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Mermaids IN SPACE! 4~
So I'm kinda stupid. Okay, it wouldn't have shown up a lot once she figured out that Arun didn't get it. But... Why didn't Lìadan use a sign language, instead of only relying on body language underwater? She should be using it as much as normal language. She should wonder, WHY DOES THIS MAN ONLY TALK WITH HIS MOUTH.
So i'll be going back and adding a bit of that in... one of these days. It will beef up my word counter a bit, at any rate. XD
In the meantime, let's pretend I did it from the start, kay? :D
I'm not quite done for today, but it was a good stopping point for posting purposes. I'm getting a bit behind on my schedule oh noes, but. headache. *sadface*
Lìadan usually had a reasonably good handle on her heartbeat; but it was hard to keep her heart going slow and steady when it was firmly lodged in her throat.
Arun was sitting only one, one-and-a-half lengths of mer up the side of the beast -- and totally out of reach. She swallowed, mustered up a rather pitiful smile when he chattered at her -- she didn't have a clue what about; perhaps more greetings, where have you been, I caught a fish, nice moons tonight, or perhaps something else entirely -- and gestured at him to come down as casually as she could. His voice was low-pitched and carried well, and resonated on the smooth expanse of sea stuck between the flank of the Great Dragon and the reefs; she could barely breathe for fear of seeing the beast awaken.
Arun looked down at the water, and then back at her, grimacing a little in an unsure, questioning way. She twitched; what an inappropriate moment to develop a sense of caution. "Arun, come," she coaxed, and waved him down again. She wanted to yell and scream. Beside her, the dolphin was still chirping and circling curiously.
"Come on, come down here, isn't it weird to be so high above the water? You want to swim, don't you. We could go... pick up pretty rocks, perhaps. Or even just plain ordinary rocks, if you insist." She wasn't even sure what she was saying anymore, but she said it anyway.
After a small eternity, the two-tails shrugged, turned with his back to the sea, and let himself hang from the ridge by the hands. Lìadan took in a deep breath and waited.
The second he kicked off the side of the Dragon and let go, she dived; his loud splash only made her go faster. Arun jerked when the tips of her claws dug into his wrist, but he would have to deal with it; she wasn't letting go. She dived -- she'd felt the currents against her skin, she knew there was a crack between the reefs close by -- there, she could see fluttering reeds! She pulled him along through the narrow passage; he had the good sense not to struggle too much. She did try not to knock him into the stone, but she was a lot more concerned about getting to the other side of the passage.
Open waters -- she shot across them, still refusing to let go. They needed to get to the other reefs and hide, right now.
She only remembered that perhaps she should let him surface when he started struggling again.
He broke the surface and coughed and panted, giving her a look like she was crazy; she shook her head and started towing him across the waves. Perhaps it was the desperate look she knew was in her eyes; he didn't protest anymore, and even started trying to swim along. He was too slow for her, though; so she refused to let go.
Finally, she found them a safe place in a tiny, shallow cove. Of course if the Great Dragon felt like it, it would probably crush the reefs into tiny pebbles easily enough, but at least, with four of the six directions covered, she felt safe enough to relax, marginally.
Curling up with her back against the exit, she addressed a prayer of thanks to the Amazon, and briefly regretted that her presence in the sky was already fading, diluted by the magnificence of the morning sun. But hopefully Lìadan wouldn't need the Amazon's assistance anymore today.
"... Lìadan... What?"
Arun said the word like he wished to swear instead, with open disbelief and a touch of frustrated annoyance. She glared at him. "What? What? You were the one up on the Dragon's back like some -- like --"
She fell silent; she was shaking like a leaf in a stream.
"Hey -- hey."
And now his voice was all soft and worried; she flinched when his hand landed on her shoulder, skittered away. He was staring at her in confusion, treading water in the middle of the tiny cove with his hand still raised to touch her. She could read warring exasperation and commiseration on his face, in the set of his jaw and the angle of his eyebrows. She stared at him, trying to decide where to start explaining, and how.
He was bleeding. She stared in shock, feeling guilty. The trickle of blood that was making its way down his temple was small enough, as these things went, but that didn't help much. She bit her lip and pointed at his forehead. "You're bleeding," she added, a bit uselessly; he didn't seem in the right frame of mind to learn her language, anymore than she was in a mood to teach it.
