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a little mermaid in a fantasy larp school
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"HUH!"

"Do you know what that meant? Can you draw it?" asks the signing student.

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Cyllene signs the letters she remembered, moving her hand in a line and leaving a conspicuous blank space for the two she missed.

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The student signs again.

"Does that mean you didn't understand but you will once you have all the letters written down?"

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Well, she doesn't fill in the O and the R before trying to mime a big solid object, overall kind of a round shape but with scrunchy wiggly fingers for its texture.

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"Does that mean you just couldn't remember them all the first time?"

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Nod?  She thinks?

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The sign language kid will try spelling a shorter word: TRIANGLE.

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She thinks a lot, and draws an acute angle before pausing and then - setting down the pencil.

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"Wow, I have no idea what that means. Preceptor, how long is the waiting period for an answer if we bail out of the puzzle -"

"Haven't decided yet," says the Preceptor apologetically.

"Do you not know what a triangle is?"

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Headshake.

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"Wow. Why wouldn't fish people have triangles?"

"Maybe they don't do a lot of geometry down there."

"I guess."

Sign kid signs SCALE.

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She points at one of the ones from her drawing.

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"There we go!"

"Okay, so maybe almost all the vocabulary stuff is just about what fish people have, and the translation spell is pretty good at its job actually."

"But she can't talk - at all! - and can't write well..."

"Well, she wouldn't have been able to use paper under the water."

"Cyllene do fish people write at all?"

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She holds up one finger.

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"...it happened once?"

"Only one person in your fish people town could write?"

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She points at the kid who said the second thing and nods.  . . . And then taps 'I don't know' repeatedly while holding up two, three, four, five fingers on her other hand.  She points to just the 'know' part and switches back to one finger.

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"You only knew one fish person who could write but maybe other ones could too who you didn't know?"

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Nod nod nod nod.

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"Huh."

"Why didn't you learn how?"

"I don't think she can really answer that till we solve the puzzle better."

"Okay. Were you learning how at all?"

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Headshake headshake.

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"Huh."

"Is the translation spell helping you with the idea of writing?"

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'I don't know '.

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"Could you read before the spell, if that's separate -"

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Headshake.

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"Is it right to say that the spell lets you read and understand any language, as long as you know the ideas it's about, but doesn't help you produce any language at all?" someone guesses. "So you're doing all the writing you're doing by yourself, basically?"

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