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 determined by your family's (1) rank, (2) distance, and (3) willingness to have a random Rassimel professor as a guest. Glikkonen does adequately on (1), terribly on (2), and probably terribly on (3). In any case the class's lecture is generally a long list of personal anecdotes of times when Prof. Gostunard has been guest of this or that great noble. An excellent class for the scions of the local nobility. Which, I presume, is why Prof. Gostunard is still Prof. Gostunard and not Publicly Whipped And Humiliated And Punished Gostunard.)

(Important Battles in History is taught by Prof. Dharvis. I have heard nothing bad about Prof. Dharvis, except that twenty-nine years ago he seduced and married one of his senior students -- or that she did to him. Even that was awfully proper and correct; the engagement was announced the day after grades were final, and her grade was precisely in the middle of the class. Anyways, Prof. Dharvis is, supposedly, not as good a lecturer as Prof. Yrrkyrr who teaches Famous Collections.)

Two more things. There is now a Very Famous Painting hanging over the dining room table. If I do not see enough of my roommates when they are present, I am now privileged to see them when they are absent as well. Tethezai did a splendid job of it, I must say.

And I fell asleep in Flooosh's oven, as mentioned previously. I had been lurking around at the end of the day. Someone brought back a box of poptaloops [little sticky buns with a dot of sweet bean paste at the top - bb] and complained that Lord and Lady Dunderhead, or whoever it was he worked for, said they weren't properly baked. There was the expression of regret! There was the slicing of four poptaloops in half with a big sharp meng-nut knife! There was the expression of perplexity that the poptaloops appeared perfectly baked! There was the angry discussion! There was the expression of high rank of Lord and Lady Dunderhead as compared with Flooosh! There was the grudging refund given! There was the ungracious thanks produced by the servant! There was the flinging of the now-unsellable and perfectly baked poptaloops into the oven, in a snit of anger! There was the helpful expression of sympathetic angerathetic by the Zi Ri! There was the offer that said Zi Ri could eat any of the now-slightly-toasted poptaloops that zie wanted to fetch out of the oven! There was the devouring of five poptaloops.

Poptaloops toast up very nicely indeed. But two of them make a respectable dinner for a small feathered lizard. Five was ... well ... I slept very very well. And Havune was merciless to me about sleeping with an Orren all night and still not getting laid.

Spelunking! [6 Nivvem 4260]

Thanks to all who compelled me to take spelunking! Ghurmanesh Cavern (which is no longer inhabited by ghurmanesh) is quite a sight to see. [A ghurmanesh is the shadow of a lion with no lion to cast it; they are sentient and mighty with fire magic.] You go into a little hole in a hillside, and squirm around through half a mile of tiny muddy little tubes with old tree roots grabbing at your feathers and wishing you had a Sleeth Eyes spell grafted so you could see better, and then the tube dips down and around and down and through a cold waterfall and down and around and you’re glad you can fly instead of clambering and levitating like everyone else in the class, and you come into the Big Old Chamber.

A long time ago, when ghurmanesh actually lived here, they used their extra cley on decorations. The rollward wall is covered with portraits of the people and monsters who were their friends, painted in flames of a dozen colors, and if you fly near them the wind of your passage stirs their flames as if they were fur. (That looks better for furry-faced Rassimel Lord Dorrington than for Seven-stripes the Herethroy next to him, mind you). In the center of the room there are three linked smoke rings, black and green and black again. On the roll’gainst side are some of the ghurmanesh trophies: the eight shadows of a chromodon’s eight heads. The heads themselves have long since rotted away, but the ghurmanesh cut the shadows off and preserved them somehow.

That must have been quite a battle to watch, two of the scariest kinds of monsters beating each other up in a magical hate-match of a duel, leaving the chromodon and half the ghurmanesh dead, with the primes doing their best to look serious and just as if they hadn't caused the duel in the first place. And two years later Vheshrame city was founded a couple miles away, and that would be the beginning of the end of the ghurmanesh living in the area. I don’t know when exactly they left, or how.

Anyways, the trip was all great fun. Except that next time I shall ask Flooosh to pack me an Orren-style lunch. The sandwich she made didn’t do all that well going through the waterfall.

In other news, Dustweed is blue. And covered with stars. Tethezai somehow talked zir into being her subject for a Non-Mammalian Decorating class this term. It’s quite remarkable… Dustweed actually almost looks slightly pretty, if you can imagine that. Thery made the mistake of mentioning that to zir, and zie just scowled and looked very sad. I do not understand Dustweed.

Ah, well. Time to go get books to read and beetles to eat and beverages to drink… um … some other b_____’s to _____. Suggestions for the fourth b___ appreciated!

A Boot to the Bed [6 Hivvem 4260]

Nothing interesting is happening to me. Everyone else gets something interesting.

Real-Eel is not interesting ... Real-Eel is not interested ... Real-Eel is on to more promising pastimes than flirting with the Small Blue Cave Lizard.

(That's my nickname in the whole spelunking class now. My mistake! There was one chute to descend, where Herethroy could go down one way but you really need six limbs to climb it properly that way, and other people needed to take the longer shallower way 'round, so the teacher shouted, "Herethroy here, mammals over there!" I shouted back, "What about me?" She yelled, "Small Blue Cave Lizards, fly down near the Herethroy and do try not to sneeze anyone on fire." But never mind that.)

Tethezai is happening to Dustweed. Tethezai, it seems, is thoroughly transaffectionate -- she only dates outside her own species, and, evidently, best if it's a gender that her species doesn't even have. (Small Blue Cave Lizards are, it seems, not to her taste, which is fine with them, because they'd rather date Orrens ... or other Zi Ri if that worked at all. But never mind that either.)

Tethezai has been flirting with the Large Blue Starred Dust Insect, as nobody ever has called Dustweed. One might suppose that Tethezai got interested in Dustweed after painting zir naked ... but I've seen Dustweed naked dozens of times, and zie's really nothing to look at. Not even with the paint. But never mind that either. Dustweed is looking like a scawn who just met a Sleeth. I think zie's happy... I don't think anyone's ever flirted at zir before. I sure wouldn't.

On the other side of the apartment, All Is Not Well. Thery was distracted when she got home last night -- presumably by Yarwain -- and tossed her outer clothing all over their room. Her left boot ended up on Havune's bed. It was not removed two hours later when Yarwain left and Havune was allowed back in that room.

Havune is rather particular about precisely who and what is allowed on his bed. An equestrian boot is, it seems, not an appropriate bedmate, for Havune -- in his (possibly biased) opinion. This boot in particular had been inadequately cleaned, rendering it a less pleasant bedmate than many. Havune expressed his displeasure! Loudly!

Thery replied that she had been unavoidably distracted, and that she intended to (1) remove the boot, (2) clean the boot, and (3) clean the pillowcase. However, she felt it appropriate to (0) first let Havune into the room, since she had kept him out of it for most of the evening. She asserted that she could have done (1)-(3) before (0), but only at the cost of keeping Havune out for longer.

Havune expressed uncertainty as to why his bed should ever have been graced with the boot. And his pillow in particular! His sensitive Cani nose would be assaulted as he strove to sleep, by the stench of the street and the stable.

Well, the argument assaulted my none-too-sensitive Zi Ri ears at considerable length. Finally, and a "finally" somewhat after midnight, Dustweed glowered at them and shut them up. Well, they bickered quietly enough for us to sleep ... but the next morning they were at it again. I wish they'd stop hissing and bristling every time they see each other. A bit of peace would be awfully nice at this point. It doesn't seem currently available though.

Iniquity (or at least Inquiety) for everyone! [7 Hivvem 4260]

There was an ulgrane walking around Vheshrame this morning. I saw her.

I have come to realize that some of you are a bit foreign. So: an ulgrane is a person of about the size and shape of a large pony. It . . . she, in this case . . . has large wings, a rather equine-style beak. This one was a Lesser Magenta-Speckled Ulgrane, with only six legs: the forelegs have nasty spiny poisonous things sort of like fingers; the others have talons. They are pirates! In particular they are not primes, they are monsters, and they are absolutely not allowed in cities.

However, this one was in the city. I do not really know how to express how wrong that is. Monsters should not be in prime cities! This is the ancient law! It is like begging the gods for pain and woe! It is worse than killing your mother to get three lozens to buy a spare rake. Even letting a monster in a prime city is a crime punishable by repeated executions!

Except … some monsters aren’t monsters according to that rule. Some monsters are harmless enough. Mherobump [rhino-morphs] are often allowed in, I suppose because they’ve never particularly done anything to hurt primes, and they’re very useful for construction. Sometimes other harmless kinds are let in . . . each city-state judges harmlessness for itself, I suppose.

Vheshrame seems to have judged ulgrane as harmless enough. This is absolutely insane. Ulgrane are pirates! They frequently attack skyboats: sometimes to conquer them, sometimes to just demand tolls. Very large tolls. They don’t mind killing primes, if there’s money to be made at it. So by any reasonable city’s judgment, they should be called as monsters, and killed as soon as they got close, not let in.

But they’re not, in Vheshrame, or at least this one isn’t called as a monster. To be sure, there are two dozen city guards around the one ulgrane, and it won’t be doing anything wicked with all that. I heard a dozen rumors why not. The plausible one seemed to be that the Duke has made a treaty with a nest of ulgrane to act as scouts, or perhaps privateers, in dealing with Oorah Thrassen, and let the ulgrane queen come into the city as a particularly unusual and unbuyable favor. I also hear that the Lesser Magenta-Speckled Ulgrane are getting a particularly nice deal on selling pirated goods inside Vheshrame: only a tiny touch higher than a native merchant would get.

This whole thing is exceedingly uncomfortable: to me, and to many people around. Even native Vheshrame citizens are less than pleased. Not that Vheshrame citizens like Oorah Thrassen, which is a little city-state that fought off Vheshrame and many allies some decades ago. [c.f. the World Tree book, p.91] But allying with monsters against other primes? That sounds like a very bad idea.

So, back to the apartment, where the very bad ideas come in a smaller scale. Thery is spending the night with Yarwain, to avoid Havune. (Don’t expect her to enjoy it that much. Yarwain has two envious and rude roommates, who will tease them both if they so much as kiss seriously.) Tethezai sent Dustweed a small bird made of candied wheat. When Dustweed read the note the first time, zir antennae went straight into the air. When zie read it the second time, zie kicked me out of the room and started crying.

To join with the spirit of the times, I should go get a crush on some Orren or other, and then use tincture of wenezza [an aphrodisiac] to acquire him-or-her. Or go home and hope that some other decade will be less insane - - though Glikkonen said to me that, in all the times zie tried to do that, it only worked twice.

Belated Entry [11 Hivvem 4260]

Sorry for not writing these last few days. The dean broke my right forepaw.

That is probably worth more explanation. The dean in question is the somewhat elderly but still energetic Dean Celandine Carsnell, Dean of Students: a distinguished (but not too distinguished) old Herethroy woman. She was playing catch with three or four Cani students in the yard around Sprowlween Hall. Spirshash and I were reading about collections of small carved birds in the yard. Someone threw the block to the dean, and she missed, and it nearly clonked Spirshash in the head. He picked it up and threw it to her. I sort of half-hid under a flowering bush to get out of the way. A few minutes later, the dean, chasing the block into the bushes, stepped with all her weight on my right hand. I'm a small lizard, and she's a big Herethroy!

Apologies came loud and fast! It might have been better if I hadn't screamed fire and set her kilt ablaze. Still, the dean was soon extinguished with poor wine, courtesy of Spirshash. I still owe him a bottle of poor wine.

Healing my hand is not so easy. Fix the Fractured Fingers isn't all that hard to find at an academy. But the person who casts it will be a senior student in Corpador, not a trained and qualified healer. So he didn't do a very good job of it...

Which, of course, meant that I had my forepaw wrapped in wood for the better part of a week. [Sythyry indiscriminately uses both the word for "hand" that most bipeds would use, and the word "paw"/"forepaw" that a Sleeth would use. Most Ketherian dictionaries do not approve of the latter usage for Zi Ri. - your faithful translator]

And, when I say, "better part", I don't mean "longer part". It was only four days, less than half a week. But my Deepening of Understanding class had the formal requirement of writing two essays, one explaining why the Duke of Vheshrame is a wicked man, and another explaining why his wickedness is utterly justifiable. For some reason, I had expected to write these essays starting somewhat after sunout the day before they were due ... but there is no excuse for explaining why a paper was not written better than "Dean Carsnell broke my paw."

Well, that would work in most classes at least. In Deepening of Understanding, the response was, "She rarely injures students without a good reason," followed by a series of questions designed for me to explain and admit how foolish it is for a small person with light bones to be underfoot. After that they let me say the essays, rather than writing them. I shouted them from the rafters though -- no Small Blue Pain Lizard underfoot! They laughed, for smarmy intellectualism is the true essence of Deepening of Understanding.

And, for unaccountable reasons, Iska showed up with a pot of very small meatballs for me, such as I could eat one-handed. This is all very awkward -- she still doesn't know that I wouldn't let her live here, and I still think she's awfully foreign and lower-class. Thery and Iska are getting fairly friendly -- Thery complained about Havune to her for an hour, while they ate most of the meatballs.

Speaking of eating, somebody asked me what eating utensils are used in Vheshrame, and how I manage them. [Bard is unaware of this question. -bb] The second question is easy enough: I have several sets of utensils made for Zi Ri. I generally carry a knife, a skewer, a spoon, and a scoop around in my saddlebag, in case I need to eat politely. Well, every scholar carries a knife for sharpening pens; I use the same knife.

• The Skewer: A stick of ivory with a sharp point, used for spearing small food items and bringing them to the mouth, or for holding large ones steady while they are cut with the knife. I often don't bother with using a skewer except in formal circumstances or very messy foods, since I have long sharp claws and heat doesn't trouble me.
• The Spoon: A stick of ivory (or wood, but ivory's better because it doesn't pick up tastes so fast) with a little cup on one end, used for picking up small quantities of soup or other liquid; it is either poured into the mouth, or held close to the face and lapped. My forked tongue is not very good for lapping, so I use the former method. Everybody else mostly laps. (Except Khtsoyis -- I've never seen a Khtsoyis eat. Probably just as well. And Herethroy can put the whole bowl of the spoon in the mouth, if desired, though that's considered rude -- when Dustweed does that when we're eating together, I make sure to use my claws instead of the skewer.) Oh, it is also used for dripping sauces onto things, and stirring, and so on. In a pinch you can use the back end of the spoon as a skewer. If I only bring one utensil besides my knife, it will be a spoon.
• The Knife: A flat piece of meng [a hard vegetable], edged with spell-hardened glass if you are moderately rich or even metal if you are immoderately rich, used to cut things. I have a small one, edged with copper.
• The Scoop: A square of leather, in which saucy or larger foods are scooped up and held to the side of the mouth for biting by the carnassials of those who have them (Cani, Zi Ri, Sleeth except Sleeth have no hands), or the front for biting by the incisors of those who do not (everyone else). Good manners dictate having one scoop per person per scoopworthy dish (if there are three stews, each person has three scoops), and, if the dishes are served commonly, not licking the scoop until one has ceased to eat from the common bowl. This is why individual service is destined to Rule The World Tree.
• The Cooler: A small but thick ceramic bowl or tray, in which extremely hot foods are placed until they are cool enough to eat. Sometimes you also mix dipping sauces in it. I don't know if this is officially a utensil, but if you're going to a meal where you should bring your own utensils, you should bring your own cooler. (In Mrasteia, people use a Heater as well, looking just like the cooler but kept hot by Pyrador or a charcoal brazier. In Choinxeia -- and Aradrueia for that matter -- cooks serve food at the proper temperature, in respectable places at least. In any case, I wouldn't use one, I'd just breathe on the food.)
• The Chalice: A shallow bowl on a stem with a wide foot, usually made of wood. Used for beverages or thin soups. Most people pick them up by the stem and lap out of them. Herethroy in a hurry will put the edge of the chalice to their lower lip and sort of pour the beverage into their mouth, but that's rude (I suppose because nobody else can do it very well). If you are a small person with a long flexible neck and a forked tongue, it is easier to leave it on the table and poke your muzzle into it and drink that way. Technically this should be rude too, like Herethroy drinking, but if you've ever seen a lizard tongue lapping you'll know that's ruder. Again, I don't know that this is strictly a utensil.

Pounced! [12 Hivvem 4260]

Pazi-Pazi is stalking me again. She has learned, I believe, to note when I have sipped brandy, and am thus at my clumsiest and most vulnerable. This is an important skill of cats in the wild, who frequently order tiny chalices of brandy, anonymously, for mice, and eat them afterwards. [This is absolutely not true, though Sythyry certainly has been at the brandy. -bb]

Dustweed washed zir clothes, and hung two tunics from the beams over the fireplace. Pazi-Pazi lurked behind one of them, perched on the mantelpiece, and leaped out to knock me to the ground when I flew (not a bit wobbly!) to bed. As a natural consequence of this, Dustweed's white tunic has a beautiful, elegant, stylish Zi Ri breath-burn across most of the left back side. Furthermore, by some injustice, it is I, not Pazi-Pazi, who must pay to buy Dustweed another tunic.

Sneaky Veffu, the mouse who caused us to let Pazi-Pazi into our hearts and mantelpieces, has only been spotted three or four times. Specifically, Havune has taken to snuffling around in the back of the pantry, and once in a while catches a mousical whiff. I believe that our Evil Neighbors are breeding them, training them, and sending them over to devour our dried beans and pickled peppered caterpillars. We have not yet learned which neighbors are the Evil Neighbors. However, they are not expert at evil, for they have not provided any of the Sneaky Veffus with tiny pry bars with which to open glass bottles of pickled peppered caterpillars.

Public Displays of Levitation [12 Nivvem 4260]

Three blocks from here, and not far from Flooosh's bakery, a new Yistreian restaurant named "Tamvaus" has opened. Ghirbis Vlaan, one of my Evil Neighbors, is from Yistreia. She invited Thery and me to try it out with her -- perhaps as evidence that Yistreain cuisine does not consist entirely of mice. (She incidentally asserts that neither she nor the other Evil Roommates are breeding mice in their apartment, nor are they sending Sneaky Veffu over to our place to scout us, devour our precious beans, and soften us up for conquest. A likely story!)

For those of you who do not know, Yistreian food is, indeed, based primarily on mice. The very first appetizer on the menu was red mice marinated in port and pepper, and grilled on a skewer. Ghirbis was properly embarrassed. Thery, disloyally, pointed out that mice did not appear anywhere else on the menu. A likely story! I am sure that Tamvaus will start slipping mice into every dish, once they have the Secret Evil Teleport Gate to Yistreia properly set up in their pantry.

Although, Yistreian food is fearsome enough without the mice. Many dishes involve arhoolie leaves, which are pungent and spicy and fill the mouth with a spiky blue-orange pain. Ghirbis asserts that one is not supposed to eat a whole arhoolie leaf at once, especially if one has a very small mouth, but she did not see fit to warn me before I took that bite. Thery, disloyally, says that anyone who breathes fire should be able to eat arhoolie leaves comfortably. She is wrong.

Nonetheless, the dish of triangular noodles in cream sauce with liver, bacon, and chiffonade of arhoolie, was actually pretty good. Just don't eat the whole arhoolie leaf garnish.

But the unfortunate thing about Tamvaus, if not about Yistreia as a whole, is that, where a reasonable restaurant would have chairs at the table, Tamvaus has short stools upholstered in complicated red-and-blue brocades. This is a serious problem, and, I am sure, another part in the Plan of Yistreian Conquest. It means that I cannot have the waiter turn the chair around so that I can perch on the back of it and reach the table. Since the tables were small and the plates were large, there was barely room for all the food, and certainly not for the Zi Ri. So I had to levitate while I was eating, which is always awkward and pretentious.

Dustweed was invited, but zie did not come with us. Zie had a dinner date with Tethezai. Things are definitely improving there, in the sense that being executed three times and then imprisoned for life is an improvement over being executed three times and then buried alive. [Resurrection of the recently-slain is fairly easy on the World Tree, and corporal punishment is common; repeated execution is a standard penalty for many serious crimes. -bb] Dustweed was not in zir tears after the date, which I find quite remarkable. Zie did corner me for a long conversation about the practicalities of transaffection, though. Zie doesn't seem to actually be interested in Tethezai as a lover, but zie seems fairly convinced that zie will never get an offer from another Herethroy, much less two other Herethroy, so zie is considering taking Tethezai up on her not-quite-stated interest. Zie is, reasonably enough, worried about what kind of trouble zie will be in if zie is openly transaffectionate on top of whatever sort of curse or bad reputation zie already has. It is not clear to me that zie can make zir situation much worse than it already is. Zie did not appreciate that point of view, but zie did not argue too much.

(Note to self: when talking to Dustweed, do not say that the other Zi Ri in Vheshrame are less pleased with me than the other Herethroy are with zir. It is not true. Hezimmikainen did, certainly, make me live on my own. But the other Herethroy occasionally are moved to actual violence against Dustweed. I wonder what zie did...)

The Spontaneous Unplanned Annual Library Riot [13 Hivvem 4260]

It would be traditional, I suppose, to rant long and loudly about the wickedness of librarians. Each year on this day, there is a traditional spontaneous unplanned annual riot in front of the Vheshrame Ducal Library, in which students burn books and destroy paintings. Well, after the first traditional spontaneous unplanned annual riot some thirty years ago, the books have been made of waste papers sewed together the night before.

Mine was notes for papers of last term, plus a few old broadsheets which I found in a large stack in the corner of the kitchen, which some Herethroy has neglected to throw out, ever, since zie moved in, despite the chore list. I titled it, "Dialogs on the Posterior Atmosphere" [A play on "Dialogs on the Interior Atmosphere", a classic work of World Tree philosophy. -bb].

I do wonder what will happen if the library fee is ever revoked, as the students have been demanding these last three decades. A third of a lozen [approx three US$ -bb] a few times a week to go and read isn't that terrible for me (Hezimmikainen is no longer so annoyed with me that zie won't give me pocket money), but some significant fraction of the studentry are fifth children, or scions of impoverished nobility who have mortgaged their ancestral holdings for the tuition, or farmers's daughters or tailors' sons sent here on a scholarship by some lord or other who pays the large bills but neglects the small ones.

In any case, it was a fairly fun traditional spontaneous unplanned annual riot. There were spontaneous, unplanned, incendiary speeches by many students, many of them with extensive footnotes and spontaneous, unplanned, incendiary three-page handouts.

The administration, as personified by Dean Carsnell, presented their rebuttal. The basic logic of the rebuttal was "No, we shall not remove the fee; we shall crush any sign of protest beneath our iron boots, like a Zi Ri's forepaw." If I had antennae or external ears they would be permanently flat! Still, I was paraded around as a symbol or mascot of student resistance, on a few Orren shoulders, and even asked to set some books alight for the subsidiary bonfires.

(The main bonfire, as is traditional at spontaneous unplanned annual library fee riots, was ignited accidentally when someone accidentally shoved an uninvolved student who happened to be walking through the riot area without noticing it, who tripped and fell upon one end of a board, which was balanced on another board, which flipped some other student's pen knife out of its sheath, which went flying into the air, severing a rope which held a torch on the side of Gimbestical Hall, which landed on an open bottle of lamp oil just as, elsewhere, three enraged students threw three textbooks (evidently about last month's news) at three professors who nimbly dodged them so the textbooks landed on the oil just about when the torch did.)

Some senior students happened, by some surprising coincidence, to have a gigantic sugar-cake model of the library on a huge plank. Flooosh was smirking --- Flooosh happened to show up, despite she's not a student and works some distance away from the library.

When I got back home, Dustweed had tied a handkerchief to our bedroom's doorknob. Later that evening, when the handkerchief came off, Tethezai was smelled leaving the building. (By Havune -- Tethezai isn't so pungent that the non-Cani can smell her! Unless Dustweed's gotten a detailed sniff.) Dustweed absolutely refused to discuss the incident, though.

Other People's Drama [14 Hivvem 4260]

Spirshash showed up here far, far after midnight, with sparks, or at least metaphors, shooting out of his ears. He had a fight with Tillissa, which ended up with him throwing a bowl of salmon in cumin paste at her.

The story is very confusing. They seem to be fighting for a great many reasons, which do not actually make much sense to me. This is Spirshash's side of things. I daresay Tillissa is not such a fiend as he portrays.

• Last month, Tillissa painted some very unpleasant artistic howling Rassimel heads on their living room wall. She agreed to paint them over, but she never did. (I've seen them -- they're hideous!)
• Spirshash likes cumin. A lot. Tillissa does not like cumin very much. One recent week when Tillissa was spending lots of time studying, Spirshash did a lot of the cooking, and mostly made cuminated fishes, which Tillissa is not fond of. She didn't tell him she hated it 'til the end of the week. This discussion, at the end, resulted in him tossing the dinner at her and storming out of the apartment.
• Spirshash banged his knee hard in a pond. Tillissa keeps slapping him on it with her tail. (She does slap people a lot with her tail generally.)
• Tillissa borrowed his formal kilt without asking him. It came back spotted with quendry wine. She refused to clean it, saying that it was spotted when she got it. Spirshash says she's lying.
• Tillissa and Spirshash were in one or another of the drama clubs. Tillissa got the Orren lead. Spirshash is taking three roles (one of them Cani), with a total of eight lines between them. Tillissa evidently mocks Spirshash considerably for this.

None of this sounds particularly serious to me, except for the flying salmon. Spirshash seems quite upset with it, though. I fed him brandy, and some of Havune's leftovers since his dinner had become a weapon, and tucked him in on the couch when he went to sleep.

In other other peoples' drama: Tethezai has (1) painted Dustweed a quite glorious green, with many spiraling vines climbing up zir spikes and down zir limbs; (2) convinced Dustweed to wear a very short kilt and not much else, and walk around the art building; and (3) claimed a rather incendiary kiss from zir -- their first one -- in front of her art professor's office. With the professor watching. And four or five other people. Dustweed was crying again, but this time because zie's afraid people will think that zie's transaffectionate, which isn't very good for a Herethroy.

And for drama in my own life: I put too many big textbooks on top of too many small textbooks. There was a bookslide. My best ribbons got crushed. I shall have to have them pressed before I wear them. I consider this an acceptable level of drama for me.

Fear Every Orren Baker! [15 Hivvem 4260]

Tomorrow is Thery's birthday. Yarwain and I are the chief conspirators. (Ordinarily Havune would, since he's the Cani, but he and Thery are still not on the best of terms.) Yarwain is doing most of the arrangements. But -- foolishly! -- I said, "I'll get the cake, for Flooosh is my friend." (Flooosh, of course, is an Orren who runs the bakery nearby. Her actual name is Floosh, but we howl or moan it to tease her.)

So, quite foolishly, I flew to Flooosh's shop in midmorning, bought two poptaloops, sat in the open oven to eat them, and said, "Flooosh! It is Thery's birthday tomorrow. Make me a cake suitable for a Rassimel for her and a dozen other assorted primes!"

Flooosh is dangerous and devastating. She simply said, "Sure thing, Sythyry."

I just went to pick up the cake. It is a very reasonable cake, with dried fruit and all, and a tub of syrup to pour over it ... and the words "Happy Birthday Teltheryan" on it ... except that the words are curled around and over a distinctly gormless and extravagant blue sugar Zi Ri.

I asked her, "Flooooooosh? Didn't I order a birthday cake for Thery?"

And Flooosh answered, "Yes, indeed you did, Sythyry. That is the reason that I wrote 'Happy Birthday Teltheryan' on it."

So I asked, "Floooosh? Why am I on the birthday cake for Thery?"

And Floooosh answered, "Because I helpfully and conveniently did exactly what you ordered, Sythyry."

So I asked, "Floooosh? If I were putting someone on a birthday cake for Thery, wouldn't it be better to be Thery herself, or perhaps her boyfriend?"

And Flooosh answered, "I did wonder the same thing myself while I was making it, but you distinctly asked me for you on the cake, Sythyry. So I presume it was some sorcerous peculiarity or Zi Ri strangeness."

So I asked, "Floooosh? Exactly what and how did I ask you to make a cake with a blue Zi Ri on it?"

And Floooosh answered, "You said, 'Make me a cake.'"

I think it's about time for me to swear off of Orren for life again.

(P.S. the next day: at the actual party, just after I rather embarrassedly showed off the Zi Ri cake and had to explain it and get many teasings from many people, Flooosh showed up with a more respectable birthday cake, with a sugar image of Thery smooching the goddess Mircannis. Thery and Yarwain were smirking intensely, and I saw the glint of amber. I believe there was more plotting involved than just me and Yarwain.)

