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Finnah's just arrived at work to open the store for the morning shift; she has her apron on but hasn't put her hair up yet. She lets in the customer who always takes half an angle to determine that he wants four buttercreams, again, and then nips into the back to tend to her hair and check the overnight progress of the rock candy.
This isn't the back.
But that -
No, he's too tall to be Mial, if this is a Mial prank it's a stupidly elaborate one.
"Okay, I give up," she says, "what the hell?"
abeance
Jann sits with his alts.
"So tell me about ourselves," he says.
His alts begin to catch him up on the state of the art of Ivans. And teach him to play their most recent card game.
Their conversation meanders. It comes up in conversation that Jann is the only single one. It is unspoken but understood that if there were another single one they'd be attempting to surreptitiously sneak off and cheat on their mutual absence of girlfriend, but this is not the case and none of them is too broken up about it. Jann and Ivan explain horses to Aurin. Ivan explains spaceships to Jann and Aurin. Jann explains to Aurin how his princess-napping dragons work and Aurin explains to Jann how non-princess-napping dragons work. Aurin explains to Jann and Ivan the curlicues of vocabulary that screw over Mial and that Milo has proposed throwing out the entire language to deal with - "siad" versus "shren", the exclusive turn of "siaddaki", etcetera. They discuss their respective tastes in olives, music, brunettes, and socks. Jann has his sword with him and shows it off.
thisvorlunatic
And eventually, Miles comes downstairs.
"The league is ready to rejoin civilized company," he reports.
"The league is ready to rejoin civilized company," he reports.
middlingalong
Ivan meanders back to the topic of Draconic, meanwhile. "So when you say I can't speak Draconic you obviously don't mean I can't learn words from it. They don't mix and match right?"
"They don't mix and match like a regular language, anyway," says Aurin.
"So you can't - take them apart for suffixes? You wouldn't understand if I did it?"
"I mean, I'd understand. It's a thing you'd be doing in English, with loanwords, and I speak English, it's not going to be gibberish if you're doing it in some sensible fashion."
"They don't mix and match like a regular language, anyway," says Aurin.
"So you can't - take them apart for suffixes? You wouldn't understand if I did it?"
"I mean, I'd understand. It's a thing you'd be doing in English, with loanwords, and I speak English, it's not going to be gibberish if you're doing it in some sensible fashion."
middlingalong
"So I don't get it," says Ivan, "how the language is constraining anything to speak of, if you'd understand it perfectly well if I said something like - I have what, three words to work with here - shrennaki."
Aurin startles rather as though someone has popped a balloon inside his chest.
Aurin startles rather as though someone has popped a balloon inside his chest.
thisvorlunatic
Mial claps both hands over his mouth, wide-eyed, and makes a sort of quiet strangled shrieking sound.
unmarred
"You don't go in for bloody half-measures, do you?" exclaims Mark, sounding for once in his life not at all charmed by an Ivan-utterance.
middlingalong
"What the - what?" says Ivan. "What'd I say?"
"You know exactly what you said!" says Aurin, sounding vaguely faint. "You couldn't have gotten that over with while he was upstairs?"
"Why didn't you teach me how to say anything else in Draconic then?"
"I didn't know you were going to do that! It would never have occurred to me!"
"You know exactly what you said!" says Aurin, sounding vaguely faint. "You couldn't have gotten that over with while he was upstairs?"
"Why didn't you teach me how to say anything else in Draconic then?"
"I didn't know you were going to do that! It would never have occurred to me!"
thisvorlunatic
Mial is still frozen, his initial sounds of distress trailing off into a quiet keening. His hands creep up to cover his face and he sinks to the floor and curls up in a little ball and cries.
unmarred
"For fuck's sake," says Mark. He gets up and goes over to Mial and sits on the floor next to him and hugs him.
thisvorlunatic
Mial shudders.
"I don't know what's going on but I'm very alarmed about it," says Miles.
"I don't know what's going on but I'm very alarmed about it," says Miles.
isthisart
"I was not listening closely enough to the conversation to know what the offending word even supposedly means."
middlingalong
"Don't bloody say it again," says Aurin to Ivan. "It doesn't. Mean anything. He just wants it to."
middlingalong
"I don't understand how this never occurred to anyone before," says Ivan. "I'm sorry!"
Aurin drops his head into his hands and groans.
Aurin drops his head into his hands and groans.
unmarred
Mark hugs Mial and pets his back soothingly.
"I know what it means and I know you know what it means, all right?" he murmurs. "And we could get it through to all your alts without much trouble. That's a decent start right there. H'sh."
"I know what it means and I know you know what it means, all right?" he murmurs. "And we could get it through to all your alts without much trouble. That's a decent start right there. H'sh."
middlingalong
Aurin considers this tableau.
And then he coughs, attempts to defer to Mark's expertise, and mumbles, "I know what it - means."
Ivan opens his mouth.
"You," says Aurin, "you shut up."
And then he coughs, attempts to defer to Mark's expertise, and mumbles, "I know what it - means."
Ivan opens his mouth.
"You," says Aurin, "you shut up."
unmarred
"Thank you," sighs Mark, with visible relief. "That's given us years right there." He continues snuggling Mial.
thisvorlunatic
Mial does indeed seem to relax somewhat, although the measurement of his distress in years is not an immediately obvious one.
...Miles, though, thinks he might understand it. He looks at Mial and Mark with unhappy recognition.
...Miles, though, thinks he might understand it. He looks at Mial and Mark with unhappy recognition.
thisvorlunatic
"Please tell me that was some sort of crazy Mark utterance and not what I think it was," says Miles.