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We of strange form
Eldritch Yvette and Tiro
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Yvette often goes to the library; she reads voraciously, and as long as she doesn't incur any overdue fines, it's a very cheap (and fulfilling) hobby. And there's something very soothing, about being in a library. The environment is still and quiet, and sometimes, when she wanders through the shelves of books, she can just feel separate from the rest of humanity. It can just be her, and these carefully organized books. She's not looking for anything in particular, but this isn't particularly noteworthy. Sometimes she'll have an idea of what kind of book she wants to read, but not all the time. It's okay if she takes a little while to find something, and often, she'll find something she never would have expected to like.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees something shift, on a shelf to her left. She turns to look, curious, and spots the offending book. It's predominantly blue, with gold leafed edging on its pages, and has a shimmery cover that shifts and changes when the viewer moves. Weird. Yvette thinks she would have remembered this book, so it must be new. She'll probably end up scoffing at whatever gimmick incited the weird cover, but for now, she's just curious. As she reaches to pull it from its shelf, she notices its lack of standard labeling. Did someone just take a book and hide it on a shelf? What an odd thing to do.

Her finger brushes the book's spine for perhaps half a second, and then passes through and into, as if plunging into some kind of sticky substance. Alarmed, she tries to flinch back, but finds her hand unable to separate from the book. The book fades from shimmery blue to a black void, lit with stars of all things, and as she opens her mouth to scream everything else fades to the starry expanse, too. She thinks, inanely, of how strange it is that space is supposed to be devoid of anything, but that this feels like being plunged into a deep, warm ocean.

Something reaches and then twists at her heart, pulling it and something else in an unnatural direction. It doesn't hurt, and this feels incorrect, wrong. Like someone has casually bent her arm until it neatly snaps, but there's no rush of pain. Just the alien discomfort of her arm going in a direction that it wasn't meant to.

The void fades, and she feels gravity start asserting itself on her body, but she finds that she doesn't care, because she's far too busy screaming. She stops with a whimper when she impacts the dusty ground, and lies there for a few seconds, shivering.

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Someone emerges from a door in the side of that hill over there and hurries toward her.

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She pushes herself up to a sitting position, breathing shallowly and looking around with growing alarm.

She spots the someone, and calls, "Excuse me, can you, call 911 or something, or, or tell me where I am?"

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He looks apologetic and shakes his head.

All around them, the dry cracked earth stretches out flat and largely unvarying, except for that hill, an improbably vibrant lump covered in healthy grass and strange plants. Beyond the hill there's a dip in the ground that might suggest a river or lake not visible from her current position.

The stranger asks her a question in an unfamiliar language. His clothes are also unfamiliar.

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"I - I'm sorry, I don't speak that. Only English."

She looks at the scenery with growing discomfort. Where is she?

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"I - don't speak English," says the stranger, with a wry expression that suggests he might be trying to convey a message that's beyond the power of his limited vocabulary.

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"You speak more English than I speak - uh. Whatever language you speak," she says, sort of wryly back. "I don't recognize it, sorry."

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"Haelahar. I speak Haelahar, I speak Sanash. I—" he frowns slightly, looking down a little, with a distant expression as though trying to figure out a hard puzzle. Then he says:

"'Excuse me, can you call 911 or something, or tell me where I am?' 'I'm sorry, I don't speak that, only English.' 'You speak more English than I speak whatever language you speak. I don't recognize it, sorry.'"

And after a moment for her to absorb that, "You speak, I - recognize? You speak more English, I speak more English."

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What the hell.

".... Okay," she says, after a pause. "Do you need me to use the language in context or will just the words by themselves work? Uh, yes, no, maybe, sort of, good, bad - I'm trying to get you a quick workable vocabulary so you can reply, if that didn't work I'll have to think of some other way to get you those words."

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"Yes, good," he says. "The words by themselves work."

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"Okay, good, then - ground, air, sky, water, person, people, place, who, what, where, why, when, day, night, hour, minute, second, he, she, it, they - do you get various forms of the words, or should I start saying 'he his him' and so on?"

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"I don't get various forms. I just get - words."

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"Oh, that's inconvenient. I'm going to have trouble getting you everything - he his him, she hers her, they their them, you your - you? Wow, it's easy to start seeing how weird English is when I start trying to explain it, we might benefit from trying to make some kind of lesson plan? Or would you prefer I just keep babbling and getting you as many words as quickly as possible even if it's not a very efficient format."

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"...Yes, we might benefit from a lesson plan," he says.

