Character Histories

Floosh is a motherly Orren. She runs the best bakery and pastryshop near the Academy. (She doesn't own it. Her bakery is owned and was originally run by some Rassimel, with Floosh as assistant manager and baker. When it became popular, some years ago, the Rassimel built a few more branches of it in more expensive parts of town. Floosh manages the Academy quarter branch, the original one, for them.) Floosh is friendly with students; she keeps variety in her life by meeting and befriending new ones from each class in turn. She picks interesting ones, and Sythyry, as the only Zi Ri in the Academy, looked interesting. (Also Sythyry is comfortable in Floosh's oven, which amuses her no end; she sometimes has zir go and turn the bread around or something.)

Floosh is married to some number of other Orren. She is the responsible one in the family, and makes most of the actual money. The rest of the family lives in the village of Threeze, a few miles up the Alamme from Vheshrame. (Threeze is fairly self-sufficient -- Floosh's money is used for many things, but her spouses can feed themselves just fine from the river, and maintain their own house, and make enough clothes to keep everyone warm and decent if not exactly fashionable, and so on.) Floosh visits home for a couple of days every week or two, with occasional longer visits between terms when many students are away and business is slow.

Dustweed is the first child and thus the heiress of the Great Baron Bethony Grentian. Dustweed has the ill fortune to be a both-female, one of the rare Herethroy who are both female and co-lover. If Dustweed were behaving properly, zie would behave like a female (terrestrially, "masculine"), and not get married, and abdicate zir place in the succession to her family's villages, and generally do zir best to vanish.

However, zie did none of those. Zie prefers to behave like a co-lover (terrestrially, "feminine"); zie intends to keep zir title and rank. Herethroy villages can exert a good deal of pressure, but a sufficiently determined and pain-enduring Herethroy can resist, and Dustweed is both. It is not without its cost; zie was miserable in zir home. Zie argued zir parents into sending zir to Vheshrame Academy, where zie is studying Aquador and Herbador magic; zir parents agreed to this only because zie agreed that zie would make an effort to become a professional sorcerer and, if that were successful, zie would abdicate. Indeed, zie would have a much easier life as a professional than as a baron trying to administrate villages of Herethroy farmers who think zie should not be alive.

Dustweed would like to be cisaffectionate, to marry a Herethroy woman and man. This is unlikely: few Herethroy of anything like zir rank would be at all willing to have anything to do with zir. Tethezai, thoroughly transaffectionate and rather a libertine, courted Dustweed, and -- perhaps by virtue of being the only one interested -- won her over. Their match seems to have turned into active actual love, much to Dustweed's mixed happiness and discomfort.

Sythyry is the writer of zir journal. Zie is a third-generation Zi Ri. Zir grandparent Glikkonen is quite famous, being one of the great wizards of the World Tree. Glikkonen knows Sythyry, and has given zir the actual journal as a going-to-Academy present, but the two have little in common. (Sythyry taking Enchantment classes is rather like, oh, Einstein's grandchild taking freshman Physics classes terrestrially, and getting A's and B's, but obviously without Einstein's gift.)

Sythyry is young, which disturbs many people. Zi Ri are supposed to be old and powerful, like Glikkonen. Sythyry may get there some century, but at the moment zie is a college student, with a college student's concerns and conceits.

Sythyry would probably prefer to be cisaffectionate, but the only other Zi Ri in Vheshrame is zir half-sibling Hezimikkinen, several hundred years older, and not particularly pleased with zir. So Sythyry has come to appreciate Orren, which may not have been a wise choice.

Teltheryan oa Vinness, Thery for short, is a Rassimel woman of gentle but not noble birth. Her family has served the Counts of Gloun for generations -- as secretaries, secret-holders, accountants, seneschals, vicars, which is to say, they generally take care of most of the work of actual governance and administration, leaving the Counts free to do whatever it is that Counts do. Many noble families have such secretaries; it is widely understood that the secretaries do what the nobles should do, and the secretaries are given the courtesies (but not the title, never the title) of a rank or two less than the nobles they serve.

