Nursemaid [18 Lage 4385]
Jun. 14th, 2010 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sythyryMirrored from Sythyry.
Finally, back to the original problem from Oorah Thrassen’s point of view. We decided that Feralan is allowed in Oorah Thrassen (on the grounds that he is two entities, neither of which is excluded), but that he would in fact not go into Oorah Thrassen unless he had some specific and crucial matter that had to be attended to inside the city. For example, he might need treatment best performed at the Temple of the Dark Trinity, in which case we would take him there. But for ordinary life in the next while — where by “ordinary life” I mean “life that in no way resembles any life he has lived up to this point” — he will dwell in Quartersky Points Saza’s manor house, outside of the walls of Oorah Thrassen, but on the skybridge. I vaguely remember the manor house before it was Saza’s, from when Vae and I arranged for a pastry breakfast for non-urban Oorah Thrassen Mene.
Saza introduced me to Cluthe Arnwickette, an old and grey and poodlesome Cani woman who has volunteered to take Ochirion and Feralan under her capable and capacious care. She has been a nursemaid to several generations of Rassimel boys and girls, the sons and daughters of Saza’s assistants and tenants and whatnots.
Cluthe: “I had thought to retire last year, but if Saza needs me, I’ll lift up my tired old bones once again for some new children.”
I am unclear on just how tired her tired old bones may be. Perhaps the bones are tired but the muscles are not, for she was dancing with some teenaged Rassimel when I arrived. Just a sort of pavane, nothing too energetic or vigorous, but she was hardly sitting around waiting to die of time.
Saza: “I would take that as a considerable kindness. The situation is complicated; someone less expert than you might find it daunting. They are not orphans; their parents will be working in … I’m not exactly sure, but probably Dark Thorpsey. They will be yours halfway as a punishment for their parents, and halfway to give them a decent growing-up. Anyhow, the young one is rather shaken, and the older one has been the subject of awful magics, and is not precisely sane.”
Cluthe: “Like poor young Feriamoon so long ago?”
Saza: “Exactly somewhat vaguely similar!”
Cluthe: “A sad matter, that. Well, let me meet them and we’ll see.”
I wasn’t sure if I should go with the children or not. Would they hate me for what I had done to their mothers? Would they trust me as their doctor and the most familiar face around? I fretted about it for approximately several years, and flipped a coin.
Introductions
Me: “Ochirion and Feralan, hello.”
Ochirion: “Are you going to kill us?”
Me: “No. I’m going to introduce you to a very nice Cani who will take care of you for a while.”
Ochirion: “Mommy Z said you would kill us if you found us.”
Me: “Mommy Z was wrong about a lot of things, I’m afraid. I found you and I didn’t kill you. I had to punish her, but I did as little a punishment as I could.” Which might even be true.
Ochirion: “Is she going to bleed and die?”
Me: “No. She’ll be fine — they’ll both be fine. They won’t have ears for a while, so they’ll look funny. And they’ll sort of be in prison, because they stole a lot and people who steal a lot go to prison.”
Feralan: “Why don’t they just walk on a dotted line all straight and around and get out that way?”
Me: “I don’t think they can see those dotted lines, or follow them if they can, Feralan.” I think he’s talking about a Locador thing.
Ochirion: “Can we visit them? Nangbang said we could visit them.”
Me: “You will visit with them several times a week.” With a chaperone sort of person, but no need to mention that. “You’re not being punished; we’re trying to take care of you as best we can under the circumstances.”
Feralan: “Zascalle said we had stolen a million lozens each and we’d all get killed if you caught us. Are you going to kill us?” (That sounded like a very ordinary Feralan sort of thing to say. He’s not all lost in space.)
Me: “Nobody is going to hurt you. We’ll take care of you as well as we can.”
Repeat a few more times until they either believe me or think I’ve got my story straight. Zascalle scared them a lot with me over the last few days! But they know me reasonably well — Ochirion especially from all the doctoring I did at him. Zascalle also scared them, especially Ochirion, when I confronted her earlier today They got a lot less scared as we talked.
