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 Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:50 pm
Who : Ripley, Rong Wei, and Eirdirsceol
Where : A hole in the wall bookshop located somewhere downtown
When : Mid-afternoon, likely around 2:30 or 3:00 PM
Weather : Slightly overcast with no chance of rain. Mild temperatures in the sixties.
This bookstore had better have the book she wanted or lord knows that Rong Wei was about to let anyone and everyone near her have a piece of her mind. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was nervous.
This was the third shop she'd been in that day. Her adventure out started much earlier than she would have preferred but the figure that floated a little behind her left elbow demanded that she get a move on. He'd woken her up almost as soon as the dawn had broke the sky with a violent shake of her shoulders, his face leering mere inches above her own.
"Going out today. Get ready."
She'd dressed quickly and skipped her breakfast, opting to eat while going out, though she felt her stomach rumble as she stood in front of a selection of books in reference to Ancient Egypt. She'd been unable to get anything on mythological beasts thus far by visiting the other stores so she figured she might as well change her approach. She needed to know about Sphinxes, if not in a rather larger hurry.
"Here is nice. We can stay in here."
It was good (?) that Ripley had approved on Rong Wei's choices for were they'd gone out, having not specified to begin with where his desire to 'go out' lead. The woman didn't know if she could handle any more of his reactions to displeasure, her face already sporting a trophy from an arguing match they'd share a day ago. Her cheek and eye were still a little swollen if not already starting to bruise and she winced as she absentmindedly touched the corner with the tip of her finger.
A tap on her shoulder drove her attention away from the book she'd pulled from the shelf, a generic title of Ancient Egypt gracing the cover, and her eyes swung over to the Frei that drew his face every closer to her. This was something Rong Wei was slowly noticing about her charge - when he spoke to her he had to be close. He had to be nearly eating her breath or at least touching her face, neither motion exactly rising up to be a favorite in the woman's list of things he enjoying doing.
"Over there. I'm going to look. Do not leave me."
It wasn't a request, it was a demand. Rong Wei actually hadn't even thought about leaving him until he said something, though she knew with her luck the blasted thing would show up on her doorstep that night and she'd end up with more than a bruise. She gave a nod to let the Frei go off, watching him to see what else would happen. He was giving most of the people in the shop a wide berth as he went, so far so good.
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Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 8:12 pm
"...Berkeley...Descartes...Hume...Kant..."
A haunting voice sifted through the stale air of the book store, the kind of eerie mumble that would grace the slightest edge of one's hearing. It was the degree of softness that would demand closer attention, and those who did hear probably perked their ears and looked around with furrowed brows, contemplating the existence of the strange whisper just beyond their hearing.
Eirdirsceol, minty green and perusing the aisles of the bookstore, squinted his red gaze into the book titles, tilting his head to the side to read the columns. He had been in there for sometime, idly reading and looking through books he desired and wanted. The day was free of his guardian. Isi was back at the Lab marking up and filing away the new papers for the recent raevan activity that had exploded in the lab. He was spending a lot of time going back and forth with Alex, leaving Eiry to do nothing but fend for himself. He was essentially by himself in the house during the day, what with everyone else attached to their certain jobs and duties. Eiry was lonely. He was incredibly lonely. And the only friends he had, Shakespeare and Poe...Well, they were beginning to get a bit overused. The sigel yearned for something to read that he couldn't already recite at the ready request of act, passage, and line. So, he slunk into the city, and searched out the little bookstores. He didn't have any money, but...Well, that didn't bother Eiry.
He was content enough just testing the waters with new books and smelling their covers and pages. He liked the texture of new books and he liked the way the bookshelves towered over him and crowded him in. It felt comfortable in a way.
"Plato...Socrates...Oh, mammering milk-livered mammets! I'm journeying Philosophy, not poetry..." Frowning at the titles before him, Eiry scanned the rest of the aisle, discovering that his section of choice was probably on the other side. No matter. As easily as a breeze might slip through a field of grass, Eiry pushed through into the bookshelves and out the other side, only to find himself face to face with another raevan! Blinking and reacting quickly with his instincts as a wisp, Eirdirsceol gave a great horrible face, a maniacal cackle and a curl of a demonic smile. He hoped he would see some sort of interesting reaction from this new raevan! That would certainly make his day.
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Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 2:45 pm
What?
