Mirrored from Sythyry.
Nangbang: “I was here for the wedding! I’ll be going home soon enough.”
Phaniet: “Wait. Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Me: “No.”
Phaniet: “‘Cause I’d bark until your feathers turn purple if you try!”
Me: “I’m not trying. I’m more thinking of Quendry, say, who’s already been killed more times by worse weapons than any child should suffer…”
Grinwipey: “What kind of perflipping weapons should children be killed with, featherhead? Small cute brightly-colored warclubs?”
Me: “…, and whose safety I cannot guarantee any more. Actually I never could.”
Arfaen: “Are you trying to send me away? What, because I slept with you? Or because I dared to sleep with other people before and after?”
Me: “Not hardly! I’m giving you the choice, if you want to protect yourself and your son.”
Arfaen: “We are Cani! We are loyal! We will stay by your side until the bitter, doomful end! And visit lots of interesting exotic places on the way!”
Nalche: “Speak for yourself. Not that I’m going anywhere — I just got here on Strayway, and glad of it.” (She’s already fitting in, I suppose.)
Me: “You would arguably serve me better if you went to Vheshrame and didn’t require so much of my attention to fix the trouble poor Quendry gets into.”
Arfaen: “Through no fault of his own!”
Vae: “The through all fault of mine!”
Arfaen: “I’ll go if you order me to! But I won’t be happy about it! I’ll resent it with both hands and both feet!”
Quendry: “Me too! Me too!”
Me: “I’m not ordering anyone to leave…”
Phaniet: “Except Zascalle and Thiane!”
Me: “Well, they’re already gone. I’m letting anyone go who wants to. You’ll go back to Castle Wrong in nice comfortable Vheshrame, and I’ll rejoin you in a year or two. I won’t think the worse of you if you do, I’ll think that you’re one fewer hostage to fate I’m keeping around me. “
Vae: “Hostage to me…”
Inconnu: “I’m not leaving ’til I get your zing-fanny-del in my pozzip!”
Me: [blushing with all my feathers] “And ’til your lessons with Grinwipey are complete?”
Grinwipey: “Hey, I dunno what he’s talking about, I didn’t teach him that kind of language.”
Me: “Anyways. Mellilot. You’ve wanted to escape for a while.”
Mellilot: “I did, yes, but now let me talk to Phaniet and Este about it some.”
Me: “Wait, what?”
Mellilot: “Wait, exactly.”
Me: “Really. I don’t think Strayway is very safe, and anyone who’s the least bit sensible should get off of it.”
Blenny: “I, home, back.”
Me: “Blenny hereby proves herself the most sensible person on Strayway.”
Jyondre: “I don’t need to go home. I am home.”
Me: “I thought home sort of disowned you. Or do you mean, all of Srineia?” Jyondre being our token Srineian native. Well, except for Nalche, now, I suppose.
Jyondre: “Home is with Yerenthax. The rest of you are good too.”
Yerenthax: “And we certainly are not leaving. Being here gives us glory! It stretches our muscles and our mageria! It makes us become mighty, and gives us deeds worthy of songs!”
Phaniet: “Think you’re the only one who gets adventurer-style learning from hanging around with a nendrai all the time, boss? It gave you a seven-century boost to your career. I wouldn’t mind having one of those myself.”
Me: “Or die trying.”
Phaniet: “Or die trying. It’s worth the gamble for me.”
Inconnu: “Me too! Me too!”
Me: “I can’t argue with Phaniet, but … Inconnu?”
Inconnu: “What, do you think I want to trade on my delicious good looks and wonderful-in-bed forever? Think again, Honored Zi Ri! Think again!”
Me: “Well, all right, then. Are you all a bunch of adventurers?”
Calla: “I’m not. I would like to go back home too.”
Me: “I will miss your cooking, but I think you deserve a chance to survive. Anyone else?”
Rheng: “I return to Vheshrame, where there is more to steal and fewer nendrai!”
Me: “That’s fine. We’ll figure out what I owe you for this part … Kantele?”
Kantele: “I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving Strayway, I mean. I rather wish we would leave Srineia already”
Me: “Oh, good. But, lacking a Zascalle, can you figure out what we owe Rheng?”
Kantele: “A knot in his tail!”
Rheng: “No such thing! I am the Thief Supreme, I am a gem unto this expedition!”
Kantele: “Except when you get bored. Then you’re doom.”
