The Admonition of Treacle-Eyes [23 Lage 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Nangbang took Treacle-Eyes into a small and secluded parlor, and used his promised one cley to block scrying. It wasn’t a very good block by Vae’s standards, and we could have snuck around it. We didn’t, except to keep half a magic sense out in case Nangbang were somehow blasting his daughter. Which he did not do, perhaps because killing her would have been a poor way to rescue her from a fate that was moderately better than death.

He came out of the parlor an hour later, scowling.

Me: “How did it go?”

Nangbang: “Ah, Sythyry! Just the prime I was looking for. I desire violence — I desire blood and blasting!”

Me: “From me you will get little save phlegm and fleeing! Though I have a fine nendrai not far off who would probably appreciate the exercise of a challenge.”

Nangbang: “Ah, Sythyry! How you have your little joke. I merely wish to borrow the teleportation device, for convenience in zinging off to the Verticals, where surely something shall oblige me.”

So I lent him my teleport arrow, three bound Heal the Awful Wound spells, and two defensive talismans. I had no great desire to explain to Pulla about how I happened to lose her husband.

The Meeting of the Brides

Treacle-Eyes: “Lithia!”

Lithia: “Treacle-Eyes!”

Treacle-Eyes: “What befell you when Sythyry tried to dissolve our upcoming nuptials?”

Lithia: “Sythyry was regretfully reasonable! Zie will take a role in the masque.”

Treacle-Eyes: “That’s wonderful!”

Lithia: “And what befell you? Your father stomped off in a cloud of violence, so it must have been good.”

Treacle-Eyes: “He agreed that, with a few minor exceptions, I would be permitted to marry you.”

Lithia: “What kind of exceptions…?”

Treacle-Eyes: “I have to change my name.”

Lithia: “That’s all?”

Treacle-Eyes: “That’s all!”

Litha: “That’s wonderful!”

The proceeded to embrace, bounce around the parlor, kiss each other, kiss Dorze (who must surely have complex feelings about the situation), kiss Inconnu (who went to gargle with cooking wine from having kissed a member of the same species), and dance a two-person version of the triafrella. The latter was interrupted by Lithia’s hourly cramps.

The Negotiations of the In-Laws

Nangbang: “Thank you for the loan of these devices! May I return these bound spells, too? I didn’t need ‘em.”

Me: “No, you may not. However, you may lie upon that couch and accept bandaging and healing spells.”

Nangbang: “I am making somewhat of a habit of accepting your medical services on this voyage!”

Me: “Well, try not to get too wounded tomorrow, for I will be back to enchanting, and that means using nearly all of my cley first thing in the morning.” It took a great deal of will not to flirt with him.

Nangbang: “I will try to survive the morrow unscathed! And many further days. Did you know there’s a chromodon lurking around out there?”

Me: “You met Shadatei? I do hope you didn’t irritate him unduly. Even Vae would prefer not to make an enemy of such as he.”

Nangbang: “Let us say, rather, that he irritated me. I simply offered to choose for my prey a beast that he wished dead, and he rather snootily informed me that all such beasts were long since his victims.”

Me: “Shadatei has graced us with his presence several times. That would seem to be about as friendly an exchange as anyone has had with him. So, what did you kill?”

Nangbang: “Oh, a thing like a smallish jack o’hooks that squirted nasty water jets at me, and yelled out painful shockwaves. I don’t know what it might be called.”

Me: “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Did you get the body? You could try writing it up and seeing if the biologists let you name it.”

Nangbang: “No body; it collapsed into water when I slew it. Or maybe it turned into water and flowed away rather than actually dying. I was satisfied anyhow.”

Me: “So I take it our daughters are still going to get married?”

Nangbang: “Our family honor is never going to live this down — never.”

Me: “Well, someone’s family honor isn’t. Marrying a stowaway, indeed.”

Nangbang: “My daughter was a stowaway; yours was a shifter hybrid. Not long after, my daughter was a legitimate passenger, and yours, somehow, was still a shifter hybrid.”

