[IC/OOC] Fade Rift Inbox & Contact

[faithlikeaseed]

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[faithlikeaseed]

[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?

[ipseite]

( 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.

[faithlikeaseed]

[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.]

[ipseite]

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.

[faithlikeaseed]

[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.

[ipseite]

( 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.

[faithlikeaseed]

[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.

[ipseite]

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.

[faithlikeaseed]

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?

[ipseite]

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. )

[faithlikeaseed]

[...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?