3. Bertram #2
Bertram groaned. “And I’ve asked you to draw my attention to anything particularly important, because I’m not going to necessarily be able to read every single page of minutiae going back and forth if I’m out in the field already on a different study!”
“And if it had been important, I would have drawn your attention to it,” Jennie assured him, “but the depredation permit was denied, our study was approved, and everything is moving in the correct direction for the owl-bear’s safety. I understand why the humans are concerned—”
“I don’t,” Bertram grumbled.
“Her behavior is becoming more unpredictable, and she’s come into close contact with humanoid beings on more than one occasion, but,” Jennie continued on before Bertram could interrupt, “obviously the solution is to find a way to drive the humans back and to create systemic infrastructure change to protect all Peoples of all species, including the owl-bear. Once we establish that these mountains are, in fact, the owl-bear’s home territory and demonstrate the significance of this site for her natural behavior, we should be able to extend the protections on the Folio Mountains from just a temporary tourist ban to establishing a permanent sanctuary—for the owl-bear and all other creatures in her ecosystem. ”
“Hrmph.” Bertram wished he had something more cutting to say, but his mother made a good point. It did sound like things were moving in the correct direction for all parties involved.
“How did you end up reading the depredation permit request now, anyway?”
“I didn’t,” Bertram admitted. “This idiot human park ranger was talking about how his idiot human friends saw an owl-bear get hit by a truck and instead of making a report about an injured otherfolk to the correct magizoological institutions, they all freaked out and thought that killing her was a good solution. To the problems they caused!”
Bertram could feel his skin literally flush with his frustration and anger.
Since the Great Merge, humans on the whole had become much better at remembering that they shared the planet with a whole host of other species all depending on them not to ruin everything for everyone .
. . but it seemed like the natural human inclination was toward destruction the second they were left to their own devices.
“I’m sure there were also non-humans on the side of depredation being the easiest conflict mitigation in this scenario,” Jennie said, diplomatically.
“And it was the human government who immediately denied the depredation permit anyway. You can’t start making this into a ‘humans versus otherfolk’ situation, Bertram.
That’s not what this is about. This is about all of us finding ways to live in harmony, together. ”
Bertram sighed deeply. His mother wasn’t wrong, exactly. It was just that . . .
Well, it was that his mother wasn’t wrong, and even at twenty-eight years old, Bertram hated when he had to admit that his mother was right.
“In a way, it’s good that there was a collision with the owl-bear,” Jennie said.
“I mean, it’s not, obviously, but it’s good that it was non-fatal, and at least a vehicular collision with an owl-bear is causing the humans to actually pay attention to the dangers of the current setup with the 394 freeway and this mountain pass.
Our owl-bear could be threatened simply by having her staple diet decimated, given how many deer are falling victim to car accidents on the 394 each year, and humans still haven’t seemed to notice or care about the fall of the deer population. And that’s our owl-bear’s prey!”
Jennie pulled out her own prey: a silicone pouch full of synthetic blood. She extended it to Bertram, but he shook his head. Despite having vampiric top fangs like his mother, it was his father’s orcish heritage that usually won out when it came to Bertram’s tastebuds.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Bertram said.
Jennie shrugged and took another swig of the blood, a few droplets spilling out onto her diamond necklace and dripping onto the warm brown skin beneath it.
She pulled out an embroidered handkerchief and dabbed at the blood spatters, elegant even in fixing her mess.
Jennie had a timeless beauty that Bertram felt he lacked.
Bertram did not have the human-looking skin tone of his mother, nor did he have the vibrant orcish emerald coloring of his late father.
Instead, he was a combination of the two—a greyed-out green he worried made him look neither human nor magical, but some sort of shadow.
An unsatisfactory echo of both and neither.
Bertram ran his tongue over the top of his one protruding tusk, a nervous habit of his.
“When does the fan club get here?” Bertram asked.
Jennie frowned. “Owl-bears are very shy creatures, Bertram. I’ve kept the team as small as possible.”
“So, what? Three PhD students, ten assistants, and only five journalists?”
Jennie scoffed, but Bertram felt his accusation was more than warranted.
After all, even the hapless park ranger had heard of the famous—and “hot”—vampire Countess-turned-scientist who lived with a colony of winged foxes, even sleeping upside down with them, and then went on to discover an island in a pocket realm.
