Sythyry

The Revenge

[Thanks, Stormydragon!]

Dearest Alzagonde,
I must say your stay aboard the Strayaway was most memorable, and I fear the ship will seem nearly empty now that you are gone. Even now, as I lie alone trying to get to sleep, my thoughts keep turning to you. I hope that should you ever choose to journey aboard my ship again, you will allow me to show you how much friendlier I can be. For though I enjoyed the brief tussling we engaged in over our weeks together, I fear I never got to show you the full depths of how pleasurable transffection can be.

It’s literally true, in a certain light. I am alone in bed — I am thinking of her, though with more anger and less lust than that phrase might suggest.

We will see what her parents think of the note, which I sent, as if by mistake, naked of envelope, to their house.

Prince Rastomil

We didn’t manage to get Prince Rastomil disenchanted in Barency. Inventing a new ritual spell takes a while, or, more commonly, two and a half whiles. And, with all due esteem and effection, Saza is not a very diligent wizard. Zie’s certainly powerful, and quite alarmingly clever when zie puts zir mind to it; but zie does not put zir mind to it every day. For contrast, I’ve missed enchanting only nine or ten days in the more-than-a-year of our trip.

But we stopped at Saza’s home in Oorah Thrassen for three weeks, and I got to see Saza at zir wizardly best. Zie doesn’t grind at inventing rituals the way I grind at performing enchantments. Zie flutters around in the trees, sometimes breathing fire at leaves, thinking. After two or three hours of that, zie sprawls on a branch and takes a nap, or indulges in some fine sherry, or drags zir cousin into a fireplace for a bit of smooching. At some point in the later afternoon, zie scribbles a few symbols here and there in zir ritual design, at random.

Alarmingly, by the end of two weeks, every symbol zie wrote turns out to be absolutely correct.

Me: “How do you do that? When I invent a spell, I go through dozens of drafts and waste reams of paper.”

Saza: “Alas, coz! I am a lazy, lazy lizard. I do not have the energy or gumption to make mistakes.”

Zie certainly has the energy and gumption to perform the ritual, once it is composed. Prince Rastomil, Lady Noshi, Lord Kethji, and Nanggi-Zi are all back in their proper bodies. (Rastomil’s opinion of the ritual, which required the same sorts of activities as the original one: “I certainly appreciate the fine qualities of my own body in ways that I did not know before!”)

And never mind, if you please, about just how we got Nanggi-Zi to be compliant and not resist the ritual. Two wizards and a nendrai can accomplish quite a bit, if they’re willing to be flexible on just what sorts of magic are legitimate under what circumstances, and how bad an idea it is to let a nendrai do that sort of thing.

In any case, Nanggi-Zi is now trapped in her corpse (by her own spells and Saza’s considerable work), incapable of doing magic (mostly my doing), probably unconscious (Saza), and back in Hanija for whatever justice they want to inflict on her (Vae). A few letters from Hanija hinted that we should simply kill her and have done with, but two of us weren’t comfortable with that, and the third — who volunteered to do it — we don’t want killing primes.

Prince Rastomil is staying with us for a while longer. He is not in sufficient disgrace with Barency. Somehow the story of his misfortunes was phrased to make him appear an innocent victim, and Jagraton the brave defender of the honor of Barency. Further humiliation is required, and evidently I am just the lizard to do it.

Stowaways

Treacle-Eyes, Lithia, and Dorze have made their peace with Nangbang. There were no fireworks or explosions. The three of them are staying in Oorah Thrassen for a while. Perhaps Lithia will come home to die after that, or perhaps I will go to Oorah Thrassen to be with her.

Orren Boys

Inconnu sulked for two days. Grinwipey apologized to him for his part in the fiasco by constructing for him a wonderful and quite flamboyant short-cape, all set about with sparkle-pods. (Grinwipey does not, I might add, take any responsibility for any wrongdoing. He does, however, take commissions for me, even if they’re not to be enchanted.) That, plus a few seductions of people he knows well — and has seduced before — have more or less set his mood to rights.