Me: “I’d like to introduce you to Cluthe, who will be your nursemaid and caretaker for a while.”
Cluthe: “Hello!” With much wagging of her agèd and nominally weary tail.
Ochirion and Feralan: “Hi!”
Cluthe: “What are you interested in, little Rassimel boys?”
Ochirion: “I like books!” Using the Rassimel inflection of ‘like’ that conveys obsession.
Cluthe: “I’d love to read some books with you. The longhouse has a nice library room full of them.”
Feralan: “I want to escape! I’m all tied up with myself, and can’t get loose!” That’s not so good. Or maybe it’s good, if at least one of the Rassimel and the demon wants to get free of the situation. I imagine it’d be harder to separate them if neither wanted to be separate.
Cluthe gave me a worried look.
Me: “Saza and I will try to help you escape. We don’t know how to untangle you; we’ll have to figure it out. Saza will want to look at you a lot.”
Feralan: “Please, please, Sythyry. I keep forgetting whether I’m supposed to have hands or spikes.”
Me: “As quick as we can, Feralan. A few weeks if we’re very lucky.”
Cluthe: “And I’ll take good care of you until then. You should have hands, the way you do.”
Cluthe laced her fingers with Feralan’s, and took him in her arms, and he nuzzled against her fluffy belly. In a minute, Ochirion joined them. Cluthe’s powers of nursemaiding are mighty and supreme, and I honor them greatly! When I left them, about an hour later, they were playing Serpent of the Vortex, and giggling.
[Serpent of the Vortex is one of those very annoying children's games where you mostly just roll dice and move your pawns around a board. It's much more interesting than some of those games, because you have two pawns and you can choose which one to move. This opens up vast vistas of tactical pastabilities [sic] that can paralyze the mind and soul of a five-year-old for minutes at a time.]
It looks as if the children will get along with their new caretaker, and are less devastated by the last vast bowl of doom than, oh, I probably would have been. I am going to count that as a victory: my first unambiguous victory in this whole mess.
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Date: 2010-06-14 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 01:49 pm (UTC)Now, if you are lucky, once the Locador demon is untangled, it will only want to play Serpent of the Vortex with you periodically.
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Date: 2010-06-14 02:32 pm (UTC)Does this mean that Quendry no longer has any age/playmates back on Strayway?
Also, Zascalle is a [censored] for terrifying the children quite so much.
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Date: 2010-06-14 02:37 pm (UTC)Which is a problem in its own right. The reason Quendry came along in the first place was to get some decent contact with other children, especially Cani children. Which means making some friends in Eigrach -- which he has been doing. I may encourage Arfaen and Quendry to live in Glynubla House. Gods know I don't want to go back there.
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Date: 2010-06-14 03:08 pm (UTC)OTOH, I can hardly recommend that more kids be added to the Strayway population after what happened to the last batch. Yikes. Maybe you should pick a more traff-friendly vacation spot the next time. Assuming you survive this vacation and are still willing to vacation ever again. c.c
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Date: 2010-06-14 03:11 pm (UTC)There aren't really any traff-friendly vacation spots. There are some less-unfriendly than Eigrach, I suppose.
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Date: 2010-06-14 03:13 pm (UTC)Of course, the more traff-friendly places might be undesirable for other reasons. c.c
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Date: 2010-06-14 03:15 pm (UTC)*grin*
Date: 2010-06-14 04:32 pm (UTC)Did the Locador angel just try to explain how to tesser through a wall? Cool.
>> Or maybe it’s good, if at least one of the Rassimel and the demon wants to get free of the situation. I imagine it’d be harder to separate them if neither wanted to be separate. <<
It is to be hoped that they can be freed of each other safely and promptly. Because if they get comfortable together, separating them then would be butchery, and it cannot be any flavor of safe to have a traumatized fully-free-and-empowered Locador angel around.
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Date: 2010-06-14 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 06:13 pm (UTC)That's why I suggested Bonstables. They're harmless. Mostly harmless.