(OOC: Vicki who sorta plays Floosh, just made me a small pile of nifty Sythyry pins for use at Jersey Devil Con or other events. Stop by and get one! Suprise limited! Void where prohibited!)

(OOC P.S.: The phrase "Void where prohibited" always seems to be to be a command to use the opposite sex's restroom. Obey me at your own risk!)

Unfair! [16 Hivvem 4260]

It is entirely unfair (to me) that Dustweed should collect a lover before I do. Dustweed has lurked alone in apartment and library. I have been to many social engagements, and Flirtatious Dancing. Dustweed is quiet, withdrawn, sullen, and morose; I am active, friendly, pleasant, and cheerful. Dustweed is, by all accounts, unattractive even to zir own species; I am ... well, I can be honest in my journal. I've never met a Zi Ri who wasn't a relative. But everyone says I'm fairly appealing. Dustweed isn't even looking for a lover. Tethezai simply showed up and collected zir.

It is entirely unfair (to Dustweed) that, having collected a lover, zie remains quiet, withdrawn, sullen, and morose. Sobbing, even. Not because of anything Tethezai did. The brief summary I heard suggested that Tethezai is skillful (which everyone suspected, as Tethezai is reputed to have left many footprints of satisfied lovers of all species but her own and mine) -- and also that Tethezai is kind (which I, for one, did not expect).

It is even more unfair (to me) that Dustweed should choose me as the one to cry on from this event. The exact story behind the tears was not clear at the time, but this is what zie said, roughly in order.

1. Zie does like Tethezai. A lot.
2. Zie doesn't love Tethezai. Indeed, zie doesn't think that zie can love a non-Herethroy.
3. Nonetheless, zie is having a relationship with Tethezai from ears to knees. (Zir phrasing, not mine. Zie didn't explain what zie has against Tethezai's toes. I am not clear on which portions of Tethezai's tail it includes, either. Nonetheless, certain crucial regions definitively fall between ears and knees, so I don't think we can have too much doubt there.)
4. Zie is ashamed of indulging bodily with Tethezai despite not actually loving her.
5. Zie felt some terrible combination of flattered and shoved into bed. Zie doesn't think that any Herethroy would ever be interested ("except a horrid one," whatever that may mean).
6. In consequence, zie considers zirself foolish and weak-willed.
7. Zie can't hope for any sort of enduring relationship with Tethezai, who is a libertine and will surely change interests by the middle of next term, if not sooner.
8. Zie doesn't want an enduring relationship with Tethezai, due to the unbearable social difficulty of Herethroy-nonHerethroy matches.
9. Having finally tasted physical affection, zie does not want to be without it for the rest of her zir life.
10. Other Herethroy all hate zir, unfair as that may be.
11. And, at this point, zie must flatten zir antennae to zir scalp and abruptly excuse zirself to go cry on Thery instead.

I presume I somehow offended zir. I know that zie somehow offended me. Perhaps I was a touch flippant with a response or two (e.g., recommending that zie enjoy the affection for what it is worth). But I was really trying to be as kind and helpful as I could! In any case i have nothing to do with all Herethroy hating her!

It is grossly, hideously unfair to importune upon a roommate with weeping, and then to flee before one can be properly comforted. Next time I shall ... shall ... I shall sit upon zir shoulder, coil my tail around zir neck, and refuse to be dislodged by any moral or social arguments.

Oh, and it's also rather unfair that all nobles are given a three-day extension on their Famous Collections report -- officially because many of them are required to spend a half-day in attendance at the Ducal palace the day the report is due, and the professor does not want to convene a makeup session of the class. However, the way that it was phrased, everyone who can legitimately use a title gets the extension, not just the people whose presence is commanded to the palace. (Some soap-merchant's son who is a margrave in Morthavon (on Aradrueia) asked about that -- it's not even a real title; they barely have proper lesser nobility there, just rich people who can buy fancy words for themselves.) I will not complain about this particular bit of unfairness: if a soap-merchant margrave qualifies for it, then Hezimikkainen's sibling surely does as well.

Both-Female [17 Hivvem 4260]

The four of us, plus Yarwain, were eating dinner together tonight. I had the ill consideration to say of Dustweed, "The only way zie could be less popular with Herethroy is if zie was a both-female." This elicited quite an intense reaction: a careful and clearly intentional changing of the topic from everyone at the table.

"A digression upon Herethroy both-females for those who claim to know nothing about them."

A surprising and little-known fact: Zi Ri are not the only hermaphrodites among the primes. We are not even the most common hermaphrodites among the primes. I knew this in theory, of course. I never expected to pay it any attention in practice.

For those of you who pretend to be monsters, remember that six of the eight prime species have two sexes (male and female, though I don't imagine 'male' for a Khtsoyis is the same as 'male' for a Cani). Zi Ri are all hermaphrodites. (For those imagining exotic tangled geometries of organs and appendages, go look at an anatomy book and observe the elegant reality.) And Herethroy have three or possibly four sexes: male (20%), female (50%), and co-lover (30%).

And the "possibly four" is the Herethroy hermaphrodite: the both-female, who may operate as either a female or as a co-lover. There are very few both-females; perhaps one birth in a thousand, or in ten thousand. There are still more both-females than Zi Ri, simply because there are so many Herethroy.

Now, females are the strong common ones in Herethroy society, the workers and generally the ones in charge. [Humans can consider them "masculine". -bb] Co-lovers are the gentle maternal ones, also the beautiful attractive ones. [Humans can consider them "feminine". -bb] (Males, of course, are in the middle, but that's neither here nor there.) This leaves both-females in rather an awkward position, just in principle.

That's in principle. In practice, it's worse.

Herethroy don't like both-females, not at all. They generally make them act as females. It is an ordinary thing for a female Herethroy to never get married, and simply be relegated to a life of fieldwork and occasional snatched adultery (though both-females would only get the fieldwork) -- I think that as many as one woman in five winds up that way. (Males marry twice, co-lovers once or twice, females once or not at all. Official village marriages are all heterosexual and capable of breeding, around here at least.)

I think they were created for the irony of it. They can do right by any Herethroy ... but no Herethroy wants them. This is not official Virid theology of course.

(As an aside: the both-females who are not made to act as females are generally killed at birth.)

Back to the story

I asked Dustweed about it later, when we were both in bed. (To be specific: zie was in zir bed, and I was draped artistically over a smoldering log in the fireplace. I do not want it thought that I share a bed with Dustweed.) I suppose that one rarely asks such a question unless one knows the answer. In any case, zie is one.

I am very nearly the last person in Vheshrame to learn about it. Every Herethroy knows, of course -- perhaps they can tell by some subtle signs that Dustweed cannot or will not conceal, or perhaps zie is simply notorious. Havune and every Cani can tell instantly, by zir scent. I don't know how Thery and Yarwain found out; perhaps one of them was here two years ago when it became a matter of public scandal.

Dustweed didn't want to tell me. I think zie is just a touch jealous: we are both hermaphrodites, but oh! how very, very different! Also, zie somehow got the impression that I am fussy about certain niceties. When I refused at the last moment to accept Iska into the apartment, Dustweed realized that zie might do best not to bring zir deformity to mention.

And I am afraid that zie was right.

I imagine I should be more pleased if Dustweed were simply a both-female who knew zir place and acted female and stays aside. But Dustweed is not that both-female. Dustweed has decided that zie is better suited to the co-lover's lot in life -- and indeed, zie looks much more the co-lover than the female -- and chooses to dress and comport zirself as one. Zie is the firstborn child of a Great Baron, from a region with a long and unshakeable tradition of primogeniture, and so zie has rank and wealth enough to protect zirself and do what zie wishes, society be damned. And zie is cursed with a strong degree of personal pride and self-determination.

So, wherever Dustweed goes, scandal goes as well. Scandal in the subtle bitter Herethroy style, which a rather more energetic Zi Ri might well miss.

Dustweed's side of the story.

That is why Dustweed's parents gave zir such an unappealing name.

That is why Dustweed is so unpopular among Herethroy. Zie is a both-female, and hence, perforce, unpopular. Zie is not willing to do what proper both-females are supposed to do, and hence squaredly unpopular. And zie is, at some point, going to rule several villages -- and what could possibly be worse than being ruled by a both-female? -- and hence cubedly unpopular.

That is why Dustweed will never be able to marry. Zie can hardly marry much beneath zir class. Yet, who of zir class or anywhere close to it would marry a both-female?

That is why Dustweed is so distressed about Tethezai. Tethezai enjoys zir because zie is both-female. Not to put too fine a point on it, Tethezai is a libertine -- and a libertine's libertine. Dustweed would prefer to be loved as a co-lover, or, perhaps, simply as a person. One may consider this overly fussy, as zie is unlikely to be loved for much at all, but one should certainly appreciate the desire. Tethezai's first interest in Dustweed is more that of a Rassimel collector to an exotic specimen.

That is why other Herethroy occasionally assault Dustweed. Zie is a rebel against the true and proper order of Herethroy society.

My side of the story

I am rather distressed by this. I had of course wanted to have some nice straightforward lesser nobility for apartment mates. (You remember Iska, whom I refused rather rudely for being too foreign and common.) Now it turns out that my roommate -- not simply my apartment mate, but my very roommate -- is a rebel and tradition-breaker of the most insidious sort short of actually doorwaying or some actual crime.

I gather that my half-sister long ago decided that I chose Dustweed as roommate intentionally, with full knowledge (for it was a matter of some public note, two years before I came to Vheshrame), as a specific act of rebellion and defiance. I doubt that I will ever persuade zir otherwise.

What does one do in a situation such as this?

I fear that I temporized: I made my apologies for my comment that Dustweed may have found ungracious, and even listened sympathetically to such of zir life's story as zie saw fit to tell me in the dark, much after every bedtime. I imagine that I should have done something rather different and dramatic -- storming from the apartment in a flutter of wings and raspy tail, breathing flames into the midnight air. I thought about that for some while, but the thought of getting out of a nice warm bed simply as a matter of etiquette seemed too much work. By now the moment has passed... and in any case clearing my name of association with Dustweed's will probably take years.

Disclaimer

[OOC comment: no, this isn't you. No, it's not you either. It's not even me. This is just the story that was tickling around in the back of my head when that confusing line from the World Tree book "Herethroy have three (or arguably four) genders" trickled out of my fingertips many years ago, and I had to make sense of it somehow. --bb]

[Other OOC comment: Bard does not agree with Sythyry's rather prejudiced, racist and classist views. --bb]

Dustweed didn't meet my eyes this morning. Perhaps zie expects me to blast zir with some horrible spell or instrument of my grandfather's. (In point of fact, I thought about it, but only briefly and in the sort of way one considers suicide, or reading the mind of the Orren you hope to sleep with, or some other horrid act.) Zie hurried out of the apartment without eating, without talking. If I ever decide to apologize, it had best include the price of breakfast.

Havune was not so careful. Havune knew that I was upset -- there is no hiding any such thing from a Cani -- but he did not suspect why. The conversation went roughly as follows:

Sythyry:Why didn't you tell me?

Havune:[Blinking sleepily] Because it's not my business?

Sythyry:That's foolish and inconsiderate.

Havune:Or, perhaps, because you have not paid me the traditional go-between's fee? Or even let me finish making my morning kathia?

Sythyry:What are you talking about?

Havune:Spirshash's latest escapade, or course.

Sythyry:Don't be ridiculous.

Havune:[Peering closely at me.]What are you talking about?

Sythyry:Dustweed.

Havune:Oh, Dustweed. Dustweed's getting quite seriously involved with Tethezai. Be glad: you might get a room without an actual roommate sleeping in it now and then.

Sythyry:[breathing fire in Havune's general direction, though not getting close to him] No, about Dustweed being both-female.

Havune:[menacing me with a pot of water]Stop that. What more do you need to know about it?

Sythyry:Why didn't you tell me a long time ago?

Havune:You didn't know?

Sythyry:No.

Havune:How odd. Sythyry, you are a marvel and a gleaming paladin of cluelessness.

At which point I flew out of the apartment, also without breakfast. I consulted with Laryn Moorbent, who holds affan in matters of decorum in the ducal palace -- or, rather, I sent Moorbent a brief note and got a rather flatulent answer [See letters after last journal entry.]

Much later, after I slept through two classes, Tethezai cornered me in the buttery. She very politely and gently urged me to at least be civil to Dustweed, even if actual friendliness evades me. Official manners recommends that she threaten me at this point, typically with social difficulties -- Tethezai's family is sufficently influential to cause me various minor troubles, should they wish to -- but she quite oddly didn't.

The threat actually very suitable, and almost incidental. If I make Dustweed too miserable, zie will have to move out; Tethezai will, in need, provide zir a place to live. This leaves me paying more rent than I can afford, or grovelling at my ~sister~, or some other such unpleasantness. I can't imagine Havune or Thery being terribly helpful on the rent, if I have driven Dustweed out.

And the really odd thing, all day was that there was no really odd thing all day. Everyone else in Vheshrame knows about Dustweed; it is last years' news. Nobody but Herethroy cares any more, and even for them it is down to the point of habit rather than active concern.

I am entirely at a loss.

Something Dreadful [18 Hivvem 4260]

I did something dreadful today.

I was running around all day about this matter of Dustweed. (I am temporarily obsessed with it. Anyone who says that Orren manners have rubbed off on me is probably right.) I consulted with the priests. Well, one priest and two graduate students in Applied Theology.

The priest and one grad student say that Virid never intended there to be both-females, that it was a divine oversight. Not as serious as the mistake that created the Khtsoyis (which was Accanax absolutely screwing up). She decided to share certain anatomical features between female and co-lover, which opened the possibility of, in a few cases, some other anatomical features getting shared by mistake: hence both-females. The (Herethroy) priest said that in all likelihood the mistake was harmless but that it probably a good idea to kill both-females at birth just in case, and certainly never wise to put them in positions of authority. The (Rassimel) student said that both-females were no more suitable in polite society than Khtsoyis, and that hence the usual Herethroy treatment of them was as good as anything else.

The other grad student (also Rassimel) denied the possibility that Virid made a mistake on anything as important to her as the Herethroy. She hinted at evidence that Virid had, in fact, created the Herethroy some long time before, and was well used to their structure and possible birth defects. (The main piece of evidence was their wide range of variation -- but the same goes for Zi Ri, and I've never heard anyone suggest that we were made before the World Tree. But our creator god is more creative than Virid. Very confusing. This is why I am not a theology student.) She went on to present evidence that (1) Virid didn't care one way or the other about any Herethroy's sex and neither should we, and (2) Virid specifically intends that Herethroy despise both-females.

At times, theology is not very helpful.

I also checked on some laws. In Vheshrame, there is a legal category of Proper Citizen, which includes all Herethroy. (Also all Cani, Rassimel, and Zi Ri; and all Orren who have broken fewer than eight contracts; and all Gormoror who have neither broken their Word of Honor nor killed anyone other than Gormoror or Khtsoyis. Sleeth and Khtsoyis can petition the Duke to be considered Proper Citizens. Theology was bad enough, but law is considerably worse.) In any case, ordinary laws about inheritance, lynching, trials, and all those things apply to all Proper Citizens. So in Vheshrame, which is what matters, Dustweed's title is assured, and the Herethroy who live in zir villages have the right to run zir out of town if zie actually tries to rule them, but not to refuse to pay the rents they owe zir. And any Herethroy who kills zir will be guilty of murder, if anyone bothers to bring them to trial. I am not sure if zie can count on zir parents to do that. Tethezai might, I suppose.

I also checked with the masters of etiquette and nobles' affairs. The general result was that both-female nobles should be treated like any other nobles with an incorrigible tendency towards wicked and criminal activity but whose deeds were not suitable for legal action: zie should be shunned whenever possible, and given zir perquisites whenever necessary.

When I got home, though, Dustweed apologized to me for not warning me what I was getting into when I moved in. It was not even a matter of shame, not 'til later. Zie was desparate; zie needed roommates in a hurry. Zie had two apartment mates agreeing to move in, but one got married by surprise and the other never came back to the academy.

So I said, "Think nothing of it."

I evidently was thinking nothing of it myself. I was so tired from a full day of research on what to do that I didn't remember who I was doing that research about, or what I had come up with.

The next time I am so very much a fool, I do hope it's over some appealing Orren or other. And I hope I get more than a spread-antennaed smile out of it. Though Dustweed is not known to smile all that often.

And never, ever think that I had intended to accept an apology this lightly. Really.

So now I am in considerable trouble. I can hardly continue to take offense at the deception, having already accept an apology for it. And, absent a personal offense, I can hardly storm out in anger, quickly or slowly, or take revenge when nothing suitable remains to taking revenge for.

So I suppose I am now restricted to "shunning wherever possible, and giving zir zir perquisites wherever necessary". Though exactly what that may mean when we're sharing a room for another few months is not something I am in a hurry to ask the masters of etiquette and nobles' affairs, much less the theology graduate students.

Havune's reaction to this: "Ah. Very convenient for you, Sythyry." I must re-emphasize that it was a simple mistake, caused by inappropriate haste of speaking, and not what I would have done had I spent a further twenty-seventh part of a second thinking about my words.

Havune didn't believe that when I said it either. My next free Enchantment project shall be a talisman that hides my scent, so I get at least a little privacy from Cani not-quite-mind-magic, or mind not-quite-magic, or whatever it is best called.

Squirming Back Towards Normal [19 Hivvem 4260]

Today I found an envelope stuffed under our door, marked, "to Sythyry, who has begun to understand." It contained a large-page tract explaining the theological and traditional justification for the execution of both-females at any time it is convenient. The arguments within held up against my reason and my historical understanding, though the tract itself did not hold up against my breath weapon.

[Large-page: printers in Vheshrame generally get sheets of paper big enough for sixteen or more ordinary pages, print the entire sheet, and cut them up. Sometimes the whole sheet is used without being cut, as in this case.]

The rest of the day proceeded much more pleasantly. Prof. Yrrkyrr brought in selections from the former Duke's collection of animated curios. One most excellent talisman, in the form of an ivory Cani warrior on a charger only slightly bigger than me, was not only animate and not only sentient, but sensible as well. When Nestrune criticized its clothing as being thoroughly out of date, it drew a tiny ivory toothpick of a sword and assaulted his boots using it as a pointer -- "Upon your left boot there is a wine-stain there *THWACK*! And an application of mismatching boot-paint there *THWACK*! And a spotted miscoloration upon the toe, that can only be the result of your misdirected micturation, there *THWACK*!' Not only sensible, but it exhibits good taste in choice of victim!

Prof. Yrrkyrr seems to be in some sort of trouble, though. Strenata complained about the noble's extension. Yrrkyrr told her that his actions were in accordance with Academy policy: favorable treatment given to one person must be given to everyone of equal or higher rank. "If you had truly wanted an extension, you should have chosen to be born a noble," he said.

"You could have given everyone an extension," she said. "You still could."

"It appears that I should not," he said. After class the Cani were muttering about how angry he smelled. "If I had truly wanted to behave equitably, I should have been born far from Vheshrame." And that was the end of the matter.

I realize I haven't mentioned Strenata before. She is an Orren student, as tall as a Herethroy, and thoroughly sprinkled with lilac spots. I had met her before -- one of Spirshash's parties, perhaps? -- but this term she is taking both Famous Collections and Spelunking. After class, seven or eight of us complained to each other in unison outside the Green Tile Classroom, and she smiled most pleasantly to me, and I to her.

If she hasn't heard too much about my unfortunate choice of roommate, perhaps I shall have more to write about Strenata in suitable time.

Soup [20 Hivvem 4260]

For those of you who claim to be monsters and are perpetually denied the finer pleasures of Vheshrame ... don't feel bad. The Sloop In Soup is not one of the finer pleasures of Vheshrame. It is a home restaurant. One of the restauranteurs -- I think the Herethroy one, but it might be the Orren -- owns a tallish, narrowish building on the corner of Murzerpherzon and Vine, in the heart of the neighborhood of poor students and poor people in general. The Herethroy lives on the top floor apartment, with, as far as I can tell, a Cani who is more than simply a roommate, but less than nothing in the eyes of her clan anymore. The Orren lives on the next floor. The two floors under that are full of tables and waiters and students and whomevers and soup.

Lots of soup.

Lots of reasonably adequate soup.

Lots of reasonably adequate soup, mostly served "a la sloop", which is the restaurant's way of saying, "with a big thick oval slice of hosh toast covered in lots and lots of butter floating on it".

Which is to say, a fairly hungry and fairly penurious Orren can come here after a long swim, and call for a bowl of trout and lobster chowder a la sloop, and be quite well fed on cheap but very filling stuff for a third of a lozen. Or, of course, a fairly hungry Zi Ri can come here after a class, and call for a quarter-bowl of trout and lobster chowder raw -- no sloop -- and still not be able to finish it.

So here is the tally:

Claryelle was not particularly friendly to me, as she never has been. I noted with displeasure a few barbs tossed at me about the company I keep, as I vaguely remember from before. I don't think she's talking about Spirshash, though. Yarwain got a couple of those as well. I don't think I would have noticed particularly, last week. This does not please me greatly: my choice of roommate has made me disliked amongst a great fraction of my social class.

It doesn't seem to have done too badly for me among some of the lower classes, though. Strenata sat next to me and we chatted about: the habits of trout; the objects that seabirds bring to their nests to amuse their young; the theoretical possibilities of what flying trout would bring to their hypothetical nests to amuse their young; the theoretical possibility of making Claryelle fly to see what she would bring to her nest to amuse her young ... and that was the first third of an hour only. She is very, very Orren.

Oh, she is very very Orren, indeed. Her soup contained an adequate number of scallops, a respectable amount of turnips, a decent number of onions, and an almost vulgar amount of chard, but only a single leek. This offended Strenata's sensibilities! She then and there changed her name to Seeks-Leeks.

She seems to change her name at the drop of a hat, or at any rate at the drop of a leek. Her friends are quite used to it, and duly noted it without any particular alarm. Yarwain wrote "Seeks-Leeks" on a scrap of paper and stuck it in her hatband. (I asked later -- Strenata is her family name, which she is called whenever anyone is unsure of what her personal name may be, which is often.)

I have promised her a leek tart at Tulterillo's, which is beyond her usual budget.

Yarwain privately recommended that I bring her there sooner than later. She is unlikely to seek leeks for long.

(And when I got home, I discovered that Tethezai had painted Dustweed a rather impressive shiny orange. Later in the evening, a surreptitious and well-timed glance revealed that there were handmarks and whiskermarks in the paint, here and there; Tethezai had evidently not waited quite long enough for it to dry.)

The Seeker of Leeks [21 Nivvem 4260]

My Date With Seeks-Leeks Strenata

Tulterillo's makes a fine leek tart. It is not the leek custard tart that is traditional in much of the region, which is a piecrust filled with egg custard, diced smoked dried caterpillars, and shredded leeks. That would be traditional, and Tulterillo's is not about tradition. It is about innovation. Which is why I brought Seeks-Leeks there.

This leek tart is a thin pastry crust (flavored with smoked dried caterpillars), covered in a medium-sized hill of sauteed leeks, sprinkled with vicious cheese, and pressed under a heavy board before it gets broiled.

You can, if you are brave, cut a slice of it and turn it upside-down and wave it in the air, and it will almost entirely stay together. Fortunately, two little curls of leek will fly off and lodge in the neck-ruff of Judge Pelchergrey Mesidion-Porgue, who is dining upon potted flounder with her husband three tables over.

Fortunate? Yes, fortunate. This causes Seeks-Leeks to smirk and giggle and, after I tell her who she has beleeked, make puns about the legal system. [They don't translate, which is fortunate. -bb]

She is not the most serious or respectful Orren that I have ever met. Next time, I shall ask to ride home on her shoulder, and we shall see what we shall see.

Dustweed's Date With Tethezai

Tethezai took Dustweed home to meet her parents. Dustweed was, of course, terrified that they should interrogate zir, demand to know how dare zie sleep with their daughter, how dare zie sully their daughter's reputation by mingling it with zir own?

The reality was even more terrifying.

They treated Dustweed like a Great Baron. They spent the whole afternoon making court talk. I do not mean High Court Talk, about literature and art and hunting and flirting and all those amusement. I mean very serious court talk, about alliances and economics and duel-wars and hate-wars and succession disputes in foreign cities and League politics. Poor Dustweed might have been able to handle the former -- zie has been in classes for a while, after all -- but zie has been too concerned with zir own matters to pay much attention to the larger ones. (Aren't students supposed to be self-absorbed? I'm pretty sure they told us that in the Firstmost Lecture.) Dustweed was utterly lost.

It seems they are used to their daughter.

I do understand that Tethezai made it up to Dustweed later on, with an afternoon of student performances and a dinner of godlike salads. Dustweed was actually smiling a bit when zie told me about the matter.

Thery's Date with Yarwain

It seemed like a pretty ordinary Thery's Date With Yarwain to me. In any case, it wasn't in our apartment.

Havune's Date With Three Or Four Other Cani

Since Thery was out, there was considerable barking going on in Havune+Thery's bedroom until moderately late. Details were not forthcoming. Actually details were not asked for.

[From a LJ poll] What do you do when your roommate is out for the evening? (Or, what would you do, were you sharing a room with a member of a different species?)

• Invite three or four conspecifics ["members of the same species"] over for non-forthcoming-details.
• Go to bed early, alone.
• Drink too much vodka.
• Study history.
• Study ways to make explosions.
• Study erotica.
• Write polemics against your roommate.
• Sleep in the bed rather than the fireplace for once.
• Hire a spare temporary roommate to avert loneliness.
• Wear improper garments.
• Faint in surprise at the circumstance which you had thought to be preposterous.
• Celebrate by going out to dinner alone.
• Celebrate by going out to dinner alone, and then wonder why, because you can do that when your roommate is there just as easily.

The Troubles of Nobles [22 Hivvem 4260]

After Famous Collections, sitting around a table at Square Nollie's -- oh, very well, I was sitting on the table -- Yarwain complained to Iska, Seeks-Leeks Strenata, and me about his latest difficulty. Yarwain is the heir to a Great Barony in Ulmarn, consisting of the villages of Quistma and Chalarre, and the Ulstramme valley where the finest fig-trees on all Choinxeia grow.

I cannot understand that barony. Quistma and Chalarre are on one side of Ulmarn Mene, and the Ulstramme is on the other. Quistma is a very ordinary-sounding Herethroy village -- so what is it doing being ruled by a Rassimel family who, evidently, lives there? Chalarre is a bigger place, half Rassimel and half Cani, where books are printed and little curled copper wires are harvested from the flowers of creeping vines -- it would seem the natural place for Yarwain's family to live, don't you think? Or even in the Ulstramme, which has a dozen little villages, Herethroy and Rassimel, plus any number of Orren riverbum families? Yarwain's mother is quite a substantial noblewoman, in any case -- comparable to Tethezai's parents. Yarwain and Tethezai are certainly strong contenders for the highest-titled parents of our social circle.

Thery, of course, is not. She is certainly a gentlewoman. She certainly has a title of sorts, though it is some sort of hereditary courtesy esquireship that comes from having an ancestor who was a second child of a second child of a second child of someone very important. Her family has served Countess Gloun for four generations. Not any sort of degrading or low service, this: the oa Vinnesses have been the Glouns' secretaries, their secret-holders, their accountants, their seneschals, their vicars, the ones who manage the Gloun's greatest estate and holding at Vellieu.

So, the oa Vinnesses rely on the support and sponsorship of the Glouns, and the Glouns rely on the faithful and long-term service of the oa Vinnesses. Thery is attending Vheshrame Academy with Countess Gloun's sponsorship and payment. In exchange, Thery will serve the Countess or her heir for thirty years [20 Earth years -bb]. In practice, it is expected that she will serve for life, as her mother and her grandfather and her great-grandfather and her great-great-grandmother did before her, and that her children and grandchildren will do the same.

So the difficulty is obvious. The course of Yarwain's life is charted in tight circles from one end of Ulmarn Mene to the other. The course of Thery's life is charted to follow Countess Gloun in her peregrinations around Vheshrame Mene. These two charts are separated by a skyboat voyage of some days' time, even when ulgrane do not interfere.

This somewhat limits their future together.

Seeks-Leeks looked rather annoyed at the whole story. "Ridiculous nobility capers! If I were you, Yarwain, I'd get Gloun to pay for my education, then toss fish entrails at the countess and fart in her face and run off with you."

