(no subject)

[sythyry]

Love Letter [13 Hispis 4385]

Vae flickered excitedly from one shape to another: a tree whose branches were snakes, a cloud with glaring purple eyes, an obsidian statue of a Herethroy, herself. "The love letter is what Oixe sent me!"

"Oh, that's great!" I said. "You've been missing her all over the ship. That's the wooden spoon, I take it?"

"How did she send you a love letter? She's hundreds of thousands of miles away, and from what you've said, she's not very good at teleporting," asked Phaniet. (Magic geeks are, of course, aware that even Vae, for all her ridiculous Locador power, can't teleport from Ketheria to Oixe at once. And Phaniet is the geekiest magic geek aboard Strayway.)

"The special envelopes I gave her when I saw her last, when she was gravid. They do the teleporting, not my mate!" chirped Vae.

"Have you read the love letter yet? How do you read a wooden spoon?" I asked.

"The I've read it, the I've read it, the dozen times have I read it!" Vae became an abstract violet spiral, then a barrel labelled "Pickled Mushrooms" overflowing with serpents, than a purple cloud generously adorned with sprigs of lavender, then herself. She held the spoon out for me to read: the bowl filled with pastry crust, with letters branded on it.

Dear Vaisessasilmin. The I miss you. Not boring is tending our egg. The vast dungeon I am building. The traps, the tricks, the dooms. Not much can I tell you. The I would like to be able to. Not a bit can I though. If you find any medium-sized monsters who want a dungeon to live in, send them to me. The nights I curl up around the egg. The very safe I am keeping it. The pictures I have sent of it -- 0.38 millimeters already long is our daughter! Not yet do I know what species she will be. The eyes I think are yours. The love and battle with you I miss greatly. After our daughter is grown, the hunting trip together we must go on, for we never got around to that. The I love you. -- Oikusanghlirxat

"The picture of the egg she sent! The mate of mine is very clever and devious! The things she shares with me, are more than a guarding nendrai usually can! See, see!"

I looked at the spoon, but the crust had vanished. "Where?"

Vae bounced, becoming a bowl of boiling grass, a flaming chair, herself. "The left ornament on top of the spoon, that is the picture!" The spoon had three ornamental knobs, each with a tangly Illusidor and Mentador spell on it. I don't much like Mentador -- and that is an unusually tolerant attitude towards it -- but for my friend's sake, I put my paw on the left knob.

And was greeted with a very vivid view and very vivid memory of Oixe herself. I'm pretty sure it was intended for Vae and only for Vae. I can understand why Vae might be pleased to read (or experience) this part of the letter, though I am not generally one to look lecherously on lizards. Especially not my friends' lovers.

As I attempted to recover my usual composure and coloration, Vae said, "Not your left, I mean. My left."

This time I pointed at the knob with a somewhat trembly claw. "This one?" The spells on all three knobs were the same, in the same way that the same ink and same paper can be used for a fairy tale, a distinguished jeremiad, a work of pornography.

"The that one!"

So I stretched out my paw and touched the that one. (I still don't like Mentador, even when it's not slithering lizard lust into my mind.) Vae and Oixe's egg is a dangerous-looking thing, cute and cuddly as a durian fruit, with alert brazinion needles on its spikes. It was surrounded by obscuring spells: Oixe was apparently able to show us the egg itself, but not anything that might hint at its location or defenses.

Then the memory shifted, giving us an Eyes for the Small-ish view of the slowly-growing embryo. A tiny curled thing, mostly tail even this early, wriggling happily in a vast-to-her bath of eggyolk. Her face was barely developed: a quickly-sketched curve of jaw, a tiny bubble of a face.

"I think she does have your eyes," I told Vae. At least, I didn't see any evidence to the contrary.

Vae wriggled delightedly: a blazing spear, a leopard with piecrust wings, a tower of books inhabited by aerial shrimps, a pulsating vortex of light and heat swirling with cartoony heart-signs, herself.

