It's Just Another Language

Writers: Aaron, Halyonix
Date Posted: 30th December 2024

Characters: B'lyse, O'dyn
Description: B'lyse is happy to use his free time to teach more people to communicate with him.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 2, day 24 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: R'lor, C'rand

The best thing that had come of R'lor and the others discovering his Big Secret was that he no longer had to hide when it came to teaching his peers -- especially C'rand -- to sign. But this time, it was O'dyn who had shown interest.

"Do you know any sign at all?" It was a long shot, but you never knew.

O'dyn shook his head but eagerly answered, "But I'm quick at learning! That's why I went to the Printers. I'm good with words. Really good." And learning this signing language seemed really neat!

"All right. First, I'm going to show you how to spell." That was how he started with everyone, because that was how his teacher had started with him. "Do what I do."

Eagerly, O'dyn nodded, his young eyes wide. He loved learning! As B'lyse went through each letter, O'dyn curled his hand into a mimicry of it, sometimes getting it right, sometimes not so much. But he was going to get it right! "Like that?" he asked, after spelling the letter P.

B'lyse moved O'dyn's hand slightly.

"You got it." He kept drilling the letters until it started to seem they were not making any more progress.

"I think maybe that's enough letters for the first day. Want to do some other basics, or are you ready to take a break?"

O'dyn stubbornly shook his head. "Let's do other basics." Even if he was fumbling over finger-spelling, maybe he could learn something else that would stick. "What's the sign for dragon?"

B'lyse shook his head, and instead of answering directly, he signed,

[[Watch me.]] It was fairly obvious what the signs meant, even without being fluent in sign. From there, he began to sign basic things slowly, one at a time. Many of these signs were rom time to time, if there was no obvious way to show what the sign meant without speaking, he spelled it. And if O'dyn could not remember the letters as he signed them, he would say them aloud.

More importantly, he would sign questions to O'dyn and expected him to answer them in sign. If he answered aloud, B'lyse repeated the question in sign.

[[What is this? This is a chair. You sit in a chair. This is learning. This is teaching. This is a teacher. My teacher was a Harper. Who is your teacher?]]

Once he was fairly sure he had gotten a few of the basics across, he went more for what O'dyn had been curious about.

[[This is riding. This is a rider. We are riders. What is a dragon? We ride dragons. D - R - A - G - O - N. Dragon. This is flying. Dragons fly. Fire. Flaming. Dragons flame.]]

O'dyn nodded each time B'lyse signed something, miming each one with various degrees of success. Dragon was one he wasn't going to forget because he could sign it at Genireth all he wanted. Same with flying and fire. But when B'lyse signed klah, O'dyn messed up and accidentally signed back something _definitely_ not klah.

B'lyse giggled.

[[No. Close, but that's not klah, that's...]] He exaggerated the motion for klah, and then spelled the _other_ word but did O'dyn the courtesy of saying the letters aloud as well.

[[Soâ€" klah. Do you drink klah? Would you like some klah? Good. Would you like some...]] The other word. He giggled again. This time, O'dyn giggled with him. He tried to repeat what B'lyse was saying.

"[[Also good, but maybe not what you wanted to give.]]"

O'dyn smacked his forehead. [[Messed up that.]] He tried again. Then sighed aloud. "Okay, maybe I do need to take a break."

B'lyse caught 'break' easily enough.

[[Thank you for learning with me!]] he signed. It felt like a good session. And it was probably more time spent communicating with O'dyn than he had the whole time he had been at the Weyr so far.

"Tomorrow can we do more?" O'dyn asked. "Oops! Uh..." [[T-o-m-o-r-r-o-w more?]]

[[Tomorrow! "Tomorrow." Yes, more tomorrow.]] B'lyse smiled and reached out to shake O'dyn's hand. O'dyn beamed as he took it.

"This'll be great! Oops -- [[great]]!" he signed.

Last updated on the January 6th 2025

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It's Just Another Language