Dragon Student: Sythyry's Journal 1
Sythyry’s Journal 1: Dragon Student
by Bard Bloom and/or Sythyry zirself
Other Information
The descriptions of the prime species and the overview of the World Tree may be of interest to first-time visitors.
Author's Excuse
In 2002, all the cool kids were writing blogs on this new web service called LiveJournal. A wonderful place, really, where you could write about your life and other people could write comments about what you said, and everything was wonderful, and there were probably unicorns parading around serving pie.
My life was about 70% boring and 80% private at that point, so I didn't much want to write about it. But my wife and I had just published the World Tree Role-Playing Game, set on a complicated and exotic world. So I thought, "Why don't I write a fictional LiveJournal, from a World Tree point of view? Just a slice of life. I don't even need plots."
So I looked around for the character sheet of Sythyry, who was the second World Tree RPG character ever created. (The first was a Cani named Puffball.) That character sheet had vanished in several moves and considerable cleanup. So I started without a character sheet, promising myself that I'd make one any day now. Three or six years later I still hadn't done it, and decided Sythyry was probably better off without a character sheet.
Writing Sythyry was a substantial amount of work. My life got complicated, with a young child and job troubles, and I intentionally dropped Sythyry for several months, as a better alternative than unintentionally dropping everything. When I restarted it, I didn't want to try to pick up from where I left off. Fortunately, Sythyry the character is pretty much immortal. So I fast-forwarded a century or so, until all the mortals from Sythyry's Journal had died off, and an older, sadder, and marginally wiser and more responsible Sythyry decided to start writing again. And go on vacation.
I also realized that I was actually telling stories, and did a modicum of planning and plotting and foreshadowing and all those other 8th-grade-English kinds of things. So the later two books are (1) a more or less self-contained subseries, and (2) technically more skillful than the first two.
Sythyry's Journal was very much a community-fuelled project. The fuel for amateur writing is interested readers. LiveJournal gave the readers a chance to show off. They could and did write comments on the journal, and Sythyry (and I) could and did reply, with everything from dialogues on physics and philosophy to trying to make puns without a common language.
Commenters include the LiveJournal users adrian_turtle, aenodia, aerowolf, alex_muridae, allessindra, amberite, aprivatefox, archadia, archai, arenhaus, arkofeden, aryllian, aureth, autumnquest, b_dingo, badriyaz, barberio, bard_bloom, baxil, beetiger, belgatherial, benndragon, bercilakslady, bikerwalla, blither, bluedeer, bookwurm, boomstarter, brennabat, calamitous_cani, calanthe_b, cattitude, chipuni, circuit_four, cktraveler, clemtaur, cloverr, cobaltie, collie13, coppercheetah, corpseknight, cowboy_r, dachwuff, dakiwiboid, delight_in, denaist, deor, derechodragon, devon_alek, dichellddrwg, djinni, doctorwednesday, draconis, dracosphynx, duncandahusky, eileenlufkin, elorie, elthionesse, enveri, esory, ex_n, fiddle_dragon, flat_head_frog, fledge, flyingrat42, foolonthehill, foomf, forgotten_years, frameacloud, fringe_worthy, frunk_the_stick, galis, gatcat, gavinfox, genkitty, goodluckfox, greenreaper, haikujaguar, heavenscalyx, heian_therin, heron61, hraith, hydra_velsen, hypothermya, i_id, indicoyote, ionotter, jacel, jareth_atian, jenett, justicezero, kajarainbow, kensan_oni, kensaro, kestenan, khereva, kibbe, kistaro, kobolds, koogrr, kowechobe, krinndnz, kris_schnee, ladyperegrine, lapis_lazuli, lederhosen, ljplex, lkjfghlsdhg, lunarennui, lupagreenwolf, lysana, matraia, mattlazycat, mazlynn, melskunk, metafori, mharreff, mister_wolf, mmsword, momentrabbit, mortonfox, mufi, nekomavin, niss_the_ai, nixve, octantis, oh6, oliver_otter, ottaur, otter3, otter_toby, paka, papersky, patcat, perlandria, petersheil, pobig, postrodent, projectmothra, psaakyrn, pyat, quarrel, quoting_mungo, ragarth, read_alicia, redbird, relee, revar, reyanevylig, rigelkitty, rowyn, ruscumag, scruff, sebkha, sgtcosgrove, shabm, shaddragon, shadsdf, shana, shaterri, shatterstripes, shizouka, shockwave77598, shurhaian, sianmink, siege, solanth, space_parasite, spazzychic, spotweld, starblade_enkai, stickseed_doom, stormydragon, stress_kitten, striderhlc, stripesofsound, stryck, sydb42, sythyry, teaotter, tempralisis, terrana, terrycloth, the_tall_man, thestra, tracerj, transdraconis, tuftears, tugrik, tundra_no_caps, tx_hive_queen, unfinishedtales , ungulata, valdary, varjohaltia, veijukka, vernononfm, vik_thor, walkyrje, warphammer, waterotter, wave_cannon, weatherglass, winterbeast, wootsauce, wordslinger, wordweaverlynn, wyld_dandelyon, xanadinah, xjenavivex, xolo, xyzzysqrl, yotogi, ysabetwordsmith, zahz_veheronn, zeborahnz, zeemverse, zilvar, and zyngasvryka. My thanks to you all.
