symbols hold infinite layers of meaning

[dark_light]

Isabella studies her new alethiometer dictionary between magical assignments from Metis. She even found a book of sample questions and answers - the English originals of the questions and the professional readers' deciphering of the answers are given, and she can try her hand at composing symbolized versions of each. She uses the exercises sparingly. There aren't that many of them, and she doesn't want to contaminate her knowledge of the subject while she's still learning, not until she has an actual alethiometer in her hands and can try asking it questions to which she already knows the answers to calibrate.

Comments

[truthwright]

At some point, Kas appears, with Petaal lying across his shoulders as a linsang.

"What's up?"

[dark_light]

"Alethiometer studying," Isabella says, tentatively drawing her shorthand for the chameleon symbol and the number 44 in her notebook of exercises and tapping the paper with the eraser. "What's up with you?"

[truthwright]

"My sweetie is fluffy," he hums, petting said sweetie on his fluffy head. "How's your studying? Is it fun? Whatcha learning?"

[dark_light]

"I'm trying to figure out how I'd phrase the question will the Euro fall against the dollar?, not because this is a question particularly worth asking the alethiometer, but because it's a question someone did ask one and get a confirmed answer to so I can practice on it."

[truthwright]

Petaal jumps to the floor and lionizes. Kas perches on him.

"So how're you doing it?"

[dark_light]

"Slowly and with considerable difficulty. And I'm sure I'm going to get it less precisely than the pro did." She frowns at her notebook, smacks herself in the forehead, and crosses out the chameleon to write in a cornucopia instead, attached to a number 1.

[truthwright]

Brightly: "Can I try?"

[dark_light]

"Sure, I'm trying to do this one from memory before I look anything up anyway," she says, tearing out a notebook page, handing over a spare pen, and offering up her phone.

[truthwright]

Kas accepts notebook, pen, and phone.

He spends some time scrolling through meanings.

[dark_light]

Isabella draws a horse stick figure (number 1), and then stops to think again.

[truthwright]

Well, okay. Crocodile, horse, cornucopia, those are just obvious. But they don't tell the whole story. The question's too narrow, anyway, like it's forgetting this thing speaks to you in full sentences whether you like it or not.

"Hey," he thinks to ask, "can you use two levels of one symbol at the same time?"

[dark_light]

"Not at the same time, but in the same question, sure," Isabella says. "You just have to be able to keep them straight in your head."

[truthwright]

"Huh. Okay," he says. "That makes my life a lot easier."

He goes back to his perusal.

[dark_light]

"Are you getting the same symbol in here twice somewhere?" Isabella asks, frowning at her distinctly non-duplicative results.

[truthwright]

"Not yet."

[dark_light]

"Okay." She draws a baby and the number one again.

[truthwright]

Kas goes back to his reading.

After some scribbling and hemming and hawing, his page looks like this:

Cornucopia - abundance, currency

Horse - Europe, transition

Crocodile - America

[dark_light]

Isabella's not looking over his shoulder. That would be cheating, and cheating is what you do when the test, and not the subject it teaches, is what you care about.

[truthwright]

"This is fun," he declares, and puts all the stuff down so he can bury his hands in Petaal's fur and snuggle her a bunch.

[dark_light]

"I'm not really doing it recreationally, but yeah, it's not bad," agrees Isabella.

[truthwright]

"When you get an alethiometer, can I play with it?"

[dark_light]

"Sure, I have to sleep sometime. If you break my alethiometer I will have to curse you though."

[truthwright]

"I won't break it," he promises. "What do curses do, anyway?"

[dark_light]

"Depends on the curse. The one Metis keeps bothering me to try gives the target a non-contagious flulike syndrome until it wears off or is removed."

[truthwright]

He snorts. "Cute."

[dark_light]

"I don't mean 'the sniffles' kind of flu, I mean it'll take the targeted person a rather heroic effort to drag themselves to the bathroom to puke and back under the covers to fall unconscious for another twelve hours," Isabella says. "There's a reason I don't want to just curse some random person even with a counterspell prepared."

[truthwright]

...Petaal giggles.

After a moment, so does Kas.

[dark_light]

"What's funny?"

[truthwright]

"Nothiiiiiiiiiing," Petaal singsongs. "Hey, I wanna hug you. Can I hug you?"

[dark_light]

Isabella looks at her translation in progress, then sets it aside. "...Okay. Stop when I say, though, if I say it. I might."

[truthwright]

"Okay," says Petaal. Kas unperches from her, and she shifts bat to fly into Isabella's lap and linsang to snuggle up in it.

[dark_light]

Isabella's got enough silk on to make this not technically daemon-touching. It is unsettlingly close nonetheless. She carefully settles her hands in her lap, letting Petaal be the one to complete the contact.

[truthwright]

Petaal nudges her head under Isabella's hand, in a very 'pet me, pet me' manner.

Kas curls up happily on the floor.

[dark_light]

It's weird, but not as weird the second time as it was the first. And not as weird when she hasn't been literally tackled, can clearly see Kas smiling, isn't startled.

Slowly, Isabella pets the linsang in her lap. She's soft.

[truthwright]

Kas is indeed smiling. Petaal is indeed soft. And she makes a happy humming sound when Isabella pets her.

Actually, they both do.

[dark_light]

Well then.

Isabella gets used to this faster than she expected. She keeps an ear out for Metis, who could return at any time, but she carries on petting Petaal with focused attention.

[truthwright]

After a little while of everyone enjoying themselves, Petaal turns into a fluffy long-haired cat and requests belly rubs.

[dark_light]

Those are also supplied.

[truthwright]

Purrrrrr.