Invincible Fire Demon will be Phaniet’s understudy. (I don’t think Phaniet is going to keep working as my assistant for that much longer.) He has not quite decided whether or not he is traff, in the new and improved sense of “someone who frequently has intentions upon people of other species”. He certainly likes other Orren, though he is over his crush on Jyondre. Which is to say, mostly sometimes slightly over his crush on Jyondre.

Jyondre says that he has grown far too accustomed to walking around hand-in-hand with his wife, and refuses to give it up, and that, therefore, I must make a new city for him where such things will not cause people to disapprove. So I will, or I will try, anyhow.

Arfaen and Quendry

Arfaen and Quendry and Jyondre and Yerenthax and Grinwipey and I paid a careful visit to Quendry’s father. Certain points were made:

1. Quendry’s psychic development (both in the sense of personality and of magic) had been quite considerable during his time away. We didn’t quite say how much of this was due to adventuring, or quite how harsh some of the adventures had been.
2. The tail-severing was never my intent, and I would happily pay the full cost that had been incurred for re-attaching it, and triple the amount by way of apology, without the necessity for further legal processes.
3. Quendry will continue to live at Castle Wrong.

Home

I have no idea why I’m so tired. We arrived at the port of Vheshrame slightly after noon. I spent an hour or so on minor chores — mostly installing the Elfimel in their new home in a corner of Vae’s cave. “I’ll build a city for you to live in, but it will take a few years,” I told them.

“We await this eagerly!” said the Elfimel.

Vae, who actually knows what I mean by “city” and “few years”, nodded sagely.

Then I flew home — to Castle Wrong, that is — and mumbled “Well, I’m home” to a few friends I hadn’t seen, and fell into my fireplace and slept for about a month.

The End

Frippin was scrambling around her cabin, stuffing clothes and books into suitcases and canvas bags in a wild rush. “Oh no we’re nearly in port I need to get off the boat in three minutes and I’ll have to leave all my clothes behind or I’ll get swooped off to Vheshrame and …”

“We’ll be in port for a day or two …”, said Invincible Fire Demon. He stopped in mid-sentence when Arfaen cuffed his shoulder, and said, “Frippin, we’ll help you pack, but you have to tell us a few things afterwards.”

“OK yes please help help!” said Frippin, and the next third of an hour was a three-way festival of packing.

“So, why did Alzagonde want us to talk to you about … whatever happened with Inconnu?” asked Arfaen, hoisting a clothes-bag on her back.

“Oh no I’m so sorry!” whined Frippin. “I didn’t mean you to get beaten up Invie!”

“I will forgive you, but please tell me how you happened to get me beaten up?”

“I needed a term paper story so I thought I would watch Inconnu do stuff and I would find something to write about like about social interactions and whether he thinks it’s cissy or traff with two people of the same species but a different one than him, it’s not a great topic but I was really running out of time and I don’t want to flunk out and I had to do something. So I was going to hire two Rassimel girls, only when the first one heard I wanted to watch her with an Orren she was going to charge me a lot, I mean a huge lot way more than I could afford, I couldn’t hire another one I didn’t have the money, then I thought, well, I can save some money and I don’t have to go hide in the closet and watch through a keyhole if I’m there in the room helping out, you know? And it’s not traff if I’m really an Orren myself and Inconnu is too, even if I’m looked like a Rassimel … I mean, it’s not as if I were sleeping with my professor to get a passing grade, that would be traff and pretty disgusting too, this is just sleeping with a cute guy for the sake of science, that’s OK, right? But I don’t have a crush on him or anything. I mean he is really good and all, but but, look, could you tell him an apology from me after you leave Barency? I didn’t mean to cause him any trouble, I just had to show Alzagonde my paper so she could help me with it, I didn’t mean that he should find out, I would have given him two Rassimel if I had had the money, and I’m so sorry how it all turned out!”

(Or, rather, that is an approximate condensate of what she said. I believe that she repeated it approximately six hundred and eleven times over the course of a third of an hour, and that intermixed with interrogations and confirmatory questions. Frippin seemed as malice-free as possible.)

