Of course, I got the following letter from ~mother~:
Dear Ostentatious Offspring,
Yylhauntra, who knows everything that happens with everyone in the family, informs me that that silly political stance you are taking about transaffection either has shattered altogether, or is about to do so. Not a moment too soon! A century too late, even, but we shan’t mention that. I won’t say I disapprove of Sazandigraa. You could do worse than zir. As, indeed, you have done repeatedly. Still, picking someone on the more Enchanting side of the family, or even of the species, would be all for the better, and without zir Mentador and ritual magic and occasional wild adventuring. And without your wild adventuring! Are you still corresponding with that sweet Aethrahacxy, Tsaomineinen’s child, and the grandchild of the Wild and Scaly Llezcaryg? Do go and visit zir. And leave that tacky candelabra skyship behind, and all the crew; they do not do you great credit.
Your loving ~mother~,
Eitharheinen
Which lead to a quick (day-long) exchange:
Dear coz,
Yylhauntra seems aware that we were up to something. Did you tell zir? I certainly didn’t.
Sythyry
And then
Dear Sythyry,
I certainly didn’t either! You are my coz-conspirator, I didn’t breathe a word! Still, my servants know me well; I daresay someone reported my admittedly over-smiling expression of the morning to Yylhauntra, who has been known to make good presents to people who tell him important things about me. There may have been some scrying or time-probing involved. I haven’t your delicate perceptions of subtle magic, or not without four hours for a Kennoc Magiador ritual first anyhow. I’m very sorry — is Yylhauntra causing you trouble or doom?
Dear my love,
Saza
leading to
No trouble from Yylhauntra, but Eitharheinen has been amazingly rude to me — warning me off of you, in effect, and recommending a substitute. If I ever have a child, I do hope I manage to be nicer to zir, or at least less offensive.
Dearly, Sythyry
which was a bad thing to write! Because:
Oh, dear, you truly are throwing yourself into cisaffection, aren’t you? One lay, and you’re already thinking of eggs. I have been trying to steel myself to the prospect for two centuries now, and I might be able to face it in a mere two or three more. Perhaps I am less driven than you.
Dear my love,
Saza
Which I attempted to parry with:
No, no, no! I have not even started trying to think about the prospect! I am in loco parentis (meaning, of course, “pretending to be a parent because I am b*tshit insane) to various short-lives — including Feralan to some extent, though that’s more in loco godparentis.
Dearly,
Sythyry
ending with:
Oh, dear. I have at times felt rather intensely about someone or other. I am relieved that you take a more measured approach! Even about me.
With love and considerable embarrassment,
Saza
Category: 
| 
[OOC: I'm out of town this week, but by the magic of Beetiger's Wordpress, I get to post things on schedule anyhow! I may respond as much as usual, or less, depending on RL computer accomodations. -bb]
A single leaf came from Oorah Thrassen, with many paragraphs written upon it in the tiniest of letters. Upon magnification, a full missive was revealed. I am impressed at Saza’s command of the small, and at the effort (presumably magical) zie took to inscribe a single leaf. I cannot do the same! Not yet, anyhow.
Dearest Sythyry,
There are minor technical developments in the case of Feralan and hCevian, which are some three parts discouraging and one part encouraging. The good news is that we should probably be able to provide each of the two with a working and separate soul. The bad news is, some parts of the soul will not be from the original of that person’s soul; they will be carved off of the other’s soul. There are many technical issues to work out, and choices to be made about precisely which part of the demon’s soul would be least troublesome for Feralan. And of course we might yet dredge up some better solution; research continues apace.
Less important to the sense of potential devastation to your poor client’s life, but, perhaps, close enough to your heart and mine is the matter of what passed between us on the last night of your last visit. It is no great matter to me, and you may make of it what you will. I have had a thousand lovers of a single night only, and, if that is all I have with you, you will not be numbered among the six that I wish I had not done, nor the sixty that whose memory gives me a twinge of shame. I gather that it is not the same with you, for you are more guarded with your intimacies than I am, and in particular not used to other Zi Ri. Or to our sometimes-casual, sometimes-intense expressions of physical pleasure and affection — even I am at a loss sometimes whether it’s an hour’s recreation, or the prelude to a lifetime of occasional devotion and love. At times the matter becomes clearer with conversation, and at times it does not…
In any case, you seemed to me to be more ‘rattled’ than ‘languid’ the morning when you left. I would unrattle you, coz, if I can. If you wish, we need never speak of this event again, to each other or anyone else; you may leave it as a single solitary unsuccessful experiment in cisaffection in a lifetime otherwise devoted to transaffection.
I must say, though, that I remember a blue-feathered face in a halo of arkenwood flames, smiling up at me, and I smile back at the memory of the face.
I do ask one favor of you: I would like to ask you to join with me again. I know that you might not appreciate the offer. So my favor is this: when you have decided whether or not I may ask again, please tell me which it is.
With a suitable cousinly love, not greatly different now than it was a hundred years ago or than it shall be in a hundred years,
I remain,
Your coz,
Sazandigraa
And that is very sweet of zir. I think.
Lacking Saza’s fine pen, and lacking zir experience and eloquence with love letters, I simply replied:
Dear coz, The report on Feralan is bad, of course, but not the worst that the situation could provide; I eagerly await more news, and hope for the best or at least the better. Of the other matter: I was rattled; I remain rattled; I shall be rattled for some time to come. I hold you blameless, and, indeed, delectable. Alas, I find that I am uncertain of my own essential nature just now, and spending many spare moments in theoretical contemplation thereof. You may ask, but I must apologize in advance if the very topic reduces me to a flutter of fainting fantods, or at least, I think I am likely to say “not this year”. If I come to any more definitive understanding thereof, you shall be the first to know. In the meanwhile, do keep it private.
