Sythyry's Journal

The "yes" was easy. She's Teltheryan oa Vinness, studying literature and theology. Not nobility; her mother is a secretary to a countess, who is paying for her studies. Afterwards Thery has to work for the countess for thirty years after she graduates. It sounds like a terrible price from a mortal's life. Thery says she doesn't mind; her family has served Countess Gloun's for four generations, and she sees no reason to break the tradition at all -- she'd work for her for her whole life anyway, so her scholarship is free.

She's a year older than me. If I were at all sensible, I'd go home for a dozen or two years, and come back older than everyone else, and act wise and mysterious and traditional. Hezimikkinen said as much. Which isn't quite a good enough reason not to do it, no matter what I said when we were screaming and blowing flame at each other. When I'm six hundred years old I might take a vacation like that, but I'm barely thirty. Hmph.

The "no" was clumsy of me. Iska's parents are farmers. That would be fine if she were Herethroy, but she's Rassimel. She's very foreign - not from Ketheria, but from some branch one layer down. She's not a noble - they don't do nobility properly down there, anyway. She seemed nice enough, and after we met her we told her it was probably OK but we should talk about it among ourselves. I wasn't very comfortable, but I sort of agreed . . . then when Dustweed trotted off on four legs to tell Iska that she could move in, I went into a panic. I had expected to live with foreigners, but Iska is very foreign, too foreign. Thery shrugged, and said she didn't care that much one way or another, as long as we got someone to pay the rent. I took a hat from Dustweed's side of the room, and sent a -Silent Words- to zir and told zir to say no. Zie was not terribly pleased with me when zie got back. Iska had evidently offered to pay the full year's rent in advance ... I'm glad she's not living with us, but I don't want to have to explain to her why.

Full Apartment [11 Chirreb 4260]

I can't really blame Dustweed and Thery for making me go questing for more roommates, seeking them with thaumocle and spyglass, location spell and deep bribery. Or, in this case, flying to the campus, and asking the cooks in the buttery if they knew of anyone looking for a place to live. I collected a few names.

Let's ignore Treeset, Herethroy girl, and let's ignore Greenswave, Herethroy boy. Treeset talked with us for five minutes in the buttery and politely excused herself and left. Thery and I were a few minutes late when Greenswave came to visit, by which time he had left and Dustweed was in tears. Let's also ignore Methichor, Rassimel boy. Thery didn't want to share an apartment with someone the same sex and opposite species.

Let's not ignore Havune. On the far end of Goathorn street is a small and shabby longhouse, packed so full of Cani grandmothers and puppies and a pet enstarba that I could barely fit in through the window. There I found Havune. He was easy to recognize, wearing a necklace of dull green stones and a jerkin of marbled, iridescent chimeront leather when all his cousins were wearing flowers and goat-hide.

Havune, yes, would prefer to live with his relatives, because he is Cani. But his relatives are poor, and the longhouse is so crowded that a Cani can't wag his tail without tipping over an aged aunt and getting the tip of it in a nephew's soup, and he knows they were pushing a bit to let him stay there even for a week or so.

And Havune is pleasant and Havune's parents are married to a baron and Havune's uncle had met Thary's parents a few times, so that part was settled.

I am the most desirable roommate, naturally. This does me no personal credit at all. I will sleep in the fireplace and my clothes will fit in the seventh part of a closet, and whoever shares my room will have more space. So Dustweed and I will take the smaller room, and Thery and Havune will take the larger one.

I do wish Bandazure hadn't been quite so quick to leave for home. I had to spend a cley to make the textbooks follow me -- and had to go over roofs and through alleys so as to not be seen looking silly with five big books waddling through the air after me.

'Twas the Night Before Classes

Classes begin tomorrow, and Havune and Thery assure me that that I won't have the seventh part of a second to spare to myself once they begin. I have chosen Ancient Ketherian History, the Study of Differences, Elementary Theory of Tempador Magic, and Current Politics of Aradrueia, and, for the gymnastic requirement, Flirtatious Dancing.

(Why Aradrueian politics, you may well ask, for, if you had been reading this journal since some years before I started it, you would never have heard me mention Aradrueia before? I was going to take Choinxeian Politics, but Thery warned me -- and more seriously than that warning about spare time -- that Professor Thistro of Choinxeian Politics was a pompous monstrosity who reveled in reciting a hundred kings a minute, and Professor Urastra of Aradrueian was actually worth listening to. Therefore I shall wait for another three months on the Choinxeian Politics.)

As my first assignment, though not at school, I suppose in preparation for my proper receipt of my allowance, Hezimikkinen had me summoned up to the Owl Garden at the ducal palace, where I was to pose 'til the sun was nearly full of flame while a tall corsetted Rassimel woman sketched me with colored charcoal. She is Lady Melicanthe ky Hybrasil, and the Duke of Vheshrame is her patron. I am not at all certain why the Duke wants a portrait of me... perhaps he is running out of other subjects for her to paint? The one she was working on when I got there (I saw the sketches and a half-finished painting) was of a Cani healer of no great distinction, armed with a spear. Perhaps there is some subtle artistic aesthetic going on here; Lady Melicanthe has done many portraits of more or less ordinary people of late. Or perhaps the Duke is planning ahead.

After staying still for so long, I went flying, then hunting. In Vheshrame, pigeons are plentiful, and, fortunately, not fireproof. I brought a brace of them home, flapping slowly after me from a Ruloc Corpador improvisation. It's dignified for hunters to carry their catch that way, but not for shoppers to carry theirs. Etiquette is a twisty subject, of which I shall complain further on future days and centuries.

Woe and Whimpering Anguish [14 Chirreb 4260]

Lady Melicanthe finished my portrait, with which I am greatly pleased. The portrait now hangs in the Blue Brocade Suite of the ducal palace, by reason of coloration. Since I myself am not allowed to hang (around) there myself, I take this as a badge of indistinction.

Havune and Thery were right about not having time to spare once classes have started. Not that classes are so terrible, nor yet studying for them -- in the simple truth I haven't studied a bit yet.

No. For the custom here is that, on the first day of classes, all students go to the buttery. We have a round of drinks; we summarize our class schedules in woe-bestruck terms; we have a round of drinks; we rip a page from each textbook and throw it in the fire; we have a round of drinks. (This is why all the textbooks had a blank page at the back.) Then, of course, the first-term students are educated with terrible stories about all their classes. Professor Urastra, for example, is a fierce giant scyanturge luring us into a trap; any resemblance with a pleasant Rassimel woman is simply a delusion brought about by a lack of liquor! Which is to be remedied by all her students buying a round for everyone... Three tots of consimmon brandy, a quarter-pint of hosh beer, a quarter-pint of celery beer, and a pot of hallucinogenic tea, over the evening, and I was ready to believe that Professor Urastra was a scyanturge -- or that I was.

Certain other points are worthy of mention by morning's flickering sunlight. Point the first: one's willingness to drink strong drink really ought to be tempered by one's awareness of one's own small body size. Point the second: Even if one is distinctly tipsy, it is advisable to get out of the fireplace before emptying one's stomach. Codicil to point the second: should one ignore Point the Second, one should clean the fireplace in short order rather than taking a brief nap. Point the third: Rassimel recover from all poisons quickly, and, as a consequence, the entire species deserves to be used as a shuttlecock in a game between Accanax and "Here". Point the fourth: spontaneous magic is made not one bit easier by the headache that comes from the remnants of strong drink. Point the fifth: botching a spontaneous Clean-Smelling Air can return the air to its state as of the middle of the night, with a less well-mellowed pungency. Point the sixth: if the thrice-accursed and hideously-healthy Rassimel chooses to complain or laugh, any form of vengeance is appropriate. Including looking pitiful enough so that she does the spell herself.

Dustweed, it may be noted, is just as healthy as Thery. Zie removed all the alcohol from zir beer before zie drank it. As least zie had the grace to slip out quietly before I woke up this morning, for which I will rhapsodize zir ten thousand years hence. Or at least talk zir into giving me that spell.

No rhapsodies now, though. Even the scratching of quill on smooth paper trickles through my head like daggersome icicles.

The Long Way Around [15 Chirreb 4260]

The first mystery of academic life is how to find your classes. For your convenience and safety, there is not the least trace of organization or structure to the naming of classrooms: they are named after their decoration, or the artist who designed them, or some notable event that happened there, or the whim of the first professor that taught there, or any other way by which things get names. Neither is there any catalog of where classrooms are. One must simply know -- or, if knowing does not suffice, find someone who does.

When one is readily recognizable as a first-year student in the first week of classes -- be it by means of brilliant azure plumage that has never been seen before on campus, or by means of a woefully hung-over face and drooping tail -- one may perhaps be given very creative directions to ones' classes. I got to my morning's class a third of an hour late. So early? The three grinning Orren upperclassfolk had no special tricks to give a youngster who could fly; they had me circle the steeple on the administrative building seven times, and then sneak in through the dean's window. I consider myself fortunate here. Twillie, the Orren girl who came in right after me, had been sent through the messier parts of the plumbing.

Nestrune Kreslink is Crown Prince of Daukrhame, and a proud proud Rassimel is he. He refused to follow the senior students' directions: he strode, clothed, around the buttery, rather than going in the fur through it. Thery and some of her friends are plotting a suitable punishment for Crown Prince Nestrune Kreslink. By custom it must be delivered by the end of the week.

In all truth and clarity, the end of the week will not come too soon for me. I am taking all these pranks in good humor, more to avoid Nestrune's looming doom than because it comes naturally to me. Some other first-term students have been heard vowing that they will never do such pranks themselves: a vow that I will not take, though the academy would be a better place if everyone did.

In Classes [16 Chirreb 4260]

The Green Tile Classroom, in Sprowlween Hall, is not the prettiest of my classrooms. It is smaller than most. The podium is somewhat off-center. Mistake of the builder? Or design of the artist? I cannot tell. In any case, the aethetics of the room are rather on the ostentatious side. The legs of the podium are covered with thin scales of green jade: so much stone that some postgraduate student was hired to enchant the podium so that nobody could prize scales off of it for stealing. Thus it is that the speaker in the podium scarcely need do more than whisper, and his voice is heard thundering throughout the classroom.

