why is there a word for that

[alicornucopia]

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?"

Comments

[unmarred]

The too-tall Mial-like person whom she spotted first shrugs.

"Magic interdimensional bar," he says succinctly.

[thisvorlunatic]

The slightly taller person standing next to him and holding his hand turns around and looks at the door. He also proves to be suspiciously Mial-like.

"I wonder who this one's an alt of, if anyone," he says. "Hello."

[alicornucopia]

"...oh," says Finnah, not at "magic interdimensional bar" but at "alt". "Well, I dunno about me, but you three," point point point, "look like Mial."

[thisvorlunatic]

"'Mial'," muses the third Mial-like person. "And where is Mial? Fetchable without letting the door shut behind you? You lose access to this place when it does that."

[alicornucopia]

"Uh, he's not anywhere nearby and I don't bring my crystals to work but I could song him until he tries a whisper spell?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Please do. Assuming he's older than five, I feel strongly confident he wants to meet us," says Potential Mial Alt Number Three. "I'm Miles, that's my brother Mark," number one, "and my alt Stalas," number two. "Going just from the name, Mial sounds likeliest to be a Miles rather than a Mark or some kind of elaborate coincidence. But then, Stalas's name doesn't sound much like mine, so who knows."

"Mial, Miles - yeah, I see what you mean," says Stalas. "Not much to go on, though. Well, even if he is an elaborate coincidence, he might as well join the fun."

[alicornucopia]

"What does age five have to do with anything?" wonders Finnah. "I mean, that would have been adorable, but not that different from four or six."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, in my personal timeline - shared up to at least that point by a close alt of mine who's been and gone - up until age five I lived my life in a spinal brace that pretty much completely prevented me from going anywhere under my own power," says Miles. "And the five-year-old Miles who was just here was really ticked off at me for being twenty years older and no longer thusly confined."

[alicornucopia]

"Ohhhh. I didn't get a really close look at your eyes - okay, Mial is a shren, shrens grow ten times slower than humans do. He's my age, which is to say a hundred seventy."

[thisvorlunatic]

"...That's a new one," says Miles, after a pause. "Eyes? What about eyes?"

[alicornucopia]

"Behold how my hair is super red? For guys it's eye color and he's a silver. You probably just all have gray eyes, slightly different if you know what to look for - I don't hang out with shrens and dragons often enough to be sure I could tell a silver apart from a platinum or a spelter but a silver from a human is easy. Come to think of it, he," she points at Ivan, "looks like Mial's cousin but the eye color is usually the first thing I pay attention to on him and brown is way more different from gold than gray from silver."

[middlingalong]

"Oh joy," says Ivan, "more of me."

[unmarred]

"Oh joy," Mark says brightly, "more of you."

[alicornucopia]

"Aurin's not bad, for a dragon. Mial can go get him if he wants, Mial can teleport. Do you think I need to open the door to song him?"

[isthisart]

"Quite likely. There's a time-pausing effect."

[alicornucopia]

"Right then."

Finnah opens the door, and sings: "Mialavaraaninnah!" And then, for flourish but no added mechanical effect: "Get your tail over here!"

[thisvorlunatic]

A short pause, and then Mial whisper-spells Finnah: "Where the hell are you, besides 'not Elcenia'? And why did this spell work anyway?"

[alicornucopia]

"Teleport to my work and come see!"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Oooookay."

He teleports to her work.

He comes and sees.





"What," says Mial, stopping in the doorway.

"Oh my god you're shorter than me," snorts Miles.

[alicornucopia]

Finnah giggles and lets the door close. "He's still too tall to grow his hair out and pass for a halfling-form, though. Alts!" she adds helpfully to Mial, because: word.

[thisvorlunatic]

"...Alts," Mial says thoughtfully. "Huh."

"I'm Miles, this is my brother Mark, that's my alt Stalas, and that is my cousin Ivan," says Miles.

"Human?" says Mial.

"Well, Stalas is a dwarf."

"Stalas is rather absurdly tall for a dwarf. And skinny." (Stalas rolls his eyes.) "And the ears are wrong. Different kind of dwarf, I guess. Should I be fetching Aurin? What should I be telling Aurin? I think I've given him enough unpleasant surprises for a year today already."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, yeah, how did he take the news?" wonders Finnah.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um," says Mial. "Coughed all over the girl he was kissing at the time, called me an inconsiderate ass, asked after my reasoning, sat down to a board game with me. We're fine."

[middlingalong]

"You don't have to get Aurin but you might as well," says Ivan. "He would get you. I know because I found this place first. Do I want to know what your coughing-fit-inducing news was? You're about the right age to get yourself a small army..."

[alicornucopia]

"Mial with an army. Hoo boy. We live in a demilitarized country!"