Character's Introduction
I am unclear on why Bard wants me to write an introduction. My journal stands on its own. Well, it doesn't so much "stand" as it does "wobble menacingly and look as if the only reason it does not fall down is because it is waiting for an even less convenient time to collapse," but I can't imagine how an introduction would make it better.
Well. I am many things, and my journal is many things. These things include:
I am a Zi Ri, which is to say, a small dragonet, and one of very few of my kind in a world of larger and furrier bipeds and even larger and chitinous insects. Plus many creatures which are not people.
I am a creature of limited memory. When I keep a diary, I write things down in the evening that day — or sometimes a week or a month later. I do not promise to report all conversations accurately. Indeed, I promise most solemnly that not a single conversation in this journal is correct, with the exception of two or three that I was subjected to grave magical forces and rendered unable to forget no matter how much I want to.
Similarly, I promise that every word is self-serving, that all situations are shaded to make me look better than I was, and generally this is a work of egotistical vanity and little more.
Except, of course, where I am whiny or miserable or foolish or simply wrong. I tried to get Bard to take those bits out, but it wouldn't.
I am a person of remarkable cluelessness. I know it is remarkable, because my friends remark on it constantly. I do learn things, but it may take a few years or a few centuries. Still, rereading the first part of the book was dreadfully embarrassing. How could I fail to notice — that? Or that, or that, or that? And probably you won't fail to notice it; the monsters who read it before certainly noticed it long before I did.
I am a gourmand. I wanted Bard to cut out all the discussions of food, but it refused. Probably because there wouldn't be enough text left to make even one decent book.
I am an extremely unreliable narrator. You should not trust anything I write. But I do enjoy a paradox.
The ending of the whole story is: I survived it all, and various good and bad things happened, so you can all go home and don't need to slog through hundreds of thousands of words to get to the end.
The previous point would be considerably more impressive if I had been in any actual physical or magical danger at any point. I was mainly in social danger. I did not survive with my reputation intact. Not even slightly. Now you can go home and not read through hundreds of thousands of words about all the ways that I ruined my own reputation.
Bard informs me that the previous self-description was utterly useless and inappropriate. So here, then, is a list of simple adjectives and phrases that apply to me. I am —
Traff
A snushmanger
A spaggot
Peculiarly symmetrical in ways that nobody should be symmetrical.
The second-best embroiderer in Vheshrame.
Likely to get froddled by some snoofly little
bit, according to the best embroiderer in Vheshrame.
The cousin of a pus-crusted bustard
Of course, before you read the diary, these words are unlikely to make any sense. After you read it, they will all be perfectly clear and familiar to you (except for "spaggot," which is surely insulting but I have no idea what if anything it means). So, at no point will the list be of the slightest use to anyone. Which, I presume, makes it a perfectly fit introduction for the journal.
In any case, I approve entirely of the publication of the fourth book. The preceding three books are better off being left obscure. But in a moment of unwarranted generosity and unprecedented confusion I gave Bard permission to republish all of them. So read them if you must.
