nautical

[aetheling]

Cymbeline doesn't really like boats, but they're the only way to get anywhere in a reasonable period of time, especially when "anywhere" isn't on the mainland. Today he is sailing to Vectis, to oversee the change of governorship; his father the king is needed for courtly matters back home and his mother the queen, despite being the source of his royal blood, declines to involve herself in affairs of state when she can avoid it. Zoyah takes more after Ranae than after Charles in this department. So, it falls to Cymbeline.

Walking on a boat is even more difficult than walking on land, and Cymbeline is no great shakes at the latter to begin with. Unfortunately, neither he nor Kerem, the court magician and Cymbeline's confidante, have been able to figure out how to apply the principles of practicable magic to alleviating princely clumsiness. So Cymbeline is clinging to the railing of the boat, watching the waves, trying to avoid having to walk anywhere.

Comments

[aetheling]

"In the meantime I need to call you something," says Cymbeline. He considers, then says, "As long as it's going to be temporary I suppose I needn't be terribly creative. Jade? Jade," he says decisively, pointing at her. "Okay?"

[treasuresuntold]

She shrugs.

[aetheling]

"All right." And he sets about drawing little pictures and writing words next to them, which he speaks aloud so she'll recognize the terms when people say them to her. (Since she is after all not deaf.)

[treasuresuntold]

The green lady - 'Jade', if you must - pays attention.

[aetheling]

After he's made enough little pictures to incorporate all of the letters of the alphabet, he teaches her the alphabet with these examples. And then he hands her the pen again.

[treasuresuntold]

She shrugs.

[aetheling]

"Nothing to say?" he asks. And he shrugs and goes back to teaching her words; Zoyah has long gotten bored and left.

[treasuresuntold]

Nothing to say, or no idea how to say it. One of those.

[aetheling]

He talks to her, while he's drawing the pictures, leaning on the vocabulary he's already provided but not restricting himself to it. Immersion was how he learned Iberiola.

[treasuresuntold]

She seems attentive, but vaguely frustrated.

Eventually, she interrupts the lesson by pushing the paper away. She looks him in the eye, to get his attention. She touches her legs. She points to the quartz crystal he used in his earlier demonstration of magic. She touches her legs again and mimes with her hands something jumping off them and fluttering rapidly away.

[aetheling]

He frowns, considering interpretations, then draws a little stylized Jade-with-legs, and a little stylized Jade-with tail, and an arrow from the one to the other. "Your legs are going to go away? How long - how many days -" He sketches the path of the sun; they've already done numbers. "One day, two days, three days -"

[treasuresuntold]

Jade shrugs.

[aetheling]

Cymbeline hmmms. "Okay, so this is a temporary visit. I wish I knew what you wanted to get out of it..." He sighs and goes back to writing. Names, this time - himself, Zoyah, Kerem, Jade's temporary moniker.

[treasuresuntold]

She puts up with the lesson long enough to learn his name and hers, but she's frowning.

After labeling her various drawings of Cymbeline with "Cym" (apparently his full name is too long to bother with), she repeats the legs-flying-away mime and this time leans away after her fluttering hand and grabs it and hauls it back. But when she attempts to stick it back onto her hip, it just keeps stubbornly fluttering.

She looks at him expectantly.

[aetheling]

"Yeah, transfers do that if you don't catch them... uh... I guess they were expensive, maybe you need to trade it back..." He gets up, finds her a jar, and offers it to her.

[treasuresuntold]

She gives him a deeply exasperated look, but takes the jar.

[aetheling]

Cymbeline is going over their past notes and what words they've covered, trying to figure out how to go forward in some kind of sensible order, when Kerem returns.

[pleasantsurprise]

"I've told the King and Queen," Kerem reports. "And, I've found a book on sign language - I don't know it, but it might be easier for her to pick up and more portable than writing?" He offers Cymbeline the book.

[aetheling]

Cymbeline flips open the book; it has a lot of prints of diagrams of signs and their meanings. He shows it to Jade.

[treasuresuntold]

Jade is intrigued! She pets the book, cradling her jar in her lap.

[aetheling]

"Is that better than learning to write, for you? I imagine drawings will still be useful, but there are advantages to this too, even though I'll have to learn it too..." He shrugs and starts doing his best to draw the concepts in the book for her, and studies the signs for himself.

[treasuresuntold]

Jade is much more interested in signing than she ever was in writing. She sticks with it, repeating the sign associated with each new concept until she's sure Cymbeline understands it, and when his drawing makes no sense she pesters him until he clarifies.

She is particularly interested in verbs. As soon as she can string signs together to make a complete sensible thought, she does: I walk. (With a silent laugh.)

[aetheling]

"Yes. Yes you do," Cymbeline laughs, after he's deciphered the signs. "Not very well, but then neither do I and I've had more practice..."

[treasuresuntold]

She nods, giggles silently, and repeats this sentence several more times.

[aetheling]

Cymbeline has a good head for vocabulary; he can go at whatever pace is comfortable for her. Eventually they've passed things like pronouns and "walk" and "sit", skipped over the sign alphabet which doesn't seem to interest her, and moved on to slightly more complicated words. Prepositions, nouns like "bird" and "fish" and various body parts, verbs that are a little trickier to draw or mime like "see" and "hear" and "want".