Iska said, "That is what you will do if you are Thery, do you mean not?" Iska is very literal, and her conversational Ketherian is still not very good.

Yarwain shrugged. "It is hard to cheat your family's patron."

The two argued for some time. Strenata seems rather willing to do any sort of unpleasantness to any sort of noble, present company excepted. Yarwain is a balanced and reasonable sort. Iska is just plain foreign and probably shouldn't have been there at all.

At one point in the conversation, Yarwain said that Strenata's approach was rather that of a brigand. Strenata said, "And that's why my name is Brigandina." I am beginning to understand matters; while they were arguing, I wrote "Brigandina" on a bit of napkin and stuck it in Brigandina-formerly-Seeks-Leeks' hatband. She gave me a smile better than Spirshash's kiss!

In the end no conclusion was reached.

In other news: at home, well after dinner, Tethezai and Dustweed returned. They had been out walking in the park -- where, I suspect, the word "walking" is to be understood in a very generous sense indeed [not this time. -- bb] -- and came upon a family of respectable Herethroy out to inspect the butterflies in the Spiral Garden. The respectable Herethroy did what is only fitting and proper for respectable Herethroy to do, viz. the co-lover took their youngish children aside, and the man and woman scowled at Dustweed and Tethezai and urged them to depart.

Dustweed, I hear, started to. Tethezai, I hear, did not let zir.

Instead Tethezai created the illusion of a large and ferocious Fire Kitten, and roared it at the Herethroy.

(Aside: Tethezai is a respectable Illusidor mage, so only a very careful observer indeed would be able to tell by inspection of her spell that her Fire Kitten wasn't a real elemental. But anyone who knows the first thing about the spell will realize that it couldn't have been -- Fire Kittens must be conjured from existing fires, not thin air, and if the existing fire is not old enough, the elemental's eyes will not be open. Nobody at that scene seems to have known this important and obvious point, though.)

This, of course, the Herethroy interpreted as an assault with a deadly weapon. A deadly and ill-controlled weapon, as Fire Kittens are not terribly obedient elementals.

City guard were summoned! Dustweed and Tethezai outranked them! The Captain of the City Guard was summoned! Dustweed and Tethezai did not outrank her! Explanations were made! Apologies were made! Tethezai bought bound Remedy for Pyrador spells for each of the Herethroy, as a concrete apology! Dustweed and Tethezai were finally free to come home! Both are shaken, rattled, upset, beturmoiled!

I offered to sleep on the kitchen stove tonight. (Do not mistake this for approval of Dustweed. Tethezai is sufficiently important to be worth giving a favor or two here or there.)

They declined, though, and I slept in my fireplace as usual. I have to admit I am curious, and glanced over at Dustweed and Tethezai in bed several times. Tethezai, being a good deal shorter than Dustweed, is curled up in Dustweed's arms. Tethezai is wearing Dustweed's brown sleeping-robe, which looks quite silly with two empty sleeves. Dustweed is just wrapped a bit in blankets, probably to cushion Tethezai from zir hard and somewhat spiky carapace.

And that will have to do for today.

Drawing Water [24 Hivvem 4260]

Tethezai wakes up like a bound lightning bolt spell. One instant, she is curled up in Dustweed's arms. The next, she is standing on top of Dustweed, flomping zir face with her tail, demanding that zie arise on the instant to enlighten and astound the overly staid city.

Well, not quite that fast. A ninth of an hour, though, while it was taking me a third of an hour to feel like getting off my nice warm log and into a bucket of water to get the ashes off my feathers.

Except, of course, there is no bucket of water waiting for me today. I had forgotten to fill it last night. Since it is early in the day and I sometimes need a good deal of cley, I couldn't go and get one. (For the monsters: a bucket of water weighs somewhat less than I do, but it's pretty much impossible for me to even levitate carrying one, and walking with one is out of the question. So I have to (a) levitate the bucket with a separate spell, spending a cley, or (b) coax someone full-sized into carrying it for me, which is rarely possible before everyone has had their kathia. I don't quite feel comfortable asking Tethezai to do it.)

(Note to myself: When we get to doing enchantment projects, making a water talisman would be entirely sensible. Water-carrying or water-making, though?)

So I went outside to the public fountain for a bath. The usual early-morning line was there, students and poorfolk and such who don't have well-rooms in their homes, or who haven't been able to afford having them maintained and repaired. The neighborhood fountain is a simple thing, eight stylized ivory faces (predictably, one for each prime species) breathing water. Well, the Cani face is clogged completely and the Sleeth face is just dripping. And they didn't put the Zi Ri face up where nobody could reach it except Zi Ri, unfortunately.

There's a good reason why I don't go to the public fountain in the morning. The line was awfully long; I must have waited nine minutes for my bath. Also all the Cani in the neighborhood were howling and snapping at each other ... well ... three teenagers were having a contest for affan in water-drawing, behind me in line, and I nearly got stepped on.

And somebug said, "Zie's washing the Herethroy off," and somebug else laughed a lot and said "I'd scrub even harder than that!" Not the first time I've heard things like that ... but now I know they're talking about me.

This is not to be tolerated. But I don't know what to do about it.

Spare Roommate [25 Hivvem 4260]

Tethezai has, evidently, moved in. At least she spent last night in Dustweed's arms. Some might expect that having a Zi Ri in the fireplace watching -- or, at least, compelled to listen -- to their nocturnal adventures, would be an important addition for such a libertine as she. In fact, their nocturnal adventures have been either (1) very quiet and subtle, or (2) not happened at all. Or possibly they stunned me with a spell without my noticing, but I think not.

The other choice for them is worse. Last night they were together at Tethezai's home. Tethezai's parents made quite a point of installing "Lady Dustweed" in the Lavender Suite, sending maids to check on zir before zie fell asleep, and all of that. The Lavender Suite is close by the mother's bedroom, and has windows to outside and hall. The maids are Herethroy. Tethezai made, it is said, three essays to sneak there and collect some suitable privatude, but none was available.

Which brings me to the musing (or poll) of the morning: What Is Tethezai Thinking?

1. What is it when you choose your playmate on the basis of zir gender or some other (in this case) exotic feature?
   • Love
   • Lust
2. What is it when you bring your playmate home to your vicious parents?
   • Love
   • Lust
   • Cruelty
3. What is it when you want to sleep in the same bed as zir, even when there's no chance of anything worthwhile happening?
   • Love
   • Lust
   • Cruelty
   • Rebellion
4. What is it when you all but move in with zir, only without paying rent or doing chores or otherwise helping?
   • Love
   • Lust
   • Cruelty
   • Freeloading

Name of the Day [25 Hivvem 4260]

Brigandina Strenata was gracious enough to invite me to go riding with her this morning. (How does she come to have half a horse? She's not got enough money for half of its stabling! She didn't mention who the other owner was -- presumably that's who pays.) I didn't ride a horse; I perched on her shoulder, and curled my tail over her arm when she nipped the horse's ear and sent her into a gallop.

We took the Cyarr Road rollward four miles and more, to where the Greystark river crosses the Alamme. The Greystark is, of course, all grey with mud and silt, and comes from the edge of the branch. The Alamme is twice its size, and quite cold, and scented with world-sap, and ordinarily flows down the center of the branch or close enough.

The rivers cross, with the warm muddy Greystark slithering over the back of the cold perfumed Alamme like a smaller snake crossing a larger one. If you leap from your horse, and strip off your tunic and trowsers, and leap into the river, as Brigandina did, you can swim between the two rivers and try to mingle their waters. It will not work very well, though a few strands of muddy water are coursing down the Alamme, and a Cani might sniff the Greystark ten leagues downstream and smell sweet sap.

The two rivers cross at an Orren village inevitably named Crosston. Some former duke of Vheshrame, not as secure in his power as the current duke, built Fort Anastrense -- or, rather, hired a wizard whom I know to build it. The building of the fort is a pleasant manor house, save for six ballistas on its flat roof, and the envenomed gaze of its enchantments watching you from six miles away. The heart of the fort is a flock of white birds, gleaming like ivory, for ivory they are. We might not have noticed them, for they are hidden to the magic sense, save that we saw one fly out the chimney of the manor house.

I could not see what potencies they have, and grandparent never told me, but the history books know and the Crosston villagers remember: a peck with the beak which reaches to bone will turn all the victim's bones to lightning. The lucky ones die quickly from the lightning. The villagers laugh at this story, and tell about the mob of laughing, boneless Khtsoyis that took the fort in an afternoon of maceful fighting.

Brigandina and I ate pickled flounder rolled around water weeds atop Fort Anastrense, as the deadly birds flew overhead, and we leaned back against a siege engine scarred long ago by flame and by space-wrench, and she kissed me with the scent of fish on her breath, and she changed her name to Seeks-Feathers, and we rode back home.

I do wish she'd, oh, do an interpretive dance to clarify all relevant matters, or some such.

The Barking from Beyond the Threshold [25 Hivvem 4260]

Thery and Havune are fighting again. This time it is more even. Havune is distressed at filthy, oozing tunics (such as might have been worn for a full day by a fairly neat student) near his nice clean bed. Thery is offended at Havune's frequent moving and reshuffling of her papers, in particular, motions which hide books she is trying to read. Perhaps the book in question was on the shared easy chair by the fireplace, and perhaps it should not have been; in any case, one can understand Thery's displeasure to find it under her pillow. Or, more properly, not to find it until quite late in the day. Havune was reduced to a wordless barking fury.

I clattered my claws on their door. "O honored apartment mates, please to dispute with all available quietude."

"Shall we write our disputations upon waxboards, as tonguebonded acolytes of the Order of the Drangui?" said Thery.

"Um ... perhaps you could be more quiet," I asked.

"Perhaps we could be. It has been a while since Havune and I cooperated on any topic at all."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you need a mediator?"

Havune said, "Probably, but not you."

"Why not me?"

"Because you are a stinking little both-female lover; what do you think? We'll get Tethezai to mediate."

Dustweed, behind me in the living room, thumped zir hands on zir chest and laughed.

"No, because at least one of us will have to live with you for some while more, and best if that one isn't particularly annoyed with you," said Havune. "Cani families do that -- when two people quarrel, the family always finds someone who isn't married to either of them to mediate."

"Are you thinking of moving out?" asked Dustweed.

"Yarwain and I are trying to find a room together. We're not sure of the dates yet." said Thery.

Dustweed and I stared at each other. "I guess I can't blame you," zie said. "That would leave us with a bit of a problem."

"Finding another roommate for the rest of the year, yes."

There was much unhappy quietness, and much discussion of other options and possible dates and all such as that. Tethezai was proposed, but she Will Not Do. For one thing, Havune will not share a room with me (nor with Dustweed); he can't endure Thery's messiness, and we are both twelve times worse. For another thing, she doesn't want to leave her very comfortable home.

Questing for Feathers, Questing for Roommates [25 Hivvem 4260]

Where does one go, when one seeks feathers in Vheshrame? Or, if one is intending to impress someone else who does? The answer is obvious, if one is suitably well connected. One goes to the Ducal Menagerie.

The Ducal Menagerie is outside the city walls, of course. I saw few, if any, creatures which would be forbidden inside the walls -- so far as I know, at least. A dread and wicked conlee could have been labelled as an ordinary thirrline, and I could hardly have spotted the difference.

But I daresay that the Master of the Menagerie would be hard to fool; she is a Rassimel, and much of her days and nights are spent in the Academy's Zoology building, or in various classrooms. She's quite a nice woman, and, like any high-quality Rassimel, is delighted to talk for hours and hours about whatever interests her. Now I know the difference between small-eyed thirrlines, Bencubus' thirrlines, lesser reticulated thirrlines, Aradrueian thirrlines both crimson-necked and aquiline, and wasp-eating thirrlines, plus another half-dozen varieties that were not present in the menagerie. Strenata was fascinated, with that quick incendiary Orren interest, and the private exhibition was adequately interesting, so I stayed awake.

On the way back, though, Seeks-Feathers (Strenata) asked me why there weren't more people visiting the menagerie. She didn't seem to like the answer that, to see the menagerie, one must have suitable connections at court.

"Why should it be reserved for nobility?"

"It's the Duke's menagerie. I daresay he can do whatever he likes with it. And you could probably have gotten in yourself, if you'd talked to the Master, or taken one of her clases," I said.

We discussed that a bit more. She's distinctly displeased with the nobility of Vheshrame for some reason. I do hope she doesn't have any powerful enemies.... I suppose she likely doesn't. Anyone of any great political influence who actively disliked her could surely have, oh, exiled her, or gotten her flogged, or some such by now. And that she has not been.

At home:Thery introduced us to a Rassimel gentleman named Dubaille. He is in the final stages of divorcing the Lady Quissenden; he is eager to leave the townhouse that they shared for nine years and three children. His family fortunes are not the greatest --- I gather he married Quissenden as much for money as any other reason --- and the revenues from Nhopp Nhiffem (which he owns) are also not the greatest; he does the accounts for half a dozen bakeries around town. He is reasonably elegant of appearance, and he expressed willingness to be exceedingly neat for Havune's sake. When we described Dustweed's deformity, he simply shrugged. He seems rather ground down by his recent events, which certainly makes sense to me. I daresay he'll do for three months more.

Movers and Talkers [25 Hivvem 4260]

Rassimel move very quickly when they start moving!

"Move", of course, means "Move out of one apartment and into another." Thery acquired a great quantity of wooden boxes -- a dozen at least -- from Countess Gloun's estates. (Vows of fealty cut both ways.) Havune, his dispute with Thery being amply patched and healed by having her move out, acquired an even greater quantity of relatives -- nineteen, though three of them were under two years old, so the actual number was more like twelve -- and made a party of it, as Cani are wont to do. Yarwain helped. Dustweed helped. Tethezai was nowhere to be found. I, of course, could do very little but fly around overhead and amuse the puppies, or to sit on Dustweed's box and see if zie noticed the extra weight. (Zie didn't.)

Two caravans to get everything of Thery's out of the apartment. One caravan to get Dubaille's suitcases and other oddments into the apartment.

Yarwain and Havune paid for the moving party, which was traditional and mostly for Cani: a very big pie of chopped shellfish and minced liver and turnips and leeks; a leather cauldron of bean soup; big loaves of crunchy bread sprinkled with mustard seeds. Havune slipped the caterer a few extra lozens, and the bean soup was thick with duck and sausage, and there were poptaloops for dessert. It was very extravagant for an hour's work. I think that Havune was taking it as a chance to give a treat to his poor relations -- or to show his wealth and power to them? Both, maybe; Cani do that sort of thing.

Immediately upon getting home, Dubaille conscripted me as the Person Who Must Listen. I heard about his children, his soon-to-be-former wife, his regret that he can no longer hunt gamebirds on her estate with fork-tipped crossbow. He had a great deal to say. I heard about the fine sausages that the Lady Quissenden's cook makes, and how they were far superior to the ones Havune supplied today, and how the Lady Quissenden flung a laquered wooden chalice from the Tusuntu Imperiat at him in one of their recent arguments. He certainly had a great deal to say! I heard how upset he is that our eating utensils are so often wooden, for he prefers ivory, and that the Lady Quissenden should return to him the set of ivory ones he gave her as one of his marriage gifts, and how the Lady Quissenden's maid set a basket of his clothing outside under a tree, when he was leaving, and now it is covered with sticky sap.

And then Havune padded in to the common room, tail wagging, and asked Dubaille if he needed any help unpacking. Though I know it was mostly to make sure that Dubaille was going to be as neat as advertised, I felt just a tad rescued.

A side note: Dubaille doesn't own Nhopp Nhiffem. Quissenden does.

Night on the Tower of Verstenweld [25 Hivvem 4260]

I invited Seeks-Feathers (Strenata) on the other feathery event that I had heard of in Vheshrame.

Ages ago -- in year 3,738 to be specific -- Duke Verstenweld imposed justice upon certain of his subjects. From what the guide said, it was real, honest-to-gods justice. The Rassimel tailor Turio Bhessarde had not left poisoned needles in three overcoats and killed three of his customers in a single day. It was a coincidence. One of the customers, Gratella Isquin, was poisoned by her aunt for excessive disobedience. (The guide did not say whether she was more obedient after she died, but I rather suspect her aunt found her a bit passive-aggressive.) The second, Nharm Ossmissypre, was poisoned, along with his footman (who had not bought an overcoat from Bhessarde), by a rival for the post of vice-comptroller of treasury; public finances were rather dramatic that year. The third, Nharm Osschario, wasn't even poisoned; he was killed by a Sleeth in an alley, probably because he had tried to rob the Sleeth. A confused broadsheet got some details from Nharm Ossmissypre's story mixed into Nharm Osschario's, and he wound up poisoned in the public opinion as well.

Nonetheless, an amateur detective put two and two and two together and came up with an overcoat, and collected a few dozen heavily-armed friends to forcibly collect Bhessarde the tailor and exert justice upon him. An Orren from the city guard, one Wetwave, knowing the truth about Isquin and Osschario, fancied himself the hero of justice, and defended Bhessarde, to the point of wounding several of the more amateur justice-makers rather badly.

The populace, upon hearing more, decided to ignore Bhessarde, but demanded that Wetwave be exiled for carving bits off of many of their relatives.

In Vheshrame at the time, the authority to do this rested in the Duke. (It's formally in the Legeriat now, which is to say, the Duke decides but is not technically responsible.) Duke Verstenweld refused to exile Wetwave, saying that he was obviously quite skillful, being able to ventilate so many armed and angry people without them being able to even touch him, and that the city needed that in their upcoming duel-war with Ulmarn.

Matters were generally violent in those days. The Scented Quarter, where the murders had happened and where many, many Cani lived at the time, took to public protests. They burned Duke Verstenweld's personal chapel, which was in the middle of the Scented Quarter, as an expression of disapproval of his policies.

Duke Verstenweld was an apt and effective progenitor of today's Duke. He denied several city blocks the right to rest their houses upon his land. [In Vheshrame, as many other places, the Duke owns the land that the city is build on. -bb] One tree-mage managed to levitate her house over the duke's lands, where it floated for thirty years until a storm blew it into the city wall and killed everyone in it. Everyone else in those blocks had to leave, which evidently caused much misery and further -- but less incendiary -- protests.

The duke, of course, rebuilt his chapel, including a new and rather splendid tower. By the time the tower was built, he was sufficiently displeased with the populace and the city as a whole that he commanded that the city not be seen from atop the tower. A competent illusionist -- I am pretty sure not my half-sibling -- arranged matters so that view from the upper balcony seems to be that of some berserk skyship, a flurry of huge wings flapping green and golden feathers beneath, chasing the Star-Serpent around amid stars and gods' heads.

Afterwards, Seeks-Feathers told me the rest of the story: Wetwave yelled and objected at the Duke's razing of the neighborhood, and was promptly exiled.

Which is a longwinded way of saying that we found the Tower of Verstenweld quite interesting, and let the curator explain the whole story to us, but we got into another spat about the need for nobility on the way home.

I do seem to be getting an education from dating Strenata, but it's not the one I wanted.

The Destruction of the Teapot [26 Hivvem 4260]

Dubaille has fastidioussed thoroughly at Havune, and Havune is quite happy of that part at least.

From the other room, there is not complete delight. Dustweed had quite a nice antique ceramic teapot, thin porcelain, with the imprints of ferns on the sides, from the Verkoth dynasty of last century -- and, for the benefit of all monsters, a teapot is a vessel in which one puts hot water, leaves, flowers, and spices, and from which one pours forth steaming aromatic beverages all over one's clothing because, when one is using it, one is usually chatting with one's Rassimel girlfriend and one is evidently still stunned at the concept of a girlfriend, or a Rassimel girlfriend.

However, Dubaille confused the concepts of "teapot" and "teakettle". For the benefit of all monsters, a teakettle is a fireproofed leather or cloth bag with a complicated spout which one fills with water and places in the kitchen fire until steam screams from its nozzle, and one then calls one's fireproof Zi Ri roommate to fish out. The teakettle provides water for the teapot, you see.

But Dubaille has only been in a kitchen to steal poptaloops from the cook.

And Dubaille put the nice antique ceramic teapot, full of water, on the kitchen fire. And went back to his bedroom and took a nap. He expected to be awoken by a whistle when the water was boiled.

Instead he was awoken by Tethezai yelling at me for destroying Dustweed's valuable antique teapot, and me shouting back that I had not done (true), that I know which end of a kitchen is the hot one (true), and that I use breathfire to boil water when I want tea (false).

A gracious and honest Rassimel would have immediately explained his mistake and offered to make amends as best he could.

A less gracious and less honest Rassimel peeked his masky face out the door, and shrugged, and went back to bed.

Dustweed saved me from Tethezai's wrath, by means of reminding her that I was the one habitually used in place of a lifting-fork to take the teakettle out of the fire, and thus was well aware of the proper use of teakettles. Havune was out of the apartment the whole time, practicing martial arts and/or marital arts with Anoof, so he had not done.

*KNOCK*, *KNOCK*, *KNOCK* "Dubaille, are you in there?"

"Sure, one minute..." Though it was more properly a third of an hour before we saw his masked face again.

Well, the discussion was a bit bitter and a bit acrimonious. Tethezai is fierce and fearsome in defense of Dustweed, or even Dustweed's teapot! Dubaille, for his part, admitted no great wrongdoing, and even acclaimed himself for cleaning the teapot and sundry other dishes that Dustweed and Tethezai had left. In the end the two Rassimel agreed that Dubaille would replace the teapot, and be a bit more careful.

Social Calls [1 Nivvem 4260]

Return of the Teapot, part 1

Dubaille announced, with a blare of trumpets and accordions, that he had procured a new teapot to replace the old one. Unfortunately some incomprehensible confusion prevented the newly-procured teapot from actually reaching Dustweed. Nonetheless Dubaille expected praise and gratitude. Nonetheless, neither was available in any great quantity.

Thery's New Apartment

Thery and Yarwain now live on the fifth and final floor of a very tall and very flat house, the Ostwiller Alley House. Long ago, in ancient times, of roughly the previous decade, Deefe Ostwiller owned the house on one side, and Whispery Ostwiller owned the house on the other side, and between those two houses there was a modest-sized alleyway. Packs of Cani children rampaged along the alley, for it was on the way from a Cani section of the poorer part of the city to Maulgay Park. Some piles of whatnots in the alley made a good place for Cani to play king-of-the-heap, loudly, most mornings. So the Ostwillers conspired against them, and one month they built a new house in the alley, whose left walls are the outer walls of Deefe Ostwiller's house, and whose right walls are the outer walls of Whispery Ostwiller's house, and whose roof is one story short of those two houses because Deefe and Whispery wanted everyone to know which houses were the most important. And they rent rooms in the Ostwiller Alley House out to students.

It is a very odd apartment. It has five rooms, all in a row: there is a curtain between the study and the bedroom, a sort of thin wooden portcullis between the bedroom and the kitchen; a flimsy wooden door between the kitchen and the other study; a stout oak door between the other study and the privy. The privy faces the Cani section, and is well-ventilated, making that story about the Ostwillers more plausible. The front door is reached by climbing a ladder affixed to the front of the house; there is no room for stairs inside. Furniture must be levitated up.

Lunch -- they had invited me over for lunch -- was Thery's ving-bean soup (with chopped spinach in it for variety), and the little triangular cheese-and-anchovy pastries that Floooosh has been trying to get me to taste for months. (I expect I will be trying to get rid of the taste for months.)

In any case, Thery and Yarwain seem deliriously happy, in the very understated Rassimel way. "We're getting along tolerably well," Thery said when I asked, and Yarwain smiled at her. From this I should infer ... I don't know what, exactly. Perhaps Thery will abscond to the Ulstramme and eat Yarwain's fine figs for the rest of her life, and leave her benefactor in the lurch. They didn't say.

Seeking Feathers

Strenata continues to accept my advances, but only in the vaguest of senses. The most recent advance was an afternoon performance of The Troublers of Tulterry -- the Herethroy playing Dorchander Moon was roped to Strenata in Spelunking class -- followed by dinner at the Yistreian restaurant Tamvaus. The play was a perfectly fine student performance for student dating, which is to say, tedious enough so that it seemed only natural for me to curl my neck lazily along Strenata's arm during the second act, and just as natural for her to fiddle with my tailtip during the third.

Dinner, of course, curtailed my opportunities for subtle seduction. I had forgotten about the Evil Stools of Yistreia -- Tamvaus does not let one sit upon ordinary chairs, but upon short brocaded stools. I can stretch my neck to reach my plate, when my belly is on the stool, but this would require me to eat without using my hands, like some fearsome yet diminutive monster. With only two of us, there was room on the table for me to sit, and I didn't have to levitate. This is good -- levitating is rather stuck-up and prissy, which is not a thing that Strenata appreciates. It is also bad, because it emphasizes our difference in size and how odd we look together.

I did warn Strenata about the fearsome arhoolie leaves, and the Yistreian use of mice. She immediately ordered the special appetizer of the day, kshiktav ylluul -- squaretailed mice en brochette stuffed with garlic and arhoolie. All my hopes of seducing her were destroyed when she ate a mouse whole, and then -- alas! -- quenched the pain with sporchey [a very thin custard, drunk as a beverage -bb] rather than wine.

She did finish the entire skewer of mice, despite never having eaten arhoolie leaves before. The waiter was astounded! She instantly renamed herself "Arhoola"! I performed the proper ritual, writing "Arhoola" on a bit of the program for The Troublers and tucking it in her hat. The waiter was even more astounded!

There is a Yistreian traditional cake, called yshmaukki, baked for name-change celebrations. Arhoola was brought a slice of it after the end of her meal, for free, by an astounded and amused waiter. It is a distinctly strange cake, not very sweet, made with chopped nuts and chopped cabbage and raisins and candied hard-boiled sparrows' eggs.

And we walked for a while -- well, she walked, I rode on her shoulder -- through the town at evening, and spoke of caves and leaves and sparrows' eggs and other safe things. And that was that.

Many Dinners [2 Nivvem 4260]

The sneaky forces of Intentional Destiny (who, according to most theologians, do not exist [they don't -- bb]) are conspiring to give me a career as a city pigeon. Or, perhaps, a child's ball.

The First Dinner: Thery and Yarwain and Iska

I should have been more careful, more alert and watchful, more deviously cunning, for he invited Iska too. Ah, well, at least her mathematical prowess will be helpful in the assigment. And I can mock her poor Ketherian in this journal: "O Thery, soup of apricot is the very good tonight! For you I thank this soup!"

Soup of apricot was the very good tonight, and leftover takeout acorn-and-cashew stew, and a box of Floooooooshy poptaloops, and a salad that looked like Dustweed and Tethezai had gone berserk in it (Dustweed Herethroy for saladness, Tethezai art-student for all the colors of leaves and petals) but turned out to be the leftover takeout mixed salad that went with the stew.

We picked the catalog of the glass collection of Durnokk Glassfanged, a Gormoror war-king from Iska's home branch three centuries ago. Nobody else will do that one, we are sure, even though it is in the book of case studies; and Iska explained where the listed provenances actually are.

Fine. She's very useful. Hmph. At least she's properly grateful to be included in polite society: grateful enough to do lots of maths for us.

But Thery had to bring Yarwain to meet her aunt Strie -- Quastrica --- and so we were spared the worst of the spraddling, at least until the morrow.

The Second Dinner: Havune and Anoof

I returned home. Dubaille was off taking his children somewhere (which turned out to be the Sloop in Soup, which is an odd and awkward place for children, but Dubaille makes many odd and awkward choices), so Anoof was over, and Havune was simmering a soup of carrots and cabbages and meatballs.

I sat on the stove and interrogated Anoof for the first time. He and Havune and one other man (Broon) and two women (Leiska and Narngi) are tentatively engaged. (For monsters: Cani marry in groups of about a dozen or thereabouts, so Havune and friends are no closer than half there, and it can't be a proper and real engagement 'til they've got everyone.) Anoof and Havune are to be brother-brothers, which doesn't strictly mean they have to be lovers, though I think they are. Other arrangements: Broon and Narngi are to be husband and wife; that's the closest degree of marriage. Leiska and Narngi will be sister-sisters; they've been planning that since they were six.

Anoof or Havune will be Leiska's mate (closer than just 'married', but not as close as 'husband and wife', and 'brother-brother' or 'sister-sister' is ... um ... about the same I guess? I'll have to ask), but it hasn't been decided who it will be. This seems wrong to me -- shouldn't it be about who loves whom the most, or something? -- but no, it's as much about balancing the family (which I don't understand) and providing good pedigrees for the puppies (which I suppose makes sense) as about love.

