Gravity's Pull

Jade blinked at it, then laughed and nodded before she tried using the tube herself, pressing the button to make it write.

So bizarre! She had to restrain the urge to try and open it up to see how it worked—not that she would probably comprehend it. She copied each letter, sounding it out and glancing at her host to ensure she was getting it down properly.

Once she was done, she offered the tube back, then reached into an inner pocket of her jacket. When she pulled her hand from it, she held small three-inch notebook bound in thin wire with a black front cover, painted over and then glued with deep red rhinestones. The back cover was simply painted black, and the pages were lined in narrow blue ink.

Also in her hand was a pen. It was made from a cream-colored material swirled with red and black, and inlaid with gold. At the end, a green stone rested in a bezel, and she twisted the top to pull the nip out.

Then, she began to write, glancing up at each letter and making its sound before she noted it down—the better for her to remember and look back on.

Once she was finished with that, she wrote out her name, her host's name, and the verbal tenses she knew, followed by the nouns they covered thus far.

Her back hurt from hunching like that over the tiny notebook, and as she sat back up straight, she breathed in deeply, then let it out in a heavy puff.
 
Though Riváné thought that her guest would write her own alphabet down for the songweaver to scrunitise, this was also perfectly compatible with her plans, because it allowed her to correct Jade a few times and see if she used some sort of different method of writing. But no. It appears that this also did not change throughout the ages, as there was no fumbling with going right-to-left or perhaps down-to-up or any similar directional confusion. That was good, because it meant that their cultures were fairly close when it came to the written form, or at least that was what Ríváné thought until she saw the notepad in Jade's hand. Then, after a very short, very brief explanation, she concluded that she had absolutely no idea what it was other than the fact that Jade used something on it to do something that vaguely resembled writing.

A quick educated guess lead to Ríváné thinking that it was some sort of very limited storage device and then her curiousity carried her closer to see what was in the notebook, only for her face to display clear confusion. Who the hell used things like these still? Writing onto a piece of something that would eventually run out was centuries, no, millenia-old technology that had been phased out so long time ago that she had only seen it in history books where they showed her pictures of really old methods of information storage. Just where had this woman come from and why were the letters that Jade used so familiar.

Then it hit her. She had seen these letters and they were called...
"Lah... teen?" asked Ríváné as she pointed at the letters which Jade used, not even caring that she was practically up in the red-eyed woman's face. But even if Jade did not understand the songweaver's question, she was certain that they were latin characters, which, again, have not been used for millenia.

This was starting to get rather troubling.
 
Jade leaned away from Riváné, eyes wide as she stared a few moments before she recognized what she said. "Latin."

She wrote out the latin alphabet on another page, then held it up for the woman, eyes trained on Riváné's face as she tilted her head. Jade was missing something here. She closed her eyes to try to tap into one of her mother's abilities, but... as she thought, she too mentally exhausted still to activate it in order to see why her host might know about Latin, but not understand English.

"How do you know about Latin?" She asked, then shook her head and looked at her list of nouns and tenses. None of them encapsulated the meaning. She flipped another page, then closed her eyes. She wrote Riváné's name in the woman's native language, then drew a brain, then wrote an approximation of the word Latin and held the notepad up, then paused and made a questioning noise. "Eh?"

Please understand!
 
There was just no way. They really were Latin characters, which was almost impossible! No culture should be using them at all right now, because hers abandoned them a long time ago, not to mention that any one of the splinter groups would have evolved their own version of these characters by now. It was unsettling to see them in use to say the least, because they implied that Jade was thousands of years old at least, something which no human managed to achieve so far. Even genetic engineering and the advancement of technology added only so many years to one's lifetime, so surviving that long was impossible.

But it was clearly the case.

Ríváné was tapping her forehead in frustration again before she balled her fists to rest her chin on them as further proof of how off-putting she found this. Something like this was clearly beyond the realm that anyone had expected or anyone could expect beyond a reasonable doubt, yet despite the rock solid evidence before her, she found Jade's existence hard to believe. A woman who was thousands of years old... If she had not seen it herself, it would have been a hilarious joke. As it was, it was a hard fact that weighed heavily on those slim shoulders of hers and the songweaver did not want to accept it at all. So much that she decided to ignore whatever Jade was asking in order to test if she had really come from the past.