— Sythyry; Strayway, 3 Trandary 4402
Room-Mating
A Journal [1 Chirreb 4260]
My exceedingly old and exceedingly famous grandparent just gave me this notebook as a going-to-school present. Zie says that zie wishes zie had had one when zie was growing up, but of course nobody knew how to do enchantments then, and there probably wasn’t time to do a lot of writing, what with all the fighting cyarr and nendrai and everything. To say nothing of, writing wasn’t invented.
Anyways, if you’re reading this, you can see the notebook, but if you’re not a first-generation Zi Ri you might not be able to see how all the pieces work. (Which is an overcomplicated way of saying, I couldn’t tell how all the pieces work) Glikkonen explained it to me. The Creoc Corpador makes new pages when I need them — I got that part myself. All that Locador makes the pages arbitrarily small, so that I only need this one book no matter how long I live. Zie said I’d need to take lots more maths before I understood it — that’s why I’m going to Vheshrame, because university classes are where one can study such maths, and I am sure to need them if I enter the family business.
The family business is advanced fancy magic. Glikkonen more or less invented advanced family magic, back when the world was young. My quasi-mother — does some magic of course, sometimes even fancy, but zie more rules a slice of countryside and does magic turning twelfth-shares in bakeries and binderies and vinyards in distant countries into money. I have no head for fancy business, so it’s magic studies for me.
It is not too late to fly off and become an apprentice jewelry-maker or healer or couturier or something. Unfortunately those take nearly as much magic as the family business, so I might as well do it the easy way.
Well, I need to go tell Bandazure and Anoof what to pack. Tomorrow I’m off towards Vheshrame.
[Zi Ri are cat-sized unaging hermaphroditic dragonets. They are very scarce. -bb]
[zie, zir: Zi Ri and other people who are neither male nor female are given the pronouns zie/zir. zie ≈ he ≈ she, zie ≈ him ≈ her, zir ≈ his ≈ her. -bb]
Here I am in Vheshrame [5 Chirreb 4260]
Sorry not to write for the last four days — I’ve been busy! We made it to Vheshrame in two days — that’s Bandazure and me. With Bandazure twitting me all the way about how Vheshrame is sophisticated to the point of so-shocking-cated. And how it is barely extraordinary and shocking at all, in Vheshrame, if a Zi Ri should collect kisses from someone with chitin or fur. (Amberwave does not keep secrets very well.)
(I have not yet figured out if that is true. I certainly haven’t seen any transaffectionate snogging in the streets. But maybe I have not found the right streets.)
[“Transaffectionate” = “Affectionate with members of a different prime species.” Contrast “Cisaffectionate” = “Affectionate only with members of the same prime species,” which is normal on the World Tree.]
We stayed with my half-sibling Hezimikkinen (zir quasi-father is my quasi-mother) at the ducal palace. I started off very badly with zir — zie was in the fire when I got there, and I flew over and joined zir without being invited. At home that would be good manners, but this is at court, and it’s bad manners. Then I used the familiar register with the Duke — on Choinxeia a duke should use familiar to a Zi Ri, but everyone who’s not married to him uses the formal to him. Alas.
[quasi-father and quasi-mother: Sythyry uses words that might better be translated as ‘distant parent’ and ‘active parent’, referring to who raised the child rather than who took what role in engendering zir. -bb]
Hezimikkinen was not happy with me. I’m not welcome at the Ducal palace again, unless I’m invited, and that probably will only be for Creation Day parties and other massive events where the Duke won’t actually have to admit that I’m there. quasi-mother had arranged for Hezimikkinen to give me an allowance, but they never discussed how much. Now it’s to be a hundred and twenty lozens a month, plus tuition. I don’t think that’s a lot, since I have to find somewhere to live, too, instead of staying in the palace. That’s tomorrow morning, though; I can stay here in the Blue Brocade Suite one more night.
[1 lozen is very loosely ten U.S. dollars or Euros. -bb]
Roommate the first. [6 Chirreb 4260]
I wasn’t quite sure how much I could afford to spend on rent, this morning. I’ve never shopped for myself... As soon as I told Bandazure that she wasn’t going to be my servant this year, she trotted off for home. Misses her husband and mari and children, I suppose.