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"Right. Okay. I'm maybe panicking a little too much to properly think of lesson plans - do nouns and verbs sound a decent place to start?"

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"Uh - yes - "

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"Awesome - human man woman girl boy child adult father mother son daughter, rock water - I already did that didn't I -" she starts glancing at scenery to get an idea of what vocabulary to say, "place hill plants life grass trees door shelter house home, dust dirt desert - empty? Thing nothing something everything light dark fire shadow clouds, uh, wind bird animal animals dog deer cat, this is no longer a useful line of nouns for you, word words concept concepts talk speak communicate communication information knowledge writing b-book," she stops, sucks in a breath, and scrunches her eyes shut so she can focus and continue. "Truth lie goal hope confusion location oh I completely forgot about I my me mine, we our us, lesson teacher learn mind thought think suspect believe - we seem to be heading in the verb direction might as well own it - act help teach speak do don't run walk travel jump -"

She cuts off her impromptu verb explanation with a strangled yelp, as behind her eyelids the book appears as if it were in front of her. As if she were looking at it in darkness, and it were the only thing giving off light in the room. Instead of the only thing giving off light from behind closed eyelids. She flinches back, snapping her eyes open, looking around with more than a little alarm for it.

It's nowhere to be seen.

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"...um?" he says.

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"I," she begins, and she stops with a sound that threatens to be the beginning of a sob. "I found a book in the library and touched it and it brought me to a weird space void place and did - something - and then dropped me here, or, maybe it brought me here and that was its something? But. But I closed my eyes and saw it very clearly and it's either in my head or hiding behind my eyelids and I am very alarmed."

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"...that's very alarming," he agrees. "Um. I don't - um. Can I help...?"

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"I don't know, do you have something for creepy magic teleporting books that stalk innocent teenagers from behind their eyelids, because I really think that sort of thing is beyond just about everyone's usual ability to help, except perhaps with copious application of drugs which I don't think would actually help because I'm pretty sure I'm not crazy, what the hell is going on."

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"I think creepy magic is going on!" he says. "I don't think I can - do anything about the book - but - I don't know."

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"I think I agree with you on the creepy magic front," she says, hint of wry. "And. Yeah. I don't know either. I'm kind of scared and probably going to start crying soon if you don't need more vocabulary to be understandable, I can focus on doing things if you give me things to do."

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"...if you prefer to start crying you can do that," he says. "If you prefer to have things to do, I have not-creepy magic you can learn?"

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"I don't really know what I prefer right now because I'm kind of a bundle of, of, panic and emotion, if I cry I'll calm down eventually, if I don't then I'll either cry when I stop having things to do or calm down by doing - something else, I'm at a loss for what those things could be, I, should, probably just cry, that sounds like the most efficient thing to do here so I can actually be coherent and also I'm having trouble not now, excuse me."

And then she begins sobbing.

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He goes into the hill and comes out with a large pile of soft fabric, which he sets down beside her.

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She notices this because she's being very conscientious about not leaving her eyes closed for too long, even to cry. Because creepy magic book.

"T-thank you," she mumbles, and she picks up the soft fabric to wrap around herself and cry into. This is an excellent idea, she is very grateful.

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It turns out to be a whole bunch of identical great big squares of very fine white linen. Cozy.

He goes into the hill again and this time stays there.

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On one hand, she's glad she isn't being watched while she cries, because she finds the whole thing a bit humiliating. But on the other hand, she's alone with the book and that sort of makes her want to cry some more. Luckily, she has the freedom to do this. The squares can keep her company.

 

 

Eventually, she exhausts herself. After a little while of staring at the empty sky in something like despair, she sits up from where she flopped on top of the identical linen squares, glancing at the hill and its door.

She neatly folds up the linen squares that aren't being used as blankets into slightly smaller squares, and brings them with her when she knocks on the door. Wrapped in two linen squares and with red, puffy eyes.

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Her host opens the door and offers her a cup of water in trade for the stack of linen squares.

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"Hi," she says, smiling a little and accepting this trade. She looks tired and like she has just been crying, but the smile is genuine. "Thank you, you're very good at this." She sips at the water.

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"Thank you," he says wryly. He goes to put the stacked linens away.

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"Oh, I. Suppose you don't have you're welcome, do you," she agrees with a trace of a laugh. "Unless you're thanking me for dampening your perfectly dry linen?"

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He laughs.

"For saying I'm very good at this," he explains. "But - yes. You're welcome."

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"Oh, right. Well, you're welcome for dampening your perfectly dry linen anyway."

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He giggles. "The linen wants to help!"