Professor Achitka Koimarth may as well have taught in this classroom for a thousand years. (In fact he is a young sort of professor -- but, if a professor of Tempador can't manage to have taught in the same classroom for a thousand years by the time he's forty, who could?) Absent Tempador tricks -- and in all clarity, I can see no sign of Tempador tricks -- I suspect it of being some Cani expertise in social matters: he knows when to whisper, and when to whirl around on the podium and boom forth some question to a formerly-inattentive Orren who had just started a reverie of fishing, drooping on her bench and thinking it safe because she was behind the professor.

The benches in the Green Tile Classroom are not well-suited for Zi Ri. If I sit on the low bench, I cannot see the professor through the higher. If I sit on the higher, I have no space for tablet and inkwell. Levitating takes enough attention so that I must miss bits of the lecture, or risk crashing to the floor and disturbing everything. Next session I shall come early -- after the first week, even the newest students can take direct routes to their classes -- and ask if I can sit on the rafters. Some professors might dislike the thought of not towering over all their students, but Professor Koimarth is Cani and should have no doubt who has affan in teaching, regardless of seating arrangements.

Flirting for credit [17 Chirreb 4260]

Flirtatious Dance is proving to be a good bit of exercise. Not the kind I was hoping for, not yet. The teachers -- there are four of them, for it is a rather popular class among the unmarried students -- started with a dance to try to scare students out of the class. A traditional Thanish triafrella is a bit of an energetic dance. For a modern flourish, or perhaps for extra humiliation, they made us dance it with apples in our muzzles.

It is hard to flirt properly with an apple in your mouth. It is hard to even pant properly with an apple in your muzzle; the Cani especially were looking rather miserable by the end of the class. I daresay I was looking rather miserable too: not hot of course, it takes a goodly fire to do that, but I'm far and away the smallest person in the class, and they didn't shrink the set that I have to run around. Yes, run, my hind legs on the floor, my forelegs carrying two glasses of wine, and my wings trying desperately not to tangle anyone's tail. A proper fool I looked -- just like everyone else in the room.

I suppose that "flirtation" will wait for the next lesson.

For me, that is. Thery's boyfriend Yarwain has resurfaced. His skyboat was delayed by a pack of ulgrane -- they never got close to him, evidently, but he had to stay in Ulmarn for four days while knights flew around and did knightly things.

"I bravely challenged the dangers of the Cafe Dumard -- I defeated a whole roast pocker in the morning, and a dread and terrible loaf of squash-stuffed bread in the evening!" he proclaimed. If he is not a courtier, he has been reading too many novels. Thery laughed a great deal, and took him off to some park or other.

Dustweed and I scowled at each other, and shrugged, and spiked a pot of tea with a bit of brandy. Zie's somehow managed to offend every other Herethroy in Vheshrame, from the sound of it. Zie hasn't managed to have a chalice of kathia peacefully with anyone with chitin, from the sound of it.

I don't think zie was inviting me to play. Just as well really; zie really isn't very much to my taste, and I imagine sharing a room with a lover could get awkward here and there. Besides, zie's not in my Flirtatious Dancing course, and I wouldn't get any homework credit for anything I did with her.

Postscript: one does not get homework in Flirtatious Dancing, and one does not get class credit for following up on any flirting that happens. I am beginning to think that Flirtatious Dancing is a style of dance, rather like Carthenian or Kiss-Dancing.

Aftermath of the Dance [17 Chirreb 4260, still]

Now for some worrisome questions. Shall I be a mysterious cryptic lizard sage, or shall I date other students? Shall I date full-mammals, or, perhaps, Herethroy? How much physical affection is proper, since there is no-one else of my own species in the city except for my half-sibling? How much is dignified? Or consonant with a potent degree of decorum and mystery?

At home, the answers were obvious. Mystery never worked with servants who knew me in the egg, and it's futile to try it on your parent who is giving you lessons in it. So there was not the slightest reason not to ask (as the children of the wealthy and powerful often do) for special services from Amberwave now and then ... not until Palering told me zie was complaining about it. Zie had to stay up late finishing zir work every time I stole an hour out of zir day, and Palering was scolding zir for it, and zie told Palering why zie was so slow. I stopped asking Amberwave then: it was embarrassing!

It is only as I scribbled the last few words that I realize that I was more wicked than I might like, then. In hindsight I imagine zie was hoping for some valuable presents, or preferences, or ... whatever it is that the young child of a noble wizard can provide. If I had the money now, I should send zir somewhat, by way of apology.

I even thought of apologizing to Hezimikkinen and trying to get my full allowance back. Next year is probably better than this year. I don't want to be thought to be flighty and inconstant.

Which is a long and morose excursion that I had not intended. Spirshash invited me to the Cafe du Fronde for a chalice of kathia. (He takes his kathia with butter and sugar and chissowary -- a ghastly combination I think. Prenjuice for me!) He dances, and flirts amazingly well considering he had an apple in his mouth at the time. He's lightly married to two other Orren students, down from three last year -- but he was quite clear that no exclusivity was present that would hinder him from any further adventures. (And that's all the request he made. He didn't mention how concerned he was about species.) His courtly manner is excellent (the son of a Lord-High Treasurer or some such, I understand), and his discourse is charming and very very witty -- so much that one barely realizes that he cannot stop talking about himself for three consecutive minutes.

So: as a casual liaison, I think it would be fine. I think I'd be down a bit of status, I suppose, depending on who he's married to and just how much cross-species affection is disliked here. He's amusing to talk to. Only about himself, yes, but he's a thorough and proper Orren and has done a thousand ridiculous things; it's not like me trying to talk only about my life.

But ... he's fully a mammal. I've always felt more comfortable with Herethroy -- as maybe I shouldn't have (poor Amberwave). Doesn't fur get soaked and stuck here and there? For that matter, he's Orren ... just how wet can he get without turning into water-shape? Or should I ask him to be in water-shape first? It might be fun to be bigger than my lover ... But he'd still be all furry.

Dustweed, it may be noted, is no help at all on romantic matters. Zie snapped at me when I brought the topic up. Perhaps zie's recently been jilted?

So I suppose I'll retreat into the tower of the cryptic lizard, for now. It is, at the very least, a safe sort of place. And I daresay that I'll have another option or two before the end of the term.

The View from the Rafters [18 Chirreb 4260]

Professor Achitka was not in the slightest worried about me sitting on a rafter, or on a windowsill, or upon the wide, flat, polished head of the poorly-dressed blue-green Herethroy man in the front row for that matter. There wasn't room for an inkwell there, even if the Herethroy hadn't been in the habit of nodding off thrice a lecture. So it was the rafters for me.

Upon the rafter I chose were: seven and a half pounds of dust; four quills in various degrees of delapidation; a Cani beret in last year's style with Halyn clan symbols; two-thirds of a grilled beetle sandwich that cannot possibly be more than a month old; a copy of Vengitarn's The Squib and the Squaffern with all of the dirty bits carefully underlined in green ink (using a ruler!); a seed-bun which, I daresay, was baked by Flokin before the universe was sprouted; and a very beautiful copper fur-pin that probably cost a dozen lozens.

Next time, I shall come a third of an hour early, and bring a towel.

Still, if I ever need a place to hid the Mellifluous Minnow of Morzongo and Morziblam, or some other ancient artifact of archaic awfulness, I know just the rafter for it. The mold on the sandwich shall protect it better than a roomful of animated skeletons with burning eyes and giant crossbows.

Armed Students [19 Chirreb 4260]

Nestrune wears a serpent rapier at all times, in a fine sheath of iridescent blue-green chimeront leather. It is an accessory, not a weapon, for him, with which he sometimes gesticulates extravagantly, sheathed. When some unidentified senior student flipped a chamberpot at him, he responded with Fire Flower. I expect further violence there.

I asked some other people what they do.

Thery carries a small bone dagger with an enchantment of sharpness, which she made in class. It cuts through paper and leather for her: she buys butcher's paper and crude leather, and sews herself notebooks for her courses. It cuts through the heavy husks of dried sengo fruits, which she eats every day at lunchtime. Once it cut through gabardine and fur and hide and muscle, scraping on bone, when Thery plunged it into the leg of a Cani in Ulmarn who shoved her into a hornet's nest for being foreign and slightly rich.

Dustweed carries a staff when zie walks in bad parts of town, or Herethroy neighborhoods. Zie has grafted Cruel Ice Fairy, and has used it four times, the worst of which was when Herethroy adolescents in some village or other started shooting at zir with their practice bows. I gather that there is some unpleasant history around this, but zie does not want to discuss it.

Havune never, ever carries a weapon. If someone ever attacks him, he will spont something or other dangerous. He has not considered the possibility.

Yarwain has a metal-edged sword, which he has worn a few times: has worn it on a couple of expeditions to the Verticals seeking gornazzits for conversation. He brought the sword to school, from which the explorers leave. He has never used it outside of gym classes.

Spirshash ... The next time I go asking Spirshash about himself, I should bring a weapon. A dagger sharp enough to cut my own throat, if nothing else. He has fought duels on the balconies of palaces against ambassadors. He has joined a party of archers hunting a remorshka. He has met a nendrai, or, perhaps, seen one from a distance. He is, in his own mind, a brave Orren. I don't know what he wears habitually though.

No, I don't carry a weapon myself. Really. Absolutely nothing worthy of note or capable of injuring anyone. Of course. Maybe I will make something worthwhile in an enchantment class though.

A Cauldron of Phrases

The current group study party game is the Cauldron of Phrases. Each player -- we should call them "scholars" -- has a stack of textbooks and class assignments. As we read and work, we keep track of focussed declarative sentences, and write down their predicates in [erasable] charcoal-stick on strips of wood.

[Focussed declarative sentence: A sentence of the form "X is Y", with emphasis on X -- "Karen is the one who speaks German (not Hubert or Emily)."]

Periodically, all the predicates are tossed into a recently-boiled chamberpot, labelled "The Cauldron of Wisdom" for the occasion. Each scholar in turn draws a strip and reads it aloud with zir name in front: "Sythyry is the way that most Ketherian cities ensure the purity of their water." Whoever says the phrase that gets the most laughter is required to take one drink.

It's a bit of a slow drinking game, or a bit of a drunken way to study, but, well, Thery is far too fond of it, and so it was that I found myself thoroughly described. The '*'s are the ones that got me to drink.

1. Sythyry is the way that most Ketherian cities ensure the purity of their water.
2. Sythyry is a dedicated group of people that formed an international society to study the movements of the Three Fencers in the sky.
3. Sythyry is the first non-Treverran writer to be given this very important award.
4. * Sythyry is extremely shy, and gets more so after each litter of puppies.
5. Sythyry is a consortium of five universities devoted to the investigation of bound magic.
6. Sythyry is sharing the benevolence of Kvarse with the inhabitants of the lower Verticals.
7. Sythyry is found only in a text by Pincent Vhilippon written in 1521, the Legend of Marsiet, and in a few folksongs derived therefrom.
8. Sythyry is made entirely of copper and the fragments of a shattered remorshka skull.
9. * Sythyry is controlled by a semi-mindful spirit of the teshedrel/blue variety, and is generally cooperative but is likely to become physically intimate with others of its kind at inopportune times.
10. Sythyry is committed to helping any blossomary or cat regardless of its condition on arrival.
11. Sythyry is looking for men or women to train as volunteer coordinators of prostitution.
12. Sythyry is immediately unhappy there, but her fortunes go from bad to worse when she hears that her father is dead in Braxeia and all his fortune has been confiscated.
13. Sythyry is the newest addition to our family; we own him jointly with our grandchildren, Marissa and Spordigan oa Ossnhaan.
14. Sythyry is an experienced player of the planned gong.
15. Sythyry is the epitome of Calanchian decadence.
16. * Sythyry is a new sculpture in the halls of the Duke of Vheshrame.
17. Sythyry is a throwback to what the legal community calls 'archaic punishment,' according to Derfelm.
18. * Sythyry is given to one Orren each year to use as he or she sees fit.

At that point, Nestrune looked entirely too pleased with himself, and I was entirely too tipsy for proper manners. I breathed on the glass of distilled spirits in his hand, cracking the glass and igniting the contents, and flew clumsily out of the window. Thery was kind (and sober) enough to bring my books back home afterwards

Theory and Practice of Differences [21 Chirreb 4260]

Iska is in my Theory of Differences class.

Iska is good at Theory of Differences, too. We got 1,5,8,12,19,31,50,78, and Iska solved it (the answer is 2, and it's third degree) before Professor Oxisilmaan finished writing it.

And Iska only knows the names of a dozen people in town, and by embarrassing fortune I am one of those names. So she must sit next to me in Theory of Differences -- I haven't too many choices of seat in the Auditorium of Descending Greenish Triangles, the best is a sort of table that's half growing out of the wall at the lower left front, and even someone who couldn't solve 1,5,8,etc. so fast could tell where I'm sitting.

So Iska has decided that I am her friend of convenience, for mathematical purposes at least. Iska doesn't seem to know that I turned her down to live with us. She found a room living with some fisher-Orren, near the city wall ... their own son got eaten by the wall last year, so they'd a room free and they'd a hole of sorts in their lives. Iska's an odd person to fill it, foreign and quiet and intense and all, but I suppose they didn't want a poor copy of their son. The room is muddy and the house is so fishy I can smell it on her from two seats away. It sounds a dreadful sort of room, but Iska just shrugged when she said it.

I've done my very best to be polite and sympathetic, and I doubt that I've raked social claws across her face more than twice or thrice. I suppose I'll have to take Manners for Mages next season.

By way of actual news: the professor of Ancient Ketherian History is married to the ambassador to Psent. Psent has come under some sort of a suspicion or other -- I should ask Hezimikkinen, I'm sure zie knows what -- and ambassador, professor, servants, and all are now on their way to Psent. No more Ancient Ketherian History. The best choice for that hour of the day seems to be Ethology of Dangerous Creatures.

I suppose I shall try to persuade them that my grandparent Glikkonen counts as a Dangerous Creature as well as some Ancient Ketherian History, though I don't suppose the former classification will improve my chances of getting a good date quite so much as the latter would have.

I was taking classes for some reason beyond finding good dates, wasn't I? Spirshash only talks about that one reason... Oh, yes, for the learning of it. I must mention that to Spirshash and see if he remembers of it.

Revenge is a Dinner Best Eaten Quickly [22 Chirreb 4260]

Havune is in the kitchen again.

Havune has no great choice in the matter. Thery and Yarwain are making good use of that bedroom -- trying to be quiet, though Havune is muttering that the whole apartment reeks of Rassimel affection.

But Havune has a good nature, and Havune has just received a box of spices and condiments from home, and, as we have just noted, Havune is in the kitchen and will be for another hour or two, depending on Yarwain's stamina and speed of grooming.

So Havune is cooking. Havune is a gentle sort of Cani cook, which is to say, he is only making:

1. A soup of boiled baby eels in a sauce of fermented serpents and chili peppers.

2. A plate of lozen-sized pancakes, as thin as wing-skin, of hosh grain and lentil flour and garlic and more garlic.

3. Raisins stir-fried with powdered tea and powdered scorpions and powdered chissowary and powdered salt.

4. Porridge of oats and clams and butter.

5. Salad of slivered leeks and greens, sort of like a leekish tarrissy, except with shredded hot peppers and mustard-seed and shredded stag-radish and celery seed and shredded something long and frondy and blue-green that I don't know what it is.

6. A grilled parrot. A plain grilled parrot. A plain, unadorned, unspiced, unsalted, untormented grilled parrot. I cowered in fear!

The plan was, originally, that Dustweed and Havune and I would devour this food noisily before Thery and Yarwain got out. Dustweed can only eat 2 and 5 just because of meat, though, and the salad was rather ferociously spiced. I sampled everything. 1, 4, and 6 were worthy of taking a second bite of. Dustweed made herself a new bowl of porridge, with almonds instead of clams. I ate the parrot's left wing and much of the entrails. Havune finished everything else.

Irromantic letters [25 Chirreb 4260]

I haven't been writing much the last few days, for I have had another occupation to keep me awake 'til late in the night. Not the occupation that Spirshash keeps hinting at, mind you. I've been scraping sparks off of my magerium and stuffing them into a box, copying A Spell That Lasts for Yarwain, in exchange for a very practical Fresh Meat spell. With any luck I will be able to pick up a few lozens preserving the corpses of guntries from the heat of summer. Or the equally large letoof fishes that the river-Orren haul to shore, sometimes one in a day, sometimes four and they can't sell them all.

In point of fact, Spirshash has given up on me for the moment. One must not expect an Orren to stay interested in one for long, especially if one does not return many favors. Last night, on the way home from the Cafe du Fronde, I preferred to fly than to ride on his shoulder, and I carefully flew to the window rather than accept a skilled and enthusiastic Orren kiss.

Spirshash was rather vehement about losing interest, as Orren go: he wrote a bit of a letter on five separate yilliat leaves, explaining that:

(1) he has come to understand that I find his advances unpalatable;

(2) he is a busy, busy man, having a wife and a husband at the moment;

(3) he is sure that Havune, a gentleman of judgment and renown, would fall into his arms at half a moment's notice;

(4) should I ever wish to enjoy his attentions, I will have to exert myself mightily, or at least ask;

(5) for that matter, he could have Whisli in his bed just by snapping his fingers, and that's more important as Whisli is also Orren;

(6) he wishes to have nothing more to do with me ever again;

(7) I should be careful, lest I wind up spending eternity as a virgin;

(8) Of course nothing of note would happen in any case, as we are distinctly not the same species;

(9) he hopes to see me tomorrow at Flirtatious Dance class.

And for extra effect, he sprinkled the leaves with roselantern perfume. I don't have a book of Flower Speech handy, but I have a Cani roommate (a gentleman of judgment and renown!). Writing on yilliat leaves, such as might be used for taking notes or performing scratch calculations, indicates a level of disinterest, or a level of penury. Roselantern perfume -- when mixed with a touch of tascernel essence, as this is -- indicates a formal apology between estranged clandestine lovers of the same sex and species. "Or," as Havune says, "that Spirshash doesn't have a book of Flower Speech readily to hand himself."

Now, of course, I have to think of a reply to the cursed thing.

P.S. I did show point (4) above to Havune, anticipating offended laughter. "I hadn't realized I was next on his list." said Havune, "I shall have to take suitable precautions."

Poor Spirshash. I do believe that Havune intends to take a quick sort advantage of him, but to get rid of him before Cani loyalty manifests. Havune phrased this as a kindness to me: he shall run Spirshash through the rapids, and I may either take that as my revenge or comfort the Orren afterwards, my choice. Havune's kindness knows no bounds: certainly no lower bounds.

Back to copying spells and contemplating the Theory of Differences!

Beware of Cuminous Brandy [25 Chirreb 4260]

Be very very careful when you drink cuminous brandy! Sometimes the Cani make it with spices other than cumin. I got a chaliceful made with wasabe and istomard. I sneezed, which set it afire, which made Havune scold at me for wasting good brandy.

I have to agree with him. It was good brandy, even if it left my entire oral/nasal cavity full of sparks for half an hour after I drank it.

Sleeth Silent Letter [25 Chirreb 4260]

Written on a sheet of twice-used parchment, and sprinkled with lavender and mavespike perfume (for aggravated innocence):

Dear Spirshash,

It comes as somewhat of a distressing, perhaps even alarming, surprise to me that you hold me in such a kind of regard as to induce an emotionally multifarious letter. That you have designs on my friends is well enough: what else would a busy, busy Orren with a wife and a husband at the moment do? Though where I fit into these designs is unclear to me: while I have a key to Havune's bedroom, or rather the front door of our apartment, I do not have a key to his heart, nor yet to any part of his body. Nor am I in the habit of sampling lovers before I provide them to him: 'tis an occupation more suited for a highly-trained and highly-paid professional, in a discipline which I do not study any more closely than the Flirtatious Dance class.

In any event, connections between us are simply those between fellow students in a course, nothing more. Anything else must be given time to ripen. Of course, between a lizard and a mammal, what could happen at all?

Havune giggled considerably when I showed him.

Everyone Must Cook Day [26 Chirreb 4026]

For the last several days, I have been lazy about making food, spending amber for it rather than cooking more cheaply. The stack of takeout chub-beetle cages and sandwich boxes by the water basin fell over this morning, so Havune declared that, first, we must clean up the kitchen, and, second, today is Everyone Must Cook Day. Havune has affan in matters of food, it seems, and even though none of the rest of us are Cani, we all seem to give it to him.

So here's what we did.

Thery: Thery boiled up a mass of ving-beans and onions and garlics and green herbs in a big leather pot, and zapped it with a Feed the Toothless Honored Elder (Mu De Hr 5) to turn it into a puree sort of soup. She plans to eat this four meals a day for the next three days. Rassimel resist boredom the way Zi Ri resist fire; it is a mighty power.

