The thirty-fifth day of Summer, 513 A.V.
"So you emphasize the 'ah' sound, but completely disregard the 'sst'? I don't understand how-" Meville threw up his hands in frustration, glaring at the language book before him.
"There's no possible way that even makes sense. I've never heard anyone say it like that." He wrinkled his nose and cleared his throat, over-emphasizing the vowels in a nasally voice. ""Hahppy heeppoos hoist heevay hairlooms." He snorted, slapping the pages with a nonchalant gesture. "What even is a hippos anyway?"
He rolled his eyes and flipped through the pages once more. "What are the hippos being?" Meville squinted at the words on the page and flipped back a few, glancing between to places in the text. "Oh. What are hippos." He chewed on his lower lip as he quickly scribbled down "What are hippos" and "What are hippos being no" onto a piece of parchment to his right. Flipping through once more, Meville stopped at a particular section and skimmed the words as his left hand's pointer finger tapped impatiently on the wood. "To be, I am, you are, he she is..."
More ruffling pages. "The color of this cat is like a..." Meville muttered to himself in Common, scribbling more words onto his messy page of parchment. This cat is black. How black cat? How black is... the cat?" He puffed out some frustrated air, scribbling down "I don't like the cat" and several colors in Vani. More turning pages. "I will be gone... Will be going? Going to the fish market on the thirty thirty.... Thirty-third of Summer." He sighed, trying once more. "I will be going to the fish market on the the three third. Thirty third." Meville rolled his eyes as he chewed on his lips. "Gods, it would be absolutely wonderful if Vani just used nouns and verbs. Nothing else. I can barely handle these blasted tenses..." He continued to mutter to himself as he started scanning yet another page.
It was one thing to just get by using the considerably impressive amount of Vani he knew. He was able, usually, to get the point across. In fact, he'd done well enough with Lorelle to slightly thaw the ice between the two of them. Now, however, he wasn't sure his Vani was good enough for anything more than that initial warming. It wasn't so much for Lorelle as it was for his entire future that Meville now sat in the mostly empty library, muttering in frustrated Vani and Common. His entire premise was set upon his ability to speak eloquently to those around him. Many Vantha were bilingual and understood him well enough in either language, but he knew there were plenty of people - Lorelle included - where Vani was really the only option.
He was tired of sounding like a child when he spoke to the Vantha. It was... A matter of pride. Meville wasn't the strongest, fastest, or even the brightest light of Avanthal. All he had to his name was his mischievous nature and his wordplay. Remove his ability to speak intelligently? He became a common ne'er-do-well. That was certainly not what Meville aspired to be. So, he had been coming to the library on a regular basis to practice his Vani in relative privacy, as he was no longer able to check out books to read at his leisure due to several charged brought against him by the librarians. In fact, he figured he was lucky they still let him come in at all. Well, no, not lucky. He hadn't had his privileges revoked due to a low social standing in the eyes of those in charge of the knowledge filled tomes, but more out of cautionary protection of said knowledge. Somehow, Meville always found a way to lose, maim, or completely destroy the books he borrowed. It was, almost, a talent. Thus, the librarians were more than happy to let him come and read to his heart's content, but they no longer allowed those books to leave in his disaster-prone hands. He couldn't blame them, but it certainly made practicing Vani a bit more difficult.
"Does this tasting- Taste. Does this taste funnily...? Funny? Fun?" Meville licked his lips and flipped back a few pages. "Funny. Does this taste funny to you?" He responded in a slightly higher tone. "Why yes. Yes it did. Doing. Does? Yes it does?" Thwack, thwack, tok. He glared down at the page and nodded. Why yes. Yes it does indeed tasting- taste funny." He muttered "Taste funny, taste funny..." several times as he scribbled them into his notes.
Finally, he closed the book in front of him and stretched his arms above his head, leaving the quill in the inkwell as he yawned. Once that had been done, he reached over to his left and grabbed another book and placed it in front of him. He flexed his right hand before grabbing the parchment and switching it to the left along with the ink and quill before opening the book to about the middle where a piece of fabric had been inserted to hold the place. He drew in a breath and began to read the story out loud, taking care to correctly pronounce the sounds as well as the melodic intonation of the blasted musical language.
"He sat there, his nose buried in a book while the world around him seemed to fade. The... Hmm..."" He paused, writing down the word "cryptic" in Vani with a question mark next to it. "The cryptic? symbols seemed to..." Another scribble with a mark. "To morph? and change, becoming more and more... Legible?" Scribble. "'I've done it!' The boy yelled, causing the others to turn and stare at him in... Awe?" The word "awe" was placed under the Common "amazing?". "In awe as he started to read the text out loud, his voice swelling in confidence as his voice filled the..." Meville grimaced. "Library? ...the 'library'. 'You've done it, Ellivem! You've cracked the code!' Ellerol clap- clasped - her hands together as she gazed with... Adoration?" The scratching noise of the quill sounded for a few moments. 'I have, but I didn't do it alone, Ellerol.' Ellivem grinned wide, beaming down at Ellerol. 'Without your... guidance? Mmm... Without your guidance I would never have been able to find the strength to... Perse-persevere." Clicking his tongue, Meville quickly transcribed the unknown word onto the parchment. 'With this newly found knowledge, I will finally be able to... vanquish. Wanquish? No... Vanquish..." Several scratches were added to the parchment. "'To vanquish the arch-wizard? Arch-wizard? Inav.'"
He stared down at his little collection of unknowns, repeating the word "arch-wizard" over and over again as his right had searched for the dictionary. Once it had been located, he quickly flipped through the entries, writing down the definitions as he went. First, he located the word "arch-wizard". "Magical mastermind..." The rest of the entry was a bit confusing in both Vani and Common. Hmm. Continuing on, Meville quickly filled out his short list of unknowns before returning to the book in front of him.
This continued for several bells until Meville began to feel the tell-tale signs of weariness pulling at his eye-lids. He wasn't the most avid reader. When he combined his relatively low interest in written literature with a foreign language, it made the several bells spent slogging away at several chapters quite the achievement. Though, however great the achievement, it also meant he could only take so much of it before he had to do something else. Whenever Meville found the prospect of reading no longer possible, he would try his Vani in conversation with any of the librarians and patrons who would listen.
Common | Vani
