faithlikeaseed | [IC/OOC] Fade Rift Inbox & Contact

Nothing pressing this evening can't wait for tomorrow. ( warmly ) I've looked at these translations so long I fear no words mean anything to me any more.

Is there a particular topic that interests you?

[Amused,] There's something I don't miss about reading. I'm glad to provide a break, then.

You'd mentioned that--what was it you called them--"hearth uses"? Of magic. I'd like to hear more about those; we spend more time on magic suited to combat in the Circles.

Yes - yes, I did -

( the ambient sound of Petrana arranging herself, settling in. Probably, in all likelihood, engaged in some of those uses. )

I try not to overuse; it's my husband's belief that to rely on any one tool to the exclusion of others is to court disaster. But there are simple charms and enchantments that might make easier the day - to lace a corset, to raise small barriers around dangerous things, to stir tea or keep a fire burning. Turning pages when one's hands are occupied. Putting food together - I have never been a great cook.

I launder my ( under- ) garments daily, as an example here. And then I will hang them above a set of glyphs, to be dry by the morning.

Edited 2017-08-18 06:39 (UTC)

[He breathes out a soft, surprised "huh!" at all of this. What sounded like frivolity when Sarkan described it sounds eminently practical coming from Petra; what a difference attitude makes.] How is--I'm sorry, let me think about how I want to phrase this.

How is all of this accomplished? That's to say--using the glyphs for instance, do they drive the moisture from the cloth somehow? Or heat the air above them? --I'm trying to think of how the effect might be exactly replicated with what we have, you see. Or if the method of action is altogether different from what we're used to doing.

They are alike to a fire glyph - there is a heat to it - but it is most of all to draw the moisture from the fabric, into the air. Which, of course, must then go somewhere. I give it, ( lightly deprecating, ) to my flowers. And they can be altered only slightly to become a flame - it dries the air far swifter than true flame, it is quite dangerous without care taken.

Recently I have used a spell that I believe you to have no true equivalent to - a means of quickly acquiring a foreign language. In a manner of speaking it is to create affinity between the caster and the subject, in that, in addition to simply absorbing the sight of the letters, I learned from my subject the muscle-memory of writing them, and of understanding.

I was so relieved to find it worked. Many of the spells I know I have only studied, for the purposes of our records-keeping. In Lamorre, there are no books of magic, so - my husband and I intended to write them.

Oh, no, we haven't anything like that. I can't begin to think of how we'd do it, outside of-- [The enthusiasm in his tone mutes.] --magic we ought not turn to. Though if what you're describing doesn't actually touch the mind itself--maybe, [his voice drops in a comment to himself,] spirit, or starting from a healing spell...?

Just how quickly do you learn things with this spell? D'you pick up how things are pronounced, too, or is just the reading of it?

[A delicate pause.] You'd mentioned that magic carries a death sentence, in Lamorre. Were your books meant for a future where it could be freely taught?

They were. Yes. We hope very much to see that day a reality within our lifetimes.

( 'Hope'. They blame her, in the capitol, for his flaming sword - the witch that rides at his side. After all, it could not possibly be that the magic had been his when it is well known to be a woman's sin.

It is war. And she knows, in her bones, that Marius doesn't ride on the empire for the sake of books and peasant women -

but there is room in that future for them. He believes of himself that he is a hero, and if she only has enough time, perhaps she can make him one. If only. )

...in any case, no, I think I would struggle to understand the language spoken aloud, but I am quite confident with the written. It was perhaps a bit more than an hour. My husband would have achieved the thing much swifter, but of the two of us he is the more experienced, the more gifted. Much of my knowledge remains in the realm of theory.

[Ah, so.

It's his cousin with the revolutionary's fire, not him, but that means he's accustomed to hearing it when it manifests. And accustomed, likewise, to wondering what of value might be burned up should it be set free--but if Lamorre is as much the Maker's creation as Thedas (there is but one world, one life, one death, one Fade between all of them, or how else did Petrana get here?), then magic remains a gift and slaughtering those who wield it a sin.]

I'll hope for your sake as well. And pray we find a way to send those of you back, who wish to return.

...Which did you pick up, in this case? Even if you struggle, I can't think it would be so difficult to learn it spoken--though thinking of my own experiences in that realm maybe I'm being overconfident. Was he your teacher, then? Your husband?

( He doesn't mean the words to wound; he cannot know how they lodge between her ribs. The truth that she doesn't wish to look at.

Petrana doesn't want to go home. She doesn't sound like a revolutionary, in truth, she sounds like someone who has spent a great deal of time justifying the things she has to live with, the things she fights with, the things she cannot be seen to disagree with. Lamorre is no better than the man she lies beside at night, but that doesn't make his crimes or his cruelty the lesser - he claims the moral highground for his wounded fucking pride and what is she to do but live with it? But hold it in her hands and make something of it.