With a great deal of confused affection,
your coz,
Sythyry
Oh, and by “I simply replied” I mean “I created a pocket universe with a pocket time-flow and spent nearly a day and a half thrashing around and biting my tail over whether I really wanted to leave open the possibility of having a cisaffectionate relationship beyond simply a cisaffectionate moment of weakness. But you knew that, I think.
Which got the answer:
Dearest Sythyry,
I detect a note of panic in your note. I shall not press the matter!
Which, after some other panic, compelled me to write:
The manners and customs of the cisaffectionate, I do not understand. Did you just break up with me?
Which was answered by:
Dearest Sythyry,
Not in the slightest! I merely employ our standard tactic in times of perplexity or distress — and I believe this is both, for you — of waiting a few decades to see if the problem goes away. If you resolve the matter to your own satisfaction, please let me know, and I shall be delighted to share a fireplace with you at any time our elsewise-complicated lives permit. This is not a wholly unfamiliar topic. My regular relationships all took between twenty and fifty years to settle down.
With considerable affection and considerable patience,
Sazandigraa
So any doom here is entirely my own fault.
Me: “Please explain!”
Phaniet: “Simple enough. Nalche was being held in a basement. Her aunt had put a prison-brace on her: if she tried to leave the house without permission, or tried to take it off, it threw fire bees at her. Light ones, but very stingsome and painful. She’d tried it out, as you recall.”
Me: “Yes, I remember the burns. How did you get it off her?” I know Phaniet’s magical skills intimately; while she is not weak, she is not mighty either. Though stronger than when we set off…
Phaniet: [with a proud flagging of her tail] “We tricked it off.”
Me: “Oh, do tell?”
Phaniet: “We found out what was going on with a bit of scouting and spying: Nalche, basement, prison-brace borrowed from the city guard. Rehit is such a treasure! So we dumped a bottle on Inconnu, and made him invisible and inosmible, and he crept into the basement with a couple of useful little tools from your collection.”
Me: “Inconnu will gladly leap to the rescue of a bitch in distress!”
Phaniet: “Exactly. I’m curious to see if he gets the traditional reward from her, traffed up … She’s not exactly traff, but she’s not exactly not traff, if you know what I mean.”
Me: “I have not the slightest clue.”
Phaniet: “I’m not a spirit-doctor …”
Me: “Alas that you are not, for if you were, you’ve a splendid patient … whom I left in Oorah Thrassen. Pray continue.”
Phaniet: “Anyways, I get the sense that she isn’t missing just the Cani emotions; she’s very insensitive to some normal ones too, probably including the ability to love.”
Me: “So sad!”
Phaniet: “Yes. I think she can probably learn to love, or at least to share affection, but it will not come naturally to her. Still I am not a spirit-doctor; I could be wrong. Anyways, I have no idea what Inconnu has gotten out of her, or, more likely, gotten into her.”
Me: “Ah, yes, Inconnu had gotten to her…”
Phaniet: “So Inconnu gave her a talisman to turn into a Khtsoyis, make the prison-brace invisible, and gave her three big spiky clubs and a stereotypical loot-bag. And Nalche floats up to her mother in the pantry, and she says, says she, ‘Oi! Here I am, somehow in your house, but you’ve seen me. Mind if I stay here for a while and inspect your valuables and maybe your rump?’ Well, the mother says, ‘Out! Out of my house!’ Nalche says, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I take some of your most expensive treasures out of it when I go?’ The mother says, ‘You may not! Leave all our possessions and get out, or I’m calling the city guard on you in about half of no time.’”
Me: “Ooh, very clever. Permission to exit the house and leave the prison-brace there. Nice trick, that! You didn’t need me a bit; I’d have just tried to pry the thing off by sorcery, and probably woken up half the city doing it.”
Phaniet sat on the divan, and grinned, and wag-wag-wagged her tail. It was obviously her plan, or mostly, so I fluttered over and kissed her ears and generally praised her. That’s why she really stays around, you know. The traff-community trick, the substantial wages, the promise of immortality: those are just lagniappe.
Me: “Not that explain. The other explain. About why Mellilot needed to ask you about leaving Strayway.”
Phaniet: “Oh! That! You know the stereotype of two-mammal traff couples? That we really have Herethroy envy, and want an insectile third person to play with.”
Me: “The ever-classic ‘hot bug babe’. Yes. Mynthë got propositioned for that quite often; she was thoroughly sick of it.” (And once in a while accepted the offers, but never mind that.)
Phaniet: “Well, it’s a stupid stereotype really, but it’s a stereotype for a reason.”
Me: “You and Este have been together a long time. Are you starting a Serious Relationship with Mellilot, or just playing, or what?”
Phaniet: “Not exactly sure yet. We’ll see how it works out.”
Me: “Well, best of luck and skill and affection to you!”
Phaniet: “Thank you strongly!”
While I am curled up in an introspective frenzy, I suppose it would be polite to think about libertines. There have always been libertines in Vheshrame (and other Choinxeian) society: upper-class people, for the most part, who devoted considerable time and attention to the enjoyment of other people’s bodies without great thought for anything deeper than, shall we say, a few inches of penetration. A number of my friends and acquaintances have been in that social set: starting, I suppose, with then-Prince Nestrune, and Dustweed’s first lover Tethezai.
It became rather crucial to distinguish myself and my friends from that set.
The reason, I am embarrassed to say, was initially practical. The libertine set was high-class. A mere courtesy title like mine would have allowed me in, I suppose, but I would have been peripheral, unless I did something extraordinary to make myself central. (There was a small crowd of less-than-high-class people hanging around with the libertines, hoping for various advantages. They were often used, and occasionally indulged.)
Many of my friends — those who later became the first wrongfolk — did not even have a courtesy title, and were not so willing to be toys for the titled.
We got in a variety of lesser or intermediate troubles for, in effect, daring to ape our betters. Beatings and public scorn, of course. A friend’s job was lost, and she could not be hired any more in Vheshrame in her trade, at a few words from an indignant count’s son. Any sort of legal or semi-legal harassment that they found convenient.