Me: “I thought Vae and I took care of providing plentiful doom for everyone.”
Jyondre: “Doom and good food. Can’t beat it!”
Me: “Vae, do something awful to scare everyone to safety, please.” Unwise, but I was somewhat desperate.
Vae: (produces a truly prodigious belch)
Nobody: (decides decides to flee)
Nearly Everybody: “We knew what we were getting into when we came along. We wanted to then. We still want to.”
Me: “Um … right, then.”
Phaniet: “Only, could we please be done with Srineia? It’s troublesome here, and uncomfortable for traff-folk, and we’ve already seen everything interesting in the city.”
Jyondre: “I’m from here, and I’m bored of it.”
Kantele: “If we’re going to travel, let us travel.”
Me: “Noted. Not ’til the skyboat’s fixed, and ’til we’re better-armed.”
So I tried to do right for my friends, but my friends are all crazy (except for Blenny, Calla, and Rheng.) I suppose I should not be too surprised by that. They are my friends, after all.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 11:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:38 am (UTC)...if such even work on the Tree. I'm not sure they do, not in the magical sense, beyond a spirit still bearing the marks of it when and if it reincarnates.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 11:36 am (UTC)(I thought y'all already had the wedding. Wasn't that the masque?)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 11:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 01:26 pm (UTC)And see I told you! Hardly anybody left! I bet Calla left because she was sick of doing Arfaen's share of the cooking more than anything else.
And Mellilot! She owes you an apology AT LEAST if she's going to STAY after all those horrible things she said! I don't see how she could possibly expect you NOT to be biased against her after she's been soooo horrid!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 08:21 pm (UTC)It is, indeed, a pity that Inconnu is so determinedly traff. Honestly, the degree to which he plays it up is one of the things I like least about him... but I've gone into that rant so many times that I won't do so again here, and shall let it sit!
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Date: 2010-07-21 01:32 pm (UTC)I have this terrible feeling that you'll need something stolen sometime immediately after Rheng leaves...
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Date: 2010-07-21 01:37 pm (UTC)I imagine I will need something stolen, alas... Well, I daresay Arfaen will try it, or someone equally preposterous.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 03:02 pm (UTC)"No, I'm Spartacus!"
"I'm Spartacus!"
"I'm Spartacus... And so's my wife!"
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 03:49 pm (UTC)Here is an idea. You ship Still Flies, if I recall correctly... Why can't you hire a bunch of carpenters, and have them fix the ship WHILE it's flying to it's next destination? Preferably somewhere that goes around the Warzone of the Tree that Moves? Just load up and go. Because the way things are going now, Politics just is preventing you from ever leaving.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 05:13 pm (UTC)Thoughts
Date: 2010-07-21 05:17 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-07-21 05:24 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-07-21 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-07-21 08:25 pm (UTC)But Sythyry has indeed been seen to be a Sleeth magnet, at some times in the past! Especially around the time of the pastry assault on Oorah Thrassen!
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2010-07-22 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-21 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:36 am (UTC)Though I do wonder what it is he wants to be later in life.
It's also worth noting that you've been around Vae for far, far longer than most adventures adventure, and many of your clients can probably say they've passed that threshold as well. Usually it's what, a few years, until whatever circumstance that drove the adventuring is done? But your clients benefit from adventurer-style experience without needing to go all the way into the Verticals and far from the care of prime cities and deliberately challenge monsters, just by being around Vae when she's ~helpful~. Pretty good odds, really - not least because Vae does mean well, and will try to fix things when she causes ruin and doom. Sometimes it may lead to additional doom, but, well... if we optimistically assume that Feralan will be safely extracted from his... other half or vice versa, would anyone really wish he had been left to die rather than suffer the experience? It was a risky move, yes, but at least there is hope.
Anyway, to top that off, you are a quite advanced healer yourself, so are also well able to help put people back to rights. So far on this ~vacation~, none of your clients have permanently died, right?
Good odds indeed.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 12:57 am (UTC)You make an excellent point about adventuring in Strayway. I daresay several clients of mine had thought of it, but I had not.
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Date: 2010-07-22 01:07 am (UTC)And you might have not thought about it because A) you can't get away from Vae, that's the whole point and B) you've been mired in it for so long that it's become second-nature. Combine those two things, and you have no reason to spend much time thinking about it at all.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-22 01:47 am (UTC)