sunnydalealum | (no subject)

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The thin slanting light of a winter midafternoon is sifting in through the high windows as two figures step into the main room of the Library of the New Watchers' Council: a vast round vaulted space lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Andrew's seen it before; he's looking at Nita, grinning in anticipation of her reaction.

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Rueful: "True that. I think I only know maybe two or three people in the bar whose worlds are rougher than ours."

"Hah. Yeah. And I don't envy 'em."

She glances down at her notes.

"Well. At least we can try to understand them better."

He nods. "It's the job."

Several minutes of mostly-quiet study ensue.

"Okay," Nita says decisively. "I think I've got at least part of this. Here." She clears her throat.

"The Realms of Dust -- that's the sentient-abstract-concept -- said to the klexsiowyn -- these here give you the context for that, the aware-but-lacking-self-abstract-tradition part, but who knows what the tradition actually is -- that by complex possessive pronoun power they would lift, possibly with shades of meaning we're not getting the enemies of the Sulcar out of darkness."

She cocks her head. "That last part's literal, I think."

"Yeah." He's frowning at the syllabary, and simultaneously consulting a separate book. "Except if 'darkness' is literal but 'lift' isn't ..."

"Geez." She rubs her head and laughs. "That'll be fun if it's metaphorical. Or metaphysical. I can't even pin down that stuff in English sometimes."

He glances up, interested. "How about in the Speech?"

"Metaphors in the Speech are . . . weird. I mean, they absolutely exist. There are wizardries you can only do by making one thing stand in for another -- re-enactments, for example."

(One hand has strayed to the scars on the opposite forearm, tracing them absently.)

"But they're still not exactly metaphors like we understand them in English. If you say -- I don't know, if you say 'Hope is a thing with feathers' in the Speech, it passes out of a poetic image and into at least a kind of reality."

"So it's not so much a metaphor as ... I don't even know what you would call that. It gets literalized."

"Enacted. Well, sometimes, anyway." She grins ruefully. "There are words for it in the Speech, but they don't always translate well."

"Trouble with a language that precise, yeah, is other languages are ... not so precise. We don't have the words. Which is sometimes a problem with Sulcaric, too." He scowls at the syllabary. "Wanna see if we can finish the page?"

"Absolutely."

Time passes.

Eventually, Nita tosses down her pen and leans back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. "Okay, my brain is officially on strike."

"Nng," agrees Andrew, and follows suit on both counts.

"Think we can probably stop here and call the experiment a success."

"Agreed." She stretches and grins. "I might have to come back some time and keep reading. I'm getting kind of involved in the saga of Ioxekai. --I mean, if I may."

He grins back. "I'd have to arrange it with Harry again, but I can do that. And who knows, maybe next time you could talk shop with Rachel or the rest of the coven. Compare kung fu styles?"

Snort.

"Is that a good idea? I mean" -- she lowers her voice a little -- "do they know about Milliways and all that?"

He shakes his head. "Not so far as I know, but ..."

A pause, and he chews his lip.

"I mean, there are different styles of magic in this world too ... but you know what, yeah, you might be right."

(It has occurred to him, a bit belatedly, that they're already lucky that Rachel didn't recognize the name Nita Callahan.)

She looks rueful.

"I did think I was treading on thin ice earlier. And I mean, unless there's something written in the Speech around here somewhere" -- she gestures expansively -- "I'd probably start sounding pretty alien pretty fast. Ah, well."

"...I wonder if there is. That'd be interesting."

Stories do cross over, after all.

"Doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility."

"Something to look into next time, maybe? 'Cause I should probably be getting you back home soon."

"Yeah."

She looks around at the stacks, her grin softening, and then down at him.

"Andrew -- this is fantastic. Really. Thank you."

He beams back. "Anytime. And hey, I owe you for that other trip, so ... yeah."

"What, the Moon? Nah, you didn't owe me anything for that. But I'll accept this as not-a-repayment-because-you-don't-owe-me-anything."

That gets a laugh, as Andrew pushes back his chair and stands up.

(A low laugh. They are still in the library.)

"That'll work," he says, turning to lead her towards the door.

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