rabbit.
Danielle, George and the rest of the family are taking this in stride. I’ve been especially worried about Gran, who is still deluding herself (against all evidence) that the Danielle to whom she gave birth did not in fact die a number of years ago. (She’s the only one of Gran’s 36 offspring to do so; a tragic loss.)
On the scientific front, this confirms my theory that mere knowledge of humans does not cause instinct loss. Even with global knowledge of Francis, there hasn’t been a single reported case, owing to the current balance between our dimensions. For those of you keeping score at home, Danielle and I are former humans living here, and Ms. Aura and Nigel are former residents of this world residing on the other side.
(There is a dolphin from this world who is now living as a dolphin in the human world, but apparently that doesn’t impact anything; a lateral move.)
So, the question now is, does Francis’s presence change things? He’s had human DNA all along, it just had to completely assert itself. He was conceived and born here, so there was no portal crossing. In short, he belongs here.
Finally, this week’s question cannot be answered confidently by anyone: Will the same thing happen with my offspring?

It’s been over a year since I first found that my blog was being accessed in the human world. At the time I was quite nervous, and not only because I’d been unwittingly revealing my thoughts for who-knows-how-long beforehand. My main area of concern was the issue of instinct loss and the havoc it caused here when too many humans arrived on this side of the portal.
At the time, it was felt that it was mere knowledge of humans caused instinct loss. That may have played a minor role, but my contact with the human world through this blog belies its importance. What we know is that at one point there were three humans here (two former humans: me and Danielle, plus an actual human in the transformed Martha Fennec). At another time there were four former humans on this side of the portal (me, Danielle, and two good friends Nick and Ki). In both cases, instinct loss began sweeping the globe, causing massive chaos.
Order was eventually restored. Martha changed back, and Nick and Ki returned to their world. To balance the presence of me and Danielle on this side, Ms. Aura and Nigel travelled over to the human side. I’ll be forever grateful for that gesture.
It seems as if one person can cross over with no effects, and two have limited impact, but more than that create a sort of tipping point. As it stands, though, things are stable. Our contact with this blog has produced no problems.
Again, as long as things stay stable...
Today's question: Have you humans experienced anything comparable to instinct loss? I assume both sides of the portal would be affected.

Everything seems to happen to Rudy, whether he likes it or not.
On Tuesday after hunting practice he was loitering on a street corner two blocks away from Caliban, when a police car drove by chasing by some other teen canine. The individual wore a green hoodie, jeans and shades, which is hardly uncommon. The car went around the block and circled back, losing its wisdom-challenged pursuer in the process. When the police drove by the corner the second time, they saw Rudy.
Dad and Kell picked him up at the station and paid bail for Rudy to appear before a judge on Wednesday. I drove up from college because, well, he’s my brother. Not biologically, perhaps, but after all we’ve been through together, we’re family in every sense of the word.
The judge recommended that he just pay the fine since he had no proof of his innocence. However, I’ll give Rudy credit for knowing that if he did that he’d forfeit the scholarship he got from the Rabbit Council for playing the Easter Bunny. (Now that he’s agreed to share that scholarship with Fiona, that affects her, too.)
So much of their futures hung on proving Rudy’s innocence. I began an arduous online search for the actual car-chasing, tracking the whereabouts of every canine in the area. I was having no luck, but then a cell phone image made by a fly surfaced that provided just the evidence needed to clear him.
Being a fly, it attempted to gouge the family for the image, but Dad negotiated a barter deal to let it have exclusive rights to the manure in his garden instead. So, everybody won. The judge dropped the charges, Rudy and Fiona kept the scholarship and the fly got all the excrement it desired.
The only downside: I was reminded where a significant part of my insectivore diet spends a good part of its time.
Today's question: Is chasing a police car a crime for humans, or is that something exclusively canine?

