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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 8:41:44 GMT -6
The next thing on the roster for Aspen then was getting the dryad to speak. Fiera didn’t think they COULD- not in the way she usually knew it, at least. Something about their throat just wasn’t set up for physical words. As a plant they didn’t need to breathe in the usual ways, and their nyssa genes made traditional syllables difficult for them. Every so often Fiera had heard a grunt of effort coming from them when climbing up a difficult hill, or a gasp of surprise when finding a particularly beautiful flower, but actual coordinated movements of the mouth to create phonemes… it was beyond Aspen’s capability. What they DID have however, was a pair of very nimble hands. Sure they could branch out into fractal shapes and blossoms, but they also worked just a well as normal hands if not better. This meant that Aspen was perfectly suited for learning Labs Sign Language, a method of speaking for those that could not hear- or in Aspen’s case- speak. Fiera had taught it to at least one of her pets before and knew the ropes of it by now, but she had an extra bonus to make it easier on Aspen.
Fiera 6 Aspen 5.1/5.1 Langley 8.1/8.1 Foreign Language (LSL) 1
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 8:42:08 GMT -6
Specifically, she had Langley. Langley already knew common- they had learned it with Icarus, one of Fiera’s other harachiu- which meant that it was easy for Fiera to give them commands and instructions. That meant that they had a leg up on also learning Labs Sign Language. That would normally be good enough, but in this chance it meant that Aspen had an extra teacher. Through mirroring, Aspen would hopefully be able to pick up the language more easily, watching Langley and Fiera learning to speak to each other and slowly picking up on it themself as well. It also helped that Langley and Aspen seemed to get along quite well with each other. They had only known each other for a short while by now, but Langley’s shy kindness seemed to mesh quite well with Aspen’s comfortable quiet. Fiera thought that they made an incredibly boring couple, but they seemed to like each other well enough so she couldn’t complain. Much. Out loud. Whatever, so long as they were happy. Still, Fiera had to actually get started. They sat out in the same heated pagoda as before, a few dictionaries of Labs Sign Language spread out in front of her.
Fiera 7 Aspen 5.2/5.2 Langley 8.2/8.2 Foreign Language (LSL) 2
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 8:42:33 GMT -6
“Okay, so you’ve got the basic idea, right?” Fiera said while eyeing Langley. They nodded hesitantly as they leafed through the book, looking at the pictures. They couldn’t read yet, but thankfully that wasn’t too necessary for this. “Uh, I think so. It’s just learning to talk by making symbols with your hands, right? I can do that… I think.” “Great!” Fiera said, before leaning forward conspiratorially. “Because I’ll need your help teaching Aspen too.” She said, jerking her head in the dryad’s direction, who was staring at them listlessly. Langley stammered. “Well, hang on! I don’t even know how to do it yet- I can’t teach them!” Fiera chuckled and leaned back again. “It’s fine! They’ll learn alongside you- they just need to see someone else learning it from scratch too, and making progress. It’ll help, I swear.” Langley glanced over at Aspen. “If you say so…” They said, not sounding too convinced. “Cool. Ok. Let’s get started.” Fiera said, pulling out a little box of blueberries. “Let’s start here.” Langley’s eyes lit up. “The sign for “blueberry” is this-” She said, before whooshing her hand out away from her chest into a series of symbols, her fingers whizzing.
Fiera 8 Aspen 5.3/5.3 Langley 8.3/8.3 Foreign Language (LSL) 3
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 8:42:55 GMT -6
Langley looked at her blankly for a moment. “Can you… do that again?” They said, cringing a bit. Fiera repeated it, slowly so both of them could see. Langley moved their fingers carefully, mimicking the patterns- and Fiera noticed that Aspen was too, watching just as intently. It looked like the spoken word didn’t mean much to them, but physical movements were much more enticing all of a sudden. Once they had it down, Fiera tried something else. “Okay- now here’s how you do numbers.” She said, carefully signing out one through ten. Langley picked that up more easily as the symbols were simpler to move one's fingers to than the mess that was “blueberry”. Aspen followed along, but their brow furrowed in confusion. To them, this was still a bit of a meaningless dance. Pretty, but they weren’t yet aware that it had any function. “Okay now that you have those, just ONE more.” Then she made the sign for “want”, holding her hands out before hooking her fingers and pulling them toward her. “Easy, see?” She said, as Langley and Aspen both mimicked it. “So now- how many berries do you want, Langley? Aspen?” She asked. Langley paused for a moment…
Fiera 9 Aspen 5.4/5.4 Langley 8.4/8.4 Foreign Language (LSL) 4
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 8:43:18 GMT -6
Before signing “Want 3 berries.” Just to test it out. Aspen glanced over at Langley’s hands, confused as to why they were dancing when Fiera wasn’t doing anything to mimic. What was the point? Then, Fiera pulled out three berries and handed it to them. Langley smiled and popped them in their mouth, before requesting two more with the use of sign language. As Fiera handed over the others, Aspen’s eyes lit up. It was as if a switch had been flicked, a realization had been made. They lifted their fingers hesitantly and signed “Want 1 berry” to test the waters. Fiera picked a berry out from the box and rolled it over to them. They picked it up, a grin splitting their face as they rolled it around between their fingers. They went back and forth like that for a little bit, trading berries between them, requesting different numbers. After a certain point, Fiera added in an additional currency- some twigs that had fallen into the pagoda, set in front of her. She held one up, set it down and then signed “twig” at the other two. They took to it quickly, not even needing Fiera to “use it in a sentence” so to speak, and began trading the twigs around too.