Arfaen hugged her — Frippin cringed a bit — and said, “I’ll make sure everyone gets the full story when we’re safely away. I hope that’ll comb down some of the ruffled fur.”

The Injustice

Certain of us held a Secret Council of Justice And Retaliation. It wasn’t particularly secret from Alzagonde, though of course she wasn’t there. It was secret from Vae, who might well have done something very drastic about it, like destroy Barency.

Me: “It’s all Alzagonde’s fault?”

Arfaen: “Alzagonde was the spark, Frippin the flash, Inconnu and Grinwipey were the tinder, eager to burn, and Invincible Fire Demon played the unenviable role of the fireplace.”

Me: “And where is Alzagonde now? Has she disembarked?”

Arfaen: “With her family in Barency.”

Me: “That makes revenge a bit more difficult.”

Arfaen: “You were planning to take revenge?”

Me: “Well, I was planning to call it “justice” or at least “the proper punishment for crimes committed on my airboat”. Not nearly as convenient or legitimate if she is now off the airboat.”

Kantele: “I shouldn’t advise doing what you are starting to think of, Sythyry.”

Me: “Why not?”

Jyondre: “For those of us who are not so telepathic, what is zie thinking of that zie should not do?”

Me: “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Kantele: “I’m not quite sure — probably either ‘flying off and ignoring the situation’ or ‘challenging her to a duel’. Unwise, in either case.”

So we argued for the better part of an hour — and, as better parts of an hour go, this was far and away the worse part — and decided that the better part of convenience, if not of justice, could be served by hiring Prof. Mump to be vicious to Alzagonde.

So, the next day, Kantele and Mump had a nice conversation about how terrible Alzagonde had been and how much she deserved a future of academic misfortune, and then a nice conversation about how Mump’s research program could be strengthened by a few thousand lozens, and, hopefully, the deal was done. It is notably easy to hire professors to do nearly anything, provided that one phrases it as ‘giving them a grant.’

Not that I’m terribly happy with Mump either.

I think I’m done with this vacation. I am tired of getting in trouble with foreigners in foreign lands. I think I would like to go home, where I can get in trouble with fellow citizens in the convenience of my own house.

Strayway was four miles from Barency, and all the students were packing — except for one or two who were going to stay with us for a bit longer. Arfaen (not a student) and Invincible Fire Demon (not leaving yet) cornered Alzagonde while she was folding her shirts.

“At this point, I think you’ve pretty much escaped all possibility of punishment,” said Arfaen. “But we wish to know something. And we will find out, one way or another. I don’t think you’d like the ‘another’ very much though. You know we’ve got some monsters on board with lots of magic and not much respect for the laws or dignity of people like you.”

Alzagonde tucked her tail between her legs. “I don’t appreciate being threatened.”

“And I don’t appreciate being thrashed by an angry Khtsoyis dressmaker in the fallout from one of somebody’s plots,” said Invincible Fire Demon. “This one sounds like one of yours.”

Alzagonde sighed. “You’re asking about that note to Inconnu, right?” The wrongfolk nodded. Alzagonde said, “Well, yes, I sent it. I needed to see what he would do if he thought he’d somehow become temporarily cisaffectionate.” She used a form of the verb “needed” used by Rassimel in the grip of their lifelong obsession.

Invincible Fire Demon glared at Alzagonde. She added, “And I’m quite sorry about your arm. I couldn’t know that he’d somehow target you for his revenge. I was expecting him to figure it out and target me.”

“I suppose that’s all the apology I’m going to get from you,” said Invincible Fire Demon. “I’ll take it.”

“What do you expect me to do? Throw myself on the floor and grovel at your feet and wail, ‘sorry, sorry, sorry’?” snapped Alzagonde.

“We have long since given up expecting any sort of decency or proper behavior from you,” said Arfaen.