The libertine set did not much like us infringing on their territory. Not that there was such a limited supply of prospective lovers in Vheshrame, but that the right to enjoy whoever one wished was a privilege the libertines of the 4260’s wished to regard as a sumptuary privilege. So an Orren printer, say, could no more indulge herself with Cani and Herethroy as she wished than she could wear copper ear-crests with sapphires, or own a pond, or drink Daq D’ouenff.
Which explains — or mis-explains — some of the theories we developed.
It was crucial for us to say that we were doing something different than the libertines were. If we were doing something different, it was not covered by the sumptuary customs. So: we had love and its concomitants, or at least we were attempting to weave love, and imitate marriage. The libertines were doing no such thing; their marriages were generally arranged, and made for reasons that had nothing to do with love or attraction, and their libertinage was play and escape.
It was crucial for us to say that we were doing something better, too. Crucial for us, anyhow. Not that we particularly talked about this to the libertines’ faces! But we cared a great deal. They were more powerful, and had the social and legal upper hand. We wished to find a ground of superiority. Moral superiority is easy enough to claim. We had love on our side, we proclaimed; they had only sex.
Well, the theory proved useful. There is still a libertine set in Vheshrame — the Academy and the court seem to almost require it — but they generally leave the transaffectionate alone. It was generally clear which community one belonged to, and when people switched, it was an occasion fraught with drama and bickerization. Our proud claiming of a monopoly on cross-species love got us a number of excellent people. Kantele, say, started in the libertine set, but she and Hithiat joined Castle Wrong when the depth of their relationship became clear.
However: I devoted much effort and passion to surveying the two concepts, and rendering them as separate as possible. This seems to have been… overdone, if not actually a mistake.
Anyhow, it was a useful tool for a particular time and a particular place. But that does not make it suitable for getting a central role in a general theory of love and sexuality.
I don’t want to toss this theory out. I want to wrap it in paper and put it in a cardboard box in the attic for a few centuries, and then I can take it out and giggle at how naive I was.
Nangbang: “I was here for the wedding! I’ll be going home soon enough.”
Phaniet: “Wait. Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Me: “No.”
Phaniet: “‘Cause I’d bark until your feathers turn purple if you try!”
Me: “I’m not trying. I’m more thinking of Quendry, say, who’s already been killed more times by worse weapons than any child should suffer…”
Grinwipey: “What kind of perflipping weapons should children be killed with, featherhead? Small cute brightly-colored warclubs?”
Me: “…, and whose safety I cannot guarantee any more. Actually I never could.”
Arfaen: “Are you trying to send me away? What, because I slept with you? Or because I dared to sleep with other people before and after?”
Me: “Not hardly! I’m giving you the choice, if you want to protect yourself and your son.”
Arfaen: “We are Cani! We are loyal! We will stay by your side until the bitter, doomful end! And visit lots of interesting exotic places on the way!”
Nalche: “Speak for yourself. Not that I’m going anywhere — I just got here on Strayway, and glad of it.” (She’s already fitting in, I suppose.)
Me: “You would arguably serve me better if you went to Vheshrame and didn’t require so much of my attention to fix the trouble poor Quendry gets into.”
Arfaen: “Through no fault of his own!”
Vae: “The through all fault of mine!”
Arfaen: “I’ll go if you order me to! But I won’t be happy about it! I’ll resent it with both hands and both feet!”
Quendry: “Me too! Me too!”
Me: “I’m not ordering anyone to leave…”
Phaniet: “Except Zascalle and Thiane!”
Me: “Well, they’re already gone. I’m letting anyone go who wants to. You’ll go back to Castle Wrong in nice comfortable Vheshrame, and I’ll rejoin you in a year or two. I won’t think the worse of you if you do, I’ll think that you’re one fewer hostage to fate I’m keeping around me. “
Vae: “Hostage to me…”
Inconnu: “I’m not leaving ’til I get your zing-fanny-del in my pozzip!”
Me: [blushing with all my feathers] “And ’til your lessons with Grinwipey are complete?”
Grinwipey: “Hey, I dunno what he’s talking about, I didn’t teach him that kind of language.”
Me: “Anyways. Mellilot. You’ve wanted to escape for a while.”
Mellilot: “I did, yes, but now let me talk to Phaniet and Este about it some.”
Me: “Wait, what?”
Mellilot: “Wait, exactly.”
Me: “Really. I don’t think Strayway is very safe, and anyone who’s the least bit sensible should get off of it.”
Blenny: “I, home, back.”
Me: “Blenny hereby proves herself the most sensible person on Strayway.”
Jyondre: “I don’t need to go home. I am home.”
Me: “I thought home sort of disowned you. Or do you mean, all of Srineia?” Jyondre being our token Srineian native. Well, except for Nalche, now, I suppose.
Jyondre: “Home is with Yerenthax. The rest of you are good too.”
Yerenthax: “And we certainly are not leaving. Being here gives us glory! It stretches our muscles and our mageria! It makes us become mighty, and gives us deeds worthy of songs!”
Phaniet: “Think you’re the only one who gets adventurer-style learning from hanging around with a nendrai all the time, boss? It gave you a seven-century boost to your career. I wouldn’t mind having one of those myself.”
Me: “Or die trying.”
Phaniet: “Or die trying. It’s worth the gamble for me.”
Inconnu: “Me too! Me too!”
Me: “I can’t argue with Phaniet, but … Inconnu?”
Inconnu: “What, do you think I want to trade on my delicious good looks and wonderful-in-bed forever? Think again, Honored Zi Ri! Think again!”
Me: “Well, all right, then. Are you all a bunch of adventurers?”
Calla: “I’m not. I would like to go back home too.”
Me: “I will miss your cooking, but I think you deserve a chance to survive. Anyone else?”
Rheng: “I return to Vheshrame, where there is more to steal and fewer nendrai!”