Thery is studying literature and theology at Vheshrame (and occasional other topics -- she did take one term of Enchantment, and made a very sharp bone dagger). It doesn't really matter what she studies. Countess Gloun is paying for her education; in exchange, Thery will serve the Countess (or her son when he succeeds her) following the traditions of the two families. This was barely an explicit arrangement: of course the Countess would sponsor Thery at Vheshrame; of course Thery will serve the Countess.

In the spring of 4259, at Vheshrame, Thery met Yarwain in a class on Aradrueian theatrical traditions. They both enjoy dissecting the perplexing operas of Pennypell. They fell in love in a fairly leisurely fashion, but none the less thoroughly for that.

A daughter of minor nobility from Uontamv Mene on Yistreia, quite some distance from Vheshrame. She was involved for some time with the son of the Duke of Uontamv. When their involvement started to devolve, the duke's son used dishonest means to give her illegal aphrodesiacs (or so she says). She could not press charges; she chose instead to go a long way away for a very long time.

Pazi-Pazi

Pazi-Pazi is a bright blue cat. Her coloration is not entirely natural, though it is entirely hers -- many cats are a dull blue-black (as are many Sleeth), but her ancestors were bred for color.

Pazi-Pazi comes from a quarrelsome and distinctly non-noble family. Not to put too fine a point on it: Pazi-Pazi was born in the back of a closet, to a mother (Timmissina) who had not the slightest idea or even concern who the father might be. Timmissina, and, later, Pazi-Pazi herself were in the service of one Ghastramathoon Zemmirnina Bhazharth, a senior student at Vheshrame Academy. When Lord Bhazharth graduated, he took Timmissina, but left Pazi-Pazi to his roommate Real-Eel.

Pazi-Pazi has rather limited talents, and her character does not lend itself greatly to either obedient service or careful attention. Real-Eel's had only limited need of the few tasks that Pazi-Pazi was both capable of and willing to perform. Real-Eel is of somewhat tender and generous nature, and forgave Pazi-Pazi a number of disobediences and even personal assaults; but after some months Pazi-Pazi's character did not improve. Real-Eel was not so heartless as to simply turn Pazi-Pazi out on the boardwalk; she looked for another household who could have more use for Pazi-Pazi's services.

Tethezai Canupell is the daughter and third child of Baron Canupell. Her family's title is a fairly small one -- it is not associated with any particular land, making it the lowest possible hereditary title in Vheshrame. The family is powerful despite this. They own buildings, including every glassmaker's workshop, store, and home in Vheshrame Mene and a good part of the rest of the Choinxeian League cities. They own and manage the semi-private band of detectives who investigate civil and minor criminal matters inside of Vheshrame -- less feared than the one that investigates serious criminal matters, and distinctly less feared than the one that investigates political discord, but still a force to be reckoned with. They have their very capable hands on a half-dozen other such matters: nothing overwhelming in any case, but in total they have a great deal of money and a great deal of power. Baron Canupell takes the priveleges of a count, as did the previous one and the one before that, and nobody thinks it the least bit improper.

Tethezai is, naturally, destined to manage the family's interest in the glassmakers. (Her older and more conventional sister Mendrugai is heir apparent to the family title and estate, but each younger sibling will be in charge of some particular topic.) For this reason, and for the reason of some natural talent, she is studying art at Vheshrame Academy. There is no actual course of studies in administration, but she is carefully taking classes in mathematics, law, court politics, interpersonal matters, and so on as well.

Personally, Tethezai is rather a libertine. In her first two years at Vheshrame Academy, she supposedly went through three dozen lovers, of all available species save her own, and by reputation demanded of them a variety of nonstandard exertions. Many nobles in Vheshrame pretend or dapple in transaffection; Tethezai really does it repeatedly, and by all accounts prefers it.