Sequel

Despite the fact that Muan is learning the basics of language quickly, it will be a long while before he knows how to tell Rel what he thinks or feels. I've been trying to figure out how a person would explain abstract thoughts to someone else. How to explain love? Or even the concept of what thought is. There's a lot more to abstract concepts than what the dictionary tells us and Muan isn't the type to tell Rel he loves him after reading the dictionary definition. Muan would more be confused.

... and then start watching pornos and asking Rel all kinds of questions as to whether or not it was love and why it was or wasn't.

Which is why I love Muan.

Then there are the other lessons. Like the trip to the bathroom. Muan should know and understand that people are cruel and whatnot, but the type of cruelty he delt with was almost entirely physical. They found a way to survive. I'm not certain Muan would understand if someone insulted him or plotted behind his back. If he gave them enough time to explain themselves, that is.

Anyways. Read, Review and Enjoy.




Hohi left an hour later as Muan clicked through an online dictionary, looking up random words. Muan began randomly typing words from the page on warfare into the dictionary’s search bar and read through each description carefully. The Sidhe moved through the links at the bottom of the description, the ‘did you mean…’ links and the ‘related to…’ links.

It was after Hohi had left that Muan finally looked away from the screen and glanced about the room. Muan shuffled to the craft box and pulled out paper, a pen and a pencil. He returned to the kitchen table and laid them out beside the laptop.

Rel moved to the fridge and took out the makings for lemon thyme chicken. He threw it all in the oven with potatoes beside, baking on the rack. By the time he moved back to the table Muan was watching him.

“Mm?” Rel murmured, sitting beside Muan once more.

Muan pointed to the pen, “te?”

“Pencil.”

“Te?” the pencil.

“Pen.”

“Te?” the paper.

“Paper.”

“Auh,” Muan picked up the pen and made a line on the paper before setting the pen to the side and making a mark with the pencil. Muan considered the marks for a long moment before glancing at the pencil’s end, “te?” Muan pointed the eraser end at Rel.

“Eraser?”

Muan frowned, “te eraser?”

Rel motioned and Muan gave him the pencil. Rel drew a line on the paper and turned the pencil over, erasing the new line as Muan watched with wide, speckled eyes.

“Wah? Ahahah!” Muan snatched the pencil from Rel and drew a shape, then erased it again, “Te … whit broad mark.”

“White board marker, like that, yes,” Rel said.

Muan looked up nanotechnology and sketched out the chemical compound from the page. He offered Rel the pencil. Rel took the pencil and sketched out the chemical compound his company had been working on. No sense in hiding it. Muan looked at the two, took the pen and circled the base in Rel’s and the base in the one online. They were similar. The rest was the shell, the outer casing of the nano that would decide what it did, how it would work…

The outer shell of Rel’s was created to be illuminated. To shine and prove to the researchers that such a thing was possible. The outer shell of the one from online reminded him of something. Something. Something. Destructive, Rel assumed, because what else would people use such technology for? Either destruction or healing but if it was healing it was likely Tahluen and wouldn’t have made it online.

Rel pulled the laptop towards him and did a search on the chemical compound. Acidic compounding paired with capable adapting and…

Which. Made no sense. The acidic compound was meant, it seemed, to attack a specific kind of mucus, and could easily be delivered through pill form. Nanotechnology would take the compound to every inch of flesh in the body, thusly stripping the mucus lining…

Didn’t. Nerves. Have some sort of lining?

Rel frowned and scratched down a quick compound of his own, a nanotechnology that would create the basic damage that he expected the other nano was meant to cause. Muan snatched the pencil from Rel and erased several lines of the compound and replaced them with his own. Solving … what, Rel didn’t know. He studied the lines of chemicals and committed them to memory.

Then he tore up the paper into the smallest bits he could make and took it all to the bathroom where he lit the paper bits on fire, from a candle lit by a match, and dropped them into the toilet as they were consumed. Muan spoke from the doorway as Rel burned through the bits.

“Te?”

