the essential Saltes of humane Dust | Glowfic Constellation

across-time

"Thank you. It was - as much as I felt I could safely do for future generations. I had some hope things might improve enough some day..."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"And they did."

across-time

"They did! Not as fast as I hoped, not as slow as I'd feared."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"Not all the way, either, but--well, we have time to fix that."

across-time

"All of it in the world."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

And at the relevant day and time they are packed up and waiting for Nausicaa.

across-time

She acquired enough notebooks to last them quite a few weeks of dedicated research, as well.

from-the-deeps

And Nausicaa comes up, right on time.

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"Hi!!! We have a car. And questions. Questions better asked in private."

from-the-deeps

"Alright! To the car it is, then."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

To the car!

Once they are in the car and far enough along that nobody is going to overhear, she says: "So, what are shoggoth languages like?"

from-the-deeps

"Most of us speak - " and she makes a weird fluting noise - "which isn't actually originally one of ours, it was a language of the Elder Things back when we were slaves. Some speak - " bubbling gurgling noises - "which is the Deep Ones language. And we use Aklo for rituals, though I think most people do that."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"Oh, we were wondering if shoggoth languages would be pronounceable by humans, and that looks like no but maybe it wouldn't be hard to invent a flute that would do it."

from-the-deeps

"Oh, musical instruments would be fun! That'd be a pretty way to talk."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"I don't know if existing flutes could do all your phonemes but you could probably check."

from-the-deeps

"Probably not, they're not all that musical?"

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"What else is there?"

from-the-deeps

Have a sing-song possibly alphabet equivalent. There's indeed a few - not non-musical, but certainly non-flute phonemes, and a few harsher sounds more like a 'k' or 't'.

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"Oh, cool. Yeah, we'd need to design something."

from-the-deeps

"It'll be fun. I don't know many shoggoths? But there's gotta be some who'd like helping."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"What're you doing on land?"

from-the-deeps

"I grew up on land, so it's kind of my home? My mom was a wanderer, didn't like living in just the little communities we had, and she fell in love with a human boy."

with-lilies-and-with-laurel

"Well, I suppose that makes sense," she says, shooting her fiance a sappy look.

from-the-deeps