Sythyry's Journal

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Me: “What on wood possessed you to go beat up Invincible Fire Demon?”

Grinwipey: “Aw, I don’t know, boss. Not the spollical sparkiest clue. ‘Cause, well, I didn’t lay club nor clentacle on him, so I ain’t got no what you might call practical experience to guide the way to an answer. Ain’t done no proper research into the matter, wouldn’t you know? But iffen I go beat him up sometime sure and I’ll tell you why I did, though.”

Me: “Well, you went and threatened him.”

Grinwipey: “Had to get him to wear that droll dress somehow, y’know? He’s a happy enough joker when it’s him that’s putting the joke on some sweet shoggy, but when it’s him as is going to wear the joke, he needs a wee wittle bit of wencouragement.”

Me: “Jokes or no jokes, I won’t have you threatening my passengers. I run a kind and tolerant ship, and there’s no place for violence or threats of violence on it.”

Grinwipey: “Well, boss, there’s a wee wittle bit of wonfusion about that matter.”

Me: “There is not.”

Grinwipey: “There’s what you say, and what Squadgin says, and somehow I think that it might be Squadgin has the more accurate memory of the matter.”

Me: “… Squadgin? …”

Grinwipey: “Squadgin, my imaginary friend what on the thirteenth of Trandary last you had me talk all intimidating-like to Alzagonde about, not so long after she had tried to do her rospy little researches on Feralan. Sure and you said ‘no threatening’ to me in public back then too, but just as sure you said in private that I should go do that little scene. So I says to myself, I says, ‘Wipey, old shog, old self, that stuff the boss says about no threatening, it’s just a public line, zie tosses it into the cramper-and-goo whenever it’s not convenient. And it’s sure not convenient now, when a wriggly swimmy is writing wriggly poems at me.’”

Me: “And that’s another point. This is largely a traff ship. There’s bound to be cross-species flirting, even at you and Windigar and the other cisaffectionate people on board. I won’t tolerate anyone responding with violence or even ill manners to a cross-species flirt.”

Grinwipey: “Oh, a flirt was it? That diddly little detail somehow escaped my old agèd eyestalks. It wasn’t no fiddle-fucky flirt when I read those poems. Now, a flirt is a thing I can laugh off and say a kind no-thankee-ma’am, like I did for Inconnu and Hops and even your doggy, doggy girlfriend though she was sort of drunk at the time and it was before she was actually your girlfriend. Not a word or a whomp did I give one of them, though I found their suggestions as repugnant as a rotten rotifer!”

Me: “Well, what then?”

Grinwipey: “I read it as a mock, and a mort o’ mocks at that. Someone thought it’d be fun to squirt the squinky squid with the squackle of squeem, you see. Happens now and then. Happens that when someone realizes he’s a wrongfolk of some kind, he needs to feel he’s better than some other kind of wrongfolk. ‘I might be traff’, thinks he, ‘but at least I’m no Khtsoyis! And what better way to emporposize that I’m no Khtosyis than to poop out some pulpy putrid poems at one!’”

Me: “Well, they were mocking, but they were more mocking the person who wrote them.”

Grinwipey: “Well, if you want a strick literary axes-geeses, for chopping their heads off all clean-like, it’s not so much the person who wrote them, but the presumably-fictive person who is the first-person narribator of them. Or that’s what I thinks to myself when I’m all deconfucktioning them and detectiving about them.”

Me: “But you went to punish Invincible Fire Demon anyhow — who was all but the name signed on them. By the logic you just said, he should have been the last person you’d suspect: the poems were mocking him too.”

Grinwipey: “Well, boss, here’s how it goes. I thinks to myself, ‘It sure ain’t Invie, that would be ridickerous, just like my boss is going to say in a day or two when all the shits hit the shins. So, by a process of pooping, or, as those polite toffs say, elimination, it’s got to be someone else what done it!’ But I needs to be sure, I does, because I won’t go wicking and wearing-at the wrong wone, wou know. So I finds me a Cani what’s got a bit o’ sense and a big ol’ nose — these being two things what I am lacking the way that a shrike lacks a pudding-spoon — and I finds me your own girlfriend Arfaen. And I asks her to sniff at some of the poems. Well, of course they stinks as poems, so I ask her to sniff with her eyes closed, and she says they smells like Invincible Fire Demon, all over, and nobody else at-all. So I says to myself, ‘Well, there’s no arguing with a Cani nose, and I’m a-thinking it’s some psyprological preculiarity of the turning-traff coming up here and he wanted to be publicquely acquelaimed as the funny, funny fipper what writes funny, funny poems. So, if he loves making everybody do the laughing, sure as a shirrer he can love it from the costume I’ll make him, too!’”

