The Amell Legacy: Transgressions

[Bethany]

"Thank you," Beth whispers, the kind words, however uninformed, a balm to her soul. "I... I've been following your work. Your deeds rather."

[Shisou]

"Oh! Have you? I uh... I've never really had fans before," she admits. "I'm honestly really not even that good at this whole hero thing, I just had to try. You know?"

[Bethany]

"What? Absolutely you have! Done good I mean. The Downcity Gazete has run over a dozen articles of people you've saved. And I can't imagine that all of them get found by the paper" Beth says quickly, very eager to have something to talk about that isn't her shitty homelife.

[Shisou]

"Well, sure, but--"

"She has a point, kid," croaks the lizard. "You're shaping up to be almost... decent at this."

"See?" laughs Soushi-hime. "My mentor says I'm almost decent."

[Bethany]

"Which in old man talk is high praise indeed." Beth grins, then glances at Carol with a worried expression. Why isn't she talking? What was in that vial that she's still so out of it despite the healing potions? In her pocket, the mostly empty vial seems to grow in weight.

[Shisou]

"Old spirit," corrects Soushi-hime. "Carbonne isn't a man or a woman. Carbonne is, uh, Carbonne."

Carbonne sighs. "Just because you don't understand my gender--"

"Doesn't make it invalid or unreal, I know, I know. I'm sorry, Carbonne. It's just hard for mortals to understand more than two genders."

[Bethany]

"...more than... what else is there? Well, maybe it? He, she, it?" Beth asks curiously.

[Shisou]

"Oh, common mistake, you're thinking of pronouns," says Soushi-hime, gaily. Yay, something fun to talk about. "So Common only has four -- he, she, it, and they, which are mostly used for males, females, sub-mortals, and miscellaneous mortals. That's singular they, meaning, if I said my pronoun is they, and you wanted to talk to Carol about me, you'd say, Soushi-hime is the best, they have a really cute butt-- uh I mean, they have really long hair?" Soushi-hime blushes, glancing away briefly. 

"Smooth, kid," remarks Carbonne.

"Bite me," says Soushi-hime. 

[Bethany]

"Ask me again in a week and I'd totally be up for it," Beth says with a tired smile, which turns a bit sickly. "..maybe a month."

[Shisou]

"Gods, I'm sorry," says Soushi right away. "Uh, let's-- Gender. Gender isn't the same as pronouns. You can be a boy and use she pronouns, or so Carbonne says."

"Mortals are strange," admits Carbonne. "Where I'm from, you're made a thing and you stay that way, end of story. But mortals are always changing. Today a boy, tomorrow a girl, and so on."

"Shush, you, you're not a mortal expert and you know it."

"Never said I was," grumps Carbonne. 

"Mortals are more complicated. They come in boy, girl, both, or neither. And -- it's really rare, but there are some freaks that are, uh, I guess the gods make mistakes sometimes about which shell to put you in. They tend to use magic to fix the shell so it matches."

[Bethany]

Beth blinks a bit, trying to process all of that. "That's... huh. So... What about Carbonne. You called, err, that is you used.. gee?"

[Shisou]

"Xe. Carbonne isn't a mortal, and technically the tradition in Common is to use They for people who are people but not mortals and don't use mortal pronouns, but it's becoming trendier I guess to use the Celestial pronouns -- uh, the pronouns you'd use if you were speaking Celestial. Carbonne uses Xe, Xem, Xir, Xirs -- so you'd say, Carbonne is a carbuncle, xe has a gem in xir forehead, xe stole my lunch so now it's xirs, I'm going to murder xem."

"Now that is slander!"

"If you say so," Soushi sing-songs. 

[Bethany]

Beth giggles a little, then bites her lip as she darts a glance at Carol to see if she's paying attention. Or aware at all. "Well, then I shall say that... xe seems like a very fine gentlebeing and xe has my thanks for helping. Just like you have my thanks, Soushi-hime."

[Shisou]

Soushi starts to say something, then stops. She walks a few steps before getting up the courage, not looking at Beth: "You... you could call me Shiori. If-- If you want."

[Bethany]

"Shiori?" Beth cocks her head a little. "I don't actually speak tengu- what does that mean?"