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

[alicornucopia]

Aurin starts pacing. Then he stops and sits back down, head in his hands.

[unmarred]

Mark hugs Mial and thinks inscrutable Mark thoughts.

(With the right push, he could get Mial going. Straight out the door to demand himself a miracle come hell or high water. And then if they couldn't deliver—well. That would end badly. Mark, personally, does not at this point give a flying shit about the sanctity of Draconic, but he cares very much about Mial's emotional stability.)

[alicornucopia]

"I could go ask instead," Finnah says. "If that would be better."

[unmarred]

"Yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Uh, Avar, can you teleport home to get me the crystal, I can't leave the store -" Finnah unhugs to make for the door.

[on_my_word]

"Of course."

Out they go. He fetches her the crystal.

[alicornucopia]

Finnah sells somebody a chocolate shaped like a squirrel, and then calls the miracle workers.

[nonbird]

"Yes?"

[alicornucopia]

"Hi. Uh, Mial, he's the one who wanted to stay a shren, he's, not in a very good place right now? He -" Finnah pauses to wonder how in the hell the miracle workers got here anyway. Perhaps it involved magic doors; no one has claimed to have summoned them. But that's not her priority right now. "Ran into a word that he wants to be a word, very, very badly, but Draconic won't take it, but he doesn't want to screw up Draconic for people who want it like it is. Can miracles fix this problem?"

[nonbird]

"Miracles can fix most things," says the miracle worker. "Um. I might have to understand more about what you mean by this word..."

[alicornucopia]

"So Draconic for dragon is 'siad' and Draconic for 'awesome, dragon-style, rah rah so great' is 'siaddaki' and we met this human who was like 'oh this probably works like suffixes I'm used to!' and said 'shrennaki' and Draconic won't take it, it's not a word, but Mial needs for it to be a word."

[nonbird]

"...That is very weird," says the miracle worker. "Um. This is a magical problem, correct? Draconic is a magical language... can I teleport to where you are and see you say all that again? I can see magic, it is useful for this sort of thing."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, you can, I'm just at work."

[nonbird]

Now there is a miracle worker there!

[alicornucopia]

"What exactly d'you need me to say?" asks Finnah. (She starts arranging chunks of brittle on the sample plate and offers him one.)

[nonbird]

"'Siad' and 'siaddaki' and 'shren' and 'shrennaki', so I can see what Draconic really thinks of them," he says. "Ooh. Candy. Thank you."

[alicornucopia]

"Siad, siaddaki, shren, shrennaki. You're welcome."

[nonbird]

He goes from intrigued to mildly nervous to unhappy to downright alarmed over the course of those four words.

"That's terrible," he says. "That's completely—um. Here. I'll just." He does nothing obvious, but then he says: "'Shrennaki', try that," and it is definitely a word in definitely a language that bears a strong resemblance to Draconic but expresses no intrinsic opinions about shrens.

[alicornucopia]

Finnah beams. "What'd you do?"

[nonbird]

"I made a magical language with a lot of properties in common with Draconic, including its whole vocabulary to start with, excluding Draconic's terrible opinions, and made myself its first attached speaker, and 'shrennaki' just sort of happened automatically. If you would like to be attached to it too, you can do that, it is compatible with your magic."

[alicornucopia]

"I'll take it but Mial should see first -" And she makes for the door again.

[nonbird]

"You can pick it up whenever you like now that you know it exists."

Lazarus vanishes away.

[alicornucopia]

"Mial - shrennaki," says Finnah, "he just, he picked up Draconic and made a duplicate one that isn't such an asshole, you can just kind of - have it!"

[thisvorlunatic]

...Mial bursts into relieved tears.

[unmarred]

"Oh thank fuck," says Mark.