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"I wasn't aware linen had opinions! I'll have to conduct myself accordingly." She looks, with mock seriousness, at her linen blanket. "Thank you for your help, it was very kind."

She pauses. "... It doesn't actually have opinions, right. I mean this has been a weird day, am I in a place where linen has opinions instead of just being itself?"

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"No, linen has no opinions, I'm," he makes a vague gesture because he has no way to say 'kidding'.

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"Joking?" she offers with a smile. "I'm sorry about the holes in your vocabulary, just - let me know where they are and I'll help patch them up."

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"Joking. Yes, thank you. You're - helping pretty good - with my vocabulary."

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"Helping pretty well, or being very helpful," she says, a little absently. "And, good, I'm glad. I was uh, trying to get you at least conversational. There's not a vocabulary limit, is there?"

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"No, it's - magic. My father came to Haela, spoke Sanash and not Haelahar, so he got a - magic - to understand what people say. You say things, I understand them, I learn them."

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"A - spell to understand what people say?" she offers. "And 'if you say things, I will understand them, and then I will learn them.' That sounds useful, how does that work?"

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"Not spell... hmm... I don't know how to say... do you know, the people who are people but not people, and magic?"

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"... No? Uh. Let me try some words anyway. Wizard mage warlock fairy? Goblin elf unicorn dragon. Any of those close?"

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"Hmm... fairy? Elf? But - not. In Haelahar they're athrai. My father got an athra to do magic to him so he understands what people say."

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"Hm. And it passed down to you, or you went and got the same magic?"

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"Passed down. Athrai do that."

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"Huh. Sounds useful."

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"Yes. Athrai are..." his voice goes very wry and slightly dubious, "useful."

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Interesting phrasing. "You said they were people but not people. In the sense that they're - strange, alien, or something else?"

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"Yes. Athrai are strange and alien. They do... strange things."

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She nods, frowning.

"Do you know why?"

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He shrugs helplessly. "No. People don't know why athrai do things."

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She nods again.

"... But you mentioned there was another, non-creepy magic I could learn."

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"Yes. It's not athra magic, it's..." he waves vaguely around, at the windowless room lit by glowing rocks, at the walls and the lifeless wasteland beyond them. "This is not Haela. I don't know where this is. But it has useful non-creepy magic, and I learned some."

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"... Could I learn some too?" ventures Yvette, a little shyly.

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"Yes! But - hmm. More vocabulary first, maybe..."

He fetches a boxy backpack-looking thing from where it hangs on a peg on the wall. There are about ten of them on the row of pegs, and more pegs without any backpacks. He carries this one to the large wooden table in the middle of the room, puts it down, unlatches and opens it. Inside: two books strapped securely to the lid, something that looks like it might be a bundle of paintbrushes, a couple of perfectly flat round metal plates, and a lot of glassy globes tucked securely into brown leather containers.

"Don't do this," he says, touching the surface of one of the globes, a turquoisey-blue one. "It's not - good. I can, I have athra magic."

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"Don't do that, it's dangerous, it's not safe?" she offers, frowning. "And I won't. Though - what happens if I do?"

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"Yes. And I don't know, I'm safe!"

He digs around in the box-pack and produces a pair of heavy leather gloves, which he hands to her. The leather is dark brown, with a faint silvery sheen.

"It's safe with those."

And then he detaches one of the books from the lid and flips it open to a sort of diagram, and takes out the small metal plate and puts it on the table, and gets one of the paintbrushes - it ends not in bristles but in a sort of blunt cone-shaped blue sponge - and 'dips' the paintbrush in one of the glass balls, somehow, right through its seemingly solid surface, and carefully copies out the diagram.

When he's done, the ink-or-whatever vanishes from the surface of the plate, and a big pile of identical squares of fine white linen appears on the table in front of it.

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She puts on the gloves, because that just seems to be the obvious thing to do, and watches with fascination.

"Oh, that's really cool," she pronounces, delighted.

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"It is!" beams Tiro. "That's what this magic does."

He clears the linen off the table and flips to a different diagram and produces a similarly-sized pile of glowing rocks like the ones already scattered around the room.

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"So you paint the diagram and get the item. How do you get the globes? And can you invent new diagrams?"

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"Inventing new diagrams is dangerous. Don't do it," he says. "You paint the diagram, you get the item. Bad diagram, bad item. The globes come from..." hand-wobbly insufficient-vocabulary gesture.

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"I will not do it," she agrees. "Uh - I don't know how to get you your missing vocabulary. Point me in a direction you want words in?"

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"Hmm..."