Havune: Havune simmered a guntry's mid-leg with whole hosh and chopped carrots and forty-three spices. It smells good, even to me. He has a great deal of reading to do by tomorrow, so he didn't want to spent too much time cooking.

Dustweed: Dustweed scooped a bowl of water from the boilypot, and threw a handful of crushed hosh into it, and chopped up a cabbage and a bitter lettuce, and had the dullest plue and tarrissy I could imagine. Zie was particularly despairsome today, I suppose. Thery gave zir a cup of pureed bean soup, which was, I guess the nicest thing anyone did for zir since dawn. (I didn't ask more.)

Me: I bought a half-pound of dried salted fish, planning to make stew, but Thery and Havune were ahead of me for that burner. I flew back to the smaller market and bought a big box of chub-beetles, and a small bottle of vinegar, and had time to get home before the others were done. Havune teased me somewhat, but, well, at least I bought the beetles at the market, and got enough for a couple days. After they are done, I will make salted fish stew.

A Missile from Home [27 Chirreb 4260]

Surprise starts tomorrow. I bet Havune a lozen that it'll be a cold Surprise. Either way I am the victor: a hot Surprise will be comfortable, and if it's a cold Surprise, I will shiver terribly and wrap myself in guntry-skins, but at least I have won the bet.

On another matter, in no way can I be the victor. Hezimikkinen wrote to ~mother~ before the thought of writing ever occurred to me -- centuries of being in the Ducal Court of Vheshrame have sharpened zir words and wits to being more dangerous than a jag-sword with each of its dozen tips dipped in Howly poison from a different stravile adder. (I am not yet experienced at courtly language, so I have to practice it at every chance I get, no matter how purple it dyes the pages of this journal.)

Or, at least, zie told ~mother~ about zir quarrel with me and its resolution.

~Mother~ seems to generally agree with Hezimikkinen. I am here, zie writes, to learn things, not to challenge my vastly more powerful and experienced half-sibling to the duello, nor yet to turn the generally friendly relations between our countries into a curdled, sickening-sour mess. Politeness, she says, well-becomes a Zi Ri, given that I cannot ever escape my reputation (whatever reputation I build); that it will fester in history books and records of courtly events for centuries.

(I went to the academy library to see who was looking up the court records from a thousand years ago. The last time they were checked out was seventy-three years ago, by a Rassimel-scholar-of-course. I looked up the articles by that scholar. They tied my neck and tail in knots, arguing some beastly little intellectual point about whether Orren or Rassimel contributed more to the decline in the court's morality and the concomitant increase in dissention and divorce. I don't think ~mother~ really wins that round -- though I am just barely polite enough not to tell zir so just yet.)

~Mother~ reminds me to take at least half my classes in magic. To my lips this brings a vast and smoky sigh. I have plenty of time to learn and practice magic -- I have neither desire nor impulse nor wish to become a great wizard before mid-Surprise, nor yet by Midwinter's day next year. I can do it by degrees (and not the kind that Vheshrame Academy grants!) over a century or so! I can work as, I don't care so much, a banker or a book-seller or some such, and bind spells on the side, or cast them for friends, or whatnot. There are no lack of fearsomely-mighty people in the family as it is. I imagine it would take me ten thousand years to get to where Glikkonen is after only four -- even if I studied constantly, he invented some of the basic magical techniques, he bickered with gods ... those things don't happen in the modern world!

~Mother~ has the very best of intentions, I do not doubt that for half a moment, but zie's half the World Tree's lifetime old, and I doubt zie's been out of her amber tower two months since I hatched. Zie can't really understand modern life, can zie?

Hot Surprise [1 Oix 4260]

The winds an hour before dawn were cool autumn winds, scented with wet leaves and distant rain. At dawntime the winds howled hot, at the same that cley was refreshed. Within an hour the city smelled of hot moss, summertime grass, garbage just started to get toasted.

Everyone else groaned. Hot Surprise is a heavy weight on full mammals, and almost as bad for Herethroy. They rushed into the yard-thick walls of our apartment, and demanded I follow them to cast Sustenoc Airador Pyrador to keep it as cool for as long as possible.

Then I went out skydancing, flying around the city, breathing flame in solidarity with whatever obnoxious air elementals are in charge of knocking the wide straw hats off heat-avoiding Herethroy on their way to the fields with carts of octagonal seed to grow those few, odd crops which only sprout during hot Surprise. My feathers are at home in a bonfire; a bit of hot wind is just a comfort to me.

Limp Fur [2 Oix 4260]

It is a third of an hour past dawn, and the sun is nearly empty: only a few lazy sparks in a sea of sun-fuel, most of its sphere flameless, reflecting its track and the stars behind it, as if the weather is too hot for even the sun to be energetic.

On the street the Cani are melting. Six of them, four of them pushing a cart of ladders and brushes and paint, one carrying a basket of food, the last singing a lazy walking song and tapping a small drum with the end of a paintbrush and looking as if he has affan in organizing travel. Fur, lacking quills, cannot stand in this weather, and Cani look as though they've been dipped in windy water and not quite allowed to dry properly. They are already panting, pink and mauve tongues shining in the sun's drooping dawnlight. The food-carrier threatens to choof the drummer, saying he took a job for them that wouldn't be done before Oix.

Inside the apartment, we have worked students' stratagems to hold on to Chirreb's cool as long as we can. The air has a metallic-tasting magical resonance, just barely strong enough to be aware of, from some spontaneous cooling magic. For my roommates this is a small price to pay for a refuge from heat. For me ... a larger price for refuge from complaining roommates.

Crisis Du Jour [3 Oix 4260]

Dustweed, today, has put on zir fools' ribbons, and cut them long and dyed them red with dots of gleaming green. Zie unwisely took three books from the Academy's library, intending to learn the ways of pond-whefts and their kindred while sitting at home and eating cyanberries instead of going to the pre-Surprise festivities. Zie did, in fact, do this thing: no ribbons there.

But zie evidently did not realize that, should the books be read on the evening of the pre-Surprise festivities, they must needs be brought back to the library during Surprise.

Nor is Dustweed a particularly robust Herethroy, as co-lovers so often aren't. It seems that the heat of Surprise has quite overcome zir, in body or in spirit. Zie hinted that zie neglected to bring the books when zie went to class this morning. Thery, from whose clever eyes few ignominies can escape, noticed that zie took the books with zir in the morning, and returned with them at noontime: in this way zie measured zir fools' ribbons long.

And of course it is not Dustweed who can return them. Dustweed cannot or will not trot them back to the library zirself, not on a day where sunshine falls on Herethroy backs like the flames of its birth -- unless zie is an Aquador mage to weave zirself a jacket of cool water. I don't know what Dustweed's excuse is. In any event, zie cast zirself into bed, thoroughly unwell, and left the three of us to return zir books.

It was quickly decided -- a stinking, half-frozen curse be inserted into the nether parts of that wicked process of 'voting', and, once there present, be rotated as upon the Lathe of the Bitter Goddess! (this time) -- that I was the one to return the books. Perhaps I should be quieter about enjoying the hot weather.

So, must needs I fly around, books bobbling behind, through the canyons of five-story houses around the Academy. And, upon coming to the dread and arcane tower of the library, I discovered its terrible secret: that, in Surprise, it closes at the eighth hour of the day: an hour later than the rest of the Academy in Surprise, but, needless to say, it was by then two hours past noon -- I was three hours late!

I mused on flying back home, errand failed: but the fine for three late books might be too big a fraction of Dustweed's rent. The guard-door of the library was far too heavy for me to open by hand. I was, by this time, not exactly short of cley, but levitating the books had taken more than I might have wished, and I myself had (and, indeed, still have) a set of practical exercises in Tempador to do for tomorrow -- and, hot as it is, I'm not entirely sure I want to sit in a fire [to meditate and regain cley -bb].

Thumping on nearby doors roused one (1) sleepy Rassimel, a senior student in Mathematics, who had no desire to leave his theorems and sequences for even a minute to walk the sixth-of-a-mile across the Yard and open a door for a Zi Ri. Flying back home and making Thery do the work was tempting, but seemed impractical, as she had once refused before.

At length, I was able to squirm, without much dignity, through an airhole in the library's entrance hall (fortunately nobody could see me -- had there been anyone watching, I would simply have asked them to open the door), and somehow persuade the books to follow me. At which point I discovered the Least Librarian to be a Rassimel as deaf as a pickled oyster and rather half as friendly, demanding to know why I didn't simply knock at the door. I had to shout my answer thrice before he could hear it, though.

He did, at least, open the door and let me leave in a more dignified way.

It is tempting to contrive some stratagem to grow to the size of a heavy horse, and be able to open doors -- or break them down! -- without so much trouble as this.

Dustweed was fast asleep when I got home, and even thanks were unavailable.

(Postscript: the fools' ribbons were cut shorter than I gave zir credit for. The reason that Dustweed didn't try to return them zirself was, in fact, she did try, but two of her many Herethroy enemies were practicing staff-fighting in Damarnathe Yard, and one of them accidentally thwacked zir in the knee hard enough to crack zir chitin. They did have the grace to take zir to the healers, so zie wasn't actually bleeding; but zie was walking on four legs -- or, strictly, on three -- and I noticed not. But zir enemy wasn't doing any unneedful favors, so the books stayed with zir. I didn't realize a bit of this; Havune winkled the story out of zir and told me when I came home with fire in all my fangs.)

Cold Reception [4 Oix 4260]

Orren go to the river or the ponds when it is hot. Herethroy go to the mushroom cellars, I guess, and Gormoror to the depths of the forests. Cani, presumably choof to see who has to wave big feathery fans at whom. Rassimel students of moderate means, of course, go to Cafe du Fronde, where someone or other has produced great jets of snow from the jugs under the potted fern trees, and there gobble down pots of snow doused in syrup or wine. And Zi Ri, inexplicably, go with them, though they order tea and sit on the pot.

Which meant that we -- Thery, Yarwain, and myself -- were seated at a small round barrel-top table on one side of an intermittent shower of snow. And, inevitably, Iska was on a table on the other side, reading something about which god likes which kind of sequence better. I waved a wing, and did my best to ignore her, and chatter with Thery and Yarwain about characterization in some novels that, if all goes well, I will never live long enough to read.

"I think this is silly a little," Iska remarked to me, "for that they write every god likes a different mathematics. Do you suppose the physical gods are even careful about arithmetic? Flokin and Tenmen, have they knowledge of numbers?"