Ripley almost moved away in sharp retreat the moment a non-human face entered his line of vision, the only thing stopping him from getting to far was the bookshelf that pressed itself into his back. He'd certainly been startled by the cackle, everyone he'd come to know so far in his short time outside the lab fairly quiet and certainly not whatever this other raeven (or so Rong Wei said his kind were) was, but it wasn't enough to move his stony expression from his face. His eyes had stayed passive, his lips had stayed closed. At most he might have raised both of his eyebrows in a form of response, but otherwise no vocal response had occurred.
Inside his mind however? He was probably screaming. Ripley did not like being startled, let alone being started in an unfamiliar place. Whenever his wits gathered themselves back together he'd think of something snappy to say, something cruel and clever all on his own, though for now he merely blinked enough to settle his nerves before letting his face do the rest of the talking for him. A thin smile of his own perhaps, a slight hint of his teeth to show he wasn't afraid. If this other being was a Raeven like himself then he had nothing to fear, for at least they seemed a bit more predictable. Humans? He was still getting used to.
But of course he couldn't just sit here and keep thinking to himself, he had to respond right? If whatever this other had done was meant to get a reaction then surely he should provide one! A King must do his duties, of course, since all around him would eventually want to think of him as a King as well. It was always good to start early.
"Hello."
Collected, calm, quiet. It didn't help that his vocabulary was still slightly limited to whatever he got out of the books Rong Wei was making him read whenever they spent quiet time together, most of the books small and full of childish pictures. He'd spent a good deal of time uninterested though he paid close attention anyway. Speaking was important, very important.
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Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2010 2:51 pm
Alright, so he moved back, but for Eirdirsceol, nothing short of a scream and pale faced trembling victim would make him happy. He gave a frown as he pulled himself all the way through the bookshelf, chest, torso and all, to float before the new raevan, his red eyes peering studiously at his unaffected mien. He raised his brows, blinked a few times, but there were no satisfying scream of horror to greet him. Perhaps it wasn't his day today, Eiry thought. Certainly, it was no fault on his part, for he was the king of pranksters...There must be something wrong with the new raevan.
Careful judging of the face, though, revealed no abnormalities. Giving an indignant sniff, the wispy raevan leaned in close and studied him for a while longer, hoping to make him feel uncomfortable or something, but the young frei merely responded with a calm and collected, "hello".
Eiry didn't lean back at all. He simply raised his brows, disappointed in the lack of interesting response from this new individual, before he crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "Little fun you are, youngling, as black as a tabula rosa at best, you are," Eiry said, speaking to him as he would a child, "Little amusement at all...But I forgive thee, young bud, you have yet to bloom, I assume, but I rather it be soon instead of later."
Letting a slow grin wrap itself onto his cheeks, Eiry unfolded his arms and made a mock bow in their cramped quarters, keeping his gaze on the other at all times, "Hello, indeed," the ghostly sigel responded at length, "As it seems that introductions are in order, I'll begin the trade. I am Eirdirsceol Etul Delaran, but, prithee, call me Eiry, as it seems many trip their tongues over my full given name." He lifted himself up from the polite bow and straightened his vest, "And yourself?"
At this point, Eiry was infinitely distracted from his quest for poetics. Thoughts of finding Poet's Choice, completely vanished, as the new frei before him and his lack of reaction devoured his attention.
"Well?"
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Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 1:14 am
" . . .complicated."
Ripley had no idea whatsoever as to what was being said to him. Nothing. At all. First of all this new person was speaking entirely too fast for him to even try to understand what was being spewed in his direction, and secondly it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo that he hadn't heard come from Rong Wei. The woman spoke a lot in words he could understand but she also spoke the Silverware Language quite a bit too.
While the new person rambled on Ripley's eyes narrowed slightly and the corner of his mouth twitched in an effort to try and recognize some of the words spoken at him. Tabula rosa? Buds? Eiry? Was Eiry his name? Who the hell knew at this point in time?! Ripley certainly didn't, but he wasn't going to let it show. Was it his turn to talk now too? Was that last word he knew directed at him because he was being prompted to reply with something? What did he want? His name? That would make sense.
"My name is Ripley. You are called Airee?"