Me: “So … you checked and it was Invincible Fire Demon who wrote them?”

Grinwipey: “Nah, I checked with Phaniet who saw a scent-squiddling spell on them. It was Inconnu who wrote them.”

Me: “So why’d you beat up … well, threaten and mock up … Invincible Fire Demon?”

Grinwipey: “Oh, that. Didn’t check with Phaniet ’til after it was later, not nine minutes ago it was when I got the impression somehow I’d made a proper pie-and-cake of it. I was so sure it was Invincible Fire Demon when I frengled him. I’d done my doo-doo diligence, don’t ya know?”

Me: “You admit that you got the wrong victim?”

Grinwipey: “Yeah, yeah, that’s what happen when you’re a stupid stupid shoggy trying to get a bit o’ justice in the world. It’s a mistake to even try, you see. Not like traff people, who can get a wizard to make a city for them.”

Me: “That has nothing to do with it, and you’re not a stupid shoggy.”

Grinwipey: “Not feeling like a spiffy-smart one today, though. But it was a natural-like mistake, it was. Even a wize, wize wizard might gibble up a goof when zie checks with only one expert chocky checkapoo.”

Me: “There’s several people have suggested I cease to be your patron and toss you off the ship.”

Grinwipey: “Well and I’m sure as shitwater they’re right about that. But maybe instead we get some someone sensible ‘n impartialatible to mediate it, like we was civilized peoples what tries to live together in peace ‘n harmony, just as if they was in a city together like they wants to be?”

Me: “… That’s fair.”

This is why I — and many another Zi Ri — should never try to rule anything.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

“Why on wood are you wearing that … that … what is it even called?” asked Lithia. The garment in question covered most of Invincible Fire Demon’s body — notably leaving his buttocks prominently exposed and even uplifed. In many ways it resembled the traditional garments worn (mostly in fantasy) by a particularly degraded form of slave, or, (mostly in reality), by someone taking that role for the purpose of amusement. (Not that I know anything about that.) In other ways it resembled a rag-basket, and a clown’s outfit, and a straitjacket, and a penitant’s cloak.

“Grinwipey made me wear it,” said Invincible Fire Demon. “He said he’d beat me up if he heard I wasn’t.”

Lithia blinked. “Wait, he was beating you up already?”

“No. I think my left tibula is broken,” said Invincible Fire Demon, confusingly, holding out his arm.

“The word is ‘tibia’ or maybe ‘fibula’, and those are legbones anyhow,” said Lithia, risking revealing that she is half Rassimel. “And if he didn’t beat you up, how is it broken?”

“I don’t know anatomy! All I know is my arm hurts a terrible lot over here where Grinwipey made me break it!”

Lithia tugged at his sleeve. “This needs to come up. I’m going to cut the seams. If Grinwipey complains he can sew it up again himself. What happened?” She busied herself with a small sharp shell-bladed knife, and then with wood splints and cloth.

“Grinwipey came into my room all furious, and demanded I wear this. He started waving his clubs around and pounding them on my furniture. Then he shoved me into the bathroom and slammed the door and said he’d wait outside until I came out wearing it. He didn’t explain why. I tried to run away, but I tripped and smashed into an armoire and hurt my arm. ”

Lithia said, “He probably didn’t like the love poetry you were writing for him.”

“What? I didn’t write any love poetry for him!” said Invincible Fire Demon.

“No? What are all those posters around the ship?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t have anything to do with them! Except get beaten up for them!”

“Really? You aren’t lusting after Grinwipey?”

Invincible Fire Demon shook his head. “No! Not me! Someone else!”

Lithia sighed. “Who?”

“Jyondre!” said Invincible Fire Demon. “Not even a traff crush!” Lithia relaxed a bit; she had been afraid it was her. “And I’m not writing love poetry to him either. I don’t want his wife to be upset with me. Somehow I got Grinwipey upset with me instead!”

“Well, yes, Jyondre’s quite highly unavailable,” said Lithia. “But I think your arm might be broken.”

“It is broken!” wailed Invincible Fire Demon.