"Flokin can do arithmetic," said Thery, who knows these things and is not fussy about talking to foreigners. "It told Gar-Mnetang that he would have to find a way to spend seven times eleven times thirteen cley but not a thousand and one cley, to make the Mile-Tall Candle."

"But that is not what happened when it talked to Martsetsnu," said Iska, and the two of them were off on a theologian's debate. Spell-made snow showered over my feathers and scales and chilled by tea-chalice. Yarwain looked tolerantly bored.

In a few minutes, Iska had joined us at our barrel. This required that I get off the teapot to make room for her. I'm sure that ninety-nine primes out of a hundred would have found the chair delightfully cool, but I was the minority.

The cross minority! A third of an hour into the conversation, I did my smoky-throated best to cram an old anecdote about my famous grandparent and Lenhirrik, despite the fact that it made neither conversational nor theological sense. All the Rassimel stared at me. I finished my tea and flew off home in a hurry.

Dangerous Weather [5 Oix 4260]

Over the city the air spirits are ... thinking too hard. After noon, they gave us a traditionally-eccentric Surprise thunderstorm. It rained buckets -- by which I mean that there weren't many raindrops at all, but each one was bigger than my whole body. The lightning fell in odd floppy loops, dangerous enough so that the city wall woke up and protected us; they clung on the invisible overhead extent of the wall, sizzling and raging like so many monsters. I braved the giant rain to fly up there and look: they were crawling around like headless serpents, trying to find a way through the ancient wizards' handiwork.

Inside the city, Yarwain and Thery tried playing in the rain: wearing very short skirts, dodging raindrops. Successfully, of course. Only Havune got hit by a raindrop (walking home from his relatives' house, not playing at all), and Thery's basic healing spell was enough to cure it. Fortunately it didn't break any bones.

Anyways, Yarwain and Thery dodged raindrops for a while, 'til Havune came home hurt, and then they took care of him... and, while Thery was imitating a doctor, Yarwain dumped a bucket of water on her.

Thery took slow but definitive revenge on him for that, I am given to understand. There were a quite surprising variety of squeaks and squeals coming from Thery's room -- and a Cani roommate coming from Thery's room as well, after a bit, shaking his head and coming to commandeer half of Dustweed's bed and to refuse to say what was going on in there.

Hot Tempers [7 Oix 4260]

Hot Surprise, and everyone else is irritable. Havune had a few arch words for Thery and Yarwain, who left the yarn on their door all night by mistake. They're supposed to leave a bit of yarn on the bedroom doorknob when they want privacy. They don't want to open the outside door very often and let the coolth out, so they decided to waste a cley to teleport when they left -- directly from the bedroom of course -- so they forgot about the yarn and they didn't make enough noise for any of us to hear them. So Havune spent the night on the couch in our bedroom, and not all things that he said were flattersome. Thery said that he should have smelled that they were finished -- he has said things like that before, in Thery's hearing. They were not terribly kind to each other for some minutes, ending only when Thery teleported away again.

That, at least, was for a reason. A green-shelled Herethroy threw a log at Dustweed for no obvious reason as we were walking to class, and broke zir left antenna too. She didn't even look apologetic when I glowered at her. Dustweed and I went to the Healers' Guild, where I bullied some poor commoner secretary into sending the bill to Dustweed's family (or mine) even though they're not Vheshrame citizens. Dustweed, mended of body but bruised of spirit, wanted to go home after that, and by that time it was far too late to go to class.

Dustweed is curled up on the couch, having drunk some very cheap and noxious wine to bring sleep. I trust the air elementals are having fun. Nobody who walks on the ground is

Doom! [8 Oix 4260]

Orren have quick minds: quick to think, and quick to forget. Spirshash invited me to the Grand Parade of Hot Surprise. I was intrigued: how could anyprime hold a parade in hot Surprise? I thought of the duke and the court marching nude around Dortholio Square, while the weather-wizards made the clouds drizzle upon them.

No such thing, of course! The Grand Parade of Hot Surprise is entirely Orren, entirely in the water. Some of them wear curious little costumes: Spirshash himself was paddling around as one head of a most eccentric three-headed fish of gaudy leather. Some of them draw streamers behind them in the water. Many just swim -- having intended to make a costume or float, I daresay, but not having been quite organized enough.

I was perhaps the only spectator who watched the parade with zir own plain eyes, flying around in enough heat to make my feathers curl. Most other people saw it from the windows of the houses on the banks of the canals, or through scrying-spells, or didn’t.

It was great fun, be assured.

Afterwards I kissed Spirshash. I didn’t even let him kiss me -- I kissed him.

There is no bowl large enough to hold the measure of doom I have poured for myself.

Doom for Dinner [9 Oix 4260]

Spirshash, as I well knew, is lightly married to two other Orren students. Spirshash, as I could plainly see, was playing one head of a three-headed water costume. Evidently I cannot put one and two together, or not so quickly as to realize that I should not give Spirshash his thorough kissing in front of his husband and his wife.

So three Orren and one thoroughly doomed Zi Ri took dinner together tonight.

Husband: Oostmarine. A third-year student, minor nobility (I think administrative rather than land-owning) from somewhere in Vheshrame, very tall, water magic and history of outer Mrasteia and design of emblems. He has never met a Zi Ri before. He did not seem to know that Spirshash had been chasing me last month. He picked Spirshash up and tossed him in the canal, right after the kiss. At dinner he jabbed Spirshash with every third phrase, referring to me as "your [Spirshash's] surprise", and was punctiliously polite and correct in his manners towards me, doing just precisely the very least that could be done without insult.

Wife: Tillissa. A fourth-year student. Major nobility, I think a non-inheriting child of a count in one of Vheshrame's client states, which probably means she'll end up as minor nobility or a major official in her own right. She has not yet settled on a topic of study, and probably won't, and it will probably serve her just as well not to -- she'll know a little about everything, enough to be in charge of whatever she ends up in charge of, but not so much that she'll think she's an expert and get in the way of the actual experts. She knew everything; she is in my Flirtatious Dance class and has seen me and Spirshash before; she is his confidante; she had read my letter to Spirshash, and she calmed him down and, um, reassured him of his attractiveness, after he got it. She was reasonably pleasant to me.

It was a terribly nervous and aggressive meal. I can't remember what we ate. Fish, I guess.

I haven't decided yet. I am thinking that I might as well sleep with Spirshash. I'm getting a full measure of the trouble; I might as well get laid for it.

Thery wanted to know this of all her friends, for some unaccountable reason. I do not understand Rassimel.

1. What does your first name mean? My name was chosen more for the sound of it than any particular meaning. Also it must be different from the names of all other Zi Ri who have ever lived or will ever live. There is no way to tell such a thing, however, so Zi Ri names are traditionally quite long. I didn't manage to memorize mine until last year or so. Insofar as it means anything at all -- and one has to listen for echoes of words in archaic languages in the syllables -- it might be understood to mean "Seven hundred and twenty-nine feathers stood before the farmer-mages, and beside them were stone and hezarion magical devices. Winds arose and departed, but birds were roasted with plentiful garlic." Or you could interpret it quite otherwise: e.g., the part from 'hezarion' on could be read as "Tillipikka, the weaver, sows his fields with tepid barley provided by the prostitute. Memorable parakeet!"

2. Your middle name, do you have one? That was the first half. It's pretty arbitrary where you cut it, really.

3. What does it (your middle name) mean?

4. What about that name at the end (unless you're a Jr. or III or something), what about that one? "Nearby, certain guardians of guntries collided while they were tending their flocks. Axes were espaliered prohibitively [or 'while vodka' if you prefer]. Crying circumnavigated the previous night. Here! Without-two-or-more-Orren-surveyors! Magnificence is cheap, but iridescence is everlasting."

5. So, if you were to put the meanings of all your names together, what would it say? Somewhat less than the two halves individually.

6. If you'd been born the opposite sex, what would your parents have named you? That's a very confusing question, as there is only one sex of Zi Ri. I daresay it would be something along the lines of "Kevzadhones", which is to say, "deformed".

Advice From Everyone

Havune says I shouldn't. Havune says Spirshash, while appealing in more respects than I am currently aware of, is so volatile that I am far too young for him.

Thery says I should. Thery says I have been longing out loud for someone to play with ever since I came to school, and probably years before. She says that Spirshash will abandon me ages before the difference in our lifespan becomes a problem -- not only will I not need to outlive whatever mistakes I make (and she says that your first voluntary lover always brings mistakes), he will obligingly scamper away from them.

Yarwain says I should too. He points out that as a twice-married man, Spirshash should have some measure of understanding of how to be pleasant to a companion.

Dustweed sounded pained by the whole conversation, and ventured no opinion.

I do not want to ask my sibling.

How does one even think about this sort of thing?

Equipment for a Seduction [10 Oix 4260]

When one glides silently towards an Orren, as for prey, one might well choose among these things:

1. SETTING
   • A shady grove in Ghaln-Yastrou Park, surrounded by high bushes.
   • A promise from Dustweed that zie will go study at the library for an evening.
   • The cooperation of the Orren's wife in arranging a private room.
2. SUPPLIES
   • A horn of brandy
   • A bottle of oil
   • A pouch of dried spiced fishes.
3. APPROACH
   • A direct invitation
   • A roundabout reminder of once-made offers
   • A recommendation from a friendly wife.

Wish me luck, and good decisions.

Result of a Seduction

He refused! He turned me down! He denied me! He spurned me!

He didn't even sound upset, the lout!

I shall write more later. For now I am quite too upset!

Later

Tillissa, Spirshash's wife and a bit of a socialite, had recommended to him that he and I spend an evening together. Wine was acquired -- excellent wine, godlike wine, which would not have been out of place at a lesser table in the ducal palace; I know this, for that is where I acquired it. Dustweed was duly evicted from our shared room.

Spirshash and I drank excellent godlike wine, and spoke of dancing and friends, of river foam and the habits of antlered pigeons during Surprise. I sat on his shoulder; I curled my tail elegantly around his arm; I licked around the edge of his cookie-shaped ear with a delicate forky tongue. He turned his head aside. I curled my neck to look him in the face. "Is all well?" I asked.

"All is not well," he answered. "Wine is well; chatting is well; dancing is well. After much thought I must say that kissing is not well, and detailed flirting is not well."

"You did not mention this the last time a kissing arose, Spirshash!" I fear that my breath scorched the fur on his shoulder, and perhaps contributed to the harshness of the ensuing conversation.

He curled his tail over his lap, covering his kilt. "I had thought little enough, or less. Now..."

"What, precisely, is not well about kissing and more heavily entwined flirtation?"

He looked both determined and despondent. "After much thought, I have come to think that I am too much a libertine. I shall restrict my attentions to my own species and, in general, to women thereof, Oostmarine excepted."

"When we first met , you ridiculed Thery for being cisaffectionate. Now you will almost do it yourself?"

"Love is not a safe game. Marriage, in particular, is not a game. Oostmarine was rather distressed -- especially about you. For with you, ten thousand years from now, what memory of him would there be? Only that when you took your first Orren lover you cuckolded him. This is a legacy he would rather not enjoy! Tillissa was differently distressed. She considers that you are too fickle and cruel to be a good companion for me: the letter you wrote was too Sleethsome, too cold and vicious. She has no great desire to tend me when you emotionally rip my belly open and show my liver and lungs to the gods in the sky -- she will do if she must, but thinks she would rather not. With all due respect, Sythyry, I care for my husband and for my wife more than I lust for you. Our discussion was extensive. In the end I decided that I have been less good to them than I should be ... that I have been more wicked than I should be. So for the near while I plan to be cisaffectionate, and, indeed, faithful."

There was nothing more to be said. It took about two and a half hours of shouting and hissing to say this nothing. In the end, only Dustweed's return stopped us from saying nothing to each other, loudly and angrily saying, with much bitterness.

I would swear off all mammals for the while as horrid, wicked creatures, save only that I wept in Thery's arms and got some comfort there.

And now I am putting seven or eight logs on the fire in the bedroom, hot Surprise be cursed and raked, and there I shall sleep for the long while.

Dancers at the End of Oix [27 Oix 4260]

For reasons best known to the instructors ... hah! For reasons best not known to either instructor, but lost in the confusion between them (have I mentioned recently that I detest Orren?)... the Flirtatious Dancing class was scheduled for today -- which is to say, the last day of hot Surprise -- rather than tomorrow when it will be much, much cooler.

Thus, dancing.

Thus, to be more specific, dancing with members of the class selected by lottery.

Thus, to be even more specific, dancing with members of the proper species of the class selected by lottery.

Thus, to be painfully specific, dancing with members of the species least represented that day, because there are no other members of the proper species in the class.

Thus, to be so specific that I snort sparks, dancing with Orren as usual, selected by lottery...

Have I mentioned recently that I detest Orren?

Thus, to be specific to the fine sharp point of a fang, dancing with Tillissa.

I did not breathe flames upon her. I did not look her in the eyes and smile as we promenaded. I did not claw her forearm. I did not kiss her in the final twirl of the dance. I did not cast some sort of spell of itchiness upon her. I did not say a nice thing to her after the dance was over.

The instructors were less than pleased with me for half of these. They should have been more than pleased with me for the other half, but (have I mentioned recently that I detest Orren?) they were not.

Instead they gave a brief impromptu lecture on proper etiquette of dealing with people who have recently rejected one's advances. I tried to interrupt them, saying -- as is entirely true -- that I had not made advances upon Tillissa. The instructors -- such cruel and wicked entities both of them! -- ignored me, and traded stories of how they had insulted this or that minor noble by excessive politeness and extravagantly complementing the wrong article of clothing.

Spirshash was beside himself with snickerings.

Have I mentioned recently that I detest Orren?

Consimbs Again [1 Consimbs 4260]

Surprise and surprises are over. It's cool again, and so am I. I evidently even made a new Orren friend last night: Real-Eel, a very advanced student in ... in ... she told me last night, but I can't remember. Actually I don't remember much about last night: I went with Havune to a big party sort of thing, half Cani and half assorted other people, and wound up eating a whole gopher and drinking three chalices of fortified wine, and practicing Flirtatious Dancing at Real-Eel. Havune informs me that I spent most of the evening in her lap, getting scritched, but that nothing interesting happened.

He is wrong. Something interesting did happen. The gopher turned out to be stuffed with offirrah and bread. I know that fermented snakes with half-rotten garlic and pepper sounds really disgusting to anyone but Cani, but ... damp it down with a lot of bread, and bake it inside a gopher, and don't let the innocent Zi Ri know what zie's eating, and it's remarkably good.

And, of course, I have now realized that I am hideously, terribly attracted to Orren, since I evidently go sit on them when I am drunk. This is unfortunate. I don't suppose many Zi Ri are cisaffectionate, unless they're actually mated or some such... I have no great wish to become physically intimate with my obnoxious, wicked 600-year-older-than-me sister. But why couldn't I be attracted to Rassimel? It would be much simpler.

Dustweed had zir own private party in the apartment last night, from the looks of things: a bottle of cheap wine, a pot of Khtsoyis narcotic tea, and crying on the couch. I'm getting a bit worried about zir -- does anyone have any clue what's wrong? Or any suggestions about what to do?

A Hideous Obsession [3 Consimbs 4260]

I'm doomed.

I'm so doomed.

I have actually acquired a taste for offirrah. To the extent that I now have a moderate-sized stout maroon-glazed clay pot in the pantry. It is well-sealed with wax. It has to be well-sealed with wax; if it is not, Thery and Dustweed can smell it and complain to me with force and vigor. Even if it is sealed, Havune can smell it, but it's his fault that it's there.

Yesterday's lunch: three boiled songbird eggs with a drop of offirrah on each one, and five grapes.

Yesterday's second lunch: a large biscuit and a bit of Thery's shrimp-cream and a couple chub-beetles. With a drop of offirrah in the shrimp-cream.

Yesterday's supper: Some spinach with honey and powdered venison; a pren; and, in a moment of mania, a bit of bread with farmer's cheese (stolen from Dustweed) and offirrah.

Yesterday's midnight snack: Bits of stolen farmer's cheese dipped in offirrah.

Today's breakfast: Tea and porridge with a glop of offirrah in the porridge. And cream. Cream and offirrah.

Today's lunch: breath-grilled small squashes and spinach, with offirrah cream on them.

Today's second lunch: Chub-beetles and noodles. Even an obsessed Zi Ri can't have offirrah at every meal. Though I thought about it...

Today's supper: Guntry tongue and dumplings in wine sauce. With a small clawful of offirrah in the sauce. Alas!

I'm sure this is going to be trouble...

Moping [4 Consimbs 4260]

In case you were wondering, I did not feed Dustweed any offirrah. It would make zir sick. Not in the sense it makes Thery sick: Herethroy cannot digest meat. No, zie's not ill. Zie's moping. Moping forwards and moping backwards. I'd suspect zie was lovesick except that zie doesn't seem to have any friends of zir own species.

I, too, am moping somewhat, but I am moping more determinedly and more properly, over politics. The Duke of Vheshrame has removed my sister from most of zir honorary positions -- zie was Bishop of the Roll'gainst Quarter, and Lord Summoner of the Legeriat, and .. four or five other titles which added up to half a day's work each year, and about sixty thousand lozens a year. Not a little bit of money! Not a little bit of honor! But zie had accumulated those titles over the last couple hundred years, and the current Duke decided that he wanted to reward some of his friends. And the next time that Hezimikkainen scolded him and urged him to take the long view of his latest building project, he stripped zir of all the titles that were strippable.

Not that zie has to move out of zir suite in the ducal palace or anything. Not that zir weekly stipend isn't fifty times my annual one. Not that zie won't be a major power in Vheshrame when the current Duke's statues have rotted of old age.

Sweet Music of Love [6 Consimbs 4260]

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

It's the agreed-upon date night for the other room. Havune is off we know not where, doing we know not what with or to we know not who. Yarwain took Thery to a student production of Fessisandra and Ulute, and then returned here. However, sometime Thery's bed, which is as old as my sister and in considerably worse shape, got slid next to the wall. They haven't realized it though. They are distracted.

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

Dustweed is, predictably, rather annoyed. It is now well after the middle of the night, but one cannot expect Rassimel to understand such things. She and I are putting together a special Date Night treat of vodka, skullcap, and earplugs.

"Bad enough that we're all gummed up in chastity, without having it hammered into us," I said to zir.

Zie shrugged. That is a complicated and a peculiar gesture from a Herethroy! "You're better off than me."

"Can't you get your parents to arrange a marriage for you? I hear that noble Herethroy do that now and then."

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

Zie must have been in a terrible temper, that late at night with all the thumping. "I asked. They only would do it the wrong way -- and it was that or the academy, not both."

"The wrong way? In an orifice which, by design, is normally only used for 'out'?"

Zie laughed a bit. "Basically. As a female."

"That does sound a bit unnatural. Besides, female Herethroy don't always get married, do they?"

"That was their point, exactly." Zie -- not she, but zie -- finished zir vodka, poured zirself another chaliceful, finished it off at a single draught the way that Herethroy can, and stood up. "I should be drunk enough to sleep now. G'night, little scaly thing."

"Um ... g'night, Dustweed."

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

Some nights, late, I manage to have no favorite roommate. This is logically impossible, I know, and during the day I cannot do it. At night, awake, drunk -- each one is strictly more annoying and distressing than the other two put together.

I shall blame Havune for this. If he were here, he would pay attention to where the bed was.

I'll bet a taptet that he moved Thery's bed over for some reason, and she forgot to move it back...

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

*THOOM*

Current Music: The Music Of Love. (Base line only)

Orren Make Good Furniture [7 Consimbs 4260]

Actually Orren don't make good furniture, they simply make enthusiastic furniture. The Orren in question is Real-Eel, a very advanced student in Enchantment. Finally I can use my heritage for some mighty purpose! She is a bit impressed with the name 'Glikkonen'. One might almost suspect that she were trying to use me to winkle zir secrets out of zir, but, in fact, she doesn't seem interested in that.

[For more information on Glikkonen, see the World Tree sourcebook. -bb]

She took me fishing. Orren style.

Now, I'm about the right size for it, but I'm not the right shape exactly, and on the whole I prefer to keep my feathers dry. But, Real-Eel had made a charm out of a tooth that got knocked out of her mouth last year, which lets one breathe water as if it were air, and she has a Ruloc Aquador spell called Umbrella of the Living Flame which can keep even a fire dry underwater. With these two things, swimming is just like flying, except that (1) you can't levitate, and (2) the air is very very heavy. Oh, and if you're in the public pond, there are fish all around you. We chased each other around through pondweeds and glass-coral, and caught fat buskies, and had quite the excellent time ... until the Umbrella of the Living Flame gave out, and it felt rather more like Bathtub full of Living Squids. No danger really -- the charm will live as long as I will -- but it was hideous and wet.