Arun touched his scalp cautiously, stared at the blood, and sighed wearily. She relaxed a little; he didn't seem in too much pain. Hopefully it was just a scrape. She searched through her belt nets anyway, pulling out a large, fleshy leaf. She tore off a corner, peering at Arun's head; it seemed like it would be enough.
"Shh, it's alright," she said as she slowly drifted closer. She didn't want to touch him again, it was improper; but he had gotten hurt through her carelessness. Besides, if he bled in the water, they would be surrounded by predators before too long.
Arun didn't seem convinced, and he made a face when she put the leaf in her mouth and chewed it into paste, but apart from a little twitch, he let her apply it on the scratch easily enough. She was a little startled at how strange his skin felt; it was even thinner than a baby's skin, and maybe a bit smoother than it should have been as well. How difficult it must be to go around with skin that frail; now she was even more surprised by his relative lack of scars. It would have made sense, she guessed, for someone to grow more cautious as a result of such frailty; sadly, Arun really was anything but.
Arun muttered under his breath, and then stared at her, frowning again. "... What?" he asked, pointing toward the resting place of the Great Dragon.
Lìadan gave him a glare, and joined her hands in a snapping jaws motion. Surely even he couldn't misunderstand the gesture.
He stared for so long, she was tempted to poke him with the butt end of her spear to see if he was still in here, and hadn't decided to go visit the Girl-Child at random.
And then he burst out laughing; and she could only flinch in shame and betrayal, because he wasn't laughing like he had just misunderstood her, but more like someone who thought she was so ridiculous she shouldn't have been allowed to speak up.
When he caught her expression, he tried to rein in his hilarity, but in the end he only managed to make her feel like she was a silly little child who believed that one day she would really tame a wild seafoal and keep it as her best friend forever. It wasn't much of an improvement. She flinched and turned away, staring out at the sea to give herself something to do that didn't feel too much like an excuse to avoid him.
She had braved a Great Dragon to save him, and he was mocking her.
"... Uh. Lìadan? Hey -- hey," he called, and blurted out more words in his strange language that she didn't get, in very bad attempt as soothingly coaxing. The tone was too obvious, the sounds were harsh and unmelodious; and right now, she didn't want to understand him all that much anyway. She kept her vigil on the sea, not answering.
He patted her shoulder; she flinched and dodged quickly. "Stop touching me! I'm not from your pod."
Arun sighed, and gave her what she could only describe as orphaned calf eyes. Perhaps the calf was famished as well, and probably sickly, and someone had pulled its fins; it was that over-the-top. She huffed, but it was hard to hold onto her hurt when the two-tails looked so harmlessly silly.
It was even harder when he started gesturing in the Great Dragon's direction, and then rolled his eyes in his head melodramatically and slumped, floating bonelessly, face down in the water.
"... It's... Dead?" she replied slowly, unsure, when he finally straightened up and wiped water off his face. "The Great Dragon is dead?"
Arun rubbed his eyes and grinned at her, and made another "dead now" pantomime, complete with dying gurgle. She choked on an offended squeak -- or perhaps it was a giggle, or a little bit of both.
"Is it really -- are you sure?" She mimed going limp too, pointed to the Dragon. "Dead?"
"Yes. ... Ded?"
"Dead," she repeated mildly, correcting him, and dutifully repeated when he taught her his own word for it. She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. She knew that Great Dragons could die -- sometimes, pods found their bones floating up from the deepest chasms -- but to see one so newly dead, and resting at the surface too? This was wrong. The dead's place was at the bottom of the world, in the dark mysteries of the abysses, and this went doubly so for a Great Dragon. So rarely did they leave their realms in life...
... But perhaps this was why that one had come. To die after touching the sky? Perhaps it had taken that leap across the sea-above knowing fully that it wouldn't survive it.
Perhaps its spirit had gone on to meet the Father and his Wives and swim with them and their many, many children in the sea-above. She quivered with the need to spin this tale for her pod at sundown, to tell of the wondrous thing she had seen. Perhaps one of her mothers would spin another tale, or take up the thread of hers, and -- and...