Invincible Fire Demon shrugged. “OK. And, while we’re on the topic, how can you keep complaining about all of us being traff, when you take your ringy Rassimel tail to bed with an Orren? That’s still sex with an Orren, even if you’re temporarily turned into an Orren yourself.” (The whole point being to reveal to everyone that Alzagonde was actually traff.)

“I did nothing of the sort,” snapped Alzagonde. “What do you take me for?”

“We take seriously all the mutterings that you’re so devoutly anti-traff as a way to hide from you being traff yourself,” said Invincible Fire Demon. “Or maybe we take that note you wrote seriously.”

“I am not traff myself,” said Alzagonde, her ears flat with anger. “Stop saying that. It’s disgusting and offensive.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” said Arfaen. “I have investigated, thoroughly, and I know.”

Invincible Fire Demon, who is calling himself sort-of-traff these days on the flimsiest of evidence, curled his tailtip embarrassedly. “Be that as it may, who did do it? If it happened at all?”

“I think you’d better talk to Frippin about that,” said Alzagonde. “And now, get out of my cabin. I’ve got to finish packing.”

“The sooner you’re off Strayway, the happier we’ll all be,” said Arfaen, and stomped out.

I set off three small but noisy lightning bolts. “Oyez, oyez, oyez! All shut their muzzles for the honorable Temporary Judge Arfaen!” We do not have a formal judicial system on Strayway. Arfaen had volunteered to mediate, so of course I (1) accepted and (2) provided more pomp than the occasion actually required.

Arfaen waved around a tenderizing mallet, as a symbol of her actual and pretend offices both. “So, I’m here to arrange an arrangement between Inconnu, Grinwipey, and Invincible Fire Demon. Do you all agree to accept my mediation, on pain of being served nothing but pickles and frozen raw sheep entrails for the rest of the journey?” These terms were acceptable to everyone. The journey being almost over, it’s not much of a threat really.

Arfaen continued. “So, as I understand the situation: Inconnu is upset because someone slept with him under false pretenses. He became convinced that it was Invincible Fire Demon. Inconnu considered this to be mockery, and sought to mock Invincible Fire Demon back by plastering the ship with terrible love poetry about Grinwipey, which appeared — even to an educated nose — to be written by Invincible Fire Demon. Grinwipey took exception to this — deciding that it was mockery rather than infatuation — and mocked Invincible Fire Demon back, by forcing him to wear some clothing as hideous as the poetry until Sythyry made Grinwipey stop, and Invie accidentally hurt himself in the process. So far so true?”

Inconnu bounced to his feet. “Not enough! My very purity was assaulted, challenged, shattered! Revenge must and shall be mine!”

“Yeah, yeah, so you slept with a Rassimel. Big deal. You sleep with a lot of Rassimel,” said Grinwipey. “You didn’t sleep with a Khtsoyis. So I kinda don’t see why you have to drag me into this puddle of pig poople.”

“I don’t think that anyone involved behaved terribly civilly,” said Lithia, who was there as the expert witness.

“What did I do?” whined Invincible Fire Demon.

“OK, OK. Inconnu and Grinwipey didn’t. You are just the hapless victim,” snapped Lithia. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m a hapless vapless victim here too!” snarled Grinwipey. “Here I am, floatin’ in my workshop, mindin’ my own business, embroiderin’ phase daisies on a lace mace case, and all of a suddent out of the blue I get whoimped by a bunch of horrible love poems! Mocked! Made a laughing-stocking, and me who doesn’t even have feet!”

“You could have done something that didn’t involve slamming me into a door,” said Invincible Fire Demon. “Maybe write some mocking poems of your own. Even if I had done it, which, um, I hadn’t.”

“I ain’t no aster-basting master poetaster!” shouted Grinwipey. “I’m a coo-turry-urg! So that’s basically what I did, ‘cepting I did it with clothing not poetry!”

“True enough, but you picked the the wrong person about it,” said Arfaen. “And he got hurt in the process.”

Invincible Fire Demon hopped up. “And I was very scared! Suddenly this well-armed and very angry warrior-tailor floats into my room, whomps everything with his clubs a lot, crashes me into an armoire to hurt my arm, and demands I wear a horrible thing! Besides, the poetry was mocking me too.”

