The Wet
Far northern Australia is close to the equator and experiences just two seasons: the Wet and the Dry. As the names imply, when it’s Dry it’s very dry, and when it’s Wet, you get torrential rains and flooding:
This handout photo taken on March 10, 2023 and received on March 11, 2023 from the Queensland Police Service shows an aerial view of the flooded northern Queensland town of Burketown.
Image courtesy of: https://gdb.voanews.com/01000000-0aff-0242-5476-08db22a1bf0a_w1023_r1_s.jpg
Growing up in Australia, floods and fires were part of my world view, so it’s no surprise that my imaginary planet, Vokhtah, experiences extremes of weather too. During Kohoh, torrential rain falls for about 80 days. Rivers overflow and low lying plains flood until water laps at the feet of the mountains:
So what happens to the Tukti? They live on the plains and burrow down into the ground. Where do they go when their burrows fill with water?
When I first started thinking about the Tukti, they were only bit players in the story of Vokhtah, so I didn’t nut out the details of their lives. Now that I’m writing about Little Miss and Big Brother though, these questions demand answers.
Well, two days ago I finally saw the obvious: the Tukti don’t just burrow down, they also burrow up, into the mushroom shaped top of their mounds!
When their normal burrows flood, they move up into their emergency quarters, which also happen to be their storage caverns. Space is always tight, and sometimes the food runs out, leaving the Tukti of the mound to starve.
Most years though, the Tukti survive far better than animals like the plains runners. The Akaht [similar in appearance to emus] that don’t drown are forced to compete for dry space with animals like the To’pak which eat Akaht for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the worst seasons, only the incredibly tough eggs of the Akaht survive to restart the great herds.
I only just worked that out too.
As epiphanies go, these two were so obvious, I’m ashamed it took me so long to get that ‘ah hah!’ moment. Now that I have though, I’m thrilled that two more ‘facts’ have slotted so neatly into place. 
cheers,
Meeks
