Imparting Wisdom
A Thursday Prompt story
© 2021 Walter Reimer

Prompt: wire

Set in the Spontoon Island universe.



“All right,” the red panda femme said, “let me see what you have.” Her daughter passed over what she’d been working on, and the older femme examined it.

She had the basic fur colors of a red panda, but curiously had darker stripes visible against the deep red and chocolate brown fur on her body and limbs. Her banded tail also bore extra stripes, but these were less easily seen. Her green eyes were calculating as she checked what her teenaged daughter had made.

“Well?” Chu Xinyu asked. Her fur was closer to a classical pattern than her mother’s.

Wo Laoyu rolled her eyes at her daughter. “Patience, New Jade,” she said tartly, deliberately giving the literal English translation of the younger red panda’s first name. Like her mother, she was named for the color of her eyes, a light, almost hazel green. “Your great-grandparents were patient, and passed – “

“Passed on a fortune,” Xinyu said. “I know, Mother. I just want to be sure I did it right.”

Laoyu smiled and patted her daughter’s paw. “And your Grandmother Shin would punish both of us if you did it wrong and I failed to catch it.” She squinted at the item once more, and nodded. “It looks good,” she said, holding it out to her daughter. “I approve.”

Xinyu’s muzzle split in a wide grin. “Really?”

Her mother nodded. “It’s exactly as my mother taught me to do it. Songmark training is very useful in a difficult and dangerous world. Now,” she asked as her daughter turned the braided garotte over in her paws, “I’ll show you how to hide it in your tailfur so it can’t be easily found,” and the teenaged member of Songmark’s incoming Class of 1984 got out of her chair and proffered her tail to her mother.

As Laoyu started work, Xinyu asked, “Why did you have me use fishing line? Grandmother’s was metal.”

“X-ray machines,” her mother replied, looking up at her daughter over her eyeglasses.

“Oh.”

“Now, watch carefully . . . “