10th of Spring, 321 AC. 8:07 a.m.
The snowstorm had chaked with Currituck's normal job as a sailor, and he'd be stuck ashore until conditions cleared up. He'd taken up a job at The Swords and Sandals for fun and profit in the meantime, but sex work is only so many hours a day, far less than what he's used to, being on a ship for over a week at a time in some cases with limited things to do in the small amount of free time he gets. To contrast, there's so much to do in Avakaron, and he has so much free time now! He doesn't know what to do with himself!
So he'd been learning and practicing a few unarmed combat techniques over the course of the past few days. But now that his lessons are complete in that area, what is this young sailor boy t' do, m' Johnnies?
Why, improve his understanding of the Common language, of course!
Currituck is waiting with bated breath. His dad had gotten up a little earlier to make the family breakfast (Currituck was still the first to rise, of course) and after the meal he went out to get the books and such for their Common lessons today. His mom went to spend the morning and early afternoon with a friend. Lil' 'tuck cannot simply sit still at the kitchen table while he waits for his dad to get back -- he's used to being up and at 'em, working like a madman at this happy hour of 8:09 a.m. So he donned his glasses and tasked himself with cleaning the kitchen so his folks could attend to their other business directly.
And you know Currituck's definition of clean is spotless.
Our short friend the perfectionist swab~ swab~ swabs~ the dishes and cutlery. He swab~ swab~ swabs~ the table. The counter, the dishwashing basin, the stove, the chairs, the floor...
NOTHING IS SAFE FROM CURRITUCK'S CLUTCHES OF CLEANLINESS!
Cleanliness is next to captainliness, as Currituck says.
When has he said that?
Who knows. He just has.
Currituck wipes the sweat from his brow and looks upon his work. Does this cleanliness meet his standards? It's difficult to tell, even with his glasses on. So he goes over everything again. Table~ Table~ Table~ Table~ He eyeballs the surface of the table now. It resembles the decks of ships after he's swabbed them, so he reckons it's okay. He does the same with the chairs until their wood looks like freshly-swabbed decks. The stove, uhh... He's never gone behind the scenes in galleys, and this iron stovetop is black all over, even after he scrubbed it the first time. He scrubs it again for good measure. The dishes, he made sure to get the food remains off, but he didn't wash the cast iron pan, as his dad said that's a no-no. The dishes look fine. Oops, wait, he missed something. Currituck takes the fork, opens the nearest window, and thumps the bit of egg outside. Then he swishes the fork around in the water basin and plops it back down onto the dishrack to dry. Then he closes the window. Disaster abated. Finally, let's look at these floors again. Ships don't have limestone floors, so Currituck is unsure what constitutes clean for this surface, and he isn't home enough to be familiar with the end product of his parents' cleaning. Tercer, let's whip out the elbow grease and do it again! Swab~ Swab~ Swab~ Phew! He looks over everything again. Looks good! His perfectionism is pleased, but his mind is fatigued. He at long last sets the sponge down, his work concluded, and he hears the doorknob of the front door twist. Pop's home! He turns to face the door as it sounds its telltale creak upon being opened.
"I'm back, Tuckibuck. I got the--"
Sopubek Itavi stops and stares at the shiny scene before him, a bundle of books and papers cradled in his right arm. His jaw drops and his brows furrow. He slowly looks over at his son.
"Got busy while I was gone, huh?"
"Yes, sir!" he answers with a proud grin. Currituck likes to call his mom and pop ma'am and sir. His folks thought it strange at first, but they accepted it as just another thing that Currituck does.
The corners of ol' Pop's gaping mouth curl up a bit. "I about don't wanna set foot in here." Is it really that good? Or are you saying that because everything's so wet? Sopubek looks down at his feet. "Lemme take my shoes off--" He slips each shoe off with the opposite foot and leaves the foot coverings at the door. "Where'd ya leave the mop hanging up?"
"Th' mop?"
"Yeah. You mopped the floor, right?" He shifts the books and papers into his left arm and points around at the floor with his right index finger.
"I didn't use th' mop, I used th' sponge," he says, pointing to the darkened sponge he left by the sink.
Sopubek's jaw drops and his brows furrow again, this time to a more drastic degree, craning his neck in shock as well. He slaps his right palm onto the side of his face and closes his eyes. "You mean to tell me--" He opens his eyes and gestures to Currituck. "--that you got down on your hands and knees--" He waves his arm in a sweeping motion, gesturing to the floor. "--and cleaned ALL THIS with a chakin' SPONGE?!?!?!?!!"