Me: “That’s fine. We’ll figure out what I owe you for this part … Kantele?”
Kantele: “I’m not leaving! I’m not leaving Strayway, I mean. I rather wish we would leave Srineia already”
Me: “Oh, good. But, lacking a Zascalle, can you figure out what we owe Rheng?”
Kantele: “A knot in his tail!”
Rheng: “No such thing! I am the Thief Supreme, I am a gem unto this expedition!”
Kantele: “Except when you get bored. Then you’re doom.”
Me: “I thought Vae and I took care of providing plentiful doom for everyone.”
Jyondre: “Doom and good food. Can’t beat it!”
Me: “Vae, do something awful to scare everyone to safety, please.” Unwise, but I was somewhat desperate.
Vae: (produces a truly prodigious belch)
Nobody: (decides decides to flee)
Nearly Everybody: “We knew what we were getting into when we came along. We wanted to then. We still want to.”
Me: “Um … right, then.”
Phaniet: “Only, could we please be done with Srineia? It’s troublesome here, and uncomfortable for traff-folk, and we’ve already seen everything interesting in the city.”
Jyondre: “I’m from here, and I’m bored of it.”
Kantele: “If we’re going to travel, let us travel.”
Me: “Noted. Not ’til the skyboat’s fixed, and ’til we’re better-armed.”
So I tried to do right for my friends, but my friends are all crazy (except for Blenny, Calla, and Rheng.) I suppose I should not be too surprised by that. They are my friends, after all.
I tried to do the right thing by my friends.
By means both ruthless and dictatorial, I compelled all the crew of the Strayway to attend me in the Grand Dining Hall after breakfast. And by “all” I did not mean “all save Windigar, who, as the pilot, is not strictly crew”. Neither did I mean “all save Mellilot, who is busy with the washing-up.” Admittedly, I did mean “all save Nangbang, who can take care of himself”, but Nangbang was there with his daughter anyhow. I tried to mean “all save Vae, who does not need to hear it”, but Vae was curious, so she was there too.
Me: “As I’m sure everyone knows by now, Zascalle and Thiane had some bad reasons for some of the things they did.”
Inconnu: “What? Like trying to steal all your money? A bad idea? I’ll abandon my plans therefor straightaway!”
Me: “Yes. I am none too keen on those plans. But she had some other reasons for things she did, and, much as I’d like to, I can’t say that they were bad reasons.”
Phaniet: “There’s no good reason for sleeping with a Cani!”
Este: “Garoof, but you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I do it all the time, and hasn’t made me go crazy, or even gloot glorf glorf gloppsies.”
Quendry: “Are you choofing me for funny noises? Bonga-ponga zoid freng! Tartwit under the goppers! Sheeng, sheeng, sheeng! Bloop-boop-poop-poptaloop!“
Arfaen: “That’s enough, dear. Sythyry’s trying to talk.”
Me: “I am, indeed. And what I am trying to talk about is, this has been an unduly dangerous trip.”
Inconnu: “What? It has? Arfaen’s cooking isn’t that dangerous!”
Phaniet: “Zie’s talking about the moral hazard. Now that zie’s started sleeping with zir clients, there’s not a one of us safe from getting that rare and envied seventh tick on their traff tally!”
Inconnu: “Oh! Oh! Endanger me, Sythyry, endanger me!”
Me: “Your job title is ‘assistant’, Phaniet, but you’re working too much on the first syllable just now.”
Inconnu: “She should cease and desistant!”
Grinwipey: “Get to the point already, featherbrains. I gotta get back to my needlepoint!”
Me: “Right. Sky pirates. Teleportation effects. Blackmailer on board. Stowaways on board marrying the captain’s daughter. Half-wrecked ship. Helpful nendrai buying engagement presents. It has been very dangerous, and I haven’t been able to protect all of you from all of it all the time.”
Vae: (cries quietly and bloodily.)
Me: “I’m sorry, old friend. You’ve succeeded at controlling yourself in situations I was sure you could not have done, and I am proud of you for that. And they are not all your doing, and you saved us as often as you endangered us. I must speak clearly to everyone — if they let me — and that will not always be nice to you. You should go elsewhere, and I will speak with you privately afterwards.”
Vae: “Not, not, I have done wickedly, I will listen and be punished some more, and maybe in time the wickedly will be punished to the corners of my spirit.”
Me: “As you wish, Vae. Anyways — I can’t really promise that the voyage will continue any less dangerous than it has been so far. I have done what I could do to make it safe, but that is not enough. So, none of you have to stay with me — except for Windigar and Vaisessasilmin. Anyone who wants to leave, I will send home to Vheshrame where it is safe … or somewhere safe anyhow, for the non-Vheshramites of you.”
I folded my wings, anticipating a frenzied rush off Strayway.
And here is what I plan to do by way of martial improvements on Strayway. Minor adjustments and other comments are welcome.
Extra Time
As a minor weapon and internal defense, the answer is clearly “Extra time-flow for friends”. This will be an interesting enchantment to control. The basic effect is simply Quick Instant, a simple complexity-10 spell that any Herethroy with one semester of highschool Tempador could cast, which grants the subject a few seconds of extra time. Then I need with extra expansions to make it work on many people, and arbitrarily often.
But of course I don’t want to constantly give everyone extra time. A few extra seconds here and there are harmless enough. Making someone experience two days for every one that passes will age mortals quickly, which means they will (a) be bored on the journey, and (b) die too soon. (I have to watch this with Phaniet already, though I don’t intend that she be mortal.)
Also, I don’t want to give everybody on board the extra time — last time the pirates boarded us, and I don’t want to help them. So the device must recognize its friends, and that means having a great deal of a mind, and allow people to be introduced to it, and split off from it as well.
So by the time this does what I want, it’s going to be quite a substantial enchantment indeed.
With one trick — I will put the enchantment all about Strayway, so I will be able to do it in a single week. This will mean doing it outside of my time bubble, though, so it’ll be a very busy week indeed.
