(no subject)

[sythyry]

Yylhauntra, 1 [10 Lage 4261]

I suspect that most of you didn't wait 'til you were in a university before doing what I did tonight. No, not that, I've done that, I just don't mention it in this journal. No, not that either, I haven't done that.

What I did tonight was, meet someone of my own species that I hadn't known since I was very young.

Yylhauntra doesn't really stand on ceremony, or travel with much of an entourage. Zie came with only two servants, a quiet and very formal Cani man named Spathe and a short bouncy Orren boy who changes his name more often than Strenata. It was "Catch-The-Hapless-Toad" when I met him, but by midafternoon he was "Tlispet Explosive Eel", and by nightfall he was "The Band of Serrated Copper Around The Rim of the Sun".

1. (No, as far as I know there isn't one, not that I am an expert in the sun.)
2. (No, as far as I know I don't have a crush on him.)

Yylhauntra evidently remembers all of his names, and always calls for him by using (1) the current name, (2) the name for the current time of day but three days before, and (3) the name for the current time of day but nine days before.

Anyways, Yylhauntra drove up to the front door of Quelldrie House in a very ordinary carriage in the form of an exceedingly large animated pottery bull. Not that such carriages are that ordinary, but you'd sort of expect a firstborn Zi Ri to have something flashy and flamboyant and impressive. I mean, it even looks like pottery.

And zie got out zirself to talk to Jarmiet and Ghirbis, and asked them not to bother to announce zir. So the first I heard about it was when this owl-beaked Zi Ri came tap-tapping at my window and saying, "Hello! You must be Sythyry!"

I was!

So we sat in my fireplace and chatted about family and things, and zie corrected me when I called zir "grandparent". (It's great-grandparent. Tnirvakuovvka is zir child, and Dzeriaunet my ~father~ is Tnirvakuovvka's child.) And we ate some pickled slugs that zie brought -- zie'd picked them up in Daukrhame on the way here. Good slugs, but, well, if you were expecting me to tell about appetizers from the dawn of time, you'll have to wait on that.

Which is to say, I served zir some brandy, and I did ask about the first brandies. Zie didn't exactly remember, but zie didn't have distilled spirits at all until a decade or two after Shaliun invented the first techniques for copying and grafting bound spells. One of the first Khtsoyis wizards, a fellow named Asponius Gezirk, worked out a spell to destroy most of the water in some wine. Nonmagical stills didn't show up 'til rather later. Or so Yylhauntra said, anyways.

I was sort of expecting huge crashing thunders and demigod-style magics or something. Glikkonen doesn't exactly do that, but you can tell at a glance that zie can. Yylhauntra's obviously plenty powerful and well-equipped too, but ... I think Esory's family, say, seems richer and has heavier magic. Maybe that's just because Yylhauntra only brought the third-best stuff travelling. I'm not sure.

Anyways, I am quite perplexed at how ordinary it all seems.

Zie's staying at a medium-nice bed-and-breakfast some ways away, and left in midafternoon to go there. Zie'll be back for breakfast. So I have some time to prepare.

[Poll #471864]

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd leave the word "Interogate" out of my thoughts about what discussions I'd have with her. And I'd probably talk more about modernity than antiquity... she's probably sick to death of talking about all that.

You might get dirt on what happened when your parents / grandparents were your age, though....

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

A splendid idea!

[waywind.livejournal.com]

You might get dirt on what happened when your parents / grandparents were your age, though....

You might find out that they used to be... well, never know. At any rate it would be important to find out some things they wouldn't have told you about their wild past. Knowing that background, it might make it a bit easier to break the traff-news to them later on.

[barberio.livejournal.com]

The worst thing to do would to actualy ask about the Battle of Pelcour, as it would only lead to Yylhauntra picking over all the mistakes your professor has made. Which will only lead to discomfort for you during classes.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I think it might be a good idea to find out what sort of things zie likes to do and entertain zir a bit before being too demanding...

Oh, and is zie also related to Hezimikinnen? Maybe zie could help patch things over there?

[striderhlc.livejournal.com]

Or, barring that, maybe she has some good dirt about Hezimikinnen. Or at least some good embarrasing stories from his childhood.

- HC

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

I do hope that you found what kind of breakfast zie likes!

Anyway, the kinds of questions I'd ask:

- What tricks has zie learned about magic casting? Zie might be able to help you with your homework.
- What tricks has zie learned about Cloak of Another God, and acting as close to other species as possible?

[niss-the-ai.livejournal.com]

I would want to ask about adventuring. Not to suggest that your great-grandparent is the sort of person who'd stoop to that, but you could use the experience, right? Maybe the two of you could take a quick trip to the Verticals with zir for protection.

(Locally, we call this "leveling up.")

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Um ... all of the first-created were adventurers. They had to be. I don't think there were any really safe places for the first couple centuries.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Yylhauntra sounds like a nice and unassuming zi-ri! Perhaps that is by design: if you don't act like you have a lot of amazing magic, maybe people stop expecting you to throw it around their way. On the other hand, maybe Yylhauntra has a problem with flinging around too much magic these days...

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Wait, if the carriage wasn't supposed to look like pottery, what should it have looked like? I'm not sure photorealism is really what you want to go for there. Somehow, the idea of a perfectly realistic giant bull with windows in his flank-steak strikes me as... disturbing.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

You have just persuaded me that you are, indeed, wholly alien.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

I get that a lot.

[fringe-worthy.livejournal.com]

How did you like being considered an pleasantly indexed primer of your more famous relative's work on enchantment? I seem to recall you weren't very happy with that.

Perhaps you should ask what Yylhauntra's current interests and experiences are?

Now, if it should happen to be playing historian to those who are making mistakes zhi learned not to make centuries ago... well, I'm not sure you could stop zhi. But at least you'd have tried?