(no subject)

[sythyry]

Parental Oversight [27 Oix 4261]

The Specific Charge

Eitharheinen:"You have purchased Extra Sleep in the Morning? Sythyry, what on wood are you thinking? You are a Zi Ri! Your sole claim to personal power is that you have plenty of time! Does the Duke wear a vast illusionary thundercloud over his head saying "I AM THE DUKE?" No, he does not -- doing it is enough! Does the author of a modestly amusing fanfic series write a whole self-praising autobiography to go with it when it is vanity-published? No, it does not -- the work should largely speak for itself! You should not be learning time spells! It is unseemly!"

Me:"Between classes and ambassadorship, I frequently find myself running short of time. Howevermuch I have in the matter of centuries, I am living in days now, and my days need more hours in them!"

Eitharheinen:Further explanations and exhortations! Disparaging statements about how much of my time is surely going to the wrong-species boyfriend! "You must return the spell at once!"

Me:"I can't. I've grafted half of it already."

Eitharheinen:"Well, then you cannot return it. Still, you must never admit to having that spell."

I have, of course, bubbled about getting it to my entire Enchantment class, and Ilottat, and my roommates, and, I daresay, the waiters at The Soup in Sloop. This may explain a few fire-edged looks.

The General Issue

Actually, zie hadn't visited because of that spell in particular. Zie had, suddenly, gotten a bill for a great many spells -- an itemized bill -- and was concerned.

Eitharheinen:"You bought a rather insane pile of spells. What, precisely, do you plan to do with them?"

Me:"Um... graft them?"

Eitharheinen:"Really?"

Me:"Well, yes. What else does one do with boxed spells?"

Eitharheinen:"One might, perhaps, sell them at a discount, thereby converting a large fraction of zir well-arranged stipend into wholly fungible funds. One might entirely lose one's stipend by such tricks."

Me:"That had not occurred to me."

Eitharheinen:"And the spells are of such varied character and function -- and arts! -- that I cannot at all understand why a single person might purchase all of them together at once."

I despaired of explaining just how cute Dewdrop is, and just how persuasive.

Me:"Well, I do plan to graft them as soon as I can manage. I'm halfway through More Sleep in the Morning already."

This prompted the particular bit of outrage above.

Eitharheinen:"And how is it that you have purchased a Destroc Locador spell, a Mutoc Magiador spell, and Kennoc Herbador spell? Of these six arts, you are competant at exactly one, and not very competant even at that! Which is another sign of negligence!"

Me:"Actually, I can cast all but one of them."

Eitharheinen:"... really?..." Zie can be quite terrifying, even if one is telling the truth.

Me:"Um ... yes?"

Eitharheinen:"You have neglected mentioning studying these topics. Indeed, the Vheshrame Academy has neglected mentioning it as well, as has Hezimikkinen."

Me:"Wasn't there. I've been adventuring."

Eitharheinen:"You what? You have neglected mentioning that, as have Vheshrame Academy and Hezimikkinen both. I absolutely forbid any risking of your life!"

Me:"Well, I've been ambassadoring to Vae. That counts as adventuring. And I'd rather not do, but the Duke ..."

Eitharheinen:"That's still going on? I gave Hezimikkinen the strictest instructions!"

Me:"Unfortunately there is a Duke in zir way. A strong Duke."

Eitharheinen:"We shall see about that."

I do hope that ~mother~'s not planning anything treasonous and doomful.

Eitharheinen:"In the meantime, what did you mean by all these spells? Are they all for adventuring?"

Me:"Well, Change the Awful Sentence could probably save my life if I say the wrong thing to the nendrai..."

Eitharheinen:"That's the one you can't cast, right?"

Me:"Well, not yet."

Eitharheinen:"Why'd you get it then?"

Me:"I can graft it now, and I'd like to have it as soon as I can cast it."

Eitharheinen:"Well ... I suppose that makes some sense. It seems like a reasonable thing, if you must talk to that disgusting beast."

Me:"She's not disgusting. Miserable and overpowered, maybe."

Eitharheinen:"Don't you go ambassadorial at me, young lizard!"

Me:"... sorry ... "

Eitharheinen:"and this Speak to the Tree spell? Are you going to be ambassador to a helletumug infestation soon, too?"

Me:"Um ... I ... don't know why I picked that one."

Which caused another explosion, at which I defended myself like Barxolo at the battle of Oorah Nirax. (Grand General Barxolo was injured eleven times during the course of the battle. Six times by himself in his own clumsiness, and five times by his assistants in their clumsinesses. He managed not to participate in the battle at all. His forces, confused and dismayed by the lack of leadership, did just as badly as they did in all the other battles of that war.)

In the end, I am returning Speak to the Tree, Shrink the Road, Invisible Icicles, Ward that Evades (Me: "It's a defensive spell!" ~mother~: "You should be using The Quick Escape instead."), and Parlor of the Elegant Mage. And I'd be returning More Sleep in the Morning except I can't.

