(no subject)

[sythyry]

Nope of Another God [1 Thory 4261]

... and, when I got Seeks-? Strenata to my apartment.... We chatted on the couch in the main room about fuming grape brandy. I suggested that she come to my room for a backrub, but she declined.

We chatted on the couch in the main room about how a Zi Ri / Orren might enjoy a pot of boiling water. I suggested that she come to my room for a glance at some magic theory textbooks, but she declined.

We chatted on the couch in the main room about summertime birds, and about the prospects for bringing one down with a flung scallop shell. I suggested that she come to my room to glance at Dustweed's bird-book, but she declined.

We chatted on the couch in the main room about the prospects of making a sentient saloon. I suggested that she come to my room for a bit of brandy, but she declined.

We chatted on the couch in the main room about kaleidoscopes. I suggested that she come to my room to play with a couple of mirrors.

Seeks-? sighed. "Sythyry... Mirrors are OK. Brandy is OK. Swimming is OK. Body-play is not OK."

Me:"I didn't ask for that!"

She caught her tailtip and started chewing on it, which she only does when she is distinctly unhappy. "Not in as many words, Sythyry. But you've been trying to get me to your bedroom for the last hour ... for the last two months, I'm pretty sure. And you've been giving me constant hopeful glances since you went Orren."

I muttered some incoherent denials. Neither of us believed them.

She sort of curled up, chin on her knee, holding my left hand in her right. "Sythyry, you've been a good friend for months now ... a surprisingly good friend ... and I've very much enjoyed all the sorts of things we've done together. I trust you more deeply than I trust most people. There's a lot I'd like to share with you ... but not my body. Not with anyone but an Orren."

I had suspected as much ... I had sort of been told as much ... I glanced very eloquently down at my body, just as tall and browny-furred and triangle-tailed as hers.

Strenata:"I know you're Orren now. I don't know what to make of that really. You're still a Zi Ri. It still wouldn't be right."

We spent some moments disagreeing about philosophical principles. Transaffection is more proper for the upper classes than the lower, and Strenata is definitively lower, so ... does it go by my rank or hers, or both, or what? Zi Ri are by custom acceptable by any species as lovers ... which is a rule, according to Strenata, that she knows in her head, but not in her vulva.

Me:"What does that mean?"

Strenata:[Looking very subdued]"When I think of coupling with you, my body explains to me that I am not interested."

So it's not a matter of philosophy or ethics or morality or anything, really, though she can come up with plenty of philosophy and ethics and morality which support her position. She's simply distressed by transaffection, at least as concerns her own person. This understanding took a good hour and two-thirds -- or, more precisely, a hideously bad hour and two-thirds -- to reach. And we did wind up in my bedroom, because Dubaille came home and we didn't feel like arguing in front of him.

Also Rhedwy tracked us back to my apartment and tried to sit on the bed between us, until Strenata told her she didn't need to chaperone any more. Rhedwy pretty much flew out of the window to get away from what was obviously an emotional scene. Sleeth aren't much on other peoples' emotions, unless they are fearful emotions and the Sleeth was personally responsible for causing them.

Me:"Well, what about if I spend a lot of time with you in Orren shape?"

Strenata:"I don't know, Sythyry."

Me:"Would you want to be intimate with me, if ... um ... I were Orrenny enough?"

Strenata:"I don't know, Sythyry."

And we spent the next third of an hour more or less crying incoherently at each other. Of course the Cloak wore off halfway through that, and I didn't feel like recasting it, making further discussion of personal contact even more difficult.

And that's where we left it: nowhere. Maybe she will, sometime, when I'm wearing Orren form. Maybe she won't. Maybe she'll let me ride on her shoulder still. Maybe she won't. Maybe I'll try harder. Maybe I'll find another Orren. Or something.

Oh, and she wrote her full name in her hat-card, as "Seeks-Some-Sense". 'cause nobody understands her. Especially not herself.

Comments

[bercilakslady.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry Sythyry. I hope things work out for your comfort and Seeks-Some-Sense's comfort also.

Well.... look on the good side?

[allessindra.livejournal.com]

You figured out a way to get rid of a Sleeth.

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

The dreaded "let's just be friends" speech- I feel your pain. :(

- HC

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

Turn into a Sleeth and go sulk on a rooftop or something. The spell makes simple things natural, right? And dealing with this sort of rejection is something only a Sleeth would consider simple.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Welcome to life, kid.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

"Would you want to be intimate with me, if ... um ... I were Orrenny enough?"

*Scream of anguished deer*

That was just.... Horrible. :')

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

You can take comfort in the fact that you'll outlive her. A thousand years from now, you can visit her grave, and laugh, and laugh, and laugh....

