(Written) 26 Lage 4385: Seeing the Folks
Jul. 8th, 2010 07:48 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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delight_in_wt(happened 25 Lage 4385)
Dad-Dad and Dadsy were glad to see me. Dad-Dad met me in the yard and scooped me up, yelling, "Who's my fiddle-of-pearl? Delight! Where've you been, wild so fine? Come to peep-'n-squeak with your ol' dads?"
Dad-Dad was raised by a Khtsoyis which you might think explains it but no, Grampsis never canted. Dad-Dad was raised by Gran-Gran too which almost explains it because she talked like a Khtsoyis except that she didn't cant either. I don't know where Dad-Dad got it. My family is weird. I should probably explain for those of you that aren't Sythyrs and Boomsy.
Digression on My Family
I was raised mainly by Dadsy, who goes by Quick-splash to people who aren't his kids, and Dad-Dad, who goes by Dad-Dad to pretty much everyone. Dadsy and Dad-Dad have been married forever. They married my blood-mother a couple of years before Void-Dancer was born. They already had two kids by their previous wife.
Mama had two children with them, Void-Dancer first and then me eleven years [[OOC: a little over 8 terrestrial years]] later.
Mama was from Niestria, which is a long ways away: a few branches down and a few thousand miles outwards. I don't know her family that well. We've been to visit a few times and they've come to visit us and we exchange flurries of leaf-mail every few months. They're very foreign riverOrren: they speak with the thick accent of their branch. Mama's parents and her siblings were very close to each other, and they'd all get into doing the same things all at once. Like one year they decided to build a houseboat and sail the big river on their branch, and that's what they all did: learned how to build a houseboat and learned to sail and learned to travel and did it.
Dadsy's family are fisherOrren from a village in Vheshrame Mene. They're very normal local Orren: sweet and playful and fickle and not very good with money. They're not riverbums, though one of my uncles once got himself indentured to repay his debts. On the whole they're good respectable Orren. Mama told me once that they'd disowned Dadsy for marrying Dad-Dad, but they'd reconciled years before I was born.
Dad-Dad's family isn't normal for anywhere. His father was a riverbum Orren and his mother was an adventurer. She had three kids, including Dad-Dad, then got killed by a jack-o'-hooks in the Verticals. Five times, before her healer was killed for the third time and there wasn't anyone left to save either of them. His father couldn't handle raising the kids alone and ran off somewhere, leaving Dad-Dad and his siblings with their riverOrren grandparents. The grandparents on their mother's side -- they lived in Daukhrame -- offered to take them, but the riverOrren insisted on keeping them. Except that Dad-Dad was wild when they got him and he only got wilder and harder to control as he aged. He'd spont dangerous spells and was a disruption to the whole village. Eventually they gave up on him and asked his other grandparents to take him.
Which they did. Dad-Dad called them Gran-Gran and Grampsis and said they were the best parents a Prime could have. "Ol' Grampsis was stricter than a Zi Ri's corset on a Gormorror, my fiddle-of-pearl, and you couldn't get away with a two minute vacation never mind any doings-wrong. But I always, always knew he loved me. Kindest, gentlest Prime on wood," he told me once. "And Gran-Gran -- ha! She was a party in a package all by herself, always said just what she meant and always did just what she said. Oh, there were times I hated 'em like a Cani locked in a longhouse with perdithorne. But they were the best thing that ever happened to me."
They were also traff. Gran-Gran was an Orren named Ysgwyd and Dad-Dad's blood grandmother. Grampsis was a Khtsoyis, Delframber, and Ysgwyd's lover and husband in all but name. Dad-Dad's blood-grandfather on that side had passed away already, but Ysgwyd and Delframber were still going strong. When they were raising Dad-Dad, they were also raising two Khtsoyis children, the blood-son and daughter of Delframber. They'd known Sythyrs since zir college days -- zie had used magic to help Gran-Gran conceive my grandmother. When I was small I thought that meant that Delframber was my blood-great-grandfather, but of course he isn't. They used to visit zir at Castle Wrong frequently. They never lived there but Gran-Gran always said she was the wrongest Prime of them all. When she said that, Grampsis would loop his tentacles around her hands and say in his breathy courtly way, "My dearest Ysgwyd ... there has never been anything ... wrong with you. It is a great loss ... to the rest of the World Tree ... if they are too flawed ... to appreciate you."
I remember Gran-Gran as a very old white-furred Orren who'd play Serpent of the Tower with me over and over and over again. She died when I was still small. Grampsis outlived her by over a decade. He used to float me over the city and tell me about all the places and talk to me for hours about what I wanted to do when I grew up or what I worried about or whatever was on my mind, really. He was the best listener I've ever known. They visited us a lot, especially after Boomsy came to live with us.