For Cani, love isn't particularly what starts a marriage going. With such a big gang of people, I imagine you can't really wait for love to thump everyone the right way in any case. They start with enough love, and grow the rest after the marriage is going.

And while they were arguing about Leiska -- Anoof likes her better, but he likes females better in general, and he was pointing out that Havune is a slightly better sire for Leiska's children and will have to take a mate or two and a wife in any case -- I abducted a meatball and some cabbage. This was foolish.

The Third Dinner: Strenata

Foolish, for not three minutes later, Arhoola (Strenata) showed up and abducted me. To return to her apartment, and lie on her bare lilac-spotted belly, and breathroast sprats and dip them into a very odd and dangerous sauce she had just made of vinegar and chilis and chiffonade of arhoolie leaves, and feed them to each other.

Which is something I wish to greatly encourage. Especially since we were flirting about whether she really needed to keep her skirt on ... and she had just extracted a promise from me that I wouldn't spill the odd, dangerous, and surely-painful sauce into her lap, when of course her roommate Oonspath returned.

When I say "Oonspath returned", I mean "Oonspath returned, and immediately started demanding that she pay her portion of the rent, and various other sundry expenses."

Arhoola pointed out that she had already paid her portion of the rent. Oonspath disputed this.

In the best Orren style, they had only confusing and fragmentary records, which were lost somewhere in the apartment.

Two-thirds of an hour later, Strenata kissed me (yum!) and we made another date for two days' hence, and sent me home.

The Fourth Dinner: Spirshash

Home, where (1) Dustweed and Tethezai were holed up in my room, talking in low unhappy tones -- some adolescent Herethroy had thrown logs at Dustweed again -- and (2) Spirshash was whimpering on the couch in the common room, waiting for me.

Spirshash has some reason to whimper. Tillissa and Oostmarine have been getting ever-closer; Tillissa and Spirshash have been fighting more. This evening, Oostmarine shook his head and said that he really hoped their marriage could continue... which, for young and not-deeply-connected Orren, means roughly "I imagine we'll get divorced within the year."

Well, Spirshash had been crying a great deal, and not doing much else, and his hands were actually shaking, so I tried to feed him the leftover Cani dinner, but there was no leftover Cani dinner, so I took him out to the Cafe du Fronde to share a tureen of trout chowder and a chalice of kathia with butter and chissowary and sugar and a plate of little triangle scallop-and-cherry pastries, and a lot of comforting.

And a great deal of comforting was required. All of which was the sort that can conveniently be done in the Cafe du Fronde -- at the most interesting, I tail-hugged his wrist -- but we talked for about three hours. Talked in circles, and absolutely nothing was settled except for his stomach and his mind.

(He did say, "I should have coupled with you while I had the chance. Then maybe they and I would have broken up cleanly and sharply, not this slow gangrenous division." I think I will work a bit and take this as a compliment.)

So, I took him back to our apartment, and put him on the couch, and fed him some mediocre brandy Thery didn't want to take to her new home, and covered him with a light blanket, and there he slept the night. I flew back into my room, where Tethezai from Dustweed's bed gave me the secret smile of Those Who Take Care Of Others In Need, and draped myself over logs to sleep.

Still, four dinners in one day is a bit much, even for me...

Fort Dubaille [3 Nivvem 4260]

Havune is in a blue and purple fury, for Dubaille is keeping his word about being tidy.

Dubaille, however, is quite literal about it: he, Dubaille, is working quite hard to be clean and tidy. On the whole I judge that he is succeeding, at least in that bedroom. The kitchen sometimes needs more attention. (And a much-awaited teapot, which has yet to arrive.)

But Dubaille has two children, and some arrangement with the Lady Quissenden puts the children in his care now and then. I suppose I have to count it a good and honorable thing that, when he made whatever weak negotiations he could, he chose the rights to see his children rather than, say, a stipend.

I can't really fault the children, who are used to having a nurse tending them, and a nursery, and a fenced yard in front of their townhouse, or a bigger estate in their country house. Perhaps they are a bit bored visiting with just their father. Perhaps they have some distress on seeing how little their father and mother like each other.

(I wouldn't know; my ~father~ rarely visited. But it is rare for Zi Ri to live together. [No, it's not rare. -bb])

In any case, the Dubaillelings were less gentle with Dubaille's clothes, and the blankets in that bedroom. Not to put too fine a point on it, they built a fort from furs and chairs and desks and many of Havune's textbooks, and scrambled around in it for two hours while Dubaille ... tried to get someone to pay back a loan to him, I think. Something he'd expected to take three minutes but proved far more challenging.

Dubaille was in no hurry to clean up the fort. He explained to Havune that he had not made it; his children had, and therefore it was not covered by his agreement with Havune to clean up his own messes. And he was not going to clean it up until he returned his children to the Lady Quissenden, and made another attempt to get his loan back, and then returned to the apartment.

And I suppose I can't blame him for that. If he doesn't return his children well before nightfall, the Lady Quissenden may henceforth deny him the sight of them. And if he doesn't manage to collect on his loan, he shan't be eating well, nor paying his share of the rent on time.

Still, Havune is storming around the apartment, snarling and showing his fangs. I am off to see if I see what has become of Spirshash. Somehow it seems impolitic to go visit Thery and Yarwain; Havune would smell them on me when I got back, and I daresay he's just as annoyed at Thery as at Dubaille. The wandering boot was an annoyance; Fort Dubaille in the bedroom is a chaos.

Love and War. (Or just War) [4 Nivvem 4260]

The plan for the evening with Arhoola Strenata was:

1. A casual stroll along the bank of the ponds in the open ducal park.
2. A spontaneous gift of ginger- and leek-fed snails, which are just in season today but I was pretty sure Strenata didn't know were in season yet.
3. A swim, for which I borrowed Real-Eel's tooth amulet.
4. A drying-off in the Glade of Five Winds. [A public art project consisting of five kinds of trees surrounded by five small perpetual whirlwinds, so that the trees are growing in spiral shapes. -bb]
5. A dinner at Scalminatore's.
6. A return to my apartment, in a choreographed dance of mutual avoidance with Tethezai and Dustweed. (They will start their evening with the physical affection, since they are on such terms already, and then go to dinner and an evening lecture.)
7. And then we should see what we should see.

(Oh, and I have decided to do my term project in Enchantment to be some sort of device to help me swim. Water-breathing is a bit more challenging than I want to build just yet -- one does not necessarily wish to trust one's life to one's freshling project.)

The actual evolution of the evening with Seeks-Justice Strenata. (I wasn't there for that choice of name, and she didn't particularly explain it to me.)

1. A casual stroll up to the open ducal park. Which, when we arrived, proved to be the closed ducal park. Ulmarn is evidently at war with Rusunder, and Vheshrame of course is host and referee.
2. A quick whispered conversation in which Seeks-Justice demanded that I use my insidious noble's powers to get in so she can see the war -- she has a lover in Rusunder, and of course Yarwain is from Ulmarn. (Note to self for later: inquire further about this lover in Rusunder.)
3. I quickly manufactured a spoken invitation from Hezimikkinen. Naturally Hezimikkinen is thoroughly involved in the war, setting up protections so that the battle doesn't hurt any military observers from other countries, or judges from Vheshrame, or dukes of Vheshrame. We were admitted. The ducal guards are used to Hezimikkinen's secrecies, whims, and vapors. They would not have been the least bit surprised to hear that Hezimikkinen wanted every tree in the part set ablaze, as a precaution (against ice attacks slipping off each other, I suppose), and two surprise guests hardly caused them to blink.
4. The war was well underway when we got there. It was a very small duel-war, four champions on each side. We got there just in time for Pehestrum Seven-Handed of Rusunder to lose three precious internal organs to a very nasty three-headed spear tossed by Reul Yystiander.
5. At which point, Hezimikkinen, boredom dusting zir wings, flew up behind me and breathed fire on me -- in public! -- and teased me thoroughly that zie did not know I was interested in regional politics, but that zie would be sure to actually invite me to further duel-wars and other tedious diplomatic necessities. Zie then settled down and gave us a bit of commentary: Reul and Pehestrum hate one another; Pehestrum has slain Reul five or six times, and humiliated her in various ways that have nothing to do with duelling or war; Reul hired herself to Ulmarn for a twelfth of her usual fee, presumably so she could toss that spear at Pehestrum. There is even speculation that she somehow engineered the war, though Hezimikkinen is dubious, since zie advised the duke to arrange for it himself before the border dispute between Rusunder and Ulmarn got any worse and turned into a hate-war. [Hate-war is something between raiding by small bands of extremely powerful heroes and terrestrial war; in particular few if any precautions are taken to ensure that the uninvolved are not hurt. Duel-wars, such as this one, are fairly stylized contests and displays of strength, indicating how dangerous each cities' heroes are and how much damage might come from a hate-war. Such contests are sensible in a world where a single person might be as dangerous as a hundred average city guards, or ten thousand. -bb]
6. Reul's three-headed bitey spear to the contrary, Rusunder won the war. Rusunder's champions had arranged a trap for Reul with Pehestrum as bait, giving Pehestrum spells for enduring vast injuries with coma but without immediate death -- a sort of magic more often found in the halls of medicine or criminal justice than on the battlefield, for they interfere with more useful spells for staying active past physical death in the Gormoror style. Some nicely-crafted taunting provoked Reul into close combat, leading to quite an incendiary surprise. Pehestrum was not so badly slain that he could not be healed to life by routine methods. Reul's body, still easily healable, served as bait for the second mouth of the trap, in which Clyn Tyn Avaratica was transformed entirely into amber. Since Tyn Avaratica is mainly a warrior, and generally relies on devices and bound spells for magic, this left him in an unfortunate situation, with very few choices of what to do. The other two Ulmarn champions surrendered, as is customary when outnumbered two to one.
7. Hezimikkinen mocked Ulmarn considerably; they had a significant advantage in skill and equipment at the beginning. Then zie flew off to help arrange the aftermath.
8. Strenata was somewhat in her awe, and somewhat in her anger. She has of course heard of Hezimikkinen. She can no longer pretend that I have only minor political connections. (I have very potent but utterly useless political connections, save for the purpose of being admitted or sometimes commanded to a wide variety of events.) She seems uncertain about what to do with me. Though I am not entirely sure why she is obligated or even allowed to do anything with me.
9. Dinner at Scalminatore's was suggested, and brusquely rejected. Strenata had by this time seen far too much of the mighty. She evidently prefers to pretend that the mighty do not exist.
10. Dinner at The Sloop In Soup was suggested and accepted. Seeks-Justice had damson-plum and mussel soup, a la sloop, which I was not permitted to pay for. I had scallop and leek soup, raw, and a quarter bowl. It was noisy and crowded, and we shared a table with a pair of Herethroy women stevedores who spent the whole evening arguing, loudly, about who had carried the most of what when. Strenata and I argued, softly, about:
    • The ethics of starting wars among neighboring city-states, given that occasionally such wars turn into hate-wars;
    • The ethics of allowing one's sibling to start such wars;
    • The difficulty of persuading one's sibling to any course of action, when one's sibling is so many centuries older than one;
    • The necessity for one to argue and dispute with one's sibling -- for truth and justice do not vary with the age of the speaker!
    • (And a variety of related ethical and practical matters.)
11. Strenata would walk me back home, and would even say that she had a truly memorable evening and would in fact like to go swimming with me at some point, but perhaps in the river or some public place. Nothing happened to make the evening any more memorable, though.

Now I have to arrange further choreography with Dustweed and Tethezai, and return Real-Eel's tooth, and all for nothing much except soup and bickering.

Return of the Teapot (part 2) [5 Nivvem 4260]

Dubaille returned today with a smallish wooden box, which he presented to Dustweed and Tethezai with great ceremony and thorough dignity. Inside the box there was much straw, and a small brown clay teapot. "I may not be a man of great means," said he, "but I do repay my debts."

Tethezai took one look at the teapot, and I thought for a moment that Dubaille would soon be wearing it. She curled her tail, and said "Very well, then." and took Dustweed's mid-hand and lead her out of the apartment.

Dubaille turned to me, and expressed frustration at Tethezai's apparant refusal to forgive him a minor and swiftly-corrected mistake -- and Havune's clear refusal to accept that he, Dubaille, was keeping strictly to the letter of their agreement. "Fortunately, you are my friend and have no mysterious and unfounded hatred for me, Sythyry, or else I should be quite alone among the residents of this place," he said.

I did not argue with him on that, but he is not entirely right. What does one do with such as Dubaille? He is in every way but title inferior to Thery, or indeed to anyone living here now, but his situation is unfortunate. Not the sort of thorough, divinely ordained unfortunity -- unfortunateness? -- that is Dustweed's; the very common and easy unfortunateness that could come to anyone. Etiquette and common sense says to tolerate and encourage him and shun Dustweed, but, privately, I would rather share a room with Dustweed for another year than share an apartment with Dubaille for another month.

I got to see the teapot later. It is small, and brown, and made of clay. It was clearly intended to be symmetrical, but just as clearly the potter's thumb interfered with that, so there is an odd flattish bit on the left side with a distinct smoothed-out clawprint in it. The handle is of cane, and already starting to splinter. The spout was also intended to be symmetrical by design, but without any great diligence of execution; I daresay the potter did not want to waste an actually-symmetrical spout on an already-botched teapot. Underneath, the pot is hastily trimmed, and still has scratchy bits. There is a date and a number, in a careful Rassimel-looking hand, but no potter's mark: whoever made this piece did not care to claim it.

Under the circumstances, it seemed advisable to remember a strong social obligation elsewhere. I hunted down Spirshash, who was reading on the roof of his building. (And therein lies a minor complaint: I had carefully chosen to fly along the streets so I would have a better chance of finding him, rather than above the houses where I would actually have seen him in an instant.)

I sat on his book and demanded his attention. This was less rude than it might sound, for he was reading in the sense of "staring at Accanax' celestial eidolon as if hoping for a prophecy of destruction, with occasional glances at the book." [Accanax, and the other six creator gods of the World Tree can be seen in the sky; Accanax is the most wantonly destructive of the seven, and known for creating many monsters. -bb]

"Spirshash!" said I, "You do not read! Come away with me: it shall not help your studying, but it may help your mood."

"Well, Sythyry, and I shall come away with you, but let it be to the streets of shops, for I wish to give my wife and husband a peace offering."

"If you get them a teapot, let it be an excellent one indeed," I said, and distracted him with mockeries of Dubaille for a block and a half.

We browsed among shops for an hour and a third, and in the end Spirshash bought a small squat bottle of alarmingly crimson Gnessoise, and three small elegant glass tasting-chalices with serpents' servants on the sides [a small, elegant carnivorous insect -bb].

I had never tasted Gnessoise. Of course I did not have Spirshash open his new bottle -- the symbolism there is a bit insidious, and entirely not true, no matter how fun it sounds. But the shopkeeper had an open bottle, and I tasted a drop. It is crimson with the juice of hirexberries, and zaxasandra petals, and cochineal, and the tiny scarlet fish whose names I have forgotten, and the blood of chargers. It is every bit as complicated as it sounds, and absolutely not to my taste. Orren and Cani generally like it, though. And I rather hope Tillissa and Oostmarine are among those who do.

Truths and Evasions [6 Nivvem 4260]

A social call, when your visitors keep reminding each other that they are not officers of the court of law, is not a proper social call.

Tillissa and Oostmarine paid me a distinctly disturbing visit this morning. They seemed suspicious, that I might have spent time, and spent money, and perhaps spent other things, with their husband.

"Well, I did divert him from his studies for an hour or two, before yesterday's evening," I said.

"What, precisely, did you do?" demanded Tillissa. "Answer carefully, answer truthfully, or it will go the worse for you."

"Tillissa, we are not here with a Writ of Thoroughly Extracting the Truth," mentioned Oostmarine.

"I only fear the truth in this matter in that it is a tedious story," I said. "We shopped. We bought a bottle of Gnessoise at ... um ... the place with the green and vermillion sign on the corner of Darkhasset Street and the Avenue of the Ducal Way, the one run by Cani, with the glass portrait on the door..."

"Zie's forgotten the name. I think zie's nervous," said Oostmarine.

"I've forgotten the name because I never shop there myself!" I said.

"Ah. Continue."

"That's the end of it," I said.

"You spent three hours buying one bottle of liqueur? The proprietor must have been dreadfully slow. It's a wonder they stay in business at all."

"Oh, hardly that. We'd looked into a dozen shops. Why do you ask?" I said.

"Our reasons will become apparent in good time," said Tillissa. "Did you stop for a puppet show?"

"It was a bit early for the street performers," I said.

"You're evading the question. Did you stop for a puppet show of a sort not performed on the street?" she asked, glaring.

"Whatever are you getting at?" I asked.

Tillissa and Oostmarine looked at each other and nodded. "And a meal? Did you, or did you not, eat with him?"

"Well, sometime that afternoon, I surely did," I answered. I had bought a pair of small crab dumplings on a skewer, but I could not remember whether Spirshash was there at the time or not.

"Darraden's? A private booth? So that nobody could see you?" she asked. She sounded quite angry.

"I can hardly afford Darraden's on any sort of a regular basis!" Which is unfortunate, but true.

Oostmarine stood up and paced, his tail lashing. "Sythyry, please give us clear answers. You may take this quite lightly, but be assured that we do not. You say you cannot afford it often: but you can afford it once, and so can Spirshash."

"No, then. No Darraden's. No shared meal. Have you any other rude questions for me?" I was not pleased with them by that point!

"Did you seduce our husband in that private booth? Or did he seduce you?"

"I hardly know what might have happened in some imaginary booth! There wasn't a real one," I said.

"This is getting nowhere. Sythyry, you should try telling the truth now and then. Your evasions are feeble." They stormed out, in a fury.

This can't be good.

(And, for the record, I am not particularly evasive. It is good style for Zi Ri to answer questions indirectly!)

A Bad Morning [7 Nivvem 4260]

Slightly before I wanted to be awake this morning, an Orren child came knocking on our door. This meant that Dubaille came knocking on my door, saying, "Sythyry, there's a message come for you." Of course he would not tip the child himself, so I had to brush ashes out of my feathers and fly around my room looking for a few terch to give.

Here is the note. Imagine that the original is painted on a leaf, as if it were to go from city to city by the post. The letters are in red, and sloppier than Strenata's usual hand. Some letters are perfumed; this was dusted with the pollen of the flower known as stinking margay. (I know that because Havune said, "It smells as though Dubaille's wife gave him a bouquet of stinking margay as a measure of her esteem.")

From Seeks-Justice Strenata to Sythyry. Your behavior astounds me; I cannot approve of it; I despise it entirely; I deny anny [sic] suggestion of a connection between us forfurthermore. I am not a toy for your noble amusement; I am not a highborn libertine; I have great regard for chastity and fidelity. How can you date me and futter Spirshash on the side? With lying and deception, that is how! How can you distract Spirshash when his wife and husband should get his full attention? With greed and selfishness, that is how! I thought you had some sympathy for truth and good! Instead your only sympathy is for your own genitalia! Well, elaborate upon that sympathy with some stinking, lust-sodden baron's cousin or something. Leave me aside from it!

I certainly should have futtered Spirshash while I had the chance. There was, of course, no actual chance: no offer, no suggestion that any offer might be acceptable. We didn't even flirt! I rode on his shoulder because otherwise I have to fly (which is too fast unless he is jogging), or levitate (which is too slow, unless he is limping), or walk (in which case a dean will step on my paw and break it again).

I distinctly hope that Strenata will believe my explanation. For that matter, that Oostmarine and Tillissa will, too.

For that matter, I distinctly hope I get the chance to explain.

Rumors [7 Nivvem 4260]

There is one sensible Orren in Vheshrame. (I think there is a cosmic law that each city has one and only one sensible Orren.) So I went to her bakery to talk to her.

Of course, she was pretty well distracted by her own family troubles, and by every Rassimel in Vheshrame Mene coming to buy their Nihondras Day cakes. But there was some sensible advice:

1. Find out what actually happened. Did Spirshash have an assignation with someone else? I was with him for an hour and a third, or so. Oostmarine and Tillissa were fuming about three hours. And best if I find out in a way that other people will believe.
2. Talk to Strenata. Perhaps she will believe me, even if others do not.

And some advice that is probably sensible but I did not enjoy hearing, and therefore declare to be foolish:

1. If I continue flamboyantly trying to get involved with so many Orren, I should decide to enjoy being gossiped about.

Well, flying about town and interrogating people seemed like a good way to get thoroughly noticed. (Not that I want to get more thoroughly noticed, but my choices seem a bit limited.) Spirshash was nowhere to be found. Seeks-Justice Strenata was nowhere to be found.

Real-Eel was swimming in one of the Academy's ponds, and called up to me as I was hunting people whose names begin with 'S'. From her I collected the current rumors about me, arranged from least to most ridiculous.

1. Knowing of Spirshash's marital discord, which has been devilishly slow by Orren standards to resolve itself, I decided that he would be better off single, and chose the simplest and most direct means of ending the marriage. Purely as an act of public service!
2. Spirshash, angry at Oostmarine for favoring Tillissa over him, leapt out of bed to collect the easiest bit of adultery available; which, for an Orren -- any Orren -- is me. (I must admit that I snarled a bit at this.)
3. I have been systematically sleeping my way through all the Orren of the city: at least a dozen lovers, each of whom I drop as soon as I have caught them. Spirshash at first spurned me, so I redoubled my efforts towards him. In the end I got him drunk on Gnessoise and he succumbed.
4. I have been seeing Strenata of late. We had a tremendous fight, which included me assaulting her with a five-tentacled ice elemental in the ducal park just recently. (There was one there, but Clyn Tyn Avaratica cast it after being turned into amber, as part of the war.) In a vengeful fury, I seduced Spirshash and flung that easy conquest in Strenata's face.
5. Spirshash proposed marriage to me, as a way of getting political access to Hezimikkinen, and his other spouses be damned. I temporized, but accepted a sample of the benefits for purposes of improved decision.
6. I have designs on Dassiaturna's treasure, and this is a move in a subtle game to acquire it. (Further conversation: Me: "Who's Dassiaturna?". Real-eel: "This must be the right one, for you pretend ignorance." Me: "If you assist me in my pretense, I will give you a cut of the treasure." Real-eel: "Excellent. Dassiaturna is Tillissa's great-aunt." Me: "Ah. Leaving Tillissa's marriage as the most direct route of assault upon her." Real-eel: "What could be more natural?" Me: "A pie of chili peppers, candied apricots, wolves' brains, and liquid mercury could be more natural... but let us leave that aside. What is her treasure?" Real-eel: "A range of obscure tools for enchantments, which she inherited from some famous ancestor.." Me: "Ah. It has not escaped public notice that my attendance to and indifferent performance in a first-term Enchantment course is another bit of deception. As an immortal, I must be very old; as Glikkonen's grandchild, I must be an expert enchanter, and thus, only satisfied by the most obscure, out-of-date tools." Real-eel: "It could hardly be otherwise." Me: "Well, then: thank you for revealing my most hidden and dreadful plot to me. Let us discuss it no further, in case I let slip some hint of my next wickedness." Real-eel: "Very well then!")

Given all that, I wonder just what Seeks-Justice is actually annoyed at me for?

Dulcanny; or Seeks-Justice [7 Nivvem 4260]

I found Strenata in a market, with a basket of leeks and cucumbers. Her hat said "Dulcanny", presumably after the often-betrayed hapless hero of the short-story series rather than the current High Priest of Pararenenzu in Vheshrame or the secretary to the duke. Or to the purple-shelled Herethroy girl in Spelunking, for that matter.

"Hallo there, Strenata", I said, and settled on a green-striped awning of a green-striped Herethroy fruit vendor.

"I want nothing to do with you. I have nothing to say to you." She proceeded to say a very angry nothing about my behavior and ancestry for some minutes, and many people watched and cheered her on.

"You did, quite certainly, wound Tillissa's marriage more terribly than a blow with a jagged, envenomed copper sword."

"O Strenata, I've heard all the rumors about me. Not a one is true."

"O Zi Ri, I talked to Tillisa, and she's in her tears. And that's no rumor."

"Then they are tears of her own conjuration, for I've done nothing to give her them," I said. I was not being properly opaque of speech, for I was in my fury. In retrospect, that was a sensible thing to do, but for the wrong reason, much like the spell of that name.

"You and Spirshash together gave her them, for he mentioned you as an alternative to staying married to her. And by 'mentioned' I mean that he picked up your name, broke it in half, dipped each half in caustic soda, and crammed it in her ears."

"You can hardly blame me for that. I should be the offended one; after all, it's my name that Spirshash was breaking and dipping in his scramble for a weapon. In any case, he neglected to ask me if I was available as an alternative. If he had, I would have explained that I am not a large Zi Ri; I am plentiful for one Orren, but one is plenty."

She neglected to ask who the one was. "Well, perhaps you should behave more circumspectly around him in the future."

"That I shall not do. We never had fewer than a dozen chaperones the whole time we were together."

"That is not precisely Tillissa's concern," said Strenata.

"Tillissa has neglected to describe her concern to me! She asked me harsh questions and ignored my straightforward answers!"

"You are as straightforward as a serpent in a stream, Sythyry. You are as straightforward as your tail."

I had, of course, wrapped my tail twice around my feet when I sat down. When that was pointed out, a great embarrassment came to me ... should I straighten it out? Leave it coiled? Much giggling came from the audience! In the end I stretched it out, and there was more giggling.

"Well, if she wanted to know things of me, she could at least have waited for the full answers. I may take minutes, but I'm not yet so old that I take years."

Strenata shrugged. "She and Oostmarine were in a pair of wild rushes, all afternoon." She mused a moment, and then exerted that hideously annoying Orren power of easy and balanced judgment. "Well, I daresay you've got a share of the blame there, but not the only share there is." This is why so many judges are Orren.

"Why, thank you for divvying the blame like a Nihondras Day cake, and presenting each of us with our proper slice of it." This was not the wisest thing for me to say.

"Spoken like a true noble," she said, and turned stalked off to the next stand, where she tested a melon for ripeness so fiercely that her clawtip broke the husk and she had to buy it right there, underripe though it was.

It's time for me to swear off Orren forever again.

I think I'll swear off Orren forever once a term, whether I need it or not.

The Assault on Spirshash [8 Nivvem 4260]

Orren rumors -- which I now know to be as reliable and accurate as any bonstable [a subtle and devious monster whose powers include self-delusion -bb] -- placed Spirshash in: Squensqueeg Stream; the Alley of the Hatmakers; the Avenue of Sellers of Personal Matters, presumably getting a divorce; a whorehouse watching a puppet show; my bed, waiting for me; or one or another fishmarket. I was rather surprised to find him in the Alley of the Hatmakers, grimly looking at hats.

"Oh, hallo, Spirshash," I said.

He looked rather like an ulgrane caught creeping into the ducal palace. "What are you doing here, Sythyry?"

"I am questing for answers, O Orren."

He squirmed. "It's hats, not answers, that they sell in this place, Sythyry."

"I shall not be bothering the proprietor for answers."

He looked thoroughly guilty. "Sythyry? I don't think it would be a good idea for me to be seen alone with you just now."

"If we're alone, we'll hardly be seen..." It is very hard to break the habit of talking like that, even when I need very sharply to be both straightforward and pleasant.

"We're hardly alone now." Half a dozen people, mostly Orren, were lurking around watching and listening with such interest that my feathers should have caught fire.

"We are rather bescandalled, aren't we? Perhaps you could tell me why? Since I don't remember us doing the slightest scandalmaking thing for at least three months, and since the scandal has cost me every chance with Strenata." I was fairly sure that at least one Orren was taking notes.

"Oostmarine and Tillissa somehow decided that you and I were behaving improperly together," he said.

"Well, and we weren't. Why didn't you tell them that?"

"Tillissa can be a bit aggressive with her questions on occasion..."

"I had begun to notice that. I was interrogated of late myself."

"... I told them the truth, really," he said.

"Well, then, why were they so upset?"

"They didn't hear the truth. Not 'til this morning," he said.

"How could they not hear it?"

He curled his tail in as much of a knot as an Orren tail can curl. "I didn't mention very loudly when you went home. So they thought I was with you for the whole evening."

I decided it was very important to embarrass him more. "Spirshash? Whatever did you do after I left you alone in the middle of town?"