"That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," said Ríváné, quoting an ancient message that had stayed with humanity ever since its conception despite all the hardships that humans have endured. She had been told that this quote was important as it marked the very beginning of the space age, the foundations for Civitatem Lucis' eventual escape from home so that they may save the entire species. As such, it has been beaten into her head several times over the course of her life and though she might not be able to spell it perfectly now, she could still remember it.

And if recognition appeared on Jade's face, Ríváné would despair that she had just been handed a storm of proverbial fecal matter.
 
Jade's eyes widened. Did Ríváné know English after all? Or... was it something like a recitation? "Astronaut Neil Armstrong. He was an American who said those words at the moon landing on July 20th, 1969 C.E." She responded back, to see if the woman understood. Jade remembered that much information from her classes back home. She stared at her host, then frowned and looked down. Slowly, carefully, she drew a rough Earth, with Europe in the focus rather than America. "Earth?"

She looked at Ríváné, then down toward her own hands.

This world was either a far future alternative to her own, or had contact with an Earth at least somewhat similar to hers. Both options excited her.

She pursed her lips, took a deep breath, then said her mother's name. "Mistress Biocybera?" The girl who, at sixteen years, conquered half of Europe using an army of children. If this world had her at one point, it was unlikely she'd be forgotten.
 
No. This could not be. That was impossible! Ríváné definitely recognised the name of Neil Armstrong and even vaguely remembered how the country was pronounced, but more incriminating than that was when she compared the sounds Jade was using to speak to the sounds she had to memorise with meticulous care. Unsurprisingly, they were frighteningly close to each other, so much that the songweaver had to come to the conclusion that she was, at the moment, speaking with a woman who could only talk in a language that had been dead for a very long time. Not a dialect, an evolution, or an alteration of it. No, that would have been far too simple to solve via logical leaps and bounds. No, it was the real thing.

Or was it? Ríváné had to be absolutely, one hundred per cent sure that it was the real thing. So with a frightened expression on her face that showed how much she dreaded what was to come, she asked a simple question with the knowledge that she had scraped together from history class.
"Jade... English?" asked Ríváné and hoped against all hope that was not the case. Because if this woman was speaking that language, the possibilities spiralled out of control, beyond her authority, then into the unknown abyss.
 
Jade stared at Ríváné as the woman's expression turned to dread. Had she said something wrong? Was Niel Armstrong some sort of world-killing demon in this world, like her father had been for a world before? She tilted her head as she watched closely, red eyes unblinking as she took in how the taller woman's thoughts churned.

Finally, a question broke the silence—asked by Ríváné. Jade blinked, then nodded. "English." She hoped the answer would relieve her host, but a tingling in her gut told her that no, it would not. She continued to stare, that red unblinking stare as she waited to see Ríváné's answer.

This of course meant that though Ríváné didn't speak English herself, she knew of it. Were there other English speakers in this world, in that case?
 
The dreaded moment just exploded into Riváné's world without any warning and all she could do against it was to take a deep breath in order to prevent herself from hyperventillating. Though that did little to hide how all the blood rushed out of her face or how her otherwise vibrant eyes lost their focus for several precious seconds as she ran through all the possibilities. She was no scientist by any means, but as a songweaver who relied on one of the four philosophies so much, she had to learn a few basics, including the fact that time travel was supposedly impossible. Yet the person in front of her was clearly speaking English, she clearly did not know anything about Civitatem Lucis and she clearly was from as different of a place as it was possible.

And to think that Riváné had thought that this would be an assignment in baby-sitting and clumsiness, but no, she just got handed a powder keg that was going to explode and as colour returned to her face, she found that she had been tapping her forehead in frustration. What was she going to do with this? What would her teacher do when faced with a problem like this? He would take it step by step, making the best of the situation, so the next thing she did was to take a deep breath, then she commanded the local AI to search for a dictionary that she could use, which was found under miliseconds. Then, she looked up the appropriate words along with their pronounciations.

"Now thousands years ago not spoken English," said Ríváné as clearly as she could manage while she put the concerns that emerged into the back of her mind. She would deal with the consequences later; all that mattered now was that Ríváné found a way to communicate with Jade. Of course, it did not occur to her that translating like this could be easily misunderstood.
 
