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Isabella studies her new alethiometer dictionary between magical assignments from Metis. She even found a book of sample questions and answers - the English originals of the questions and the professional readers' deciphering of the answers are given, and she can try her hand at composing symbolized versions of each. She uses the exercises sparingly. There aren't that many of them, and she doesn't want to contaminate her knowledge of the subject while she's still learning, not until she has an actual alethiometer in her hands and can try asking it questions to which she already knows the answers to calibrate.
truthwright
At some point, Kas appears, with Petaal lying across his shoulders as a linsang.
"What's up?"
"What's up?"
dark_light
"Alethiometer studying," Isabella says, tentatively drawing her shorthand for the chameleon symbol and the number 44 in her notebook of exercises and tapping the paper with the eraser. "What's up with you?"
truthwright
"My sweetie is fluffy," he hums, petting said sweetie on his fluffy head. "How's your studying? Is it fun? Whatcha learning?"
dark_light
"I'm trying to figure out how I'd phrase the question will the Euro fall against the dollar?, not because this is a question particularly worth asking the alethiometer, but because it's a question someone did ask one and get a confirmed answer to so I can practice on it."
truthwright
Petaal jumps to the floor and lionizes. Kas perches on him.
"So how're you doing it?"
"So how're you doing it?"
dark_light
"Slowly and with considerable difficulty. And I'm sure I'm going to get it less precisely than the pro did." She frowns at her notebook, smacks herself in the forehead, and crosses out the chameleon to write in a cornucopia instead, attached to a number 1.
dark_light
"Sure, I'm trying to do this one from memory before I look anything up anyway," she says, tearing out a notebook page, handing over a spare pen, and offering up her phone.
truthwright
Kas accepts notebook, pen, and phone.
He spends some time scrolling through meanings.
He spends some time scrolling through meanings.
dark_light
Isabella draws a horse stick figure (number 1), and then stops to think again.
truthwright
Well, okay. Crocodile, horse, cornucopia, those are just obvious. But they don't tell the whole story. The question's too narrow, anyway, like it's forgetting this thing speaks to you in full sentences whether you like it or not.
"Hey," he thinks to ask, "can you use two levels of one symbol at the same time?"
"Hey," he thinks to ask, "can you use two levels of one symbol at the same time?"
dark_light
"Not at the same time, but in the same question, sure," Isabella says. "You just have to be able to keep them straight in your head."
truthwright
"Huh. Okay," he says. "That makes my life a lot easier."
He goes back to his perusal.
He goes back to his perusal.
dark_light
"Are you getting the same symbol in here twice somewhere?" Isabella asks, frowning at her distinctly non-duplicative results.
truthwright
Kas goes back to his reading.
After some scribbling and hemming and hawing, his page looks like this:
Cornucopia - abundance, currency
Horse - Europe, transition
Crocodile - America
After some scribbling and hemming and hawing, his page looks like this:
Cornucopia - abundance, currency
Horse - Europe, transition
Crocodile - America
dark_light
Isabella's not looking over his shoulder. That would be cheating, and cheating is what you do when the test, and not the subject it teaches, is what you care about.
truthwright
"This is fun," he declares, and puts all the stuff down so he can bury his hands in Petaal's fur and snuggle her a bunch.
dark_light
"I'm not really doing it recreationally, but yeah, it's not bad," agrees Isabella.
dark_light
"Sure, I have to sleep sometime. If you break my alethiometer I will have to curse you though."
dark_light
"Depends on the curse. The one Metis keeps bothering me to try gives the target a non-contagious flulike syndrome until it wears off or is removed."