He started pulling tiny seashells off the hat and cracking them between his clawtips. "I ran into Oonspath -- Strenata's roommate, you know -- and somehow found myself buying him brandy at Darraden's."

"Oonspath can extract money from one in the most remarkable ways, can't he?"

"He's quite good at it. I daresay he's hoping to be the duke's treasurer by the time he's sixty-three."

"And executed seven times in the public square for embezzling by the time he's sixty-six, I daresay." A horrible thought came to me. "So everyone thinks you and I and Oonspath ...?"

His ears were flatter than last year's beer. "I hope not everyone."

"I hope not anyone!"

"Well, then Oonspath and I went to a puppet show. And then I came home. And that's all. Really. Nothing else."

"That sounds rather harmless, if rather cheated. Your wife and husband were upset because...?"

"Well, they don't like me going to puppet shows." If he kept curling his tail up and flattening his ears more each time, they would surely meet, approximately two-thirds up his lungs.

"They seem a bit fussy ... I don't think I should say too much bad about them though." By now seven-and-twelve people were gathered at a moderate distance for their listening, or, in the case of the hatmaker, for the writing of a bill of sale for the hat Spirshash was destroying.

"You and I didn't have a private booth at Darraden's. And we certainly didn't lock the door, or do anything else that might be misinterpreted. And I got the Gnessoise as a present, not to distract them from anything. And I didn't call out 'Oonspath' instead of 'Oostmarine' that night, really!" He was thoroughly in his wild rush.

"Spirshash? I remember the evening well enough; we didn't even see Darraden's. And I don't want to hear about the privacies of you and your husband, really. And you're ruining that hat."

"Hat?" He stopped chattering and looked at the devastation he had made for himself. "Oh, heavens. That was to be a peace offering."

"Well, the last one of Gnessoise seems to have worked rather badly too. Perhaps you should try a different approach altogether? Maybe you could invite them out to something or other? It seems they're more distressed by whatever you do when you're out without them than they are pleased by whever you've brought them."

"Seven staring gods! I should think you're right, O Zi Ri!" He slammed the demolished hat on his head, atop his own, and leapt over a shelf of haberdashery, and raced for home. I must admit I sighed; I find Orren in wild rushes to be terribly cute.

The haberdasher, who was Cani, waddled up to me. "I doubt me that I can catch up with that Orren gentleman any time soon. Would you be so good as to pay for that hat? As it was you who started him breaking it, after all."

This was thoroughly ridiculous and unfair! I talked him into accepting three lozens as a deposit, and gave him Spirshash's address. For some reason, the haberdasher did not accept my offer to carry the bill there. Perhaps he thought I would not be welcome enough to deliver it.

Nihondras Day (part 1) [9 Nivvem 4260]

After the haberdashery disaster, I flew home, over rooftops and through trees. I was rather tired of people watching at me, and grinning. Perhaps I shall go somewhere with more Zi Ri at some point soon.

Dubaille had, of course, bought a Nihondras Day cake, and he did, of course, share it with us -- us being Havune and myself, and Dubaille's children. But a sorry sort of Nihondras Day cake it was. A proper N.D. cake is swollen, bulging outwards before curving inwards and coming to a point, rather like an inverted beet. It is a large and generous cake, bigger than a Rassimel's head. It is fearsomely dense, made with dried apricots and dried cherries and dried prens and dried raisins and candied turnip and candied onion and candied illiocampus and candied apple. It is stuffed with almond paste.

Dubaille's mighty powers of Acquiring the Insufficient had produced a smallish cake, of a size which might have contented Dubaille alone but not even generously for him. It was lopsided, flat on one side and somewhat caved-in on the other; before the natural disasters, it might have been conical -- cooked in the mold for a springtime-cake I suppose. It was fearsomely dense, but more with bran and oats than dried fruit; and it lacked cherries, onions, illiocampus, and apple, and in their place had candied radish and dried melon. There was almond paste, but smeared casually on the outside, not as a stuffing.

Dubaille complained about his wife and his children. Earlier I conjectured that he negotiated with the Lady Quissenden to see his children rather than get a stipend. In fact, he had negotiated for both, but sneakily. Dawdry, who is Dubaille's older son, is the Baron of Noultevviam. Six times a year, including Nihondras Day, he recieves the rents for Noultevviam. Dubaille had written to the mayor of Noultevviam and told her to send the rents to Dawdry at our home. But they did not come there by dawn. At noon or so he asked around. Lady Quissenden had also written to the mayor of Noultevviam, and evidently bribed her to send the rents to Dawdry at her home.

Which I think was mean-spirited of her, as she scarcely needs money, and it would be particularly convenient if Dubaille were able to pay rent. I do doubt that Lady Quissenden is quite the ulgrane that Dubaille says; but perhaps the fault is not entirely his.

Nihondras Day (part 2)

Fortunately I have other Rassimel friends. Thery was not a bit unhappy to open the window for me, when I clattered my claws on it. She and Yarwain had had their cake earlier in the day, with Iska -- who had none of her own, not because she is not Rassimel, but because she is very foreign and her people do not even celebrate the invention of the oven at all. How odd. In any case, Thery and Yarwain had bought a proper N.D. cake, which meant that there was plenty left.

They also had a great deal of sympathy for me about the whole matter of Spirshash and Strenata and all. Though they laughed greatly about the puppet shows. I pried; I interrogated; I demanded!

It seems that, in certain basements, there are puppet shows, but not the sort that appear on city streets. These basement puppet shows are, not to put too fine a point on it, pornographic. The conjecture is that these shows, not the street performances, are the ones that Tillissa and Oostmarine despise Spirshash watching. Especially with Oonspath or me.

And Yarwain reminded me that he and Iska and I have to finish up that spraddled analysis of Durnokk's glass collection, and in not too long. The end of the term is approaching.

Nihondras Day (part 3)

When I returned home, we had had a Changing of the Rassimel. Dubaille and his children were gone, presumably on a quest for money. Tethezai was there, with Dustweed. And with a largish segment of her family's N.D. cake. Tethezai's cook does not simply make a proper cake; they make an extraordinary one. It must have been the size of a pumpkin when it was whole; it was solid yet not dense; it contained all the obligatory items, and dried sparrowberries, and candied shrimps, and butternuts, and candied petals of a species I did not recognize. It was stuffed with almond paste and sweet cheese.

Part of the extraordinariness was candied shrimps. Now, this was surely an extravagance with its teeth and claws to it: Dustweed, being Herethroy, cannot digest meat. Tethezai was fuming that never before was the family's N.D. cake graced with any meat -- after all, the whole point is that the cake be shared with everyone, even Herethroy.

Dustweed was not offended, or perhaps was very used to being offended; zie had simply picked the shrimps out and wrapped them in a napkin, and was feeding them to Tethezai on the bed when I got home. Dangerously cute, they are.

The Useful Advice from Home [9 Nivvem 4260]

After four more slices of Nihondras Day Cake, thanks to Floooosh in the Bakery of Transcendent Doom -- that's not precisely what the sign says, but after the poptaloops and the cake I know it to be true -- I think I shall vow never to have Nihondras Day Cake again.

My ~mother~'s letter expresses some limited pleasure that I am finally taking Enchantment, and demands with considerable force that I take three or preferably four classes in applied magic next term. If I take four, zie will arrange my allowance through the Bank of Teleporting Hexagons rather than through Hezimikkinen. Banks are very mild-tempered, compared with siblings; I daresay whatever qualms they do have (on any sort of topic) are easily satisfied by a few lozens.

I suppose that the only thing worse than being bribed is not being worth bribing.

I obviously can't take four courses in practical magic; I have only so many cley. Second-term enchantment is clear enough, and not nearly as tedious as it sounds even if I will have to get to the workshop by dawn every day for a month or two. Perhaps Illusidor would be fun. Magic Theory was mentioned by name in ~mother~'s letter. I wonder if a Historical Survey of Magic would count? Or a course in Notable Magical Catastrophes?

Also zie blessed me with zir advice on Dubaille and Lady Quissenden. Zie recommends that I cultivate all noble contacts, as an assistance to Hezimikkinen if nothing else. (Not my favorite task, especially in this case; I count this as another strong argument in favor of taking the bribe.) Zie recommends that I supply the replacement teapot. Zie recommends that I befriend the children, on the grounds that (1) they are easily influenced in such a time of distress, and (2) will eventually be in a position to do favors, even if the parents are wholly useless and unpleasant.

Zie has clearly decided that I am going to become a spare Hezimikkinen, mighty in magic and politics by the time I am three hundred. (As I understand the history, Hezimikkinen's single greatest advantage is the fact that zie is Glikkonen's first grandchild. I am the third, which is not much help.)

I suppose I should decide, once and for all, what I will do with myself for, well, forever. I expect I shall do this once a year whether I need it or not, just after I swear off Orren and Nihondras Day cake. Actually making that be part of my Nihondras Day celebrations will give me a good chance to remember it, if nothing else.

The Orren that Creeps in the Night [9 Nivvem 4260]

There was a scratching at my window, very late last night, and a hissing Orren voice whispering "Sythyry! Sythyry!"

So of course Tethezai untwined Dustweed's left arm from her shoulder and zir other left arm from her rump and zir right arm from under zir neck and zir other right arm from her bosom, and hopped up to look out the little chunks of cut-up bottle that give us daylight in cold times. Cold daytimes, anyways.

Outside was Spirshash, blinking in. He squeaked. "Tethezai! What are you doing in Sythyry's bedroom?"

"Zie's hired me as the new doorman," said Tethezai in a very reasonable tone of voice. "Shall I announce you, then?"

By this time Dustweed and I were awake, and snickering.

"Is anyone else in there?" he asked.

"There is Dustweed, currently working as the valet; there is Hezimikkinen, currently working as the butler; there is Shaliun, currently working as the sous-chef; and of course Accanax, God of Destruction, will be around shortly to do the sweeping-up. Which is to say, nobody but the hired help.

"Shaliun ... the Rassimel girl from Advanced Linguistics? She's involved with you too?"

"Oh, heavens no, not her. I never date within my own species, Spirshash. The ancient magic theorist that all the other Shaliuns named after."

"But she's dead..."

"Do you really think that would stop Sythyry?"

At this point, politeness (or perhaps common sense) demanded that I fly over and nip her ear. "Do be quiet, Tethezai, or I shall have you demoted to second undergardener. Spirshash, whatever are you doing coming around at this hour?"

"Paying you back. Can I come in?"

"Surely, surely, you know where the door is. I lent you money?" I have absolutely no head for accounting after midnight.

"You paid three lozens for that hat I destroyed," he said when he had come in.

"Oh! Truly, I would like those back, but I wasn't planning to spend them before daybreak anyways. Tethezai can just wait for her wages."

"That I shan't! I'll be stealing from your cabinets shortly!", she said. (I had invited him into the bedroom. It seemed sensible, even to a sleey lizard's mind, to have witnesses and chaperones. Not that Tethezai and Dustweed would be anyone's first and second choice for chaperone -- well, not anybody innocent's choice -- but waking Havune seemed unkind and I would just as soon not have Dubaille witness anything of note.)

He blinked. "Well, I was feeling tremendously guilty for making you pay."

"That's quite kind of you, but it's really not that urgent.

"Tillissa and Oostmarine have forbidden me to speak to you again," he said.

"Is that why you are sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to speak to me?"

"I couldn't leave you un-paid-back!" he wailed.

"Is that your true and honest reason?" I was rather expecting some sort of declaration of love, for me or for Oonway, or perhaps even for Strenata or someone I couldn't imagine.

"You might have thought I had asked them to forbid me, as a way to not pay you back!"

"You're not notably parsimonious. And we do know a few of the same people. I daresay that a few lozens placed into Tethezai's hand, or Havune's, might well have made their way back to me not greatly diminished."

His ears went flat. "I never thought of that."

"You've been in a wild rush all day, haven't you, Spirshash?" said Dustweed.

"A bit of one, perhaps."

Zie patted his head. "We'll, you're all paid up now. Go home, snuggle with your husband and wife, and act reasonable."

When he was gone, zie asked me, "Sythyry, why is it you like Orren? Or even stand them?"

Well, their wild rushes are cute. Dangerously cute.

Where all my cley has gone [10 Nivvem 4260]

Well, not strictly all of it, but most.

It is a small pitcher of blue glass, with a curling shrimp for a handle. When I say, "pthauppa, pour forth!" it creates some fourteen gallons of clean, bland water. Very real water. Once a day.

My first formal enchantment. And about as puny as an enchantment can get... except of course for it being real water instead of temporary one-hour water. Though real is easier for a Zi Ri.

We need not think about my grandparent's reaction, nor his first enchantment... for that matter, I don't know what zir first enchantment was. I'm sure it's in history books.

This one won't be.

It will however save me trips to the public fountain, and concomitant mockery.

Spraddling [10 Nivvem 4260]

I spraddled with Yarwain and Iska most of last night.

I hope that sounds worse than it actually is. We covered the floor of Yarwain's study with many many leaves, upon which are painted little wiggles which whoever painted them thought represented important things in the collection. My own wiggles are perfectly understandable, except to Yarwain. Yarwain's are incomprehensible to everyone except for himself and Iska. Iska's are not simply comprehensible, they are pretty, curse her.

[A couple of very technical paragraphs omitted, mainly because Bard couldn't make much sense of them. -bb]

So, Durnokk's collection is actually not that much inferior to Ilpomino Pandarff's collection of metal boxes, which we spraddled in class. Pandarff has, on the whole, the better pieces; Durnokk has a greater variety, a greater intensity, and a greater depth of character, and so on.

This is very silly, considering that Durnokk is Gormoror and Pandarff is Rassimel -- how could a Gormoror possibly collect things as well as a Rassimel? But we went through and checked everything. Iska found five minor mistakes, two of them mine, three of them Yarwain's, curse her.

So much for spraddling. Now I shall sleep, and, when I wake, see whether or not Strenata cancels our assignation for later today.

After Spelunking [11 Nivvem 4260]

Last week, before many events came, Seeks-Justice (I think it was) Strenata and I had agreed to share a meal and an attendance of a singing by a student group together, alone, after our final spelunking class. (To which our grades were, of course, "Deeply Studied", because the instructor prefers that silly little joke to the slightly inferior "Dutifully Attended".)

I was rather nervous.

Preparations for a Date

I left my new glass pitcher's force unused, in case I needed to pour fourteen gallons of water upon Seeks-Revenge as a distraction for making my escape.

This is silly, because I have respectably much cley left at eveningtime now that I'm not using most of it making the pitcher every dawntime.

Thery recommended I bring flowers. Thery has never dated an Orren of course. I cast around and found Tethezai instead. smirk. From her advice I brought a small silk beanbag fish, understuffed for extra wiggliness, dyed alarming purples and magentas, with glittering eyes.

And money, of course. I tried to retrieve the sixteen lozens Dubaille owes me, but there was little success there. Indeed, so woeful was his story and so storied was his woe that I nearly lent him six more lozens, except, fortunately, I didn't have them. Not out of pity. Out of a need to shut him up.

After the Spelunking

And after class Strenata came up to me and introduced herself. "Hi there, small blue cave lizard! I'm Seeks-Slithering-Songs Strenata. Let's eat!" So I painted that name on a bit of shiny paper that I happen to have brought ... um ... from a little roll of it that I happen to have been carrying since I figured her name trick out... and stuck it in her hatband, and we were off.

Cafe du Fronde was its usual busy self, so she sat on a stool at the back, with enough of a shelf near it to hold up her grilled shrimps and chub-beetles and a little bowl of pomegranite cream. I perched on her shoulder, and assaulted a quarter-order of shrimps with raisins and no offirrah. (The Cani waiter does complain about having to open the large barrel of offirrah, whenever I show up.)

And we talked about nothing in particular: how odd it was for a Gormoror's collection to be at all as good as Pandarff's; how the world would be very different (or not) if the World Tree had intensely luminous fruit instead of a sun rolling around the sky; whether a nendrai could beat a chromodon in a fair fight; how paper is made; how wonderful paper made from Dubaille's fur would be for letters of debt.

And when she stood up, the beanbag fish slithered off her hat. She caught it in mid-air, and giggled, and hugged me in the middle of Cafe du Fronde. And played hackeysack with it the whole way to Sprowlween Hall.

The performance, by The Monstersingers, was suitably silly. Bubbly parodies of traditional religious and dramatic songs, weaving current events and other amusements into it. Since I am one of the current events and amusements, I was a bit nervous ... but I escaped with but a single verse. There was a song about Spirshash -- Firffaff in the song -- a married Orren man with husband and wife, but having seven very clumsy secret affairs, one each with the other seven species. When the Sleeth came bounding and howling through their bedroom window, Spillissa and Spoogemarine finally noticed...

And Seeks-Slithering-Songs Strenata was nice enough to put her hand on my flank and not laugh very much while they did that one.

And that was that. Absolutely the least dramatic date I've had with Strenata. Perhaps the least dramatic date I've ever had, since I do seem to date Orren.

The Unpleasant Musing

Strenata has a bit of a crude accent. It's not too bad, not like Iska's. For example, when she says in Vheshrame, it sounds like in Veshrame, the way anybody would say it except at court or something. But when she says to Vheshrame, she says to Veshrame like some very rural person or Gormoror or like that, not toov Heshrame the way any reasonable person would.

I suppose I shouldn't let this bother me, but it does.

A Slightly Fretful Morning [12 Nivvem 4260]

Havune was deeply in his fury this morning. Dubaille zipped out of the apartment, slightly late for his second day of heavy labors as a tooth-cleaner's assistant. As part of leaving, Dubaille did not make the bed. Dubaille knocked against Havune's table and knocked the water-pitcher over and thereby drenched ... um ... lightly sprinkled the rug, since the water-pitcher was nearly empty. Dubaille may or may not have taken a three-lozen piece from Havune's purse -- Havune is very precise with his possessions, but not with his finances; he does not remember spending it, but is not certain that he did not; he is accordingly giving Dubaille one and a half lozens' worth of anger. And Dubaille kicked Havune's boots, knocking one of them onto the dampened rug, from which it will have a dark wet spot on the side for a good, oh, two hours more.

Dustweed and I produced such sympathy as we were able. Which was only so much. In our room, such iniquities as Dubaille's happen every hour, or every third of an hour now that Tethezai practically lives there. Except for the theft: when we steal from each other, it is definite and clear and unambiguous, and accompanied by the writing of a name, a date, and an amount of amber upon the larger half of a nutshell. And, so far, it has always been paid back within four days, and the nutshell cast into my bed and burnt.

This is not to say that Tethezai is clumsy or messy. I don't think she could room with Havune either, but she is, on the whole, neater than Dustweed or I -- except with charged paintbrushes! -- but the room is barely big enough for one full-sized person and me, and really not big enough for two.

The charged paintbrushes are more devastating than one might think. Tethezai has been painting Dustweed frequently, and is known for making wild gestures in moments of passionate emotion ... and passionate emotion is common enough when she beholds her true love, naked and beautiful (or, at least, less hideous than usual), and is forbidden by the drying of paint to so much as kiss her for an hour.

So Dustweed is a truly astounding Herethroy today, all covered with swirls in seventeen flavors of purple, with glass mock-gemstones glued on here and there. Somehow Tethezai has made zir look almost symmetrical, almost pretty.

For my part, I am not quite so thoroughly painted. I did get speckled and spotted with four of Tethezai's purples: three from a waving paintbrush, and the fourth from a thrown paintbrush. For safety, I should learn to be more restrained when stating the evident truth of Dustweed's appearance, or learn more Hebrador and get a spell for turning aside wooden missiles.

Havune was in such his fury that Anoof smelled him from across town -- which is not actually physically possible, but Cani empathy and loyalty transcends the physically possible. (I reject as tedious the alternate explanation that they had agreed two days ago that Anoof would stop over for lunch and studies.)

Anoof was sufficiently pleasant, and Dustweed was sufficiently untouchable, that Tethezai embraced him closely and, if Dustweed and Havune hadn't scowled in unison, might well have stripped him for his painting on the spot. (I reject as tedious the alternate explanation that the families of Anoof and Tethezai have some close connection, and that Anoof and Tethezai all but grew up together. Though it does occur to me to wonder if the two of them ever have been lovers -- and if Havune knows that his husband-to-be is possibly transaffectionate.)

Of course, I'm a fine one to talk about being transaffectionate, with all these Orren about.

I rather wish there were some other Zi Ri around besides my half-sibling. I don't even know if there are any other Zi Ri within three years of my own age, anywhere.

Seeks-Square-Crabs [12 Nivvem 4260]

I begin to think that swearing off Orren once a year, or once a term even, is not quite enough. I think I should swear off Orren once a week. That might suffice.

Seeks-Slithering-Songs Strenata and I had arranged a date for this afternoon: listening to some end-of-term recitals from the advanced music students; dinner at Ghu Navage Ghu; parting ways for the evening because it is end of term and we both have a great deal to do.

I waited outside the Hall of Crypts (the recital rooms are in the crypts, presumably for better quiet. These are not burial crypts; those are elsewhere.) for a good hour and then some, enough time for the sun's flame to wane appreciably. And then I flew back home.

And when I got there, Strenata had sent me a note -- she was going to spend the afternoon hunting for square-crabs with Oonspath.

It was quite an excited note. Square-crabs are only tasty for a few days a year, and she had missed the last year because she was studying the theory of differences, and she had missed the year before because she had broken five of her ribs.

A bit of further prying (inspired by how water-stained the leaf was) revealed that she had written the note from the riverbank, about halfway through my waiting. Presumably she remembered our date, but did not think that I might have been trying to meet her there, so sent the note to my home, far too late.

In any case, Dubaille was not the most sympathetic of listeners. When I expressed complaint about Strenata's neglect, he gave me a vast stinking torrent of abuse, vileness, adultery, oppobrium, torment, and occasional bits of neglect from Lady Quissenden.

I escaped from the flood; I flew out the window! (He had the window open in wintertime for some reason concerning the pile of burnt baked worms in the kitchen, I presume.)

And so I flew to Flooosh's bakery, for complains and poptaloops. She was sweet and sympathetic, and invited me to come to her family's village for the week between terms.

A whole village of Orren.

I am once again doomed.

Corpador time

My examination in Corpador started yesterday, with a sixteen-page booklet on ducks, and a four-page booklet on Cloak of Another God.

For those of you who are monsters, or who are not familiar with sophisticated magic, Cloak of Another God is a rather amazing spell: it allows a prime to take the shape of any of the other prime species. The transformation includes all physical aspects of the new shape -- those in Cani form get very keen noses (but, unfortunately, do not truly understand the details of what they are smelling); those in Orren shape transform to small otters in water; those in Zi Ri form can fly with wings. It does not include magical aspects of the new shape -- those in Zi Ri form cannot levitate or breathe fire, for one thing. This is an amazing spell in two ways: (1) it is five or ten complexity lower than a spell to transform one to a nonprime species; (2) it allows seven choices of new shape (not counting one's own shape), rather than only one. It relies very heavily on the special status of primes.

I refuse to describe ducks. I was bored with ducks on page three, and I remain bored with ducks after the whole exam.

(But I do want to get Cloak of Another God, if I can arrange it somehow. Once I'm good enough to cast it, I suppose, will do.)

And here are the questions:

1. What is the complexity of the easiest possible Ruloc Corpador spell, using no other Arts, to remove the feathers from a duck? What are the practical dimensions (duration, range, other requirements) of such a spell?
2. And if the spell were using Mutoc instead of Ruloc?
3. Could it be done at all with Healoc? If so, how? If not, why not?
4. Estimate the complexity of a spell to make a feather as strong as so much iron. (For the purpose of this exercise only, assume that iron is seven-times-twelve times as strong as a feather.)
5. Is there any lower-complexity way for a non-Orren prime to take Orren shape than by use of the spell Cloak of Another God?
6. If one were inventing a spell for a non-Orren prime to take Orren shape of the same complexity as Cloak of Another God, list three possible advantages it could have over Cloak of Another God.
7. (Extra credit): Under what circumstances could one have a spell that transformed one particular species of prime into another without using Mutoc? What other Nouns would be required? Would this spell work on all primes of the first species? Estimate the complexity.

I have submitted my answers, and so discussion is permitted. Though I have not the slightest idea about the extra credit question.

The Grades [13 Nivvem 4260]

Some grades have begun to appear.

Deepening of Understanding: "Notably Experienced". The class exercises got considerably lighter towards the end of the semester, so I presume that they know about the explosions with Spirshash.

Corpador: "Finely Reasoned". This pleases me! I had not expected to be marked any better than "Adequately Reasoned", or perhaps "Diligently Labored". Evidently nobody successfully figured out the trick of changing one prime to another without Mutoc -- the hint is that it can be done only to two species, and not to all members of those. There are many puzzled Corpador students .... but I, at least, am a puzzled Corpador student with a dignified grade.

Not so in Enchantment, in which my grade was simply "Casually Labored." This is unsuitable and inappropriate! I was in no way casual about Enchantment! I attended every lecture but three; I did every theoretical exercise; I completed my fourteen-gallon pitcher! Perhaps it was unwise to carefully skip the two lectures about my inventive and strategically-created grandparent -- but I am sure I would have melted from all the stares from everyone in the classroom. It was a matter of safety! Also I worry that I was expected to have some special secrets or talent in Enchantment denied to all but Glikkonen's descendants, but I do not -- what zie knows is either published quite broadly, or concealed in zir own notebooks. Or, perhaps, is imparted to zir descendants on their month-of-month-of-month's birthday. [81 World Tree years, about fifty terrestrial. -bb]

Spelunking: "Deeply Studied". Everyone who attended all the expeditions was given "Deeply Studied."

Famous Collections: "Tolerably Considered". This stings a bit. Yarwain and I have, on the whole, taken the class together: the three reports we did jointly, and the exercise in spraddling we did together with Iska. (Iska, by the way, otherwise worked alone, and was given "Supremely Reasoned".) Yarwain was given "Finely Considered". For exactly the same work that I did -- exactly the same, I tell you, in the sense that everything had both our names on it. And I should think that in general Yarwain and I did equal parts of it, save that I was the one to write it up, for more people can read my writing than his.

But of course, nobody but a Rassimel could really appreciate the detailed study of collections. This is evident from the list on Prof. Yrrkyrr's door -- an Orren gets "Adequately Understood", another Orren gets "Tolerably Considered"; a Cani gets "Generally Suitable"; and so on -- nothing better. Yet Rassimel get "Finely Considered", "Excellently Stated", "Deeply Reasoned", and such as that -- barring Iska, who got "Supremely Reasoned", and deserved it, curse her.

It was a fun class, but this has a sting to it, armed with bitter poison.

I'm sure that there are end-of-term festivities of some sort, but I shan't go to them for a moment or two. Instead, perhaps, I shall ask Dustweed what happened when zie took a course from a Herethroy.

Closing the Term [17 Nivvem 4260]

Tomorrow, I set off with Floooosh on the Grand Expedition to the Very Ends of Vheshrame. Well, two hours up the river at least.

Today, I decided to pay closing-the-term visits to several friends. Not that I'll be away for more than a week, which might get cut to eight days if I want to get back in time for the First Day celebrations in Vheshrame.

Thery and Yarwain

Thery and Yarwain were evidently busy with a personal private project. I was glad that their bed was not up against my bedroom wall anymore. I was not so glad that I had flown up to knock on their window, but that is my fault and not theirs. They were sufficiently busy so that they did not notice me, I think, and I fled quickly.

Strenata

From Seeks-Square-Crabs Strenata I extracted a light apology, a medium-weight kiss, and a small but leaden-heavy poem of her recent composition, starting with "From whence the graveyard's sickening stroke arrives / Beware its sickening source in noble lives." and not improving one bit from there. She seemed exceedingly pleased with it. I worked as hard as ever I did during the term, and found this and that to say well of it. Strenata was not assigning formal grades, but the informal one seemed to be, "Pleasantly Stated."

We made tentative plans to enjoy each others' company on First Day. She was hardly distressed by the thought of a Sythyry-less week -- unfortunate but true -- though I should think that any Orren is well used to the concept of having a friend zip away to a riverside village for a lazy week.

She herself is not going away -- not hardly! -- and not being idle either. She has engaged with a dancing troupe for a pair of First Day performances. She is working afternoons in a scarfseller's shop for a bit of extra money during the term. She will read The Cheeses of Oorah Thrassen. She will sell bound contraceptive spells. She will practice her swordplay!

I don't imagine anyone else could fit in that sort of schedule, not even someone Zi Ri sized.

