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]

"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."

[alicornucopia]

"Ours is Elcenia," says Finnah. "That's explicitly the world, the planet doesn't even bother to have a name besides 'planet' in most languages - Draconic does it, but Draconic does everything up to and including bully small children."

[thisvorlunatic]

Mial laughs. Stalas and Miles both look at him with wry sympathy.

"I admit I'm not totally sure how a language goes about bullying someone," says Stalas.

"I have a pretty good idea," says Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"Words don't just have denotations, they have connotations," says Finnah, "and for most things Draconic is pretty good about coughing up the exact set you're looking for, and for 'shren' it's really, really not."

[thisvorlunatic]

"See also: 'mutie'," says Miles.

"...Right track, yeah," says Mial.

"Thought so," says Miles.

"Is this a life experience I should be glad I missed out on?" says Stalas.

"Very," says Miles.

[alicornucopia]

"And of course it's not just the shrens themselves who speak this language but also dragons, so, Aurin is fine and Mial's dad is fine and most of them are a great big bag of dicks in one or another way, such as my parents or Mial and Aurin's grandfather."

"Grandfather's okay in most ways," says Aurin. "Just - not about that."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm sure he has many redeeming qualities," Mial says dryly. "For those lucky enough to experience them."

"Mine tried to kill me," offers Miles. "Before I was born, and then afterward. We... got mostly straightened out all right, though, around when I learned to walk. Bonded over his horses."

"Neither my world in general nor my grandfather in particular has horses," says Mial. "But I doubt it would've made much difference if they did."

"Also, wait, Mial and Aurin's grandfather? That's... that's different from our genealogical arrangement," says Miles. "I wonder who corresponds? Stalas and I don't seem to share any ancestors we can confirm, but he never met his mother so she's a question mark."

[middlingalong]

"Uh, our dads were half-brothers but mine died like two hundred years ago," says Aurin. "My dad's name was Pardam and my mom's name is Alys? Grandfather's name is Piro?"

"Sounds like my nuclear family just sort of - snipped off and stashed under Piotr," says Ivan. "My dad died almost right when I was born."

"Mine had time to name me," says Aurin, "so there's that, Mial and I are both members of the Only People With Our Line Names Club, since Grandfather and Uncle Avar had a disagreement about whether Avar's line name belonged on Mial and Mial hadn't been named yet at the time."

[thisvorlunatic]

"You know, there's no reason I couldn't just go and get my parents," says Mial. "Is there?"

"Well, as long as you can do it while someone else from your world holds the door, I don't see why not," says Miles. "And then we could probably confirm who if anyone they're alts of. What are their names?"

"Avar and Koridaar."

"...That sounds reasonably like Aral and Cordelia..."

[isthisart]

"You keep saying that Mial's father is a dragon. What is his mother?"

[alicornucopia]

"Elf," says Aurin.

"Luckily enough, or you probably wouldn't get to meet her," says Finnah.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Because dragonishes age ten times slower than humans, right," says Miles. "How old is she? I mean..."

"Two hundred thirty-three," says Mial. "Late seventies equivalent. Healthy, though."

"That's going to be weird," murmurs Miles.

A thought occurs to him, and he pens a note to Linya: That third dose of Lalita's blood just sprang to mind. Do we know its effects on old age? Can we think of a safe way to test?