"That's how we do it on ships, Pop." Currituck takes his glasses off.
His father pauses, then laughs. "Ohh~ Lemme take my socks off, they're gettin' all soggy. Here--" He holds the bundle forward in an offering gesture and Currituck steps carefully over to take it from him. "Careful, floor's slippery," his pop advises. Currituck takes the bundle and sets it down on the table while his dad removes his socks and places his bare red feet on the wet floor. He grimaces down at his tootsies. "Ew, soggy feet." He shrugs and sighs, smiling. "Price to pay for clean floors." He closes the front door behind him and steps towards the table. "Thanks again, Tuc-KY--!!" Sopubek loses his balance briefly on the slippery limestone. Currituck reaches out his hand but his dad grabs the back of the nearest chair and saves himself. He pants for a second. "Hoo! Ohh, I'm gettin' too old for this..." He slides his giss down onto the seat of the chair that saved it from stony pain; Currituck takes the next seat over. The kitchen table is small and round and is pushed up flush with the wall, having three seats: two facing each other and one facing the wall. Sopubek is slouching in the chair nearest the door and Currituck is sitting up straight in the chair facing the wall.
"Alright Tucky, you ready for some Common?"
"Chak yes!"
"Chak yeah, let's do some Common!"
Sopubek brings the stack of books and papers closer to him and takes off the top book, a children's book, and removes some sheets of paper he'd slipped between the pages. "Do you need a refresher on phonics?"
"I think so, yeah." Currituck knows a few Common words (many of them curse words), and one of the few complete sentences he knows how to say is 'Hello. I'm Currituck Itavi, a sailor,' but he can't remember some of the phonetics of this second language -- most of his scant knowledge comes from his sailing career aboard mixed-race ships and poking around Paethsmouth. Sopubek goes through the loose papers and slides a sheet with Common characters written on them and how each character and group of characters is pronounced beneath them in Rigarian.
"This one is pronounced 'ah,'" his father says, pointing to the first character in the 'Vowels' section of the phonics sheet. The way he pronounced the character is like the 'o' in 'on.' "Like our 'ah.'" He pronounces the syllable like the 'a' in 'at.'
"Yeah, like how Paethsmouthers speak. 'Ah,'" Currituck pronounces in the Common phonetic. "Common's th' dominant language there."
"Oh yeah, I've heard some sailors talk like that before, yeah."
Currituck continues going over the phonics worksheet with his dad, pronouncing the sounds. Some sounds are harder to make than others due to them not having a Rigarian equivalent, but with more practice, his tongue, mouth, and throat will get used to shaping themselves to render the phonetics.
After the phonics refresher, Currituck's dad slides the children's book over. The front cover has a picture of a human boy looking over a fence at a small horse. Sopubek points at the title of the book. "Read the title." Currituck studies the foreign characters and opens his mouth:
"'Poh-nee of Toh-nee...' So 'Tony's...'" He looks at his dad and points to the first word of the title. "What's that word?"
"I'll let you figure it out yourself as you read it, it's easy to get."
"Ooh!" Currituck shakes his fists gleefully for a short time and looks down at the book again. His father points at some strange strings of syllables at the bottom of the cover. "What's this say?" asks Pop. Currituck squints his eyes. These characters don't look like words, save for the first word. His brain wraps around itself trying to figure it out. "Sound it out."
"By Ah-ah-run... Su-miss... Suh-mith... Smith!" He turns to his dad excitedly. "That's their name, ain't it? Th' author's name, Ah-ah-run Smith!"
"Uh-huh! But his first name is pronounced 'Aaron.' See how the ah's are together like that?" He points to the first two characters of the name. Currituck nods. "Yes, sir." "When ah's are together, they're pronounced like one ah." "Ah." Currituck's eyes widen and he giggles at how he said the Common syllable as a manner of conveying recognition. "And 'Smith,' ain't that th' Common word f'r blacksmith?" "Sorta -- it means any sort of smith, like a weaponsmith, bladesmith, y'know." "Ahh, okay."
Sopubek opens the book to the first page of the story, skipping past the copyright and title crap. "Read it out."