I daresay she'll even do half of that.

Spirshash

Tillissa and Oostmarine had forbidden Spirshash to ever speak with me again, so I was somewhat nervous going to see him. I should not have been nervous; after all, I had recently blinked, and thereby missed a good deal.

When I got there, Oostmarine was in the middle of moving out. He had divorced Tillissa. All discord concerning me was ancient -- obsolete -- more distant than the Cyarr Wars -- last week's news!

Spirshash was so distressed that he was in three places at once, and his tail curled into a spiral. [just a figure of speech. -bb] I got little specific information, and much fretting.

The Specifics:

1. The Howling Heads: Tillissa painted some very hideous howling Rassimel heads in the living room. She agreed long since to paint over them, which, last week, she did -- and then she painted some more in the bedroom. The new ones display more mastery of the technique, which makes them all the more hideous.
2. The Mocking Songs: Orren street urchins have been singing mocking songs at Oostmarine (and Spirshash, and Tillissa, and Oonspath, and they would sing them at me except that I have been flying at rooflevel because I don't like to be mocking-sung-at.) According to Oostmarine, this is entirely Tillissa's fault. According to Oostmarine, she should therefore coddle him! Not to simply insist that he buck up!
3. The Spoiled Eels:At dinner last night was Tillissa's turn to cook. Spirshash bought some blackscale eels early in the day -- butchered and gutted and scaled blackscale eels, ready for their broiling or some such. Tillissa was under the impression that they were live eels. Spirshash does not understand this mistake, for live eels do not come wrapped in leaves. In any event, Tillissa went to look for them in the live-tank, and decided that Oostmarine had eaten them all, and gave him his severe talking-to about the matter. The truth was discovered -- and the other truth that Tillissa had neglected to treat the eels properly. (It is midwinter. Treating them properly can be as simple as setting them outside the window.) They were a bit off, after sitting all day by the fire. Tillissa made Oostmarine try to spont Fresh Meat on them. Never force someone to improvise a spell when you have just upset them considerably by an unjust severe talking-to! The spell simply ungutted the eels (regutted them? They got their entrails back, in any case), which was no improvement at all. He refused to try again, and sulked into the bedroom under the howling heads. Tillissa grabbed Spirshash and went out to dinner without him. When they got back, he divorced her on the spot.

(There is more, but I don't know what it is.)

So, Spirshash is in a dreadful state. He is still married to both Oostmarine and Tillissa; now he must choose what to do about that. He could stay married to both, but that would surely leave each of them angry with him for refusing his support to their side. He could stay with one, or stay with the other; in either case he definitively loses a dear one. He could divorce them both, which I think he should do, for they haven't been very good for him these last months, and Orren above all people should be expert at changing personal relationships.

And I don't think he should divorce them both because I want him, for I don't. I would rather have him get his heart all peaceful before I so much as sit on his shoulder.

Real-Eel

Real-Eel has not had any great troubles with eels of late. She introduced me to her new boyfriend, who is an Orren man of moderate station and considerable height named Vingi. Vingi is from Yistreia, but I didn't hear which city -- somewhere close to the trunk in any case. We drank shrimp consomme and chatted about every social thing and were variously pleasant for two-thirds of an hour, and then I excused myself. I was worried about Spirshash.

Spirshash Again

Back at the home of the former Orren trio, Tillissa had locked herself in the bedroom, under the howling Rassimels, and was howling with them. Since she is not painted, she was making a good deal of noise. Spirshash was doing his very best to comfort her through the door, though it seemed an impossible task, and a thankless and worthless one to me.

Unfortunately, that meant that I could not speak with him at any length before I head off to Flooosh's tomorrow.

Dustweed, Tethezai, Havune

Back at home, we made a simple careful dinner (steamed chub beetles with sweet-and-spicy sauce, noodles, leftover takeout nut stew, baked turnips with butter). Dubaille tried to invite himself, but Tethezai glanced at him and sent him fleeing with his fur on fire, or as good as that for social purposes at least. We discussed what Spirshash should do at length.

Tethezai of course said it was Spirshash' own fault for marrying within his species. Dustweed blushed her antennae into spirals. Havune merely asked Tethezai how she thought that the mortal prime species should maintain themselves, if everyone was to be as entirely transaffectionate as she says. She admitted that this is a detail that remains to be worked out, but that the answer surely involves refrigeration. After such an answer, no further discussion was possible.

I do not understand artistic folk. Strenata, Tillissa, and Tethezai all in one day is rather a lot.

Spirshash Again

And after dinner Spirshash did come by briefly. He had calmed Tillissa down to a great degree, but she had gone to bed early, exhausted from her crying. He went to check on Oostmarine, but Oostmarine had last been seen buying and drinking rosemary vodka with a local Orren not noted for great chastity. So he stopped by our apartment, and chatted with Havune and me, and we reassured him considerably. And I conscripted Havune to keep an eye on him while I am away.

The way to Threeze

One goes from Vheshrame to Threeze upriver along the Alamme, several miles: two hours' journey by Orren-foot or Zi Ri wings if one has little luggage, but four by mule or nearly two by horse if one is bringing many leftover pastries and assorted city treats for one's (Flooosh's) family whom one has not seen in a week. Or, if one travels with an Orren who goes that way often, one may take Whelkie' riverboat, which makes the trip in three hours, and is eccentric, and is cheaper than a horse rented for a week, and more pleasant than a hundred scaly-backed mules. Or even than one.

(I do wonder how it is that Strenata affords half a horse.)

Or so we thought, Floooosh and I, as we quite innocently and naively got into a sort of catamaran supported by six large empty esblembei nut shells, long empty and the meat carefully eaten out in six Herethroy village feasts of bygone days. The Queen of Every Whelk has sails, but only for emergencies; Whelkie bought an old, broken, unstable sky-dinghie, Wastrel Heart, which neither sane prime nor Orren would ride high, and hooked it to the catamaran to tow it up the Alamme.

Sailing on the water is a sweet lazy way to go. Nothing as fearsome as sailing in the sky, where a cloudthief might fly invisibly up and swat your boat to land in a splintersome heap in some wicked wilderness, or the ulgrane who stalked so superciliously through the streets of Vheshrame last month might greet you with hail and lightning and high informal tolls. If you fall from the side of a waterboat, as nobody did, someone will scoop you up in a net, and no harm done. Water elementals are gentle sleepy things, or so I hear. Rivers hold few dangers or troubles...

Which of course is why one of the esblembei shells thumped hard against a submerged log, and cracked, and let in a quantity of water, just after we passed Guelmopp. Queen of Every Whelk wobbled and tilted; Floosh had to scramble to keep her luggage on the tipping tilting deck; and Whelkie thrashed Wastrel Heart with a goldenrod flail until she tugged Queen of Every Whelk to the bank.

Well, Whelkie complained and swore and cursed, and I wished I knew more Aquador, and Flooosh jumped into the Alamme and swam back to Guelmopp, and brought us back a dozen sleek strong swimmy Orren and four mules, a quantity of rope, and Whelkie's wife the tree-mage. They hoisted the nut out of the river so it would drain, and healed its crack, and plomped it back in the river, and no harm done.

Except that our three-hour trip had become six, and we had not avoided the mules after all.

[the real-life story]

[OOC: This one is from RL. on the way to Anthrocon this weekend, and I had a flat tire, three blocks away from a Goodyear Tire store that stocks the specialty tires that Arctos (her Prius) requires, and charges less than the dealer does to boot. Very easy automotive trouble!]

[And, later, from Welsh camp... I wrote that story and all the preceding text on the plane. When the plane landed, I got on the bus to Kenosha ... which promptly started leaking oil. It stopped at a mcdonalds, puddling oil, and waited... the next bus, an hour later, came and picked us up ... and also started leaking oil. Not as fast though, and I did get to Kenosha.]

Dancing with Riverred [21 Nivvem 4260]

In Threeze, two or four times a week, there is a dance. Everyone from Threeze will come to it; and people from the towns next to it up and down the Alamme. I suppose that some Herethroy from inland towns could come, but I can't think why they would want to.

And when I say "everyone", I mean everyone. Children -- babies, even, which means that Flooosh is carrying her niece in her arms as she dances with a husband. Perpendra, the oldest one here, also dances, with a cane in either hand; she took a fall when a seven-year-old stepped backwards eight steps instead of two and knocked it. And even Riverred.

Riverred is about my age, and does not lack for maturity or common sense by Orren standards. But she is blind. Her head is a bit dented-in around the eyes, where a Rassimel would have a mask; and blood trickles from the corner of her left eye as slow tears. That is where her name comes from, and naming is all the good she gets from her eyes. It doesn't look like an injury. She must have been this way a long while, for everyone is used to her and helps her somewhat.

This does not, however, make for good dancing. These people must have danced a hundred times as much as I have, yet they cannot keep in their set. They cannot do a proper rights-and-lefts, since Floosh needs at least one hand for her niece. They cannot do a full hay, for Riverred will head off perpendicular to the way she should go and someone must catch her. They cannot even do the chorus, for someone will knock Perpendra over.

And they seem worried about me! At first nobody would dance with me -- manners are that the guest is to be called for by someone who is no guest -- I had to pick an Orren at random and ask to dance with her. Hmph! I may be no bigger than a child, but I am trained in dancing, a full term at Vheshrame, and I know where my tail is.

Well, they seem to have fun with it anyways. I suppose that it is real folk dancing, the way that country folk dance, the way it was before the Rassimel got their minds on it and made it all clever and formal and precise and intricate. It's quite some ways from Flirtatious Dancing class in any case...

And that's another thing. There's very little flirting. Floosh only flirts with her spouses. The adolescents flirt a bit with each other, but very shyly by the standards of the class -- not a one would get a grade that marked the least bit of enthusiasm. I don't think I had three partners the entire evening who so much as looked me in the eye, and that's barely flirting at all, it's just showing a bit of interest in your partner. This is quite the conservative village!

But I daresay I can go without romance from Orren for a week; it's down to seven days now. That means no explosions, at least, which I daresay shall be its own kind of vacation.

Lazy Days on the Alamme [22 Nivvem 4260]

I haven't felt like writing so much the last few days: somehow it is easier to write at school, when I have all sorts of things that I can do and that I must do and that I must do very very soon or I am in trouble, than it is to write in a lazy Orren riverbum village where I can take the journal up on the roof and stare at Orren fishing in the icy waters or carving logs into fantastical distorted laughing faces off by the fores and think about writing for hours on end and not write a single squeaky word.

This is a very lazy vacation for me. It is not so lazy for Flooosh -- since she is the responsible one in the family and brings in most of the actual amber, she is the one who must bake bread and mend furniture and decide that the family can buy another little sailboat when she comes out here. Oh, and give some of the children extra lessons in writing, though Flounderbouncer does most of that. I do not quite see why Floosh puts up with it.

In any case, despite any reports you may have invented, I have done no seduction of Orren so far, and do not expect to seduce any. The only one here I think I might even have a chance with is Iska ... oh, I forgot to mention, Iska is Floosh's other winter break charity project; she came out here with us. In any case, the Orren here do not flirt particularly much with me. Flounderbouncer and Riverred perhaps, Diffitt and Poolie and Chompramirthian maybe a touch, but I think it's the sort of very frivolous and unserious and annoying flirting that acknowledges that it is possible to have some sort of involvement, but it simply won't ever happen. Hmph.

Riverred probably just feels like she is flirting with me because she has to touch me more often than most people would, to tell where I am. Or when I lead her down the ramp from the upper to the middle house. The ramp is plenty wide, a good six feet wide, but it is at least fifteen feet in the air at the lowest spot and twenty at the highest. It has no railings. If you fall off of it, you will land in the water ... which is safe for most Orren most of the year. During the winter, the water is a bit on the hard side -- and the pointy side with fragments of broken frozen icicles.

I asked Floosh why Riverred lives in the upper house, where she has to dare the ramp twice or thrice a day. "She's a willful girl, that one. She won't let blindness keep her from anything -- not fishing, not dancing, not the upper house. We built a railing on the ramp when she moved up there, but she kicked it down and wouldn't let us build it up again."

Flounderbouncer really isn't flirting with me. For the first two days I was here, so was his very serious girlfriend Tliskit, here for her first visit to his family, and they were spending lots of time chatting up the parents. Floosh was very concerned to get home in time to meet her, and wanted to make sure Iska and I did as well. Well, I met her; she seems quiet and shy and sort of blandly pleasant. Flounderbouncer is a bone-mage's assistant somewhere bigger nearby; Tlisket is in training as a guild healer. I'm not surprised she was nervous -- she must come from a relatively quiet middle-class town Orren family, and it's a bit of a wildness to get your surrounding by all leaping bounding scrambling lazy Orren riverbums in their dozens.

Anyways, after Tliskit went back home, Flounderbouncer stayed a couple days more, and seemed quite full in his enthusiasm that everything had gone well enough or at least not so terribly. So he was smiling at everyone, and hugging everyone but Iska. (I think that I am starting to figure out the conservativeness of Threeze. Orren can be with Orren, or some Orren at least. Anyone can be with a Zi Ri of course, same as anywhere (but, alas, nobody will here and now.) And ... that's all. Nobody but Floosh and me would so much as touch Iska's tailtip, and in the city there's nothing much to that at all.

[Scribbled in somewhat later] I'm wrong there. In the Academy, and moreso in the court, there's nothing much to that at all. Hinting at transaffection, or doing it, is rather an upper-class thing. The guildsfolk and that class are a bit leery of it. The commoners are downright ashamed of it, and only the ones who pretend to higher class will even touch other species a bit. Or I suppose for the ones who are actually, honestly transaffectionate; I suppose there must be some of those in every class. Actually doing it, wide and open the way Tethezai does, is a bit shocking even for the upper nobility I think; her parents don't seem to entirely approve. (Zir parents, of course, would just as soon zie got zirself wholly ostracized from all polite society, including theirs.)

I suppose I thought I was going somewhere with these musings, but it's all lost. Threeze isn't a place for deep contemplation in any case. Except for Iska of course... I don't imagine she could ever do anything but that.

Ice Storm

On this branch, wintertime brings three or four ice storms, about one a week and an extra one if all the children are good. I don't know if they were this year; we've had three icestorms so far and we've still got four days of winter to go. (Oh, and for the benefit of the monsters, I don't think that the air elementals really pay attention to how good the Orren children are, but I suppose they could do).

In the city, people scrape ice off of boardwalks afterwards, and off of the sides of buildings, and thwack the trees with long poles to keep them from breaking. Or they use Aquador spells, those who have them. Never Pyrador, I hope -- that would be too dangerous even in wintertime. I doubt that so much as half the city is properly fireproofed.

In the country, there are more trees than people, and honestly the people are lazier. The Orren here only clean off their boardwalks, and I doubt they would do that if Riverred weren't using them.

Instead, they go sliding around outside, zooming downhill, clambering and scrabbling uphill again, hurtling down across the frozen edges of the river, splashing into the middle, coming up in waterform with fish in their mouths. I fly around a little, and sit on the chimney or in one of the fires. Iska hasn't been outdoors today.

And then they troop indoors to eat. There is: fish, shellfish, raw fish, roast fish, pondweed salad, frozen sliced-up fish with fermented pren-juice, more shellfish, simmered fish and fish soup for the chilly children, Zi Ri breath-grilled minnows for whoever feels like it, a bit of leftover pastry, very stale by now, and fish.

I can't really join in the ice games; I am too fragile for crashing around, too thin-scaled to enjoy the cold for long. So today is quiet for me, and perhaps a bit lonely.

That's all, for now.

Poor Flirting by Orren

I am not the Vheshrame Expert In Transaffectionate Flirting. (That would presumably be Tethezai.) Nonetheless, I have some important details about it that anyone attempting it for the first time should keep well in mind.

1. Starting the discussion off theoretically is a perfectly sensible beginning: "Have you ever thought about kissing someone of a different species?" However, at some point, if the flirtation is to be considered successful, the discussion should switch from theoretical to applied, e.g., "Kiss me now, for I yearn for it as the squid-dog yearns for the mackerel!". Or maybe, if one is more shy than melodramatic, "Um ... this is kind of forward of me, but, well, would you be horribly upset if I asked to kiss you? I'm not asking, really, I'm just, well, asking if I can ask."
2. Timing is crucial. If one intends to leave matters for later (see previous point) one should make sure that a later is indeed possible. For example, if ones' intended flirtee is leaving in early afternoon and shall not return for at least three months, if ever, one should not choose late morning for the discussion.
3. Situation is also crucial. If one has recently brought one's same-species and evidently very serious girlfriend to visit one's family, it seems just a touch improper to flirt with other guests after she has been gone for only a few days. It makes one seem inordinately randy. It makes one seem inconstant. It makes one seem, in retrospect, downright noxious. In combination with the preceding items, it even makes one seem randy, inconstant, noxious, and incompetent at it, which is not an appealing combination at all.

Well, most of that was in retrospect. Flounderbouncer and I had a friendly little chat about transaffection, sitting on the roof of the upper house, but I don't think it'll ever become any more than a chat. If he wants anything more, he had better ask for it directly, and even then I doubt he'll get it.

Aside from that rather insulting or incompetent little foray, Threeze was entirely romantically unsatisfying. Restful place, in the wintertime, but I was rather hoping for more.

Iska evidently had a fine time. She and Riverred hit it off immediately, and spent hours discussing religion and languages and whatnots. Despite her pair of handicaps (blindness for the physical one and low class for the social one), Riverred seems to know a great deal about those two topics: Flooosh has been inviting students home several times a year for a month of years, I suppose, and Riverred has had many experts' voices to educate her, even if she can't read on her own. (Or maybe she can -- there is a spell for that, though I don't know if she's got it grafted or even if she would use it if she could.) So far as I know there was no transaffection there either either -- they both seem to act their class about it, and in any case they were talking in the upper house's fire room.

In any reasonable terms, I, too, had a fine time. I'm simply not feeling entirely reasonable about it at the moment. That unflirtation with Flounderbouncer has unpleased me -- if he was going to do something, why not earlier and more? And in any case, with Spirshash's disaster so close in mind, the thought of actually and actively wrecking a marriage (even preemptively) is too close and too distasteful.

The trip back has been quiet enough, no leaks in the Queen of Every Whelk or any such. Whelkie is dickering with the harbormaster's assistant about landing fees or dock space or port taxes or something. I am on a roof, pretending not to be avoiding Iska, and pretending not to be very worried about what Spirshash has done these last nine days.

A Fight at Home [27 Nivvem 4260]

(OOC note: this isn't you. It's not you either. OK, well, one bit of the general Cani customs is you, but no item or situation in the story refers to anyone or anything out of it.)

When I got home from Threeze, the apartment was full of Cani, evidently busy with their party. "What party is this?" I asked Anoof, who met me at the door.

"Welcome back, Sythyry. Do you know how Spirshash got his name?", said Anoof.

"I never asked -- I suppose he picked it himself. Orren usually do. Why?"

"Oh, surely he picked it himself. Because he's very good at spear fighting."

This did not please me greatly. "Anoof? Did he kill Tillissa or Oostmarine?"

Anoof giggled. "No, he didn't kill anyone. Havune will be better in a day or two."

I expressed disbelief; Anoof expressed certainty. I expressed bafflement; Anoof expressed complexity of events. I expressed confusion; Anoof expressed unhappiness. I expressed a desire to enter my home; Anoof expressed the opinion that the fault was only slightly mine and that thus I would be allowed in. Havune, on the couch in his bandages, expressed that I had charged him with a more difficult task than he had expected. Leiska expressed amusement and that Havune had had his fun as well.

Here, then, is the story from the Cani side. I am sure that I have to go get Spirshash's side as well.

So now I am sitting with Tethezai and Dustweed at Cafe du Fronde. Their opinion of the story is slightly different -- Tethezai is angrier with Havune than any of the Cani. She thinks that Havune was particularly bad to her old friend Anoof, and, since Anoof refuses to be furious for himself, she is furious on his behalf. "Even though they're the same species?" I teased. She just looked hurt at me. It's a distinctly unhappy day when you can't tease Tethezai about transaffection matters.

Now I must go visit every Orren in town. (1) I want to hear Spirshash's side of the story, and see what Oostmarine and Tillissa are up to. (1) Strenata and I, last week, had agreed to see some First Day things together tomorrow, and I will watch her troupe dance. I must find her and see if she's gotten engaged to seven counts from Pountyfrount or something in the last week, or whether our date is still on. And find out what her name is today. And, of course, (1) I need to be told some things by Floosh now that we are out of Threeze. And, finally, (2) I would like to drop in on Real-Eel and Vingi, on the off chance that I can get a report of some Orren who had a calm and pleasant week without Flokin stepping on them or anything.

Spirshash's Side

I have done Task the First, to find Spirshash and extract from him the story of the previous week. It is ugly.

So, now a good friend of mine considers another good friend and roommate a nearly-rapist.

I asked Havune about it. Havune gives Oostmarine every bit of blame: Oostmarine's hand poured Oostmarine's chalice full of some rather expensive brandy three times, brandy that should be lapped delicately rather than gulped like rosemary vodka. Oostmarine offered this and that to Havune, "Since Spirshash is taking so long, and since Spirshash has seen fit to divorce me." (This is perplexing because Oostmarine divorced Spirshash, not Spirshash divorced Oostmarine; but I suppose that the brandy was not fully informed about the details of the events.) Havune was fairly sure that Oostmarine was trying to make Spirshash jealous -- to make Spirshash realize the full depth of his love for Oostmarine, and thereby to come back to him and/or choose him over Tillissa. Havune admits to not thinking deeply about this plan, but to the extent he was thinking at all, it seemed a good idea at the time. Or, at least, the physical attention seemed like a good idea at the time. But Spirshash was delayed, and it had evidently gotten somewhat further than Oostmarine had suggested by the time Spirshash had arrived, to the point that hands were starting tentatively to creep beneath clothing.

And there was giggling. Havune says that the giggling, beyond all other matters, displeased Spirshash; that Spirshash specifically bewailed the lack of amusement and joy in marital activities for some weeks.

So that doesn't sound like an all-but-rape to me. Of course, Havune is surely perfuming own his truth, just as Spirshash is surely bemerding it.

This is entirely hideous. I suppose I should be glad to have been away, or I would have had to pick Havune's side, or Spirshash's.

Collecting Every Story [27 Nivvem 4260, night]

Strenata

Seeks-Square-Stars Strenata, wearing a great huge spangled green cloak and what is presumably a scarf with a round pillow in it but looks like a small gold-painted melon by her cheek, pounced upon me for a big and very clothy hug when I finally found which scarfseller she was scarfselling at. She talked with great excitement about The Cheeses of Oorah Thrassen, in which she is playing Mircannis. A very active Mircannis, who swoops across the stage trailing rings of light whenever one of the cheesemakers starts a soliloquy. If a goddess ever swoops across my life that way, I'm going to go hide.

But I don't actually spout soliloquies either, so I daresay I'm safe.

She had a fairly pleasant week, mostly as Kitiina Strenata. She was given a large crimson octahedron kite with peach streamers and a spinny thing on the back -- she did not say who gave it to her -- and spent a good deal of time trotting along the boardwalks, kite bouncing around overhead, attracting attention. The scarfseller encouraged her at this, to the point of sending her out kiteflying on the street with scarves tied to the kite when business was slow. The dance troupe encouraged her too, in the sense that, the second time she missed a rehearsal (viz. the second rehearsal) they replaced her in the troupe by another Orren, one who had decided to spend the entire week studying Old Creithian literature and hence was available immediately.

She actually did sell some moderate number of Ready Adulterer bound spells to one of the local spellbinders, in preparation for First Day. So she should be able to buy books for the spring term, I suppose.

I bought three new sets of ribbons for First Day tomorrow from Strenata's shop: light-green spangled, orange and white spangled, and crimson-threaded-and-very-very-spangled. I am not exactly sure what I will do with three sets of First Day ribbons. "Give two sets to your friends!" is useful advice in principle, but they were cut in my size and I'd have to find an Orren friend and keep him-or-her in water form. in order for them to fit. Or, I suppose, wait 'til next year.

We acquired sausages and scones and steaming mint water, and perched on the railing of the boardwalk by the river, and had an hour without actual drama or even huge surprises in it. We talked only briefly about Spirshash and Havune and all -- she has currently decided that I am not the Grand Sorcerer Duke of Chaos in Spirshash's life, since this one happened when I wasn't there.

And at the end of her lunch hour, the last snow of winter started falling, big flakes the size of saucers; perhaps the weather elementals wanted to make sure they used up their supplies of it by the end of their season. And Strenata scampered back to work, and I went on to the next errand.

(For all monsters: I don't think that the weather elementals actually get supplies of snow. I think they produce it with Creoc Sustenoc Aquador spells, the same way that a real person would. One of my ~mother~'s friends went on a length over brandy at a dinner party about how the World Tree must be infinitely tall, for otherwise the elementals would eventually fill the universe with rainwater. He was considerably mocked -- e.g., if they can create water, they or some other elementals can presumably destroy it too -- but he probably knew the natural history of weather at least somewhat.)

About Flounderbouncer

If you fly into Floosh's bakery, and she immediately points her assistant to the counter and you towards the cafe next door, you know that you are in trouble. Or that someone is.

When Flounderbouncer was asking me many theoretical questions about transaffection, he was not preparing cloddishly to seduce me behind his Orren girlfriend Tliskit's back.

Now, nobody asks theoretical questions about transaffection, except for Rassimel professors working on Catalogues of the Foibles of the Upper Classes or some such. Floosh explained that Flounderbouncer had told her what he never told anyone else in her family, and what he should have and did not tell me, that he was not doing anything behind his Orren girlfriend Tliskit's back. He was, instead, showing off his Rassimel girlfriend Intliscindra to his Orren family, hidden under Cloak of Another God.

(A point of embarrassment: I had just written a Corpador examination on that spell. How could I have missed it?)

(The answer, of course, is that I was mainly paying attention to the Orren who had no obvious girlfriend.)

In any case, Flounderbouncer is very scared. He is nowhere near high enough status to have a Rassimel girlfriend in any sort of public way. Tliskit, Intliscindra, I suppose, could get to be the head of her Healers' Guild chapter, and buy a title, and thereby have somewhat the necessary status, but that's some ways off for a healer-in-training. Flounderbouncer's family might tolerate a quiet quick involvement, but they want to get entirely married, in a formal Rassimel way.

(An awkward aside: I must think of some way to ask about cross-species marriage customs without anybody thinking that I am planning a cross-species marriage myself. Obviously nobody will believe me when I say that it is an entirely theoretical matter.)

Tliskit, by the way, had slightly more status earlier, or at least better prospects. She evidently stole a boxed Cloak of Another God from a rich aunt, a noblewoman whom I have seen at the Duke's court. (Not that I ever could have seen Tliskit at the court, but having an aunt there is something.) A noblewoman who had left the boxed spell ungrafted for over two decades -- but nonetheless a noblewoman who was upset at its theft. Tliskit wound up as an apprentice healer somehow in consequence to that.

Tliskit's visit to Flounderbouncer's family was carefully timed. Wintertime, so that swimming would be limited: Tliskit is a good swimmer for a Rassimel, but not as good as an Orren. A short visit: although Cloak of Another God is a good spell, it is not generally recommended to wear it for more than a few days. And one is sure to slip up eventually, when one uses it for deceit -- when one practices any sort of deceit, really.

Flounderbouncer talked to Floosh about it, in privacy and in confidence. Floosh was not particularly encouraging about Flounderbouncer and Tliskit's prospects in general, but at least agreed that she would do nothing to worsen them. She also recommended that he discuss the matter with me.

I might have been more helpful if he had mentioned just what he wanted to talk about, instead of tricking me into thinking him a feeble and disorganized flirter.

There is more to say here, but the sun has long since gone out and tomorrow starts well before tomorrow.

First Day, part 1 [1 Trandary 4261]

[OOC note: this is the first material from the World Tree authors that has gotten past year 4260!]

At dawn, as the last of the winter got rolled up and tucked away by the weather elementals, the Herethroy children came singing around the apartment, and around every home:

We got created today, today, so give us some candied cabbage.
Four thousand two hundred sixty years, today, today, so give us some candied cabbage.
Or maybe it's one more, today, today
And sweet-leeks would do just as well, on today
You ought to be glad that it's just us today
'Cause Sleeth got created today, today,
And they won't stop with candied cabbage.

