W is for Worlds (1/1)
W is for Worlds
All Ages
Genre: Gen, Character Study
Synopsis: Young Jonas Quinn is a child of many worlds, yet born to one which he struggles to understand.
Notes: Written for Jonas Alphabet Soup. Thanks to eilidh17 for the read-over!
W is for Worlds
Lower lip sucked in and being gently worried by his upper teeth, Jonas Quinn carefully applied a dab of green paint to the blue sphere, then sat back to admire his work.
"You made Andari too big," Revis Sorrel complained.
"No, I didn't," he replied immediately, opening an atlas and showing his classmate the picture he used as a mental reference.
Revis craned his head to look. "That's wrong! Where'd you get that?"
"It's not wrong," Jonas defended. Forgetting the bit of paint still clinging to his right hand, he accidentally smeared it across his nose, sighed, and wiped his hand off on his dad's old shirt. "It's my mom's book."
"Yeah? Isn't your mom Andari?"
"So?"
"So obviously an Andari book is going to show Andari bigger than Kelowna," the other boy groaned, rolling his eyes.
Jonas stared at him in confusion. "Why?"
"What?"
"Why would an Andari book show it bigger? Cartographers use the same measurement systems around the world, so the measurements are the same no matter who makes the map."
"'Cause they pretend they're better than everyone else, that's why," Revis replied with a disdainful sniff. "Just like the Teranians always claim to have a bigger population than Kelowna."
"They do have a bigger population." Recalling a book from his parents' library, he recited, "'Terania experienced a baby boom following the Fortrican Valley Massacre, when the government issued financial incentives to couples. In just two short years, the population of Terania had exceeded the levels prior to the attack.'"
"Geez, did you get that from a Teranian book?" Revis sneered, drawing a humiliated flush to the younger boy's cheeks. "Everyone knows the Fortrican Valley Massacre was a sham set up by the Teranian government to allow them to break the Accords. They bombed Etara City only days later, remember? We covered that in history class weeks ago."
Jonas sighed. He was never as good at remembering what he heard as he was at remembering what he had read. Having an assortment of Teranian and Andari historical accounts at home and reading Kelownan texts at school meant he wound up with a jumble of conflicting stories. It was partly why he found himself drawn to ancient history and mythology: fewer conflicts among the scholars, regardless of cultural background.
"Look, just add a little more paint to make Kelowna bigger, and we'll add it to the model. It's not like we have time to paint a whole new one anyway." Turning away, Revis returned to painting Atropo, the moon. Jonas was pretty certain the placement and sizing of the craters was all wrong, but he wasn't about to put himself forward for ridicule again.
Setting the model of Thano aside to dry-without modifying the size of the Kelownan continent-Jonas picked up the brown ball which was to become Hypno, Thano's "twin" planet in the solar system. Of course, scientists were certain Hypno had a toxic atmosphere and was otherwise inhospitable, but the two worlds had similar mass and size, and it was only reluctantly that the scientific community even agreed to call the planets after the old gods in mythology. Not, of course, that they agreed on which linguistic variant to use, and still others argued the historical name for their planet was actually "Langara"...
"You started on Hinnos yet?" Revis asked. "I'm almost done with Thenos, and then we can put the whole solar system together."
"It won't take long," Jonas answered, loading his brush with yellow paint and streaking the surface of the foam ball. As he worked, he imagined what it be like if people did live below Hypno's dense atmosphere. Would they look like the people of Thano? If there really were Hypnoans, would they try to conquer the Thanoans? Ally with one government against the other two? What if they wanted to make friends with all three continents? Surely Kelowna, Terania, and Andari could set aside their differences for such an opportunity... right?
Glancing at his classmate, Jonas was pretty sure he knew how that suggestion would be taken by Revis and anyone else from their class. They may have been born on the same continent, but there were times when Jonas felt as though he and his fellow Kelownans were from completely different worlds.