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Perfect Shard	Some time after a riverside chance meeting involving a naked Fire Aspect, some misconceptions over the diet of orcafolk, and the making of delicious food and coffee at the Inventor's mobile workstation... Perfect Shard sits awkwardly inside the Inventor's spooky carriage. He doesn't seem overtly concerned with the vessel's deathly appearance, but something makes him look around warily all the same. "Happy, I am, to teach you Seatongue", he offers, eying the Inventor. "But tell me: What will you do with it, after? Travel West, speak with people?"
The Fulgent Inventor	While the carriage is very large and most everything is built into the walls, so there's a surprisingly decent amount of floor space, it's very clearly designed for one person to be in. Two people is pushing it and, when one of them is a very large person, it becomes "cosy." Very, very "cosy." Still, The Inventor doesn't exactly seem to mind or notice, perched as she is in a small nook towards the driver's end, stitching something, with Shard sitting on the floor. Though she did give him several cushions, it's still rather cramped. "Oh? No, I admired your hand talking. It hadn't ever occurred to me that someone might do something like that, so I wanted to learn it and the language it's a part of. Also, my two ghosts are only possessing their armor, so they can't talk most of the time. I thought it might be useful to communicate with them."
Perfect Shard	Shard brightens. He seems to have grown quite fond of the two war ghosts. Maybe because they remind him of the drowned sailors at home. "Ah! Yes, yes. Very useful it is, for speaking without sound", he readily agrees, signing along happily. He wriggles around on his behind... again. His tail's rigidity, while useful in the water, has proven to be a nuisance in the cramped confines of the carriage. "In my travels, I found soundless land-dweller folk. Lost their voice, or never had one at all." At the retelling of this encounter, the orcafolk saddens visibly, hanging his head a bit. "Touched I was, to talk to them. Their signs and mine, different... but still, we found understanding in many ways." He tries to gaze out the window. Even while sitting on the floor, he has no trouble doing so. "Curious, I am... Where is your home, The Inventor?"
The Fulgent Inventor	She considers for a moment, tilting her head slightly in thought. "It's a little complicated, as my mystical bargain keeps me from acknowledging my original home town. And Teacher's House is...Mmm..." She tilts her head the other way. "Not exactly homey? Very interesting though!" She taps her lips, narrowly missing jabbing them with a sewing needle. "Yes, for now, however, my home is right here." She waves at the carriage. "I'm traveling around these lands to learn about things." She finishes a stich and snips it with a pair of small shears. "What brings you all the way out here, so far from home?"
Perfect Shard	The large bloke is still trying to find a position where his knees don't constrict the movement of his jaw. How he manages to continue his hand-talking in this small space is a true miracle. Amble practice in cramped confines, perhaps. "Learning as well, I am", says Perfect Shard eventually, after pondering Inventor's response first. "To see all the cities in the world, and learn about them... that is what I plan." He guffaws, a deep bellow in his chest. "Learn to talk better Riverspeak also. Intimidated I am, by the little squiggly signs, the writing. But learn all, I will, and then, understand the cities. Take all I have learned back home. Make Galbadan more... more ~city~." There's longing, and wistfulness, and hope - all intermingled with these words. Again, he looks outside, following a herd of sheep with his amber eyes as the carriage passes them. "Wondering, I am... Speak about that mystical bargain, you would? About your Teacher?"
The Fulgent Inventor	Her eyes brighten as she finds out he's another student of the world. "Well! If you'd like some help learning Riverspeak, I can certainly do that. And I can teach you writing! It's so amazingly useful!" She holds up one of her notebooks. "I'm a tiny bit scatterbrained. So many thoughts all at once! Very good for creativity, but it can be a little tricky to remember what I was doing before I stopped to examine the Wyld Zone I just discovered. So, I just write it all down, then I can go back to check it at any time. It's like having an external memory. Plus! You can give it to other people and then you don't need to spend hours and hours explaining the same thing to each of them." She nods, smiling. "So, so very useful!" She taps her lips again, frowning. "But that would be difficult under water, wouldn't it? Paper would just dissolve, charcoal would melt, and ink..ha! Hmmm...That would be very tricky!" She seems happy. "...Maybe some kind of ...pigmented wax?" she's talking to herself now. "..maybe they have large, flat stones? ....oooh! shells? Shells could work!" She looks excitedly back at Shard. "Do you have lots of large, flat seashells back at your home? Like Clams and stuff? Or...actually you tell me, do you have anything that's decently large and flat that you could break into chunks and carry around for notes and things?" She's scribbling a few ideas down as she speaks. "I could try to devise a paper formulation that won't melt underwater, but you'd likely find it easier to use something locally sourced and plentiful." She blinks. "Oh right! ...Hmmm... How best to say this..." her eyes are hooded for a moment as she thinks, checking her internal state. "...It does seem like I haven't angered them in awhile, so I might as well test this." She smiles and looks at Shard again. "I am...was... From the far North, where the snow is frequent and the water is icy cold. I lived in a city that was built into the side of a mountain where we studied those who once lived there. Unfortunately, one of my experiments exploded and flung me off the side of the city. But it's alright, I know what I did wrong." She smiles confidently. "While I was falling, I had some time to think, and I was approached by my newest Teacher, Teacher Eye and Seven. After some discussion, I agreed to the offer he made of me, which prevented me from dying from the fall, drowning, freezing to death, or dying from getting bonked on the head by sea ice while he came to get me. Very good deal, all told." She nods again. "And then he brought me down south and started teaching me so many things I could barely even comprehend before! It was amazing!" After that she stops, head tilted, like she's listening for something or trying to feel whether an old injury is paining her. "Huh. Nothing." She pulls out another notebook, and scribbles something down. "So, yes, any other questions?"