We built a big city, today, today, so give us some candied cabbage
Four thousand two hundred sixty years, today, today, so give us some candied cabbage.
Or maybe it's one more, today, today
And big plums would do just as well, on today
You ought to be glad that it's just us today
'Cause Zi Ri were useless today, today
And they ate all the candied cabbage.

... and on through all seven verses. So we gave them some candied cabbage.

Havune was supposed to get the candied cabbage, but the thought seems to have leaked out through the spearhole in his belly. Dustweed and Tethezai are at Tethezai's home -- Dustweed is being shown off, or flung in the faces, of various major nobility that Tethezai is on social terms with. I, of course, was out of town. I hate to admit it, but it was Dubaille who got the candied cabbage -- without being asked -- without begging money from any of us, or even asking to be paid back -- without even complaining. And he got a reasonable amount of it, and a respectable pink-and-orange dyed kind, not the cheapest sort.

Dubaille asked me, "All the species didn't get created on First Day, did they? Is that song wrong?"

Havune, who has been dripping affan as much as blood, explained history to him in detail.

1. The Herethroy and Sleeth got created on the first First Day. The other prime species got created over the next five years. (Some nonprimes had been created earlier -- much earlier -- fifty years or more -- but they don't count.) The song does start with the Sleeth, but doesn't go in order after that.
2. The first First Day was in year 1. It is now year 4261. That means that Herethroy have been running around and singing and chomping cabbage for 4,260 whole years. So it's not "one more."
3. Candied cabbage reliably dates to year 46. Some of the first roundletter manuscripts -- the ones that my absolutely-not-useless ancestors preserved -- talk about cabbage being boiled in honey. That's in common, or nearly, so it's more like "round leafy head-sized vegetable, sweet sticky liquid from insect home, fire-as-a-verb, long time slow", but you can get the point.
4. Nobody eats sweet-leeks any more, so the song has to be fairly old. They only grow slightly underwater, which makes them hard to farm, and expensive. And they don't keep very well once they're cut. (Havune is wrong here -- the Orren in Threeze were looking forward to gathering some when Spring came -- but they're not common in cities.)
5. Inihithre didn't get built on First Day as a city. It was a sort of lean-to, or so they say. They weren't terribly concerned with records at that point, and there's nobody alive who remembers it -- Glikkonen and all were created towards the end of the fourth year, and by that time Inihithre was a few dozen huts and rain-shelters and storehouses and such.
6. Havune's fiances did leave him some fresh plums,the last we shall have 'til summer, which we may eat if we like.

I consider myself choofed in matters of early history and being engaged both. Despite all my grandparents and great-grandparents participation in these matters, I didn't know all of this in any organized way. I haven't even met all my living created ancestors, and I have only spent two years and change with any of them, and I was rather younger at the time.

Thery and Yarwain are at the door, so I shall stop writing for now.

First Day, part 2 [1 Trandary 4261]

Much running around getting dressed! For me it is not so complicated: ribbons (the orange-and-white spangled ones I bought yesterday), a lace collar, paste jewels attached to horns and tailtip. It is officially springtime! I do not have to wrap myself in strips of fur today! The spirits of weather have had a good two hours or more to remove all the coldnesses from the air! (It sometimes takes them that long -- last year they got the air temperature right, but left a snowstorm going through midafternoon. Probably on purpose.)

Havune and Dubaille have much more work to do for their dressing, especially since Cani costuming for the day assumes that there are more people around to help -- unwounded people! -- and his fiances are not coming 'til somewhat later. He may have asked Dubaille for a hand, for Dubaille and he were speaking to each other in angry tones when I left the apartment. I am not entirely delighted with either of them just now.

Thery and Yarwain, nice reliable Rassimel, were ready when I got there, and it was entirely unnecessary for me to hover underneath the window and scratch on it without looking. A very amused Thery put a fish dumpling between my horns while I still had my eyes closed -- they were eating breakfast, fully clothed, in the bedroom. I did abduct the dumpling and two others.

We descended to the street, where we found many many Herethroy children getting their sickness of candied cabbage, sprawled all over the battered boardwalks. I didn't realize how many Herethroy lived in town: a great many, it seems, at least in this quarter.

Everyone was out in their finery. It's usually easy enough to tell who is a student and who is not, but today it's extremely easy indeed. Students have money to spare on clothes -- or, more likely, have family or patrons who make sure that they are thoroughly and extensively dressed for these occasions, and for other court occasions. Non-students in this neighborhood have ribbons that were worn before, or that were torn from colored cloth, or such as that.

Over between a leatherworker's shop and a tenement, there used to be a raised section of boardwalk -- they say that, long ago, there was a garden of fungi under it, and the locals built the boardwalk high so they could climb under it and pick food. The garden is long gone, but the boardwalk is still high. Until this morning, when a gang of students confiscated it and surrounded it with thick fog. I am surprised at the fog, since many of the students are Orren and the fog looks wet enough to turn them into otters.

But a great big painted paper Khtsoyis was just raised out of the fog on a pole, and waved about, and made to shout "The Cheeses of Oorah Thrassen" will start in one minute, wherefore be silently seated, all who will, and be gone far away, all who won't." So it's about time to stop writing and acquire a companionable perch on Thery's shoulder.

First Day, part 3, with cheese [1 Trandary 4261]

The Cheeses of Oorah Thrassen went tolerably well for an Orren student street performance. Strenata zoomed dramatically across the stage four times -- flying! With an Airador spell! Someone on the cast must be remarkably skillful for a student, or maybe some advanced student or professional sorcerer helped out. Spells to hoist a person a short distance are usually Corpador spells, flesh spells, but this was an Airador spell, a wind that blew her from left to right or right to left, and could just as easily have blown her from here to Oorah Thrassen. Nice work.

The acting was entirely adequate. Vompadro was overdone, as he should be, and his voice echoed as if he were shouting his lines from the bottom of a barrel. The duel scene was a fun bit of stagecraft -- the actors who weren't in that scene got into that scene by being cheese-racks, wearing blank wooden masks, and with a lot of imagination I could believe the duel was actually going on in the catacombs/cheese caverns. And in the end, when the great cheese fell on the doomed Vompadro, they arranged for Vompadro to be standing in a valley sort of thing made of painted cloth, and had the cheese roll over him half a dozen times back and forth.

Thery and Yarwain and I collected Seeks-Square-Stars Strenata, who was bubbling (and still trailing rings of light from a spell which will last for three hours more). She had just gotten her mummer's terches, and insisted on getting all of us lunch from the street vendors. Since it is First Day, everyone was selling plue and tarrissy with their usuals, so Strenata and I got sliced frozen fish on cold plue wrapped in a pungent leaf, and the Rassimel got plue-ish porridge with dried cherries and sweet mushrooms.

By which time the locals -- the Tailors' Guild, for this street -- had built their bonfire in the center of the street, piles of green herbs and tinder in a ring of logs, surrounded by nervous tailors wearing fantastical cloth-of-gold hats, holding water-spells and buckets of mud in case a spark got out. We joined the ringdance for a few minutes, long enough to toss the spoons and bowls from lunch into the fire. Seeks-Square-Stars was a bit exciteable, and flew across the fire trailing rings of light, and got scowls from many tailors. So we dragged her around a few corners to where the Marigold Society was putting on a puppet show about Lenhirrik and Poxague, with Yarwain holding her left arm and Thery holding her right arm and me sitting on her head and flapping feathery leathery wings in her eyes whenever she tried to fly. She bit my left rear foot, but not very hard.

It wasn't a very good puppet show, really, not compared to the Cheeses we had just seen or acted in. (For one thing, I don't think that Inihithre was actually planted solid with marigolds, and, although Lenhirrik is quite likely to emphasize the vegetable nature of all things when she is around, and sometimes does make flowers sprout in her path, I don't think they're all marigolds. Silly Rassimel florist fanatics.) Also Thery and Yarwain kept whispering that the pornographic scenes involving me were going to start any minute -- and no, it wasn't that kind of puppet show, it was a very ordinary street performance. Hmph.

Afterwards, Thery and Yarwain went to something or other at the Countess Gloun's city mansion, and Strenata went for a quick swim and a nap, and I came back home to scribble this and change to the light-green spangled ribbons, since I have them.

First Day, part 4 [1 Trandary 4261]

The Great Temple of Virid, near the center of Vheshrame, holds the traditional First Day ceremonies. I suppose the auxiliary temples do too, but the one at the Great Temple is the important one, and not to be missed. Everyone who is anyone, or wants to be, and everyone who comes from Vheshrame, or wants to come, is required to be there. Everyone!

So, of course, I couldn't get anyone to go there with me.

Strenata is taking a swim and a nap; Thery and Yarwain are at the Countess Gloun's; Dustweed and Tethezai are nowhere to be found; Havune is introducing his fiances to his poor relations or some such; Spirshash and Tillissa are going to the auxiliary temple near the academy; Real-Eel and Vingi are strolling around, hand in hand, eating bits of pickled fish from street vendors, and looking so happy in each other that they don't have time to spare for a god. Oh, and Dubaille is trying to kidnap his children from his wife or something like that. He didn't explain really.

So I went alone, hissing about every friend.

But of course Dustweed and Tethezai were there -- where else would they be? Dustweed's family was there: the Baroness Bethony Grentian zirself, zir husband Greenthorn and wife Tormentille, Greenthorn's other mari and other wife, nine or ten other adults and children only a bit younger than Dustweed. One gets the impression that they are generally poor, by baronial standards. Greenthorn's other mari wears enchanted ribbons, and his other wife wears the emblems of seven mills, but the baronness zirself has cloth ribbons.

In any case, Tethezai was being ferocious in a very kind and innocent way to the Grentians. She was pointing out the notables and dignitaries to them, for she knew them personally and the Grentians did not, and with each one she told a bit of a story. The Cani gentlewoman there, indigo her ribbons and copper her earrings, is the Minister of Flowing, set in charge of it from last year from being an assistant minister of finance, and not a drop of water enters nor leaves the city that she has not approved herself, nor any other liquid either. Two months ago I sat next to her at the fish course at a dinner at Count Threnzianne's, when she was personally inspecting the flowing of the cuminous brandy, extensively. She complained greatly that Taloomp had tripped her that morning with his heavy swinging tail, and sent her to inspect the sewage pool from very close up indeed, but what could she do? Taloomp is a supreme Aquador mage, and there is no dismissing him from the Department of Flowing, and, as he has been there for so many years, there is no administrative punishment that she can apply.

The Grentians were suitably intimidated. Their hated child and heir has acquired a very well-connected and high-status lover.

I joined them, landing on Dustweed's shoulder familiarly, and smiling and introducing myself to all of them. Since this seemed to be an occasion to use heavy etiquette, so I gave my long name, with my parents' and grandparents' names, which fell upon them like the paw of the fire god.

And Tethezai gave me a quick huge smile.

I seem to have declared myself publicly as Dustweed's ally and supporter.

Next time I accidentally pour myself a big chalice of doom, I do hope it's about a cute Orren.

In any case, the ceremony is about to start...

First Day, part 5 [1 Thory 4261]

Most of my friends are sensible about having other things to do just now. The First Day ceremony at the Temple of Virid ranges from boring to insipid to tedious to uninteresting, and then goes back to boring again for dramatic unity's sake.

Boring: It starts with Herethroy choral singing. There's a 244-part song. They sing one bit every day, or every day but today. The day's ceremony starts with the last bit in the cycle. Typical religious silliness, starting at the end. That's the boring bit. There may be 244 parts to the song, but they all sound exactly the same to me, and they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on, forever, or for nearly a sixth of an hour, whichever comes first.

Insipid:Then the High Priest of Virid, looking entirely old-fashioned and ridiculous in a plum-colored waistcoat and a ceremonial topiary of a hat-thing, stands there with giant acorns in all four hands and explains in pompous pious polemics about how primes were created 4260 years ago to expand and rule the World Tree and be the right people and all of that obvious stuff. Then he creates a big arken tree in a big wooden pot in the plaza.

I do not understand that part of the ritual in the slightest. This isn't the anniversary of the day that the World Tree was created -- I don't know if we even know what day that is. It's the anniversary of the day the Herethroy were created. He should create, oh, a huge pile of hosh grain or something.

Tedious: Then a dozen other priests strip off their old-fashioned ridiculous clothes, and climb up the tree, and start chopping bits off of it and tossing them down to other, less agile priests with meng-nut sickles beneath. The less agile priests, still carefully ridiculous in Herethroy clothing (even the two-thirds of them that aren't Herethroy, so they've got limp floppy sleeves) stripped the leaves from the branches, and tossed them in baskets, and went around giving them to everyone. There is Symbolic Meaning Here. The high priest declaimed this and that.

Boring: It ends with Herethroy choral singing. There's a 244-part song. They sing one bit every day, or every day but today. The day's ceremony ends with the first bit in the cycle. Typical religious silliness, ending at the beginning. That's the boring bit. There may be 244 parts to the song, but they all sound exactly the same to me, and they go on and on and on and on and on and on and on, forever, or for nearly a sixth of an hour, whichever comes first.

First Day, part 6 [1 Trandary 4261]

I would call this, "Lunch with the In-Laws", but they're not my in-laws, they're Tethezai's. Actually they're not in-laws at all, but they aren't outlaws either, so I'm rather at a loss for what to call them.

And there's no calling it "lunch" either. It's halfway through the afternoon. As is required by First Day, the regular order of the ordinary day is scrambled -- shaken about -- stood on its head. I'm surprised that the day doesn't end with all the customary meals, squeezed together into a dense brick, right at nightfall, with breakfast last.

In any case, the party for lunch was: me; Dustweed; Tethezai; Greenthorn and Tormentille Grentian; and Mellilot Pfirsnavine, who is their second wife. The dread Baroness Bethony Grentian gave Dustweed a look that promised future agonies, and departed in a cluster of minor Herethroy nobility, wherein her title would count for something. Someone or other tried to collect Greenthorn and Mellilot to visit her own family, but they would not go. Greenthorn, understandably enough, wanted to see precisely what swamp of honeyed alligators Dustweed was in. He was not to be disappointed.

Mellilot, unfortunately enough, wanted to talk about my grandfather. I must learn to be wary of all people with enchanted ribbons and two measures of wits. One measure and they won't be interested; three measures and they'll know what not to ask; but two measures is dangerous. Or at least socially awkward.

For further hunger: there are a good many restaurants near the Great Temple of Virid. On First Day right after the public rituals, they are all full of the people who did not attend the ritual, and the boardwalk in front of each one is full of the people who did attend. I complained most woefully and pitifully to Tethezai -- in Nounwise truth it was simply a tactic to avoid further questioning by Mellilot about why "Glikkonen's Trio" contains four things. She exerted her powers as best she could, but she is not of sufficient rank as to actually create a new table in a restaurant.

Or, more realistically for one mighty in rank instead of magic, to compel a group of diners to leave their table. That would take a count or above, I think, and must be done delicately.

On an ordinary day, at an ordinary restaurant, such a party as this would be given the first place in the line by the asking for it.

(I hadn't noticed before, but restaurants in the student quarter don't do that at all -- well, I suppose they would if one asked, or if the actual duke showed up at The Sloop in Soup -- but nobody asks. Even Nestrune doesn't; I know no other way to get him to be quiet for seven or twelve minutes that he is the Crown Prince of Daukrhame. Sometime I will have to think about this.)

In any case, today the streets were crowded with people with courtesy titles (which is to say, children or spouses of nobles), and a fair number of the actual titleholders as well; and every one of them hungry; and every one of them willing to use their to get food sooner. We looked at various queues, but getting to the front of one was hopeless. After some inspection -- and Tormentille revealing that zie, too, was extraordinarily hungry -- we settled on Muffantando's, which none of us particularly likes, but at least the other nobility doesn't particularly like it either and so there were only two groups at the front of the line that Tethezai (with marginal assistance from the Grentians and myself) couldn't claim precedence over.

But Tethezai's pleasantness to the shopkeepers was a double unpleasantness to Dustweed. Over the soup course she had to ask, "Who is Cheffnarry?", which must be an uncomfortable question to ask at the best of times, and at a table with two-thirds of your parents and such can't be the best of times.

Cheffnarry was -- and presumably still is -- fearsomely pretty, and dangerously skillful at music and poetry, and a champion at dressage, and a collector of bits of sentient monsters, and the unfortunate fifth child of a Rassimel couple who, by reasonable economics, should have had only four. With any reasonable person, Dustweed should be exceedingly jealous of her. Tethezai took far too long to realize that she should have reminded Dustweed that she is not reasonable, and that, in fact, she is spending First Day (and many days on either side of it) with Dustweed and not a moment with Cheffnarry.

Which was enough and plenty for Dustweed; which was all zie wished to hear. Unfortunately, by that point, everyone else at the table was curious and a half about the story of Cheffnarry, and Dustweed's parents were not willing to let the matter drop. So Tethezai gave them their honeyed alligators.

1. Twenty-one years ago, Tethezai understood that she could not love another Rassimel.
2. Ten years ago, Tethezai's parents begin to have their suspicions that Tethezai is following the upper-class style of taking lovers of other species a bit too devoutly. (Tethezai being only twenty at the time, and heavily chaperoned, "lover" does not mean what it does for her today, of course.)
3. Five years ago, Tethezai's parents explain to her the distinction between "amusement" and "responsibility". She explains to them the distinction between "attraction" and "disinterest". A lively discussion ensues. A compromise is reached whereby Tethezai will make sincere efforts -- of several months' duration -- on three Rassimel of her or her parents' choosing.
4. Three years ago, Cheffnarry is selected as the third of the three Rassimel. The choice is made carefully. Cheffnarry is as artistic as Tethezai, but in different media. Cheffnarry is as pretty as one can imagine. Cheffnarry is distinctly fond of Tethezai, and vice-versa. Cheffnarry very much needs to make a good marriage. Tethezai does her best -- really she does! -- and is quite close to Cheffnarry for some extended time. Marriage is discussed.
5. On their daughters' one-year anniversary, both Tethezai's and Cheffnarry's parents somehow neglect to arrange for even the slightest chaperonage. The late evening tries to follow its natural course. In the morning, both girls are deep in their tears and their furies both. Marriage is no longer discussed.
6. The next day, Tethezai declares that their arrangement is satisfied in full measure; and that, furthermore, her parents have made chaperonage futile at this point. There is much bitter argument. The current arrangement (in a preliminary form involving a Cani lad) is started, so quickly that you might expect that most of the concerned people had been anticipating it for some time.

Tethezai was all very calm as she told this story, but she did not let go of Dustweed's mid-hand under the table from beginning to end of it. I do hope Dustweed's chitin isn't too badly dented from it.

Afterwards, three very embarrassed Herethroy gobbled the rest of their salads, and discovered that they had arranged to meet their Baronness quite soon, and blessed the table with roughly the right amount of amber, and left. And Dustweed and Tethezai and I spoke of art and magic and -- gods help us! -- candlemaking, until the waiters glowered respectfully at us and mentioned the long queue still outside.

At the next table, the natural-history curio sellers looked distinctly apologetic that they had brought the topic up. Pretending that they hadn't been eavesdropping would have been futile.

Having ritually told Virid (and Gnarn, I suppose) "Thanks for last year, now give us your Verbs and all for another year and nothing else thank you", and, more importantly, had lunch, and, still more importantly, paid for it and made up the lozen-and-a-third that the senior Grentians were short, we escaped past the ravenous hordes of beribboned carpenters and tailors and leaf-fliers and cheesemakers, and retreated to Ghaln-Yastrou Park for privacy, shaking, and apologies.

(And, for all monsters, "ice-hedgehog castle" is the etymology of the word for such a thing. If there are real ice hedgehogs, I hope their castles are less transient and fragile than these.)

In any case, Ghaln-Yastrou Park was no better suited for walking today than it had been yesterday, which is to say, only the boardwalks were at all passable on the ground, on pain of having to clean your boots if you got off of them. Dustweed and Tethezai were willing to pay this price for a bit of privacy, trudging across the picnic field into one of the little clumps of trees where, well, couples traditionally get a little privacy but not too much. Privacy even from me in this case -- they asked me to float guard outside, and discourage people from creeping up on them unawares.

Yes, I can see them. No, they're just talking.

Which gave me time for reflection and meditation. Tethezai had a serious Cani boyfriend, after Cheffnarry. Tethezai knew Anoof, one of Havune's fiances, well enough to be furious when Havune was being ... not disloyal, exactly, but complicated in his loyalties. Which leaves me very curious ... and how does one ask such a question? Which should one ask?

Which, since I am still lurking by the side of the path, waiting to leap out and confront anyone who tries to track my roommate and zir consort to their chosen lair (from which I hear occasional low snatches of phrases like, "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?". From Tethezai, which confuses me greatly.), leads me to inordinately complicated sentence structure and an Informal Normative and Practical Table of Transaffection. The Normative Fraction Transaffectionate is, what fraction of that species' upper classes should be transaffectionate to some noticeable degree -- say, as much as Havune (who can be induced to a certain amount of kissing and fondling by an Orren), not necessarily as much as Tethezai (who actively falls in love with a Herethroy).

Or me.

The Practical Fraction is what fraction actually does. These numbers are based on (1) my opinions, and (2) a casual impression of rumor and innuendo, and, as such, inaccuracy and error are out of the question.

Not that I have any great degree of acquaintance with the last three, nor even good sources of rumor. There are only a handful of Gormoror at the Academy; a Sleeth or two, and I don't think any Khtsoyis at all, which is the proper number.

Rather more than this have tried it out and found it unsatisfying, I should think. A third? A sixth? I suppose a third of higher society and a sixth of not-quite-so-high?

I wonder if one could get actual facts here. It's an awfully personal question to go asking everyone, and an awfully rude thing to put the answers into charts and tables. A spell like The Complete Census might work, though I suspect the gods pay less attention to matters which they do not have to get personally involved, so I daresay it would stretch even my grandparent's powers to do it...

At any rate, it seems appropriate to carry on a theoretical exercise in cross-species affection when one is serving as the defender of an actual instance of it. But the actual instance of it seems to have progressed passed the fearsome conversation and on to the sitting on of laps and not talking very much, so I daresay it is time to go.

First Day, part 8 [1 Trandary 4261]

Well, Dustweed and Tethezai seem none the worse with each other for whatever revelations were revealed and histories were storied. Dustweed's kilt had not fared nearly so well. Zie had sat on a treestump, squashing a large slug beneath zir chitin-armored (and hence unfeeling) rump, and ground it quite thoroughly into zir clothing. I had one more set of ribbons that Strenata had talked me into buying, so I had no quarrel with going home for new clothes.

I started out riding on Dustweed's shoulder, since, after all, I had just done her two-thirds of an hour of a favor. Every gaze in the city was heavy upon us, though. Dustweed and Tethezai are notorious, each in zir own style, and I am notable enough in mine. I hope they didn't think that it was some very disturbing version or perversion of a Herethroy trio -- after a few very curious looks by a number of Cani in plum waistcoats, I decided to fly, awkward or not.

Dubaille was at home, feeding his two children on porridge with prunes. The children looked rather miserable. I could hardly blame them. The porridge smelled burned, the prunes looked sour, Dubaille's voice was ragged as he coaxed them to finish up so they could go to the temple, and I was sure that they had been taken away from a much nicer lunch at Lady Quissenden's.

Tethezai, who is entirely full of kindness, offered to help Dustweed change clothes. Given the choice of (1) standing guard over Tethezai and Dustweed for another two-thirds of an hour or (2) watching Dubaille torment his children with inadequacy, I fled. Escaped! Flapped my wings and skipped out the window! It was the only thing to do.

The family of plum-waistcoated Cani noted my swift passage with some interest. I daresay there will be more rumors about me by eveningtime.

However, a bit of knocking around discovered that Seeks-Inihithre Strenata was up and about from her nap.

"Why are you seeking Inihithre? It's still on Craitheia, where it has been for four thousand two hundred sixty years."

"Less about four hours, Sythyry ... Besides, they might have moved it. News takes two or three days to get here from there. That's plenty of time for a band of brave, defiant, determined Orren to pick it up and, oh, scoot it off to distant broken-off Juneia."

"You're named after the city Inihithre, aren't you? Not, oh, a large arkenwood sculpture of a roasted fish of that name, done by some berserk and particularly-starving starving conceptual artist somewhere that I haven't heard of."

When Strenata laughs from the common flavor of happiness, she laughs like light wooden bells being struck by pine mallets. When she laughs at the ridiculous, she laughs like light wooden bells being struck by frozen mice held chopstick-wise by a pair of flutes. (Disclaimer: I have not actually heard light wooden bells being struck by frozen mice held chopstick-wise by a pair of flutes, but never doubt my theoretical powers.)

"Well, I'm a particularly-starving starving conceptual actress somewhere that you haven't heard of. I will let you buy me a roast fish and name it Inihithre if you like."

I looked at the name in her hat, and decided that that was a particularly good arrangment. Especially since she wanted to change clothes again, and told me to simply turn my back and write for a bit, and is making odd squeaking noises behind me as she tries to squirm into a green tube dress sort of thing that is a size and a half too small.

First Day, part 9: Dinner with Strenata [1 Trandary 4261]

As you recall, the arrangement was that I buy Seeks-Inihithre Strenata a roast fish and name it Inihithre.

It was quickly decided on the way there -- there being of course Tamvaus -- that all the dishes at dinner were in fact famous or important cities, or, to be unduly technical, named after such. Which lead to the following table at table, enscribbled on the back of Seeks-Inihithre's nametag

The various cities were duly demolished. Strenata and I had to share the eating of Nestrune Kreslink; there was too much of him for me.

Which lead to desserts.

Strenata: I'm too full to eat a town, much less another city!

Sythyry: How about a god, then? It is First Day, after all.

Strenata: Just the thing. Waiter, bring me a small bowl of your compote of dried prens, and name it Virid, if you please.

Orren Waiter: [Doesn't blink] One creation god for you, O Orren. And for you, O Zi Ri?

Sythyry: I'd like the chilled cream soup, in a chalice not a bowl if you please.

Strenata: Name it 'Merklundum Harnipsundum the Dog who Killed a Fish'

Orren Waiter: [Doesn't blink]. One chilled cream soup, in a chalice, named after the water god. Would you like any other deities?

Strenata: No, thank you.

Orren Waiter: We do have the Star-Serpent on the menu today, which I believe is manifested in the form of candied ginger flavored with pondygreen. Also, the chef got to the market early enough to acquire the discipline of music before the temples could -- you may have wondered why their choir was so dreadful today; you need look no further than the chef of Tamvaus -- and it has been reduced to a sweet syrup flavored with chissowary. Could I interest either of you wonderful deiphages in either of these important natural phenomena?

Strenata:[collapses in giggling]

Sythyry:[Manages to look serious] A bit of the star-serpent sprinkled on Merklundum would be excellent.

Orren Waiter:[Walks back towards the kitchen. At the door, he calls out in the style of less respectable establishments:] Hey, cook! One Herethroy-maker, one wet puppy in a chalice, chopped snakey on top, for table Sh!

Rassimel Chef:Darkwell, what shoutments are you now shouting? You are not meaning! [Kitchen door closes behind Orren Waiter while Rassimel Chef is still shouting.]

The tip for this meal was very, very large. And afterwards, back at my home, there was a certain amount of distinctly nervous kissing and tailtwining on the couch, until Havune and sixteen thousand Cani showed up.

First Day, part 10 [1 Trandary 4261]

Havune brought a flock and a half of fiances, relations, friends, and nobody-in-particulars over, to feed them port in consomee and perform other Secret Cani Rituals (consisting mainly of telling jokes at each others' expense). I couldn't help investigating, though.

Sythyry:Anoof? Could we chat privately a moment?

Anoof:Certainly. Except of course that Leiska has compelled me to wear this enchanted ivory crab headdress, which reports to her instantly every word I say.

Sythyry:[Peers at Anoof's hat, which does have a little ivory crab on it, but no visible magic.] Is that a First Day joke?

Anoof:[Flattens his ears briefly] It is First Day still. No: the crab is from Leiska but it's just jewelry. As far as I know!

I tried to take him to my room. My door was closed, and there was much giggling going on inside, with voices including Dustweed, Tethezai, and someCani else. Did Tethezai acquire one of Havune's fiances, relations, friends, or nobody-in-particulars for further First Day celebrations in her own style? I didn't dare open the door. I acquired my own someCani out to the boardwalk in front of the house.

Sythyry:You've known Tethezai a while, they say, Anoof.

Anoof:Quite some years, truly. I am told that I pulled her tail quite hard at her third birthday party.

Sythyry:And, um, fairly well?