Fiera 10 Aspen 6.0/6.0 Langley 9.0/9.0 Foreign Language (LSL) 5
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 9:04:59 GMT -6
Fiera taught them all kinds of words that day. First and foremost was everyone’s names. Aspen already knew their name when spoken, but learning Langley and Fieras’ too allowed them to make requests of or get the attention of specific people. The humanish also threw in a lot more nouns too, just so they had some other words to work with. She also introduced the concept of “not want” as well, eventually streamlining that and “want” into the more simple concepts of “yes” and “no”. Finally, Aspen could express what they were and weren’t ok with, instead of Fiera just ordering them around all day. After all, language was a tool to be used- a lever for getting what you wanted out of the world, so long as you asked politely… or to express yourself when you didn’t want to be so polite. When Fiera found objects that didn’t look the same however, Aspen tried asking about them, in their own unique way. It took Fiera a while to understand what they were trying to say, but after several minutes of troubleshooting the humanish was able to figure it out… with Langley’s help, of course. The brownie gave a few suggestions.
Fiera 1 Aspen 6.1/6.1 Langley 9.1/9.1 Foreign Language (LSL) 6
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 9:05:20 GMT -6
After that, Fiera realized they were asking about adjectives, and soon the harachiu and dryads’ vocabularies exploded into including words like big and small, long and short, nearer or further, and all sorts of colors. She even threw in information on how to ask questions using words like who, what, when, where, and why. Fiera realized after a certain point that Aspen was asking about SMELLS too, something that she wasn’t nearly as good at determining. After a certain point she had to just plain admit she didn’t know with that one, a concept that seemed surprising to Aspen. After all, everything the dryad knew this point had been something that Fiera had taught them. She was sure it must be opening up a lot of doors in their mind to know that there were things that someone supposedly intelligent could know, and some that they just… couldn’t. An opening of the mind. They didn’t seem to dwell on it for too long, as ravenous for knowledge as they were. Fiera took the pair on a walk, keeping it slow for Langley. Everywhere they went, Aspen and Langley asked about the things they saw around them, waving the words back at each other before moving on.
Fiera 2 Aspen 6.2/6.2 Langley 9.2/9.2 Foreign Language (LSL) 7
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 9:05:45 GMT -6
They made Fiera especially glad that she had brought her plant identification guide with her as well. Every time they passed a different plant, Aspen would pull her over and frantically ask what it was. It was clear after the first three times they did this that they wouldn’t just take “tree” or “bush” for an answer, and that they wanted more detailed signs. Fiera supposed it was important to them- it made sense that dryads would be more attuned to different types of plants than Fiera… who really only cared if they were useful to her in some way. Langley was picking up information quickly too, though they were a lot more shy about it and usually waited to ask Fiera a bunch of questions at once in the quieter moments. Over the next couple of weeks, Fiera was sure to take the pair out and about plenty of times so they could add more words to their lexicon. The humanish was also sure to nudge their grammar in the right direction every so often too, making sure that they were saying everything correctly and not just jamming words together in any order they pleased to create an unintelligible mess.
Fiera 3 Aspen 6.3/6.3 Langley 9.3/9.3 Foreign Language (LSL) 8
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 9:06:05 GMT -6
She took them out to plenty of places too, not just the public park. Museums (though they got quite a few odd looks there), the river, the lake. Once she even took them on a trek through the canyons, where they learned QUITE a few signs for draconics… after they had finished cowering in a tiny cave from the large beasts. Their sentences were no longer choppy, disjointed messes. Instead they spoke fluidly, their fingers melting from one sign to another instead of in discrete “letters” like before. They had conversations instead of brute forcing meaning through repetition. Some of the conversations were quite simple, but it was clear from day to day that they were always improving. Langley seemed to quite enjoy having a close friend to talk to- the other harachiu were nice, but far too rowdy for the more quiet artist. Despite the disparity in size, Aspen was the perfect conversational partner for them, their energy more subdued. Fiera chalked it up to the fact that they were half nyssa, but really it could come from anywhere. It wasn’t long before they were coming up with inside jokes and references that Fiera didn’t understand… but didn’t feel a particular need to understand either.
