Semi-Closed; Housewarming!

[darkestbefore]

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. ]

Comments

open to whoever shows up! but especially tsutha

[noblegarnet]

[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...]

[prettyrocks]

[ 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.

[noblegarnet]

[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.

[prettyrocks]

"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!

[noblegarnet]

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.]

[prettyrocks]

[ 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?"

[noblegarnet]

[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...]

[prettyrocks]

[ 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?

[noblegarnet]

[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...]

[prettyrocks]

[ Tsutha huffs a sigh. A pointless extra "R" is going to be kind of annoying to have to remember, but it's Ferran's name, so it's not really up to her how many R's it have. It could have nine of them, all in a row, and she'd still have to make the effort to write them all. ]

Are all human names that old? I've never known anyone else with my name-- I just assumed my family made it up.

[noblegarnet]

Not all of them, but probably most of them... I think some places have a long list of names you have to pick from, actually.

[Which is weird in his mind, but partly understandable? He guesses.]

Where I'm from, you'd probably get made fun of as a kid if your name was too strange. Not that it's right, but... a lot of parents probably have that in mind when they decide.

[why are kids so mean]

[prettyrocks]

Yeah, kids'll make fun of your name where I come from, too. I don't think that part is limited to just humans.

[ The number of times she'd been called "Tootha"... She'd rather not think about that. ]

That's weird though. Where I come from, the whole tribe basically comes together to name new children.

[noblegarnet]

Yeah... I'm sure you're right.

[Kids being brutal no matter what culture they're from would not be a surprise.]

It's a community thing, huh? [He's sure that's not a new concept for Earth, even if he doesn't know where it might be done.] How big is your tribe?

[darkestbefore]

[ Moving had actually gone much smoother this time than when her last two roommates had moved in. Maybe it's because Tsutha had come a little more prepared, or that Ferran had been there to lend a hand, as well.

Either way, once everything has been sorted and mostly settled, Yona wanders back down to the main room to find Tsutha over at the desk and Ferran curled up in a chair with a notepad. Curious, she comes to peer over the back of his chair, her eyes lighting up when she sees he's sketching out the room around him with an easy hand. ]

Oh, that's lovely, Ferran! I didn't know you were so talented at this.

[noblegarnet]

[His eyebrows lift when Yona addresses him, and he blinks when he registers her compliment, giving half a shrug.]

Thanks... I guess I've got a lot of practice.

[Even if he doesn't consider his work bad, he still thinks he has a ways to go. Not that he's sure where he'd be going to at this point, when he's not even sure there's much room for architects in a city that can't exactly expand...]

Back home, designing rooms and buildings was what I wanted to do for a living, so... I took a lot of notes, so to speak.

[darkestbefore]

[ Her eyes widen a little at this and she moves to sink down on the little ottoman beside his chair so she can watch him work, since he doesn't seem to mind her peering over his arm. ]

As a builder, or an artist?

[noblegarnet]

[To reduce it down to being an artist feels too limiting to him, and he taps his pencil against his lip for a moment.]

I guess you could say both, but not like building it with my hands... It's more of learning everything about how to make them sturdy and functional as well as look nice. There's as much science to it as there is art.

[In his opinion, anyway.]

[darkestbefore]

Even the builders need designs and instructions to go off of. Otherwise, their projects might just fall apart.

[ The concept isn't a foreign one to her, even if she has no idea how to do it herself. She still smiles warmly at him as she listens to him describe it, though. ]

I can't even imagine what you'd have to know to be able to do that! That's very impressive, Ferran!

[noblegarnet]

Right.

[He's a little sheepish at the compliment, shrugging dismissively. He doesn't think he's done much so far that's worth being impressed over, even if he has a decent amount of confidence in his work on the artistic side of things.]

Well—I've barely even started the kind of studying I'd need to actually do it. It's really just a dream at this point...

[darkestbefore]

Isn't that where most important things start? As a dream? A wish?

[ She glances up at him with a small, crooked smile. ]

Don't dismiss something that inspires passion in you so easily. And you clearly have a very skilled eye and hand at this, even from what you've done so far. [ She gestures at the sketch he'd been working on of his surroundings, the lines of the room already so familiar to her and coming to life on his page. ]

[noblegarnet]

I... guess?

[He can't really argue with the statement itself, but a lot of people have wishes and dreams that don't really amount to anything.]

Thanks... even if it's just kind of a hobby now. [He doesn't really think it's much of anything he can pursue at this point, given how expensive the university-equivalent is in Aefenglom. And that's not taking into account the rest of what he has to deal with...]

[darkestbefore]

[ She doesn't argue with him, merely leans in to prop her arms on the arm of his chair and rest her chin atop them as she studies his drawing. ]

What prompted you to try and draw this?

[noblegarnet]

[He hums briefly in thought, adding a few more lines to the corners.]

I think... I just missed doing it. And it's comfortable here.

[He'll be the first to admit that he feels safe in the presence of his friend and his bonded in their (half-new) home. Committing the place to memory feels worthwhile.]

It's been a while since I sketched much of anything, honestly.

[darkestbefore]

[ She flicks her gaze from his sketch to his face and back again. ]

I'm glad you feel comfortable here, though. You know you're welcome whenever you wish, right?

[noblegarnet]

[The offer isn't exactly unexpected—Yona certainly seems like the kind of person to welcome friends into her home—but it makes him pause all the same. Something not being surprising doesn't mean it's not meaningful, or that he has a response ready.]

Ah, thanks... I don't really have much to offer, but... the same goes for you, too.