“Let’s go get Sythyry. Maybe zie can fix it, and even talk some sense into Grinwipey.”

They did. It wasn’t. I could. I couldn’t.

I really, really want to get back home. And, say, put Grinwipey in a garret or sweatshop somewhere that he stops beating up all the cute Orren my friends.

And, of course, get started on the city.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Grinwipey floated menacingly in the door of Invincible Fire Demon’s room. “So
I’m your sheepshoofing lurvle now, am I?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Invincible Fire Demon.

“Well, tie my eyestalks in a vopter knot, you beg my pardon, now.
Didn’t beg it this morning with the shatter-and-mess, did you?”

“I’m sorry, but, I don’t know what you mean.”

Grinwipey scowled. “I’m not the shoggy for your stink-arranging little joke,
swimmy boy. I’m not gnawing on anyone’s fudd-whucker here, and I don’t even
think you thought I would. But you had your frutting gleebers in a frenzy –
thought it’d be as funny as the dashitzie to make everyone laugh at the
Khtsoyis, did you?” He raised a club. “Well, I’ve got a little joke of my
own.”

“What do you mean?” asked Invincible Fire Demon, scared.

“Off with your clothes!” roared Grinwipey. “Everyone thinks we roust the bean
of another species together, least you can do is drop trou for me!”

Invincible Fire Demon didn’t, at first, but Grinwipey was violently
persuasive.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

I peered at the paper that Arfaen handed me.

Wiggle your tentacles to mine heart
And let me feel embraces
Make sure that we don’t ever part
And often mash together kissy faces
Oh, how I wish our romance would get a start
You look so sexy with those maces
Aloneness stinks worse than any fart
Togethernessmentality doth tango with the Graces
Wiggle your tentacles to mine heart
And let me feel embraces.
— Y^r Invincibly Secret Admirer

“Are you asking for my poetic advice, or my romantic? The poetry is … well … I’m not sure that the word ‘fart’ belongs in a love poem. And, well, it’s aimed at Grinwipey, isn’t it? He being the only one with tentacles on board. He’s only interested in other Khtsoyis, from all I hear, and I hear a good deal,” I told her sadly.

Arfaen snorted. “My sweet clueless concubine! I have been around the block more than once! How can you imagine I’d write something like this? Or misunderstand Grinwipey’s true nature? Besides, don’t you recognize my handwriting?”

I looked more closely. “I would recognize your handwriting, I think, but this is printed. And you are the main one on the ship who uses the printing press.”

Arfaen giggled. “Yes, but for menus. I don’t print love poems and stick them up in the dining hall and all the most popular parlors. I don’t write love poetry at all — I don’t even like it.”

“I have seen better and worse examples of the craft. I suspect that the feelings of the author are deep and intense, which is all that the poem is really saying,” I said. “The actual words should probably be ignored, if one is reading it charitably.”

“I wonder if Grinwipey will read it charitably? Or this one.” Arfaen handed me another printed poem:

Oh, caress the opening of my nasal passages with the underside of your eyestalk!
Break off a stalk of flowering fungus for my face
Let us engage in bouncy boinking, and, afterwards, talk
And I shall with bright-colored paints and sparkly powders adorn your mace.
Oh, the love between us must be stronger than putty or caulk
My desire for you is strong enough to win a foot or chariot race
Don’t swiftly away from me walk
Or levitate or however you get from place to place
But caress the opening of my nasal passages with the underside of your eyestalk!
Break off a stalk of flowering fungus for my face.
— Y^r Fiery Secret Admirer

“We must find the secret admirer and administer lessons in scansion. Harsh lessons, poignant lessons, fierce lessons!” I proclaimed.

“Between the Orren smell and the clues in the signatures, I suspect that poor Invincible Fire Demon has figured out his transaffection in the worst possible way,” said Arfaen. “There’s one more:”

Breathless kisses
Except you have two mouths
Nominally burning touches, that’s my part.
Soft-spoken words of love
We can both do that
Urgently spoken words of passion.
An Orren and a Khtsoyis
One complete love
Since time began
Predestined to be as one.
We’ve been together before
In other lifetimes
We’ve fought taptet and mherobumps
And have been torn from each others arms or tentacles as the case may be
Yet our love prevailed.
We’ve walked on this tree many times together
Perhaps for a moment
Perhaps for years
But our heart is one heart
Which is why I’m using the singular for it
And we were meant to be.
So when our time on wood
Once again comes to a close
Have no worries my dear
For we will find each other again
And again
And again.
For our love is ageless
Eternal
A love for all time.
Or at least a few really good months.
— Y^r Daemonic Secret Admirer

“Invincible Fire Demon really should stick to the rhyming poetry,” I said.

p “He should also simply deliver his poetry secretly to the object of his affections. Posting them all over the ship is a bit much, even for an Orren who is finally getting in touch with his sexuality,” said Arfaen.

