middaeg | Semi-Closed; Housewarming!

Semi-Closed; Housewarming!

Who: Yona and Tsutha, as well as maybe a few of their Bonded and close CR
When: Early in Deceuer
Where: Yona's Cottage
What: Yona's acquiring a new roommate
Warnings: n/a

[ It's been a while since Yona's had someone else living in her little cottage with her. Although her previous roommates' stays had been brief, it had been fun to have someone else sharing the space with her, sometimes learning along with her the joys - and complications - of having a place of their own. And when one of her friends confesses a need for a place to settle, she's quick to offer one of the empty rooms in her own cottage.

It's snowing outside, which is possibly going to make Tsutha's trip here less than ideal, depending on how many belongings she has to carry, but it looks pretty coating the yard and the roof and making the warm glow coming from the cottage windows cozy and inviting. And inside, Yona might be pacing in excited anticipation, a pot of tea already brewed and waiting for her newest rooomate to arrive. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Working as hard as she did in Noveuer really paid off for Tsutha, in that she had enough money to hire a strong pair of locals (a dragon woman and a turnskin man) with a cart to help her move everything she'd accumulated over to Yona's cottage. It's not much-- a small desk, a bookcase, some potted plants, a suitcase of dresses, and a half dozen books-- but it would have been too much for Tsutha to manage moving herself, especially in this weather. She's well outfitted for it today, wearing her fur cloak from home over one of her new outfits, and is able to keep a small fire going in her palm to keep herself warm during the ride over.

She leaps off the cart when it pulls up in front of the cottage, and just stands in the front yard, looking up at the small building with a wide, tusked grin. It may not be very much, but it's still a house to call home, which is more than Tsutha's ever had before. After a long moment of delighted wonderment, Tsutha steps through the gate and knocks on the door. ]

[ Yona is quick to answer, because no, she hadn't been pacing just inside the door, that would have been silly. But seeing Tsutha outside, she breaks into a bright smile and steps back to make room for her. ]

You found it!

I did! Your directions were really clear.

[That, and Tsutha had spent a good part of her first month here memorizing the layout of the city so she wouldn't get lost.

She peers inside the open door, smiling at how cozy and warm the interior looks. ]

Um... So, not to cut right to the chase or anything, but I only have these guys for an hour. [ She gestures over her shoulder to where the two movers are unloading the cart. ]

[ Yona had done much the same, in her first few weeks here. But she was still finding new and hidden gems in this city, even after months here now, so one never knew.

But when Tsutha gestures behind her, Yona peers her around her shoulders to see who had come along. She didn't recognize either one of the people out there, but she still casts Tsutha a bright smile. ]

Oh good, you had help! Feel free to bring your things in. I wasn't sure which room you'd want. There's a second bedroom upstairs down the hall from mine, and there's a little one down here, tucked off to the side. You can pick whichever one you like more!

I'll probably want the one down here, just because I like being on the ground level better than being up high.

[ Having grown up in a system of caves, being on the second floor of a building is still somewhat unsettling to her. Looking out of a second story window down at the street below is kind of scary, but she's not about to admit that much.

That all decided, she and the movers take the time to move all her stuff into her new room, and soon enough the place is starting to feel like a home. After about an hour, the movers pack up their cart and head off, leaving Tsutha and Yona alone in their shared home. ]

So... What now? I'm not sure what all people do when they live in a house together.

[ She helps where she can - although a great deal of that is spent staying out of the way as the others move the larger things into the little room.

When it's just them once more, she tucks her hands behind her back and rocks back on her heels when Tsutha turns to her with that question. She laughs softly at that, however, because she knows barely more than Tsutha does in this case. ]

Whatever they want, mostly. I don't think there are any set rules, really. Except for maybe the ones we'd want to make for ourselves, I suppose?

Oh... Well, I don't have any real rules that I want to set that I can think of.

[ She pauses to think about that for a moment. She probably ought to come up with some kind of bare minimum rule, just to play the part of a normal roommate who's lived in a house before. ]

Uh. If you want to borrow some of my stuff, ask first? I'll probably say yes.

Oh, of course!

[ Yona blinks, because that had been a given in her mind anyway. Maybe it wasn't for most people? ]

You know, I'm not sure I have any real ones either. I think if we're just open and talk with each other as we go, we can figure it all out. I hope you'll feel comfortable being honest with me, if there ever is anything that bothers you.

I'm sure I will! [ But then, Tsutha doesn't really have a problem being honest with anybody. ] Don't you worry. If I'm bothered by something, you're gonna hear about it.

And the same goes for you, too.

[Despite the intense inconvenience of the new crumpled flaps of glitter that could potentially be referred to as wings, Ferran wasn't about to miss helping his bonded acclimate to her new home, especially not since her new roommate was also a good friend. With the new appendages largely covered by the warm cape he thankfully acquired the previous month, he arrives with a few notebooks and writing instruments (for Tsutha's reading and writing lessons), a freshly baked savory pie (for everyone to share), and a willingness to move, organize or suggest decorations for whatever might need it. ~~Interior design is his passion.~~

Despite the recent full moon's events, the idea of two of the people who've already come to mean so much to him becoming friends has helped lift his spirits enough that there's a faint smile on his face when he arrives, greeting both of the residents with relative cheer. It's a stretch to say he looks outright happy, but it's probably a lot more than either of them have seen in his demeanor so far, at least without putting in any work to cheer him up.