Real-Eel dragged me out. That charm lets you breathe water; it's not like the more standard spell that turns water to air. So, of course, my nose was full of water. I didn't think of that when I took the charm off to give back ... so there I was, choking on the pondside, coughing up great gouts of steam at Real-Eel when she was trying to rescue me. I was thoroughly and properly embarrassed.

But -- and I should take pains to remember this! -- there is no excuse like "You saved my life!" for curling up in the arms of an appealing lifesaver. I quite happily spent the next hour or two curled up with my muzzle full of brown fur!

Breath-grilled sardines are not quite as good an excuse. I suppose if I had the right kind of breath-strengthener I could get them crispy and delightful, but if I'm going to breathe for any length of time, it's not much more than a glorified candleflame. Which is to say, if you want to cook a busky, the front end is cool before the back end isn't raw.

(Next time I shall grill one bite at a time for her. If that's not romantic, I don't know what is.)

I do believe I don't hate Orren any more!

History of Real-Eel [18 Consimbs 4260]

Hisss! Real-Eel explained where she got that breathing spell: it was a gift from Nestrune Kreslink. Evidently they were rather an item for a good month and a half early in the term.

At risk of telling this story backwards: the original plan was that, after Nestrune fleered at the senior students and refused to walk naked through the buttery, the senior students were to play a serious sort of prank on him. Real-Eel was to seduce him off to a presumably private room, but insist that she was distressingly dry about the privates, and that the best sort of wetness that could be achieved -- which is to say, one that would not push her to taking water-form -- was a raw egg cracked over the male's protuberance, and well rubbed in. As the egg was being cracked (Real-Eel fully dressed, Nestrune bare from belly to tailtip), the illusory wall of the presumably private room was dropped, revealing a half-dozen students disguised as faculty, and much amusement was to be had.

It didn't quite work out that way. By the time the illusion was dropped, both of them were thoroughly undressed, and, as far as the story goes, not a bit unhappy about it. The egg was not applied to Nestrune's intimate extension; instead, it was tossed at the gentleman who was imitating Professor Achitka. There was much laughter, but not all directed at Nestrune, as would have been proper. He brought out several bottles of port and brandy, and appeased the others that way. After which, he and Real-Eel disappeared together, and reappeared the next morning rather holding hands a lot.

Five weeks later, they broke up over a political argument. Real-Eel is quite the firefish! She takes the political position of ditlocracy: that rulership should be redistributed every twenty-seven years. So, each month of years, all nobles lose their titles; all legeriats and judges and such are replaced. And, in Real-Eel's more radical thoughts, even the very forms of government are replaced. One cycle it might be the natural kind of government; in the next, there might be three levels of greater nobility, or only one; in the one after that, perhaps only scholars are qualified to rule.

There's a great deal more to say about that. Nestrune and Real-Eel said it at length, in public, and, by the fifth week, as much with flung beverages as with words.

I'm not sure what I think of this. Nestrune's bootprints are not the ones my feet fit best. And I am, if anything, less suited for ditlocracy than any mortal would be.

End of the Term [27 Consimbs 4260]

And here are my final projects or topics in each of my courses: Tempador Magic: A routine exercise, nothing greatly different from the others we have done in the class. How complex is a spell for use when one has just called one's current lover the wrong name, and one wishes to rewrite recent time to have said the proper one -- but one has not (for whatever reasons of distraction, the professor did not specify) realized one's mistake instantly, instead giving the current lover the opportunity to express displeasure?

Actually the assignment was not so specific as to mention that it was to be used for that circumstance. I know what he meant though. (I'm still working on this.)

The Study of Arithmetical Differences: The third movement of each of Pireleus' seven symphonies is based on a sequence of seven to fifteen notes -- spectral notes, that is, in a musical notation which gives each distinct note that the Rassimel ear can hear its own number. (I don't understand where the numbers came from -- they're not arranged in any sensible order to me.)

The topic is to decide if Pireleus based his symphonies upon the Study of Arithmetical Differences. (My approach: solve all the sequences of notes, and compare the official emotional connotation of the solution with the mood of the symphony. The Symphony Honoring Bread, with a 15-note sequence, is fourteenth degree, so probably not based on any numerics at all. The Symphony for a Time of Harvest, 12 notes, third degree -- but the solution is 2, which ought to stand for Peace and Construction, but the symphony is very violent and quarrelsome.

So I said "no".

I was wrong. Pireleus, in his autobiography, said he used mathematics for six of the seven (but not Bread). But he used a different numerology, the one in common use in his branch of course, in which 2 was violent and quarrelsome. We had never learned that there were other systems of numerology in this class.

My grade: "Well-Reasoned".

This was a trick question! Nestrune got tricked! Nestrune read the autobiography, and told the story just the way Pireleus did. His grade: "Deviously Discovered". The Duke and the Duchess of Daukrhame are said to be displeased with this grade.

Much gloating from the fireplace!

And a certain amount of happiness that Nestrune took that autobiography out of the library, so that he alone of the class would have it, before I thought of looking for it.

For Ancient Ketherian History, I have read five first-hand accounts of the first wars against the cyarr. It amused my teacher to no end to have me catalog the references in them to my devastating grandparent, and dissect in some detail why Chruff the Bold and all the healers were so annoyed with zir.

Fortunately my grandparent never mentioned anything about that to me. Zie generally talks about whatever zie's excited by at the moment. So I am not so worried about being graded "Deviously Discovered".

Current Politics of Aradrueia: A very routine and extremely safe essay explaining why the policies of the current Duke of Vheshrame are the best for all concerned, including in particular the Duke's political and military enemies.

I heard a certain trace of bitterness in the teacher's voice at this. Rumor has it that three years ago, the assignment concerned a similar topic but had a different focus ... and Darwenna the daughter of the Great General was in the class. (For those of you from other cities, the Great General is the highest military rank in Vheshrame. In theory she is the duke's equal, though of course in Vheshrame nobody is really the duke's equal.) There was a dinner party ... Poor Darwenna, who had done superbly on that years' assignment and really understood and believed her material, decided to discuss the matter with the Duke directly. At some length, with some vehemence. By the end of the dinner party, Darwenna was no longer the likely candidate (nor even the plausible candidate) to be the next Great General.

In any case, my grade here was "Pleasantly Stated", and in the class as a whole, "Generally Suitable."

Flirtatious Dancing: The Orgonzona is a seven-person dance: three Herethroy, four bipeds, and I count as a biped. (No, the bipeds don't flirt with the Herethroy. Just each other.) It is very fast. The Herethroy, at one point, take three steps backwards while gazing longingly at each other, as the bipeds are getting back to places. I cannot walk on my hind legs fast enough! A great hulking blue-carapaced insect stepped on my left wing! Three times! Finally the instructor let me fly back to place in that part.

My grade in the class: "Proper Intentions". [A poor grade, saying that the student intended to do well but was unable to for reasons that were not particularly the student's fault. -bb]

At least Spirshash walked me back home, with me riding on his shoulder, and kissed a bit at the door. "Proper Intentions" there, too, if one is a bit generous with the meaning of "Proper".

The Sallad of the Bad Cafe [2 Hivvem 4260]

Yes, they actually spelled it "sallad" on the menu. Do not think that the Milkrather Grill is illiterate! They were pretending to be all archaik [sic] and traditional and all. Thery of course noted that it should have been spelled "sallet", if they were going to bother spelling it anciently. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

Every class was over! Every examination was written, and in the terrible claws of the teachers for grading and possible interment! Most of us had most of our grades already, and there wasn't even too terribly much suspense about waiting around for the rest.

And that, according to archaik student tradition and sheer common sense, called for a celebration!

So, the five of us (me; Dustweed; Havune; Thery; Yarwain) went to see the jabow dancers. Jabow dancing is not entirely a new phenomenon. In the old days -- archaik, if you like -- extroverted Orren sorcerers skilled in Mutoc Corpador would sometimes take the shapes of elegant beasts and dance before their villages. Now, with spellbinding, they can give those shapeshifting spells to a whole troupe of equally enthusiastic but less magically potent Orren.

So, the jabow dancers turn into fisher-jabows. These aren't the jaran-jabows that adventurers worry about, the huge three-headed birds that peck with the force of hammers and toss corrosive spiral pink fires about. Fisher-jabows are three-headed magenta storks, more or less. They eat fish, and sometimes they fight Orren (but only Orren in water form) for the fish, but they're basically harmless.

And elegant!

So, five or six Orren turned into fisher-jabows, and cavorted on stage to the accompaniment of lute and harpsichord, violin and reed flute. Do not mistake these instruments for the elegant ones you might find in a count's parlor! They are coarse but enthusiastic, and as lively as a pack of Orren who mistook kathia for fish soup!

(Actually, I may already have mistaken them, but I'm not a musician so I don't know the proper names. 'Fiddle', maybe, instead of 'violin'.)

And the fisher-jabows cavorted and pranced and flapped their wings, clicking their beaks as extra instruments, twining their necks together. It was great fun, and I am not doing it justice.

After which, of course, we went to the Milkrather Cafe. Yarwain had remembered the Milkrather Cafe as being a calm and unpretentious sort of place, but it had been discovered by the lesser nobility in the intervening two years, which meant that the prices were much higher and the menu had gotten floofier. We decided to stay anyways, for it was getting late.

And I ordered the Rampaging Bird Salad. Rampaging Bird is a common enough appetizer: fatty bits of your favorite eating bird are stuck on skewers, rubbed with spicy butter, grilled, and dipped in a fearsome pepper-vinegar sauce and presented to you like so many weapons. It is served as spicy as anything in the region's cuisine; people sometimes get into too-spicy-eating contests with it instead of with just plain hot peppers. Since it is so hot, it is served with a bowl of sour cream to calm it down. Eating the sour cream is bad form in the contest.

Anyways! I did not have a Rampaging Bird appetizer. I had a Rampaging Bird Dinner Sallad. It has come to my attention that I am not quite properly Zi-Ri-sleek anymore, and that I should be just a bit careful and maybe evict a few ounces of weight. Hence the salad, which was advertised to be bits of non-fatty parts of the bird, not greatly buttered before grilling, served on a big pile of greens, and in all ways a good and moderate food of considerable flavor. Even if it was spelled "sallad".

Well, it had considerable flavor.