Boomsy came to live with us when I was four or five, and he wasn't Boomsy then. His child-name was Floatsquirmer. I called him Squirmsers. He's Delframber's blood-grandson. His parents are still alive -- they visited us sometimes especially his mom -- but for about ten years they couldn't take care of him for some reason that no one ever really explained to me. So my parents did. Dadsy's parents wouldn't come visit after that not until he was gone again.
There were always a lot of kids in the house. My two oldest half-siblings were adolescents by the time I was born, but there was Voidsy and Boomsy was about my age and Waterfall who Dad-Dad and Dadsy adopted three years before I was born and more foster kids when I was a little older and their third wife had a baby when I was an adolescent. Long after Mama left.
Mama ...
She was an artist: she used to work with Dadsy, painting and carving designs on the bookcases and tables and things that he built. Painting was her favorite thing for forever. That and traveling. She always wanted to go new places and see new things. When we traveled it was to visit family in the same places. I remember sitting with her and Grampsis on top of a roof somewhere and watching the sun roll behind the trunk. We were looking at the distant branches and Mama told Grampsis about coming all the way to Vheshrame to see what the old branches were like and about her birth family building a boat to go off to see the end of a new one. She was so ... wistful.
I can't remember what her smile looked like.
Mama changed her name a lot. When I was seven she changed it to "Already-Gone".
A few weeks later, she was.
I'm sorry I didn't meant to go on this long. Where was I?
Back to The Visit
Right, Dad-Dad had just greeted me. I said something cantish in reply, like "It's the cat's purr!" And I beeped his nose and he stole my ear and tickled my sides and yes I am six, Voidsy. At least to Dad-Dad.
Dad-Dad complained about how big and heavy I was to pick up so I made a ball of water to splash over myself and turned otter-form. He laughed and carried me inside and put me on the table after making sure I was all tangled up in my biped-form clothing. While I squirmed free, Dad-Dad got Dadsy to stop working on the desk he was building and come visit with me. We drank kathia and ate popataloops and they told me how Real-squeal's (she's my older half-sister) newest baby was doing (Dad-Dad: "Cute as a kitten's tails and twice as squirmy!") and about their business (Dadsy: "It's a bit slow but at my age who wants to work that much anyway?" Dad-Dad: "That's what apprentices are for, you old lasher-dasher.") I told them about my new scroll and my nightmares last night and losing my guild membership.
Dadsy ignored the latter news to beam over the first. "That's my girl! A real enchanter, you are! Hah! What do you need some crummy fur-stylist's job for, Dee? Enchanting is practically minting money!"
I smiled back at him and didn't try to explain about TWELVE WEEKS or how you can't sell enchantments unless you're in the enchanter's guild which is WAY HARDER and more expensive to get a membership in even as an apprentice than practically any other guild.
Dadsy barrelled on: "So where is it, can we see it? You brought it with you, right?"
I patted my pockets. "Oh no I didn't I left it with Void-Dancer."
Dadsy set his jaw and didn't say anything. Dad-Dad looked down at his kathia cup.
"Sythyrs had some stuff in it he wanted Voidsy to see," I explained in the ensuing awkward silence. I dropped my eyes too. "I'll bring it with me next time, promise."
Dadsy forced a smile and patted my shoulder. "Wonderful! I look forward to seeing it."
Dad-Dad changed the topic to speculating about my Branspash's (that's my oldest half-brother) romantic life and we talked about this and that other stuff for a while. Eventually Dadsy excused himself to get back to work and I wanted to get home before sunout because I was still tired from not sleeping well the night before, so Dad-Dad showed me out.
As he was hugging me by the door, he said quietly, "You know ... if you see your blood brother again ... well. Let him know his ol' Dad-Dad wouldn't mind seeing him, would you?"
He didn't cant at all. He never cants when it's important.
I smiled and kissed his cheek. "I will Dad-Dad I love you!"
"I love you too, my fiddle-of-pearl."
Dad-Dad and Dadsy were glad to see me. Dad-Dad met me in the yard and scooped me up, yelling, "Who's my fiddle-of-pearl? Delight! Where've you been, wild so fine? Come to peep-'n-squeak with your ol' dads?"
Dad-Dad was raised by a Khtsoyis which you might think explains it but no, Grampsis never canted. Dad-Dad was raised by Gran-Gran too which almost explains it because she talked like a Khtsoyis except that she didn't cant either. I don't know where Dad-Dad got it. My family is weird. I should probably explain for those of you that aren't Sythyrs and Boomsy.
