All that is familiar is foreign (backdated to the 20th)(Language: Alternian)

[warriorscribe]

Characters: Enoch and anyone
Setting: Room 3-18; Floor 5, Nov 20
Format: Starting in prose, but I'll match you!
Summary: Enoch wakes up and happens to notice he can't read his own language anymore! Also may or may not figure out the concepts of "friend" and "enemy" are now a single word depending on the turn of conversation.
Warnings: None yet! (but possibly language, depending on who tags in)

Room 3-18

There was only one language in his time, in his world. So it took him completely by surprise when his position in his sleep pushed the card Armaros had given him halfway out of his pocket, and when he looked at it...he didn't recognize the words. Logically, he knew they read my hero, but the letters that had been so familiar to him, that he had been taught, that he had written all his life, were alien.

Worry slowly dawning on his face, he slid out of bed so fast he took his sheets with him, and trailed them a step or two on his way to his chest. He hurriedly opened it and pulled one of his Meridian journals out of the bundle he'd left them in since the whale attack. All of it was gibberish. Vaguely familiar in shape, but unrecognizable.

He closed the book and the trunk, and sat on top of it, staring at the card, as if looking at it long enough would make the letters more familiar to him. He couldn't even remember the mnemonic song his father had taught him, that he'd taught every child he'd raised, repeated over and over across his centuries-long journey...

"Why?" he wondered aloud, not realizing his language was that of another world's entirely.

Floor 5

The NPCs at the security station were no more understandable even now that his language wasn't even his own. Not being able to understand what anyone else was saying, when there was no precedent for him, was jarring. Eventually, he meandered to the outer ring and sat down next to a viewfinder, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. Eventually, his gaze traveled up to it, lingered, and then returned to the floor. Someone had painted over every one of these when he'd first managed to wonder what they were, and between this and the fact that the lenses were shaped and positioned for a pair of eyes, Enoch assumed they were trying to protect people from whatever they did. It was probably for the best he not look, and just stay here where there weren't very many people talking. Maybe if he waited long enough, he'd hear someone he could understand.

Comments

Floor 5

[tohko_amano]

While it was a little early, Tohko was walking around the Tower, scribbling down Christmas plans and gift ideas in her notebook. Some people were easier to make plans for than others, and while Tohko was thinking, she stopped by the fifth floor. Normally she would have passed by it altogether, but she had spotted Enoch in there, and she wanted to see if he wanted anything.

So, she walked up to Enoch with a small grin. "Good morning, Enoch. How are you?"

[warriorscribe]

Enoch only recognized his own name, of course.

"I can't understand you," he answered, naturally in Alternian.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko scratched her head and tried to make her face look puzzled. She had no idea what he just said. Was this some sort of game that the Admins were playing? As a small test, Tohko flipped to a clean page in her notebook and wrote down a simple message.

'Can you read this? If so, then how are you?'

Just in case that didn't work, Tohko drew a small picture below those words. It showed two tiny Enoch's-one happy, and one sad. There was an arrow between them and a small question mark below the arrow. Tohko hoped he would at least be able to understand written question marks. She then showed the notebook to Enoch.

[warriorscribe]

Interestingly enough, written Alternian did have a question mark exactly like that one. His own language's would have been harder to recognize.

He tilted his head at the two...before pointing at the question mark, itself. He didn't really know how he felt about all this.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko breathed a sigh of relief. At least he could understand her drawings. She nodded, hoping he would get that she wasn't quite sure how to take this either. This must have been another trick the Admins were playing on them..but how to draw that out?

Flipping the page, Tohko thought for a moment before drawing two stick figures with collars and a person wearing a business suit watching them from afar, holding a computer. She drew small beams coming out of the computer before drawing speech bubbles over the collared figures. However, what was in the speech bubbles was all gibberish.

To make it more obvious, she gave the collared figures sweat marks and drew an arrow, the pointy end at the collared figures and the flat end at the Administrator. She then showed the notebook to Enoch again. It was hard saying everything with images, since she relied on words a lot, but she would try her best to communicate!

