Invisible Friends [13 Hivvem 4385]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Perhaps this wasn’t strictly necessary, and perhaps it wasn’t even a good idea, but Grinwipey did volunteer, and I hesitate to deter my clients from acting on their own initiative. (Specifically, since they will act on their own initiative even if I try my hardest to deter them.)

Grinwipey: “Hoi there, Research Rassimel what’s wearing a sweater made out of possiquoll wool and with copper buttons!”

Alzagonde: “What do you want, Khtsoyis?”

Grinwipey: “Why, I makes it a point to have a word’n'a’turd with anyone who comes on board, wearing an arrasene camisole and having the utter bisibass out the batoozie not to have a matching blushing blossom blucked behind her ear.”

Alzagonde: “I’ll do no such thing with a Khtsoyis!”

Grinwipey: “Hoi now, what, do you think I’m a fresh-lipped crossypopper like these clomperhumpers? A ponce-flipper, a twingbat, a traffie, a master of the thorbies of another species? Do you think I flip the slippery cheese with all and sundry? Do you mean that I might mash morribles with mungies and their mollops? Do you insinuate that I am like Inconnu? His voice rose to a glass-grinding baritone. “Are you suggesting that I might be interested in a liaison with someone like you? Ignominious! Hint at that again, my drazzled drozolla, and we shall engage in the duello and not what you asked for!”

Alzagonde: “Nothing of the sort, O Khtsoyis. I simply mean that I will stick to the company of my peers, and I recommend that you do the same.”

Grinwipey: “And who do you think my peers might be, lassie who really ought to have a swash of lavender faille across her neck to keep that cornflower tabinet from looking so washed out?”

Alzagonde: “I neither know nor care.”

Grinwipey: “Well, half-right, Alza-dazzle. Half-right. You don’t know and you don’t care — that’s proper prissy prattle, it is, and polite and pointed and pompous as percale pantaloons! You don’t know, Little Miss Righteous Rassimel, and you don’t care, but you ought to know, and you ought to care.”

Alzagonde: “Whatever other Khtsoyis are on this trip is no concern of mine. Go back to your labors, steward. Surely you have beverages to bear about!”

Grinwipey: “And that I might, me and my friend Squadgin. Have you met my friend Squadgin yet?”

Alzagonde: “I have not made it a point to meet the servants on-board.”

Grinwipey: “Ain’t nobody much as met Squadgin, not if by ‘meet’ you mean ‘meet right and proper just as if he’s the sort of folk as has a regular-style body and can bear his broccoli’ — if you know what I mean and I think you do, being an educated woman what surely finds herself stuck in the most embarrassing situations imaginable from which there’s no way out except submitting to the carnal desires of them as most would find surprising, and many of those carnal desires seem to involve a crowbar and some very very full washbasins.”

Alzagonde: “What? I never!”

Grinwipey: “Good thing we’re not talking about you, we’re talking about Squidgin. Now, there’s some folks on board as calls Squidgin saying as he’s imaginary.”

Alzagonde: “Wait, that’s the plot of The Terrors of Tarragina! You must have broken into my cabin and searched my personal belongings!”

Grinwipey: “Oh, that’s not a nice way to say it, not at all. I’m a steward, you said, you said, so of course I go into your cabin on my stewardly duties, for to do my stewarding! And why would a nice girl-looking-thing like you be reading a book like The Terrors of Tarragina?”

Alzagonde: “Research for my term paper.”

Grinwipey: “Ah, that’s what they’re calling it nowadays?” As she didn’t respond, he returned to his previous attack. “Anyhow, this Squidgin. They all say as how he’s imaginary. That I made him up out of whole cloth — probably a kalamkari with lamé trimmings.”

Alzagonde: “This is ridiculous. Get gone!”

Grinwipey: “Now, would you be liking to meet this here Squidgin, and find out for yourself just how imaginary he is?”

Alzagonde: “I want nothing of the sort.”

Grinwipey: “Nothing of the sort, she wants, nothing of the sort! Smart Rassy girl, she is, smart Rassy girl! Doesn’t want to meet Squidgin, she says, she does. She’s met too many one too many imaginary friends already this trip, she has, and they didn’t all turn out to be so imaginary as she might hope?”

Alzagonde: “Get out of here!”

Grinwipey: “But don’t you know, Squidgin’s already got you on his social calendar. You might not believe that I can see the social calendar of my imaginary friend, but there you are, there’s too much you don’t believe already but that’s as true as the scorlet scorab. And you’re on the social calendar, never think you’re off of it.”

Alzagonde: “What are you getting at, madman?”

Grinwipey: “Madman, you say? Now that’s a word I haven’t heard for hours and hours — madman! What I’m getting at, Mingy Miss Mockado, is that I’m asking you politely-like to lay off the research program for the flight, or you’re going to have that meeting with Squidgin, and then you’ll see just how imaginary he is. And I hear he’s got a crowbar out of ship’s stores, and some very very full washbasins, all waiting for you and ready.”

Alzagonde: “You are a disgusting, disgusting man!”