Digression on My Family
I was raised mainly by Dadsy, who goes by Quick-splash to people who aren't his kids, and Dad-Dad, who goes by Dad-Dad to pretty much everyone. Dadsy and Dad-Dad have been married forever. They married my blood-mother a couple of years before Void-Dancer was born. They already had two kids by their previous wife.
Mama had two children with them, Void-Dancer first and then me eleven years [[OOC: a little over 8 terrestrial years]] later.
Mama was from Niestria, which is a long ways away: a few branches down and a few thousand miles outwards. I don't know her family that well. We've been to visit a few times and they've come to visit us and we exchange flurries of leaf-mail every few months. They're very foreign riverOrren: they speak with the thick accent of their branch. Mama's parents and her siblings were very close to each other, and they'd all get into doing the same things all at once. Like one year they decided to build a houseboat and sail the big river on their branch, and that's what they all did: learned how to build a houseboat and learned to sail and learned to travel and did it.
Dadsy's family are fisherOrren from a village in Vheshrame Mene. They're very normal local Orren: sweet and playful and fickle and not very good with money. They're not riverbums, though one of my uncles once got himself indentured to repay his debts. On the whole they're good respectable Orren. Mama told me once that they'd disowned Dadsy for marrying Dad-Dad, but they'd reconciled years before I was born.
Dad-Dad's family isn't normal for anywhere. His father was a riverbum Orren and his mother was an adventurer. She had three kids, including Dad-Dad, then got killed by a jack-o'-hooks in the Verticals. Five times, before her healer was killed for the third time and there wasn't anyone left to save either of them. His father couldn't handle raising the kids alone and ran off somewhere, leaving Dad-Dad and his siblings with their riverOrren grandparents. The grandparents on their mother's side -- they lived in Daukhrame -- offered to take them, but the riverOrren insisted on keeping them. Except that Dad-Dad was wild when they got him and he only got wilder and harder to control as he aged. He'd spont dangerous spells and was a disruption to the whole village. Eventually they gave up on him and asked his other grandparents to take him.
Which they did. Dad-Dad called them Gran-Gran and Grampsis and said they were the best parents a Prime could have. "Ol' Grampsis was stricter than a Zi Ri's corset on a Gormorror, my fiddle-of-pearl, and you couldn't get away with a two minute vacation never mind any doings-wrong. But I always, always knew he loved me. Kindest, gentlest Prime on wood," he told me once. "And Gran-Gran -- ha! She was a party in a package all by herself, always said just what she meant and always did just what she said. Oh, there were times I hated 'em like a Cani locked in a longhouse with perdithorne. But they were the best thing that ever happened to me."
They were also traff. Gran-Gran was an Orren named Ysgwyd and Dad-Dad's blood grandmother. Grampsis was a Khtsoyis, Delframber, and Ysgwyd's lover and husband in all but name. Dad-Dad's blood-grandfather on that side had passed away already, but Ysgwyd and Delframber were still going strong. When they were raising Dad-Dad, they were also raising two Khtsoyis children, the blood-son and daughter of Delframber. They'd known Sythyrs since zir college days -- zie had used magic to help Gran-Gran conceive my grandmother. When I was small I thought that meant that Delframber was my blood-great-grandfather, but of course he isn't. They used to visit zir at Castle Wrong frequently. They never lived there but Gran-Gran always said she was the wrongest Prime of them all. When she said that, Grampsis would loop his tentacles around her hands and say in his breathy courtly way, "My dearest Ysgwyd ... there has never been anything ... wrong with you. It is a great loss ... to the rest of the World Tree ... if they are too flawed ... to appreciate you."
I remember Gran-Gran as a very old white-furred Orren who'd play Serpent of the Tower with me over and over and over again. She died when I was still small. Grampsis outlived her by over a decade. He used to float me over the city and tell me about all the places and talk to me for hours about what I wanted to do when I grew up or what I worried about or whatever was on my mind, really. He was the best listener I've ever known. They visited us a lot, especially after Boomsy came to live with us.
Boomsy came to live with us when I was four or five, and he wasn't Boomsy then. His child-name was Floatsquirmer. I called him Squirmsers. He's Delframber's blood-grandson. His parents are still alive -- they visited us sometimes especially his mom -- but for about ten years they couldn't take care of him for some reason that no one ever really explained to me. So my parents did. Dadsy's parents wouldn't come visit after that not until he was gone again.
