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Post by Noa on Jun 15, 2019 16:18:59 GMT -6
“Me,” Rabbit said. “You… wish for me to return.”
He did not look entirely satisfied, perhaps because she had so misinterpreted his meaning multiple times by now. But he did nod once more, even if it was with a somewhat strained expression.
Having confirmed all this, however, Rabbit was quite… She did not have a word for what she was experiencing, except that it was odd, an unexpected turn of events. But even that felt insufficient to describe it, as though the magnitude did not quite fit.
It had never happened like this before, that a creature, or indeed, that anyone would demand that Rabbit, specifically, accompanied them. The creatures on the property were certainly indifferent to her--- at least the ones who had not yet been closely worked with. Those that were bonded to Aster… It went without saying that they regarded her as less, but that was a matter of course, as she had no established bond with them.
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Post by Noa on Jun 15, 2019 16:19:11 GMT -6
She was a provider of food and other needs, nothing more.
Even Aster himself, who had at least regarded her as her own individual and who gave her a great deal of free reign, was more inclined to rely on her to run errands in his stead. In that sense, any robot would have done just as well. If a creature could be sent, or if his aversion to other organic humanoids could have been curbed, then creatures or friends might have done just as well.
It had not occurred to Rabbit that anyone or anything could form an attachment to her as an individual.
It was a revelation, but it was one she had no idea what to do with. Her mind could only try to turn to explanations, but it wouldn’t settle on anything. That wasn’t right; a robot should not have been capable of being unsettled. It was interfering with her functionality, which was counterproductive.
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Post by Noa on Jun 15, 2019 16:19:54 GMT -6
She remembered that Aster had mentioned that she had been sold to him at a discount, with the knowledge that she had some minor defects. He had never disclosed what those defects were, and may not have known the specifics himself, but she wondered if this was one such defect coming to the fore now.
At this point the creature made an impatient noise. Rabbit realized that she had been silent for some time now. She still had no answers for herself, but as he was demanding one from her, she strove to find one to give him. “Do you wish to learn more?” she said. She had not been spending her time with him idly in recent weeks. Now that she was thinking about it, perhaps it was merely that there was more he wished to know.
The creature calmed, and nodded once. “Very well. What do you wish to learn?” she said.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:40:52 GMT -6
He did not immediately answer, and looked as though he was thinking about it himself. Rabbit had expected him to have something specific in mind, given how unhappy he had been about her absence, and his insistence that she should return. But perhaps it was more the availability of her service that mattered, in the end. Some creatures were capricious, and others were jealous of resources--- food, attention, time. It may well have been the case with this one.
At length, he disappeared back into the barn. Rabbit waited. She made a few attempts to predict what he might request, but found that she could not come up with anything, and in the end, could only stand there and wait to see.
He returned after what sounded like a great deal of rustling, holding a book delicately in his jaws. Rabbit took in the sight of him holding the book, and was stunned for a moment by how odd it looked.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:41:22 GMT -6
Start: Read
Like this, he almost resembled an overgrown dog, bringing someone an object for them to throw.
… Of course, that could hardly be what he was asking of her. She dismissed the thought immediately. A more logical conclusion presented itself. “You wish to learn to read?” she said.
The creature nodded again.
She should perhaps have anticipated this particular request, especially as it had been her own prerogative to begin reading to him. It had had the desired effect of improving his comprehension of the language, but having learned it, the next natural step was to wish to learn how to read. He was not, after all, without the ability--- he had both use of his sight and a mind suited to the learning of it.
But even teaching a child to read was a sometimes arduous process, and it would take some time even if he was very apt at it.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:42:03 GMT -6
And they would have to begin with the very basics of reading, starting from scratch. He was holding the book and watching her expectantly, but they would not start there.
She took the book from him and set it aside, then looked around for a suitable place. Eventually she found one and led him to it.
The creature looked confused. There was nothing to see here but mud. It had rained the previous night, and even as overgrown as most of the property was, there were some portions that were bare ground. As he looked around, Rabbit produced a stick, and drew something in the dirt.
"This is the letter A," she said. "This is the upper case, and this is the lower case. For now we won't worry about rules of grammar, and you can think of the two as essentially the same. They make the 'ah' sound and the 'ay' sound."
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:42:39 GMT -6
The creature watched her as she drew, then looked at the dirt to see what she had produced. As she followed his gaze, she realized a problem, and beckoned him over to her. "You were looking at it from the wrong direction. This is what it looks like right side up," she explained.
With a humanoid child or something that could speak--- not that she had experience teaching these to read either--- she might have asked them to repeat the sound. With him, this was not an option. She could only hope that he was absorbing it mentally, and move on. "This letter is a part of the alphabet. There are twenty-six letters for Common, and together they are the building blocks of all written words."
As the creature stared at the ground, she drew another letter. "This one is B." One by one, she drew out the letters and explained them one by one, going over the sound that each one made.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:43:10 GMT -6
It was hard to tell how much the creature was managing to absorb just through this, but at least he would have the letters to study when she went away, and she could see about getting him some better, more permanent resources later.