“Perhaps ask Lithia to have a talk with him?” I suggested. “I think they’re close.”

“As long as I don’t have to,” said Arfaen.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Inconnu flounced into my parlor with Arfaen in his wake, and waved the note to me. “Furious! Incensed! Tricked!”

I slithered out of the fireplace, where I had been taking a nap. “Perplexed. Confused. Awake.”

“Someone played a rather mean trick on Inconnu. Or maybe a nice trick, depending on how you count such things,” said Arfaen. “Show Sythyry the note, would you?”

Dear Inconnu my lover,
This may come as a shock, but you and I made love. My friend and I were disguised as Rassimel sluts. I’m really an Orren in real life though. Welcome to the wonderful world of cisaffection!
Here’s hoping to do it again — without a disguise this time!
— Y^r Secret Orren Admirer “Plisciné”

I thought a moment. “So, the Rassimel prostitutes you were so proud of getting a free night from were actually Orren Strayway passengers, magically transformed into Rassimel girls, purely for the purpose of seducing you?”

“Not just seducing me! Of breaking my life-long record of pure transaffection! Up until Confisse I had never so much as kissed another Orren! Now — now I have slept with one! With two!” wailed Inconnu. “I have degenerated into the realm of the merely indiscriminate! I am destroyed!”

“You are not, Inconnu. Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. I had been traff for far longer than Inconnu had, or even than he had been alive, until a worriesomely-pleasant night with my distant cousin Saza. I am still mostly traff — I am Arfaen’s tofyof, her legally-registered concubine in the laws of the city-state of Hanija — but I am forced to take a broader view of such matters. Well, a more standard view, saying little more than the truism that “people sometimes fornicate with — or love — each other, in a variety of combinations, some of which are socially acceptable and some are not.” Inconnu is one of the few holdouts on my prior and more radical philosophy.

“I am ruined!” wailed Inconnu. “The essence of my character has been shattered!”

“Only if the essence of your character is being the stereotypical traff brought to life,” I said. “And I know you enjoy playing that role, but there’s more to you than that.”

Inconnu threw his head back. “You are ignoring me, Sythyry! You cannot see the depths of my despair, my degradation, my doom!”

“Lots of us have slept with socially-appropriate people,” said Arfaen quietly. “I certainly did. Where do you think my son Quendry came from?” I’m pretty sure she was loyally defending me; Cani are like that.

Inconnu stamped a web-toed foot. “You do not understand! You were not tricked!”

“I was shoved into an arranged marriage over my objections, if that counts,” said Arfaen.

“It was years ago — you have forgotten! You are so used to your impurity and degradation that you cannot remember!” howled Inconnu.

“It was only a few years ago, and I remember perfectly well, and I am less degraded now that I am with my own kind than I ever was when I was married,” snapped Arfaen. She bared her teeth and growled warningly.

Inconnu growled back at her. “Well! If you care nothing for what has become of me — you who are both my lovers! — I shall seek someone aboard who cares to render assistance to a fellow traff in need!” He turned and stomped out of the parlor, his tail lashing back and forth, and knocking a hat-stand over.

Arfaen shrugged to me. “I was going to ask you to use some sort of magic to see who wrote the letter. Or maybe even see if you can figure out if someone borrowed your body-changing devices to switch from Orren to Rassimel.”

“Actually, I’d been leaving the transforming cloak in a parlor for anyone to use,” I said. “I got tired of people asking to borrow it. The students have been wanting to do all sorts of experiments — one married trio of Orren wanted to try their lovemaking as all seven other prime species. Anyways, I left it over there, where … it … is now. Maybe you could sniff it and see who has been using it?”

Arfaen smelled the cloak up and she smelled it down, she smelled it forwards and she smelled it backwards. “Lots of people have been using it, many of them Orren, like you said. I can’t pick out any one of them in particular, not this far after the fact. Not that I really want to do sleuthing on Inconnu’s behalf, not after he insulted both of us like that.”

“Well, as your loyal and obedient concubine, I will forbear from helping him either,” I said. I was a bit annoyed at him as well.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

“Some days, I am simply amazing. Some nights, rather,” said Inconnu. He was a tall and lithe Orren man, wearing a wild sarong of red and purple over his brown otterly fur.

“Some days, you are begging me to ask you what you did last night,” said Arfaen. She wagged her tail. “But you may tell me of your latest nighttime adventures while you are stirring the soup. If you can do it in ways that won’t offend Quendry’s innocent little ears.” She grinned at her son, who was shelling peas.

“My ears are strong! They are the strong and strong ears! Nothing offends them!”

Inconnu leapt over the counter and grabbed a pair of stirring-paddles from a rack. Arfaen glared. “No jumping. Give me one of those and I’ll use it on you.”

Inconnu giggled, and presented his rump to her. “Now? Or next time we’re in bed together?”

“There won’t be a next time we’re in bed together if you keep hopping around in the kitchen!” said Arfaen, mock-sternly. She swatted him, but just with a hand, for she is a very careful and clean chef.

“Ooh, you’d break up with me over that? That would cut each of us down to — what? Three dozen traff lovers?” teased Inconnu. “Oh, sorry, I’m supposed to keep it Quendry-safe.”

“Quendry knows about who I’m with, Inconnu,” said Arfaen. “He could smell it out even if I didn’t tell him.”

“Well, I’m going to tell you who I was with last night! Rosibeffa and Plisciné!”

“Who?” asked Arfaen.

“Two beautiful and hot Rassimel girls at that last city we stopped at! Confisse, wasn’t it called?”

Arfaen flattened her ears. “Not that I’m in any position to tell you who to sleep with or not –”

“You sometimes are! And very nicely too!” said Inconnu. “I like you in that kind of position!”

“– but picking up people in port isn’t really that safe for you,” said Arfaen. “It’d be different for cisaffectionate people, since anyone can flirt with someone the same species and no harm done. But flirting cross-species can get you beaten up in most cities, or worse.”

“Hah! What do I have to fear from such things?” snorted Inconnu. “I, who have fought a god — and won?”

“When you fought Thefefy and won — that was a brave thing, and a noble one, but you didn’t beat her or even injure her in the slightest. She killed you several times. If you do that in a bar in Confisse, we will not call it winning. We will call it losing and needing to be rescued a lot,” said Arfaen.

“Be that as it may! I flirted with Rosibeffa and won!” proclaimed Inconnu, stirring the soup. “I won so much that I didn’t just win her, I won Plisciné too!”

“And I was at home, making my tofyof work for zir pay,” said Arfaen. She is continually amused that I — an great adequate wizard and her patron and social superior nearly everywhere — am her legally-registered and socially-inferior concubine by the laws of one now-distant city state. (But, yes, we are lovers, or I am her concubine, or she is mine, depending on how one wishes to count things.) “So how did Plisciné enter the picture?”

“Plisciné is Rosibeffa’s … Rosibeffa’s … I don’t know really. They might be married, or they might be colleagues, or something. Rosibeffa took me to her — what do you call a prostitute’s professional bedroom? Her office? Her chamber?”

Arfaen started cleaning and trimming the immense pile of radishes that our Herethroy eat. “Wait, they were hookers? You’re bragging to me about how you hired two hookers?”

Inconnu brandished a stirring-paddle, scattering drops of bisque everywhere and getting a groan from Arfaen. “I am going to brag to you about how much I paid for two hookers!”

“You can clean up the floor afterwards, too. OK, how much did you pay for two hookers?”

“Not a terch! They were so impressed with my physical physique and lovely lovemaking that they didn’t charge me a thing!” said Inconnu.

“Wait — you hired them and they waived the fee? Or you snuck out without paying?” asked Arfaen.

Inconnu put his hand on his chest in exaggerated innocence. “What do you take me for? I am a wealthy Orren! I can afford a thousand prostitutes if I want them! Of course I was going to pay them!”

“I am not sure that even the mighty Inconnu could get full value from a thousand prostitutes,” said Arfaen. “And what happened so that you didn’t pay?”

“I gave each of them such heights of pleasure that they unanimously decided not to charge me anything!”

Arfaen shook her head. “Once in a while I hear about a prostitute waiving her fee. Like if the client experiences a severe failure of masculinity, and the prostitute wants to ensure his long-term clienthood.”

