Closed To Mutual Benefits (Sayana)

[Yisanareysin]

So, she was holding out until he taught her. Clever, and cautious. He had expected nothing less. Besides, it gave him time to figure out how to use her skills most effectively. And best of all, she wasn't objecting to teaching him first. Which was good, because Rey had no idea how he was going to teach her his sense. Somehow, he doubted locking her in an dark, empty room with a single rose would work. Unless Eypharians had better senses of smell than he remembered. He was going to have to try to teach her to see instead of scent, more likely than not. This was going to be tricky, but he could cross that desert as he got to it.

For now, common. His inability to converse smoothly in common irritated him, and more worryingly, it made him distinctive. He was plenty distinctive enough, with his hair and scar and hight. Having one who seemed to speak fluently teach him would help immensely with blending in, along with many other, far more mundane annoyances.

He nodded as as Sayana began to explain his errors, filing away in his mind her comments. Worse as an extension of Bad, the necessity of possessives. And then questions. He took a few moments between answering each to gather his words.

"Alvadass people iss.... confusing? Iss alwayss changing, alwayss looking for new thing. Never believe what they ssee. And iss never afraid. Iss all illusionss, yess?" Rey smiled grimly. Illusion or not, he still couldn't understand how these Alvads were so laid back all the time. Illusions could hurt every bit as badly as reality could.

"For drink, the Sstallion, or the Rosse iss good placess to go. Rosse assks more coinss, but iss worth what they assk. In Alvadass they only love Ionu. Ssecretss...."

Rey considered Sayana for a moment. Her mouth had curled into slight smile, and her eyes seemed to flicker with amusement, thought that might have just been the light. He could simply pass over that question, he supposed. But if he was to teach her his sense, perhaps it would be best for her to know. Just in case.

"You sseen the sspeakerss, yess? Musst be careful. Sspeakers know thingss. Ssee thingss. And they much do not like magic. Careful how you sspeak."

Rey grimaced, looking Sayana straight in the eye, trying to impress on her how serious this was. "The sspeaker, Sseveruss. Ssilver sserpent.. He ssay my name. True name. Full name. Hass only ssaid it oncce in thiss city. You ssay a thing? They will know."

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

[Sayana]

“Alvadas people are confusing. They are always looking for new things.” Sayana interrupted after his first couple of sentences. She let him finish the rest of his answer, both taking in the content and also looking for ways to help him with the language. “Try to start all your sentences, your phrases with a person or a thing that then does something or is something. If you just say ‘is confusing’ or ‘are never afraid’, I don’t know who or what is confusing or is never afraid.”

She listened to his next answer without interruption. She would have to fully address his use of the word ‘is’ versus the word ‘are’ later. As he continued, she made two more corrections. “They do not like magic much. Be careful how you speak.” It was intriguing. In Syliras, magic hadn’t necessarily been common but those who used it were not shunned or looked down upon. Sometimes people even used it out on the streets. Yet here it seemed debatable, and if nothing else, something to be kept secret.

If you say a thing once… they will know. No wonder he was so careful with his magic.

She shook her head briefly trying to clear her thoughts and focus back on the lesson. “If you said something, it was yesterday or earlier. If you say something, then you are saying it right now. And if you will say something, then you’ve promised to do it sometime in the future, like tomorrow or next season.” She paused in case he had any questions and to make sure he understood.

“Also, you use the word ‘is’ too much. It’s alright if you’re talking about ‘she is pretty’ or ‘he is secretive’ or ‘the door is closed’. But I say ‘you are clever’ or ‘the people are looking for new and exciting things’ or ‘I am an Eypharian’. When I talk about he or she or it, then I use the word ‘is’. When I talk about you or they or even we, then I use the word ‘are’. And I when I talk about myself, I use ‘I am’.” It was quite a bit of explaining but she hoped it made some sense to the Dhani. If nothing else, he’d know to be careful with those troublesome words and hopefully mimic the right ones that other people used.

“Now your ‘S’s are still very obvious,” she continued with a slight smile. It was a common trouble point for Dhani and it made him distinctive. She wasn’t sure if his focus was to become less distinctive but anyone with his talents would probably appreciate such. “I’d like you to repeat this phrase slowly at first but then going faster. And I want you to concentrate on making your hissing shorter and less noticeable. Each ‘S’ sound should be short even if you’re making a lot of them. The phrase is this: The sly serpent slithers through the desert sands.”

As he attempted the exercise, she would egg him on to go faster and faster. However, with such a long phrase, it was probably even more complicated to focus on shortening the ‘s’ sounds even though they repeated so often. Partway through she changed tactics. “Now this time, just say the word ‘faster’ again and again, faster and faster.” This word also had an ‘s’ sound but it wasn’t the focus of the word and really ought to be kept short and concise. It was also much simpler to say over and over again.

[Yisanareysin]

Rey listened carefully to Sayana's corrections, trying to sort through the logic of the common tongue. Having three of... whatever type of word "is" was, irritated him. His native serpent tongue, elegant and efficient, used a single sharp hiss for all of them. Still, he was going to have to learn, one way or another.