Having explained the full alphabet, she said, "These five letters are vowels. They form the central sound of a syllable. The consonants to either side shape the sound. Y can also act as a vowel in certain cases, but sometimes it will act as a consonant instead. It is best to make your judgement about Y after looking at whether it is surrounded by consonants or vowels."
The creature did seem to be looking at the letters with a gaze of intense concentration. Rabbit felt that it was best to leave him for the moment, so that he might absorb the information in peace, without the disturbance of her presence.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:43:24 GMT -6
It was only the alphabet, but as far as things to learn in the span of a day, it really was a lot to take in at once.
As she rose, the creature looked up from where he had been staring at the letters on the ground. "I will return tomorrow with better resources," she said. "For now, please focus on reviewing the letters of the alphabet and their associated sounds."
She wondered if he would attempt to protest her leaving, but he seemed to understand that there was not much more she could do for him at present. He merely nodded, and returned to staring at the letters. Rabbit took her leave without incident, and left him looking quite strangely--- a lone figure staring at a patch of dirt. But no one came often to this part of the property except herself, so the chances that he would be seen like this by anyone else was low.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:43:40 GMT -6
Rabbit was as good as her word to return the next day, and she did bring with her a great deal of things. One of these was a voice recorder, with recorded clips of each of the letters and the sounds they made. It was what she had gone over with him, but there were a lot of letters and a lot of sounds, and Rabbit could not always be on hand to remind him as to which letter corresponded to which sound. She also didn't expect him to memorize them all after only hearing them once. He was clever, but that level of memorization was the purview of savants and other unusual individuals only.
The creature was waiting for her where she had left him last time. She had the absurd thought, for a moment, that he had been waiting here for her through the night, but of course that wasn't true.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:43:59 GMT -6
He had almost certainly just made his way here as a convenient place to continue from where they left off yesterday, in case she had need of the mud patch again.
She presented the voice recorder to him. "I have recorded the letters as I explained them to you yesterday," she said. "This way, you may have access to that information whenever you like. You press this button to play a clip, like so, and this one to cycle through to the next one." She demonstrated the functions of the voice recorder as he watched, then handed it over to him so that he might try it. He fiddled with it for a while, a bit awkwardly at first, for his hands were so much larger and somewhat less dexterous. But he seemed to have grasped the use of it after some finagling, and at that point he set it aside.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:44:37 GMT -6
He turned his expectant gaze on her, likely to inquire about the other things that she had brought with her.
Obligingly, Rabbit held them out for his inspection. They were mostly cue cards, with large print or pictures printed on them, and of a size where she felt he would not have issues manipulating them even at his size. One set had the full alphabet, so he could study them where he liked instead of relying on her to draw them out for him.
In that sense, perhaps she was not so much teaching him for now as providing the resources with which he might teach himself, but he did seem to have a preference for independence. The incident from the previous day aside, she had never seen anything to suggest that he did not desire autonomy. In fact, he often showed signs of taking the initiative to practice other things on his own too.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:45:20 GMT -6
It occasionally even gave her cause to wonder how long the current state of affairs would last, once he had recovered. Would he, thus freed from his reliance on her, then cut ties with her altogether? But that sort of conjecture was largely beyond her. Rabbit's time and efforts were best preserved for the here and now.
The creature took the cue cards and began flipping idly through them. The fact that he could use them so easily was a good sign. It would have been counterproductive to give him things that he could not use after all.
The other set of cue cards were more detailed, and in this set were contained the ones with images on their backs. Some had words, and others had images; the point of the game was to match one to the other.
She showed these to him too, when he was done examining the first set of cue cards.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:45:51 GMT -6
"I will not read them aloud for you. I think you may be able to figure them out when you have a rudimentary grasp of the alphabet," she said. Perhaps he wouldn't, but she wished for him to try first.
He examined the images for a moment, then wrinkled his nose in distaste. Rabbit looked at the one he was examining, but it was merely an image of a color. He must not have been taking umbrage to the specific contents of this particular card. Guessing at his concerns, Rabbit said, "I understand that these resources may appear somewhat juvenile, as they are intended for young learners. But they are designed for extreme beginners, and at your skill level, they are suitable tools for practice."
The creature looked, if anything, more unhappy, but he did take the cards from her. There was little room to debate the point of his skill level. "It is nothing to be ashamed of," Rabbit said.
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Post by Noa on Jun 17, 2019 20:46:26 GMT -6
The creature gave her a pointed look. Rabbit subsided, and said nothing more on the matter.
Just because she gave him the resources to practice on his own didn't mean she meant to leave him entirely to his own devices, however. She soon took up the voice recorder and laid out the alphabet cards. "Let us review," she said, and player the first clip again, picking out the relevant letter. They did this with all of them, going over each one again in turn. Once they were finished, Rabbit collected the cards up and shuffled them before laying them all out again, out of order.
"Now I will play a clip at random. Please select the corresponding letter card when you hear the sound," she said.
The creature had calmed down from his fit of displeasure earlier, regarding the cards with the pictures on them, and how childish those had looked.
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