... She didn't have a pod to tell it to, anymore.
"Lìadan? Oi."
She shook herself, and gave Arun a polite smile and a questioning arch of her eyebrow. He was looking at her strangely; he reached out again, as if to touch her face, but this time when she tensed he stilled his hand. It was good, that he could learn politeness.
"You -- hn." He frowned, visibly frustrated at his lack of words. She wanted to offer her help in figuring it out -- but then the strange crackles of the dolphin's call danced up her spine, distracting her. She gestured at him to stay put and slipped under the surface to peek out of the little cove, looking for Arun's pets.
They weren't far; they burst out of the murky depths, coming to a stop a few seconds only before hitting the reefs. Their heads breached the surface, and the lighter-colored one started chattering angrily; the other one didn't look very happy either. Arun waddled to them, petting them and muttering soothing things. Lìadan felt a little guilty. What must they have thought, to see their podmate be taken away so swiftly, for no reason?
"Hey..."
She looked at Arun. The two-tails seemed to want to say something; but what, she didn't have a clue. He started chattering, stopped, pulled on his red hair in frustration, and muttered a stream of complaints.
"Arun. Okay. I'm listening." She took on an attentive position, tilting her head just so, and touched her ear. See? Listening. She even added a "yes?" in his language, and waited.
He pointed at her, said a word. He pointed at himself, and repeated the word -- no variations in intonation, no other syllables. So it wasn't either male-female or mer-two-tails he was pointing out. He pointed at the dolphins; same word, once again, and she wondered what common feature they all shared. There were quite a few.
She repeated the word, but didn't tack on hers; she hoped he would explain more. It seemed a difficult notion.
Arun took in a deep, obvious breath, and released it noisily. He said the word again, and pointed to the dolphins, her, and himself. "... Breathing?" she repeated, unsure, and breathed deeply to mirror him. "Yes, we are breathing."
He frowned a little, thoughtful; she waited as he figured it out. It was so complicated to mime everything; and he didn't even seem to understand anything but the most self-evident hand signals either.
He pointed to the four of them in turn again, saying his word; and then poked the rocks at his side.
"... Rock?"
"No, no." He sat up on a rock and threw himself into another complicated pantomime, with a few words here and there -- rock, dolphin, dead, breathing, fish -- she couldn't sort it out. She just couldn't, it wouldn't click. She shook her head hopelessly.
"... Okay. Dolphin, dead, no."
"... Yes. Dolphin not dead," she confirmed, beyond confused.
"Rock, dead, no. Rock is..." And another word. "Dead no. Brea-thing, no. Is--"
Oh. The first word didn't mean "breathing", it meant "alive".
"Alive!" she replied, pointing at her, and Arun, and the dolphins, who were getting impatient. She pressed a hand on her chest and mimed a heart beating; Arun nodded and grinned at her.
"Alive. Yes. Lìadan alive, dolphin alive... fish alive. Yes?"
"Yes. Continue."
"Fish --" a gurgle, eyes rolling in their heads, "fish dead. Mmm," he added dreamily, making her laugh. "Dolphin..." he made a grimace, to indicate that he didn't like the thought. "Dolphin... dead -- no, yes -- argh."
Dolphins could die. Dolphins could die because they were alive. She nodded, waved him on. "Dolphins can die?"
"Die?"
Oh, how to explain a verb... "Die," she repeated, rolling her eyes into their orbits and pretending to suffocate. "Dead," she added, and floated listlessly. She felt a little silly, miming for him with such over-the-top enthusiasm. She could tell he wanted to laugh; she couldn't help but smile, embarrassed and amused together.
"Oh! Diiiiiiie, diiie, eurrrghh -- dead."
She lifted a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. To need such serious words, no doubt his message had to be very serious, too. "Yes, that's it. Continue?"
"Rock. No die."
She blinked, and felt the corners of her mouth tilt up once again, in a more secretive smile. Some people believed that the lava that rocks came from was alive in a way, that it was the flesh of the earth. But rocks themselves, she was ready to concede that they weren't alive and had never been. They were more like the congealed blood of the earth than like anything that existed as its own entity. "Rock no die. Continue?"