She had a child to protect. She did her best.

It is much quieter, when she speaks again, but steady enough. )

He was. It was -

He felt that it was necessary for me to learn.

( Maybe he was right. Maybe he wasn't. The choice was not hers to make, but the consequence hers to live with. )

And I am a quick student, ( more lightly, ) of his magic, and, in this case, of Tevene.

[Why did he feel so? some part of him wants to ask.

Another part of him whispers, Don't.

He dithers between the opposing instincts a moment, then follows her lead.]

Tevene! That will come in useful. Was it, [a moment's hesitation] the magister or his miserable accomplice you used for your spell? Does the quality of their writing matter? And you said--you learn the muscle-memory, yes? So are the characters you write formed exactly as your subject's would be?

[Forgive him. His relentless curiosity is sometimes a vehicle to exorcise fear.]

Mssr Vedici was the conduit for my learning - unfortunately he is left-handed and I am not, myself, so my letters are not precisely as he would write them. Clumsier. I must teach my right hand what my left has learned. But he was cooperative enough, and a skilled translator, which was what I required. I believe the Artemaeus boy would have been most unsuitable to my needs, as he was unsettled in the extreme by the casting.

( And then by her chillingly delivered threat to have him gagged if he didn't hush and let her focus. Petra is not of Thedas; she has no understanding of how charged it is to threaten a mage with such a thing, here, only that the mouthy little prick was shattering her focus when she'd politely requested he not do so several times already. )

An imperfect strategy - I'd not have wished to learn the trade language here that way, I built myself a foundation without magic before I began to use such short-cuts - but useful, so far as it goes. And I will improve, in time, on my own.

[It's not charitable to laugh at the description of Benedict as "unsuitable" but it gets a snort out of Myr anyway.

Admiring,] Imperfect, but better than anything we've got in the realm. I've got a hunch of something that might, maybe, let us do some of what you do but it's nothing solid yet. And I think you'd still outstrip me, even if it could be made to work.

[His tone is thoughtful, then:] Could you use it to learn to mimic someone's handwriting in a language you already know? Well enough to forge something written by him? Not an option with Magister Vedici, I know, but if the Inquisition's able to lay hands on someone else with the clout to issue orders, it could be useful.

( Huh--

Petrana's voice is more thoughtful when she answers, )

Do you know, I believe that I could. Obviously, over time, the way that I write something will settle into my own handwriting...but if I were to make a conscious effort for it not to...

I might have to work with them a little longer, for such precision, but I believe that I could.

[His grin's audible,] Might be worth trying out with another member of the Inquisition first, and then take your proof to command so they know you can do it. They'll know the best places to sow confusion with that.

[It doesn't yet occur to him that such confusion might also be sown internally.]

I'm wondering also--would it be hard to extend this beyond writing? To other skills? --Wait, let me back that up. You spoke about learning Trade the hard way; are there other drawbacks to learning this way? Beyond losing your ability to learn without it.

It's simply that the hard way is also, by far, the better way. For instance, the language of magic in Lamorre - I could not learn it this way, and then practise magic as I do. I must be able to think in those words. I must have a deep understanding of the language that you simply will not acquire in such a - a surface-level education.

It is a beginning, that's all. To rely on it entirely - to not practise, or develop further - is to risk losing all nuance in translation. It is lightly overlaid, not deeply stitched.

So it sets up the shape of things for you, but can't fill them in. That follows--and if you learn from an unskilled translator or bad penman, you'll spend all that time unlearning bad habits. [He lapses silent as he dwells on the method's potential failings, turning them round in his head.

And then he realizes he's being a little rude.] --Ah, sorry. Got carried off thinking about the other problems that might come up with it. D'you-- [under his breath,] damn,-- How late has it gotten? Have you got time for a few more questions?

I do not soon run out of time for intelligent conversation. Already you have raised ideas I cannot say I would certainly have come to on my own!

( She wonders, idly, who she can persuade to consent to testing his theory. )

An unskilled translator, also, would simply take too long - you see, I dictated to him a piece of work with which I am most familiar, and he wrote it for me in Tevene. If he cannot translate my words as I speak them -

( Her tone is the implication of the and so gesture that he wouldn't have been able to see regardless of crystal or no crystal. )

[...Oh. Yes--of course, since it's not magic that affects the mind.] Right, then the word you've learned isn't matched to its meaning. What was it you had him translate?

And--if that's what the Maker put me on Thedas with all these questions for, then I'm serving my purpose, [he says with a laugh in his voice.] Coming up with ideas that people haven't hit on yet, that is.

[Thinking of that,] So your glyphs--I'd meant to ask, and would like to before I forget again--do they look much like ours?

Edited 2017-08-23 06:45 (UTC)

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