Perfect Shard	Hearing all of this wash over him, and trying to follow in a foreign language for which he has limited vocabulary takes a lot of concentration for Perfect Shard. He stares at the Inventor with a mix of fascination and bewilderment. A reaction she certainly is used to by now. "I..." The word is accompanied by a half-assed hand-sign, then dies on his lips. After rubbing his snout, he tries again. "...most happy, I would be, to learn the writing... Shells could be done, or pieces of sunken ship. Stone and rock, yes, much of that. Glass, too, but precious. Not a lot." Regaining his confidence and his ground through speaking seems to help. Now he eyes the Inventor from head to toe - squished into the nook as she is. "Intrigued, I am, by your being saved. This Teacher Eye and Seven... a powerful god? To help you like this..." He trails off and seems to be lost in thought there for a while, resting the side of his head against his fist while he ponders. "Confused, I am, by much of your talk. But it is not proper to ask about secrets. Secrets, everyone keeps them precious. If talking so harms you, I will not ask more." He tastes the air with a half open maw and continues: "One day, see that city in the mountain, I will." This time, he sounds very confident, and yet wistful again - knowing how far away he still is from that goal. "Show me the way, perhaps, you can?"
The Fulgent Inventor	She beams at him. "Well, when we stop for lunch, I can give you the basics of writing and..hmm.." she looks at his hands. "Maybe I can shape a good stylus that you can hold more easily, so you can practice." When he mentions glass, her eyes go wide. "Oh of course! Glass! That would be perfect, if you had more of it." She hrms then grins. "Ah, Shard! I must thank you so very, very much! You have given me so very many wonderful problems to think about that never would have occurred to me before! If I can come up with something to enable underwater writing before we part ways, I'll make sure to give it to you. First, though, when we stop, I'd like for you to try this on." She holds up the thing she's been sewing. It's a finely embroidered waist wrap in a muted indigo with sea designs picked out in white. "I can do some adjusting if the fit isn't right or if I've got the tail hole in the wrong place. I also need to treat it to resist water, but it should be more comfortable and stylish than what you have on. I'll start working on a better harness for you to wear, to organize your pouches and everything much better, but I wanted to finish this first, to thank you for everything." "Ah, yes. It would be interesting to go back to my city. While it is very, very far from here, I could give you directions to it. And a map. Though, perhaps it would just be better to tell you that it is the Haslanti city of Windcreche. If you get up into the far north someone up there can probably direct you more easily than I can."
Perfect Shard	Shard still looks perplexed at first, then decides to reflect the Inventor's excitement back at her by grinning, and making a sign she has learned means "I'm happy you're happy". "Windcreche? Find it, I will. Sure as the tide finds land. Careful with map... not holding well in water." While he examines the waist wrap carefully, gauging how well it might fit, he whistles and clicks thoughtfully. "Good at making things, you are." Great respect resonates in his voice. "My thanks. Very well done, this is. Good-looking. Back at home, we trade our good-looking things often." He huffs. "Find things, we do - drifting down from the surface. Cast away. Brought to us by deep-sea currents. We collect, and scavenge, and make new things." He reaches into one of his pouches and hands the woman a little glass figurine, blown and sculpted like a dolphin. It's mostly green, with some streaks of reddish brown and dark blue inside. "This, I give you as thanks."
The Fulgent Inventor	"I will make sure the map is well sealed in a container, I promise." She grins at his enjoyment of the wrap, and then takes the figurine carefully and looks at it with proper respect and reverence. "This is very well made and I will treasure it always. I love it." She beams at him. "And it is so nice to meet someone else in these lands who properly appreciates a gift. Thank you." She's actually tearing up a little.
Perfect Shard	Shard grins back - or maybe he's smiling. It's hard to tell with him, due to the way his face is structured. "Happy, I am, to see you like it. Good trade! The loincloth, I will try on soon... when I am not sitting like this." His fluke twitches, but that hardly diminishes his good mood. But then he peers at the Inventor's face more carefully, and rumbles in confusion. "Eyes filling with water... concerned, I am. Land-dwellers tell me it means sadness, or pain. Are you well...?" He reaches out to her, which isn't too difficult, given the cramped space and his long arms. Provided she lets him, he pats her soothingly on the shoulder. Despite his obvious strength, the touch is very gentle, as if the mutant was concerned he could accidentally hurt her.
The Fulgent Inventor	She takes his hand and pats it. "No, no it's fine." She smiles and wipes her eyes. "I guess I just got sentimental for a moment. And homesick. Thank you for the...oh?" She tilts her head, winces, then grins widely. "Ah-ha! notebook, notebook, sorry one second I need to get this down." and then she grabs the second notebook, this one black as midnight in a coal mine with a white skull design on the cover, and starts scribbling in it like mad, grinning.