So, it seemed the rule was "is" for singular, "are" for plural, and "am" for the self. Except not, because you was singular, but used "are"? What a bother. Were there other exceptions as well that Sayana hadn't thought of, he wondered.

It was the same thing with tenses. He'd assumed that in common, any indication of when an action took place was contextual, as it was in snake, and that the variations in the words were either meaningless, or very slight. But listening to Sayana speak, it seemed that the timing of the action was a part of the word. Sweet Siku, was he going to have to memorise three different variation of every action word?

Hmm, no, actually. So, adding the word "will" before an action set it in the future. And for the past...
"How to know, if word iss... are? Is before or now?"
He ran through her words in his head once more, and then groaned out loud.
"You say.. wass? Wass iss passt of are? Or wass iss passt of iss?"
Gods preserve him, was there a separate past, present and future form of each of the three "is" variations? Common was a terrible language.

After that brain bender, it was almost a relief to go into tongue twisters, even if it did devolve into nonsense far quicker.
"The ssly sserpent sslitherss through the dessert ssandss."
"The ssy.. sly sserpent sslitherss through the dessert xandss." No, the first s of that last word was too sharp
"The ssly slerp..." He shook his head, irritated at the slip of his tongue. "sserpent sslitherss through the dessert sandss."

After a few more repetitions of that phrase, Rey was glad to move on to a single word instead, especially as the word sands had ceased to mean anything to him after saying it so often.

"Fasster. Fasster. Fas-ter. Fasster fasster fathser faster fasster."

This was, he had to say, not exactly what he had been expecting when he'd considered learning common.

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

[Sayana]

When the Dhani started to get tripped up between the past and present, Sayana answered his questions. “Was is the past of is and were is the past of are,” she explained. “Usually for action words for one person, there is an ‘s’ at the end. Like ‘she is’, ‘she was’, ‘she likes’, ‘she has’, ‘she does’. But if it’s for lots of people then it’s ‘they like’, ‘they are’, ‘they were’, ‘they have’.” She hoped it was starting to make a little more sense. She hadn’t realized how complicated it might be to learn. Even though the dominant language of Ahnatep was Arumenic, she learned Common quite early since her father was a trader and she also spent a little too much time amongst the slaves of the palace gardens. Not all of them knew Arumenic despite being forced to learn it.

Sayana smiled as he attempted the tongue twister and when he switched to the single word, it seemed to help marginally. “Better. You don’t have quite so much hisss. That’ll be something for you to practice when you’re alone.”

Suddenly she realized that she was probably teaching him the hardest action word to learn since it was so complicated. “The other words are easier though! Like the word ‘play’. I play, she plays, he plays, they play and you play. I played yesterday, she played yesterday, they played yesterday. It’s all the same for talking about the past. And just like before, if you’re talking about one person then it has an ‘s’ at the end.” Strictly speaking, her rule wasn’t completely true since ‘you play’ didn’t have an ‘s’ but at a first glance it seemed to be the general rule.

“So how are you at understanding? Is it mostly the speaking part that is tricky? Like getting it to sound just right?” She asked curiously, wondering if she might be missing another element to her lesson. “And… would there be any words I could learn in your language? Even just one or two? Like… ‘hello beautiful’?” Her last question was more tentative. She wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to wrap her tongue and lips around all those ‘s’ sounds. But she had heard the rare snippet of the pretty language back in Ahnatep.

[Yisanareysin]

What.

Was, is, were, are, the words spun in his mind, dancing in mocking circles as he tried to sort them out. "S" endings for singular, "ed" for plural, but nothing for I or you, and all of these rules only applied some of the time.

Rey... probably could memorise all the rules of common, given enough time, but as he considered it more, he wondered if he might not have to. After all, he had to admit, he couldn't exactly explain all the intricacies of Snake tongue either, yet he spoke it perfectly.

He ran through the variations again, trying not to think too hard about the minor details about how ridiculous this language was, honestly, who needed five different words for-
He shook his head to clear it, and tried again. If he didn't think too hard about it, it made a sort of twisted, intuitive sense. There was a rightness to it that he could feel, a distant understanding of the rules born of years living among humans.

If he kept these rules of Sayana's in mind, perhaps more exposure would do him even more good than it had before. He was going to have to keep track of what he was messing up in the future, then, so he could ask her about it when they next saw each other. Hmm.

"Sspeak...I sspeak? Iss harder. Find meaning from wordss iss eassier than make wordss from meaning. Ssentence is easy to take apart, hard to put together."

He raised an eyebrow at her last comment, but considered it thoughtfully. He didn't actually know if her mouth could make the sounds required for Snake, but he supposed it couldn't hurt to try. Hello beautiful... He could teach her two variations of the phrase, one intended for men, another for women. Teaching her the one aimed at men seemed more appropriate, but it was a little more complex, with more variation in the hissing. Still, if she could master that phrase, she'd have all the major hisses down.

"Hello handsome. Iss only for when you sspeak to maless. Hello. Handsome.

