Blood Shaper

Kay ate slowly, taking his time to enjoy the meal he’d made for their breakfast. Since they were planning on being in the area for a while, he’d used their better supplies to make breakfast as a kind of celebration for finding a good spot. It certainly tasted a lot better than dried meats and long-lasting travel bread.

As he ate, he stared up at the mountain across the lake. It wasn’t that far away, the lake was thinner at the northern part, where they’d finally found what Eleniah called ’a fantastic spot’, and it wasn’t that massive of a lake to begin with. The lake that made Tumbling Rapids into the trade city that it was, since it, combined with the two rivers, allowed maritime trade to travel that far inland, was maybe eighty to one hundred square miles based on Kay’s math. Having looked at it from above, this one was probably only forty square miles at the most, half the size or less. The base of the mountain was only about a mile away from them at this point. Near the top of the mountain, he could see shapes moving, slightly darker than the gray of the stone.

“Do you have any binoculars?”

Eleniah looked up from scooping seconds onto her plate. “Any what?”

“Oh, uh, a device for seeing things that are far away?” He pointed at the tiny shapes, “I was wondering what those are.”

She twisted around to look. “You mean like a spyglass?”

“That would work. Binoculars are just two spyglasses connected together, so you look with both eyes at the same time.” He thought about what he’d just said, “It’s actually probably more complicated than that, but that’s the basics.”

She squinted at the far-off movement. “I don’t have a spyglass or any bi-noc-u-lars. Whatever those are, they’re really far off, so I wouldn’t worry about it for now.” She twisted back around and went back to loading her plate with more food. “That’s a really weird word. Why not just call it a double-spyglass or something?”

“It’s Latin, I think it means… two far-seeing? Double far-seeing? Something like that.”

She frowned at him while she chewed. “What? What’s Latin?”

Kay was blindsided once again by the random realization that obviously, people wouldn’t know basic cultural facts from Earth. This could take a while. “Okay, Latin is a language that comes from very a successful and culturally influential people from a few thousand years ago on Earth. Many scientific things have ‘proper names in Latin, then common names in whatever language you speak. But there’s a lot of stuff where for whatever reason that I generally don’t know, the Latin name just stuck, and we use that in day-to-day use too.”

She chewed slowly, slowly nodding. “I think I get it. Your language is one of those ones that just grabs random words and vocabulary from other languages and walks around like it isn’t a hodgepodge of weird.”

“Yeah, totally. You have languages like that here?”

“Yuahah, from the western part of this continent is like that. A couple of trading languages are like that too, although those are like that on purpose.”

“Why didn’t it translate it for you, though?” Kay wondered.

She looked back up at him.

He read the confusion on her face and explained, “Binoculars. Once I explained it, you understood the base concept easily, so why didn’t whatever it is that translates our words back and forth for me just call it a double-spyglass for you, or something similar?”

She finished another mouthful of food, then sat forward with her ‘teacher expression’ on. “The...” She waved a hand, “Whatever it is that translates for you probably can’t translate words that don’t exist in one of the languages it’s translating. I just stuck two words together that would kind of make sense; that doesn’t make it actual vocabulary for the concept you’re describing. For example,” She said… something. It was simultaneously melodic and airy and also sounded like waves hitting a rock. It was obviously a word, but it wasn’t in any language Kay had ever heard. “That’s the word for a type of cooking used by Merpeople near my home island back home in their own language. Since it only works underwater and your world doesn’t have it, there’s no way it translates.”

“I thought the translation magic only works with one language? From English to Sha’ken?”

“No, it should translate everything, as long as both languages have a word for what you’re saying, as we’re figuring out.”

“That’s a little broken.”

“What? It’s working just like it should.”

“Sorry, that was slang. That’s really useful and maybe a bit too powerful.”

“Oh,” She nodded in understanding and agreement, “A little, yeah. It’s good for you Outworlders, though, because it means you can communicate no matter what part of the world you land in. And you make great translators for different groups,” She added, “As long as you focus on who you’re talking to, whatever you say will be in a language they understand.”

“That’s weird.”

“Right?”

“Ooh, ooh! Kay!”

He looked down at where Murunel was sitting next to him. “Oh, sorry, Murunel, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“No, it’s fine! Concentrate on me and say something!”

“What should I say?”

“Anything!”

“Um…” He glanced around the camp, looking for a topic. “What’s your favorite food?”

“My mom makes this delicious baked dish with beef and vegetables, but that was still Sha’ken. Concentrate on me!” She narrowed her tiny eyes at him.

“Oh, is that what we’re doing?” Kay shifted in his seat to face her directly and focused on speaking whatever language she wanted him to be speaking. After a moment, he said: “I think your scales are beautiful, especially when they glitter in the light.”