Twisty Space
For the major defense, the score was tied: half a Locador force field, half a Locador distortion labyrinth. The force field would block incoming things, as many as were incoming, which is useful. The distortion field can only handle a few at a time, but it can toss them around nicely — throwing a ballista bolt thrown by Duncan’s Glory into Soothing Ointment or The Terrible Bean, instead of simply trying to stop it.
Both of them are good for more than defense, I think, but the distortion labyrinth could be used for many things. For one nice example, carts of supplies coming towards Strayway could be labyrinthed into the store-room directly, with sufficient finesse. Or fleeing pirates could be induced to collide with each other, or even be sent into a store-room.
Besides, the labyrinth sounds like much more fun.
Four weeks’ work.
Metal-Tipped Missiles
Missiles tipped with iron points was solidly the favorite choice of a main weapon. And indeed, nothing says “You are fighting a mighty smith-wizard!” quite like having treetrunks with big iron points slamming through your hull. Or your carapace. And, of course, slam they will. Few people fight with such big Durudor weapons, because they are so hard to build. So few people defend against them, because they are so rare and so hard to defend against — barring things like the distortion labyrinth I am planning to install, of course.
But it is hard to do, so it won’t be quite as imposing as I wanted. It will have twelve shots a day. Now, a single shot will probably make an inistella have second thoughts, or go much of the way through a battle-barge like Duncan’s Glory. It should be quite terrifying.
Oh, and for extra intimidation value, the log might as well be blazing, and spray fire in a huge blast when it hits. (Optional, on the off chance that we want to skewer someone but not be quite so forward as to roast them.)
This will take four weeks.
Chain Khtsoyis
And, for the animata. The leading option was sentient Locador distortions, but the distortion labyrinth is already doing such things and I don’t want too much Locador about. So, it’s a choice between living glass blades and animated metal-chain Khtsoyis. Of these, I can best imagine the animated metal-chain Khtsoyis being useful in various ways. They could lift and carry things, or they could leap into the path of an incoming ballista bolt and not be utterly shattered. Or, I daresay, they could try to restrain someone who we want stopped but not killed. Less dangerous than the blades, and harder to perform, of course.
Yes, harder to perform.
(I hereby do some more math.)
Oh, dear. Much harder to perform.
My original design was a device that could summon animata, so I could have a dozen around at need. This places certain requirements on the animata themselves — in particular, most lesser animata would fight amongst themselves if present in such numbers.
So, there’s a bit of a choice here. Either I can make one enchanted iron Khtsoyis — a devastatingly powerful automaton, probably provided with three or four auxiliary powers, but made out of real iron in insanely large quantities, or I can make many lesser Khtsoyis out of some lesser substance.
Actually, it won’t be an iron Khtsoyis, it’ll be a silver Khtsoyis, because I have a silver-maker but not an iron-maker. (Yes, I could make iron by spells in the usual way, but that’s a lot of cley. I’d rather take the time out to make an iron-maker if I did that… still more time to do so, and I want to be ready to move sooner than later.)
OK, so it’ll be a single mighty silver Khtsoyis automaton.
So now it’s time for Fitted Effects. (This, for those of you who are not advanced enchanters, is a fancy enchantment technique allowing for a bit of extra potency in multi-effect devices where the effects do not share any Nouns or Verbs.)
- The actual animata enchantment. It could be as small as Ruloc Durudor Spiridor. I am going to add Mentador to make it smarter, and Sustenoc to make it tougher.
- A teleporting enchantment: probably for the automaton and whatever it is holding. A seven-tentacled automaton can hold a lot. Mutoc Locador 20. It will be able to bop just under half a mile at a hop.
- A healing spell, Healoc Corpador 20. Since the purpose of the automaton is to assist endangered wrongfolk, especially during battles, giving it powers of healing seems like a good idea. Probably Heal the Awful Wound, I guess. I would prefer something stronger, but cannot manage it.
- A Wall of Wood effect, Creoc Herbador 20. A nice flexible spell, useful for a variety of things, many of them also nicely defensive. It’s a temporary wall, and not as tough as my usual since I have used Sustenoc for strengthening the automaton. That will have to do.
- A spell of broad awareness, Kennoc Illusidor 15, so that the automaton can see and hear at quite a distance.
- A weakener of spells, Gnaw the Whining Spell, Destroc Magiador 20. Not quite sure about this really, but I can’t think of a Destroc effect with Airador, Aquador, Pyrador, or Tempador that would be comparably useful. It does have the useful feature that it can gnaw a spell that has already taken effect. It has the useless features that (1) repeated gnawing is rarely effective, and (2) the gnawing doesn’t do all that much usually. Still, this is one of those odd and highly variable spells, so if it sits around all day and gnaws on a spell it might do some good, and, by construction, it has both the personality and the power for doing so.
- All five subsidiary effects have power 20.
And this will take pretty much everything I’ve got to build. Six weeks work, too, and that’s at an insane pace: any reasonable enchanter would take twice or thrice as long, and not be working on anything else at the same time. I am not reasonable.
[Theory Thursday #3]
Let me try a simple definition, and see how it works.
One is cisaffectionate if one is successful at ignoring or at least concealing any romantic interest one has in members of other species. One is transaffectionate otherwise.
- I am traff according to this definition — even if I have a substantial involvement with Saza.
- Traff-folk, by this definition, will tend to experience the social consequences of their orientation, and will thus need Castle Wrong or the equivalent.
Other concerns certainly arise. One may be a libertine, perhaps defined as one who seeks pleasure rather than deep relationship.
As an interesting other scale, consider Romantic Breadth. Let us divide adult primes into categories based on species, gender, coloration, social status, and so forth — the exact categorization does not matter, so long as it is detailed. One’s romantic breadth is the fraction of categories that one is romantically interested in.
