"There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met-
But you know and I know -kindred souls are we."
>From "Jaq's Song," by the female filk trio, Technical Difficulties

These words captivated me the first time I heard them on a tape of filk songs ten years ago. I've never found a better text to describe my feelings about Klingon fandom. It is an engine for off-the-wall fun, and comes complete with ready friends to share it with. Sue Ann Weaver emerged as one of the most imaginative, generous, and playful of these, bursting upon the scene out of the blue: a letter from Minnesota with a tentative inquiry, autumn, 1991. A pal had loaned her James Van Hise's big messy "Trek Fan's Budget Handbook."

You've seen his books? This one is typical-- grotesquely overpriced, underproofed, often out-of-date Trek-related jumble. I forgive all. He brought us K'tura! She found the "Agonizer" in a rambling list of Trek publications, liked the Klingon focus, wrote to say she's always admired the Klingons (Van Hise got my address right!!!) , and what was going on with this?

She was a little older than I, in her mid-forties. Living in a trailer on a farm with a supportive consort, several dogs, horses, she had nature's beauty and challenges always near. (They had moved from Indiana some years earlier, taking their laid-back Wiccan pantheistic selves away from conflict with their more traditionally religious families)

She started a small business called "Wind in the Jack Pines," selling her handcrafted runes, leather goods, herb smudges, dream webs, staves. She came to us with years of experience as a Voyageur re-enactor and costumer. She wanted to play Klingon. but wasn't sure how to get involved.

We exchanged a flurry of letters that first month and a half. I'm looking at the thick stack now. (You are right, Khar'ton! This happens best by snail!) We exchanged pages and pages of confidances with the "you too's??!!" bouncing back and forth. And as I re-read her hearty letters, I realize that right from the start Sue Ann anticipated the major areas in which she would make unique contributions to Klingon culture: shamanic wisdom in the form of runes and their interpretation, language building (she would make herself an adept in Okrandian and Fordian Klingonaase and coin many a word), writing, (she had always been a busy freelancer contributing to several horsey mags and would bring that energy to Klingon tale-spinning) and horse lore (Did I think there might be room for a horse-themed Klingon unit?)

She was starting from scratch. She meant to make a mark, not because she needed attention--she is a centered, giving personality, free of paranoia--but because she was energized by what she was finding out, and she wanted to play a role in it.

A neat coincidence: during the year before she tripped over us in that handbook, she had learned through spirit questing that she was, in fact, of a Warrior type. Connecting with Klingons just made sense! She had a very cool way of joining things she took very seriously-like intuition and wisdom lore-to her fun, in this case, Klingons.

She decided to form a mounted unit of Klingon "Horz" soldiers. She would draw on a life-long fascination with horses. Her Dad had been a horse cop. She herself had made study of nineteenth century horsetamers' techniques. She built herself a persona named K'tura Doqro', officer of the Imperial Mounted Guard, and scion of a line-family with gifts of "insight."

She thought maybe the unit would find a berth in KAG and gave that a run until it became clear that (except for Jett!) fewer Klingon fans were attracted to the project than other new-to-the-fandom horse lovers. So she adapted and took the time to train her raw recruits in Klin-ways.

She ended up taking the club off as an independent entity, managing (Oh, grace!) to do it without creating political storms. Within months she had a roster of close to forty enthusiastic comrades costuming, competing in model "horz" shows and supporting a hefty club nl/zine called "Warhorz" with art and writing.

She never stopped extending herself to people in the fandom who might share her interests. She opened correspondence with Sue Isle and Lana Brown in Australia. (She and Sue would end up collaborating on a whole series of stories set in the Klingon universes they had created independently but now would share. Lana sent art for "Warhorz" and traded her own Klin-zines for K'tura's handiworks). She also recruited new talent, notably Anna Larrson, a young Swedish Predator fan and prolific artist. Anna ended up illustrating zines for both K'tura and Keren (Sue Isle.)

Between November 0f 1991, K'tura produced eleven issues of "WarHorz." They grew from the early close-typed ten page first issue up to the thirty four pagers of later editions. This outfit grew fast! The run ended in 1994, when pressures of health and time forced K'tura to back off the work involved in maintaining her thriving club.

She gradually retreated from correspondence, but the mark she made still shines. In 1992, her art on the dedication page of Klin-Fire was an apt symbol of the encouragement she gave to any and all in the fandom. In the summer of 1994, she contributed to "Agonizer"what amounts to a booklet describing and illustrating Klingon rune systems.

In 1995, she assembled "Comes the Sun," her collected stories of a Klingon Imperial Guard unit stationed on a planet called Kraaxi. Not only are her Klingon characters richly developed, but she has a knack for aliens of her own creation, notably the Kraaxi people, and a delightful way with Ferengi types. And if I ever get KomereXXX II together, her unique additions to Klingon sexual vocabulary will finally see the light.

Sad to say, though, the real world was bearing in on K'tura and "Comes the Sun" was her last big Klingon project. But she still seems glad to hear about our ongoing adventures. When Kadak and I were going on about our plans to attend the Klingon Year Games sponsored by the Cincinnati KAG Demons in June of '98, she wrote, "Didn't I say, lo these many years ago, cons should be held outdoors-like rendezvous? Klingons in tepees, warming themselves around the ol' campfire. Toss some gagh into the wild rice stew. Hey, I can see it now!"
 

Well, I'll tell you what I'd like to see some day: Our friend back in action in full studded leather kit, riding into the Year Games campsite on her horned horz: K'tura Doqro' of the Imperial Mounted Guard!

**********
Things I can share from the K'tura hoard:

1) Two sets of the Deghmey cha.'These are easy-to--use simplified divination sets consisting of three wooden Klingon rune discs handmade by K'tura, presented in a silver satin pouch. One rune is blank. One is inscribed with the rune (degh) SuvWi', or "warrior." This is the "YES" rune. The third is inscribed with the "qama'", or "prisoner" rune, and this is the "NO" disc. Included is a single sheet of instructions for employing these runes. (I will sell these two sets to first comers for $15 each, with the money going to the MINDSCANNER Subscription Payback Fund.)

2) Pages 72 to 86 of "Agonizer" 4.2, Klingon runes described and illustrated, with instructions on how to make your own and how to interpret the runes.

3) "Comes the Sun", May 1995, Volume 1 of the Kraaxi chronicles, illustrated by Anna Karin Larsson, 106 pages, spiral bound. This is the zine of K'tura's IMG stories set on the planet Kraaxi, featuring the characters she had developed around the notion of a Klingon mounted garrison keeping order on a frontier world. Character roster and glossary get you oriented to this complex world. K'tura's work makes me think of Marion Zimmer Bradley's for several reasons. The mystical influences, the rich interplay and contact among peoples with different gifts, questions of domination and submission in terms of running an Empire. I have K'tura's permission to reproduce CTS for costs.

4) Individual issues of WARHORZ for anyone intrigued enough to pay copy costs and postage. If you'd like a sample of the IMG newsletter, let me know

5) The Imperial Mounted guard Handbook No. 1, July 1992, 13 pages of information about the IMG, its activities and newsletter,: costuming ideas for members AND their horzes; information about Horz breeds, names and registration.

And just in case anyone would like to send a smoke signal K'tura's way, you might just try-

Wind in the Jackpines,
Rt. 3, Box 381
Pine City, MN55063.