My Divorce from Arfaen [19 Nivvem 4393]

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Arfaen and I were getting divorced, so we threw a nice private party for a few friends that we thought would understand. Most of these friends were with us for our surprising and unintentional wedding, so it seemed only fitting to have them there for the predictable but equally unintentional divorce.

Of course, we also invited some more recent friends — and I use the term optimistically — like Greblakaan, the new head of the new Healer’s Guild. (Kismirth is big enough to have a proper chapter of the Healer’s Guild, and, I’m afraid, wild enough to need one.) Greblakaan and his pack of half-a-dozen same-species husbands and wives had only arrived from Ulmarn two days ago, and they were not yet used to the way that we do things here.

(I shouldn’t blame them for not being used to the way that we do things here. We’re not used to it either — we’re still making it up.)

Of course, this lead to some awkward conversations.

Greblakaan: “You seem quite cheerful, Sythyry. So may I congratulate you on your divorce from Arfaen?”

Me: “Why thank you, master-healer!”

Greblakaan: “If I am not mistaken, Arfaen is quite cheerful as well…”

Me: “I certainly hope so!”

Greblakaan: “A generous attitude, which I find commendable. Usually I should expect a divorced Cani to be reacting … somehow.”

Me: “Well, my marriage with Arfaen is not the usual sort.”

Greblakaan: “Insofar as you are a Zi Ri and she is a Cani, I should think not! Yet I should expect some sorrow — to the extent that I will stretch my imagination, in the Kismirth spirit, and pretend my hardest that it is a marriage of some sort.”

Me: “Well, actually, that’s not the unusual feature. Our marriage is more properly a concubinage — we are not equals in the eyes of the law. Well, in the eyes of the law of Hanija, where we got married.”

Greblakaan: “So she is celebrating her … liberation, I suppose, if I may use a slightly unflattering word.”

Me: “Oh, not hers. I was her concubine, not she mine.”

Greblakaan: “But she is your … cook, is she not?”

Me: “Yes, and quite an excellent one, too.”

Greblakaan: “Having tasted these stuffed chub-beetles, I must agree. You are a wizard and a master-healer, are you not?”

Me: “I certainly hope so, or you’ve got much less of a guild chapter than you expected.”

Greblakaan: “And she is…”

Me: “My cook, and, until about noontime, my keeper.”

Greblakaan: “One might expect that, if there were some social inequality in the relationship, a cook might rate below a wizard and master-healer?”

Me: “What? You have tasted her chub-beetles, and you still suspect this? Is your tongue deficient, man? … Well, there’s a professional inequality in the relationship. But it’s not a professional relationship, so I don’t see why that matters.”

Greblakaan: “I don’t quite understand, but I suppose I don’t need to. After noon it won’t be a social relationship either, which should simplify matters greatly.”

Me: “It won’t?”

Greblakaan: “Well, not an intimate one at any rate, and I should imagine she will be moving out straightaway.”

Me: “I should be surprised and displeased if either of those were true!”

Greblakaan: “I beg your pardon?” Greblakaan tucked his tail between his legs.

Me: “She’s not actually going to move away from me. I imagine you don’t wish to know any intimate details …”

Greblakaan: “I would just as soon not.” While Kismirth is The City of Transaffection, most people who have moved here so far are cisaffectionate — like Greblakaan, they keep their romances and other entanglements within their own species. Arfaen and I, and many others here, have no such decency.

Me: “… But we shall be living just the same as we have for the last five years.” Which, for those who care about the details, means that I am one of Arfaen’s dozen or so regular lovers and I-have-lost-count-even-if-I-ever-had-it-which-is-doubtful irregular ones, and she is one of my two — the other being Saza, who visits once in a while. Arfaen, for those who need all the details, frequently amuses herself with anyone who catches her fancy — and her fancy does not try too hard to escape. I, predictably, aspire to such a state, but don’t seem to manage it exactly.

Greblakaan: “But, if you are going to live just the same as you have been, why bother to get divorced at all? Merely to confound the newcomers?”

Me: “You seem unfamiliar with the laws of Hanija!”

Greblakaan: “Surely you mean, the laws of Kismirth, where we are now! For Hanija is a distant city on distant Aradrueia, and its laws cannot apply here. Can they?”

Me: “Kathbeia, actually, which is a side-branch of Mrasteia.”

Greblakaan: “Further away still! What should I know about the laws of Hanija? Or, what should I know about them?”

Me: “Oh, the term of my concubinage was seven years, and it’s over today. We can’t really renew it without going back to Hanija. And that is impracticable as well. I doubt that they are quite ready to forgive us for our last visit.”

Greblakaan: “And with this intimate understanding of the behavior of tourists, you are seeking to make Kismirth a tourist destination of the finest?”

Me: “You understand!”

Greblakaan: “What, precisely, do I understand?”

Me: “Why we need large and skilled Healer’s Guild chapter here!”

Greblakaan: “Oh, dear.”

Comments

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Are you going to write down a kind of marriage in the marriage book and use that to get married again?

You gave Greblaakan an awfully hard time for someone you want to be friends with are you practicing Zi Ri inscrutability again?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

(1) Shh! Don't tell anyone!

(2) I need all the practice I can get!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Ooooh all right I won't I can't wait to find out what kind you make!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling we will be seeing Greblakaan over for lunch... often... with reports of the strangest injuries, and a whine about why you are not doing something to stop him having to heal the strangest of the strange.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

What an excellent idea!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Should you really be mentioning your affairs with Saza? I thought that sort of thing was wholly illegal as Arfaen's Tofyof.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

We are not, technically, in Hanija. (Or, less technically, we are a grackawhumpus-load of miles away from Hanija.) The laws of Hanija do not actually apply here, save, perhaps, as an excuse to throw a party.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Happy final anniversary on your wedding!

And many happy years more of living together, no matter the relationship.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

You made me literally laugh out loud, you magnificent bastard!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

You know, considering that you intend him to play a leading role in your new city, you *could* have just explained the situation to Greblakaan, instead of toying with him. This is why you're not allowed to be mayor.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Perhaps ... and perhaps I rewrote the conversation more than I usually do.

Fortunately, I am not the mayor -- I did not allow any consideration that I might be! I am the Zi Ri wizard who lurks in the laboratory in the candelabra, and -- it is rumored -- sometimes slinks out in disguise to feast upon the flesh of the Orren. (Yummy, yummy Orren!) As such, speaking clearly would make me far less effective.

And do not ask why anyone would want me to be effective at that, or what 'effective' even might mean, or I shall have to get more practice at speaking obscurely, for I haven't any idea.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Besides Zi Ri are famed for talking obliquely, Sythyry is simply living up to zir species's standards!

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

I was going to make a geometry joke here but nothing really fits.

Sorry.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Kindly ask your translator to have a gander at Gmail when there's a free moment?

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

*grins*