Beneath the Shadows Chapter Three: Enigmas

[eclipse]

"Never seen it before," Celine said truthfully. "What's it mean?"

[Rothene]

Caslan smirked, because he did not know whether to cry or laugh out loud at Celine's illiteracy. Breathing in deeply, Caslan pointed at Celine's weapon, "The word is 'axe'."

Then he proceeded to circle the letter 'A' and said, "This is the first letter in the alphabet, it's called 'A' and is usually written as," Caslan then writes down the letter 'a', "this. You only use this," points at 'A', "When it's the first letter of the first word in a sentence. Does this make sense at all? Forgive me if it's confusing but I'm not a trained teacher so I might lack proper teaching methods."

[eclipse]

"You see those scribbles, and know that you're talkin' about my weapon. Each scribble means somethin' on its own? Man, this is gonna take a while," Celine muttered. "However, I ain't got anythin' better to do, an' you look happier than ya did when ya walked in, so what's next?"

[Rothene]

"I think I should start from the basics," Caslan pouted as he wrote on a sheet of paper all the letters in the alphabet, both the upper and lower case in two sets of twenty six letters. "The 'scribbles' as you put it, are called 'letters', and there are twenty six of them. Words are usually made up of two or more letters together. We should start with teaching you how to identify them."

"So this set of twenty six letters," Caslan pointed to the set on the top of the paper sheet, "is called the uppercase letters, while this set," pointing to the ones at the lower portion of the paper, "is called the lowercase letters. If you count them properly, you will notice there are twenty six in each set. And if you are very observant, you will notice that they are related to each other," at this point the elf starts pointing to the uppercase letter then its corresponding lowercase letters slowly at a pace he thinks Celine might digest them.

Finished with pointing the letters, Caslan then said, "Now, don't think too hard on the upper and lowercase letters. Just focus on these," he gestures at the upper case letters, "Repeat after me as I point to each letter and utter their names." And so the elf started pointing to each letter and uttering the means of pronouncing them, "This is 'A', this is 'B', this is 'C'..."

[eclipse]

The hell? This don't sound anything like 'axe'! Celine thought to herself. But that's a lot of scribbles! Let's see how long I can keep him distracted. Celine read the letters aloud, as best as she could. This didn't sound anything like how she talked! She rubbed her temples, and sighed. "Man, how do ya remember all that?!"

[Rothene]

Caslan grinned broadly, "With practice." Tapping the letters on the sheet, the elf added, "Some of your pronunciation is off. Let's do this a few more times, you might want to order a drink before we continue. Reading out loud is thirsty work."

[eclipse]

"Hmmm. . .drinks. Ya want another one?" Celine asked. "You're doin' your fair share of talkin', too!"

[Rothene]

"I suppose I could use another," Caslan said nodding.

[eclipse]

Celine flagged the nearest waitress (after making sure it wasn't Raelyn), and ordered a couple of drinks. "Now what's this 'bout my pronunciation bein' off? Sounds fine to me, but I ain't the one with the letters knowledge." She took a deep breath and nodded at Caslan to continue.

[Rothene]

"I can't tell you exactly what is wrong, but I'll make you repeat the letter until you get it right," with that Caslan resumed his grueling verbal exercise on making sure Celine pronounced the letters correctly. Confident she was finally getting the gist of it quickly, Caslan declared proudly, "Now we can move onto more advance stuff. Do you have any idea how to spell your name?"

[eclipse]

"My name? Not a clue," she said. "Never seen it down on paper."

[scorri]

Adari nodded. "Right then. See if ya can find another one, but that'll be good." Heading over to the beast, she cut its throat for good measure, and then set to cutting it up.

Sayina looked at the wyvern Ernce was pointing at and sighed slightly before nodding. "Right, well, just make sure it isn't wild, ok? We don't need to have a wyvern go wild and attack someone."

Alexander glared at Hale, before turning to the soldier and Rimsky. "I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh, but I'm more than a bit on edge after having been kidnapped and then finding out there was an assassin after me. But a soldier of my country is always welcome. As you may have realized now, I am Prince Alexander. I managed to escape from the castle that night. My parents did their best to stall the enemy and apparently the succeeded. If you would do me a favor and report on what's happened to myself and the queen of the elves here, I would be much obliged."

The queen meanwhile was continuing to stare at her daughter. "I cannot make you come back now. You are grown and of the age where you should be experiencing the world. But I would have felt better if you had kept at least one of your guard with you. Feel free to continue on with the prince, but if you ever feel a need to escape if you feel that your life is at risk or something else, you may use the ring that I gave you for your 50th birthday. Pour some magic into it and it will send a signal to me. I will come and find you."

[Rothene]

Closing his eyes briefly and trying his best to look deep in contemplation, Caslan then wrote down the words 'Celine' on the sheet filled with letters. "I presume this is how your name is spelled. Notice how some of the letters match up to the ones I've listed down?"