He gave her a soft, serious look, and pointed at the canyon where the Great Dragon floated. "That...?"
Ah. So this was where he had been leading all along... "Dragon."
There was a flash of recognition in his eyes, and he repeated, "Dragon," except with a strange accent that twisted it almost beyond recognition. She noted the existence of another common word between their two language with surprise and some relief, and smiled at him.
Arun didn't smile back, not this time. "Dragon, no die. No breathing, no alive. Dragon... rock."
She stared at him blankly, and tried to figure out where the mistranslation had happened.
+
In other news, I miss writing Teamwork, but I'm sure it would be a lot easier to sneak in some Teamwork!writing if I could see this scene more clearly. It's the one I built this chapter toward, and now I can't feel it anymore. I am le sad. T_T
So i'll be going back and adding a bit of that in... one of these days. It will beef up my word counter a bit, at any rate. XD
In the meantime, let's pretend I did it from the start, kay? :D
I'm not quite done for today, but it was a good stopping point for posting purposes. I'm getting a bit behind on my schedule oh noes, but. headache. *sadface*
Lìadan usually had a reasonably good handle on her heartbeat; but it was hard to keep her heart going slow and steady when it was firmly lodged in her throat.
Arun was sitting only one, one-and-a-half lengths of mer up the side of the beast -- and totally out of reach. She swallowed, mustered up a rather pitiful smile when he chattered at her -- she didn't have a clue what about; perhaps more greetings, where have you been, I caught a fish, nice moons tonight, or perhaps something else entirely -- and gestured at him to come down as casually as she could. His voice was low-pitched and carried well, and resonated on the smooth expanse of sea stuck between the flank of the Great Dragon and the reefs; she could barely breathe for fear of seeing the beast awaken.
Arun looked down at the water, and then back at her, grimacing a little in an unsure, questioning way. She twitched; what an inappropriate moment to develop a sense of caution. "Arun, come," she coaxed, and waved him down again. She wanted to yell and scream. Beside her, the dolphin was still chirping and circling curiously.
"Come on, come down here, isn't it weird to be so high above the water? You want to swim, don't you. We could go... pick up pretty rocks, perhaps. Or even just plain ordinary rocks, if you insist." She wasn't even sure what she was saying anymore, but she said it anyway.
After a small eternity, the two-tails shrugged, turned with his back to the sea, and let himself hang from the ridge by the hands. Lìadan took in a deep breath and waited.
The second he kicked off the side of the Dragon and let go, she dived; his loud splash only made her go faster. Arun jerked when the tips of her claws dug into his wrist, but he would have to deal with it; she wasn't letting go. She dived -- she'd felt the currents against her skin, she knew there was a crack between the reefs close by -- there, she could see fluttering reeds! She pulled him along through the narrow passage; he had the good sense not to struggle too much. She did try not to knock him into the stone, but she was a lot more concerned about getting to the other side of the passage.
Open waters -- she shot across them, still refusing to let go. They needed to get to the other reefs and hide, right now.
She only remembered that perhaps she should let him surface when he started struggling again.
He broke the surface and coughed and panted, giving her a look like she was crazy; she shook her head and started towing him across the waves. Perhaps it was the desperate look she knew was in her eyes; he didn't protest anymore, and even started trying to swim along. He was too slow for her, though; so she refused to let go.
Finally, she found them a safe place in a tiny, shallow cove. Of course if the Great Dragon felt like it, it would probably crush the reefs into tiny pebbles easily enough, but at least, with four of the six directions covered, she felt safe enough to relax, marginally.
Curling up with her back against the exit, she addressed a prayer of thanks to the Amazon, and briefly regretted that her presence in the sky was already fading, diluted by the magnificence of the morning sun. But hopefully Lìadan wouldn't need the Amazon's assistance anymore today.
"... Lìadan... What?"
Arun said the word like he wished to swear instead, with open disbelief and a touch of frustrated annoyance. She glared at him. "What? What? You were the one up on the Dragon's back like some -- like --"
She fell silent; she was shaking like a leaf in a stream.
"Hey -- hey."
