leave of absence | Glowfic Constellation

"Can you stop using it, so I can hear what you're actually saying?"

purposeful_glory

"Yes." Ahem. "This is a sentence in Asgardian, which is self-referential and exhibits most of the phonemes."

He looks utterly enraptured. "This is a sentence in Asgardian, which is self-referential and exhibits most of the phonemes." Yes?

purposeful_glory

"Yes, you got it right."

"All right. I am convinced that you are a traveller from a far-away realm, because your language does not seem to have a common root with ours and is not one that would be created by someone familiar with ours and trying to make one up. How are you stranded here? How did you find yourself inside our camp, specifically? And neutral between which parties? Would this be grammatical? "This is a sentence in Asgardian."

purposeful_glory

"Yes, that is grammatical. I do not know exactly how I came to be stranded here; I was intended to arrive somewhere else, and with a companion who did not land with me. Possibilities include a broken artifice, sabotage, duplicitous or even murderous intentions, etcetera; at any rate, rescue does not seem forthcoming but I have not been murdered in the process, so here I am. I came here to talk to you because the principal parties between whom I am neutral are you and your cousins and it seemed time to hear your side of things."

"What's Asgardian for 'short' or 'brief'?" When she tells him, he goes on, "Which of these are grammatical? This is a short sentence in Asgardian. This is short a sentence in Asgardian. This is a sentence in short Asgardian. He motions at one of the men, who starts taking notes. "I have no cousins and the only war I'm on any side of is the war against the Enemy, who draws his strength from the neutrality of his brethren the Valar; therefore I think poorly on neutrality, but commend it as the appropriate stance on the disagreement between me and the cousins I don't have."

purposeful_glory

"The first is correct. The Enemy, and for that matter the other Valar, have not come off remotely well or deserving of my neutrality from the descriptions I have received. I did not see a family tree and cannot literally comment on whether you have cousins, but was not sure how else to collectively refer to them."

This is a sentence short in Asgardian? This sentence is in Asgardian? My father remarried; his children by his second wife think of themselves as my family."

purposeful_glory

"The former is incorrect and the latter correct. And yes, you have correctly identified who I was speaking of. Is there no shorter term than 'your father's children by his second wife' which conveniently identifies them to you?"

"None that seem...neutral."

purposeful_glory

"An obstacle," she acknowledges. "Oh well. I am puzzled that your priority is my language and not my interesting magical powers."

"Did he neglect to tell you where we grew up? The paradise of the Valar is very carefully and actively cultivated; I have seen many the exercise of power but heard only two languages spoken, and I find magic less interesting than speech. Did you know that when our people arose by Cuivienen and first invented words for the things we saw, we called ourselves "Quendi"? It means 'speakers', or arguably 'namers'. Thus the language. Quenya. The Valar renamed us. They told us we were the Eldar, "people of the stars", because we'd been born under the constellations created by Varda Elentarí, Vala of starlight. They told us that we loved starlight more than speech and loved Varda best of all the Valar, for her gift to us. It was true by the time I heard the story, but I always wondered if it was true when they gifted us the name."

purposeful_glory

"I don't think I have heard any stories about the Valar that make them sound good," remarks Loki, "which is a terrible track record for divine beings."

"I can manage one, if you desire to hear it."

purposeful_glory

"I confess to curiosity."

"My third child was born when the first was already renowned all over Valinor for the ease with which he threw himself into challenging problems - the infrastructure, the water rights, expectations of access to light in buildings of the older quarter of town, anything the King my father threw at him - and solved them, leaving everyone satisfied. The second was already being called the most gifted musician that Aman would ever know, and while I don't think - " he smiles at one of the men present at the table "he truly grew into the title until a few decades later, they were correct in identifying the potential.

My third son couldn't read. I tried to redesign the letters for him so they didn't flip in his vision while he tried to decipher them, but that might have been a mistake; he eventually attained proficiency in our private alphabet, but no one wrote it but the two of us, and he was even worse at the widely-known one. He did not have a particular talent for gem cutting, which was my fascination of the time, and he did not enjoy diplomacy, and he was merely typical at music. He was desperately unhappy and it was an unhappiness I recognized but could not cure, because my cure for myself had been to become the best at everything.

One day Oromë, Vala of the Hunt, came by our door and asked Tyelcormo to go out riding with him. They did not come back for three days, during which Tyelcormo's parents fretted, and when he did he knew the name of every plant in our forest, and could build a bow from scratch and explain to me the mechanics that made it work, and if he did not make an Elven friend for many centuries later he had the Valar as companions, and he was happy, and now he knows enough to make a way for us in this world. The Valar love the world, and they are not begrudging of their knowledge of it."

He leans back in his chair and coughs, several times, painfully. "They have absolutely no business ruling it."

purposeful_glory

"That is a nice story. They would make, perhaps, good neighbors, but I agree with you that they are unfit rulers."

"'This is a sentence? This is in Asgardian?' What are your magic powers?"

purposeful_glory

"Both are grammatical. They are several; for example, I have healing magic."

"This is a sentence in Quenya? False, obviously, but is it grammatical? I have a low opinion of healing magic, though perhaps yours works differently than ours."

That is, rather steadfastly, his only reaction, but several of the other men around the table stir rather violently.

purposeful_glory

"It is grammatical. And, yes, differently; I invented the spell myself in a way unique even among the sorcerers of my world."

Now he looks intrigued. "How do you invent spells?"

At this point one of the others looks about to actually say something, and has to forcibly swallow it down.

purposeful_glory

"Tediously. Using a sort of magical alphabet imprinted in my mind by a dangerous artifact when I was a child and working up from there."