Currituck wiggles his lips. "Wun-ss there was a boh-ee named Tony, hoo...who wan-te-d...a poh-nee." He glances at the artwork on the page opposite. The boy, Tony, is looking at a small horse in a pasture. Currituck slowly moves his finger onto the horse. "...Poh-nee?" "That's right." Currituck grins. "So 'pony' means 'baby horse,' right?" "No, it's just a smaller horse, that's a full-grown adult pony in the story." "Ohh, so I'm a pony!" "Hahaha, yeah~ My pony Tuckibuck!" Currituck starts imitating horse noises, neighing and blowing air through his lips and shaking his head, making his father and himself laugh more. He continues reading as his giggles subside.
"So he weh-n-t to his muh-zzir and seh-yid--"
"Said."
"Sehhd...'May I havv a pony?' And his muh-zzir-- ther...said--"
Currituck turns to the next page. The accompanying artwork shows Tony with a human woman in a traditional human kitchen. The woman looks firm, like she's refusing him sweets or something, and Tony looks disappointed.
"'No, Tony, you may not have a pony.'" Currituck's eyes linger on the human woman, not with lust, but with recognition.
"Mother..." He flips back to the previous page. "So Tony wants a pony but his mom won't give him one." "Mm-hmm." Currituck looks over some of the words on the first page. "...Wanted a pony..." He turns back to the third page and continues: "So he went to his fah-ther and said, 'Fah-ther, may I have a pony?' And his fah-ther said--" He stops, focusing on the word fah-ther. He points at it. "That must be his dad," he guesses. Sopubek smiles but neither confirms nor denies his son's hypothesis. Currituck flips to the fifth page. On the sixth page is a picture of Tony speaking to a human man in a traditional human den. The man seems to be refusing him the pony as well. "No, Tony, you may not have a pony." The Common words roll off his tongue a lot more smoothly now. Currituck looks at the man and a huge grin on his face. He puts his finger aggressively on the man's hand-drawn face. "That's his dad! I knew it! I knew it!" "You did!" Currituck curls in on himself and kicks his feet and shakes his fists with stimmy glee. "Ahh!" "Except the word father has a more formal connotation than dad, like our word father. 'Dad' would be the Common equivalent for 'dad' or 'pop.'" "Yes, sir. So cool!" Currituck sits up straight and calms himself, then continues reading:
"So he went to his gr-ah-n-pee and said, 'May I have a pony, Gr-ah-n-pee?'" "Pronounce it as one syllable: 'Grahn.'" "Grrrahn-pee." It was a little difficult. Currituck proceeds: "And his grrrahn-pee said--" He flips the page. This page's artwork features Tony speaking to an elderly human man, who is reading a book while sitting in a chair outside. The man is frowning. Tony looks sad. "''No, Tony, I-mm not givv-ing you a pony.' Tony was sahd." Currituck frowns sadly. "He's sad because no one'll give 'im a pony." "Mm-hmm. But keep reading." He looks at the next sentence and finds another word with a similar string of difficult phonics. But he's determined to pronounce it right! "So Tony went to his grr...grahmm-ee and said, 'Will you givv me a pony, grahmmee?' And his grammee said--" Currituck turns to the final page of the book. The artwork pictures Tony hugging an elderly human woman outside in a pasture, beside the pony who was pictured earlier. Tony, the woman, and even the pony are all smiling.
"'Yes, Tony, I will give you a pony!'" Currituck beams for Tony. "Tony was hap-pee!" He turns to his dad. "Tony got his pony!" "Yep! Don't'cha love happy endings?" Currituck grins, then points to the old woman and flips the page back and points to the old man. "Who're these people?" "This is his grandpa and that's his grandma," Sopubek says, flipping the page accordingly. "Granpy and Grammy," Currituck remarks. "Mm-hmm. But those are more informal pet names for grandma and grandpa. Like our auntie instead of aunt." "Ohh!" Currituck flips over to the back of the book and looks at the description. "Tony wants a pony. Will his fah-muh-lee give him wun?" His father repeats in Rigarian: "Tony wants a pony. Will his family give him one?" "Ohh, 'family!' That's the word for 'family'!" "Mm-hmm!" "You, me, n' mom're 'family'!" Currituck points in reference to the family members, save for his mom, who is not present at present. "Right! We're 'family'!" Currituck shakes his fists and grins more.
"Wanna take a crack at reading something more advanced?" Sopubek asks.
"Damn right!" Currituck answers in a mixture of Common and Rigarian.
"Anchors aweigh, then!"
Sopubek moves his hands to the stack of books. Which will he select this time?