So — a pure transaffectionate person, interested in anyone of another species, such as Inconnu claims to be, has a romantic breadth of 7/8. A pure cisaffectionate would have one of 1/8. One who was fussier about gender, coloration, and the like would have a smaller one — down to “vanishingly small” as the degree of specificity increased. A pure homo- or heterosexual would have a romantic breadth of 1/2. And so forth. I don’t know what to do with this concept, but I am amused by a theoretical scale — and one with a fundamentally natural definition, and, indeed, more measurable than most — that doesn’t have “cissy” and “traff” as the endpoints. [And Bard is equally amused by one that doesn't distinguish between heterosexual and homosexual. -bb]
Incidentally, I don’t know that I really get to define transaffection myself. I do get to decide who I want in Castle Wrong. Society at large gets to decide who they punish for romantics complexities.
I admit to getting a bit bored with the theory of transaffection. I would like to either get some more practice at it, or do an exercise in the theory of magic, fairly soon. Not that the two are interchangeable.
Beware! Upon my demand, my translator has reluctantly agreed to post various of my journal entries out of order, following logical sequences rather than strict chronology. For example, certain conversations took place by post, with a letter being sent each day; the conversations have been collected into single journal entries, which are easier to read. If you are a historian, look at the dates. We will resume normal chronology at a suitable point. — Sy.
There are approximately 787,984,785,010,262,703,252,219,143,755,903,86,866,825,548,966,288,352 forms of Orren weddings. This one was a fairly conventional one, involving a masque, in which various friends and relatives play the parts of various friends, relatives, mythological figures, traditional figures, ad-hoc figures, and miscellaneous figures. It was not rehearsed — these things never are — and the scripts were ceremonially lost not long after, so I’m reconstructing it from memory. It is incomplete, but you will get the idea. Jyondre, Tingula, and Inconnu did most of the writing, I believe.
The brides wore matching red dresses with trim of purple lace, designed to emphasize their, well, best attributes. They waited until Lithia transformed from Rassimel to Orren phase, so they’d have the longest time before her next cramps.
I won’t reconstruct the first few stanzas, because: (1) they are all puns and will never translate, (2) they are extremely bawdy, more explicit than anything I am willing to write in my diary, and/or (c) I was too busy staring at the script and fussing with my costume and trying not to miss my cue to actually remember them.
Me: “I am the wily wizard, whole-wise and rather weird.
(I need another lizard, to serve me as a beard.)
This match I do reject on this bright and sunny day
Orren ne’er shall marry Orren in the lamp where I hold sway! “
Lithia: “I am the doting daughter; this is my wedding day
(I know the wizard’s dotty, and traffy all the way)
Feather, dearest feather-mom, O do not say us nay —
Just think upon us kissing, and then see what you say!”
Me: “I am the wily wizard, true-tricky and quite traff”
[Phaniet dumps a bowl of icewater over me.]
“I shall now reprognosticate, after my mystic bath!
I foretell osculation in a very Orren way –
And so I grant permission on this Orren wedding day!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I’m really in the sky
Don’t ask just what I’m doing, for then you’d have to die.”
Nangbang: “I am the High Priest Evil, I serve the god of Doom
I often like to dirt-nap inside some grave or tomb!
This wedding I do cancel on this bright and sunny day —
No good must come to Whats-her-Eyes because she ran away!”
Treacle-Eyes: ” O father Evil High Priest, there’s nothing you can say
We’re going to get all married and we’re going to get away
If you don’t give your blessing, we’ll simply run away
We’re experts at elopement on this bright and sunny day!”
Nangbang: ” O daughter, sneaky daughter, you have a twisted heart,
Your mind is like a serpent and your breath is like a fart
You’re devious and wicked, your eyes are boiling wells
You fornicate with demons called from seventeen nice hells
You’re just like me, my daughter, so I say without delay
You might as well get married on this bright and sunny day.”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I am not really here
Don’t ask what I am doing, by all that you hold dear!”
Phaniet (Flokin): ” I stomp around with fire and flame, I am the great god Flokin
If anyone gets in my way, they will get burnt and broken!
I do declare this wedding off, for reasons daft and twee —
If anyone wants it back on, they’ll have to deal with me!”
Lithia: “Great Flokin, we two must wed, the reason is quite clear —
It’s really very simple, I’ve written it right here!”
Lithia gives Phaniet a plate with the words “Answer on other side” written on both sides. Phaniet(Flokin) puzzles them out slowly, turns the plate over, puzzles the words on that side out slowly, turns the plate over, repeats a few times while wandering off-stage.
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I am not in this scene
Or anywhere inside this masque, ’cause that would be too mean.”
Quendry (Blue Trumgullion): ” I am not just a scullion.
I am Blue Trumgullion.
I stomp and I roar and turn everything to ash!” (Blue Trumgullion being a semi-fictional five-headed bully of a nendrai. Quendry had a nifty costume with two heads on his shoulders and two on his hands.)
Treacle-Eyes: ” Oh mighty Blue Trumgullion, only your smartest head
Can make us run and make us hide and make us not get wed!”
Quendry’s five head go snapping and fighting at each other … well, the two on the shoulders were just paper-mache, and didn’t move, but his real head and his two hand-puppet heads made quite a battle. This is based on many childrens’ stories of Blue Trumgullion, where the brave little prime child gets the heads to argue with each other to the death over something like that.
Quendry (Blue Trumgullion): ” I do not have a smartest head
They are all dumb. They are all dead.” [Dies, thrashes around, somehow squirms off-stage due to thrashing.]
Brides: [unison, to each other] ” We’ve beaten up our parents, we’ve beaten up some gods,
We’ve beaten up some monsters, we’ve beaten all the odds
Now all we need’s a notary, just any one will do
To notarize the wedding that I want to make with you!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, I’m nowhere to be found
There’s not a single Rassimel upon this hallowed ground.”
(Sythyry’s note: the fight of the baker and the joiner — cabinet-maker — is a common part of mummer’s plays.)