The Aftermath

Vae:"Hiio, Sythyry! What's wrong?"

Me:"Hallo, Vae. Nothing's wrong."

Vae:"It's furious and a half you are for there to be nothing wrong!"

Getting sympathy from a monster about something my ~mother~ did is simply unconscionable.

Comments

[redbird]

Is there some reason you can't graft Ward that Evades and The Quick Escape?

I do see your ~mother~'s point about Speak to the Tree.

[walkyrje.livejournal.com]

Does the author of a modestly amusing fanfic series write a whole self-praising autobiography to go with it when it is vanity-published?

Yeowch.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Wasn't thinking of you!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No technical problem with having both. But my ~mother~ doesn't want me to use Ward that Evades. Zie doesn't want me to stay close enough to a fight for Ward to be useful.

Everyone does, about Speak. Even I do.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Poor Dewdrop will be so dissapointed! She had already been looking forward to a new apartment, closer to the river...

*sniff!*

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Is a small pittance of money worth you NOT having Ward That Evades when something gets close enough to you for it to matter?
*sniff* You ~Mother~ sure holds your welfare cheaply.
...
Or is she immune to pathos and guilt?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Zir response was, "If there's something dangerous that close, you should teleport away."

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I'm sure she will bounce back quickly - note that it is not the amount that was spent, but the particular spells that were chosen! It remains only to choose new, more desirable spells to sell Sythyry.

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Poor you, getting raked by the claws of your own mother.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. It was too easy. *toothy grin*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You're a Sleeth, aren't you? A bipedal Sleeth on a world of all Sleeth?

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know about that. I'll not argue about being called a monster, as it designates alienness between the speaker and the one being spoken of. However, isn't 'Sleeth' a more specific term?

[Author's note that I forgot to give earlier because I had to go to work: Don't worry about Sythyry's narrow-mindedness. In Hraith's mind, Sythyry is being quite civil. Most smallish aliens just shout nasty things at him and skitter away. This is definitely an improvement. Besides, Hraith can be pretty narrow-minded himself. --SG]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, right. Sleeth are very specific. The one snoring on the other side of my lab table, in particular, is exceedingly specific. You're not a Sleeth. You're a Sleethalike.

[Bard grins. "I'm glad to have IC chats with another character who isn't a sugarhoney monster convinced that everyone should be nice to everyone and all like that. As well as more opportunity to show off Sythyry's bad points.]

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

It's safer to just have a dozen copies of The Quick Escape bound to teleport you to a random nearby empty space when someone attacks you. Even if you never figure out what in the gods' names is going on (and why would you, if you keep getting bounced around like a pinball?) you should be reasonably safe.

Well, except against things like fire flower, I suppose.

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps a Sleeth is like me. I'll be sure to research these Sleeth and see if they're really that easy to relate to. The universe is already too full of incomprehensible aliens. A few more that make sense would be a good thing.

[I like Sythyry's bad points. They play well off of Hraith's bad points. They're both rather pointy in their own ways. You're also quite welcome to come on over to his journal and let Sythyry take annoying jabs at Hraith whenever you feel like it. --SG]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Were your gods juvenile and hyperactive too, then? Ours made any number of varieties of monster -- and they keep making new ones. I'm pretty sure that my friend Vae is a new variety of nendrai, made 'specially for the sake of annoying Vheshrame. Or the perdithorne, about fifty years ago -- we woke up one morning and there were lots of sarcastic half-skeletal cat things. The Sleeth loved 'em, or so I hear. Primes shouldn't screw monsters, but try telling that to a Sleeth.

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Sleeth screw monsters? All right, that's far too abhorrent for me. Blyech. Many times blyech.

My universe wasn't created by gods. It occurred through natural progression. I would assume this is the case with all universes; as intriguing as this god notion is, I wouldn't go so far as to believe in it. It sounds like the result of a classic misunderstanding. Either that or there are some factors behind it that wouldn't make sense until I witnessed them personally. I suppose it is possible that universes could come about by different means.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, we've got eyewitnesses still around. Three of my four grandparents were there, or not too far after, when everything was new. Yylhauntra told us somewhat about it ... heavens, only four months ago. A very long four months. For that matter, Vae's not-so-distant ancestors were around before it was created, though I hope I never meet any of them.

I don't know how any other universes were made.

[hraith.livejournal.com]

So where did Vae's ancestors live before the universe was created? And if your grandparents were present at the beginning of the universe, of what nature were their parents and grandparents, and where did they live? Did they all get shipped in from a pre-existing universe?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well ... as I understand prehistory, which isn't very well, the primordeal nendrai (Vae's ancestors) lived in Gnarn's personal domains before our universe was sufficiently fully built for living things to live in, and then lived here for some decades before people were created. My grandparents had no progenitors; they were created, fully adult, out of Hren Tzen's personal idiosyncracies.