Fiera 4 Aspen 6.4/6.4 Langley 9.4/9.4 Foreign Language (LSL) 9
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 4, 2022 9:06:26 GMT -6
After a while though, they hardly seemed to need Fiera’s guidance. The pair was happy to talk to each other as well as her, and Fiera would often see them chit chatting with their hands even when she was only around casually. The woman had no doubt that the fact that they were learning together was making the process far faster and easier than if they had to learn it alone. Fiera almost always taught her pets that were capable of speech in pairs for the same reason. The humanish was more than happy to field any questions and frequently took them out on the town so they could learn more, but for the most part her job was done. She had granted them the gift of language, and from here it was their duty to continue it further. After all, nobody was ever “done” with learning words. Even Fiera was always picking things up here and there… even if it was mostly the weird slang that kids were saying nowadays. Either way though, Fiera was sure that she had fostered not just the use of language, but a bond between Aspen and Langley at the same time- hopefully one that would last.
Fiera 5 Aspen 7/7 Langley 10.0/10.0 Foreign Language (LSL) 10
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 14, 2022 20:04:20 GMT -6
The public park was still cold today, but hopefully Fiera and Langley would be moving around enough to make up for it. Fiera had found them a nice quiet spot away from any main thoroughfares, a place that would be plenty muffled by the trees surrounding them. Aspen wasn't here this time, and for good reason- Fiera was trying to help Langley woo them. And what person didn't appreciate a good song on the violin? "Uh, Fiera?" Langley said nervously, shifting the violin around in their lap. "I think this... I think this might be a little bit big for me?" They said, peering out from behind it. Harachiu... weren't exactly known for their size, but Fiera was sure she could make it work. "No no, you just need to hold it differently. Try holding it like a cello." Langley looked at her blankly, not knowing what that was in the slightest.
Fiera 5 Langley 12.1/12.1 Play Instrument (Violin) 1
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 14, 2022 20:29:05 GMT -6
"Like... like this." Fiera said, reaching out and adjusting their hands, letting the violin rest on the ground. It was true, Langley couldn't hold a violin like Fiera could, and she was pretty sure anything she could find that would actually be their size would... sound terrible. The humanish wasn't about to let that stop them though- there was ROMANCE to be had. She had brought a little recording of other violin playing too to play off of her WATT... though she'd get to that later. For now, she just needed to show Langley the fingering and how to pull the bow to make a noise that wasn't a horrible screech. Fiera was, admittedly, pretty rusty. She hadn't played violin since she was a child, but it was coming back to her pretty quickly. Enough that she could teach it to someone else, at least. After a little while, Langley had managed to get the hang of a decent, trembling hum.
Fiera 6 Langley 12.2/12.2 Play Instrument (Violin) 2
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 14, 2022 20:36:37 GMT -6
"That's it!" Fiera encouraged, and quickly set about showing them where to place their fingers. It was... admittedly difficult for someone Langley's size, and it involved a lot more armwork than someone Fiera's size would ever need to do. They figured it out eventually however, and soon Langley could painstakingly make their way through a musical scale. Fiera let them practice just that for a while before teaching them some other scales, letting them judge how each one felt different in mood and fingering. They played like that for a while... though not all in one day. After all, something like learning an instrument couldn't be taught just in one afternoon. Instead, Fiera spread it out through multiple lessons across a few weeks until they were able to play the scales with confidence... at which point threw another wrench in the mix, to the harachiu's utter dismay. Sheet music... was a thing that existed.
Fiera 7 Langley 12.3/12.3 Play Instrument (Violin) 3
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 14, 2022 20:45:45 GMT -6
It took a while to teach them that. They didn't take to it readily, that was for sure. Especially considering that Fiera hadn't taught them to read normal text yet. But thankfully, one didn't need knowledge of common characters in learning sheet music; it was a different language entirely. She took them through the scales as they were reflected on paper, learning each note one painstaking step at a time. It was at this point though that Fiera was able to teach them actual MUSIC- simple tunes, but something far more exciting than the scales that they had been obligated to do thusfar. The first time they managed to choke out "Mary Had A Little Lamb" was a joyous day for them both. Not because it was a very good song, but because it was a SONG. It was music- a form of self expression. And they had a lot more expressing left in them.
Fiera 8 Langley 12.4/12.4 Play Instrument (Violin) 4
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Post by Fiera Ferella on Feb 14, 2022 20:50:10 GMT -6
They practiced a lot more in private after that, trying out little ditties to play on their own. They weren't very good yet, but it was clear that Langley was getting more confident in their music, both things that they had learned to play from sheet music and things they had made up on their own. It was almost as if the desire to woo Aspen had been forgotten... and Fiera supposed it had to a degree, lost in the joy of creativity. As Fiera taught Langley more songs however, she would occasionally get little mentions of "...Do you think they'll like it?" The answer to which was always "Of course they will." It wasn't about the violin playing, Fiera noted as Langley floated through another song they had memorized in Fiera's living room. It was about the confidence- the ability to perform a skill and do it well without thinking about it. And that, thankfully, was something that Langley could do now.
Fiera 10 Langley 13.0/13.0 Play Instrument (Violin) 5
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