Anoof:There's well and there's well. A Rassimel's personality is a tall vase with perfume at the bottom. At the top you can smell it plainly. Stick your muzzle inside, and it can be overwhelming. My muzzle won't reach to the bottom, where the scent is strongest in its form as liquid perfume. The metaphor doesn't work as well for you, O squirmy-necked Zi Ri.

Well, if he had been Tethezai's Cani boy lover, he was no longer, and he might be bitter about it -- he might be complaining that he couldn't truly know her.

Sythyry:Was she always transaffectionate?

Anoof:Dustweed's not her first Herethroy, if that's what you mean. She couldn't have been more than eighteen [World Tree] years old when she went courting cross-species. [He chuckled.] And cross-class too. They say there's some definite good to dating gentlefolk of other species, but you shouldn't be caught in the bushes with your gardener's son.

That sounded jealous to me. Unfortunately I can get sidetracked.

Sythyry:What definite good is that?

Anoof:I think not so much -- it leads to your brother-brother getting speared by a jealous Orren in a rush! But the theory is that, since prime civilization gets such a strength from being made from eight species, that the leaders and epitomes of prime civilization ought to be comfortable and companionable with ... not all eight, but at least the suitable ones.

Sythyry:No need to be comfortable with Khtsoyis or Sleeth?

Anoof:I leave that to the Tethezais.

Did that sound a touch bitter too? The conversation wandered around for a while, without much more evidence one way or another.

Anoof:In any case, perhaps we could come to your question?

Sythyry:[Very embarrassed] Oh, it wasn't a particular question, exactly, and you've already answered it.

Anoof:[Blinks at me in that awful way Cani do when they know you're telling a white lie but they are being too polite to call you on it.] Well then, if you are fully and deeply satisfied, I should like another cup of port and consomee -- which, though he bought it from a store this year rather than making it, my conspecific beloved had done tolerably well with.

So that was utterly useless.

First Day, part 11 [1 Trandary 4261]

In Havune's room, various people had decked Broon out with leaves, mostly dried yilliat leaves from the market and evergreen boughs. (Where are you supposed to find fresh leaves this time of year? It is spring, but it's not eighteen hours into spring.) They carefully plastered a pair of big yilliat leaves over his eyes, and drew horrible glaring staring charcoal eyes on them. And they lead him out, chanting:

Here we have the Warlord of Leaves,
The Warlord of Leaves owns every muzzle!
Here we have the Warlord of Leaves,
The Warlord of Leaves owns every rump!

The Warlord of Leaves has conquered the flatlands,
The Warlord of Leaves has conquered the lands!
The Warlord of Leaves has conquered the flatlands,
The Warlord of Leaves has conquered the hands!

Tethezai and Dustweed let Leiska out of my bedroom after a while. They had adorned her with every ribbon Dustweed owned, and a fair number of mine considering they hadn't asked me first -- ribbons on her ears, ribbons on her tail, gauzy thin ribbons over her eyes, ribbons on her ankles and wrists and elbows and neck, ribbons on her ribbons on her ribbons. Then they lead her out, chanting:

Make way for the Duchess of Ribbons,
Part like grasses for the Duchess of Ribbons,
Make way for the Duchess of Ribbons,
Part like legs for the Duchess of Ribbons!

The Duchess of Ribbons will conquer the flatlands,
The Duchess of Ribbons will conquer the lands!
The Duchess of Ribbons will conquer the flatlands,
The Duchess of Ribbons will conquer the pants!

And the two blindfolded Cani were given their traditional weapons -- a floppy pine branch for Broon, a stale loaf of bread all tied up in whatever ribbons were left for Leiska -- and they went at it in the middle of the living room. Broon is a head and a half taller than Leiska, and strong enough to lift three of her, and he swished away fearsomely with his floppy pine branch. Of course, he couldn't see a bit, and I daresay that Cani smelling is only so good in a duel. Leiska whacked him with that bread, once-twice-thrice on the cheek and thigh (the end of the loaf broke off) and belly, and over he went. She jumped on his chest, and crumbled breadcrumbs all over his face 'til he was choking and spitting and laughing.

Then everyone else sang the Duchess of Ribbons' song again, only with "has conquered" instead of "will conquer". (I didn't sing 'til the second half; I didn't know the words.) After that, it was time for more port and consomee. Leiska, still the Duchess of Ribbons, mixed the port and consomee, from a special little pottery jug of port. Very nice port and not too much consomee; I had two chalices of it.

She didn't mention that "special" in this case also meant "generously spiked with strong cordial."

Quite a few hours later, I woke up. Someone had thoughtfully arranged me in the livingroom fireplace. Someone had also thoughtfully arranged all five empty jugs of port around me in the fireplace, and each one bigger than me.

I flew over a half-dozen sleeping drunken Cani, artistically arranged all over the living room, and went to my proper bed. This was somewhat unwise, as Dustweed and Tethezai had taken it as a night alone together, and might have chosen more sheets had they expected me to come in in the night.

I do not greatly care, for I am still half-drunk and more than a little ill, Tethezai is improper, and Dustweed is hideous. Tomorrow, I will be sober, Tethezai will be improper, and Dustweed will be hideous. If I were seeking anyone, it would be Seeks-... um ... whatever she seeks.

Back from Holidays [2 Trandary 4261]

There's nothing like sleeping in a fire for a few hours to help with an excess of drunkenness. It must boil the alcohol off or some such. (One must be sure not to vomit, but I was sufficiently moderate this time.) So I woke up feeling as bright and cheerful and refreshed as a kitten in a millwheel.

Dustweed and Tethezai were up much later than I was, and, consequently, they were still thoroughly asleep in a tangle when I woke up. I felt obliged to drape a sheet over them. I hope they are thoroughly embarrassed; I do not want to see them at their sleep-interrupted intimacies again. Or not until I have some intimacies of my own.

Breakfast: chopped jumby melon -- a delicacy which will soon be out of season, which is just fine. A bit of cold poached herring. Seven hundred and eighty-eight chalices of kathia -- I may be off by a few there, for I think that the first few hundred didn't have much of an effect. A rather distressing discussion with Dubaille, who evidently attended the Lady Quissenden's formal First Day party, despite her having somehow neglected to invite him. (Two Herethroy gardeners, whom he -- he! -- had hired, the Lady Quissenden had remove him from the ballroom (where he was hurling insults and appetizers at her), and lock him in a shed until this morning.)

And now to the task of the day: choosing the term's courses.

If the reader has been moderate about First Day drinking, zie will note three or four courses in applied magic. (One may debate and discuss the applied nature or not of Prof. Ili's course -- though not being involved in a notable magical catastrophe seems distinctly practical.) If one has been drinking, one might well see seven hundred and eighty-eight.

So, I brought my list of courses to the Official of Disbursements at the Bank of Teleporting Hexagons. My date was carefully chosen! Alas, zie had not been drinking, and saw only four courses. My ~mother~'s instructions to the bank were slightly more generously worded than zir instructions to me -- "classes of direct relevance to the professional sorcerer".

Zie waved zir antennae and said, "All seems to be in order."

Which is to say, I have a good deal more money this month, or next month, than I did last month, or the month before.

I am not exactly sure how to measure how much. My ~mother~ directs zir money precisely: I have so much for lodging, so much for food, so much for a servant, so much for buying books, so much for buying spells, so much for clothing suitable for court, and then another so much for "frivolity". For spells ... I could, I think, pass the whole month doing nothing but buying spells -- worthwhile spells! -- and grafting them on, and still not exhaust that facet of my allowance. Books, similarly: I could buy in a month more than I could read in a month. Frivolity is not so greatly encouraged; I suspect that I shall not have much more than I do now for it.

Still, I could -- get a new apartment with a room all to myself! And a servant! And some big heavy weighty tomes! And a few useful spells, so that if the servant is ill, I could put the big heavy weighty tomes back on the shelves!

I could graft Cloak of Another God.

The Dentist's Despair [2 Trandary 4261]

Havune:That's wonderful news, Sythyry! It must delight you to be so easily bribeable -- or, rather, to have such a simple matter which your parent will offer you a bribe about.

Me:I certainly prefer it to following the orders of whoever's turn it is to give them.

Havune:Are you moving out, then?

Me:That wouldn't be kind to the rest of you, really.

Havune:No, but I wasn't asking precisely whether or not it would be kind.

Me:I think I will move out at the end of the term. I said I would stay for a full year, and stay a full year I shall. Despite every bit of offirrah in the house. Besides moving is a bother and a half, and the term starts tomorrow.

Havune wagged his tail broadly, and indicated four stew-encrusted leather pots that Dubaille had hidden under a chair over the last six days, rather than wash them.

Havune:Perhaps your new wealth could move us to a three-person apartment, in the way that takes no great amount of extra time or effort.

Yes, Dubaille is that bad. But no, he's not such a doorwayer to me as he is to Havune. I do not share a room with him, after all, and I might perhaps have shown him the trick of hiding pots.

Nonetheless, I am the brilliant conversationalist of Vheshrame. Any ordinary mortal would have been flabbergasted -- stunned -- shocked by such an idea ... would have gaped a moment in bewildered silence. (Unless they had thought of it already.) I, being the cogent and brilliant genius of repartee, simply chose to pause for a period of dignified, erudite quietude, as if to say, "This is a grave matter; it would be wrong for an immortal being such as myself to render a decision without undue deliberation."

I'm afraid that the difference was a bit too subtle for Havune, though. Especially as I forgot to keep flapping my wings, and was floating in front of him looking no doubt rather like a frog who has just eaten an arhoolie leaf instead of a fly.

Me:I wouldn't be sorry to see his tailtip tomorrow and none of the rest of him ever. I'm not sure that we could decently evict him, though.

Havune:If decency were a concern he should have had the decency to tell us the truth about his personal habits. If decency were a concern, he should clean his stewpots before they stink.

Me:I shall have to think on this further. After all, he is local nobility; one shouldn't mistreat him too much.

Havune:Sythyry, his title is entirely through his ex-wife. He was a dentist before he married her.

Me:That's what he was? I thought that's just what he was doing now for a bit of cash.

Havune:Yes, for he's got the training and the friends for it.

Me:Hardly one of the greater guilds, I imagine. Still, sending him to sleep under the boardwalk would be unkind. He won't see his children so easily there.

Havune:His children may thank you for that! When they're here they cry thoroughly to go home.

Candledance [3 Trandary 4261]

(St. Trebulican's Classroom is, perhaps, the most glorious and comfortable closet on campus. Alphame St. Trebulican could not decide whether he would be the stingiest donor to Vheshrame Academy, or the most generous non-donor. I think he settled on the latter. In any case, Strenata had to ask eight senior students before she found one who knew where St. Trebulican's Classroom was.)

I have never gone to Candledance before. It never seemed worth the amber to me. It is a restaurant in the Hour-Candle of Food style. (In Yistreian dialect, that is a single word -- loosely "yaskabawa" -- where "yaska" is most of "hour-candle" and "bawa" is a word for "food" used mainly in the phrase "to stuff onesself greatly with food".) In the center of the restaurant is a tall taper, painted in many bright rings, thin enough so that seven or eight rings will burn down in an hour. When you are seated, you are given a chalice of sweet wine: a wooden chalice painted with the color of the candle-ring of the moment.

And the waiters pad around the restaurant, each with a cart of this and that in little square wooden dishes. A quick gesture, and the waiter will squirt the this or the that with its traditional sauce, and give it to you. No word is spoken, though when the waiter is a less well-off student in your Spelunking class earning a bit of pocket money and you have accidentally chosen wudgeon in hot and sour bitter melon sauce, some brown Orren eyes may twinkle with much amusement.

(Technical aside: It is generally acknowledged that any enchanter could, with sufficient time and attention, get good enough to perform any enchantment. However, Esory expects to have the skill to make the Cupboards within the decade. I suppose that I could arrange a teleportation cupboard in a decade or two, if I studied Mutoc and Locador a lot ... but it wouldn't be Insidious. Neither in the sense of sneaking through most barriers against teleportation, nor in the sense of being relatively safe to use near other teleport gates.)

So, Esory has probably learned this whole class already, at home, doubtless before she learned to talk. Prof. Spreen, being the merciless demon of the strictly-ruled waxboard that she is, would not let her out the class and into the next one any more than she would have let me out of it. Of course, I wouldn't have let me out of it either; all the gods could have loved pink polka dots for all I knew until this afternoon.

(Technical aside: Prof. Spreen does come into the classroom eight minutes early to take a hot glazed ceramic brick to the waxboard to smooth it off. And she does have a sort of wooden device, a rack of three boards and a comb of eight teeth, that she uses to draw parallel lines on the waxboard before she writes. I like Prof. Alzagond much better in most ways, but Prof. Alzagond never cleans the waxboard before or after class, which means that important diagrams are crunched and curled up into little corners where there's some smooth wax from the last teacher.)

Hiring a Maid [5 Trandary 4261]

Havune and I looked around, asked around.

Darkwad is a Rassimel man, about the same age as me. He has recently come to Vheshrame, and is trying to find a job. He has no great degree of experience. He is an excellent cook -- we invited him to cook lunch for us and eat it with us, and he looks like he knows which end of a knife is which. As for cleaning: he can put things on shelves; he can sweep floors; he can wash dishes; he can hoist a basket of clothes to a washer's. These are not things demanding great skill. He seems quite eager -- I gather he has not been eating as well as he might like, since he got to town.

Jarmiet is a Cani woman, perhaps my own age or perhaps a bit more. She is the maid of our Evil Neighbors, and until First Day or so she was the maid of a count's daughter of Psent who got nervous about something and zoomed home to Psent at the end of last semester. Jarmiet cooks poorly by Ghirbis' standards, which is to say, Jarmiet generally avoids mice and arhoolie leaves. Havune tasted her pocker soup, and declares it ordinary and acceptable. Havune also inspected a just-tidied room in Ghirbis' apartment, and declared that ordinary and acceptable too. Floosh knows her and gives her a good name.

Tsevehandra is a Rassimel woman, some sixty or seventy [World Tree] years old. She cleans for a building of Orren mostly down the street. She is looking around for more reliable clients -- specifically, she wants to drop one set of clients and find a better one. She would not let us see her current clients, for that would be telling them. (I snuck over and glanced in windows under the cover of night. They looked acceptable.) She has been tending student apartments for forty years or so. She has no visible enthusiasm. Floosh knows her and gives her a good name, too.

So, we have two questions now:

1. Who is allowed to vote on this? Just me, since I am paying? Havune and Dustweed? Tethezai, who does not actually live here? Dubaille, who is actually living here but the rest of us dislike?
2. And then, which one should we choose?

Seeks-Strenata

Strenata and I were to go for a stroll in Ghaln-Yastrou Park this evening, the hour before sunout. I thought we had agreed to meet at my home, since it is, after all, between hers and Ghaln-Yastrou Park. I was ready -- I swear it! A third of an hour after that time, Strenata was nowhere near me.

Perhaps, I thought, she had thought we were to meet at her home? I flew as fast as I could, up and over, and scratched. Oonspath answered.

Oonspath:"Why hallo to you, Sythyry. What brings you here at this hour of the night?"

Me:"I was looking for Seeks-St.-Trebulican's-Classroom, or whatever she's called today."

Oonspath:"She went out riding with Nestrune an hour or two ago. She should be back shortly, unless, of course, she is not. Don't look so horrified, Sythyry! Anyone could be hungry after going riding, and especially if she forgot dinner beforehand."

Nestrune? Nestrune Kreslink, Crown Prince of Daukrhame? If there's anyone less suitable for Strenata than Nestrune currently attending the Academy, I cannot think of who -- he is the highest of rank of anyone I know personally, and obnoxious as well.

Well, if she uses him as a riding companion, I suppose I can hardly complain, for I cannot ride. Still, I can stroll as well as any other prime, and I do think she should have come to me for that.

Walking with Hunter-Style-Slayer [5 Trandary 4261]

Of course she had gone to my home before stopping back at hers, while I was waiting for her at hers. Havune told her where I was, so she flew (literally - she has grafted a flight spell) back to her apartment. She flew the long way, getting a bit lost in the trees and buildings.

At the same time, I was quite annoyed with Oonspath, who had been flirting with me as I waited. He flirts with a quiet, self-confident energy, and he is certainly physically appealing to anyone who appreciates Orren, but his entire etiquette and manner of speech must have been dipped in honey-oil when he was young. I find him unpleasant at the best of times -- even before he cheated me at the Sloop -- and while waiting for Strenata he was wholly unendurable. "I don't know that she's coming back this evening, Sythyry. But you could do at least as well with what's available." (For extra insult, he didn't even seem to care that much whether he caught me or not.) After hearing that, I flew home the short way, threw myself in the fireplace, and, naturally, missed Strenata in transit.

And when I had more or less buried myself in ashes, she dashed in the front door, wearing riding leathers and a card saying "Hunter-Style-Slayer" in her hat, apologizing out of her mouth, nose, and both ears. She was very, very sorry! She had been out riding with Nestrune. The sun was going out more slowly than usual, making it hard to judge the hour. Nestrune had insisted on stopping for brandy at Lumber Swalle's, and, when she had mentioned that she had not eaten since noontime, he ordered roast pockers hunter-style for each of them. Over her protests -- she had even mentioned her plans with me. "Zie has considerably more time than I do, by virtue of being immortal. Zie has considerably less appetite than I do, by virtue of being small. And, in any case, a Zi Ri may wait for a crown prince."

"I might two-thirds have expected you to storm out of there when he reminded you of his rank. Knocking him over with your tail on the way out."

She looked quite embarrassed, or even disturbed. "It is unwise to knock over someone who is in the midst of buying you dinner, even if the someone is just a crown prince."

"I suppose so... still, if you ever wish to have someone buy you a hunter-style roast pocker, you need not stoop to asking a crown prince. A slight hint to a Zi Ri could easily suffice."

"It's not my favorite dish, to be sure. Neither do I fully understand why hunters are expected to carry with them butter, cream, snails, and fresh marjoram. Cognac, garlic, and crushed pepper are at least easier to stuff in a backpack whilst they traipse around the woods."

"And as a mark of non-favoritism you proclaimed yourself the slayer of it?", I asked. I was still more than a little jealous.

"I was not entirely pleased at sitting there eating it, rather than getting back. I ripped off a wing of it, rather than cutting it, and thereby flung a snail halfway across into Lord Parantharam's ale. Which caused further delays, as Nestrune must needs apologize to him at length, discuss dressage, and buy him more ale. After which he stuck the name in my hat himself, without asking."

"Strenata? I didn't know that you let people change your name around. I've never seen anyone else do it."

"No, I don't."

"Yet Nestrune did."

"Rather without asking me. And I've been too busy to change it again, rushing around to find you."

We bickered a bit about whose fault that was -- an exchange that did neither of us any credit, and which I would much rather forget. In the end I wound up apologizing. I am not entirely sure why, or for what.

"Do you have any paper? I think I'd like another name now." She fretted around, and finally settled on Vnel. Not at all her usual style even when she is not seeking anything, but she was not happy.

"Well, O Vnel, the sun has quite gone out, with this and that. Will you still walk with me in Ghaln-Yastrou Park, so that we may romantically and elegantly collide with trees?"

"Sythyry? Could we walk together tomorrow, at leisure, instead? I daresay we'll both enjoy it more than tonight."

"I suppose we might, crown princes permitting?"

"I'm not riding with Nestrune tomorrow. The day after," she said.

I'm afraid I hissed a bit at that. With sparks.

"I am hardly obligated to excuse myself to you, Sythyry! I shall ride with whomever I need to ride; I shall walk with whomever it pleases me to walk, and..." She stopped abruptly. "And I think that no further words will do any good, tonight." She cast her flight spell again, and took off, going the long way.

And after I finish this paragraph, I will go bury myself in ashes again.

Ashes in the Morning [6 Trandary 4261]

In the morning I arose, and brushed myself off of ashes. When I actually burrow into the ashes, they never get off my feathers very well, though my sides and tail and such are clean in an instant. At times like this I contemplate an entirely scaly way of life. Such a matter must needs be delayed of course.

And after that I returned home for another long bickery voting session, and in the end we hired Jarmiet. We'll get her in the afternoons, our Evil Neighbors get her in the mornings, and we'll alternate which apartment she cooks lunch in. Which means that we'll be seeing a lot more of our Evil Neighbors, which is no bad thing.

Footnote

Desparately Seeking Spirshash [6 Trandary 4261]

I wasn't sure if I was still welcome in Spirshash's apartment on Boilingbowl Street -- or his company -- or his city -- or his pancosm. I brought a wing of zabouf and a bottle of Oskameeska at lunchtime, and made the attempt.

I am not welcome in Spirshash's apartment on Boilingbowl Street. Nor, it seems, is Spirshash. Nor Tillissa, nor Oostmarine. Actually the dwellers in the apartment were not the least bit unpleasant about it: two Herethroy of the minor nobility and a Sleeth -- a Sleeth! -- who are starting at the Academy this term, and counted themselves lucky to find a recently-emptied apartment. But they didn't know where Spirshash had gone, nor did they know what had happened in particular. For those facts I must speak to their landlord, the dread Nullfister Roogrie himself.

Nullfister Roogrie was in his offices, which are large and huge and extensive and so full of odd bits of furniture that there is barely room for a Rassimel and a Zi Ri. At first he was cordial, thinking that I had come asking for a place to rent. At second he was delighted, because we got sidetracked and discussed places to rent coming up at the end of the term -- there's a very nice house or two which will surely be free, and I could well enjoy not having any Evil Neighbors, even Evil Neighbors as personable as Ghirbis.

At third he was annoyed but, in light of the second, determined to be civil. Spirshash, Oostmarine, and Tillissa had -- in his estimation -- abducted nearly three months' rent from him, and painted horrible agonized Rassimel heads all over the apartment as well. Tillissa had promised him at one point that Oostmarine would pay; then Oostmarine got his divorcing from a batch of eels, and stopped living there, and of course did not volunteer to pay any debts. In any case, Nullfister Roogrie had nothing good to say about Oostmarine or Tillissa.

He was tolerably well-disposed towards Spirshash, who came to him intentionally and paid his share of the final rents, and explained that he would no longer live with Tillissa, but that Tillissa would surely find new roommates -- and doubtless new bedmates -- and would attend him shortly with their rents.

Of course, Tillissa did no such thing. When Nullfinster Roogrie came calling, two days ago, the apartment contained a fine assortment of: garbage, trash, junk, refuse, squalorinesses, discardimentia, and a long-dead blackscale eel, in leaves, in the (possibly misnamed) live-tank.

He did not know where to find any of the three of them.

Further exploration took me to the apartment of Real-Eel, as some form of mutual friend. There I found Real-Eel and Vingi. My spell of floating food behind me was wearing quite thin, and I was quite hungry; I offered to share the zabouf and Oskameeska with them.

The zabouf was well-received, but the Oskameeska was not. Vingi does not drink alcohol. He apologized about this at considerable length -- longer than a wing of zabouf. Despite the Yistreian reputation as endless devourers of overspiced mice and endless quaffers of overspiced liquor, Vingi eats moderately (though he does love hot spices -- Real-Eel grinned somehow at that) and has never touched liquor in his life.

Real-Eel had no great idea what had become of Spirshash or Tillissa. Oostmarine had been spotted here and there; it is thought that he is spending his nights on the couches of his more charitable friends.

"Or, surely, in the beds of his more lecherous friends," I added.

"It could be so. Though the charitable friends in question are Tallwillow, Groundsel, and ... what is their wife's name? Venom-Spikes? A Herethroy trio, fairly newly married, and rumor says they're cisaffectionate to the point of Groundsel refusing to kiss Tethezai," said Real-Eel.

"Well, and I myself have never kissed Tethezai, nor does it seem so likely any time soon -- for both our sake," I said.

"True, but she is not your patron, nor the daughter and heiress of your patron," said Real-Eel.

"I am not wholly understand or appreciate that every noble in Vheshrame is so much interested in the other species," said Vingi. "Present company outcepted!"

There was a bit of nervous giggling. Vingi added, "I am suppose that there is always allowed an exception for Zi Ri." Evidently Real-Eel has not told him everything.

I too did not tell him everything. I do not want to spoil Real-Eel's obvious happiness. Also I do not want to do anything to increase Nestrune's reputation among the Orren, for it is already too good.

So: no Spirshash, no zabouf, no clues.

A Day of One Zi Ri, Two Orren, and Three Lists[6 Trandary 2461]

Spirshash was duly tracked down by means of nipping the tails of two hundred and eighty-six mutual friends. (Or, more precisely, five, counting Real-Eel, and Vingi who had no great chance to know where Spirshash was.) Oostmarine and Tillissa had both divorced him, for, according to him, a great number of reasons, including:

1. Supporting Oostmarine. (T)
2. Supporting Tillissa. (O)
3. Making everyone think he was having an affair with me. (both)
4. Refusing to attend the funeral of Tillissa's great-aunt last year. (T)
5. Stewing buskies with green apples rather than prens, despite many -- which is to say, one -- complaint. (O)
6. Using too much cumin. Still. (T)
7. Something incomprehensible concerning gloves. (T)
8. Not tossing Oostmarine into a large pot of boiling alligators (T).
9. Stealing a very nice hat. I think was a hat stolen from Oostmarine, not the one he destroyed by mistake. Spirshash is not a gentleman when it comes to hats. (O)
10. Not paying two shares of the rent, or, perhaps, three. (T)
11. Not keeping various rumors from being rumored (O,T)

In any case, he is staying for a time with Leiska, and hopes to find a worthwhile place to live, preferably without being married to anyone living there. This leaves me a bit of an interesting question. I plan to rent a whole house. I do not plan to use a whole house by myself. I could invite Spirshash... I could also, in principle, write a letter to Accanax and invite him to send me a nendrai and a brace of ghurmanesh.

(For all monsters: that is metaphorical. Even my very famous great-grandparent is not personally friendly with Accanax. I do not know if zie has met him in person at all, even.)

Walking with Strenata

Strenata was waiting for me when I got home, wearing her green tube dress sort of a thing, a good hour before we had planned to go out walking. This, of course, was awkward in its own way. I had intended to finish the reading for tomorrow before she got there. Still, it was obviously an apology for yesterday's insults.

Strenata sniffed first. Now, getting a quarter-ounce of liquid up your nose is no great matter if you are an Orren. She didn't even have to change into water form.

Still, the effort of not changing delayed her for a second, and I sniffed during that second. And it's a somewhat dramatic thing to get a quarter-ounce of liquid up your nose if you are a Zi Ri. (I suppose that it's like getting an ounce and a half of liquid up your nose if you are Rassimel.)

I am, certainly, a gentleman, full of all etiquette and manners, passably well versed in the common and rarefied modes of good behavior. I comport myself with dignity under all circumstances. Anyone can tell from a quick glance at me or a moment's conversation that I am a noble, and properly so. With these guiding principles firmly in mind:

1. I choked.
2. I writhed around in midair.
3. I tangled my left wing in the felonway tree's hanging tendrilsome leaves.
4. I thrashed around, getting more tangled.
5. I breathed fire, which, since my nose was full of nectar, produced a cloud of brown caramelized steam.
6. I felt a pair of hands grabbing for me.
7. I responded to the grab with claws and flame.

When I ceased to thuswise act like a pissy pissy Pazi-Pazi gentleman, I discovered that I had:

1. Gotten spots of brown caramel color on Strenata's good green tube thing.
2. Clawed Strenata's hand to the point of drawing blood.
3. Set the Duke's felonway tree on fire.

A total of five leaves, two dangerous and evil and wicked blossoms, and two twigs were consumed before the Vheshrame Fire Brigade (Volunteer Auxiliary Division) were able to put it out. It would have been less, except that half of the Vheshrame Fire Brigade (Volunteer Auxiliary Division) asserted in a loud proud voice that zie had a newly-made water creation amulet for just such occasions as this, having forgotten that zie used it for a bath that morning, and, upon discovering that, the other half of the Vheshrame Fire Brigade (Volunteer Auxiliary Division) was too deep in her giggles to do much to the fire.

After the tree was out, I hastened to evacuate Vnel Strenata away to the nearest pub, where I arranged for Zouville de Mrood to be poured into her at such length and volume as to erase all remaining fires (emotional as well as physical) from the damage to hand and dress. Actually only one glass was needed.

And a scrap of paper, upon which was written "Seeks-Wild-Rushes". I think I should be pleased at that.

or, Jealousy[7 Trandary 2461]

Riding with Princes, or, Jealousy