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Post by Jai'byrd on Jul 2, 2011 13:35:08 GMT -5
It had started all innocently enough...
Ni'awtu had been under the near-constant tutelage of the Omaticayan Tsahik Kilvan'mawey for the past moon pass in learning the Sky People's tongue and all the young female Na'vi had to show for it is a headache and feeling completely stupid. It wasn't that she was a poor student, but Ni'awtu had no aptitude for learning languages as it just seemed bizarre and she kept tripping over the words, getting them confused or just not remembering anything Kilvan'mawey taught her. Thankfully the Tsahik was ever patient with her until the aged female called a halt to the whole set of lessons a couple days ago...
"Enough, enough," the aged Tsahik waved Ni'awtu to stop trying to recite a sentence in English and butchering it in the process.
"My apologies Tsahik," Ni'awtu mumbled and lowered her gaze some expecting the lecture she often expected for her dismal rate of learning.
Instead the elder chuckled, "No, no, no apologies child. The Sky People tongue is not easy, but I also had other teachers, not just the former Tsahik. There were Sky People still here when I was young, the ones who did not leave, yes, yes. So, this is what you need to do, go speak with Nia, learn from her and you will teach her our language too. So, go, do as I say."
Ni'awtu was bewildered by this and hastily nodded and left the Tsahik's area to contemplate her words. That had been two days ago as Ni'awtu kept staring at the communication device, picking it up, looking at it, almost hitting the switch, then putting it back down again. Great Mother, she didn't know what to do - even though she knew what she had to do - but touching the alien object kept leading to a ton of apprehension flooding through her system, which kept making her put it back down again.
What was she waiting for exactly? A thousand excuses flooded her mind, Nia was probably busy, she didn't need Ni'awtu contacting her all the time - even though she had yet to do so... But still...
Finally she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then grabbed the device, put it on around her neck and hit the button before her better judgement stopped her again...
"N-Nia? Nia Hello? Nia?"
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Post by fuzzydude on Jul 5, 2011 12:18:46 GMT -5
The smell of burnt plastics hit Nia almost as fast as she heard the tiny popping sound, and almost as fast as her heart plummeted.
"Damn it!" she yelled. A steady stream of curses echoed out of the crawl space into the nearby, thankfully empty, hallway, followed by a loud metallic THUNG!
"Stupid slagging piece of scrap!" Nia growled, holding her throbbing fist. As it turned out, the metal wall was pretty hard and punching it, even with the insulating gloves she wore, hadn't been all that bright.
Nia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then exhaled it in a slow hiss. "OK, OK, I deserved that. But c'mon, don't do this to me. I just fixed all your regulators last week. That has to count for something, right?" she pleaded to the tangled, now-smoking mass of wires and circuits. She sighed, carefully reaching in to pull out the blown unit.
"I know, I know, you're embarrassed I'm sticking a breadboard into your system, but we're out of replacements," she muttered, making a face as she twisted hard and removed the blackened, smoking cylinder. "But think about it this way. I designed the circuit just for you. It'd be rude to keep exploding on me."
Anyone who worked with her much knew that she did have a habit of occasionally talking to her machines. However, the fact she was beginning to have a full conversation with one was a pretty clear sign of how tired and stressed she was. It felt like she hadn't slept in days. But hey, as long as the machine didn't talk back, that meant she wasn't insane, right?
"N-Nia?"
Nia blinked.
"Nia Hello?"
Yup. She'd snapped. Next she was going to run around skateboarding naked down the hall hitting people with a fish.
"Nia?"
Wait, was that...
Twisting her upper body around, she pulled her bag closer to her and quickly dug through it before producing the neck radio she'd started carrying ever since her last encounter with the Na'vi. She'd kept it tuned to the random frequency she'd chosen just for Ni'awtu, but it'd been silent so long she'd nearly forgotten about it.
She jabbed the talk button.
"Ni'awtu!" she said cheerfully. There was another pop and fizzle, causing her to jerk to one side and bang her head against another wall with a resounding clang that would probably reverberate right through the radio. "Stupid piece of junk..." she hissed before stopping herself. "Sorry, not you," she amended hastily before wriggling awkwardly to get herself feet-first out into the hallway again.
What was that greeting, again? Oel nati... something about camels? Shoot, it'd been a while since she'd reviewed.
"Uh... hello," she said instead, trying to pull herself back into reality.
Only then did she realize: "You spoke English!"
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Post by Jai'byrd on Jul 11, 2011 15:28:57 GMT -5
At first, Ni'awtu didn't think she was going to get any response as she waited for some voice to come over the magic trinket Nia had given her a while ago... but then...
"Ni'awtu!"
The Na'vi broke into a toothy smile that Nia obviously couldn't see and was about to say something in her tongue, but then...
"Stupid piece of junk..." She said it so fast, Ni'awtu wasn't sure what the heck that meant.
"Sorry, not you," Again, the female Na'vi cocked her head to one side as her blue brow furrowed, 'sorry' sounded familiar... and 'not you', but who else was she talking to if not her?
Ni'awtu scratched her ruined ear as she tried to think of something to say, but then Nia rescued her, "Uh... hello."
"Hello Nia hello," Ni'awtu smiled as she started again.
"You spoke English!" Nia's bodiless voice exclaimed as Ni'awtu picked up the flat screen thing Nia gave Ni'awtu awhile ago and poked at the swirls of color as they moved around.