[ocean-song.livejournal.com]

Bummer of a birthmark hal! How sad... That's the trouble with taking classes and labels and forms and such so seriously. *hugs*

[greenreaper.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that's not what zie intends to do, although crying might be an option. :-p

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Move on, lizard! You are a creature of rank and respectability. Find yourself a more appropriate partner!

[rowyn]

Be friends with her if you like, but give up on her as a potential lover. She's been stringing you along for months. Maybe she didn't mean to be, but still .... I doubt she's going to change, and you're inviting heartache to hope that she will.

Besides.

You should be loved for who you are, not what shape you wear.

*hug*

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Yay! Yay! Someone who agrees with me about Strenata's inconstancy!

[nekomavin.livejournal.com]

I do hope that good comes of this in time. For now, you need the company of good friends.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, Sythyry. Please feel free to come by the bakery for sympathy and poptaloops as soon as you feel like it. Knock if it's after hours.

I have to make a suggestion that I hope you aren't offended by, and though it won't help you a whit with Strenata, it might help you later down the line, as well as perhaps help more immediately with some of the ..er.. more physical frustration you might be feeling. You've got full, consensual access to a female Orren body now, as often as you like. It might be worth your energy, and pleasurable in the meanwhile, to spend some time exploring what feels good to her.

Inspiration

[shanabrightstar.livejournal.com]

Is this purely fictitious or based on your life? I noticed other comments were written as though the story were true???

I have to say this is the most interesting installment I've read. I like the exploration of "transaffection" relationships:)

Shannon

Re: Inspiration

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

OOC: Sythyry is purely a work of fiction, and all resemblance to anything in the real world is simply ... artistic inspiration, or coincidence, or whatnot.

Many people play World Tree, or roleplay people reading a real person's journal. So far as I know, nobody thinks Sythyry is real, but some people are amused to pretend that zie is.

I have never tried to date anyone by my own species, so far as I know. Though one person came pretty close...

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Well, the shoe has finally fallen! Poor Sythyry, but it's nice to have it out in the open now.

I wonder, if Rhedwy decided to wreak some fear, whether she might not decide to try terrifying Sythyry just because she might feel zi was responsible for making Strenata feel unhappy! (or vice versa, but it seems likely Rhedwy's sympathies would be more for a fellow adventurer or adventure-minded person)

[rowyn]

We may be a trifle harder on her than she deserves. Perhaps she really thought she would be able to reciprocate Sythyry's obvious affection in time, and has only come to realize recently that, no, it wasn't going to work out.

However, whatever her reasons or motivations, I really think Sythyry's best chance for happiness would be to look elsewhere. If Strenata is so firmly cis-affectionate now, I don't think it will make a bit of difference how much more Orren-y Sythyry gets. Moreover, I am sure there are plenty of people who would love Sythyry for who zie is and not how effectively zie can pretend to be someone else.

The additional fact that Strenata is bound up in something-or-other with Nestrune only cements my feeling that Sythyry deserves better. Someone who will deal honestly with zer, and not be so self-centered and ambiguous.

Re: Inspiration

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

... though my RLSO does remind me that I have been dumped by one person I'd been dating for four years 'cause I was the wrong sex. I had forgotten.

Re: Inspiration

[tempralisis.livejournal.com]

Extreme tangent:
Someday I'm going to find you (bb, not sythyry) and drag you into a conversation about what is and isn't "real". And I will see to it that the word "illusador" comes up.

-Tau :]

Re: Inspiration

[shanabrightstar.livejournal.com]

Oh my gad, it took the person that long to figure that out!!! I'm sorry. It had to be painful after so long:(

Shannon

Only half what I got

[devon-alek.livejournal.com]

At least Sythyry didn't get what I got several months back in real life. Started off with the "I want to be friends, but don't want to be your girlfriend" speech . . . then was contradicted a few minutes later with a speech about priorities, which signed the friendship's death warrant. Then again, I was blinded by my crush, thinking my belief in the celestial nature of the emotion would overcome the difference of religions.

Congrats!

[(Anonymous)]

Congrats on getting CoaG! that's a good one. (I have to admit
I missed a few entries, and was mighty confused, what with you
being all orren and all, which I think is fine and all, but
not as good as being rassi, or nearly as good as a zi ri for
that matter) But that is a good spell... 'sept that it's not
a spont... which makes it sorta really very borning, but still
really useful and neat. Sorry you seem to be upset about some
thing with that other orren, I don't much get it, but I am sure
that you will get over it... Reminds me of that time that
we helped out those other... hey they were zi ri too... zi ri
are strange... most exellent, but very very strange.
Fressis (from the top)