[warriorscribe]

The only contact Enoch has had with computers is the terminals here, which he only sees as communication. He believes the control is done through some other machine. So unfortunately, Tohko's message is lost. Enoch looks up at her and shakes his head.

"I don't understand." Not that she would be able to understand that, herself...

[tohko_amano]

Tohko sighed. By the head shaking, she could tell that he didn't understand her picture at all. She wasn't sure how else she could draw it so that he would understand either. How do you draw or act out being an Administrator? She had no idea. It wasn't like she knew what they looked like.

She waved her hand in a way that she hoped would say 'Don't worry about it. It's nothing.' before thinking about how she could at least get her question understood. She flipped a page and drew Enoch holding a small gift box. She then drew a line from the gift box to a question mark before showing the notebook to Enoch again. Hopefully, this time, he would understand.

[warriorscribe]

"...Even if I'd written it, you wouldn't be able to read it."

And she couldn't understand him. Enoch sighed and raised a hand to his head.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko sighed. So he couldn't understand that either. Not sure of what else to do, she offered him her notebook and pen. Maybe he could draw out what he wanted to say. She didn't seem to be having much luck.

[warriorscribe]

Armaros was more the sort to communicate this way. Enoch's practice and experience was of words, and while living with Armaros made drawing inferences from body language and pictures easy enough, going the other way was something he'd never needed to give thought to. He wasn't the type it would come naturally to.

He tried to think of what to draw to represent what he wanted to say. Eventually, he took the pen and notebook and drew a person writing at a desk with a quill, and wrote You would not understand this beneath it, connecting it with an arrow. Beside that, a person attempting to read a scroll, a question mark over their head to show confusion.

Hopefully, that was good enough. Enoch returned them with the new drawing, watching Tohko's face for sign of comprehension.

[tohko_amano]

Sadly, Tohko was the type who used words a lot to communicate and desperately tried to hide her body language, so that people wouldn't be able to see when she was trying to hide something or lie about how something tasted. She was also terrible at reading codes and interpreting drawings..but she would do her best, even if she often failed miserably.

So, when took back her notebook-with a nod and smiled that she hoped read 'Thank you!'-she looked at the drawing for a few minutes, trying to decipher it. She could only think of two meaning for this drawing, and both were terribly sad. The first was that he wanted his old life back as a gift. The person standing over him probably couldn't read the scroll due to tiny handwriting or smudged print, and he was asking about it.

The second was that right now, no matter what either of them wrote or drew, they wouldn't be able to communicate with each other. Sad, Tohko drew two more pictures above Enoch's and connected it with arrows.

The first showed a person writing at a desk with a quill, but this time, the person trying to read the scroll had an exclamation point over his head, and he was smiling. The second showed two collared figures actually talking with each other, and a man wearing a business suit was crying over his smashed computer.

She then handed the notebook back to Enoch, hoping he would understand the message: That, eventually, he would go back to living his old life and that, eventually, they would be able to speak to each other using words again.

[warriorscribe]

And, naturally, Tohko kept making the same mistake, that Enoch would associate business suits and computers with control. He didn't even realize that's what she was trying to communicate until he had both images with those themes.

He wasn't sure what the first picture was for, other than the assumption that logically, writing would become understandable too once the effect was over or the control was removed. He nodded in acknowledgment of what he did understand, at least, and tapped the pen against the paper for a bit as he tried to think of what to follow that up with. Eventually, he gave up, handing them back to Tohko. It was hard to find things to say in a situation like this that weren't completely dependent on language. Like his syntax was really strange now, and he wasn't sure how he was so fluent.

[tohko_amano]

Tohko smiled when he nodded, thinking that he understood both images and wasn't going to let this get him down. She nodded when he handed her notebook and pen back. It was way too difficult for them to talk right now and make sense of what the other one was saying. Unless Tohko thought of some other way to communicate, it was probably best to wait this event out. And so, with that, Tohko waved good-bye before walking off, still not sure what to give as a gift..but happy that she could lift his spirits for a moment. Maybe.