“Bad. If people got a hold of this… Maun, you obviously have a gift, a capability to read chemicals and arrange them in orders that … amaze even me and I’m a chemical genius most of the time. But if they found out that you can do this, that you had done this, it would. Someone would use it to no good end.”

“Lel?”

Rel glanced over at Muan. The Sidhe made a slow down motion. Right. Muan might understand small words or long explanations about each word but long sentences, while they were looking away, Muan had nothing to play on, nothing to go by.

The flames licked his finger, making him yipe and drop the burnt paper into the toilet. Rel moved to the sink and inspected the finger. He might actually be fine, no harm done. Rel returned to the toilet and burnt the last bit of paper before flushing the toilet and blowing out the candle.

Muan was still watching him.

“Te?” Was all Rel could managed, the word Sidhe seemed to always use for what.

“Bad?” Muan seemed puzzled over the word.

All of that and Muan was puzzled over the first word only? Rel frowned and then dimly recalled having that kind of thought before. He gave his head a shake and moved past Muan, to the computer. Rel typed in the word bad into the laptops search line and showed Muan the page.

The Sidhe sat in front of the computer as Rel checked the food. Almost done. He always lost track when he was dealing with chemicals. He closed the oven and pulled down plates and cutlery. Watching Muan for a moment, Rel added buns to the plates and buttered both of them. To Muan’s bun he added lettuce and a variety of the sprouts that he found in the bottom of the kitchen.

Rel pulled out the potatoes and chicken and served up the food. When he set it beside the laptop, Muan immediately closed the computer and turned to the food. The Sidhe grinned at the food and plucked up the bun. Moments and it was gone.

It wasn’t until Muan picked up the cutlery that Rel realised why Muan had eaten the bun first. Because the Sidhe wasn’t sure how to eat the chicken. Muan had watched Rel begin eating his chicken and potato before attempting to eat his own. Muan was very careful about eating his meal, very careful not to drop anything or make a mess. At the end, Muan slid his cutlery onto his plate as Rel and looked at Rel.

An idea.

Rel reached over and patted Muan’s head, “good Muan.”

Muan immediately looked up the word, “Goooood… bad? Te… yes, no?”

“Yes?” Rel winced at the thought of possibly telling Muan that good and bad was the same as yes and no.

“Auh. Er… eh ee neh.”

“Eh… good… neh… bad?”

“Auh!”

“Ee… and?”

“Ahnd? Te ahnd.”

“Uhm… yes and no and good and bad, Muan knows these words.”

“Auh. Ee… and…” Muan looked down at the pen, pencil and paper laying forgotten on the table. The Sidhe pointed at the three items, “pen and pencil and paper. Pencil erase. Eraser good. Pen bad. Lel good.” with a hand motion that meant large or great, a measurement.

Muan’s jaw worked for a moment as if the Sidhe were attempting to say something but wasn’t certain what. The Sidhe was stumbling through the context of the conversation, Muan wanted to show off but wasn’t certain how. Nouns couldn’t always connected together to make a proper sentence.

“It’s okay, Muan, you’re picking it up fast,” frighteningly fast, “it’ll only be a couple of days before…”

Muan was looking at him funny. The Sidhe’s head was cocked to the side, puzzlement playing across his face.

Rel sighed and cleared the dishes from the table. Obviously Muan wasn’t used to hearing such words or the dialect or the style or something. Something about what Rel had said didn’t match up with the dictionary’s claim as to what language …

Should be.

Contractions. Didn’t, isn’t, it’s, these words weren’t in the dictionary. If Muan knew what it’s meant, he would be able to look it up and find out what it meant, but Muan didn’t know how to write those. Rel had used contractions before so…

Because it was learning time? Muan was segmenting their relationships in allotted times. Learning time, courting time, feeding time, bathing time. Time to heal and time to rest. Issuing control over his life by any means possible, strange as it may be. Muan was forcing his life to follow some kind of code, some kind of understanding.

The mark of a healing mind. Of Muan trying to understand.

Inquisitive mind.

But. How the hell did Muan seem to read his mind? Could he have…

Muan looked up from the laptop and grinned at Rel, “shleep?”

“Please,” Rel muttered.

There would be time to wonder later.


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