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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 20:59:13 GMT -6
She didn’t know the rest of the question she wanted to ask, but this was enough to make her understood.
“-Rabbit,-” he said for her, slowly. “-Rab-bit.-”
“-Rabbit,-” Rei repeated. She pointed to another card. “-What?-”
“-Pig,-” San said. “-What color is it?-”
“-Pink,-” Rei replied.
San nodded, and waited for her to choose another animal. This time she pointed at a picture of an elephant. For a moment neither of them spoke, and from his silence she must have deduced that he was waiting for her. “-What,-” she said again.
“-Elephant,-” San replied slowly. This, too, she repeated; and then he asked, “-What color?-”
“-Grey.-”
She pointed to a bear next. “-What?-” She said.
Now San corrected her, “-What is it.-”
“-What is it?-” she asked, this time using the full phrase as he had demonstrated. San nodded once again.
“-Bear,-” he said. “-What color is the bear?-”
“-Brown.-”
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 20:59:24 GMT -6
“-What color is the rabbit?-” They had never gone over that one, when she had pointed to it, so now San took the opportunity to ask her.
It took her a moment; perhaps she had to recall which one ‘rabbit’ was. But then, after a pause, she said, “-White.-”
“-Good.-”
She didn’t start at the affirmation this time, but he could see her ears twitch ever so slightly. A little guilt tugged at him after all, and he thought of his coldness to her with some regret. But the awkwardness remained, and he could say nothing on the matter, and so he did not.
Instead he waited for her to point to another animal, and in this manner they went through the animal cards as well, San telling her one by one what they were and asking her for the colors. When that was done, they revisited the fruit and their colors, and he taught her the names of those, one by one.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:00:16 GMT -6
Then he put the cards away, signalling that the lesson was over; this would be enough for her to digest for now. Learning a language was a difficult thing, especially at the beginning, and he didn’t want to overwhelm her with too much too soon.
He hadn’t known, at that point, whether she would show up the next day, or if she would wait until several days onward. But she did show up the next day, and so he made room on the floor again for the cards, and laid them out. They went over the names of each of the objects, to see how much she remembered, and then once more so he could fill in the gaps and correct any of her mistakes.
And then he said, “-What’s red?-”
These were both words she should have recognized, from what they had gone over in their last session.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:00:28 GMT -6
It took her a moment, and he could see a slight frown of concentration as she puzzled out the words, or perhaps tried to recall which color it was. Then she pointed at the apple. She didn’t seem certain, but she wasn’t wrong, so San nodded for her once. “-Good. What’s blue?-”
This time she pointed to a card with a peacock on it. “-What’s brown?-” San prompted. For that, she chose a bear. “-What’s yellow?-” A lemon. “-One more,-” San said, holding up one finger. Rei regarded him for a moment, then pointed to the butterfly card. They weren’t all yellow, but the one in the picture was.
San nodded again. “-What’s green? Orange? Purple? Grey? Black?-” In this manner, they went through all the colors, and Rei picked out cards corresponding to each. The colors, at least, she had memorized fairly well.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:00:40 GMT -6
But then, that was the thing they had gone over the most so far, and done the most exercises with, so that didn’t surprise him.
Having used the color practice as an interlude, San went over the fruits and animals with her one more time. She did better this time around, having had a refresher just a little while ago. When they wrapped up that round, San collected the animal cards, then said, “-What’s your favorite fruit?-” He accompanied the words with gestures. ‘What’ she should already have known, and given how long she had been around people speaking Xin, he expected she knew ‘you’ as well, but even so, he motioned to her when he said it.
“-Favorite?-” said Rei.
“The one you like most,” San replied, in Common.
She paused for a moment, muttering the word under her breath to herself a few times, likely trying to commit it to memory.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:01:05 GMT -6
Then she seemed to consider the question for itself. “-Peaches,-” she said at last.
“-What color are peaches?-” San said.
“-Pink,-” Rei replied. “-And white.-”
San nodded. “-Peaches,-” he said, “-grow…-” Here he made a motion with his hands of something getting bigger. “-... in the summer.- Summer,” he said again, in Common, for her benefit. There were picture cards of the seasons somewhere too, but he didn’t want to dig around for them.
“-Summer,-” Rei repeated. “Is it summer now?”
“-No,-” San said, and shook his head so she would know what he meant. “-Now, it’s fall.- Fall.”
“-Fall,-” Rei repeated. San thought that would be the end of it, and was about to get up to leave, when she said, “-What fruits?-”
San was a little surprised - pleasantly so. She had sparse enough vocabulary at this stage, and up until recently, she hadn’t spoken at all, even to him.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:01:45 GMT -6
And after what had happened at the Bell House, they hadn’t talked much. But now she was using even her limited Xin to have something resembling a conversation, and he could tell that she was making a real effort.
But then, she had been the one to ask him to teach her.
“-Apples,-” he said. “-Grapes, pears, dates.-” He ticked them off on his fingers one by one. “-Pomegranate.-”
“-Pomegranate,-” she repeated. There hadn’t been a card for that one.
“In a few days,” San said, and then in Xin, “-come outside with me.-” He motioned to himself, and then gestured up. Rei puzzled over it for a moment, then nodded.
Having come to an arrangement, San rose, put away his things, and took his leave of the storage room. He had other things to do before their mission tonight, and they had done enough for the time being.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 5, 2020 21:01:56 GMT -6
There were a few days before San could take her on a proper outing, but they reviewed the cards together whenever they both had time. The colors she had already memorized, but after a few such sessions, she no longer hesitated or had to think on which was which. And the objects themselves became easier for her too, a little more gradually.
