So yeah.
I love this story. I know, I'm going to seem like an unrestrained and indiscriminate lover here, between Secret Life and EP's Exhalation and now this. You're all going to forget how vociferous I can be in my not-loving of stories.
This is my favorite Cat Rambo story (so far). I loved it ages ago on Clarkesworld and I love it still. I'm so glad PodCastle ran it, because the reading was great and really added another level to the story for me. And one of the things I cherish about this story is how humanly and humanely depicted every being is (except the curse rabbits, nothing humane there, but still appropriate). The main character truly loves the animals in her care, but in the end, if they need to be lobotomized...she'll do it. That's her job. The beast classified fey gives her father in law the only attention and love he's known for 25 years and saves Tara's life, despite being a murderer, but that doesn't rescue Lupe from the awful surgery at the end. The manticore will gnaw the MC's bones somenight (and Tara knows it)...but not this one. Tara clearly says that some of the most cogent interactions she's had in her life have been with 'beasts', and doesn't ever parse that to mean she ought to examine her assumptions. And yet the MC is drawn sympathetically, she's meant to be an everyperson, and the story itself doesn't cast judgment on her or fall into preachiness. I think it's very honestly and subtly done.
And man, where everyone else sees nothing I see a LOT. The story is carefully plotted and constructed. It hangs together structurally, and each piece is needed to make the next piece go (Sparky has to have been dismissed in order to be murdered, frex and in order for Tara to recognize his tools). Even unicorn face girl is a necessary foil to the fey, less human (both less intelligent and less kind) but granted human status. I love the worldbuilding: the weirdly orbiting moon, the probable circus life, the oblique suggestions of a vastly different (more modern?) time, the significant names. (Yes, totally a sucker for onomastics, when done right, of course. It is possible to do onomastics badwrong.) Further, the telling details kick ass: the yellow eye of the manticore rolling back, the description of Rik through Tara's loving eyes, the zombie rabbits, and so on.
This story has rewarded multiple readings/listenings for me, and that's pretty much the high bar of acclaim in Anarkey world. It's a story I come back to periodically. I also find it somewhat bewildering that people found it emotionally unsatisfying. I thought the end note in this was just perfect and beautiful and moving. I suppose it's possible that the protag hasn't changed enough to satisfy some, but I think the protag's not changing is the point and that it's driven home quite poignantly.
Oh well. To each his own, as they say.