Treacle-Eyes: “I found one, dearest Lithia! Our wedding to perform.”
Inconnu (Baker Notary): ” I am the Baker Notary — I swear upon my bread
That I am here to tie the knot and make these two get wed!
Nobody likes my baguette, nobody likes my buns
If I don’t get the wedding-fee, I’ll die for lack of funds!”
[Yes, you can guess the gestures and implements that go with the third line.]
Lithia: “I found one, dearest Treacle-Eyes, who’s really in good form!”
Este (Joiner Notary): ” I am the Joinery Notary — I swear upon my wood
That I am here to tie the knot and make this wedding good!
My cabinet gets no visits, though the door it hangs agape
The fee from this here wedding’ll make my purse in better shape!”
[Este was dressed in the most feminine clothing we could find for him, and you can pretty much guess what he was doing on the 'cabinet' and 'purse' lines.]
Inconnu and Este (Notaries): ” I claim this here wedding — the brides have chosen me!
Or sod them if they haven’t, I really need the fee!”
The two notaries fight, using their attributes as weapons. It looks more like simulated intercourse than actual combat, of course. After a few, um, passes at arms, both notaries fall to the ground, moaning and gasping, and either roll over and go to sleep or play dead.
Brides: “Our notaries have given out, that really is too bad
The baker and the joiner were the only ones we had!”
Dorze (Mircannis): ” I am the god Mircannis, there’s nothing more to say,
Because I am not here to talk this bright and sunny day.”
Windigar (Pararenenzu): ” I’m Para-Whatsis — Orren god — and feeling mighty fine
To see such pretty Orren (who are really mine (all mine!))
Try to tie the knot, conjoin, get hitched, get wed
But who around can do it? The notaries are dead! “
Vae: “I am the Nuptial Nendrai, I’m here to look around
And see if any couples needing wedding can be found
I’d love to make a marriage on this bright and sunny day
And please won’t someone tell me why all people run away?”
Lithia: “We are bold adventurers, all brave and clever too
And we’d like to get us married while the morning still has dew.”
Treacle-Eyes: “We’re not afraid of nendrai, we’ve little left to lose
Besides these bright red dresses and uncomfortable shoes.”
Brides, in unison: ” I love that girl so muchly I want to have her stay,
So nendrai, won’t you marry us, this bright and sunny day?”
Vae: ” I am the Nuptial Nendrai, but ne’er yet have I wed
Such brave and pretty Orren girls who are so good in bed
(Together — I didn’t try them — it wouldn’t be polite
To keep these two apart for even a single night.)
So now I make a mating with my Mutoc Mutaroo
This wedding will be sticking like a grand and grander glue!”
Vae tapped the girls with her tail. Sparks and fireworks abounded. Dozens of tiny purple porpoises materialized and swam around them. The girls stretched out extremely long and thing, and spiralled around each other in ways that some might find erotic, and some might find hideous. This was all illusion, or so I think.
After a moment, they returned to normal… mostly. Treacle-Eyes’ eyes were full of swirling leaves.
Brides: “We are married now!”
Audience: “Yay!” This goes on for about three minutes.
Treacle-Eyes: “But something is strange!”
Lithia: “What, strange?”
Treacle-Eyes: “The nendrai! She has betwisted me in mysterious magical ways! She has wrought a spell and spelled a wrought, and Things Are No Longer As They Were!”
Lithia: “What, a curse upon Treacle-Eyes my love?”
Treacle-Eyes: “Treacle-Eyes your love no longer!”
Lithia: “Oh, this is wicked and infamous! I shall slay the nendrai for it!”
Vae: “I didn’t mean to! Really!”
Treacle-Eyes: “No! Do not do so! She has changed … oh, I dread to say it.”
Audience: “Say it!”
Treacle-Eyes: “She has enchanted my name, and it has become different! Henceforth I shall be known as Sapling-Eyes!” (Incidentally, magic cannot, in any reasonable way, change your name. Names are neither real enough nor false enough to change.)
Nangbang: “For at least a week or two!”
Lithia: “That’s all”
Sapling-Eyes: “That’s all!”
Lithia: “Then — Sapling-Eyes my love!”
Sapling-Eyes: “That’s not quite right either.”
Lithia: “OK, OK, already. Sapling-Eyes my wife!”
Sapling-Eyes: “Lithia my wife! … unless the nendrai got to your name too?”
Lithia: “I should check, shouldn’t I?” She hoists her red dress and and looks somewhere surprising. “Nope, still Lithia. But now — Lithia your wife!”
Brides: “Yay, new wife! Let’s go off and wife wife wife wife together!”
Audience: “But first a feast and a party!”
And it was a pretty good one, too.
Presents
As predicted, I gave Lithia an IOU for the escape-and-healing device, which I shall work on next week. Sapling-Eyes got Dorze’s indenture, which rather floored her. It is not traditional for a bride’s parents to get the other bride such an implement of transaffectionate cuckoldry, especially when the parent clearly does not much approve of the other bride: but I am trying to be a good in-law, perplexingly enough.
The planned gift of a watch never happened, due to Too Much Doom. Vae gave the couple a few bottles of liqueurs from the far reaches of the World Tree. Quendry gave a hand-painted wooden box.
Nangbang, whose shopping opportunites were rather limited, gave a substantial gift of cash. I daresay that will be appreciated quite well.
Nangbang took Treacle-Eyes into a small and secluded parlor, and used his promised one cley to block scrying. It wasn’t a very good block by Vae’s standards, and we could have snuck around it. We didn’t, except to keep half a magic sense out in case Nangbang were somehow blasting his daughter. Which he did not do, perhaps because killing her would have been a poor way to rescue her from a fate that was moderately better than death.
He came out of the parlor an hour later, scowling.
Me: “How did it go?”
Nangbang: “Ah, Sythyry! Just the prime I was looking for. I desire violence — I desire blood and blasting!”
