milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

Wash is in his booth, blueberries at one elbow and coffee at the other. In front of him are a slowly shifting digital map of one sector of his galaxy -- a couple of planets are scattered across it, along with markers for fuel points and major trading ports -- and a notebook scratched full of equations. His forehead's creased a little in concentration as he leans over them.

Two fuel points within reasonable distance of Illyria: one four hours before, if they burn carefully enough, the other six hours out the other side. No telling yet exactly how much havoc the shields'll play with the engine and their reserves, but....

Absently, he nibbles a blueberry and jots down a few more numbers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Chur flicks an ear, and then lays both back against her head, briefly. "It was absolutely what?" she asks, confused. "Normally the Bar translates, but I guess it didn't..."

"Fēng kuáng de," he explains. "Crazy. That was the other thing that got to me: everybody can speak both Mandarin Chinese and English in my 'verse, and nobody can here. I've tried to teach a couple people so I can be lazy and not have to translate it, but that idea always crashes and burns like a very bright crashing thing."

Chur sneezes a laugh. "I can't speak any human languages, though I can say the cardinal numbers, and 'stop', 'good', 'no', and.... yeah, I think that's it. It sounds to me like everyone's speaking the pidgin, and I know no one is, because humans can't really speak it."

She concentrates on speaking the pidgin, and not on just speaking, in hopes that the bar won't translate it. "THERE'S TOO MANY ROUGH NOISES, AND CONSONANTS ARE DIFFERENT," she says - and as the bar complies and doesn't translate it, she sounds rather like a cougar growling to itself.

Wash jumps a little.

"Please don't eat me," he says before he can stop himself.

Chur sneezes a laugh - and then another one, and then another one, and her nose is starting to run from laughing so hard, but she can't help it. Finally she gets control of herself. "Sorry," she squeaks. "I forget what the pidgin sounds like to humans." She wipes her nose, apologetically.

Helpfully, Wash grabs a few napkins out of the dispenser and hands them to Chur.

"Like you're growling in a 'hey, that man in the bright shirt looks like he'd make a good lunch' kind of way? Yeah."

He's smiling now, though. Maybe a bit nervously, but it's a smile.

Chur wipes her hand on a napkin. "Thanks," she says, and looks like she's about to start laughing again, but controls the urge. "Hani don't eat living prey, and we don't eat meat-eaters. Kif, now - if a kif comes in, and she's from before the New Peace, before Sikkukuk's death, she'll probably see a human as... an exotic animal. And kif love the status of eating exotic animals."

She decides not to mention, yet, that kif can't stomach eating food that's already dead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only