Me: “True, true. Will Pulla be upset with you for failing utterly?”

Nangbang: “Oh, great staring gods, yes! I must write to her today that I have lost — malperformed — missed the mark! Then, if I may prevail upon your hospitality for another two or three weeks, perhaps I shall ride out the worst of the storm in approximate peace, rocked only by the slow dismal waves of knowing my own failure, and the distant thundrous tsunami of Pulla’s epistolary displeasure!”

Me: “You may, of course, stay for as long as you wish. I can even promise that the most notoriously traff member of our crew shall not flirt with you.”

Nangbang: “Oh?”

Me: “He’s Orren, you’re Orren, he’s not interested.”

Nangbang: “I had somehow thought you were making an actually useful promise.”

Me: “It would be uncharacteristic of my species to do such a ridiculous thing!”

“OK, that’s as close to flirting as I should do with Nangbang,” I thought to myself.

“But wait … perhaps I am actually cissy, given my night with Saza? Am I merely ogling Nangbang to prove to me that I am traff…?” myself asked.

I had no good answer, so I helplessly and hopelessly tried to act like myself. Whatever that might mean.

Nangbang: “Well, I should be safer here than in Oorah Thrassen. Even if I am required to beat off wrong-species suitors with a trireme, “

Me: “Is Pulla so terrible as that?”

Nangbang: “No. But I do not want to miss the wedding, if wedding there must be, and even less do I want to travel up the trunk and down again so soon. Your tincture saved me from the worst of the space-sickness … but ah, the flavor thereof, the awful flavor!” (It’s not that bad.)

Me: “Fair enough! We have plenty of room, and I imagine our expert staff of chefs can prepare food to the taste of the cisaffectionate, somehow.”

Nangbang: “What, do you eat different food?”

Me: “Not really. Though I didn’t eat much meat when I was all-but-married to a Herethroy.”

Nangbang: “Oh, one other favor, dear Sythyry, if we are to be in-laws?”

Me: “What is that, good Nangbang?”

Nangbang: “Please reserve such comments for those occasions when, for whatever reason, you wish to disturb and disconcert me.”

In case I had forgotten that I am — or appear to be? — in a less respectable and more vile social category than Nangbang. As is my ~daughter~.

Anyhow, I am sure there is something wrong with secretly ogling my soon-to-be-fellow-parent-in-law.

I am so confused.

At least Lithia seems delighted, which is worth something. Specifically, it is worth being cordial to Treacle-or-whatever-Eyes for a dozen years or so.

Comments

[redbird]

I don't know how close "fellow parent in law" counts as in your culture; in mine, secretly ogling one would be fine, so long as you could keep it secret, and going beyond that would vary from place to place and family to family. (There are monster cultures that think even ogling someone who is off-limits for more than that is wrong; I don't agree with them. Risky, perhaps, depending on the person, but risky does not equal immoral.)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sure it's not a bit of a concern when both in-laws are Zi Ri, and it's nearly a social disaster for Cani, and anywhere in between for the others.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if you become a proper Evil Wizard your social standing may increase?

Just a thought.

[rowyn]

I haven't figured out what makes a wizard properly evil yet. Are you sure Sythyry isn't one already?

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

I was going to let zir work out if zie was traff or not before bringing that up.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Tall Dark Tower? Check.
Big Floofy Hat? No...
Monster at beck and call? Half-Check.
Laughter? No..

If Sythry actually got a hat, zie'd be halfway there.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I have many hats! Several of them are quite romantical.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Oh No! It's a SIGN! Next thing you know... No, too late.. Umm.. You haven't locked any princess's in the Castle Wrong yet, have you?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that *-Eyes doesn't count. Besides, I'd be happy to get rid of her.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

You could play the evil enchantress role -- seducing the good people of the city to do your dark bidding, and surrounding yourself with thralls who think they're serving you of their own volition.