Grinwipey: “Nah, I don’t read that kinda trash. Only one person in here who does.”

Alzagonde: “I don’t read it for fun!”

Grinwipey: “Well, maybe this Squidgin does, understand?”

Alzagonde: “Are you threatening me?”

Grinwipey: “I’m a-suggesting you be much more polite around here, and that’s just so as everyone is polite back to you. Everyone real and imaginary.”

Me: “Grinwipey, enough. We do not threaten our guests, no matter how they’re acting.” I turned to Alzagonde. “Well, most of us don’t. The nendrai can’t help herself of course, the Locador demon is truly alien, and, of course, the Khtsoyis and the Gormoror are more likely than not to follow the manners of their respective species. Still, be assured that neither your vicious questioning of me in class, nor your behavior towards my wards, will deprive you of the least bit of my protection while you are a passenger on Strayway.”

Alzagonde mumbled various things, and escaped as soon as I let her.

Grinwipey: “Was that bad-cop enough for you, boss?”

Me: “Everything I wanted and then some, Grinwipey.”

Comments

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Wow, she was being deliberately obtuse there. I mean, I didn't follow EVERYTHING Grinwipey said, but I did follow more of it than usual, so I gather he was making an effort to be understood. I suppose that such "high-status" people are accustomed to ignoring Khtsoyis, and the thought of him being an actual tradesman never crossed her mind.

It still amused me when he dropped all Khtsoyis slang for a moment, though.

I think that struck a reasonable balance between chastisement on the one handtentacle and politeness on the other handforepaw, anyway. I myself may have put a bit more emphasis on the "while you are a passenger" bit, with a suggestion that she could be deposited off the vessel if she made herself particularly obnoxious, but as previously mentioned, I'm not the one who'd need to live with the political consequences.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

Somewhat belated addendum: It's probably as well to go along with people when they get things like this into their heads. At that point, you can try to steer them, at least a little, and keep the damage more or less under control. If they're going completely against you, you have no such measure of control at all.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

Do you insinuate that I am like Inconnu? His voice rose to a glass-grinding baritone. “Are you suggesting that I might be interested in a liaison with someone like you? Ignominious! Hint at that again, my drazzled drozolla, and we shall engage in the duello and not what you asked for!

You know Grinwipey's pissed when he starts speaking in standard Kenetherian.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Just so. He thought Alzagonde would be an easier target than she turned out to be.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

(Terribly OOC)

Is it terribly, horribly wrong of me to now know that Grinwipey has Eric Idle's voice?

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

What is worse is I looked up Baritones... and now I can't help but think of Grinwipey speaking as David Bowie...

[terrana.livejournal.com]

I do believe that you, sir/ma'am, have just made my day.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey is so scary. XD

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So... I'm not sure I could really follow that, but he's... threatening to have your chain-golem break all her bones and shove her in a washing basin and, um, do other stuff to her?

Because that seems a bit over the line.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

The chain-golem was not mentioned! He was threatening to have his imaginary friend treat her the way that the protagonist of some traff-torture porn he found in her cabin (yes, in a pile of textbooks) was treated. I haven't read the document in question myself and I have no idea what is actually being done there.

The joke that inspired it being, she ought to be terrified of imaginary friends now, after finding out about Feralan's. Unfortunately, she didn't really cooperate.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Well, I assumed the chain golem would play the part of his not-so-imaginary imaginary friend if it came to that, since it's the only other khtsoyis on board.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It wasn't going to come to that. I do not beat or rape passengers or people I have sworn to protect, even if they are a tad annoying.

[rowyn]

Even threatening to do so is rather a lot. O.O

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey is full of surprises, isn't he? Saza still hasn't forgiven him.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

What Sythyry could do at this point is have the chain golem stalk her now, and everyone else insist that it's not there.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

That is an idea worth giggling about in private. As it was, the conversation got nastier than I expected; I rather hope for less on this topic, not more.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I thought that it was a threat to dye her fur pink, myself...

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

It may well have been, for all I know!

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Why is it now that I have a strong temptation to perform a crude recolouring job on one of Sythyry's most excellent portraits to reflect the inevitable backfire?

Not that I shall. Said userpics are far too nifty to risk insulting their creators by doing so.

Mocking Sythyry I have less of a problem with. Zie's used to it, and no harm's meant by it. Actually, thinking about the usual content of my comments, it's probably preferable to the more usual flavour of thinly-disguised flirting from an offworlder.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Yep. He liked it. And so did you, I'd say?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Grinwipey was rather more brutal than he should have been, in a conceptual way at least.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

Considering where you are and what you and your crew have been through, I'd say that Grinwipey was quite the paragon of civility?

Getting Made Awfully Dead multiple times by pirates, attacked by monsters and having your boss's fortune stolen from under their nose-appendages would most certainly make even the most tolerant of Khtsoyis more than a little murderous.

Which, considering how most Khtsoyis consider violence to be a recreational activity, is saying quite a bit in favor of Grinwipey's restraint.