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Akibel Mowar is on his way home from the blacksmith's when he spots it. People are shrieking and fleeing from it, which seems reasonable, as it's a fuckoff huge snake with a mirror for a face. A big mirror.
Kib can't so much flee. He can shriek - he can lurch in the direction of the nearest house and try the door - it's locked. He can amble briskly...
He can break into a run when the snake gains on him and fall flat on his face.
And he can get eaten up.
And it's too bright too bright too bright and he flings his arm over his eyes.
secondchance
secondchance
"Forty-two years ago there appeared a human female baby who was found and brought to a creche in the city of Lapis which named her Alymbel Mahri. When she was seventeen she met a boy called Aydanci Evaret and they fell in love and two years later they got married - in the human fashion without any forensically accessible soul marks - and were deliriously happy with each other, sharing projects and a house and fixing each other breakfast and all, until Aly caught a horrible disease and died of it. Shortly thereafter a stork brought a human male baby to a creche in Wrebb, where he was named Akibel Mowar. A couple of years ago I began having unusual dreams in which Aly appeared as a recurring 'character'. They were more coherent and mundane than regular dreams, and after I woke up from them they wouldn't fade like regular dreams, but sort of slide back as though they'd happened before I appeared - during the times they appeared to be set. I knew that Lapis was a real place and that Harthanic, Aly's second language, was a real language, but I never visited the place or met a Harthanic speaker to suggest that my dream information was anything other than fabricated. The dreams came more and more frequently and in greater quantity until they completely displaced standard dreams and I had hours of Aly's life every night; while it was sort of conceptually disconcerting to inhabit the perspective of a girl her personality was otherwise identical to mine.
"I noticed Aly had to have been real when I encountered a real book in Harthanic and its alphabet and grammar were familiar to me. Since we had the same personality and I was inheriting her memories it seemed reasonable to adopt her identity as continuous with mine. Later, I dreamed about Aydanci who had been all but omitted from previous dreams, and was able to find him at home in Lapis based on memory alone. I told him I was Aly reincarnated; it turned out that even her pet magpie answers to me like I'm her, apparently servants' identification of servantmakers is not interrupted by reincarnation. He verified my identity to his satisfaction and was very relieved that his spouse was not permanently lost to him after all; he'd never really recovered from my death."
"I noticed Aly had to have been real when I encountered a real book in Harthanic and its alphabet and grammar were familiar to me. Since we had the same personality and I was inheriting her memories it seemed reasonable to adopt her identity as continuous with mine. Later, I dreamed about Aydanci who had been all but omitted from previous dreams, and was able to find him at home in Lapis based on memory alone. I told him I was Aly reincarnated; it turned out that even her pet magpie answers to me like I'm her, apparently servants' identification of servantmakers is not interrupted by reincarnation. He verified my identity to his satisfaction and was very relieved that his spouse was not permanently lost to him after all; he'd never really recovered from my death."
There is a moment's stunned pause.
"This is very irregular," someone says at that point. "But we concur in your assessment that you and Aydanci are in fact married."
"This is very irregular," someone says at that point. "But we concur in your assessment that you and Aydanci are in fact married."
"Marriage is a bond before Eru and cannot be broken. You and Aydanci will be married for all of time."
secondchance
"That's not a human behavior anyway," Kib says. "We did at one time consider co-teaching apprentices but nothing like the childrearing Elves do."
secondchance
Which Kib will deal with because poor Aydanci does not need this crap and this is the Worst Paradise that Kib went and decided to live in. Anybody have something to say, huh?
secondchance
Well, Aly was a girl. Kib is a boy. Sometimes this confuses him too but that is definitely what's going on. Fortunately ~his wonderful husband~ has the convenient feature of being interested in people by personality rather than shape! He would probably have taken Kib back even if Kib were a genderless mushroom being of some kind! His husband is so great.
A lot of people volunteer the opinion that they'd take their spouses back if they died and were reembodied as the opposite gender. Other people volunteer the opinion that they wouldn't do that. The tone here is getting to be more of confusion than actual hostility.
secondchance
It's true, humans don't have children, and Kib does not even want to go abscond with a baby, even though he could totally interrupt a stork to do that since he invented them. But maybe one day he and Aydanci will teach servantmaking. That's a thing human married couples do is co-teach.
secondchance
Frankly if one is going to wonder what Eru was thinking about anything to do with Kib's world there are places Kib would start before getting to that one. Like, sure, it was very romantic that ~Kib's wonderful husband~ eradicated a disease for him but the disease had to exist in the first place for him to do that and it sucked.
Everyone is delighted to hear that story and thinks it profoundly romantic.
And yes, diseases seem terrible and all of them shall be eradicated. Thinking something is romantic does not mean that the premises shouldn't be scrubbed from the earth. There are beautiful tragedies set at Cuivienen but the Elves left Cuivienen for somewhere where no one ever died, now didn't they?
And yes, diseases seem terrible and all of them shall be eradicated. Thinking something is romantic does not mean that the premises shouldn't be scrubbed from the earth. There are beautiful tragedies set at Cuivienen but the Elves left Cuivienen for somewhere where no one ever died, now didn't they?
secondchance
Yes, what a smart thing to do that was. ~Kib's wonderful husband~ specializes in public health stuff! Maybe Elves would like to help produce more of the golems that help maintain quarantines and distribute supplies.