Incidentally, creating a universe is no great challenge. A modestly clever five-year-old prime could probably manage it in a hundred tries, or twenty if she were a sentient insect. I expect I could get it on the first or second try, or, if I dared go back to the spell-shop, I could work for under a day and be able to do it reliably, every time. Creating a universe that lasts for more than a few minutes and has anything but air in it is rather more work.

Creating a living thing is considerably harder than creating an empty space. I couldn't manage it at all without a pattern spell, and I've only got one spell that does it -- and that one sitting in a box in my bedroom, midway down my list of spells to graft. Falcons made by that spell won't last very long; it will be many years before I can make a truly living falcon.

Creating a viable species is considerably harder still. I'm not sure whether or not my excessively-famous grandparent could manage it (zie could do it if any prime could) though I am sure he has better taste than to try.

Our creator gods can, evidently, do it in a matter of hours or days. Once one or another god created some new species of ornamental bush in a park, and some scholars scried on her from afar. And salvaged the discarded varieties of bushes. I don't know much more than that about the incident, but I might be able to look it up if you'd like.

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Sure, look it up. I'm curious.

So you're only the third generation of your kind, hmm? That's quite a contrast. To give you an idea of the contrast, I'll share a bit of my own history.

38 generations ago, my ancestors were present when the Griys first made contact with my people. These Griys have lifespans of around 300 years. Previous to this 'first contact' the Griys underwent three rise-and-fall cycles without ever contacting us, each cycle taking an average of 15 generations to complete. Before that, Griys technology reached a pinnacle, during which they traveled to our planet and to the outer reaches of the galaxy. (It was a very impressive pinnacle. Too bad that technology was lost.) At that time, my people hadn't yet evolved into anything resembling what we are today. They were, essentially, animals.

Before that, Griys culture experienced a slow, tedious growth process, each successive generation building on the achievements of the one before. So maybe 5-10 million years ago, they figured out how to leave their planet of origin. 50 million years ago, the Griys evolved well enough to become 'sentient'. One or two billion years ago, their one-celled ancestors spontaneously generated out of a fortuitous placement of substances. Several hundred billion years ago, their planet hardened into stone. (It's gone now; they no longer have a planet called 'Origin'.) Many trillions of years ago, their star formed. It's still around, so it's probably a 5th or 6th generation star. Which means everything I mentioned above may have happened 5 or 6 times previously.

If we ever had gods, they must've been so good at creating universes that they didn't have a flaming chance to outlast this one.

[esory.livejournal.com]

How awful! I can't believe zie's making you return that many of them. I thought zie wanted you to buy spells.

[zeeth_kyrah]

This is what happens when someone takes their time teaching what things zie wishes zir progeny to learn about "common sense", or at least what zie regards as useful; and then remains protective of appearances, as much so as of personages.

You'd think that the third child would be receiving the benefit of prior experience... and perhaps zie is... I note that of two ~siblings, there is only one ever mentioned in this journal.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a good excuse to return the useless ones like 'Parlor of the Elegant Mage' and 'Speak to the Trees'.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Parlor isn't useless! I want a pretty home!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

They're real half-siblings! ~mother~ isn't my mother, (by definition since zie's not female) but Zimi really is my half-siblings.

[OOC - who is the third sibling? Or where is that mentioned? I can't find it. -bb]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Zie does. But, appropriate spells. I'm not sure what's appropriate, exactly, but that one I'm not supposed to mention isn't. Neither is talking to trees.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

You've still got the better version that lasts days and does the whole house all in one cley!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No, that just creates images, and ... um ... I'm a total featherhead, aren't I?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Sounds like rather an old universe. I can imagine the gods got bored and left. After five or six many trillions of years, I daresay I'd get bored and leave, too, and I'm probably better designed for enduring eternity than your average god. Well, than our average god, at least.

[Sythyry obviously has no clue what the rest of the history is about.]

[zeeth_kyrah]

[The mention of Sythyry being a third child is somewhere in the first half of the journal, way back amongst the Spirshash incidents; I've been reading all the way through as of ...last night? or some associated time of the week. Sigh. And picking up a scent of speech patterns from it, apparently.

Anyway, I'm digging now to pinpoint the exact incidence if I can.]

[hraith.livejournal.com]

If so, good riddance, eh? We're in charge now, and by your description of gods, that's for the better.

[zeeth_kyrah]

I may have misread. I know that there was only a single mention of birth number, and that it was before Caathestaa. I shouldn't skim when trying to reaquire such fiddly-small details from such shakingly-large amounts of text; but at least I have narrowed the search to a third from a half.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

[zeeth_kyrah]

Nice thing about More Sleep is that you'll be able to cast it for others. Even if you supposedly have no use for it, certainly someone else will.