Post image: a human artist’s impression of the Claravian afterlife, the Empyrean, depicting a blessed soul immersed in the Uncreated Light. The Empyrean is sometimes derisively called “The farm” by irreverent humans.

Pious spacers will assume this posture while in torpor. The palms of the forepaws are raised, with the inner and outer thumbs pressed against the palm. The palms of the rear paws are pressed together. Yinrih are not unconscious during torpor, and often use the time to meditate.

1. ink bulb
2. phalanges
3. ink duct
4. digital pad
5. claw

One of the few anatomical differences between yinrih and tree dwellers is the arrangement of the so-called “writing tract”, the system including the writing claw, the ink duct, and the ink sac or bulb. In tree dwellers, the ink bulb and duct are located directly ventral to the phalanges, meaning each footfall applies pressure to the ink causing some to flow out passively onto the surrounding surface as the tree dweller walks or climbs. In yinrih, the ink duct and bulb have migrated slightly to the side, thus applying less pressure with each step, reducing or eliminating passive ink excretion. Presapient yinrih had to actively smear their ink onto surfaces in order to mark them, encouraging the development of the yinrih’s primordial written language.

Yinrih have conscious control of the muscles that cause the ink bulb to contract, and ink flow relies more on the pressure applied by the contracting ink bulb than to gravity. This allows yinrih to write in zero-G.

Stormburg, also Stormboro or Stormborough, is the capital of Moonlitter. It is a floating city located on the planet itself. It is not open to the air like the cities on Welkinstead, since the atmosphere is not breathable. It is located in the eye of a perpetual cyclonic storm. No sunlight penetrates the deep clouds around it. The only natural light comes from the constant lightning from the surrounding storm clouds.

Why the capital was placed in such an inhospitable location has been lost to history. Unlike Welkinstead, Moonlitter itself has few exploitable resources, and the bulk of the population lives on the planet’s many moons. The location may have been chosen precisely because it did not favor any one moon, or perhaps to make life miserable for the politicians who have to live there.

This is Pascal from one of the stories I posted a while ago.