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid there's a scurrilous rumor in Daukrhame that you kidnapped a nobleman's daughter some decades past, and that your clients tried to seduce her to the 'wicked' (and I use the term in the loosest and most inaccurate sense) ways of transaffection. I am wholly unconvinced that there is any basis in reality for this whatsoever -- or if there is, it is the result of the nobleman in question doing extreme violence to the truth in an attempt to salvage his reputation after his daughter ran off of her own volition.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

There's also the story about Sythyry disguising hirself as an Orren commoner by night to seduce a powerful tree mage, tricking him into fixing hir skyboat by day in hopes of seing the mysterious woman again. Sounds very greek to me.

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

I must have missed this one! I am not the connoisseur of rumors, I'm afraid. Or perhaps this peculiar sample has simply not yet reached Daukrhame.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Just as well, good Boomstarter, just as well.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

And conical.

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

But it's perfectly understandable. Nangbang is tremendously
ogleworthy. He's an Orren, he gets positively adorable when he's
furious, he's evil in a very upstanding and socially respectable
fashion, polite, well-spoken, and named Nangbang. What more could you
want in an object of casual flirtation?

[rowyn]

I'm thinkin' ... availability?

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

You only need availability if you're plannint to move from casual to serious flirtation, though. And you never know, he might become available when his wife throws long-distance word-wrought remonstrance down the World Tree like slow paper lightning.

[rowyn]

I don't think Sythyry goes for casual flirtation that can't develop beyond casual. And Nangbang is unavailable by orientation, not marriage, and orientation is unlikely to change. Though we'll see!

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that. It's like in Reality, I have the declarative knowledge that most people are straight and most of the rest are gay, but I keep being surprised to find out when anyone I know isn't bisexual.

[rowyn]

I kinda know what you mean. I'm not actually surprised when people are straight or gay. But I don't understand how gender can be an important factor in determining to whom one is attracted. O.o

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

This happens to me too. :-)

[alex-muridae.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to modern terrestrial psychology, most people are indeed "bi" to some extent. Nearly everyone has a preference when it comes to gender, but a liking for the other as well, and for those who feel particularly strongly about that preference, it's often to the exclusion of the other. Or, alternately, many who have a preference in one direction or the other will simply appear "straight" or "gay", whatever their true preferences are. This is mostly due to social reasons; like transaffection on the tree, sexuality is mistakenly viewed by much of the public as either black or white. Bisexuality is a spanner in the works; it's hard to categorize. Not just that, but it's hard to "see" a bisexual; depending on whom they're dating at the moment, they'll be mistaken as one or the other. The Kinsey scale is outdated, fetishes play a larger roll then expected and so forth. It's easier to be one or the other, so people can categorize you.

Oh yes, and that's not even beginning to get to the pile of deluded folks. I read over a study recently that linked homophobia to homosexual arousal; deeply amusing and clear in its implications...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[And Sythyry is going through the World Tree realization of that issue. -bb]

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Slow Paper Lightning? Sounds like menacing spell for sending a death note. I was also reading about a world in which written letters can be used to make magical attacks.

Even immortal evil wizards fear upset wives!

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

"Please reserve such comments for those occasions when, for whatever reason, you wish to disturb and disconcert me."

And when would that NOT be?

Evil wizards. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Wait you can start a week of enchanting on the 24th? I thought you had to start at the beginning of the week you know on the 1st or 10th or 19th.

... I guess this is why real enchanters get formal training for years. So they know these things.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, classes in enchanting always start on the 1st, 10th, or 19th, but that's for the convenience of Vheshrame Academy, not a law of magic. Plus, generally one does not know that a week's work has failed until the end of the week. Exceptions are obvious: if, say, one leaves in mid-week to go chasing after one's accountant all the way up the Tree, it is clear that the week's work is ruined.

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Yes um I ... kinda lost track of how many week's work I could tell when I'd blown it in advance. I know there was at least one week when I overslept. Argh!