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

[middlingalong]

"Mial races scoots. Every so often he comes down with an immense crush on someone else who also races scoots," says Aurin.

"Miles was various flavors of depressed about the concept of girls for a while until he landed on a semi-hostile planet and improbably carried off a maiden from it," says Ivan.

Finnah snorts.

[thisvorlunatic]

Mial and Miles look at one another.

"Unflattering but basically accurate?" says Mial.

"Yep," says Miles.

"—heh, you're not a shren, what does your cousin do when you're in a mood?"

"...Well, it depends on the severity of the mood... why, what does yours do?"

Instead of answering, Mial inexplicably bursts out laughing.

[alicornucopia]

"Well, see," says Finnah, "when shrens, or for that matter dragons, don't fly around enough, we get tired - to start with - which doesn't help when the solution is 'fly around' -"

"So when he gets in a particularly prolonged mood sometimes I have to defenestrate him," says Aurin, "why do you have a word for that."

[thisvorlunatic]

"You would have to ask a historical linguist," snorts Miles. "Haven't you ever just not flown?"

"When I'm too far gone for it to work, he knows not to try it," Mial explains. "That's not often, though."

[alicornucopia]

"Fun fact, this little symptom of not flying around is also a significant chunk of why being a shren sucks so very much," Finnah says.

[isthisart]

"You said 'to start with'. Something else happens after that?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh yeah. The tiredness goes away and then it starts hurting, and if you are a little baby shren who cannot shapeshift and therefore cannot fly, it just gets worse. He's teeny because he had a weird reaction to painkillers. I was on the same ones and nothing happened, though, maybe you guys are just supposed to be teeny."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Teeniness definitely seems to be a theme," says Miles.

Stalas is looking at Mial with a thoughtful frown.

[unmarred]

Mark notices and correctly interprets the thoughtful frown.

"What is the gender distribution of these immense crushes?" he asks.

[alicornucopia]

"Fifty-fifty," says Finnah. "Are you guys not fifty-fifty? If I have alts and we cannot bond over how hot girls are I do not know what I shall do."

[middlingalong]

Aurin glances at Ivan.

"Mostly girls, but if they're thin on the ground or into it, sometimes guys," shrugs Ivan.

Aurin nods.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Overwhelmingly girls to the point where I couldn't confidently say anyone else registers on the scanner at all," says Miles.

"Of people I've been attracted to in passing, mostly girls. Of people I've fallen in love with—both guys, but it's not a high number to begin with so I don't know if it's just coincidence," says Stalas.

"That's weird, I wonder why we're all different?" says Mial.

[middlingalong]

"We match," says Ivan. "Linyabel, did it come up with Isabella?"

[isthisart]

"She's straight, I contribute to my constellation's quota of bisexuality," says Linyabel. "But that was designed in, so it may not be a useful data point."

[thisvorlunatic]

"...I have a theory, for us," Miles says slowly.

"Yeah?" says Mial.

"There's no - social censure, is there, for liking both, where you're from?"

"No..." says Mial.

"There's quite a lot on Barrayar. Stalas?"

"Not... not a lot," says Stalas, "but dwarven population problems, so. I've always meant to marry a nice girl and settle down eventually. Do my part. Or at minimum screw a lot of noble hunters when I'm older and ready to have kids. And while it's not exactly something you get heat for, it's not something you flaunt, either."

"So apparently the Platonic form of the Miles is bisexual, and I've just had it beaten out of me by Barrayaran social norms," Miles concludes. "And Stalas has had his bisexuality slightly dented, and Mial's is flourishing."

[middlingalong]

"Huh. So if we're consistent and you're consistent that seems like plenty of consistency, and Linyabel is a freak anomaly via genetic engineering," says Ivan.

"What is that?" asks Aurin.

"It is why she is so pretty and long-haired and whatnot. Fiddly business with her - do you have, you know, genomes, in Elcenia, you are a magic dragon, how should I know."

"...I mean, I can tell that it's a word, in your language, which means things, but not as such," says Aurin.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I nominate Linya to explain genetics to the magic dragons," says Miles.