“Ohh!” She curled up into a ball, with only one eye peeking out from behind the curve of her neck. “You’re speaking Ghrdak! And your accent is perfect!” Her voice was a little muffled. “Also, thanks! I like my scales too!”

“How are those noises coming out of you?” Eleniah asked.

Kay glanced over at her to see a worried look on her face. “What?”

“It sounded like…” She shuddered a little. “Like growling and roaring and noises that your body looks too small to make.”

“That’s Ghrdak!” Murunel exclaimed happily, “Most people just call it Draconic, though. Ghrdak is hard to pronounce if you don’t speak Ghrdak. But Kay can speak it perfectly because of some mysterious magic that translates things for him! And you hadn’t even heard anyone speak it before this! That’s so cool!”

“I just hear English. I can’t even hear whatever Ghrdak sounds like or even Sha’ken. It all comes through as English.”

Eleniah set down her empty plate, a small frown forming. “That’s… that could be bad, maybe? I can’t think of a reason why not hearing what language you’re speaking could be a problem, but I’m sure it could be. Try concentrating on not having the words translated?”

“Uh, alright?” He thought really hard about not hearing the translation of what was said; he wanted to hear the actual words spoken. After he felt like he probably had it, he nodded at Kay.

Sha’ken had a lot of consonant sounds in it, with multiple glottal stops and throat noises that he associated with Cyrillic languages for some reason.

“Okay, I can definitely hear you speaking, Sha’ken now.”

Eleniah jerked back a little, confusion and shock on her face.

Kay’s eyes got wide. Oh, please let it come back if I concentrate on it. I really don’t want to learn a new language on top of everything else in my life now. He focused as hard as he could on having the translation come back. “Can you understand me now?”

Eleniah sighed in relief. “Yes, I can. Ooh, that could have been bad.”

“Not being able to talk to you? Yeah, that would have been terrible,” Kay agreed, “Let’s not mess with the completely unknown translation thing anymore for now.”

“I totally agree. And since we’re done with breakfast, this is a good time for you to clean up, and we’ll start our tasks for the day.”

After he finished cleaning up, he stopped next to Eleniah, who was waiting in the same seat. “So, what are we doing today?”

She stood up and walked over to her dimensional bag. “I’m going to scout the area around us for resources and threats. You are going over to the edge of the woods there and felling a few trees.” She pulled a large axe out of the bag. “Here.”

Kay stared at the axe. “I’m not a lumberjack.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What kinds of trees am I supposed to cut down?” He gestured at the axe. “I can swing an axe and do all the labor, but I don’t have enough experience to make good decisions on what to cut.”

“Oh, just make sure it’s at least a few feet wide, and you’ll be fine. Even if you get some that aren’t amazing for construction standards, we can still use the wood for something.”

“Construction standards?” Kay glanced around the camp. They were close to the cliff face of the western side of the valley and the forested area that made up the north end of the valley. The lake’s shore was maybe a quarter of a mile to the east. “We’re building here? And right now?”

“Well, not this instant, the wood has to dry before we can build with it, and there’s a little bit of other prep, but why not?” She gestured around them, “This is a great spot, and there’s no time like the present.”

Kay thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re still in charge. I’m just being an outstanding adviser.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that what you’re doing? Advising, not steamrolling me with decisions?”

“What?”

“Pushing me into doing what you want.”

“What? Noooo. I’d never.”

Kay snorted a laugh. “Right. Anyway, I wasn’t worried. Take back the leadership any time you want.”

“Nah.” She sauntered off towards the tent. “Go chop wood, leader!”

He laughed again and started to head towards the trees, the axe over his shoulder. He paused and looked down at Murunel. “Want to come with me today?”

“Sure! I don’t know anything about woodcutting, but hard labor is more interesting than skulking around!”

“Skulking around? Isn’t she going to be looking for resources and threats? Not spying on people.”

“Meh, skulking is skulking. Let’s go knock things over!”

Kay laughed again and put the necklace over his neck. He trekked over to the trees and started looking for one good-sized enough to take down. “Should I make sure I’m not destroying something’s home before I start chopping?”

“That sounds like a good idea to me!”

“Alright…” He gazed up into the canopy of the large tree he’d picked, looking for nests or moving animals. “This is probably a lot more complicated than I assumed it was.”

“Most things are.”

Kay was going to respond when he heard something coming from deeper among the trees. The sound of fighting. As he stopped to listen, he heard the sounds of grunts and a weapon being swung. A person, or people, fighting. He stared in that direction, then turned and started jogging back to the camp. “Running into an unknown fight alone is a bad idea, right?”

“I’d say so.”

“Good. Let’s see what miss ‘I’m totally not railroading you into anything’ thinks. Hopefully, she’s still nearby.”

“She should be; it’s only been a few minutes.” He saw her twist her neck around to look up at him in the corner of his vision. “What’s ‘railroading’?”