He takes one of the spheres out of its holder. He goes outside, beckoning her to follow.

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She follows, of course, leaving her linen blankets behind. Thank you, linen blankets, but Yvette doesn't require your services right now.

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There's a bunch of weird plants - is that a bush growing little rolled-up strips of raw bacon? It totally is - but he leads her to a particular weird plant, whose cuplike rolled-up leaves are full of a blue liquid the same colour as the sphere. He tips out a few drops out of one of the leaves, and catches them on the sphere, which seems to absorb them seamlessly; he rubs the place where they fell with his fingertip to demonstrate that the liquid no longer remains.

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".... Huh," comments Yvette. "Okay, two questions. Is that plant safe for me to touch, and does that other plant over there grow bacon?"

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"The plant is safe; the," he points at the inside of a half-filled leaf, "is not safe. And yes. Yes it does."

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"Excellent," says Yvette, delighted. "Now, are there other unsafe plants in here that I should stay away from?"

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"Just these ones." He points out a couple more of them, scattered up and down the hill with their pitcher-leaves in varying states of fullness.

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Yvette nods, mentally mapping their locations so she can stay away from them. For safety. Maybe they should have their own hill section? 'The section Yvette is not allowed to touch.'

"And these are from the diagrams, too?"

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"Yeah, all these plants are from the diagrams."

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"And some of them grow bacon. How many diagrams do you have?"

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"Books full of them."

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"Where'd you get them?"

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"The books and things were here when I got here. And... things."

Back inside? Back inside. He puts away the blue sphere.

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She follows, feeling kinship with a duckling.

"Things?" she prompts.

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"Uh." Hand-wobbly gesture. "Dangerous things? Not dangerous. Not dangerous now."

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"... Okay. Uh." She glances at the door, and on the other side, the empty wasteland. ".... Something that made the desert-thing, or?"

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"I think so. I don't know. Something... like... people? Um. There were people."

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"... There were decomposed remains of people left over? Uh. Skeletons, corpses?"

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"Skeletons."

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"Oh," says Yvette. Dully.

"Is there anyone else here?"

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"No."

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"Oh," she repeats. "I'm - I'm sorry."

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"It - hasn't been - good."

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"No, I imagine not. How long have you, been here...? Uh. Hold on, saw a huge glaring gap in your vocabulary. Seconds minutes hours days weeks months years, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten, eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, they follow that pattern from then on, thirty forty fifty sixty seventy eighty ninety one hundred."

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"Thank you," he says, laughing a little. "Uh. I've been here... maybe six months? I haven't," vague gesture.

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"Been counting," she guesses. "Yeah, fair. I'm sorry." She considers six months of isolation.

"... Do you want a hug?"

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"Yes please."

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And so he gets one.

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Hugs. Hugs hugs hugs. He is small and huggable.

"Thank you."

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"You're welcome," she murmurs. Hug. Such hug. "I'm here now?"

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"Yeah. I'm - sorry. That you're here. Because now you're - here, with no people but me and the skeletons. But. It's good for me."

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"I have the book hiding behind my eyelids for company, too," she offers, attempting levity and sort of missing by about three and a half miles. "Besides. Maybe we'll figure something out."

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"Maybe we will," he says, noticeably cheered.

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"I don't know about you, but I want to show up back home with a bacon plant."

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"I want to show up back home with the things to make bacon plants."

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Giggle.

"Those too. The bacon plants will be for demonstration."

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Giggle. "Bacon plants are so good."

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"Yes," agrees Yvette. "... I'm really tempted to start making a tidy list of all of the magic plants you have. Just because it seems like it'd be useful? Unless you have a list already."

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"I just have the books, and I can't read the books."

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"Oh. So you got things by - trial and error?"

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Nod.

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She's still hugging him. This is convenient. She can just - gently squeeze him a little in concern. Hug.

"What's the magic thing that keeps you safe? It's not likely to fail, is it?"

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"It's an athra thing. It - I don't think it can fail, at all."

Pause.

"I, uh. I tried."

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"Oh," she says. Squeeze. "Well. I'm here now, okay?"

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"Yeah."

Hug.

"Thank you."

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"Happy to help. We'll figure out a way off of this dusty rock if we have to interrogate my space book to do it, and then we'll shower the multiverse with bacon plants."

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He giggles and hugs her again. "You're so good."

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"Thank you, I try."

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Welp now he's crying.

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Yep, sounds completely reasonable. She can be cried on, that sounds all right. Is there a couch they can do this on, or something?

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There is unfortunately not a couch in this room. Just the wooden table and its wooden chairs.