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

[Sayana]

Sayana nodded at his comment. She suspected that it was harder for him to speak, or at least speak without sounding foreign. He seemed to understand her reasonably well, though it was possible he was missing words here and there. He’d probably just have to work at it more and get feedback for when his sentences sounded a little off.

“Just practice and every so often check in with someone to make sure you’re using the right words.” She added encouragingly. “And work on that hiss!”

Speaking of, her eyes glinted brightly as he considered teaching her. When he finally spoke, she struggled to catch the long words and the subtle variations of the hissing. “Hellos…” She mostly managed the first word but then hesitated at the second. “… fish?” The long string of s, sh, and z sounds without a single vowel in between made it seem like she was doing her entire tongue twister in a single word. Naturally, she didn’t quite say it right and it came out sounding oddly like an entirely different word.

“Hello… hello fish.” She repeated, this time trying to add a charming yet mysterious tone to her greeting. But after wrapping her mouth around all those hisses, she made a face, trying to stretch out her tongue and lips after using them in such uncommon ways. Should he be kind enough to correct her, she would spend another chime or two repeating the phrase to get it just right.

OOCPerhaps we can start wrapping this up? I feel like we covered the language aspect quite well and apart from her amusing little mishap, I don’t expect that Sayana will learn much more of snaketongue.

[Yisanareysin]

Rey nodded at Sayana's words, his head tilting slightly to the side as he considered her. This was another piece of her puzzle he hadn't seen in their last meeting. She wasn't a half bad teacher, it seemed. Better than Kyla had been, although in all fairness, Kyla hadn't been so much a teacher as a facilitator of learning experiences, and an ally to yank him out of danger when her learning experience turned deadly.

There was quite a lot about Sayana he still didn't know, he suspected, but this was one more thing to add to his mental profile of her. She was encouraging, supportive.... very bad at speaking Snake.

There was a single moment in which Rey considered not correcting her. It was harmless enough, since he doubted she'd be meeting any other Dhani in the near future, and it was pretty funny. But Sayana was a valuable, and dangerous ally, and it was in his best interests to keep in her good graces.

Also, more importantly, he didn't think he could keep a straight face every time she repeated "Hello fish", especially if she kept saying it in that tone of voice.

"Firsst word... am? Iss. Firsst word iss good. Ssecond iss not. Word iss handsome. You ssay fish. Handsome yess. Fish no. More zzzz, lesss shhhh." Sort of. The way Z sounded in snake was a little different than how it sounded in Common, but it was understandable, and honestly, Rey didn't know that he could explain the difference between the two. Hai, he wasn't even sure that she was physically capable of making those noises.

"Will practicce." He promised her. "And when I hass the wordss to explain, will teach ssense. Yess?"

Snake Tongue : Common : Arumenic

[Sayana]

After Sayana repeated it a couple of times she noticed a slight grin or smirk forming on Reysin’s face. “What?” Clearly there was some sort of joke to be had or somehow she wasn’t saying it right. It seemed to be the latter, though despite his explanation she couldn’t understand what had been so funny about it. She was just missing a couple of sounds, that’s all.

Diligently she listened hard to the two words he spoke. One was correct, the other was the one she had been saying. The subtleties were so minute that she had to strain to pick up the difference. The second time he repeated it, she could hear it a little better and took note of how the word sounded. More zzz, less shhh.

“Hellos… handss-ssome.” She spoke and paid particular note to the second word. She slowed it down to make sure she got all the right hisses in. “Hello handssome.” She repeated again. “Hello fish -no- handsssome. Handsome.” By this point her tongue felt like it was in a knot with all the hissing but she was pretty sure she was getting it since Reysin didn’t feel the need to correct her again.

At his departing words she nodded. “Yesss. Fare well, until we meet again.”

OOCEep, another short one. Sorry about that. But it felt sufficient to wrap things up. Fun thread =)

[Kaleidoscope]

 

Yisanareysin

Skills

• Auristics: +1
• Intelligence: +2
• Observation: +2
• Planning: +2
• Socialisation: +1
• Teaching: +2

(EDIT: added +2 intelligence and +2 planning).
Lores

• Alvadas event: The day/night divide Fall 515 AV
• Alvadas location: The Crooked Playhouse (‘The Crook’)
• Sayana: Works at the Crook
• Sensing (auristics): Knowing when to stop
• Language, Common: Past, present and future tense

 

Sayana

Skills

• Acting: +1
• Cosmetology: +1
• Dancing: +1
• Rhetoric: +1
• Subterfuge: +1
• Teaching: +3

Lores

• Alvadas event: The day/night divide Fall 515 AV
• Reysin: Uses auristics
• Speaker: The Silver Serpent
• Language, Snaketongue: How to say ‘Hello handsome’

Comments
Really nice writing, but take care with the level of your teaching as you're still only novice in teaching. Good job though!

Comments: A very lovely thread you two, and I have to say I laughed out loud at Sayana trying to say 'Hello, handsome'. I look forward to seeing more of their escapades in the future!

Enjoy your grade, and please don't forget to delete/edit out your grade request. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send me a PM.