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

[thisvorlunatic]

Mial goes out the door and teleports away to find his parents.

[alicornucopia]

Finnah holds the door, since she is wearing an apron and can shoo anybody who comes near.

[thisvorlunatic]

Mial returns, parents in tow.

[on_my_word]

Avar looks around curiously as he steps into the bar; Koridaar does the same.

[thisvorlunatic]

"...yeah," says Miles, "weirdly young version of my father, weirdly old version of my mother. All in all, weird."

"I don't actually know what my mother looked like," says Stalas, "but..." He's gazing thoughtfully at Avar.

"What?" says Miles.

"Nothing, maybe. I'm thinking."

[alicornucopia]

"Avar's not going to look any older than that," says Finnah, "least not human-shaped, dragon thing. Did Mial explain you stuff?" she asks the parentals.

[middlingalong]

"I'm going to guess that your mother looks just like mine and there's no reason to involve her," Ivan says to Aurin.

"Probably? I mean, maybe yours doesn't have bright gold hair."

"Nnnope. Brown. Still."

[on_my_word]

"Quote, 'alts!', end quote," says Avar.

[greatcomposure]

"I got several more words than that," says Koridaar. "But I'm given to understand it amounted to the same thing."

[isthisart]

"Well, these two are Miles and Stalas, alts of Mial," point point, "and that's Miles's brother Mark, and that's their cousin Ivan, and I'm Miles's wife, Linyabel. You've missed another couple of sets with different mixing and matching who've already gone home, but I'm planning to loiter here for days and everyone else who's intending on going back through our door is waiting on me rather than skip the intervening waiting through the magic of time dilation."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Seriously," says Miles to Stalas, "what are you thinking over there?"

"Well, it's just... I mean, it's a no-brainer that your father would look like you. Therefore, by extension, also like me. And it's not that weird that he'd end up looking like the rest of my family in the process. But - a couple of things you've said - and the statues are very stylized, but - and which members of my family he looks most like—"

"Spit it out, Stalas."

"I think the Thedas version of, well, you," he says with a gesture to Avar, "was Aeducan. As in the Paragon Aeducan, founder of my House. I mean, it's hard to tell, because we obviously can't drag Aeducan in here to compare, he's been dead for centuries."

[isthisart]

"Bar, can you give us some manner of informative possibly out of print portrait of Aeducan?"

This is the best I can do.

Here is an unusually realistic relief carving.

[thisvorlunatic]

Stalas looks from it to Avar and back.

"I mean, accounting for style... yeah," he says.

Miles looks too. "Yeah," he agrees.

"So that's a little weird," says Stalas. "I wonder why I'm the odd one out."

[on_my_word]

Avar goes over to look at the carving.

"Huh. Alts," he says.

[isthisart]

"My parental situation doesn't match either of the alts of me I've met and they don't match each other either. This could be sample size or differences in our various altly regularities, I suppose, we haven't seen more than four of anyone."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I wonder if you even had an alt of Grandfather," says Mial to Stalas.

"It's pretty hard to tell. Aeducan's parents weren't especially famous, and I wouldn't even know where else to start looking."

"Are we saying my grandfather and your grandfather are probably the same, then?" asks Miles of Mial. "I mean, it seems likely, given what we know. Hey, Bar - how about a holo of General Piotr? As young as possible, I guess, if dragons top out at twentyish."

[alicornucopia]

Bar provides.

"Yyyyep," says Aurin. "That would be Grandfather Piro, when he's being all bipedal. Since I'm probably the last to have seen him of people here."

[on_my_word]

"I have not yet forgotten what my own father looks like," Avar says dryly.

[alicornucopia]

"It's been a hundred seventy years, it could have dimmed a little," says Aurin.

Finnah squints at the holo; she's never seen Piro before.

[thisvorlunatic]

A young General Piotr glowers at the camera.

"I don't even think I've seen a holo of him that young before," says Miles, "but the expression's sure familiar."

[alicornucopia]

"That is the 'have the correct opinions before I start telling you what they are' look," says Aurin. "Among other uses."

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles laughs. "Yeah. On the General it saw a lot of use as the 'I was a war hero before you were born, sit down and shut up' look. Similar use case, different context, maybe."

[alicornucopia]

"Ours isn't a war hero. I mean, maybe he is actually, for all I know he fought in the South Anaist Conflict or something, but it doesn't really come up and it would've been a long time ago, he mostly goes on about being a council member and super-old," says Aurin.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ours is a war hero," says Miles. "It wouldn't be much of a stretch to call him the war hero, of his generation at least. And there was plenty of war-heroing to go around in those days."

[middlingalong]

"Dragons usually don't go in for much nationalism," says Aurin. "Even if we stay in the same place a really long time. It never occurred to me to join the Corenta military, say, because I might decide at some point to pick up my favorite possessions and tuck 'em and fly to Aveha. Aveha's nice, especially in spring. Uncle Avar's got a government job, though - I don't remember your title -"

"I'm in the Imperial Service," says Ivan. "Sort of the done thing for Vor. Do you even have a job?"

"Not like a career. I pick up tour guide work interpreting for foreign tourists who think they're going to teach themselves more than three words of Vansalese and don't get translation spells, sometimes. One time a girl talked me into spending six weeks as a fairground ride only to discover that it was not technically legal for her to pay employees in sexual favors, so I guess that was a job. I help out Mother now and again, I'm pretty good at that but don't want to work for her, might go into some unrelated kind of event planning." At Ivan's headtilt: "She sets up these charity events? Where rich people who don't want to just sign writs of transfer all congregate to give each other excuses to sign writs and show off for each other about how big the writs are. Sometimes she does other things but it's mostly that."