One Curious Kobold

[lurkingkobold]

It's winter, and all is well with the tribe. Their new magic, an ability to make portals from one place to another, which was found by one of their members during the early-summer trip to meet with the other tribes in the area, let them both build up a decadent food stockpile and move to a much deeper part of the cave system without the worry of being unable to find their way back out. No-one has had to go hungry, and even the fiercest ice storm doesn't reach them; they are as content as kobolds can be.

Well, aside from their new mage, that is. She's bored, and curious. Making portals to known places is straightforward enough, with the magic she found, but that's far from the limit of what it can do... so one day, she slips away, portals off to a different cave system - one can't be too careful, after all - and experiments.

Temperature roughly the same... gravity roughly the same... air the same, not into stone or underwater or in a volcano or on top of a mountain... but, instead of patterning it after a place she knows, what happens if she only specifies those things, and lets the innate patterns of the spot she's casting on do the rest? Particularly this one part, which seems to specify the world...

She finishes the spell, and hesitates for just a moment before activating it.

Comments

[of_all_trades]

Franklyn smiles, albeit there still a bit of that distant look in his eyes, tentatively he scritches the kobold.

[lurkingkobold]

She grins, just a little. "Franklyn okay?"

[of_all_trades]

"I am," He smiles fondly continuing the scritching "it just... it was bad, and other people were hurt too, but they are healed or in the way to get healed. Thanks for being so nice."

[lurkingkobold]

She nods, "okay is of important."

[of_all_trades]

Franklyn nods and says "I think everything is going to turn out to be okay, eventually and I am one of the lucky ones, my family is safe and alright."

[lurkingkobold]

Another nod. "Time do of help. Kobold world, one year do of big of trouble... three of hand of year? four of hand of year?" she shrugs, "many of year, no is of trouble, kobold is of okay."

[of_all_trades]

"Do you want to talk about it? You don't have to."

[lurkingkobold]

Hmm. "Know-magic do of say of tigerperson?"

[of_all_trades]

Franklyn tilts his head and focus his magic... he shudders and his hug becomes a bit more protective.

"Tigerperson are big, aggressive... and don't think kobold as people."

[lurkingkobold]

She nods. "Many of time, tigerperson is of okay of kobold - kobold is of small of danger of tigerperson, kobold do of hide, tigerperson no do of try of do of thing of kobold. Year do of trouble, no do of food of tigerperson... kobold do of eat of many of thing, kobold is of okay; tigerperson do of eat of few of thing, tigerperson no is of okay."

[of_all_trades]

Franklyn gently scritches the kobold, his hand shakes a bit.

"Did something... bad happened to your tribe?"

[lurkingkobold]

Nod. "Okay now. Kobold" - she taps her chest to indicate herself in particular - "do of go of tigerperson, do of say of kobold is of person, do of help. Move-magic, kobold do of big of hide, do of big of help."

[of_all_trades]

Scritch. "At least it got better" he says sadly "Wish I could have helped."

[lurkingkobold]

Nod, hug.

[of_all_trades]

Hugs are great and Franklyn doesn't mind companionable silence.

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold doesn't either.

Well, okay, she will get bored eventually. But it takes a while.

[of_all_trades]

It takes a while, but then Franklyn remembers to check on a note in the fridge, he gently unhugs, reads, confirms that he wasn't supposed to clean the aquarium today, and turns back to the kobold.

"Sorry, I had to check on that," He says then he has an idea "oh, you don't know about reading," he uses the english word "do you want to? It is a way to communicate through marks and symbols that is very useful."

[lurkingkobold]

The kobold peers at the paper, then gives Franklyn a skeptical look and makes a sound that translates roughly to "huh?"

[of_all_trades]

Franklyn takes paper and pen from a side table.

"Writing and reading," Franklyn explains "is like speaking and listening, but using marking and symbols instead of sounds. So you don't have to be around the person."

Franklyn writes a phonetic approximation of the animalperson language for "I went hunting" and then explains what it means slowly, making a point of associating each letter with each sound and word.

"Humans use writing to talk to each other, to help remember things, to keep knowledge that can be used later, to mark a place that is dangerous."

[lurkingkobold]

She follows along with the explanation, looking increasingly impressed. When he's done, she spends a few moments considering the uses and implications of this new idea, concluding "big of help".

[of_all_trades]

"Big of help!" Franklyn repeats smiling his previous mood apparently gone "I don't know if animalperson has writing, but I can teach" Franklyn decides to explain the concept alphabet later "human writing and we can adapt it to your language. I can teach you english so you can read human books."

Franklyn illustrates the concept of book with a recipe book "This is a book for recipes," it is a black notebook with "Recipes" hand-writing in silver ink on the cover, Franklyn explains the tittle in much the same way he did with the previous writing.