The way he pronounced the other's name was wrong, off, but it was the best he could pick out from that blurr he'd been hearing. Ripley prided himself somewhat on being able to pay attention to what others were saying, at least whatever Rong Wei was saying, but he'd missed so much of this strangers conversation! Did all others talk like this?
By all others of course, he meant other Raevens. Was this person a Raeven? They certainly weren't human, if that meant anything.
"What are you?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 9:06 pm
Complicated wasn't even the word for it.
Eiry prided himself on being a Gordian knot of literary terms and words you'd find in the deepest darkest depths of the dictionary. He liked his role as a walking thesaurus and the reactions he got from people whenever he opened his mouth tickled him to no end. There was not much else the raevan did back at home except expand his vocabulary. He did little else than read when he was not playing jokes on the members of the household. It was seldom when he even exited the house. He went less and less with Isi on his excursions to the Lab and he had no close friends to call on him and beckon him from his paper lair. It was to his unfortunate circumstances that he was slowly becoming a home-body.
It was just Ripley's luck that Eiry happened to read through Shakespeare's complete collection for the fifty-second time that morning and found that he had a hankering for a fresh author of poetry.
Floating with a bit of bounce, as if he were leaning up and down on invisible heels, Eiry clasped his hands behind himself and stared with bright and eager eyes at the young raevan before him. His amusement grew when he saw the faint twitches in the other's face. At last! Signs of something. He was effecting him, getting through to him at least.
"It gladdens me to see that you are neither blind nor deaf, for few precious moments I assumed you were," Eiry bubbled, blinking through his mess of minty bangs at the dark-skinned frei. "Say again mine name, for thou dost err in pronunciation, youngling. Eeeear, ear-e! E! Like eerie, youngling, but alternate spelling. It's my name, mine alone. You must know it well, just as thine own, what name belongs to my face." Leaning close, putting his thumbs against Ripley's face, Eiry pushed his cheeks back, forcing his teeth and gums to show. "Ear-e! Eiry! Diminutive form of Eirdirsceol. Pronounced ear-deh-shall! Yes? Planted in your mind now is it?"
Floating back and returning his hands to clasp behind his back, Eiry puffed his flaming wings and grinned brightly. he didn't care if he had bothered the other raevan by touching him or not, personal boundaries were still something that Eiry was trying to understand. So far, he knew to keep his distance from girls, but when it came to flat-chested boys like himself, Eiry had no consideration at all for personal bubbles.
"Curious little thing thou art!" Eiry piped again, giving a spine-tingling chuckle, "I am you. I am you, like you are me! We are the same. We are raevans, youngling, raevans! Though you are but a frei and I a sigel."
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Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 12:34 pm
"Airee."
It didn't matter if Eiry was saying his name correctly or not, since Ripley was irritated and didn't want to play along with whatever game this weirdly colored creature was trying to get him to join in. While it pleased him to know that this strange person was a source of information that Rong Wei could not (or would not) readily provide; information about what he was in terms of a being, not just 'a sphinx' or 'a freak of nature that has no return policy'.
"You talk fast. What are you saying? Can't understand you yet."
Even if Ripley's grasp on the language was better, he probably still would have been confused. Rong Wei had moved from her spot nearby a bit closer, just to keep an eye on things, and she found herself shaking her head at the way this new freak without legs talked. She prayed to whatever deity she was thinking of that day that nothing happened between him and Ripely, unless she was certain it would be anything good and worthwhile.
"What is Sigel? Larger one of me? Older?"
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Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 6:37 pm
Ah, but Eiry was persistent.
"No, no, no, no, no," Eiry whined, shaking his messy coils of hair side to side as the other, even after his careful tutoring, failed to pronounce his name correctly. He pointed at his own cheeks and glowered deep into the other raevan's eyes, speaking loud and carefully, as if he were speaking to a child or a deaf man, "EAR-E, Ear-e, Eerie! Eiry! Understand yet, little suckling bloom, little tender worm of fuzz and color, preceding shape and skin of the butter that flies, do you understand yet? My name, by which you name me, is nothing but 'Ear-e'! Eerie, Eiry!"
As quickly as a leaf being toyed about with the wind, Eiry's disappointment and irritation quickly flipped to amusement. Talk fast? Eiry gave a laugh. If Ripley wanted to hear him talk fast, he very well could, but, as it was a tie in to a plea for slower speaking, Eiry did his best to choke himself simple for the frei's sake. Eiry was not cruel, cruel-humored, but not cruel.