"So this is how you spell your name, 'C-e-l-i-n-e'. Notice how when pronouncing your name, we seem to end on the letters 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'? Hence your name ends up being read as 'Ce', followed by 'lee' then 'ne'?"

[eclipse]

"That's my name?" Celine said, completely awestruck. The letters looked so. . .pretty together. She repeated it a few times to herself, not really caring if the other bar patrons were disturbed. "Why does this first one have a sound, and the second one does not?" she asked, pointing to the two 'e' letters in her name.

[Rothene]

"Oh, but they do. When you say 'Ce'," Caslan circles both 'C' and 'e' with his finger, "you do not make it sound like 'c' and 'e', 'Ce' is when both are combined. Same case with 'ne'."

Handing Celine a chalk then pointing to the set of uppercase letters, Caslan instructed, "I might be rushing this, but maybe you should start working on trying to copy out each letter too. I want you to draw each symbol and pronounce them. I find it's much easier to learn things by reading the words aloud while actually writing."

[eclipse]

Celine tried to hold the chalk as Caslan did, when he wrote the letters out. It felt horribly awkward. She pressed down on the parchment and slowly brought her hand towards her, only to see a chunk of chalk fall off. Cursing under her breath, she eased up on the chalk, and tried again. This time, a shaky line appeared. Readin' this out loud was way easier than tryin' to copy it! The tip of the chalk wavered. But he sure looks happy, so I think I can take a bit more of this. With renewed determination, she lowered the chalk, and relaxed ever-so-slightly after she drew the second line. One more to connect 'em, if I'm lookin' at this right. Though the final line was the shortest, it was also the most difficult to draw correctly. Her first letter stared back at her, in all its shaky, uneven glory. "Huh. This is like learnin' how to swing another weapon," she mumbled, before turning her concentration over to the next letter.

[Nanami Touko]

Linn had expected a rather large amount of anger, but when nothing came but sincere caring, she was put off. Not that she was upset or bothered, far from it, but it was hard to make a reply to what she'd heard. "Uh..." As she tried to think of something to say, she eyed the ring on her finger. She hadn't put much thought into it, but if that was what it did, she'd make sure to remember. "A-Alright. I'll stay with Alex, and these mercenaries. Are you... Are you sure you're not that mad? You seem surprisingly alright with this." Linn wanted to make sure. She was still braced for anger, but if she didn't get any, that would make her day that much better. She almost started smiling, even.

----------

Franklin rather preferred to listen to stories, instead of say his own. He wasn't the best at articulating what had happened to him in the past, so he simply listened to Bertha and Conan.

[Ether]

"Got it." Elysia replied with a nod, as she knelt back down and began spreading the icy tendrils through the ground once again, hoping to snare another beast.

[Rothene]

"Hhhmmmpph, it's probably harder than learning to use a new weapon for you, since you have no other skills to call upon to relate to," Caslan stated with a grin as he sat back feeling a fair bit better, as if he was accomplishing something worthwhile.

"If you're really serious about learning to write, I recommend investing in a set of writing instruments and a notebook."

[eclipse]

"A set of whatnow? Where'd I find something like that?" Celine exclaimed, jerking her head up from her work. "I had 'nough problems with pickin' up this axe here! At least I can tell those losers that a girl can swing one!"

[Rothene]

"Well...you definitely won't find writing instruments in the wild for one," Caslan answered sarcastically. Placing a finger on his lower lips, the elf continued, "It should not be hard to find writing instruments in a shop this deep in civilisation."

[eclipse]

"Y'think they'd take me seriously?" Celine asked dryly. I usually get sidelong glances, and I'm SURE a scholar would believe me if I said I was learning how to read and write. "Hey, I got an idea. Wanna point out where? Dunno if they'd even sell it to some girl with an axe."

[Rothene]

"One way to find out I suppose," Caslan said standing up. "We'll just have to explore the area for a shop since I haven't noticed any particular shop that indicated it had writing materials and parchment as part of its ware. If you're interested that is, I intend to stock up on some supplies anyway."

Caslan waited for a moment to see if Celine was going to follow him before setting out in search for a shop that sold writing instruments.

[Baldrick]

"The queen?" Ingrid looked around, confused. Then she noticed the figure inside the shimmering spot that everyone had gathered around. She shifted slightly so that the other's view of her was unobstructed. "Your Majesty... The enemy teleported in by some unknown means. Thoughts of holding the city were quickly abandoned; we were outnumbered and off-guard. There have been other skirmishes, including one not far from the capital but, lacking any leadership, we have able unable to hold our ground. They have been expanding their influence ever since; in addition to the casualties in battle, we have lost many soldiers who have fled to Celisa and Feaole."

[eclipse]

Celine nodded and followed Caslan out of the inn. It would do something to alleviate the boredom of walking around and stopping at inns with mediocre food. Though they stopped at several stalls, none of them seemed to have what the elf was looking for. Wonder what's goin' on. Elf boy seemed to think these writin' things were common.