Jade stared as she watched her host's reactions. Pallor, accompanied by unfocused eyes. Fear? She didn't understand the reason for it, until Riváné spoke.

The tiny woman frowned and puzzled at the meaning. It took only a few moments before she realized the meaning. "English has not been spoken for thousands of years." She repeated, letting the meaning sink into her mind. Poor Riváné likely thought her a time-traveler, ancient, or... it was hard to say, honestly. It did look like Riváné wished to use English, though. Poor woman. English was a terrible language to learn! It would be easier for Jade to learn Riváné's language.

In an attempt to make clear her meaning, since the woman had some sort of dictionary, she spoke slowly, to give her a chance to look up each word. "It will be easier for Host Riváné to teach ABCs. English grammar is difficult." Each word, she enunciated clearly, as she always had, and she used the tube to spell out each so her host could better look them up. She wrote Riváné's name in the woman's home language, just in case she didn't understand the English spelling, and for 'ABC' she wrote in Rivane's script, using the first three letters from that alphabet.
 
If Ríváné was honest with herself, then she was relieved when Jade told her that it would be far better for the songweaver to teach her tongue to the other woman than having to learn English out of all the things. As a military woman, she had absolutely no interest in what the ancient language had to offer, not to mention some of the horror stories she had learned about it. For example, the fact that it was not phonetic. At all. Even more primitive versions of Civitatem Lucis knew the importance of spelling things the way they were said and had transformed the way its many languages were written even if they had to use force. Of course, that had paid off handsomely in the long run.

So even if Ríváné was not quite sure of what Jade meant with the grammar along with the first three letters of the alphabet, the songweaver did not question it. Instead, she accessed the local AI again to compile a dictionary of the ten thousand or so most used words and while it worked, she shifted her attention to Jade.

"Jade speaks English," said Ríváné after a slight pause of looking the words up. "Ríváné speaks óníc. Light language studying." Then, the computer pinged her that the dictionary was ready, so she accessed the more elaborate functions of this room in order to project a holographic interface in front of Jade that was keyed to the other woman's signature. In other words, only she could interact with it and nothing, or no one else could prevent her from using it, at least in this house. Knowing that Jade would likely be confused at the sudden appearance of many words beside her, Ríváné helpfully added something else. "Dictionary."

And hopefully, that was the end of their language troubles.
 
Jade looked around at the sudden dictionary, red eyes wide. She offered a brief smile to Ríváné. "How?" She asked, the question simple. Her dictionaries were either simple searching databases or books, nothing like this.

It was... really interesting! She experimentally tapped a word with her stylus to see what would happen.

Maybe by the time Ríváné returned after she left, Jade could become at least familiar with the language, if only she knew how the dictionary worked a bit better. She directed her attention back to her host, eyes no longer dull, but bright with eagerness, despite her flat expression. "I will study." Again, excellent enunciation, though it seemed the most natural thing for Jade, being how she spoke her entire life.

(( Finally capable of stringing more than one IC word together! Man, I'm so glad to be back to posting. Holidays were crazy. ))
 
The question was simple enough, but the answer was not as easy as Ríváné would have liked. Where would she begin? The words for holographic projection did exist in English, but the underlying manipulations, she could not find anything for. The programs responsible for the dictionary's interface with her only existed in extremely long, difficult-to-understand variants instead of the simple óníc, so trying them would just make her head ache quite badly. In the end, a simplified explanation would do.

"Holographic projection," sounded out Ríváné, which was surprisingly coherent compared to the machine-translation errors she was making earlier before noticing Jade's apparent confusion at the list of words and briefly keyed it to work for her as well before she showed the small woman how to work it properly. Only a few self-evident hand gestures were needed to navigate the thousands of words that Ríváné had summoned into this little space, such as grabbing the entire projection, which would give tacticle feedback, or merely panning your hand over it. Everything very what-you-see-is-what-you get, but Ríváné did not belittle Jade for not knowing how to use the interface.

In the end, Ríváné smiled at her guest with a good-natured smile before she excused herself to talk with her superiors to get a direct line to the commander of the local forces and... Quite possibly the leaders of Civitatem Lucis. Just thinking of the sheer implications of this discovery made her shiver, but not in the good way. The Four Philosophies would either protect or study Jade depending on their standing so the news must get to a central figure first before anything else happened. So no, the local commander would not do. Ríváné would need to visit the Ruler directly or relay a message directly to him. The latter was much easier, so the colourful woman folded out a chair to sit on from the wall, then she began the process of coding.
 