Her fame meant that in addition to standard research personnel, Jennie’s projects attracted documentarians, reporters, and hordes of aspiring scientists begging to be allowed on site “even just to bring her coffee,” as their cover letters would say.
Jennie did not drink coffee, only blood, but she was still flattered by the sentiment and gave in to such letters more often than Bertram thought she should.
“There is no entourage. It’s just us,” Jennie said, firmly. “And one PhD student.”
Bertram nodded, secretly relieved. Any time he had to fight for his famous mother’s attention, it made him feel like a child all over again.
“I think it will be nice for us to have a smaller group, seeing as how this is our first long-term field study since . . .”
“Dad,” Bertram completed.
Jennie swallowed and nodded.
Urghk hadn’t been a scientist himself, but what he had been was fiercely devoted to Jennie.
He almost always accompanied her on her field studies and made himself useful, cooking and building and fixing and entertaining.
If Urghk were still alive, there would have been soup sizzling on a campfire by the time Bertram reached basecamp.
Jennie hadn’t even thought to boil water.
Part of that was because she survived mostly on synthetic blood, but she also seemed to forget the necessity of synthetic blood sometimes too.
Urghk seemed to consider his duties to be cooking something for his son to consume and reminding his wife to consume something at all.
Jennie could get so caught up in reading her advisees’ proposals, filing her own paperwork, reading the latest articles that she would easily forget to eat if Urghk wasn’t there to remind her to take breaks.
And now Urghk wasn’t there.
“You know,” Jennie said quietly, “my family’s reservations about your father almost never bothered me. I couldn’t have cared less that he was poor, or that he hadn’t been to university, I barely even cared that he was an orc—”
“Barely?” Bertram asked, already offended.
“Except that it meant he was mortal,” Jennie finished, softly. “They all warned me about marrying a mortal. They said that mortals die so quickly.”
“Yes, we do tend to do that,” Bertram said dryly. It was unknown whether his own lifespan would echo the centuries that vampire life spans or echo the half-century more common to orcs. Bertram and his mother did not regularly discuss this, and he did not want to change that now.
Apparently, neither did she.
Jennie gasped. “Oh, Bertram, look! Look!”
Bertram wheeled his head around and stared toward the dark forest, trying to follow Jennie’s gaze.
“I don’t see anything,” Bertram said.
Jennie sighed in frustration and threw a long, graceful arm over Bertram’s shoulder and pulled him close to her. Jennie hunched slightly to see through Bertram’s point of view—at 5’9 he was several inches shorter than his nearly 6’0 mother.
“Look!” Jennie pointed. “Just above the bushes—look at the branch of the Jeffrey pine slanting toward the rock in an almost X shape and then three inches diagonally of that—”
“Aha!” Bertram smiled. “I see him. Very cute little nose.”
As if he heard the compliment, the creature in question wiggled his very cute little nose.
Bertram grabbed his camera from his bag and adjusted the focus to highlight the creature against the dark forest.
“Do you know what that is?” Jennie asked.
Bertram rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mother. He’s a Queen Alexandra’s birdweasel.”
The little creature closely resembled the long-tailed weasel that was native to the area even in the mundane world but with the presence of wings remarkably like a Queen Alexandra’s birdwing butterfly.
The birdweasel’s blue-and-green wings fluttered as he gently lowered himself onto the top of the bush.
Then, he opened his mouth and began drinking nectar from flowers, with a tongue much more butterfly-like than weasel-like.
“And do you remember his scientific name?” Jennie prodded.
Bertram grimaced. “I don’t need to know his scientific name—”
“Mustela frenanoptera alexandrae,” Jennie said.
“Great,” Bertram said. “The next time I find one in a snare, I’ll be sure to formally address him as such while I’m saving his life.”
Jennie gasped. “You’ve found an Alexandra’s birdweasel in a snare?”
“No, Mother,” Bertram said. “I was being deliberately obnoxious to point out that knowing an animal’s scientific name doesn’t materially aid either me or that animal in the field. I truly do not see why knowing what to call him in a dead human language would make me better at my job.”
“It certainly wouldn’t make you worse at your job,” Jennie said. “Plus, it makes for great chat at parties!”