There were always a lot of kids in the house. My two oldest half-siblings were adolescents by the time I was born, but there was Voidsy and Boomsy was about my age and Waterfall who Dad-Dad and Dadsy adopted three years before I was born and more foster kids when I was a little older and their third wife had a baby when I was an adolescent. Long after Mama left.
Mama ...
She was an artist: she used to work with Dadsy, painting and carving designs on the bookcases and tables and things that he built. Painting was her favorite thing for forever. That and traveling. She always wanted to go new places and see new things. When we traveled it was to visit family in the same places. I remember sitting with her and Grampsis on top of a roof somewhere and watching the sun roll behind the trunk. We were looking at the distant branches and Mama told Grampsis about coming all the way to Vheshrame to see what the old branches were like and about her birth family building a boat to go off to see the end of a new one. She was so ... wistful.
I can't remember what her smile looked like.
Mama changed her name a lot. When I was seven she changed it to "Already-Gone".
A few weeks later, she was.
I'm sorry I didn't meant to go on this long. Where was I?
Back to The Visit
Right, Dad-Dad had just greeted me. I said something cantish in reply, like "It's the cat's purr!" And I beeped his nose and he stole my ear and tickled my sides and yes I am six, Voidsy. At least to Dad-Dad.
Dad-Dad complained about how big and heavy I was to pick up so I made a ball of water to splash over myself and turned otter-form. He laughed and carried me inside and put me on the table after making sure I was all tangled up in my biped-form clothing. While I squirmed free, Dad-Dad got Dadsy to stop working on the desk he was building and come visit with me. We drank kathia and ate popataloops and they told me how Real-squeal's (she's my older half-sister) newest baby was doing (Dad-Dad: "Cute as a kitten's tails and twice as squirmy!") and about their business (Dadsy: "It's a bit slow but at my age who wants to work that much anyway?" Dad-Dad: "That's what apprentices are for, you old lasher-dasher.") I told them about my new scroll and my nightmares last night and losing my guild membership.
Dadsy ignored the latter news to beam over the first. "That's my girl! A real enchanter, you are! Hah! What do you need some crummy fur-stylist's job for, Dee? Enchanting is practically minting money!"
I smiled back at him and didn't try to explain about TWELVE WEEKS or how you can't sell enchantments unless you're in the enchanter's guild which is WAY HARDER and more expensive to get a membership in even as an apprentice than practically any other guild.
Dadsy barrelled on: "So where is it, can we see it? You brought it with you, right?"
I patted my pockets. "Oh no I didn't I left it with Void-Dancer."
Dadsy set his jaw and didn't say anything. Dad-Dad looked down at his kathia cup.
"Sythyrs had some stuff in it he wanted Voidsy to see," I explained in the ensuing awkward silence. I dropped my eyes too. "I'll bring it with me next time, promise."
Dadsy forced a smile and patted my shoulder. "Wonderful! I look forward to seeing it."
Dad-Dad changed the topic to speculating about my Branspash's (that's my oldest half-brother) romantic life and we talked about this and that other stuff for a while. Eventually Dadsy excused himself to get back to work and I wanted to get home before sunout because I was still tired from not sleeping well the night before, so Dad-Dad showed me out.
As he was hugging me by the door, he said quietly, "You know ... if you see your blood brother again ... well. Let him know his ol' Dad-Dad wouldn't mind seeing him, would you?"
He didn't cant at all. He never cants when it's important.
I smiled and kissed his cheek. "I will Dad-Dad I love you!"
"I love you too, my fiddle-of-pearl."
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 07:23 pm (UTC)Most of the family aren't really happy about Void-Dancer's career and he and Dadsy used to fight about it a lot. I mean the others like Branspash and Real-squeal and Dad-Dad tried to talk him out of sometimes but they weren't as y'know insistent as Dadsy.
Then Voidsy and Dad-Dad had one last huge fight about it just before he went from acolyte to initiate and then Dadsy disowned him at the end. I guess. I wasn't there Evenkeel (she's my younger sister) told me afterwards.
And I guess most of the family blamed Voidsy for it because Dadsy doesn't usually get mad and ... um. Well I don't think anyone else but me goes to visit him now but no one else disowned him. Other than Dadsy. I know Dad-Dad didn't although he was really upset at the time. And even Dad-Dad probably still doesn't like him being a priest of "Here". :(
no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-08 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-09 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-09 03:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-13 02:05 am (UTC)Ah, well. The rest of this all sounds pretty friendly and familial.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-13 03:39 am (UTC)... those weren't her exact words of course.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-13 08:12 am (UTC)What were her exact words, out of curiosity?