When her host left, Jade took immediately to studying the projected dictionary. She found patterns that made it easier, and sounded out the words as she learned them. She wrote down what seemed important—needing to use the bathroom, hunger, thirst, articles, and more. Her mind, tuned to learning similarly to this, soaked up the language.

She practiced stringing words together.

"I am Lady Jade. I am a diplomat. I am not dangerous." She strung together, though she would need a native speaker of óníc to tell her if she was doing it right, she felt she was growing more accustomed to the language's sounds. She did make sure to apply the correct verb forms rather than use pronouns, since they didn't seem to be something the natives used, and since Ríváné herself had tried to discourage that, she made an effort to avoid them unless the sentence she tried to make seemed too difficult without their use.

It was only memorization at this point, until she decided on a sentence she likely would not need to say, but... was likely to come up. "I am from the year 2056 C.E. Earth, and was born in Norway. It is not the same Earth you may have encountered in your history. It is from another universe. Do you understand..." She trailed off as she sought out the word. Did they have a word for 'Multiverse'?
 
As it turned out, when Ríváné had said 'light language learning', she was referring to the fact that óníc had so many structures and easily-discernable rules that it was almost impossible not to pick it up quickly. Just from seeing the words written down in the dictionary, it was obvious that it was not a naturally evolved language, or at least it was one that went through heavy refinement. Commonly used, important words were usually reduced to one or two syllables at most while lesser used ones were more complicated, not to mention that the innate connection between noun and verb helped things along a great deal. There was also a distinct lack of homophones along with words that could be interpreted in multiple ways.

All in all, it was a very precise language, streamlined as much as possible without coming across as too restrictive. There were some rather odd pecularities, though: For example, there was no word for 'diplomat' no matter how hard Jade searched. Either it was not used very commonly as the improvised dictionary firmly stated that it held only a chunk of words available for translation, or it did not exist at all. A word meaning 'representative' was the closest thing that she could find. Other notable things were the lack of names for Earth countries, though Earth itself was oddly included in the dictionary. Not the other planets of the solar system, though.

Multiverse was also oddly included along with several concepts that the dictionary translated as full English sentences explaining their meaning. Of particular note were four words representing what seemed to be four branches of philosophical thought or perhaps four branches of government wherever she ended up at. Though the dictionary also gave the rough approximations of the names of these movements as 'Soul', 'Song', 'Body' and 'World', it also explained in great detail the pecularities of each. 'Soul' seemed to be focused on arts, nanotechnology and self-improvement. 'Song' was responsible for control mechanisms, information technology and organisation. 'Body' developed weapons, cybernetic implants and improved performance in general. 'World' held the domain of transportation, free thought and defying physical laws.

There were also several words describing highly integrated devices or devices that Jade had not even heard of yet. Some were difficult to comprehend, others less so, but it was made abundantly clear that this place was far more advanced than her home in many ways. A method of faster-than-light travel through interconnected wormhole portals was one of them, electromagnetic shielding technology was another, excessive genetic and cybernetic augmentation was yet another and finally... Apparently, humanity managed to create an entirely new sapient species on accident, their name roughly translating to 'soundmasons'. Unfortunately, there was little information on them beyond that.
 
Jade eagerly soaked up every bit of information she could, and wrote herself a list of questions for Ríváné, including a request for a more thorough dictionary. She worked through the dictionary with a voracious hunger for another half hour before she sat on the bed and closed her eyes.

It was catching up to her—she'd slept for some time already, but she still... She hoped she would remember everything after a nap.

Jade laid down and closed her eyes, though slept much more lightly—stirring awake at the slightest sound this time, rather than sleeping through everything.

As she laid down, she absently wondered about her home. This world held her curiosity, and she clearly wasn't ready to leave yet, but she couldn't help wondering if her mother was taking a break from her lab.

It was hard not to think of the woman after being confronted with so much technology.
 
(I am sorry for the late response. Got university dumped onto me and spent the last few days recovering.)