Later, when everything seems sorted, he tucks himself sideways (stupid wings) into a comfortable chair with a notebook, sketching out the lines of the room and its furnishings, landmarks from this city or his own home, or an imagined building, deeply immersed in the work despite his light lines. He could certainly go do that at his own place rather than sticking around, but for the moment there's not much to go back to there except privacy and the plant creatures that don't quite match sapient company, as wonderful as they are. Maybe he should take them out to socialize sometime...]

Edited 2020-12-03 07:01 (UTC)

[ Tsutha never stops being grateful for her friends. She's grateful to Walter and Marzia, for taking her in when she had nowhere to go. She's grateful to Yona, for giving her a home here in this new world. And she's grateful to Ferran, for... a lot of things. Agreeing to bond with her, to help keep the unstable magic inside of her from exploding. Giving her a friend to talk to and confide in, here in this strange world where she knows no one. And, perhaps most importantly, helping her learn to read and write, a skill she had never needed until now, but that was now so crucial to her continued existence.

They're sitting together in the cottage's small living room, a fire in the hearth, Ferran sitting sideways in the chair and Tsutha positioned at a desk in the corner. She's poring over one of the books Ferran had brought, frowning as she tries to sound out the words on the page. ]

Th-the fuh-irst th-ing you n-eed t-too kuh-now...? [ She looks up at Ferran. ] what does kuh-now mean? I don't know that word.

[Ferran might have normally sat a little closer, but he's carefully put space between him and that hearth in addition to keeping his hands occupied with his own notebook, partly to keep any anxiety from bleeding over their bond. But also just so he's not freaking out for what he logically knows is no good reason.

He looks up from his work, wanting Tsutha to know she has his full attention and that her lessons aren't just an afterthought for him.]

That one is "know." I think people used to pronounce the K a long time ago, but now it's just in the spelling.

"Know." [ Tsutha frowns, looking annoyed. ] If you're not going to pronounce the K, then you should just get rid of it. Keeping it around but not saying it out loud is dumb.

[ Dumb, confusing, and kind of wasteful, in Tsutha's opinion.

She goes back to sounding out the words in the book, keeping a finger of her left hand on the open page, while she holds a pen in her right hand and slowly copies the shapes of each letter onto a blank piece of paper. Her writing is messy and uneven, but she's getting the hang of how to hold the pen the right way, at least.

Finally, after several more minutes of this, Tsutha's hand begins to cramp and she puts the pen down to take a break. ]

This writing thing is hard. I don't know how everybody does it!

If people kept changing all the spellings based on how they said things, reading would get a lot more confusing, I promise.

[From accents, to things just changing over time... anything written down would be a lot less accessible. And sometimes the spelling quirks help, he thinks.]

Besides, you can think of the k as telling you it's "know," instead of "now," which is N-O-W.

[When she goes back to her practice, Ferran returns to his own notebook, adding a few notes to the edges of the sketch, and then a few more details. This time, he doesn't look up from his work aside from a brief glance, a mild smile on his face.]

Writing takes a lot of practice. You'll get the hang of it eventually, I promise. I had a lot of trouble at first, myself.

[Being left-handed isn't conducive to learning with the same methods everyone else is using.]

[ She'll have to take his word for it, not really understanding the specifics of how languages change over time. How would she know how people from hundreds of years ago spelled things? How people would spell things hundreds of years from now? She's still getting the hang of how things are spelled in this moment. ]

N-O-W? [ She looks down at the page where she had written "know," and carefully covers the first letter with her hand. ] "Know"... "now"... They're almost the same but they sound completely different.

[ The fact that Ferran is saying he had trouble learning to write makes her feel better, though. Ferran seems so smart... If writing was hard for him, then it must just be really hard in general. There's no way someone as smart as Ferran would struggle with it if it wasn't incredibly challenging.

Bored with her exercise of copying down her spellbook, Tsutha gets up from her desk and walks over to where Ferran sits in the chair, bringing her notebook and her pen and kneeling down next to him. ]

Can you show me what letters make your name? How you write "Ferran?"

[It's lucky that she decides to trust him about it, because not only is the topic a complicated one, he's not entirely qualified to answer all the questions that would go with it...]

There are a lot of words like that, unfortunately.

[English. What a mess. But he'll do his best to make sure Tsutha improves, no matter how long it takes. When she approaches, he raises his eyebrows in question, but he gives her a mild smile in response to the request.]

Sure.

[He flips the page of his sketch over, printing his name on the next in a slightly larger size to make sure she can see, even if he doesn't consider his handwriting to be messy. For half a second he considers writing his signature as well, but that's probably way too much for now. They can tackle cursive after she's got the basics down...]

[ Tsutha watches carefully, and turns to a blank page in her own notebook to copy the shapes of the letters. F-E-R-R-A-N. She pauses then, frowning. ]

Why are there two of the... Um. [ What is that letter called again? ] The "R"s? In the middle. Is it not the same with just one of them?

[Ferran scratches his cheek thoughtfully, looking at Tsutha's letters.]

I never really thought about it. [Maybe when he was still learning spelling he left out the second R at some point? But it's just second nature at this point.]

I'm sure whoever first wrote down the name however many centuries ago had a reason. Maybe it would be different with one R?

[Sadly, he doesn't know enough about Irish orthography to say. He wasn't very close with his grandparents...]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

gently fast-forwards

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

open to whoever shows up! but especially tsutha

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject