Synry
Episode Five
With power dancing over the surface of his body, Hob turned to face the demons that had been masquerading as his companions. Their stolen forms withered and blew away as dust under his knowing gaze, revealing the twisted shapes that lurked beneath, embodiments of true evil. They hissed menacingly, but cowered back as he took one confident, measured step towards them. They could not hope to stand against the forces that Hob commanded, and they knew it, as did Hob.
He raised one hand above his head, feeling the power gather there in his palm, forming a terrible potential, a weapon of pure magic to hurl at his foes. All he needed to do was speak the words of power that would unleash the fury that he was barely able to contain, and these demons would be swept back to the hells from which they had crawled. He could feel the winds whipping his cloak about him, stirred up by the enchantment he was working, and knew that the sky was darkening. Now, to speak the words, and release the power to...
"Hob!"
Hob blinked owlishly, and looked up at Edea. She was angry again, and there were more letters on the slate she held in front of him. She must have asked him another question while he'd been woolgathering. He scanned the slate quickly, trying to take in all the letters at once, to let them make the transition to sounds inside him, so that he could at least guess at the answer. Edea was heating up to another lecture, and he needed to get this right to forestall the tongue-lashing.
"The Gods saved us from the Titans?" There was a long pause, as Edea calmed her anger, shifting her mind back to the role of teacher. Hob sat very still, with a blank look on his face, gazing off over Edea's shoulder, waiting for her to tell him he was right.
"That's right," she said, after three deep breaths. "You see how the Elvish sentence relations are indicated by the decorations on the individual words, rather than by word order and tense, the way Humans do it?"
"Aye," he replied. That had been obvious to him from the beginning. You could tell from the flows of the decorations which word belonged where, and the whole passage fit together into a pleasing visual work, as well as conveying the information within them. It was what made Elvish interesting. That and the stories.
"Now say it in Elvish."
"Hla-mordialadanin Viyesht Titansholas." The words flowed out easily, almost contemptuously. Edea picked up the tone, and her eyes glinted at Hob.
"Too easy for you, Hob? Fine. Why don't you frame it in the full declamatory mode for me?"
Hob thought for a second, dismissing several attempts as being too derivative of the stories he was reading, then settled on one.
"Stolansis Viyesht yilastro-hla Titansheelam mis-krollintar."
Edea blinked at him for a second, then said, "And the translation?"
Hob thought for a bit, then said, "It don't quite work in the Human tongue, mum, but maybe something like ‘'Thus were the Gods our shields against the Titanic death.' Only death ain't quite right, begging your pardon. More like the death of dreaming, or of hoping. Least, that's what I meant it to say."
Edea's eyes gleamed like stars, and her ageless face creased slightly in a little smile. She bowed just a touch, from the waist, and said, "The most common human translation of ‘'mis-krollintar' is ‘'the dying of the autumn leaves.' You have a fine touch with our language, Hob. A little training and you might make a fine Talespinner. It's a shame your aesthetics don't extend to your own tongue. Nilassis-na, Hob."
The lesson over, Hob climbed to his feet, gathered up his slate and books, and bowed deeply to Edea.
"Nilassis-nitana, Edea-lorunasa."