"Yes, some small speak sky talk," Oh this was so hard as Ni'awtu sounded like she was dragging out each word from the depths of the Pandoran oceans as she was trying remember how to say everything 'correctly'...
"Nia and Ni'awtu go and speak sky talk, yes? Um, I like speak Nia talk sky talk. I, uh, speak Na'vi to Nia too, um, thing stuff." Oh that wasn't right. Why was their language so hard!?
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Post by fuzzydude on Jul 11, 2011 20:18:18 GMT -5
Nia couldn't help smiling as she listened to Ni'awtu stumble along at an irregular pace with her strange accent. She could practically see Ni'awtu's brows furrowing in concentration at each word. It was pretty adorable, actually, especially when she imagined this coming from a 9-foot tall elf. And, hey, she'd already learned the words "thing" and "stuff"! With just those two words, she could probably comfortably hold an entire conversation with the average teenager around here.
"You mean you want to practice English?" Nia asked, speaking slower than normal. "'Sky talk'... It's called English," she added.
Even though "sky talk" actually sounded a lot cooler, like it was something exotic instead of... well, English. Technically, of course, there were a lot of sky talks, but it didn't seem to be the right time to start confusing Ni'awtu by introducing her to Croatian or something.
It was a little flattering, actually, that Ni'awtu wanted her to help. Then again, it wasn't like she had a lot of practice partners to choose from, but still, it was sort of neat. Too bad she'd never taught anyone anything in her life. But hey, how hard could it be?
Nia took a moment to set her bag down on the floor with a metalic clatter, then reached in her bag, produced the bracelet Ni'awtu had given her. She actually really liked it. Besides, how many people could say they had gifts from a mysterious alien? Unfortunately, with her line of work, it tended to get in the way so she was constantly taking it off and putting it back on. Plus, it was made for someone that was probably more than twice as tall as she was so it didn't really make a good bracelet out of her avatar. It did, however, happen to make a nice necklace.
<You English better than my Na'vi>, Nia joked, trying to pull the words out of the half-buried memories of whatever she'd absorbed from that book. Great, this probably meant she'd have to start learning again. As if she had that kind of time.
"What would you like to talk about?" Nia asked slowly, ducking and squinting critically back into the opening at the uncooperative series of wires and circuits.
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Post by Jai'byrd on Jul 18, 2011 23:18:11 GMT -5
"En..glish. English. English," Nia sounded out under her breath some as she never knew their language had a name, as her people didn't have a name for their language as all Na'vi spoke it... with slight variations, but it was still the same... right? "English, yes, we talk English."
<You English better than my Na'vi>
Ni'awtu had to smile at that as her long fingers slid over the multi-hued surface of the pad Nia had given her. She sat down on the branch she had been standing on. She was up in the rookery branches where the Ikran partners of the Omaticaya roosted when they weren't being used. She had come up here to speak with Nia as not too many ventured out on some of the smaller limbs like she did as it was hard to find a place 'alone' when your home had no walls, no doors or anything else that would constitute what a Human would think of a home.
"Sìltsan!" Ni'awtu exclaimed as she clapped without thinking, which caused her hand to slap into the face of the pad and suddenly weird music started to pour from it and she couldn't get it to shut off!
Ears laid flat back against her head as she silently bared her teeth at the thing and tried to bang it again with her hand, maybe that would shut it up. It didn't stop, so she then silently cursed the thing and shook it violently. Then, in an act of final desperation because she didn't want to destroy it accidentally, she sat on it.
While it didn't stop the music, it quieted it considerable, but now she just felt horrible.
"My sorry..." Ni'awtu licked her lips, "We learn speak one and one? To... to... gert... rrrrr?"
Sìltsan! = Well Done
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Post by fuzzydude on Jul 27, 2011 12:12:52 GMT -5
"Sìltsan!" exclaimed Ni'awtu.
That was right before the heavy bass rhythm suddenly kicked in accompanied by the synth harp and guitar. Nia jumped, nearly smacking her head a second time.
"If you don't leave me alone, I'll go find someone else who will!!!" someone with a raspy voice screamed, barely intelligibly, into her ear.
The 'The's, "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?" she recalled. On Earth, it'd been occasionally played in cheap diners, and about 10 years ago, it'd gotten really, really popular for about a month until everyone played it so much that everyone else collectively got sick of it all at once. She never could stand oldies, herself.
A series of bumps and other strange sounds came from the other side before the music grew muffled and softer.
"My sorry... We learn speak one and one? To... to... gert... rrrrr?" said Ni'awtu past the music. She sounded slightly annoyed, distracted, and more than a little confused.
Nia was trying really hard not to burst out laughing as she imagined poor Ni'awtu in the middle of the jungle somewhere trying frantically to shut it off.
"I'd like that," she agreed before the laughter bubbled over into her voice. "The circle," she said helpfully.
"On the bottom. Press it until the colors go away. Then, touch the orange..." she paused before repeating the color in Na'vi - one of the few colors she could remember right now. "... thing that looks like a rock hanging from a vine... Then, press the white... umm... two sun-colored lines right by each other." It was a little harder than expected to describe how to unlock a pad, pull up the music selection, and pause the music to someone who'd never used a computer before, couldn't read, and was just learning English.
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