When a Zi Ri vomits, it is not pleasant. Our natural fires heat the vomitus, often making it boil and steam. Our natural fire resistance is not as good against steam -- or at least, when we are sufficiently sickened to be vomiting, the fire resistance is shaky. So in addition to the noxious flavors and stinging acid that, say, Rassimel must endure, we also get steam burns.

The sallad was like that.

The meat and leaves and such were all fine, really. The dressing ... they had poured a great quantity of fearsome pepper-vinegar sauce over it, and a moderate quantity of sour cream, by way of dressing. The pepper-vinegar sauce was the sort of thing you'd dip an oily buttery fatty grilled bird bit into and nibble it delicately, unless you are trying to impress someone with the fortitude of your mouth and tongue, which I wasn't 'cause none of the Orren I am halfheartedly chasing was there. The sour cream was exceedingly sour. Havune, nose-sharp as any Cani, gave me an odd look, but was too polite to ask the question that might have saved me (viz. "Are you sure you want to eat that? That sour cream is rather on the turned side").

In proper Rampaging Bird appetizers, the hot sauce and the sour cream combine in pleasing ways: the hot sauce tingles and invigorates; the sour cream smoothes and calms; and together they maintain an excellent combination of decorum and excitement.

In the Sallad of the Bad Cafe, they combined the other way. The rottenness of the sour cream conspired with the viciousness of the sauce, leaving the nice and tasty halves of the two condiments aside. I took a bite or two: "This is not very nice ... where have I tasted that before?" I took another bite or three. "Oh... the time I was severely sick when I was eleven."

Yes, it was that bad. The cafe had done a splendidly accurate reconstruction of the flavor, as near as I can remember. It wasn't steaming exactly -- I have no actual burns -- but the croutons were very very hard, to the point of leaving scrapes and cuts inside my mouth, which is probably worse or at least more embarrassing to talk about.

Thery was kind enough to share her sandwich with me. But it was sweet potted wudgeon with almond butter and sardines: a traditional combination for one holiday a year, but not one I enjoy elsetimes. And after the taste of the Sallad, I was quite hungry and quite afraid of eating.

I ate about the fifth part of a dinner between the Sallad and the sandwich, and tossed two lozens on the table, and fled the Bad Cafe.

For the rest of dinner, I had a bit of rum and went to sleep. I couldn't face solid food. The Sallad was that bad.

Pazi-Pazi [4 Hivvem 4260]

Now we have a cat. She is named Pazi-Pazi; her fur is very bright blue; she weighs a bit more than I do. She enjoys stalking me. Fortunately she is not fireproof, so if I stoke my bed well enough she does not molest me there -- she lurks on mantleplace, leering at me hungrily or playfully.

I am not the one that she is supposed to hunt.

The Cani roommate sniff-sniff-sniffs one night. "Please empty every chamberpot, Thery."

"I did, Havune," said Thery.

"It's some sort of mammal, and that leaves out Dustweed and Sythyry -- unless Sythyry's had much better luck with one or another of those Orren than I had heard about," said Havune.

Further sniffing was performed. The mystery mammal's chamberpot was in the pantry... Pantry is too glorious a name for it, but here we pretend to glory in all respects. It is a closet in the kitchen. Nuts were there in baskets, grain were in leather bags thumped unceremoniously on shelves by very tired Dustweed; dried fruit was stacked in loose-lidded pottery jugs; twice-smoked sausages were piled on top of cardboard boxes of crackers.

The feast for the little mouse! The feast for the little mouse and half a dozen children! Little stinky pellets all over the shelf!

We named "Sneaky Veffu" after the children's story. We hunted the mouse. We took every food out of the pantry. I left a bound Crawly Sparks on a cookie. In the night a crackling zap, a dead mouse!

Two cley, one mouse. We repeat this, three times, until there are no more mice.

I am the one who must clean out the shelf. It narrows towards the back, and everyone else is far too big. Thery stuffed a pillow under her shirt to make sure everyone knew how big she was.

Hence, we acquire Pazi-Pazi. Pazi-Pazi is a used cat: she was abandoned by one of Real-Eel's former roommates, and Real-Eel grudgingly tended her until, well, Havune and I requisitioned her services. Havune instantly requisitioned her affections as well, by devious Cani tricks, scritching and feeding and all of that.

I, of course, was left with the dregs of her emotions. When there are no mice, I am her favorite prey ... along with Thery's tail, or a tuft of wool tied on a string waved by anyone at all. She is a fierce, fierce beast!

And so I shall pile the fire high tonight, and have dreams of miniature Sleeth seeking me for all the wrong reasons...

But better than mice!

Nudity for All! [5 Hivvem 4260]

An eager artist has tried to bribe the four of us to sit for a polyspecific portrait. I don't know what will come of it. Fortunately there are no Orren here, or we might not all be able to sit still for an hour or two.

Since the portrait may or may not ever be done, and since most of you have never met us, here is my own portrait -- in words, since I have no skill with the sketching-point. I will do nudes. I scarcely see everyone nude every day, but I have seen.

Dustweed is ill-favored among Herethroy. [Herethroy are anthropomorphic crickets, tall and elegant and almost elvish. They have six limbs.] Zir carapace is a dull and mottled green, rather as if zie were covered with an unhealthy layer of lichen. Zie is darker and bluer on the left than on the right; more than once I have thought zie were constantly under some shadow unseen to me. Zie has a clumsy arc of nine bright red spots on the left of zir back, that look rather more like someone has slung nine little darts at zir than any particular adornment. Zir face is well-formed and pleasant, and I truly believe that if zie could get a very nice marriage if zie found two blind people. (Oh, and I have seen zir nude many times, as zie changes clothes in the room.)

Havune is a Cani with [border collie styling -bb], tall and dignified in the way that one born to minor nobility often is. I've never managed it myself, but Havune does it perfectly: tail up, ears high, eyes full of rulership. His chest and face are mostly black-furred, with a white stripe pouring between his eyes and cupping his nose and mouth and. His chest is white, save for a pair of little triangles pointed at each other. His fur is perfectly symmetrical. There is a small bottle of Ospillicker's Fur Dye (Black) which ensures that it remains so -- the upper triangle, without the dye, would be smaller and more isosceles than the equilateral lower one. His breasts are all the same size, and if he's got a bottle of something that does that, I have yet to see it. (He frequently wore little or nothing during Surprise, when it was so hot.)

Thery is a wand of a woman: tall for a Rassimel (she is taller than Havune), with thin-but-not-that-thin rings around her eyes and tail. Most of her fur is a thick warm amber-brown, like honey diluted to syrup with kathia. When she is unclothed around me, she always keeps her tail curled around her more personal bits. It is simply a strong inference of mine that she is female. I suppose, if it comes to it, my own sex is the most straightforward: Zi Ri have only the one choice. Havune would be second-clearest, and Thery third-clearest. Dustweed, of course ... who can tell what sex an insect is, except another insect, or a Cani or Sleeth? But back to Thery... She wears a little necklace in the shape of a leaping charger, which Yarwain got her at the start of the term. I believe she sleeps with it: at least, when she is dashing for the bathroom in the morning in such a hurry that she doesn't wear a robe, and knocking the innocent Zi Ri out of the way, she was wearing it. It caught my left wing. That's the only time I've seen her entirely without clothing. I am given to understand Yarwain has seen more. I am rambling too much! I must go decide what to learn next term!

Choosing Courses [4 Nivvem 4260]

Now it is time to fret about the selection of courses again. (Nobody else in the apartment, I may add, is fretting about the selection of courses. They are being painted by an art student.)

It is clearly time for me to study Corpador magic, and a bit more Enchantment. These are entirely practical things, from which I will earn some sort of tolerable wage over the next few years or decades; they are entirely respectable things for a young Zi Ri to study.

An actual class in Deepening of Understanding is also required: not simply the occasional project, but an organized class. (It has come to my attention that not all readers are familiar with this topic as an actual class. It is about being smart, not simply knowing many things. One is given a variety of case studies, and one is encouraged to think of sensible reasons or explanations or solutions, as the case may be. One is given exercises in which the main point is to figure out a sensible way to do them. For example, one may be called upon to put a live fish into a wine bottle -- or, perhaps, to design a method in which one might build a business that sold live fish in wine bottles to Orren tourists. No answer, I understand, is ever good enough; but some are less poor than others.)

If I am too respectable, though, Hezimikkainen will think I am too respectable. Or something. In any case, I don't want to do it. Flirtatious Dancing was a disaster and a half last term, for (1) being entirely too respectable; (2) encouraging me to acquire an interest in certain of the Wrong Sort of People (viz. Orren), and (3) for failing to lead to any sort of satisfactory ending with the Wrong Sort of People.

Nonetheless, some sort of physical activity is required -- by the academy's rules, if not by my own body. Archery has certain advantages. It is fairly inactive as physical activities go. I'm quite sure that the academy does not have a bow in my size; I could probably get away with borrowing an enchanted bow from some relative or other, which would, presumably, make the class very easy. (And that's not cheating, I might add -- when, in future life, might I possibly use a bow that was not enchanted?) Spelunking is the alternative. It actually sounds fun, which archery does not. It takes good advantage of my small size. (It does not take good advantage of my glorious plumage!) And there are Rumors -- sometimes, even, Glorious Rumors -- of what can go on in side caves on the longer trips.

I'd also like something amusing, and, if at all possible, easy. On this topic I have few good ideas: Famous Collections? Liminal Flora and Fauna? Studies in Urban Nobility? Important Battles in History? Something quite other?

Courses Chosen [5 Nivvem 4260]

Spelunking it is, on the advice of everyone, and Famous Collections, after I asked around about the teachers of the other classes.

(Liminal Flora and Fauna is open to anyone, but all students must be able to take some small aquatic form for the numerous field trips, so it's really limited to Orren and people on good terms with Real-Eel and her ilk. By the by, the reason that Real-Eel has that water breathing spell is that she works as a guide on the field trips for the class. I could take it -- I'm already the right size, so I'd just need the water breathing spell -- but I'm sort of trying to cut down on Orren just now. (And that doesn't explain why I fell asleep in Flooosh's oven last night. (And don't take that the wrong way! The big leather-and-brick oven in the back of her bakery, ordinarily used for bread.)))

(Studies in Urban Nobility is taught by one Prof. Mongrelle Gostunard, and yes, that's her real name. Rassimel. Known for taking bribes, mostly in the form of chances to meet real urban nobility of various cities. The grades in her class are pretty much deter