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Date: 2010-06-14 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 07:24 pm (UTC)Does Saza favour Rassimel, then?
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Date: 2010-06-14 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-14 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: *grin*
Date: 2010-06-14 08:24 pm (UTC)That'd be an interesting problem. From Sythyry's perspective there'd probably be no question that it's the right thing to do, since it's a prime soul in danger of being scrapped through their reincarnation system. (Though that system is really not much better than plain death.) Primes don't value the lives/souls of anyone but themselves as highly, despite many nonprime races being as smart as them. If it were (say) a human and an intelligent alien, it'd seem different. One of the few episodes of "ST: Voyager" I've seen set up a situation like that and had the crew decide to murder the merged person.
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Date: 2010-06-14 08:29 pm (UTC)I've been assuming the Locodor Spirit has been entangled with Ferelan... what if it's the other way around?
The Locodor spirit is a being made up of "Wherever", right? So it should be able to go 'wherever' whenever. I don't think it could be contained if you wanted it to.
What if the problem isn't that the Locodor spirit can't get free of Ferelan. It probably thinks that would be easy. What if the heart of the matter is that the Spirit of Ferelan is confused and lost, and is holding onto the Locodor spirit because it doesn't know how to reattach itself to it's body, and the Locodor Spirit, not really limited by space, is trying to help Ferelan reconnect. However, because it doesn't really know what parts go where (It's spikey, after all), it's hoping that Ferelan will figure it out. Ferelan, on the other hand, is convinced that adults can and will help it (And they are trying hard!), but the Locodor Spirit can't communicate, and although Ferelan can understand the thoughts of the Locodor spirit while tangled up in it, Ferelan doesn't understand really that the Locodor Spirit is trying to communicate with it, and can't get things placed right...
... maybe it's not like that at all, but that's what I am imagining it's like right now..
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Date: 2010-06-14 11:59 pm (UTC)All stable societies need some socially condoned (if not approved) way for people to purge their wild urges [In our society, for example, there's Halloween, Mardi Gras, Las Vegas, etc.). I find it hard to believ there's not some World Tree equivalent.
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Date: 2010-06-15 12:01 am (UTC)Re: *grin*
Date: 2010-06-15 12:04 am (UTC)Maybe the Locador demon thinks that Serpent of the Vortex is a reflection of how primes see reality. Would explain why they insist on going through doors and what not.
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Date: 2010-06-15 12:14 am (UTC)Re: *grin*
Date: 2010-06-15 12:19 am (UTC)Uggh, I remember that episode. I was unbelivably pissed off by it.
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Date: 2010-06-15 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 01:16 am (UTC)Re: *grin*
Date: 2010-06-15 02:20 am (UTC)Re: *grin*
Date: 2010-06-15 03:28 am (UTC)I think you're right about Sythyry's probable opinion. But the "prime soul in danger" is applicable to the Locador angel wanting to escape; it may or may not pertain to the situation if the Locador angel and prime soul decided that they liked being merged. So then we have to consider: gods have more power than mortals (or immortals) regarding souls and the proper disposition thereof. They might decide to gently disentangle two souls that wished to be separated, instead of simply destroying one. If the souls wanted to remain united, they might pry them apart anyway ... or shrug and make it possible for it-them to stay in the desired union and find some suitable Locador related responsibility for it-them to do.
>>One of the few episodes of "ST: Voyager" I've seen set up a situation like that and had the crew decide to murder the merged person.<<
"Tuvix," yes, I saw that one too. It was extremely disturbing.
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Date: 2010-06-15 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:12 pm (UTC)[OOC: Now I want to have Mharreff encounter a cult of sorts who believes that transaffection is part of the gods' plan for the prime races to work and live with each other. Such cooperation is a not-insignificant part of what makes primes strong, after all...]
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Date: 2010-06-15 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-15 02:16 pm (UTC)[OOC -- entirely plausible! cf. various sex-positive cults and sects RL ... I ran into 'flirty fishing' (google it, I'm afraid) recently, but there are scads of others. -bb]
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Date: 2010-06-15 02:27 pm (UTC)