Directly addressing a Ruler was not an easy task for a soldier, even for a young songweaver like Ríváné. She had to be careful in the composition of her message as well as the routines that sent it, lest it be intercepted by someone who did not have Jade's best interests in mind or simply reflected back at Ríváné. As such, it took quite some time for her to compose the message, but even after that, the colourful woman chose not to intrude on the foreigner's studying time. For one, she did not know what to do with a possible time-traveller or someone who somehow survived to the current age, stashed away in a... she did not even want to think about what happened to the red-eyed woman. It was all incredibly confusing.

She needed time and space. Fortunately, her guest was more than happy enough to provide her with both it seemed and by the time Ríváné felt ready to address Jade again, she had also gotten a reply from the Ruler. Apparently, she was to continue interacting with Jade, then when she was certain that the woman could speak óníc, she would have to take her so that the Ruler could see what exactly was going on. Of course, she would not be alone. Military support directly from the government's right hand would be coming to her to protect Jade from any possible factors that she might be a victim of; just reading the list of allocated troops made Ríváné's head spin. It was really as if this part of Civitatem Lucis was a warzone.

Regardless, Ríváné had her orders. Not wishing to disturb Jade, she softly knocked on the barrier between herself and the other woman.
"May I come in?" asked Ríváné in óníc.
 
Jade woke as she heard the knock and looked up from her bed. The tiny woman's expression brightened, though no curl of the lips made her smile obvious. "Ríváné! Please enter! Happy to meet!" Jade responded in kind. "Hoping to practice, if Host Ríváné has time." She did not speak like a native, and stumbled over her words. She enunciated the consonants and spoke each vowel carefully.

Honestly, she was surprised she remembered that much, though sleep was shown in studies to aid memory.

She sat up and adjusted her jacket carefully to at least cover her nipples, or try to. She needed a shirt, probably. She couldn't help but think that her host had already seen them, so she simply removed her jacket and dug through pockets until she pulled out some white folded cloth. She unfolded it to reveal a white shirt with only one shoulder and a bunny's face on the front, then pulled it onto herself.

She felt warmer and more modest as she pulled her jacket on over top.
 
Jade had learned quite a bit of language during the time Ríváné had left her alone, which raised all sorts of questions that would have to remain unanswered for now as the songweaver tried her best to limit her curiousity. Right now, this strange traveller, this guest of hers needed a warm, diplomatic welcome, not someone who bombarded her with countless questions about her home or as to her nature. The message she exchanged with the Ruler was quite clear about that, insisting that Ríváné do her best to make Jade feel at home in this undoubtedly unfamiliar environment.

The songweaver entered just in time to see Jade pull her shirt on and fix her clothes, making her frown.
"Hello! I am happy to help you practice if you want," said Ríváné, which drove home the point that óníc lacked the equivalent of contractions before she closed the door behind her. The way Jade adjusted her clothing reminded her of a simple little thing that her guest completely lacked.

"Do you need a fresh set of clothes, Jade?" she asked as she looked at the ones she wore currently. "I can make some for you that fit you." Hopefully, those sentences were still short enough to be understood. If not, Ríváné would gladly simplify what she had to say.
 
Jade tilted her head at the question, then closed her eyes to process for a few short moments as she repeated, and then smiled—a faint, little upturn of the lips, far more subtle than her previous displays. "Thank. Would appreciate fresh clothes, please. Must keep coat."

Something was missing for fluency, but practice would have to be the help for that. "Have a few sentences that may be useful. Will Host Ríváné hear them?" She wanted to try the phrases she put together before.

She waited to allow her host to answer, but then remembered something she had been meaning to ask. "After, will Host Ríváné show this one to washing and toilet facilities? Self smells badly."

That was butchered, she was sure. Butchered to hell. Hopefully the meaning came through, however.
 
Thankfully, Ríváné had hit the nail on the head when it came to the difficulty of sentences and she made a mental note to get some close for Jade. She may not have known the other woman's measurements, but that was what standard sizes and templates were for. Granted, she was curious as to why Jade would want to keep the coat that looked so constricting on her that it almost crushed her already small frame, however, there were questions that she needed to answer.

"Of course, I will help you practice," said Ríváné with a smile before she blinked at her guest's second request. It took her a moment or two to get the meaning, after which the helpful smile returned to her face. "I can show you how to take a shower right now. There is a lot of time and it is better to feel comfortable while talking."
 
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