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But there are the linen squares he made earlier.

She gently leads him to them so they can comfortably cry and be cried on, respectively. One of them can get wrapped around Tiro, the others can become a nest. Hi, linen squares. Prepare to be dampened.

These preparations made, she holds out her arms so Tiro can resume crying on her.

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This is good. She is good.

Flop. Snuggle.

Sob.

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Yep. This is fine. She'll just snuggle him and quietly observe the newly made pile of glowing rocks, and how they are messily arranged in a heap. Some of them aren't even in the heap, just sort of messily scattered around, obviously not a part of the lighting system already present in the room. She kind of wants to retrieve all of the misplaced glowing rocks and put them in the pile. Then arrange the pile into something else. A pyramid, maybe, they're regularly sized and that's a reasonably stable shape to arrange them into.

That's what normal people think about, right? Right.

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After a few minutes he stops crying. He un-snuggles a bit, hugs her again, and then sits up and attempts to extract himself from the linen nest.

He trips getting to his feet, and when his outflung hand hits the ground it—shatters into beautiful transparent white shards, like glass or crystal. He yelps. "Don't touch those! Dangerous!"

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When he trips, she moves to try and help, but freezes at the shattering of the hand and the 'don't touch those,' and carefully scoots away from the crystalline shards.

"Um," she says, alarmed. "Are you okay?"

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"I'm - yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay."

The jagged shining stump of his wrist is already growing crystal spars that reach to fill out the shape of a hand, and as that shape emerges, colour and opacity return to it and it becomes normal flesh again. He's wincing a lot, but doesn't seem alarmed, just pained.

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Yvette watches with worried and slightly morbid fascination as he regrows his hand. It's - surprisingly pretty, really. If kind of freaky. She doesn't ask, 'Will it just regrow everything,' because clearly if he tried and failed, it pretty demonstrably does, if he was at all thorough.

"I will definitely hug you some more once you're, less. Sharp? If you want me to."

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"Thank you." He smiles at her. "I'd like that. These are - very sharp, I need to," his uninjured hand makes sweeping-up-in-a-pile motions. "But then hugs."

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"Right. Okay." She continues edging away from the sharp shards, until her footing is more assured. "Sorry about - sort of causing you to trip and shatter your hand?"

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"It's okay, it happens, it's okay," he assures her. "You did good. The," gesture at the nest, "was good."

There. The hand is all better. He picks up a square of linen, folds it on itself a couple of times, and starts carefully picking up all the shards and piling them up in the middle of the cloth.

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"The linen nest," she provides, a trace of amused. "And, all right, fair enough."

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"It's a very good linen nest."

He finishes picking up the shards, inspects the floor, runs his hands along it to make sure he isn't missing any tiny ones - nope - all right, he folds up the cloth and takes it outside. A minute later, he comes back in and hugs her.

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"Thank you," she says.

And then he comes back, and she hugs him.

"Right, okay," she says, when it seems like there Has Been Enough Hug, "so um. Now what?"

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"I. Don't know," he admits.

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"All right. Fair enough," she agrees, wryly. "Uh. Okay, so - food and water and such are taken care of, I'd guess? We should maybe figure out a place for me to sleep, though."

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"There's a place to sleep, there," he gestures at the door across the room.

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She nods. "All right. Then - I should probably stay away from a lot of the dangerous stuff? I uh. Don't have regeneration."

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"Yeah."

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"... And I should. Probably try to figure out what's going on with my stalker book."

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"...Maybe yeah."

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"The. Fastest way is to probably try looking at it. Unless you have a magical way to try and study something like that?"

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He shakes his head. "No. I have the shattering thing and the understanding thing, and there's the diagrams, and if diagrams can do that I don't know how."

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She nods, looking pensive.

What if it teleports her away again if she messes with it?

"I don't think I want to mess with it now," she decides, after a pause. "But do you want to be present when I do?"

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"Do you want me to be present?"

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"I - think so, yeah? I mean if it explodes horribly and kills me I apologize for the trauma, but. Yeah."

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"Okay. Then I'll be there."

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"Thanks. Though if you don't want to be there, I'll also understand."

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"It's okay. I'm - it's okay."

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"Okay," she agrees. "Then - is there anything that might benefit from a second person's help?"

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"I... don't know," he says. "I'm - I don't really know what I'm doing."

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"Well, that's all right," she says. "We'll figure it out?"

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"Yeah. Okay."

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"Okay, so. Can I make a list of all of the diagrams you've tested so far and their results? That seems like it'd be useful."

