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[sythyry]

In Which Dustweed Does The Impossible [24 Nivvem 4261]

I was sitting in the Lightly Scaled Refectory, being lightly scaled, and refecting upon some chub-beetles and leftover spiced cheese, when I happened to notice Tethezai descending the staircase. As if her tail were on fire. Except without the smoke and the consequent loss of our security deposit, of course.

Me:"Oh, where do you go, so fast and so swift?"

Tethezai stopped -- at the bottom of the staircase, sensibly enough -- and came to the table, and helped herself to the chub-beetles without being invited.

Tethezai:"I cannot believe that zie actually did it."

Me:"Who did what?" I knew, of course. So do you, I should imagine.

Tethezai:"How on wood could zie dump me?"

Me:"Painfully, from the sound of it...?"

Tethezai:"Wicked one, woe to you! What life awaits you?"

Me:"I beg your pardon?"

Tethezai:"Who will come to you now? To whom will you seem beautiful?"

Me:"Um ... Jinthinia?"

Ghirbis:"No, no. It's an old love poem."

Tethezai:"Whom will you love now? Whose will you be said to be?"

Me:"Except maybe for being not very love. And not very poem, for that matter."

Tethezai:"Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?"

Ghirbis:"Well, right, it's not very love. It's very poem though. It's in Calanchian, and it .. it doesn't rhyme quite, but it's got excellent meter and more internal prosody than you can shake a sheep at. It goes like this." She warbled off something from an opera in a language I don't speak.

Tethezai:"Yeah, that, Ghirbis. Of course, the girl that that was written about was a heavy-duty libertine and found about sixteen lovers before the next act. I don't think Dustweed's going to find even one. Especially not the kind zie wants."

Ghirbis:"Zie's pissed that you get all the Herethroy, and zie wants one for zirself?"

Tethezai:"I offered to share if I could find any that were willing!"

Ghirbis:"What an ingrate!"

Tethezai:"I give zir more time and devotion than I've given anyone, and zie goes and dumps me!"

Ghirbis:"Generosity, unrewarded! Kindness, spurned! Virtue, punished! Well, some sort of virtue, at any rate."

Tethezai:"It's not like it's a problem for me. I can go get another lover or nineteen in a third of an hour."

I mused, quietly, that that very ability -- and its occasional practice -- was part of the problem.

Ghirbis:"As many as you like, with just a flick of the tail!"

Tethezai:"Hey, traff lizard? Got plans for First Night?"

Me:"If I'm not with Jinthinia, I daresay I shall be keeping a lonely roommate company." Which came out a bit more frosty than I had intended. But, even if I were (a) wholly unattached, and (b) actively interested in Rassimel and (c) so callous as to be instantly seducible by my regrettable friend's so-recent-ex-lover, I would still probably have been insulted by the suggestion about how easy my virtue is. (Or some sort of virtue, at any rate.)

Tethezai:"Right." She turned and stomped out the door, probably just as angry with me as she was with Dustweed.

Me:"So much for that friend."

Ghirbis:"Now I see why the Duke has appointed you an ambassador."

Dustweed:[tiptoeing down the stairs]"Well, I appreciate that."

Comments

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Heeheehee. Is Ghirbis studying to be a court jester, or something?

You should make sure that she never, ever finds herself face to face with Vae, though. At least one of the two of them would probably implode.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, it's nice to see Dustweed standing up for zirself! Perhaps a space of time without annoying lovers will prove better than a space of time with annoying lovers.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Tethezai wasn't annoying. Wrong-species, and not faithful, but mostly pretty nice.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Not annoying to you, perhaps - but obviously Dustweed disagreed since zie dumped Tethezai!

[esory.livejournal.com]

I rather suspect Dustweed will be no happier with Tethezai gone.

It's more sad than anything else.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

No happier (as of the next day -- I have more of yesterday to write down).

Also, crazier.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

Hm, I suspect that there exists some people who are attracted specifically to both-females, as a thought. There is a rule which applies to our greatest clearing-house of knowledge, random thought, conjecture, and gossip: "There is porn of it. Period." The demand may be small, but the supply is not vast either.
In any case, I suspect that Dustweed's pool of available romantic interests is not so nonexistant as might be otherwise stated.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

If several hundred million primes were there to choose from, I'm sure Dustweed could find someone. Lacking such a network, zie might be out of luck.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

Truely you would be amazed at the miracles that a broadly cast social network can work in trying to locate the obscure.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

There is, yes. I've actually seen a little of it. Neither item I saw presented the both-female as a person in her (or zir) own right worthy of dignity and respect, such as a pro-baron Vheshrame Academy student might prefer. In one of the two, the both-female was quite grateful to be a allowed to be living latrine for the Rassimel couple. In the other, she was simply the lowest and vilest of the count's servants, and for that reason the one that the count's husband was required to copulate with in public as a punishment for a deed that I would prefer to think of as both physically and socially impossible. But worthy of punishment if it were possible, though.

I daresay that somewhere on wood there are Herethroy men and women -- or co-lovers if Dustweed is desperate -- who would actually like both-females as lovers in a reasonable way, and treat them well, and would be willing to admit to these things in public. In combination I daresay they're rarer than both-females.

Probably rarer than Zi Ri, for that matter.

Harder to spot on the street than Zi Ri, at least.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

Would another both-female be adequate? Certainly that would be hard to imagine as having a horribly unbalanced power structure.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet dared to tell Dustweed about the other both-female I have ready to hand.

[justicezero.livejournal.com]

I suspect that specific one might not be especially interested. Tragic really. But a different one not in such a unique position, perhaps, might be a pleasant match, albeit not so upwardly mobile and socially protected as the dallying with Tethezai.

I suspect this would come down to a question of utility. Is it better to be unhappy with Tethezai, and as such, protected to some extent from the slings and arrows of society, or to seek happiness with an equal, and have company in one's ostracism?

I admit that I am unclear what, exactly, Tethezai gains from her relationship with Dustweed, and this leaves me uneasy of the entire matter.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It's a bit peculiar. Dustweed has few equals: she is both-female, which is at the bottom of the Herethroy social order; but she is heir to a barony, too, which is a fairly high honor. Also she's due to be a Vheshrame Academy graduate, which is a different kind of fairly high honor. You won't find too many people who cover nearly the entire social spectrum between their crotch and their forehead (inclusive).

Tethezai, as I understand, started out thinking Dustweed was a novelty, but somehow had the misfortune to fall in love with zir. Dustweed didn't quite respond properly to this act of benevolence, though it took her unconscionably long to figure that out.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've been reading and hearing several unrelated people say, on different topics (politics and theology), "Things can change when people begin to contact each other and find out they're not alone, and start taking low-risk steps to make it known they exist."