Most Likely A Refuge

[whatamithinking]

It was probably safe.

The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.

Comments

[whatamithinking]

"...I'm going to finish my letter to--and--wait--I just realized it's probably possible to use Milliways to cheat at archaeology."

[onceandforall]

"Maybe! What do you mean specifically?"

[whatamithinking]

"Hebrew! My first thought was that I could finish my letter to Mystical Mirror Madchen, and my second thought was that if I could convince the translation effect to cooperate I could work on my Hebrew, and then I realized that I could probably get documents from Bar in Hebrew from before Hebrew was an exclusively religious language. There's even some stuff in the Old Testament that people aren't quite sure how to translate because of hapax legomenontry or however you modify that word--"

[onceandforall]

"I didn't get the translation effect to be particularly exploitable when I was staying here, but you can definitely take documents home, I'll provide all the counterfeit Bar wants for it."

[whatamithinking]

"I speak and read some Hebrew, is why I think it's plausible that I might be able to see stuff as being in Hebrew, I'm just not perfectly fluent. And, yeah, even if that doesn't work I can just copy stuff down for a Rosetta Stone-like effect."

[onceandforall]

"If you know some it might work. I haven't learned enough of any languages to make it work but I never cared very much about Spanish class."

[whatamithinking]

"I don't care much about French class, but I do care about Hebrew. I wonder if I can make something be in Hebrew if I try? 'Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.'"

[onceandforall]

"Comprehensible. Poetic. Kinda makes me want to kiss you."

[whatamithinking]

Well, in that case: kiss!

[onceandforall]

Kiss!

[whatamithinking]

"It is poetry," she adds, after kiss. "It's from the Song of Solomon."

[onceandforall]

"And you just have it memorized?"

[whatamithinking]

"It's pretty!"

[onceandforall]

"I don't deny it."

[whatamithinking]

"Also I'm kind of a huge nerd about my heritage."

[onceandforall]

"Speaking as a person with extremely boring heritage, how come?"

[whatamithinking]

"Lots of reasons. Partly it's because stories about my family specifically are...kinda thin, after the Holocaust, and our history is a way of connecting to the people my grandparents lost. Partly it's to spite everyone who ever tried to wipe us out. Partly it's because I think Hebrew is beautiful."

[onceandforall]

"And backward!"

[whatamithinking]

"Backwards and forwards is completely arbitrary!"

[onceandforall]

"Yes, I know."

[whatamithinking]

"And it's not like I care about any heritage I might have on Mom's side of the family, so much."

[onceandforall]

"Generic white people like me?"

[whatamithinking]

"Yep. Possibly less generic since her family came over from England only a couple of generations ago--one time when someone was asking me for my ethnicity in a particularly obnoxious way I identified as 'half Anglo-Saxon half Ashkenazi'--but for all intents and purposes yes."

[onceandforall]

"What was particularly obnoxious about it?"

[whatamithinking]

"It was follow-up to some racist remarks, and I think he was expecting me to just answer 'white' in a way that would have supported his point, if he had a meaningful point to make."