She was a quick learner, though he had her repeat the exercises even after she had become proficient at them. Language atrophied without use. His Common had faded somewhat in the months between Robin’s lessons and his first meeting with her, and it had taken a while to recover all of what he knew. He only remembered it now for her sake. But Rei had Xin all around her, spoken everywhere she went, and occasionally she would bring back a new word to him that she was curious about, and he would explain to her what it was.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:18:53 GMT -6
At the moment her vocabulary was still small, so he had to explain a lot of words to her, but in time he knew she would begin to be able to work things out for herself. There was a critical threshold of known words for that, after which point one would be able to understand most of what one was hearing, and from there it was easier to pick up and puzzle out the new words that came up.
For the moment though, she still relied on him to explain, and he did so as best he could.
The day they had set upon arrived, and San set out with Rei in the morning. It was a strange time for them to be above ground, though he imagined it must have been that much more strange for Rei. She hadn’t had the occasion, or the freedom, to leave as she liked until recently.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:19:14 GMT -6
And even if she could come and go as she pleased now, within reason, San didn’t know whether she had; they didn’t speak often now, except in the scope of these lessons, and it was the general way of the Watchful not to ask too many questions about your fellow agent.
As they stepped out from a hidden door into a tiny alleyway near one of the markets, San watched Rei for any sign of a reaction. But she seemed her usual self, or at least not particularly affected; and the light no longer dazzled her as it might have a few months ago.
They made their way to the market in silence, but once they were there, San began to point things out to her, and to name them. “-Shoes,-” he said, when they passed a cobbler’s stall. “-Hats.-” And when they ventured past a hawker surrounded by cages, he pointed at one and asked. “-What is it?-”
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:19:27 GMT -6
“-A bird,-” Rei replied.
San had thought that would be the end of the exchange, but Rei reached out a hand from where she stood in the satchel and tugged at the hem of his shirt. He glanced down, and she made a gesture with her hands, fingers interlaced. “-What is it?-” she said.
“-A cage,-” he said.
“-Cage,-” she repeated. She mouthed the word once more, and then was silent. San frowned slightly, but said nothing, and walked on.
He continued to point things out to her, teaching her their names in Xin. Most of them she repeated back to him, quietly, so that only San, who was listening for her, could hear. In the morning the market was busy enough that one stray voice among many could be lost in the din, and explained away as this passing child or that girl in the crowd. If anyone overheard snatches of their strange conversation, they paid it no mind.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:19:45 GMT -6
In this meandering fashion, they eventually arrived at a fruit stand. He asked her to name the ones she knew, and after she did, he pointed out the ones she didn’t. The market district being what it was, there was a good variety even this far north, though not what there would have been in the summer.
The shopkeeper caught his eye. “-Apples, apples,-” he said. “-Fresh from the orchards just outside the city. Two coppers each, six for ten. How about it, boy?-”
San shook his head. “-How much for a pomegranate?-” he said, pointing them out on the display.
The man laughed. “-Expensive tastes! Two silver.-”
“-Too much,-” San said. “-One silver, three copper.-”
“-Three copper? You’re kidding. We have to get these all the way from Yushan! One silver seven copper, and no lower.-” The shopkeeper crossed his arms.
San eyed the pomegranates, biting his lip. “-Five copper,-” he said.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:20:34 GMT -6
“-Six,-” said the man.
“-Deal.-” San handed over the coins - these stolen here and there on his other trips around the city - and picked out one of the pomegranates under the shopkeeper’s watchful eye. He saw the man sigh a bit, but he knew the prices and the seasonality of the fruit; the man hadn’t been lying, but he hadn’t gotten a bad deal either. A stubborn haggler could have brought him lower, but San wasn’t interested in doing more than not drawing attention to himself, and a shopper who didn’t haggle in these parts would have instantly marked themselves as either a fool or a stranger. Even his conflict over their final exchange had been feigned.
Having gotten what he came for, San ducked into the nearest side street he could find, and from there they made their way back to another warren entrance.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:23:01 GMT -6
He could have found a quiet place somewhere above ground, but if someone caught sight of Rei in the open, that would cause more problems than it was worth. In the end, they made their way back to the usual storage room. It was empty during the day, especially since Rei had taken up quarters there. The other unit members, whether out of distaste or the courtesy of giving her some privacy, had found other places to pass their time.
Rei fluttered up out of the satchel as they walked in, settling on a box. “What did you say to him?” she said. “-Five copper. Too much. Deal.-” One after another, she repeated his words back at him.
“We…” San paused. “I don’t know the Common word for this. We argued about prices, but neither of us were angry.”
“Haggling,” Rei supplied softly.
“We haggled,” San agreed, committing that word to memory for himself.
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Post by Linyü on Aug 9, 2020 22:25:44 GMT -6
His Common was much more advanced than her Xin, but he had learned it as a second language, and from only the one source at that. He had never asked her for words he didn't know before, since she hadn't spoken, and things between them had become strained not long after she had finally begun to speak out loud. But now maybe he would, to make this feel more like an exchange, if nothing else.
He still had a few coins left, and he took these out to show her. “This is a -copper-. That one is a -silver-. The most valuable one is -gold-, but I don’t have one… It’s -yellow-, but brighter.” He used the Xin word for the color, since he wanted her to get used to listening for words she knew as much as he could.
Rei studied the coins, and repeated their names out loud.
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