“Inconnu and Grinwipey, you’re a pair of dumb-brain squid nipples,” said Arfaen, whose judicial manner is not sufficiently appreciated or imitated in more formal courts.

“Yeah, yeah, I got the wrong guy. So bite my tail and call me Saliet. Least I didn’t actually hurt him, I just made fun of him,” snapped Grinwipey.

“It hurt!” whined Invincible Fire Demon.

“Slamming yourself into furniture ain’t a pillow pie, Invie,” said Grinwipey. “But I didn’t do that bit, and nobody’s even saying I did.”

“And I! I was mislead by Lithia! What can you expect when you take a member of the same species into your confidence?” wailed Inconnu.

Lithia glared at him. “I did not mislead you. I said it might be Invincible Fire Demon because he was grinning about something like that earlier. I said you needed to check on it and talk to him! Not drag him into the gutter for revenge!”

“It wasn’t me! I was talking about a different Orren boy anyways, and I didn’t do anything about that!” protested Invincible Fire Demon.

And everyone but me went around the room saying the same things over and over again for nearly two-thirds of an hour, by which time I was thoroughly bored and feeling like I was wasting my life. I can’t imagine how the mortals endured it.

Finally, Arfaen said, “Right. Inconnu, you owe both Invincible Fire Demon and Grinwipey an apology and thirty-three lozens each. Grinwipey, you owe Invincible Fire Demon an apology and three hundred and thirty-three lozens.

Grinwipey shrugged, flicking its tentacle-tips all around. “Fine, fine. I’ll apologize myself as flat as a flounder.”

Arfaen added, “And you won’t go playing a prank on Inconnu, or taking any further revenge on him. This whole incident is over. Right?”

“Right as a wriggling rhygon, Arfaen,” said Grinwipey, as contritely as he ever is. “I’m a meek little meatball for the rest of the trip, even if everyone calls me a snushmanger right in the dinner hall in front of everyone.”

Inconnu bristled. “What injustice is this? I was wronged in the first place! Nobody even denies this! Yet, somehow, I am apologizing and paying fines! Arfaen! You are a stinking of a judge!”

Arfaen bared her teeth. “You are wronged by getting a night of body-play that you bragged about for days! You then got offended at a fine point, insulted everyone on board, and got revenge on two people who were, in fact, innocent.”

“Or seem to be!” snapped Inconnu.

“Well, no more than one of them is guilty, and probably neither one is,” said Arfaen. “You do have some sort of a legitimate grievance, but not the one you threw at everyone.”

“Well, who did sleep with me?” wailed Inconnu.

“Who didn’t?” snapped Grinwipey. “‘sides me, that is.”

Afterwards…

Later on, with Arfaen putting the kitchen in order for the night and me sitting on the stove offering useful advice and minor assistance.

Arfaen: “Is that what you wanted?”

Me: “Well, truth to tell, I was hoping for something harsher and more vindictive about Grinwipey.”

Arfaen:: “Oh! You want revenge for him being so mocky at you, and doing awful things to your cousin, and everything else he’s done?”

Me: “… yes”

Arfaen: “So he’ll never, ever do anything like any of those again?”

Me: “… yes”

Arfaen: “Well, next time, if you want revenge or fierce justice on someone, ask me to take revenge or fierce justice, not to mediate. Though I think there’s been entirely too much revenge in the last couple of days. And now I think you should put your cute little head to your concubine duties, and stop worrying it about the affairs of those greater than you. Which I think is just about everyone on the ship, measured by volume, excluding Saza.”

Which isn’t the absolutely best way to seduce me, really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me: “There is not.”

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

Me: “… Squadgin? …”

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

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

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

Me: “Well, what then?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me: “… That’s fair.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lithia sighed. “Who?”

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

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

“It is broken!” wailed Invincible Fire Demon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I peered at the paper that Arfaen handed me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who?” asked Arfaen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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