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"Okay. I'll get things to write with. And, uh. You can teach me to read English."

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"Oh, yes. Does that come as easily as the spoken words?"

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"No, or I'd know a lot more about the diagram magic."

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"Oh, that - makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can teach you to read English."

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"Good!"

He goes and gets pens and ink and paper. And copies of all three of his recipe-diagram books.

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"Do you want to start with a quick reading English lesson, or - I suppose we can also write translations on the list itself, so we both can read it."

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"Yeah, good idea. Okay, uh - maybe I should tell you all the recipes I know, and you can write them all down, and then write them down again afterward more organized?"

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"Sounds good. Do you have - I don't know, nicknames for each of the diagram books for the citation references, or should I just be really uncreative and number them?"

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"Uh, I haven't nicknamed them, but I know these two are a set," he indicates two of the three, "volume one and volume two, because I figured out their numbers - should I try to teach you those? They're a little weird."

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"Sure, sounds useful."

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So he picks up a pen and sits at the table and draws four symbols: a dot, a vertical line, a slightly flattened N, and a slightly flattened N with a vertical line through the middle.

"Those are zero, one, two, and three."

Another row beneath that: a dot with a horizontal line through it, a vertical line with a horizontal line through the middle, an N with a horizontal line through the middle, and an N with both horizontal and vertical lines.

"Four, five, six, and seven."

Next row: a dot between two horizontal lines high and low; the horizontal lines high and low, with the vertical line through them; the squashed N with the horizontal lines added, making a square crossed by a diagonal; and the square with the diagonal plus the vertical line.

"Eight, nine, ten, and eleven, and..."

Dot with all three horizontal lines, high and low and middle. Vertical line with all three horizontal lines. Squashed N with all three horizontal lines. Squashed N with all three horizontal lines plus the vertical.

"...twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen."

He gestures to the finished chart. "Isn't it so tidy? But then the tricky part is putting them together, because like, if I want to write twenty it's not two-zero like it would be in Haelahar or Sanash, it's one-four. Do you see what I mean?"

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"... Base sixteen," pronounces Yvette after a considering pause. "Yeah, that would get confusing to translate between. Even if it's very tidy."

(She is fond of the tidy system.)

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"It's not that bad but it took some getting used to. I think maybe when we list the recipes we should write the page numbers as they appear in the book and in English and Haelahar, so we don't have to keep converting every time we read the list."

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Nod.

"Luckily it sounds like you use base ten, too? So it's slightly less confusing."

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"Yeah."

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"All right, let me figure out a format to write these in - it's a pity we don't have colored pens."

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"The ink colours for the diagrams are all actually numbered, there's a list at the back of every book, but if you were going to use colours for something else - yeah."

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"Well that's just absurdly tidy," snorts Yvette, amused. "I mostly just like the idea of being able to perfectly copy the diagrams. This will work fine."

She figures out a format that she doesn't utterly despise, with space for explanations in both languages and all three sets of numerals (and writes out a quick key for converting from Arabic numerals to the Haelahar set on a separate sheet of paper), and then nods.

"All right, ready."

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Getting the list of tested recipes and their effects out of Tiro is a bit of an adventure. He's been keeping it all in his head, and his memory is kind of astonishingly good but it doesn't store things in neatly sorted spreadsheet format. So he gets out the first book and pages through it, and every time he comes to a recipe he's tested, he tells her the page number and which inks were used and what it made, and as often as not he has other information to add.

"This is the one for the glowing rocks - I'm pretty sure ink number three, the yellow, is 'light', because the recipes that use it are always for things that glow—"

"And this one's for water, don't draw it indoors, I use it to water my plants because it never rains—"

"—and I think ink number eight is 'fire', because, uh, fire is what happens when you draw random lines on a plate with it—"

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Well, the other information can get carefully listed on another sheet of paper with the corresponding numbers, because that seems important enough to write down.

And then soon enough they have a list, and then shortly after they have another, more organized list, in two languages and with page numbers listed in three formats.

"There," says Yvette, pleased. "How'd you keep all of this straight in your head?"

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"I have a good memory, I guess? Your way is much better organized."

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"Thanks," she says, smiling a little. "I like keeping things clear and organized. It's often pretty useful. Though I can't say I expected to get to organize diagrams for a magic system. It's kind of fun?"

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"It kind of is!"

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"Yeah. ... Do you want to work on reading English now, or wait?"

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"I want to work on reading English!"

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"All right, I'll write up an alphabet."

Alphabet! She writes all of it out as a guide for Tiro to look over, uppercase and lowercase.