Comments

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

(cackle) "cute and cuddly as a durian fruit." Uh huh.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

One has to wonder what exists on the world tree that is suitable for translation to 'durian fruit'.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[The vegetable component of the Infinite Grenade, which isn't ordinarily edible, but I thought 'durian fruit' captured zir intent better. -bb]

[waywind.livejournal.com]

"Cute and cuddly as a grenade" can be a wonderful description of a kaiju egg too, now that I think about it.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

If there's only the one head it's probably not Oixe's species... unless they grow in later or something. It might be something completely new of course.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Perhaps ontology recapitulates phylogeny in this case too.]

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

OooO! Nice!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

*beam*

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have to ask. Is it like solid pie crust, or like they make for Dutch Apple pies, with little criss-cross patterns.

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

The latter wouldn't make much sense, they'd let all the air through! (Unless there was some kind of membrane covering the holes . . .)

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

How does floating strings of cups flying with a spoon make more sense then Dutch Apple wings? ^.^

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

Well, the former are not meant to be wings. And floating cups would be very useful, especially if they come with a spoon!

[deor.livejournal.com]

So this is where dungeons come from!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Well, it beats having monsters just eat new ones.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

"When a papa dungeon and a mama dungeon love each other very much..."

[bikerwalla.livejournal.com]

I read that as "a tangy Illusidor and Mentador spell", and while that usually leaves a bad taste in one's mouth, I didn't know one could taste magic.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

You mean you can't?

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

It's a bit crunchy, too. Or maybe I leave mine in the magetherium too long.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

So what was on the third knob?

And what's wrong with lizard porn? Especially since you're pretty lizardly youself.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I like mammals, myself. Lizard porn is perplexing. Especially lizard porn involving lizards which are (2) not prime, (3) configured utterly unlike Zi Ri, (2) in love with someone else, (3) able to destroy me thoroughly, (2) intending the porn for my best friend, and (1) using Mentador magic to proclaim just what they are feeling and thinking at the moment.

I just asked Vae. The third knob is a constructed scene -- half Oixe's memories of some dedicated couple time with Vae, half Oixe's imagination of what might be in some future dedicated couple time. Where the other-left knob was suggestive -- in the sense of "I suggest you drop trou now and copulate with me" -- the third knob left nothing to the imagination. Which is odd, given that it's half imaginary. I'm very glad I didn't get to experience it. Even Vae -- whose emotions of 'privacy' and 'jealousy' are nothing like those of primes -- is rather glad I didn't get to experience it.

[zeeth_kyrah]

This is giving me ideas.

You're quite welcome to be afraid, even though it doesn't touch you.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

(2) in love with someone else

Doesn't pretty much all porn involve people in love with someone else? Or do you only read porn that you appear in? If so, can you share, because I would love some Sythyry porn. ;P

PS - Is it Sythyry who's not very good at counting or the translator? ;>

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I suppose it does involve people in love with someone else, but not with someone in particular that I know.

There's not much Sythyry porn around, save for some quite old and amateurish works that Mynthe and I did for each other, which I do not feel like sharing.

[Bard would be amused by some too, but isn't writing any.]

The numbers are, of course, order of importance, with (1) being first.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

I'd just finally like an answer to the mystery of how Zi Ri genitalia works, since I keep seeing hints of it being rather elaborate. ;>

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[All Sythyry has told me is, "Get an anatomy book and behold the elegant reality!" -bb]

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

That, and their courtship seemed to involve major organ trauma when we last saw it!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Courtship doesn't. Reproduction does.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

See, Zi-ri have something in common with Nendrai have something in common besides being sexy lizards: they both have to go through a lot of pain to reproduce.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Everyone does, I think. The more populous species get it worst as the child grows up.

[rowyn]

Aww, it's a fetus! In just a century or two it'll grow up to be a source of immense DOOM just like its mom and mom!

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

*ponders a Ketherian children's book: Doom has Two Mommies*

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Bard giggles.]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[That has been my IM status message all day.]

Awww...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

... thus proving that baby anything can be cute, even monsters.

Re: Awww...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Or at least, that's what you have to say to their parents.

[waywind.livejournal.com]

Aww! They're just a sweet and deadly family. I am tickled.

Learning the deep significance of the wooden spoon makes it all the more distressing that you breathed fire at it a little earlier. I'm sure the spoon is warded against fire and far more improbable calamities, but was still a faux pas that could have caused a spot of doom.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

My breath is not so destructive: little more than a candleflame. Still, scorching Vae's first love letter would have been rude.