"Very well met, Ripley, I am glad to have met you. For your slow ear, I will slow my tongue," and with a clearing of his throat he slapped his hands together in a neat arrangement of folded fingers, and tapped them against his chin. "Your questions, Ripley, have simple answers. I," he gave a dramatic show of his lengthened torso, a playful pull at his vest and delicate tracing of his skin underneath it, "am a Sigel now. A sigel is an older raevan, as well as larger. We grow downwards, and each length between growths is different for each raevan. We have more skin, more organs, more strength, more power. I, like you, used to have but a chest beneath my chin, but now I have a stomach! One day, you will have one too."
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Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:46 pm
"Airy. Close enough for now."
He was doing it now because the other got annoyed, plain and simple, just as he had been before - only this time he tried to get the words a bit closer to it sounded like he was actually putting in some effort. Reality was he didn't care to try and Ripley was amused with himself over that fact, but at least he could make it seem like he was giving it a go. Should this other Raeven find him mentally at fault, who cared. Ripley certainly didn't, at least not at the moment; he was still trying to figure out a use for something like this.
"Stomach. Likely good, useful. Power."
The Egyptian Frei understood that bit of wording, as well as the fact that there might have been some pseudo-mocking in how the Sigel changed his speaking pace. He'd keep all of this in mind for the next time they encountered one another and he cold speak better, hoping then that he could put this person into their place. Maybe he'd speak another language, or be able to quote something really random at him. Or maybe he'd just let all of it slide at once and not care anymore, allowing for something interesting to maybe happen.
"How long? For you. What are you?"
He likely meant how long did it take you, but however this strange Airy creature wanted to take his statement was entirely up to him.
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Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 8:22 pm
Eiry wasn't used to things not going his way, especially when he put so much effort into making it the way he wanted. The equation went: input = output, and Eiry's face was a displeased one when he saw that the output wasn't at all what he wanted. It wasn't that hard to pronounce things the right way, he was sure, it wasn't hard at all! Ripley wasn't even giving it any effort. So, he simply concluded that the problem wasn't anything that he did wrong. He surmised that the young frei in front of him was just really, and quite totally dumb.
Pursing his lips up into a little frown, Eiry's gaze on the young frei before him became slowly and more obviously judging as he leaned his shoulders back and rested his chin lower on his neck. With the careful angling of his brows, he communicated his judgment on the other frei with surprising accuracy.
"The gift of the silver speak was not found in your mouth now, was it?" he commented dryly, despite the fact that, he too, when he was but a frei, had a similar approach to speaking before he delved into the world of literature. Speaking was not much of a challence to Eiry (except when it came to speaking to the level of the accepted norm), so, be default, it wasn't hard for him to figure out what the Egyptian raevan was trying to ask him.
"Such variables of time are different for each and every raevan, some quick and some lethargic, and some just between the two. I and my brother took about the same time, three spins around the sun, three years." As he spoke, Eiry casually leaned back into the shelves, floating through them as if he were lounging it it's mass as if it were a chair. He pulled his hand calmly through his wild wisps of hair as he spoke, and with a grin, finished his answer, his face peering out from amidst a bundle of books.
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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:49 pm
Should Ripley have been happy that he'd managed to get another Raevan to think he was stupid? He certainly wasn't angry like he thought he would be to have someone assume his level of intelligence wasn't thta high at all, but how could he know what Eiry was thinking? Ripley wasn't a mind reader by any stretch of the imagination, but he was very good at paying attention to people's faces. He know all of Rong Wei's call and tell signs from how long he spent staring at her on a daily basis, enough that when she tried to lie to him he could see through some of it. For this stranger, however, he didn't know much of anything and basically has to assume a good portion of it.
"I will talk better soon. Wait and see."
Ripley could manage that much without trouble, as he was listening. He obviously couldn't keep up with the pace that Eiry was speaking, but he could pick up a few words here and there and commit them to memory. His limited conversations with Rong Wei had gotten him this far, had they not? It would only make sense for him to try and mimic the words others were using, even if he didn't completely understand the vocabulary and meanings.
"Three years. I am...three weeks? No, longer. I was frozen, so...older. Maybe the same as you."
He knew the phrase 'you/I were/was frozen' thanks to Rong Wei's constant chatting about it. He hoped how much he could string together in a sentence was showing that he wasn't entirely stupid.
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Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:51 pm
"All silver speech slips in surprisingly slick sums," crowed the minty raevan, tapping his long finger against the tip of his nose. There was no telling how soon it would be before this newly budded raevan was speaking complete and hearty sentences, but Eiry was willing to wait whatever length until he could firmly discuss things (things he knew not what) with the dark toned frei. He could sense a kind of trembling energy within the other, an electric kind of wit or personality that was bound tight beneath his surface by illiteracy, and Eiry was impatient to see it through.
Lifting himself up out of the bookshelves to again push close to Ripley's personal bubble, Eiry grinned his manic grin and floated about him, through book cases that might have gotten in his way, and through the support beams that laced the inner framework of the hole in the wall bookstore. With him traced swirls of dust that illuminated his path through the dimly lit store, and the musty stench of slowly decomposing books. He plucked a book casually off one of the shelves in his passing and flipped it open, thumbing through its worn pages with a nonchalant raise of his brows and glance in Ripley's direction, as if gauging his ability to understand even the simplest of books.
"Older you may seem, but the fact remains you are unwritten as a newly bound journal, young one. There is little in that thin skull of yours but the culmination of three weeks worth of world's wonders. Nothing more. You are as old as you are," He reached forward and tapped the flat of the book against Ripley's forehead, gently just to prove a point, and, underneath the book's tap was Eiry's endearing smile, "Listen, listen, listen! Don't listen to me, listen! There's hardly anything worth speaking about in there. Perhaps, since we are met, we can stash away a few baubles of thought and thinking into the crevasses of your fontanel!"
Opening the book again and sidling close to Ripley, the wisp raevan grinned, "A sphinx, are you not? Wouldn't you enjoy some knots of words? Riddles, as it were! Let me approach you with riddles!
"Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters!"
Eiry tapped the book, drifting away again, "Tell me, good sphinx, what is it that I speak of?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:05 pm
Ripley's ears, if he'd had any that could stand up on his head, would have flattened themselves down with annoyance by now at the way this other Raevan, this "sigel" continued to prattle on. Sure the Frei was slowly learning the English language through him and would be the better for it, but as it stood he was just being troubled and wanted this conversation to end sooner rather than later.
He managed to catch a few things here and there, like 'journal' and 'knots', but what he understood most was that he was indeed a Sphinx. Of course his companion seemed to think that meant Ripley liked riddles, but that was just assumption; Ripley didn't even know what a riddle was.
"I -"
He stopped talking as Eiry went ahead and read something aloud, supposedly a 'riddle' thing. The Frei felt his face blanch as he had no idea what was going on, his mind nearly burning itself out just trying to interpret all the words being spoken. He had absolutely no idea what the answer was and that fact had the Sphinx Raevan mortified. Unwilling to admit it but wanting to know the answer (and more unwilling to guess wrong), the Frei shrugged his dark shoulders and turned his eyes over to the mint Sigel.
"I don't know."
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Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:16 pm
"Words, little bud, words," Eiry said informatively. He knit his brows together, trying to understand why the other frei wasn't jumping for his hook. He thought that perhaps if he found something of interest to the young frei that he could get him talking more, regardless of whether or not Eiry enjoyed the statements that he managed to piece together. Curiosity was a curious thing which negated the usual offense that Eiry would've felt at the faces and body movements that the frei was giving off, cues that he didn't like Eiry in the least bit. He wanted to know more, see him react more.
"Little budling, sapling, you, I shall help guide you through the process of dissecting a riddle," Eiry said, feeling like perhaps he could help introduce Ripley to a sport of intellectual caliber that he might actually enjoy. He leaned closer again, pulling on his mischievous grin onto his face. "A riddle, like a tangle of brambles, is a puzzle of words which you must unravel! The truth of the riddle lies within, but you must solve the labyrinth of metaphors and similes first!"
Eiry tapped his own nose and then tapped his head. "You must think about it. Think it through, little one, one word, one piece, one branch at a time! But also, keep in mind, the whole."
The ghost sigel straightened himself up, adjusted his clothes so that they were straight, and recited the poem again, but this time, just the first line.
"Voiceless it cries."
He waited a few moments, eager to hear the little frei join in on the dissection of the riddle. "What, little bud, can make a sound without a voice?"
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