what in the longdark spitting-pit is that

[inourhead]

This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea.

Holly runs as fast as she can but the demon's faster. She has no idea where Lightning's gotten to; maybe he found a tree to climb. She on the other hand has been diverted into a treeless hill and she's careening down a slope, trying very hard not to trip.

And the demon's gaining on her.

She's never seen anything like it and neither has Crystal; maybe Book knows what it is but Book's asleep. It's mostly mouth - it looks like a cross between a floorlength mirror of a mouth and a snake to propel the mouth along.

And Holly's not fast enough.

The mouth catches her.





But it doesn't hurt.

Where are we?

----


with Minus (kappa)

with Mark (kappa)

with Max (Benedict)

in Terraria (kappa)

with Emma (Marri)

with Erin (Rockeye)

Comments

[unblinkered]

He makes a strangled sort of sound- and rummages in Gloria's desk for objects for her to turn into food. He finds a- a package of confiscated chewing gum, a box of chalk, a box of sidewalk chalk for whatever reason, some expo markers, paper clips, staples, some- beef jerky? Isn't she vegetarian?- and... that's it.

He dumps the lot of it on a desk and looks at her expectantly.

[inourhead]

She seems to find the stuff mildly interesting; she holds the papayapple between her teeth so her hands are free and sifts through it. Chalk: not that interesting. Chewing gum: bizarre. Paper clips: momentarily intriguing. Staples: bewildering. Beef jerky: she offers this back to Max without doing anything to it.

[unblinkered]

Okay, that's not what- does she even...?

He takes a piece of sidewalk chalk and a stick of gum, and repeats the staring/shaking gesture with one in each hand.

[inourhead]

She laughs at him. She picks up two pieces of sidewalk chalk, swaps their colors, puts them back down, makes a gesture at them that might be accompanied by a "ta-da!" if she spoke English and didn't have her mouth full, and takes another bite out of her papayapple.

[unblinkered]

okay it is not just a food thing

But she can't... gum-ify chalk? Or chalk-ify gum? Or... no, she just took that to mean, do that in general, with the... and she...

He takes a piece of chalk and walks up to the blackboard, and draws the plane for... Kweengow, and a circle with scribbly continents for Earth. Above Kweengow, he draws an apple core and a peanut, with arrows pointing to each other, and then draws the same thing above Earth. The one above Earth, he scribbles out.

[inourhead]

She taps the ex-wax-apple in her hand, confused.

[unblinkered]

Well, okay, yes, clearly she can do the thing. He elaborates, by drawing several stick figures with accompanying crossed-out apple/peanut, and a final stick figure- clearly meant to resemble her- with the swappy magic doodle not crossed out.

Or maybe that's not why she was confused? He's... he's going to have to let Gloria handle her, she knows... how to get past this stuff.

[inourhead]

She squints at him. She picks up two more pieces of sidewalk chalk. She swaps their colors a few times - and then offers the chalk to him.

[unblinkered]

What is she trying to say? She... does she think he's lying about not being able to do it? Does she even recognize that he... did the drawing not get it across?

Was she... trying to demonstrate how to...?

He... takes the chalk, and... he doesn't do the exaggerated gesture this time, but he concentrates on the chalk, willing them to swap colors. He feels really stupid.

[inourhead]

The chalk stays the same.

"Nuo," she murmurs, in loosely the same tone of voice that might accompany "holy shit".

[unblinkered]

"Nwoh?"

He puts the chalk back down on the table.

[inourhead]

She is looking at the drawings again. She tilts her head. She grabs a piece of paper. She draws the simplified map of her flat home. She draws stick people on it, each holding two sticks of chalk (she draws the chalk with chalk, to make it clear). She draws arrows from each of those people to new drawings of the same stick people with the chalk colors swapped.

She draws a sphere with the United States on it.

She draws people near it, holding chalk, and arrows that circle around to point back at the same drawings they originated at.

[unblinkered]

Is that... it looks like she's got it? He's not sure if... the looping arrows are meant to imply... some kind of change of state, and not just things staying the same, then he's not sure what that would mean. But...

Okay. So. Probably not some kid pulling a prank, if they can magically transmute objects. There's less reason to doubt the teleporting-snake explanation.

But that means there's a parallel world with flat topography and switchy magic and snake monsters. He has to seriously inquire about this, now.

...And he can't do that.

[inourhead]

And she can't help him. She shakes the drawing, as though she wants him to do something with it.

[unblinkered]

Max looks more carefully at the drawing. He's at a loss for what to tell her... well, she wouldn't want him to tell her something, he can't speak her language, but... does she want him to draw something?

He... turns her drawing around to show it to her, and slowly nods. Was it confirmation she wanted?

[inourhead]

She tilts her head. She draws something else: a stick figure with a motion-blur of its head going up and down. She points at it and tilts her head again.

[unblinkered]

...Oh. So her world doesn't have the same body language. Um...

How do you translate the concept of "yes" and "no"?

He starts drawing a picture- two stick figures next to a cube, one of them pointing at the cube with a speech bubble containing a picture of the cube. The other stick figure is nodding his head up and down.

Halfway through, he realizes the problem- but finishes it anyway. Better to fail to communicate than to give mixed signals. He draws the same picture, but this time the first stick figure's speech bubble has a picture of a pyramid, and the second stick figure's motion lines are horizontal.

The problem, of course, is that if she doesn't understand nodding, she probably doesn't understand speech bubbles. He... draws little mouths on the stick figures, and draws arrows between their mouths and their speech bubbles. Maybe it'll get the idea across?

[inourhead]

...She draws a large speech bubble on a fresh piece of paper, and writes something five letters long in it, and holds it pointing to her mouth, and says, "Traas?"

[unblinkered]

...he nods. And then says "Tross". There are too many words for speech, and her meaning too uncertain, to try to give her an English word. He... thinks she's correctly interpreting the meaning of the speech bubble? If she's not, this could get confusing.

[inourhead]

She looks at the paper again, then smiles and nods.

[unblinkered]

Okay, so... he points to his drawing of the nodding stick figure and says "yes", and his drawing of the head-shaking stick figure and says "no".

[inourhead]

She nods and approximately repeats "yes", then more ably does the same thing with "no" shaking her head.

[unblinkered]

Okay, so now that she-

He hears footsteps in the hall.

The other teachers are arriving- the students will be filing in within half an hour, and he'll have to explain what's going on to Gloria when she shows up in here. The impossible magic angle is not something he expected to have to saddle her with.

Half an hour, at most, is not enough time to teach an alien girl English and learn about her world and how it works. He's going to need to let Gloria take care of her, and she might find out about the swapping, and how's he going to explain this to her anyway, and if people find out, she'll...

Well, hang on. In stories, people keep the magic thing secret because they don't think anyone will believe them, or something, right? What would actually be the problem with telling the truth, here? He's pretty sure the government doesn't actually kidnap unusual people and lock them up in labs as test subjects. How would keeping this secret even remotely help?

So... priority number one, get her to cooperate and stay here and learn English, while he goes and teaches his class. So he'll have to explain...

He points at the strange characters she wrote in her speech bubble. "Word. Kweengow word." He grabs a random book, and points at a word in it. "English word." And another- "English word."

...one of those was actually a Spanish word, but he's hardly going to complicate matters with that.

[inourhead]

"Nlaaki word," she corrects, after a moment's thought, pointing at her speech bubble. "English word." Nod nod.

[unblinkered]

"Right! Yes!" Okay, so...

"Max teach Pyay English word." He points at the picture of Gloria. "Gloria teach Pyay English word."