“I experienced no failure of masculinity! I experienced a triumph of masculinity!”

“Did you experience a loss of valuable possessions?” asked Arfaen.

“No! I had seventy lozens in my purse when I started the evening, and I had seventy when I finished!” said Inconnu.

Arfaen finished the radishes, and started seeding cucumbers. “Strange. You’re a fine and fun bedmate, I won’t deny it. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a lover who was so good they’d erase all thoughts of money from a hooker’s mind. I wonder what their angle was — blackmail?”

Inconnu laughed. “Let them just try to blackmail me! What will they do — threaten to write to my friends and family and hint that I am traff?” Most of the crew of Strayway is transaffectionate, but most of us are fairly discreet about it except with each other. Inconnu is the most flamboyantly and publicly traff of us — he works hard at it — anyone would know it within three and a half snaps of meeting him. I do not wholly approve of his behavior or his mannerisms. But at least they render him blackmail-proof.

“Well, I’m glad you had a good night with them. Are you tired, or is our date still on for tonight?” Arfaen glanced at Quendry. “After your bedtime, young man!”

“I am not tired! I am filled with the surging energy of excitement and triumph!”

Arfaen smiled, lolling her tongue out the left side of her mouth. “Maybe you learned some new tricks. Maybe I won’t charge you either.”

Inconnu blinked. “Wait, what? You’ve started charging…?”

“No, no. Don’t be silly. And don’t let that bisque burn either.”

Not, of course, that the stories of Inconnu’s prowess stopped with Arfaen. He told everyone who didn’t get away in time.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Grinwipey floated over Jyondre’s head. Each pair of tentacles held a club of gnarled and spiked arken-wood, and his remaining tentacle curled and knotted in rude gestures that no prime species but the aerial cephalopod Khtsoyis is capable of making for reasons of both politeness and flexibility. He lashed out once, twice, thrice, and his blows struck Jyondre’s shoulders once, twice, thrice.

Jyondre twisted and leapt, his triangular tail thwacking against an ottoman. His sabre danced in an intricate pattern, slicing through the tassles hanging from the chandelier. His dagger, at least, wound up embedded in Grinwipey, just next to one of the writhing eyestalks.

And Grinwipey retaliated in a fury of clubs hammering upon Jyondre from every direction. In a few instants, Jyondre fell.

The Aftermath

“Your win, Wipey,” said Jyondre, lying on the floor, searching his pockets for a handkerchief to stop his bleeding nose.

“Yeah, yeah. You got in a promoculous poke though,” said Grinwipey. He pulled Jyondre’s dagger out, and squeezed the wound closed with the innate Khtsoyis healing magic. “And if that chande-liar were m’aged and vicious auntie, you’d've cut off one of her tents right nicely.”

“Well, thank you kindly for agreeing to spar with me. Yerenthax wants me to learn to fight people who aren’t quite so gentle on me as she feels obliged to be since we got married.”

“It’s not married you are. You’re her boy-toy toy-foy,” said Grinwipey.

“Tofyof,” said Jyondre. “And that’s just the legal part of it. When we make the new city, she and I will get actually married.”

“Tofyof, cloth-woth, concubine, or little bit of wrong-species fluff to keep her warm at night,” said Grinwipey. “Me, I think I’m gonna find me a wife when I get back home. Hopefully a different one than the last one, I still got the bleeds in m’kidneys from our divorce proceedings.”

Jyondre flattened his ears. “Really? It’s been over a year…”

“What, do you doubt my dibblematic dictum?” said Grinwipey with a snort. “Not only was she a most imposing woman who had quite a way with a pair of flails, she hired a defense attorney — maybe he was an offense attorney? — with a flaming sword! To chase me out of my own home!”

“I’m surprised Sythyry didn’t heal you, though.”

“Oh, that. Well, zie did, but there’s some wounds that can’t be healed by salves nor sorcery. They need salsa and sambuca, salami and slivovits!”

Jyondre sat up. “And a spouse?” He took the cloth off his nose to check for blood, and clapped it back on before he spotted his tunic.

“Spouse, that’s a good word right there. A spouse, or at least a slut. But a Khtsoyis! It’s not like I haven’t had any offers here, mind you, I’ve had them out the drammo, but they’re all from twoozy little plungermongers and I’m begging your pardon for using such language.”

“I prefer being called ‘traff’ for loving outside my own species, but I’m not in a position to be too fussy about language.”