Me: “From me you will get little save phlegm and fleeing! Though I have a fine nendrai not far off who would probably appreciate the exercise of a challenge.”
Nangbang: “Ah, Sythyry! How you have your little joke. I merely wish to borrow the teleportation device, for convenience in zinging off to the Verticals, where surely something shall oblige me.”
So I lent him my teleport arrow, three bound Heal the Awful Wound spells, and two defensive talismans. I had no great desire to explain to Pulla about how I happened to lose her husband.
The Meeting of the Brides
Treacle-Eyes: “Lithia!”
Lithia: “Treacle-Eyes!”
Treacle-Eyes: “What befell you when Sythyry tried to dissolve our upcoming nuptials?”
Lithia: “Sythyry was regretfully reasonable! Zie will take a role in the masque.”
Treacle-Eyes: “That’s wonderful!”
Lithia: “And what befell you? Your father stomped off in a cloud of violence, so it must have been good.”
Treacle-Eyes: “He agreed that, with a few minor exceptions, I would be permitted to marry you.”
Lithia: “What kind of exceptions…?”
Treacle-Eyes: “I have to change my name.”
Lithia: “That’s all?”
Treacle-Eyes: “That’s all!”
Litha: “That’s wonderful!”
The proceeded to embrace, bounce around the parlor, kiss each other, kiss Dorze (who must surely have complex feelings about the situation), kiss Inconnu (who went to gargle with cooking wine from having kissed a member of the same species), and dance a two-person version of the triafrella. The latter was interrupted by Lithia’s hourly cramps.
The Negotiations of the In-Laws
Nangbang: “Thank you for the loan of these devices! May I return these bound spells, too? I didn’t need ‘em.”
Me: “No, you may not. However, you may lie upon that couch and accept bandaging and healing spells.”
Nangbang: “I am making somewhat of a habit of accepting your medical services on this voyage!”
Me: “Well, try not to get too wounded tomorrow, for I will be back to enchanting, and that means using nearly all of my cley first thing in the morning.” It took a great deal of will not to flirt with him.
Nangbang: “I will try to survive the morrow unscathed! And many further days. Did you know there’s a chromodon lurking around out there?”
Me: “You met Shadatei? I do hope you didn’t irritate him unduly. Even Vae would prefer not to make an enemy of such as he.”
Nangbang: “Let us say, rather, that he irritated me. I simply offered to choose for my prey a beast that he wished dead, and he rather snootily informed me that all such beasts were long since his victims.”
Me: “Shadatei has graced us with his presence several times. That would seem to be about as friendly an exchange as anyone has had with him. So, what did you kill?”
Nangbang: “Oh, a thing like a smallish jack o’hooks that squirted nasty water jets at me, and yelled out painful shockwaves. I don’t know what it might be called.”
Me: “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Did you get the body? You could try writing it up and seeing if the biologists let you name it.”
Nangbang: “No body; it collapsed into water when I slew it. Or maybe it turned into water and flowed away rather than actually dying. I was satisfied anyhow.”
Me: “So I take it our daughters are still going to get married?”
Nangbang: “Our family honor is never going to live this down — never.”
Me: “Well, someone’s family honor isn’t. Marrying a stowaway, indeed.”
Nangbang: “My daughter was a stowaway; yours was a shifter hybrid. Not long after, my daughter was a legitimate passenger, and yours, somehow, was still a shifter hybrid.”
Me: “True, true. Will Pulla be upset with you for failing utterly?”
Nangbang: “Oh, great staring gods, yes! I must write to her today that I have lost — malperformed — missed the mark! Then, if I may prevail upon your hospitality for another two or three weeks, perhaps I shall ride out the worst of the storm in approximate peace, rocked only by the slow dismal waves of knowing my own failure, and the distant thundrous tsunami of Pulla’s epistolary displeasure!”
Me: “You may, of course, stay for as long as you wish. I can even promise that the most notoriously traff member of our crew shall not flirt with you.”
Nangbang: “Oh?”
Me: “He’s Orren, you’re Orren, he’s not interested.”
Nangbang: “I had somehow thought you were making an actually useful promise.”
Me: “It would be uncharacteristic of my species to do such a ridiculous thing!”
“OK, that’s as close to flirting as I should do with Nangbang,” I thought to myself.
“But wait … perhaps I am actually cissy, given my night with Saza? Am I merely ogling Nangbang to prove to me that I am traff…?” myself asked.
I had no good answer, so I helplessly and hopelessly tried to act like myself. Whatever that might mean.
Nangbang: “Well, I should be safer here than in Oorah Thrassen. Even if I am required to beat off wrong-species suitors with a trireme, “
Me: “Is Pulla so terrible as that?”
Nangbang: “No. But I do not want to miss the wedding, if wedding there must be, and even less do I want to travel up the trunk and down again so soon. Your tincture saved me from the worst of the space-sickness … but ah, the flavor thereof, the awful flavor!” (It’s not that bad.)
Me: “Fair enough! We have plenty of room, and I imagine our expert staff of chefs can prepare food to the taste of the cisaffectionate, somehow.”
Nangbang: “What, do you eat different food?”
Me: “Not really. Though I didn’t eat much meat when I was all-but-married to a Herethroy.”
Nangbang: “Oh, one other favor, dear Sythyry, if we are to be in-laws?”
Me: “What is that, good Nangbang?”
Nangbang: “Please reserve such comments for those occasions when, for whatever reason, you wish to disturb and disconcert me.”
In case I had forgotten that I am — or appear to be? — in a less respectable and more vile social category than Nangbang. As is my ~daughter~.
Anyhow, I am sure there is something wrong with secretly ogling my soon-to-be-fellow-parent-in-law.
I am so confused.
At least Lithia seems delighted, which is worth something. Specifically, it is worth being cordial to Treacle-or-whatever-Eyes for a dozen years or so.
Subscribe to Sythyry