So ... a one-person apartment costs about a hundred lozens a month at the cheapest, and the cheapest one isn’t really set up for someone my size — I had trouble opening the door; I’d have to fly in through the window, which isn’t very dignified, is it? I could share a two-person apartment for eighty-five, but I’ve got my choice between a Rassimel studying brewing and filling the common room with stinking vats, or an Orren who enjoys parties a lot. That’s who I found anyhow.
So I’m going to share a room, half of a two-bedroom apartment on Teapot Street. Cheap enough — seventy-five lozens a month, split four ways. My roommate is a rather ugly green-shelled Herethroy co-lover named Dustweed, studying Aquador and Herbador. Minor nobility of some kind or other, and dreadfully quiet. At least it’s dreadful when I’m trying to get to know zir a little bit over cheap salads and porridge in the buttery. I daresay it won’t be so dreadful when I’m trying to sleep.
We’ll track two more roommates down tomorrow, I’m sure.
Roommates, yes and no [Chirreb 9, 4260]
The “yes” was easy. She’s Teltheryan oa Vinness, studying literature and theology. Not nobility; her mother is a secretary to a countess, who is paying for her studies. Afterwards Thery has to work for the countess for thirty years after she graduates. It sounds like a terrible price from a mortal’s life. Thery says she doesn’t mind; her family has served Countess Gloun’s for four generations, and she sees no reason to break the tradition at all — she’d work for her for her whole life anyway, so her scholarship is free.
She’s a year older than me. If I were at all sensible, I’d go home for a dozen or two years, and come back older than everyone else, and act wise and mysterious and traditional. Hezimikkinen said as much. Which isn’t quite a good enough reason not to do it, no matter what I said when we were screaming and blowing flame at each other. When I’m six hundred years old I might take a vacation like that, but I’m barely thirty. Hmph.
[Zi Ri are immortal, in the sense of not being subject to old age. (They’re not unusually difficult to kill if one is so inclined.) No other prime species is naturally immortal. This, plus their extreme rarity, gives them a certain mystique and occasional scraps of power. Sythyry will demonstrate in many ways over this journal exactly why Zi Ri do not rule the World Tree. -bb]
The “no” was clumsy of me. Iska’s parents are farmers. That would be fine if she were Herethroy, but she’s Rassimel. She’s very foreign — not from Ketheria, but from some branch one layer down. She’s not a noble — they don’t do nobility properly down there, anyway. She seemed nice enough, and after we met her we told her it was probably OK but we should talk about it among ourselves. I wasn’t very comfortable, but I sort of agreed … then when Dustweed trotted off on fou
r legs to tell Iska that she could move in, I went into a panic. I had expected to live with foreigners in the city, but Iska is very foreign, too foreign, and I couldn’t bear to share a house with her. Thery shrugged, and said she didn’t care that much one way or another, as long as we got someone to pay the rent. I took a hat from Dustweed’s side of the room, and sent Silent Words to zir and told zir to say no. Zie was not terribly pleased with me when zie got back. Iska had evidently offered to pay the full year’s rent in advance to show that she was trustworthy.
I’m glad she’s not living with us, but I don’t want to have to explain to her why.
Full Apartment [11 Chirreb 4260]
I can’t really blame Dustweed and Thery for making me go questing for more roommates, seeking them with thaumocle and spyglass, location spell and deep bribery. Or, in this case, flying to the campus, and asking the cooks in the buttery if they knew of anyone looking for a place to live. I collected a few names.
Let’s ignore Treeset, Herethroy girl, and let’s ignore Greenswave, Herethroy boy. Treeset talked with us for five minutes in the buttery and politely excused herself and left. Thery and I were a few minutes late when Greenswave came to visit, by which time he had left and Dustweed was in tears. Let’s also ignore Methichor, Rassimel boy. Thery didn’t want to share a bedroom with someone the opposite sex and same species.
Let’s not ignore Havune. On the far end of Goathorn street is a small and shabby longhouse, packed so full of Cani grandmothers and puppies and a pet enstarba that I could barely fit in through the window. There I found Havune. He was easy to recognize, wearing a necklace of dull green stones and a jerkin of marbled, iridescent chimeront leather when all his cousins were wearing flowers and goat-hide.