(no subject)

[sythyry]

Aftermath of the Breakup [17 Lage 4385]

I certainly didn't tell anyone about my night with Arfaen, and I don't think Arfaen did either, but it was quickly common knowledge. And not by scrying, either. Anyone who scried on us would see an illusionary pornographic display far more extreme and exotic than anything Arfaen and I did ... or are even capable of doing.

Late at breakfast the following day -- I did not stay to dawn with Arfaen; I went to my workshop for my usual day-and-a-third of solitary work in the hour before the ship's breakfast -- Mellilot accosted me.

Mellilot: "Would you pay my passage back to Ketheria?"

Me: "You're leaving Strayway?"

Mellilot: "Well, yeah. Seems like a good idea just about now."

Me: "It's a big ship. We can certainly arrange housing and schedules and such so you don't run into Arfaen too much. And I know Quendry thinks the world of you." (He does.)

Mellilot: "Fuck that. Arfaen I can deal with, and Quendry's fine. But fuck that."

Me: "Beg pardon?"

Mellilot: "You're the problem. You're totally on Arfaen's side. Not a big surprise, you always have liked her better than me. Now you've picked your side and slept on it. I'm the loser, so I'm going to clear out."

Me: "I haven't picked her side."

Mellilot: "Well, you picked her ass, and her sheets not nine hours cold from me lying on them."

Me: "It's not the same thing. I'm not going to treat you unfairly over that."

Mellilot: "Look, when the girl you just dumped -- and who is awfully upset about it -- is sleeping with the boss -- the Locador-demon-cursed night after the breakup -- that's just the universe's little way of telling you 'Time to cut and run, girl.'"

So we had the following conversation 1,234,871,028,934,182,793,561,872,561,987,234,619,823 times, give or take a few:

Me: "Would not!"

Mellilot: "Would so!"

Ending up with:

Me: "Well, you're not indentured, so you can go any time and anywhere you like."

Mellilot: "Any time, I can do. The time is now. Any where, that I can't do. Can you demonstrate this not-favoring-Arfaen you're so fucking proud of by sending me back home to Vheshrame?"

Me: "You're going to live in Castle Wrong?"

Mellilot: "Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Depends on how the wrongfolk treat me there, I guess."

Me: "If anyone gives you the least bit of trouble, write to me and I will scold them severely."

Mellilot: "Like you're so good at scolding people."

Me: "I'll have Kantele do it."

Mellilot: "Better. Anyways, can you send me back home?"

Me: "Nendrai express, or book you passage on a commercial airship?"

Mellilot: "Passage. The nendrai's one of the things I am most trying to get away from. She scares the shitcakes out of me."

Me: "Me, too. OK, passage, then. Tell Zascalle I said to give you passage and spending money for the trip ... and have her write to a couple of banks in cities along the way, giving you credit in case there's any trouble."

Mellilot: "Well, thank you, Sythyry. I'm going to try not to think that as 'paying to get your rival out of the way'."

Me: "You're not my rival."

Mellilot: "You just keep telling yourself that, little lizard."

Which I am interpreting as "Thank you very much."

Comments

[rowyn]

I can see why you prefer Arfaen!

Not that I am unsympathetic to Mellilot's points or position, mind, but she certainly isn't any good at presenting herself or her arguments in a compelling way. She's not even *trying* to do so: she's just making demands of you at the same time as insulting you. If she were *really* concerned about you treating her unfairly, I'd expect her to be a lot more circumspect. I'd say she's just pissed off about the breakup and that you're screwing her ex, so she's trying to make you miserable in retaliation. She's certainly right that screwing her ex less than a day after the breakup is bad manners, but her own manners are hardly impeccable. Not to mention that dumping Arfaen *nominally* means it's no longer her business who Arfaen sleeps with.

Meh.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

In Mellilot's defense, she wasn't so much objecting to me sleeping with Arfaen, as arguing that me (as shipmaster and patron and all) having done so makes her, Mellilot's position untenable. I suppose it does, though swearing at me intensely makes it even more so. I daresay she didn't realize there was a "more so" she could have made it.

[rowyn]

I realize that is the case she is claiming to make. I even concede that your behavior as shipmaster and patron was inappropriate.

What I don't believe is that she is actually, genuinely, worried about this. She is pissed off because Arfaen was unfaithful, and she is pissed off because Arfaen slept with you. But she'd rather yell at you for imagined favoritism because that's where her case is strongest. I am unconvinced that she believes this line of argument at all, however. She's not acting like she believes it.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You may well be right.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

As shipmaster and patron, perhaps. But Arfaen rightly pointed out that "and all" includes "as a friend", too. If you can't entirely step aside from the first two, neither are you ever entirely separate from the third(or your clients likely wouldn't dare push you around as much as they do).

If you held yourself entirely aloof and distant from your clients and the passengers/staff of Strayway, then perhaps you would be arguably fulfilling the first two positions better. Perhaps. But when you combine that with the mannerisms of Eigrach as even more hostile toward transaffection than those of Vheshrame, it might well wind up making the trip miserable for you.

And as was already stated, dumping Arfaen at-least-in-part over a lack of monogamy would, in reasonable circles, be washing her hands of Arfaen's choice of lovers thereafter. You were "thereafter". Mellilot might have had a valid point if she'd phrased it as "you've slept with her, not with me, so I worry that you'll show her [more] preference." Instead, she felt the need to point out repeatedly that not much time had passed between her dumping Arfaen (not the other way around, by her own admission) and Arfaen taking you to bed. She deserved to be at least scolded and reminded that she was the one to sever that tie, if not just plain smacked(though I appreciate that a Zi Ri doing that to a Herethroy is rather laughable, Kantele doing so might be another matter).

Short version: Mellilot may have some valid points, but the problem is that she knows it and seems to be exploiting/exaggerating them, and taking advantage of your good nature even as she maligns it. Were I in your position, I would be sorely tempted to declare that given her extremely evident disrespect, she ought to use the time between her return to Vheshrame and yours to make suitable arrangements for her own upkeep, because that would exhaust her supply of favour. If she's going to attack you for being a friend to your clients, she'd better not expect patronage from someone she goes out of her way to alienate.

[redbird]

Yes.

"She dumped me, and then you slept with her" might be grounds for accusing someone of unreasonable favoritism; "I dumped her, and then you slept with her the same night" isn't. Socially awkward (which is partly a consequence of the small society of a ship) is different from inappropriate or unethical; Mellilot would be within his rights to ask for meals somewhere separate from Arfaen and Sythyry for a while, but he'd have been within his rights to ask not to sit at table with Arfaen anyhow—and she would definitely have had justification for making the inverse request, as the dumpee. But paid passage home is a favor, and a large one, not something he is entitled to.