And now his voice was all soft and worried; she flinched when his hand landed on her shoulder, skittered away. He was staring at her in confusion, treading water in the middle of the tiny cove with his hand still raised to touch her. She could read warring exasperation and commiseration on his face, in the set of his jaw and the angle of his eyebrows. She stared at him, trying to decide where to start explaining, and how.
He was bleeding. She stared in shock, feeling guilty. The trickle of blood that was making its way down his temple was small enough, as these things went, but that didn't help much. She bit her lip and pointed at his forehead. "You're bleeding," she added, a bit uselessly; he didn't seem in the right frame of mind to learn her language, anymore than she was in a mood to teach it.
Arun touched his scalp cautiously, stared at the blood, and sighed wearily. She relaxed a little; he didn't seem in too much pain. Hopefully it was just a scrape. She searched through her belt nets anyway, pulling out a large, fleshy leaf. She tore off a corner, peering at Arun's head; it seemed like it would be enough.
"Shh, it's alright," she said as she slowly drifted closer. She didn't want to touch him again, it was improper; but he had gotten hurt through her carelessness. Besides, if he bled in the water, they would be surrounded by predators before too long.
Arun didn't seem convinced, and he made a face when she put the leaf in her mouth and chewed it into paste, but apart from a little twitch, he let her apply it on the scratch easily enough. She was a little startled at how strange his skin felt; it was even thinner than a baby's skin, and maybe a bit smoother than it should have been as well. How difficult it must be to go around with skin that frail; now she was even more surprised by his relative lack of scars. It would have made sense, she guessed, for someone to grow more cautious as a result of such frailty; sadly, Arun really was anything but.
Arun muttered under his breath, and then stared at her, frowning again. "... What?" he asked, pointing toward the resting place of the Great Dragon.
Lìadan gave him a glare, and joined her hands in a snapping jaws motion. Surely even he couldn't misunderstand the gesture.
He stared for so long, she was tempted to poke him with the butt end of her spear to see if he was still in here, and hadn't decided to go visit the Girl-Child at random.
And then he burst out laughing; and she could only flinch in shame and betrayal, because he wasn't laughing like he had just misunderstood her, but more like someone who thought she was so ridiculous she shouldn't have been allowed to speak up.
When he caught her expression, he tried to rein in his hilarity, but in the end he only managed to make her feel like she was a silly little child who believed that one day she would really tame a wild seafoal and keep it as her best friend forever. It wasn't much of an improvement. She flinched and turned away, staring out at the sea to give herself something to do that didn't feel too much like an excuse to avoid him.
She had braved a Great Dragon to save him, and he was mocking her.
"... Uh. Lìadan? Hey -- hey," he called, and blurted out more words in his strange language that she didn't get, in very bad attempt as soothingly coaxing. The tone was too obvious, the sounds were harsh and unmelodious; and right now, she didn't want to understand him all that much anyway. She kept her vigil on the sea, not answering.
He patted her shoulder; she flinched and dodged quickly. "Stop touching me! I'm not from your pod."
Arun sighed, and gave her what she could only describe as orphaned calf eyes. Perhaps the calf was famished as well, and probably sickly, and someone had pulled its fins; it was that over-the-top. She huffed, but it was hard to hold onto her hurt when the two-tails looked so harmlessly silly.
It was even harder when he started gesturing in the Great Dragon's direction, and then rolled his eyes in his head melodramatically and slumped, floating bonelessly, face down in the water.
"... It's... Dead?" she replied slowly, unsure, when he finally straightened up and wiped water off his face. "The Great Dragon is dead?"
Arun rubbed his eyes and grinned at her, and made another "dead now" pantomime, complete with dying gurgle. She choked on an offended squeak -- or perhaps it was a giggle, or a little bit of both.
"Is it really -- are you sure?" She mimed going limp too, pointed to the Dragon. "Dead?"
"Yes. ... Ded?"
"Dead," she repeated mildly, correcting him, and dutifully repeated when he taught her his own word for it. She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. She knew that Great Dragons could die -- sometimes, pods found their bones floating up from the deepest chasms -- but to see one so newly dead, and resting at the surface too? This was wrong. The dead's place was at the bottom of the world, in the dark mysteries of the abysses, and this went doubly so for a Great Dragon. So rarely did they leave their realms in life...