Grinwipey wiggled his free tentacle. “Is that thing done dripping blood yet? I don’t want you still bleeding when you see Yerenthax! She’d squoosh me to sporridge if I broke you for her!”

“She understands about live-weapon sparring, Wipey. She’s half hill barbarian,” said Jyondre.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Elsewhere…

“Well, have you figured out if you’re traff yet?” asked Lithia. “Now that you’ve been on a ship full of traff-folk for weeks and weeks and weeks.”

Invincible Fire Demon shook his brown head. “I did a lot of exploratory kissing and such, and I think I like Rassimel. A lot. I’m not very traff, I’m sure of that. I’ve got the most nibbly and horrible same-species crush at the moment.”

Lithia smiled. “You’re allowed to be half-traff, I say!” This is an important matter for her, as she is secretly half Rassimel. (Halfbreeds are quite rare on the World Tree, as different species are not inter-fertile without quite serious magic — but Lithia is the victim of such magic. Lithia changes from Orren to Rassimel and back every hour or so, in a crampy fit. We have placed illusion spells on her so that she can pretend to be an Orren subject to periodic crampy fits, rather than a despised halfbreed.)

“Good thing! I’d hate to do it without permission. I might get tossed off the ship! And I’m not a bit invincible, either. My parents just liked the name.”

Lithia grinned. “So who’s the lucky Orren that you are embracing?”

“Oh, nothing like that! I’m not embracing anyone!” yelped Invincible Fire Demon.

“That’s a shame. I didn’t embrace anyone for a long time, but Treacle-Eyes changed that. I must recommend embraces!” Lithia grinned a newlywed’s grin.

“Well, it’s someone … awfully inappropriate. An Orren who wouldn’t appreciate it at all,” said Invincible Fire Demon, with his tail between his legs. “And I could get into a great deal of trouble if I pressed the point on-board. I’m not going to do anything about it, on Strayway.”

Lithia thought to herself, “I am Orren as far as he knows. I am a newlywed. I am the captain’s adopted daughter. I have been the friend and confidante of Invincible Fire Demon since he came on board. I don’t fancy him a bit, and I’m sure he knows that.” So she said aloud, “Well, I’m sure whoever-it-is would be properly sympathetic and appreciative, albeit without returning your crush, if the matter were known. Still, such things are better not acted upon.”

Invincible Fire Demon didn’t realize that Lithia was talking about herself. “Well, I could probably manage it somehow — get a few kisses at least — by dishonest means.”

“Don’t do that!”

Invincible Fire Demon simply grinned wickedly.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

[This is the start of the story "Inconnu Furioso", and a good place to start reading.]

Disclaimer

I had nothing to do with this, except for deciding that, if asked for help, I wouldn’t.

Despairs

In the last week of serving as a student-transport gazebo, the many parlors of Strayway filled with the wailing of flailing and failing students.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Alzagonde. “We tried to impress Mump, but we ticked him off somehow instead. He doesn’t like socio-vacationing one bit, and he’s declared some sort of academic vendetta against us. I wonder if I’m even going to have a place in Lord Caring University at all, when we get back. Certainly not in the Department of the Study of the Behaviors of Primes.” Alzagonde flicked her striped tail twice or thrice at the memory.

“Maybe you can switch to something else, like mathematics or Mentador?” asked Frippin. “I think they’re pretty unfriendly with the Behaviors department. They both think they know all about how primes behave, without any socio-prosody or even any eighteen varieties of primes.”

“Well, that makes them a pack of idiots,” said Alzagonde. “I don’t want to go study with a pack of idiots. Besides, you can’t use mathematics to prevent transaffection. You can use Mentador, I suppose, but you’d be lynched to death for it and good riddance. We saw enough of that back in Hanija!”

“I wish I could use some Mentador on Mump myself. Make him give me a good grade and tell my other teachers to give me another chance,” said Frippin.

“Oh? Having trouble?” asked Alzagonde.

“I’m to be tossed out of school at the end of the term without it,” said Frippin.

“Did you get a good set of papers on transaffection out of Hanija, at least? Or out of all the perverts on Strayway?” asked Alzagonde.

Frippin hung her head. “Not a one. Not that’s any good. I need something wonderful and splashy by next week.”

Alzagonde patted the Orren girl on the brown-furred head. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Or maybe something notable will happen that you can write about.”

“It’ll have to, and fast,” muttered Frippin darkly.