"Dragonishes," says Mial. "I want to hear this too."

[isthisart]

"Well, first of all, since you're apparently shapeshifters," says Linya, "is it customary for people to look like their parents where you're from?"

"Exactly like, sometimes," says Finnah levelly, "if they're full-blooded dragons, in the same species of form. Parunias like Mial or his dad, not so much. But for humans and so on, yeah, people look like their parents more or less."

"So, the reason that happens - at least in humans; I can't begin to speculate on why dragonishes work that way - has to do with very tiny chemical 'instructions' all through all the cells of the body, which are split into various halves for gametes and recombined -"

"Does this have anything to do with why I can only ever have daughters, assuming I don't enlist outside help or spontaneously start liking boys?" Finnah asks.

"Yes, or at least so I'd assume - females have two of a specific sub-instruction and males have one of those and one of a different one, instead. Anyway, with the right equipment you can have a detailed look at those instructions and change them around, and it's customary in my social class of origin to do this as a matter of such total routine that I don't technically have parents but do have many substantial advantages at almost everything relative to untampered-with humans."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I wonder what dragonishes do have instead," says Mial.

"It's possible we could find out," says Miles. "Linya? Where'd you put that med scanner? Or would we need something more involved?"

[isthisart]

"I don't know what it will do with shapeshifters, but I can always try it. It doesn't do sequencing on its own, though." She picks it up.

"Uh, what's that?" asks Aurin.

"It picks up medical sorts of information about you noninvasively."

"Medical sorts of... huh?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"What sorts of information are medical sorts?" asks Mial.

"...What?" says Miles.

[isthisart]

"Where you're from what happens if someone gets injured, or sick?"

"Uh, they go to a light?" says Finnah. "Unless they are a light, and then they go to a witch and pray."

"And a light is...?"

"Oh wow, no lights," breathes Finnah.

[thisvorlunatic]

"A light is a person who can make a little ball of, um, light, and they touch you with it and all of your injuries go away," says Mial.

"Well that sounds convenient," says Miles.

Stalas is just sort of staring in deep envy.

[isthisart]

"I just make it a point to go once a week, for this form, since, why not, public lightcraft in Esmaar, and that way I don't totally ignore a broken foot or whatever," shrugs Finnah.

"And witches are...?" says Linya.

"Oh," Aurin puts in, "lights don't work on themselves or each other, so if they get sick or hurt they go to witches, who make potions that do various things, depends on the witch, painkillers or shampoo or, since Mial is planning to be obnoxious with his natural form these days, I suppose scale polish - whatever."

"Okay, well, 'medical stuff' is more similar to witchcraft than to lightcraft, where we're from," says Linya, "and it involves perhaps most centrally knowing what's wrong. If you've been - poisoned and with what, or if you broke or strained something and exactly where, or if your heart's beating too fast, or what your body temperature's doing - any of that counts as medical information. The scanner is really less useful for seeing what dragonishes have in the way of genes than the sequencer is - I'm not sure if I'll need separate blood samples per form to look into that or what."

"The blood should be the same. I mean, at least according to vampires," Finnah says.

"...Vampires," says Linya.

"Oh, I guess you don't have those either. Do you have anything?" wonders Aurin.

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm not sure what vampires get out of blood and what medical equipment gets out of blood is going to have any overlap," muses Mial.

"We have humans," says Miles.

"In my world, humans and dwarves and elves and qunari and darkspawn," says Stalas. "And far, far less 'medical stuff'. But healing magic does exist, although not as commonly as it sounds like for you."

"As far as we can tell, my and Linya's and Mark's and Ivan's world just doesn't have magic at all," says Miles. "These places need names very badly. I nominate - hmm - Nexus for ours."

"'Thedas' works for mine, it's the name of a planet but there's only one relevant planet," says Stalas. "I'm not actually completely certain it's the name of the entire planet, now that I think of it, it might just be one landmass, surface navigation is not something I've ever concerned myself with. But close enough, anyway."