Prof. Antlerhead wants me to start thinking about publishing my data in academic journals, to add to my vita in preparation for graduate school. That’s a still a ways off, but I suppose it’s never too early to start. As an undergraduate I’d probably have to collaborate to get an article accepted.
I’m leery about doing that, since my research is very promising and I don’t want anyone sharing credit. On the other hand, if I sit on my findings I just increase the chances of somebody else publishing first. What to do...
In other news, Fenton’s roommate Bob Shrike will graduate in May. That means Fenton will be in the market for a new roommate in the fall of next year, and of course he has his own idea of who that should be.
I know I’ve been here on campus a few years, as I’m noticing that the student body is getting markedly younger. I remember when Fenton and I first arrived, and now we’re the experienced ones. (Even Rachel has lost most of her freshman bewilderment.) I’m sure this feeling will only get stronger, and I’ll come to a point where I’ll feel compelled to move on.
Just not yet. Today's question: how long do human degree programs last? Here it's usually four years.

After last week’s excitement I’m now back at Beige U. My classes have started, and I’m also busy in Prof. Antlerhead’s genetics research lab.
Fenton’s classes have started, too. His major is in computer science, and he was able to get credits for both the work he does at Hare-Link and also for his brief tenure at Microtalon. Between those, he’s on track to graduate in May.
I’m still not at that point. I took a lot of Advanced Placement classes at Caliban, but those were almost all in Foraging before I switched from Herbivore to Insectivore. As a result, none of those counted toward my degree program. I don’t mind, though. It’s better being true to my natural diet.
Fenton and I haven’t talked about what we’ll do after he gets his degree. He may stay down here; after all, as he’s repeatedly said the only reason he enrolled at all was to be near me.
All together: Awwwwww....
Meanwhile, back home little Coney is growing up. She’s four now, and has become quite popular at her predator preschool. Today's question: Since I assume human preschools don't teach hunting prey, what do they teach?

It was about 3:00 a.m. (mid-afternoon for nocturnal me) when I was sitting in one of the halls in the vast Fennec boarding house. I was playing a game on my cell phone when the transom above one of the doors creaked opened. The room behind the door was vacant, but somehow its outside window had been left open so that anyone could get in.
That someone was baby Francis, the infant son of George and Danielle Fennec. I still haven’t been able to figure out his exact species, but he sure can climb like a primate. It turns out that he’d been using that skill to swing out of his crib, out a window of his house, go across the street to the boarding house and through the open window. Once inside, he’d leave through the transom of the vacant room, use drapes to swing out into the hallway then have access to any occupied room in the house. He sniffed out bait in the traps left by predators and returned to his crib with George and Danielle none the wiser. (Perhaps Gran would have become aware of his movements, but she’s now living with her new husband.)
Danielle offered to pay the predators for the food Francis stole, but they were too embarrassed to take her up on it. Grandpa’s name was cleared, and Martha Fennec let him move back in.
Whew! No question this week; I'm attending the local Dragoncon before heading off to Beige U. for fall semester.

I’m just about to head off for the fall semester when Grandpa gets arrested...again. (He was caught eating vegetables after a rash of thefts from traps in the predator’s wing of the Fennec boarding house.) Even though active predation is against the lease contract, having passive traps within the rooms is a grey area. What isn’t a grey area is breaking into a room for any purpose, and Grandpa was subsequently taken away.
Despite his long criminal record, this didn’t make sense. As it turned out, Dad and Kell discovered that Grandpa in fact took the vegetables from Dad’s garden. (That’s actually more in character.)
The authorities will need stronger proof of his innocence before releasing him, however, so it’s going to be up to us to catch whoever is really stealing from the traps. Kell did an initial sweep of the boarding house but couldn’t pick up a scent on the floors or carpets. She theorized that the thief might be avian, but what bird likes veggies? Dad will go over to the county lockup to visit Grandpa and try to get him to admit raiding his garden. (For some reason, Grandpa would rather go to prison rather than confess to doing that. He has an interesting personal code of ethics.)
As for myself, as a nocturnal species it’s fallen on me to stake out the boarding house hallways. Wish me luck!
This week's question: how does one pass the time on a stakeout? Suggestions?