"Do you want me to start in alphabetical order, or by which letters are more often used?"

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"Alphabetical. Why is there two of everything?"

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"Well! In English we have two cases for letters, because sometimes we like to be confusing. Lowercase and uppercase. They're used in different situations to make it easier for someone to read, to pick out the start of sentences and identify important subjects. I'm going to start you with lowercase because it's used more often."

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"Okay. Teach me your alphabet."

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So she does!

It's weird that some English letters are used for multiple sounds, but Yvette offers many examples that she writes and then slowly sounds out. She clearly doesn't have much experience teaching this sort of thing, but she's tackling it logically and is clear and concise.

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"English spelling is a nightmare," he decrees after an hour of this. "I'm literate in two other languages and this is definitely the worst one."

And yet he seems to take a perverse joy in this fact.

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"It's because English beats up other languages in alleyways to go through their pockets for words," says Yvette, deadpan. "And often they use the same lettering system too, which will carry over, so it gets all - muddied and confused. At least as I understand, I'm not a linguist."

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Tiro giggles.

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"And I think there are worse languages. My sister once complained about how nothing in French is spelled how it sounds."

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"Well now I want to learn French."

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"You'll have to talk to my sister for that, I'm afraid. I know, uh. Parlez-vous Anglais? and that's about it."

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Giggle.

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"She likes learning languages," says Yvette, fondly. "When we get to my home, she'll probably happily teach you more than French."

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"I've been fine with two most of my life but now that I'm going on three I think I start to see the appeal."

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"You do have that nice magical advantage to learning them."

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"I should obviously be using it more."

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"Clearly! I'd help you out, but I only speak English, sorry."

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"You can teach me one whole language, that's not bad."

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"This is true," she agrees. "With its moderately confusing spelling and everything."

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"I'm weirdly - what's the word - I like it for its moderately confusing spelling," he confesses.

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"Fond of?" offers Yvette. "Hm. Personally, if I could switch to a saner spelling system and trust that everyone would switch with me, I'd do it. But I don't think I have the authority to change an entire language's spelling."

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"Aww. But what if people like the way it works now?"

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"Then they are wrong."

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"Hey!"

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"No offense meant! Nothing against you! You seem like a pretty nice guy! But it's definitely the truth. You've come to the wrong conclusions, I'm right and you're wrong, because I say so."

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"No."

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"Foiled by a single syllable. Darn."

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He laughs.

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She grins.

"I'm glad English's bizarre spelling brings you joy."

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"Me too!"

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"And luckily for you, it's the gift that keeps on giving. I have been speaking English for my entire life, and sometimes I'm still confused about the spelling of things. This is not abnormal. There are spelling competitions, actually, where kids compete at spelling words correctly."

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...he snickers. "English's bizarre spelling brings me so much joy."

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"It's a pity I don't have a dictionary with me! You'll miss out on the harder-to-spell peers of words such as antidisestablishmentarianism, purely because I don't know every bizarre word."

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"...what is that word doing."

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"Serving as an example of one of the longest non-scientific words in the English language. There's another one I know that is much sillier, but I'm sort of afraid I'll mispronounce it. I've only heard it from my sister, who thought it was the most hilarious word ever."

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"...and what is it?"

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She takes a deep breath, then carefully enunciates, "Flok-suh-naw-suh-nahy-hil-uh-pil-uh-fi-key-shuhn." And then with a trace more certainty, repeats the word at a more reasonable pace. "Floccinaucinihilipilification. It is a very long word for something that's worthless. Or in other words," she smiles, "it's a whole lot of nothing."

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"..."

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"Don't ask me how to spell it."

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"Okay, I won't. What a language."

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"Yep! It's sort of charming, in a ridiculously over-complicated and insane way!"

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"I am so ridiculously charmed!"

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Giggle.

"Happy I could introduce you to it."

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"I'd try to teach you Haelahar or Sanash but you don't have the language magic thing. I will anyway if you want."

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"I think I'd like to pick up some vocabulary, at least! But maybe not now, I've had to focus a lot on language and spelling and alphabets and I think I'd like to mix it up a little before diving into something similar."

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"Okay."

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"I actually might need a break from teaching alphabets and spelling, if that's all right with you?"

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"Yeah, of course."

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Smile.

"So! Now what, then?"

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"I don't know... I could try to explain the diagram magic some more? Or - are you hungry? We could have food..."

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"Food sounds good, you can explain more about the diagram magic as we eat?"

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"Okay. I have, um, bacon. Oh, we can go out and I can show you which plants came from which diagrams now, then you'll know what else there is!"