... But perhaps this was why that one had come. To die after touching the sky? Perhaps it had taken that leap across the sea-above knowing fully that it wouldn't survive it.
Perhaps its spirit had gone on to meet the Father and his Wives and swim with them and their many, many children in the sea-above. She quivered with the need to spin this tale for her pod at sundown, to tell of the wondrous thing she had seen. Perhaps one of her mothers would spin another tale, or take up the thread of hers, and -- and...
... She didn't have a pod to tell it to, anymore.
"Lìadan? Oi."
She shook herself, and gave Arun a polite smile and a questioning arch of her eyebrow. He was looking at her strangely; he reached out again, as if to touch her face, but this time when she tensed he stilled his hand. It was good, that he could learn politeness.
"You -- hn." He frowned, visibly frustrated at his lack of words. She wanted to offer her help in figuring it out -- but then the strange crackles of the dolphin's call danced up her spine, distracting her. She gestured at him to stay put and slipped under the surface to peek out of the little cove, looking for Arun's pets.
They weren't far; they burst out of the murky depths, coming to a stop a few seconds only before hitting the reefs. Their heads breached the surface, and the lighter-colored one started chattering angrily; the other one didn't look very happy either. Arun waddled to them, petting them and muttering soothing things. Lìadan felt a little guilty. What must they have thought, to see their podmate be taken away so swiftly, for no reason?
"Hey..."
She looked at Arun. The two-tails seemed to want to say something; but what, she didn't have a clue. He started chattering, stopped, pulled on his red hair in frustration, and muttered a stream of complaints.
"Arun. Okay. I'm listening." She took on an attentive position, tilting her head just so, and touched her ear. See? Listening. She even added a "yes?" in his language, and waited.
He pointed at her, said a word. He pointed at himself, and repeated the word -- no variations in intonation, no other syllables. So it wasn't either male-female or mer-two-tails he was pointing out. He pointed at the dolphins; same word, once again, and she wondered what common feature they all shared. There were quite a few.
She repeated the word, but didn't tack on hers; she hoped he would explain more. It seemed a difficult notion.
Arun took in a deep, obvious breath, and released it noisily. He said the word again, and pointed to the dolphins, her, and himself. "... Breathing?" she repeated, unsure, and breathed deeply to mirror him. "Yes, we are breathing."
He frowned a little, thoughtful; she waited as he figured it out. It was so complicated to mime everything; and he didn't even seem to understand anything but the most self-evident hand signals either.
He pointed to the four of them in turn again, saying his word; and then poked the rocks at his side.
"... Rock?"
"No, no." He sat up on a rock and threw himself into another complicated pantomime, with a few words here and there -- rock, dolphin, dead, breathing, fish -- she couldn't sort it out. She just couldn't, it wouldn't click. She shook her head hopelessly.
"... Okay. Dolphin, dead, no."
"... Yes. Dolphin not dead," she confirmed, beyond confused.
"Rock, dead, no. Rock is..." And another word. "Dead no. Brea-thing, no. Is--"
Oh. The first word didn't mean "breathing", it meant "alive".
"Alive!" she replied, pointing at her, and Arun, and the dolphins, who were getting impatient. She pressed a hand on her chest and mimed a heart beating; Arun nodded and grinned at her.
"Alive. Yes. Lìadan alive, dolphin alive... fish alive. Yes?"
"Yes. Continue."
"Fish --" a gurgle, eyes rolling in their heads, "fish dead. Mmm," he added dreamily, making her laugh. "Dolphin..." he made a grimace, to indicate that he didn't like the thought. "Dolphin... dead -- no, yes -- argh."
Dolphins could die. Dolphins could die because they were alive. She nodded, waved him on. "Dolphins can die?"
"Die?"
Oh, how to explain a verb... "Die," she repeated, rolling her eyes into their orbits and pretending to suffocate. "Dead," she added, and floated listlessly. She felt a little silly, miming for him with such over-the-top enthusiasm. She could tell he wanted to laugh; she couldn't help but smile, embarrassed and amused together.
