What's in a Name
"Do I really need to know all this vocabulary?" I ask, struggling with the calligraphy brush and a hastily drawn set of IPA to English phoneme to Ai-Naidari phoneme transcriptions.
"Hush," the Calligrapher says gently. "And do your lessons."
I sigh and go back to the few thin pages that serve, for now, as Ai-Naidari dictionary. When I turn my back I hear the hiss of a cloak sweep the wooden floors.
"Do you truly propose to teach the aunera how to speak, shinjze?" Shame murmurs.
The Calligrapher's voice is close enough to Shame's that I imagine they're almost touching--the former is seated, the latter perhaps standing behind him. No... remembering his height, he must be bent a little over the back of the chair.
"Not enough to speak. But perhaps enough to understand, a little."
"You begin soon, then."
The Calligrapher laughs. "I would have already begun, save that our aunerai scribe does not know your name."
He's looking at my back now. "Why should she know what few Ai-Naidar do? Even I think of myself as Shame, most days."
"It gives the wrong impression," the Calligrapher says. "The aunera think of Shame as an evil. They believe that you are named so because you are the one shamed. Not the one who brings shame to others."
A snort. "Surely you do not ascribe stupidity to the aliens, as so many of our kind do. Explain it to them. They will understand well enough."
The Calligrapher's smile is in his voice. "So I shall, ajzelin. Still, you might consider making her the gift."
A long pause. Then, quiet, "I told her in a dream. It is not my fault if she does not listen."
Being accused of willful ignorance is a harsh thing for a writer, particularly when it's deserved. I blush over my scattered papers.
"Go," the Calligrapher murmurs. "We will meet soon in the House of Flowers."
I hear him leave, and then there is only quiet. Presently, the Calligrapher says, "Scribe?" and that is a gentler appellation than aunerai, "alien," no matter how fondly he uses it.
"We can start today," I say, rubbing my eyes. Listening to their little sobriquets for one another, I suddenly understand why I need to know the language. My heart feels squeezed: how can they put so much feeling into such small words? "Just let me finish this."
Funny how silence can still hold a smile. I bet they have a word for that too.
Stardancer Home.
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haikujaguar) wrote,
