milliways_bar | (no subject)

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[OOC: On his way to meet the representatives of the Great Lemurian Empire, Ray stops in Boise, Idaho for the night. There's more to Idaho than potatoes, though.

There's potentially haunted strip clubs, too.]

The door opens on a classically bedraggled Ray. He did try to dress respectably this morning, with a suit and a button-down shirt and all, but there are issues with looking respectable when you are actively covered in slime by the long-dead spirits of extremely irritated Methodist missionaries. Also when you have a small wiggly five-armed alien on your shoulder. "Bar," he says, "I'm going to need a glass of the green stuff and a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap, please. And a pile of kiwifruits the size of my head, if you don't mind."

Bar obliges.

"Thank you," Ray says, and heads for a table.

[tinytag: Long-Reach the Jotok]

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"Thank you," enunciates Jhalak with feeling. It focuses two eyes on the fruit, two on Ray, and leaves one to keep watch over the Bar at large.

"You're welcome," Ray says with a small smile. "You were very good today, Jhalak. Thank you for that. Here, these are for you."

Hey, they peel fast when you're motivated by the chance of getting slime out of your face.

"Thank you thank you." "Kiwifruits!" "You're welcome." "Thank you." "Kiwifruits!"

Enthusiastically, it tucks a few fruits under its mouth.

Om nom.

"You're welcome," Ray says again, and then falls to washing in earnest. He'll clean up his hair later.

... possibly after a burger, since all of a sudden he's hungry too.

Jhalak munches its way through several more fruits and then pauses for a moment to watch Ray wash, in an oh-so-that's-how-you-do-it attentive manner.

"I'd need more water to wash my hair," Ray notes as he realizes he's being washed. "I'll do that later. Humans generally prefer to wash their hair, and any part of the body that requires them to take off their clothes, when they're alone."

"Humans prefer to wash their hair when they're alone," Jhalak... summarizes?

Huh. That's interesting.

"Usually, yes. Hey, you're doing pretty well with English," Ray says. "Good for you."

"Good for Jhalak!"

It wiggles its digits appreciatively.

"Approve?"

"I definitely approve," Ray says, and puts the cloth aside long enough to scritch Jhalak's central mass. Honestly, the little critter's just too cute not to.

He does this to his nephews, too. So's you know.

Wigglewigglewiggle.

At this point it's safe to say that particular bit of body language is a sign of happiness or agreement.

It also lets out a Jhalak-style giggle, seeming to recognize the sound as a human analogue of delighted thumb-wiggling.

Ray approves. It's a really cute sound, regardless.

"So," he says, drying his face and hands off. "What now? Before we go back to driving and all that."

"What now?" "What now." "Now." "Before we go back to driving."

It closes a few hands and holds them near its central mass for a moment, presumably some bit of as-yet-unexplained Jotoki body language, then follows up with a remarkably accurate three-armed impression of a human shrug.

"Mm. How about a new book?" Ray says. "Something I can start reading to you here, and then you can read in the car?"

"New book!" "Book!" "Start reading!" "Read in the car!" "Approve admire applaud accredit adopt!" "That's right!"

Ray laughs and heads over to the Bar, returning with a guide to electronics for the beginning learner. Hey, you never know what's going to go over well.

Jhalak is, predictably, wildly enthusiastic. New words! That mean things! About other things! It's already capable of puzzling out the odd bit of fresh vocabulary from written material without help. Jotoki language acquisition moves fast.

It really does. Ray's pretty impressed- organics don't learn language this fast usually, do they? Except for that one time that Magius...

Hmm.

"Hey, Squeaky?" he says to the next waitrat to stop by. "Could you do me a favor and bring me a copy of John Halloran's Sumerian Lexicon, please?"

He's got full fluency in the language himself thanks to the original spell and a lifetime of practice (not to mention trips with his Time Lord fiancee), but the book's probably the best place to start.

Ooh.

New words.

And a new alphabet, too.

Jhalak peers five-eyed at this novel acquisition, limbs shivering eagerly.

Oh yes. The book came with a tray of clay and a wedge shaped stylus, too- Ray's worked with this kind of thing before. "This is the original tool the people who spoke this language used to write it," he says. "They didn't have paper. Just clay and reeds. See, this is how you make the right marks. This set is the set of marks for the sound ga..."

"Didn't have paper. Just clay and reeds. This is how you make the right marks."

It holds out a tentative hand.

"Jhalak make marks?"

Ray hands over the stylus.

"Go to town, kiddo."

"Go to town." "That's right!"

It holds the stylus somewhat awkwardly and makes a shaky but vaguely recognizable copy of the symbol.

Closing two of its hands in an irritated frown, it tries again, without much more success.

And again.

And (slight improvement) again.

And again... starting to run out of space, now; it writes a little bigger than it should.

"Easy," Ray warns. "When it gets like that, this is how you get a new place to write."

He takes the stylus back and scrapes the clay flat and clean.

"Okay. Try it again."

Without an original to copy from, its next attempt straggles slightly, but by the seventh attempt it seems to have settled into something of a rhythm.

"This," it intones, pointing the stylus triumphantly at a nearly elegant number eleven, "is the set of marks for the sound ga."

Two unoccupied hands wiggle their digits, and it giggles musically.