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Yylhauntra to Dinner, part 1 [11 Lage 4261]

The Cani made dinner. That’s Anoof and Narngi, plus Havune
and Broon and Leiska. (Havune and Leiska are definitely
going to be mates when they get married — that’s the middle
degree of marriage — and everyone in that not-yet-family is
glad at how diligent Havune is being about girls despite not
actually being attracted to them.)

At dinner were: Yylhauntra, me, Dustweed, Tethezai,
Agrimony, Mendrugai, Esory, and Sprillet, and of course a
pile of Cani.

It was … um … just like a dinner, except that the Cani
were showing off their culinary prowess, and we had a fair
number of guests.

Some culinary prowesses included:

1. Chub-beetles smoked over smouldering ginger.
2. A roast breast of wudgeon, stuffed with about six
   hundred and eighty-three kinds of onions, doused in pren
   brandy, and served levitating and ablaze.
3. Cream of Three Flavors of Parsley soup. I didn’t know
   there were three flavors of parsley. Havune smugly
   informed me that there were actually five flavors of parsley
   in the soup, with
   one of them being (1) fresh, (2) dried, and (3) dried and
   toasted. I refrained from turning Cani to try to taste
   them.
4. Glazed prens with clotted cream.

Yylhauntra and Mendrugai and Havune got
into a long discussion about Creithian iconography.
Yylhauntra and Esory and I got into a medium discussion about
the use of ginger in ceremonial fumigations. Dustweed,
Broon, and Leiska got into a short discussion of appropriate
marriage practices for Cani, and for Herethroy.

Agrimony pointed out to me that the discussion was entirely
theoretical in Dustweed’s case, even if she (not zie, but
she) weren’t planning to get married to someone of another
species.

Me:“Dustweed uses ‘zie’. And I hadn’t heard
zie was planning to marry Tethezai.”

Agrimony:“Who else would have her?”

Yylhauntra:“Tethezai’s the Rassimel woman
there?”

Me:“Yes. And Dustweed’s the both-female
Herethroy. They’re sweethearts.” I was hoping to either
(1) embarrass Agrimony enough so that he’d leave this topic
alone forever, or (2) delicately probe Yylhauntra’s opinion
of transaffection.

Yylhauntra’s:“They seem as devoted to each
other as Cani.”

Which I took as a good sign.

Agrimony:“Were there both-females in the first
days? Or traffs?”

Yylhauntra:“No both-females … the first one
was Kivretta, and that must have been … at least thirty or
forty years after I was born. She was third generation
Herethroy. What’s a traff?”

Me:“It’s a vulgar word for ‘transaffectionate
person’.”

Yylhauntra:“Not in the first days, no. We were
all made cisaffectionate. Intentionally, on the gods’ part.
We were supposed to have lots of children in a hurry, after
all.”

I lost the next few minutes to private moping.