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Giggle.

"Sounds good. I'm glad that more than bacon's available."

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"I have not been eating nothing but bacon this whole time, promise."

Out they go. Here are plants! An apple tree! A strawberry bush! Numerous potatoes!

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When she recognizes a plant, she'll say its name out loud so Tiro can have the vocabulary.

"It's interesting that most of everything's recognizable. I would have expected when dealing with the infinite multiverse to have a stunning variety of exotic foods."

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"Yeah, I thought that was a little weird too. Is it weirder or less weird that they're - recognizable to me and to you?"

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"I'm not sure. Could go either way, really. Or maybe some paradoxical combination of less weird and more weird. There is a super weird thing going on in the background keeping things from being too weird, or - something."

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Giggle.

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"But then, it would probably make more sense if we were different species, too, and - I'm pretty sure we're not?"

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"Yeah. You look like the same species as me."

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"Right. Granted, there could be subtle differences in the background, like - there's a comic book in my world about an alien that looks human but can fly and has super strength. But that seems kind of implausible and silly. Unless you can fly and haven't been mentioning it?"

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"I could if I borrowed a - flying thing - from my family," he says. "But not by myself, no."

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Giggle.

"And I can't fly at all unless I buy a plane ticket, so I'm going to rule the both of us as 'probably the same thing.'"

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"Yeah."

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"And the good thing about recognizing all of the foods present is that I know if I can eat stuff and don't have to worry about if I'll die from eating some berries!"

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"Yes! Nobody wants dangerous berries."

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"No. Safe berries only. Actually, speaking of, I think talking about dangerous berries has gotten me in the mood for fruit - is everything just always in season because magic, or?"

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"Yeah. And I can make everything grow really fast when I want."

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"Magic is so cool," pronounces Yvette.

Soon enough, a suitable fruit medley is acquired. Yvette nibbles accordingly.

"Okay, so," nom, "how do you make everything grow really fast when you want?"

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"You remember that recipe where for what it made I said 'magic green dust, it's complicated'? One of the things magic green dust does is you put it on the ground around a plant and you pour water on it and the plant grows really fast for a while."

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"Huh! Neat. What other things does it do?"

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"I haven't figured it all out yet, but - what actually seems to be happening when I combine magic green dust with water is that it turns into something like the blue magic ink it was made from..."

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"Interesting!" she says, smiling. "I wish there were a theory book on this lying around that we could read, but. Well."

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"Yeah. 'That we could read' is the hard part. But that's okay, I can learn by experimentation."

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"Yeah. I wish my sister were here, she'd jump at the chance to try and learn a language from nothing but some books."

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"...Yeah."

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"Sorry. I'll try not to be depressing - we'll get out of here, and then we can toss the books at my sister and see how far she can translate."

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"I think it's okay to be depressing when depressing things are happening." Pause. "But we will get out of here. Somehow."

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"Yes," she agrees, smiling. "We have too much magic to not eventually figure out a way. We're smart people."

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"Exactly!"

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She smiles at him, and goes back to eating.

"So how did you get here? You've heard my bizarre, literature-based transportation, but I assume you had something different."

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"I just - woke up here. I don't know what happened because it happened while I was asleep."

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"Ah. So it's my transportation method we'll probably have to reverse engineer for our no doubt clever escape. Good to know."

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He laughs.

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She smiles again.

"The book will give us answers, or it will rue the day it dropped me here."

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"Yes. Good."

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"Possibly it will give us answers and rue the day it dropped me here."

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"Even better."

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Giggle.

"I - haven't decided when to start the bookly interrogation. It's kind of intimidating. Do you have a preference for how long I take to get around to it?"

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Shrug.

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"Yeah. I think at least not today?"

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Nod nod.

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"It'll probably be when I get annoyed with the mystery and can't stand not attempting to interrogate the book for its secrets," she predicts, sagely.

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"Well, that sounds like a pretty good way to decide when to interrogate something."

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"Thank you, I think so!"

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He smiles at her.

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She smiles back, of course.

"I'm glad we get along," she says, softly.

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"Yeah, it's... good."

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"Better than hating each other. Could you imagine? Drawing a big line down the middle of the wasteland, 'This half is yours, this half is mine...'"

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He giggles.

"That would be so bad!"

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"Yes. Grumpy fence building, territory disputes - especially if the wind disturbed the line in the sand, what if it eventually got eroded away entirely? Chaos and a lot of bickering over which rock counted as a landmark for the now nonexistent line."

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"This way is much better!"