"Oh! Diiiiiiie, diiie, eurrrghh -- dead."
She lifted a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. To need such serious words, no doubt his message had to be very serious, too. "Yes, that's it. Continue?"
"Rock. No die."
She blinked, and felt the corners of her mouth tilt up once again, in a more secretive smile. Some people believed that the lava that rocks came from was alive in a way, that it was the flesh of the earth. But rocks themselves, she was ready to concede that they weren't alive and had never been. They were more like the congealed blood of the earth than like anything that existed as its own entity. "Rock no die. Continue?"
He gave her a soft, serious look, and pointed at the canyon where the Great Dragon floated. "That...?"
Ah. So this was where he had been leading all along... "Dragon."
There was a flash of recognition in his eyes, and he repeated, "Dragon," except with a strange accent that twisted it almost beyond recognition. She noted the existence of another common word between their two language with surprise and some relief, and smiled at him.
Arun didn't smile back, not this time. "Dragon, no die. No breathing, no alive. Dragon... rock."
She stared at him blankly, and tried to figure out where the mistranslation had happened.
+
In other news, I miss writing Teamwork, but I'm sure it would be a lot easier to sneak in some Teamwork!writing if I could see this scene more clearly. It's the one I built this chapter toward, and now I can't feel it anymore. I am le sad. T_T
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It's so vivid to think of the two of them trying to communicate, and trying to tell each other what they mean. I can't wait to see what Arun says about this.
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♥♥♥
As for Arun, i'm trying to limit his POV to letters back home right now, so hnn. gonna be a while, sadly.
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I really do love this whole idea and world, which should already be obvious by now. Their communication is both adorable, and very nicely difficult for them. Particularly considering that not only are their languages different, so are their cultures.
Much love.
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... HOW DID YOU MAKE YOUR HEARTS PINK. D:
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Actually, it's [font color="#ff80ff"][/font] Only with the appropriate brackets, and different color numbers for different colors.
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I can't wait to hear about what happened to her pod, because she mentions and hints at it a lot, so you know its something dear to her heart.
great job Asuka!
+J+
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Aw, there's nothing very dramatic about her pod. She's just homesick. ;.;
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In a way, I feel sorry for Lìadan, she is trying so hard to figure out what's going on and in the end she still doesn't get it. Though, her and Arun trying to mime "die" and "dead" at each other= very amusing.
great chapter!
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I figure it would be impossible to mime your meaning and not look utterly silly. It's a good thing they don't get ashamed too easily. XD;;
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(Anonymous) 2006-11-07 12:27 am (UTC)(link)What I'm curious about is... are all those previous sightings ships like Arun's... or are there dragons swimming around down there somewhere?
-- Guile
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YOU SHALL SEE. muahaha. ♥
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Anyway. I like your characters a lot, and I like the way you chose to approach your description of the world and the language and stuff, especially from Lìadan's POV. Creative and easy to follow and understand. ^^
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*snerk* Poor you. It's scifi masquerading as fantasy.
#^_____________________^# ♥
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... your icon scares me.
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Domo-kun just loves him some fibre, that's all. Is that so wrong? D:
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Father and his many wives! DDDDDDD: Polygamist! Polygamist.... Moon? D: *confused, but happy*
Yay for wanting to write teamwork! :D
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I'll try to make the moons thing clearer to the reader. It's a bit hard because she knows exactly what she's talking about, but I really should start to explain about it a tiny bit.
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liadan's really cute!!! and i love the way she tries to teach arun her language! (and it's hilarious when they try to make the other one understand something *giggle*)
and i love the way you described her feelings about dieing!
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Isn't she so adorable? ;_; she kills me with cute and it wasn't even planned. omg.
♥ I'm glad you're reading.
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It's so fun. So evil.
Also, i'm writing teamwork now. BAAAD. I make the mermaid cry ;_;
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Also, I'm so proud of Liadan for attempting to rescue Arun, even though he didn't need rescuing. It speaks well of her. The little details, like her surprise at his thin skin, add a lot of depth to the world. (Pun not intended. Really.)
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*^__^* She's horribly responsible, really. And I've figured out so many details and nnngh. I'm not sure if I can put them all in, but I'm going to try.
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