MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World Part 71

[George Phillies]

Drew,  Welcome back.  You were missed.


>     1. Re: MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World Part 71 (Drew Perron)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 18:50:31 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Drew Perron <pwerdna at gmail.com>
> To: racc at lists.eyrie.org
> Subject: Re: MISC: The Girl Who Saved the World Part 71
> Message-ID: <pdvt14$7j9$1 at dont-email.me>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> So, I am one million years behind on Girl Who Saved The World. I intend to catch
> up, but you know what? I need to stop putting it off because I haven't caught up
> yet. I should be more active in the *present* of this group, not just the past.
> So let's jump into the latest Bit and see how things are going from someone
> who's been out for... um... A While.
>
> On 5/18/2018 9:18 PM, George Phillies wrote:
> <snip>
>> You are a persona, Dorothy told herself.You beat the giant lizard, even if you
>> can’t remember your boyfriend who helped.You did stop the League terrorist by
>> yourself, when you were not at all sure your force field was bulletproof. You
>> are not afraid because you are listening to a girl barely two-thirds your age,
>> even if she does speak an extinct language, so far as you can tell flawlessly,
>> telling you that she is about to die.
> Well! This is nice and evocative, and sets the mood well, even not knowing the
> context up to this point. :>
The context is perhaps of some significance.  The immediately prior 
conversation was

“How could Joe not tell us he had a girlfriend?” Dorothy asked.“At least 
he invited you to breakfast, your parents I assume permitting? 
Especially a girlfriend who knows Atlanticean…You can read the runes you 
are wearing, can’t you?”

“/I am who they say I am,” /Spindrift answered in Atlanticean. “/Time’s 
Dagger./ /And I am Joe’s friend who is a girl, until the end of days./”

Dorothy wished Joe were here, now, to translate for sure what his 
girlfriend had just said. She was reasonably sure she understood what 
Spindrift meant, but Joe’s Atlanticean was flawless. She would do her 
best for Teranike, who was from a world where there had never been a 
Gaea Atlanticea. “Teranike, Spindrift said the sigils on her vest say 
who she is, and that she will be Joe’s girlfriend forever.”

“Spindrift,” Teranike said, “that’s wonderful, but I hope I am not 
sounding too, ummh, motherly, if I say that forever is a long time, 
especially at your age.”

Dorothy suddenly remembered a turn of phrase. In Atlanticean ‘…end of 
days…’ meant ‘…the end of your days..’, and was only used if your end 
was on the horizon and swift approaching. Teranike’s advice was good, if 
it didn’t hurt Spindrift’s feelings.Surely for both of them it had to be 
first girlfriend and first boyfriend? “I think my translation wasn’t 
that good,” Dorothy said quickly, “I didn’t mean to say you might have, 
ummh, unrealistic ideas.”

“/She approaches on swift and silent wings./ /No offense will be 
intended or taken,” /Spindrift said.“Sage advice, well meant.” Dorothy 
wished she did not remember what in Atlanticea approached on swift, 
silent wings. The Crone Incarnate came with terrifying images. ‘The sun 
was a copper penny. Ashes fell from the heavens. Waves rose higher and 
higher. The winds blasted from the mountain tops, tearing the trees from 
their roots. The screaming of the accursed souls trapped above the sky 
drowned out all other sound.’

“So when is Joe showing up?” Dorothy
>> asked. “Have you ever dated him before?” And how will you two each get to
>> school? she wondered, though it was really clear that Joe could teleport.
>>
>> “No,” Spindrift answered. “The first time together is yet to come.”
> Interesting way of phrasing it.
>
>> “I knew he would not be here before I depart,” Spindrift answered, her breakfast
>> rapidly disappearing. “Do not blame him, either.He is a wonderful person, kind
>> and thoughtful and self-sacrificing and absolutely gifttrue.And cute.”
> D'awwwww.
Of course, Dorothy and Teranike are both subject to a certain 
misapprehension.
>> ormal written Atlanticeanwas based in infolding puns, so that
>> wheatfield started as waves of gold, except waves were shore’s call and gold was
>> banker’s blood, so wheatfield became shores calling for banker’s blood, and
>> matters became more complicated from there, even before references to
>> Atlanticean mythology were inserted.
> Oh, I love this idea. <3 <3 <3 That is excellent worldbuilding.
I claim no originality. Look up "kennings"
> ooooooooh. Damn, that's a lot of good, Star Wars-style "drop interesting
> signifiers and let them ripple into the reader's conception of the world".
>
>> “She slipped into my language./Chelesh N’drageu/is Polarian.With no accent,”
>> Teranike said. “No accent at all. I have never met a foreigner, and I am a High
>> Officer of the Lake of Silver Fire, who did not have an accent. The Dark Lights?
>> In both our universes, though in ours the Northern Barbarians want it to be a
>> military secret, there are cosmic dust clouds that have evolved intelligence. In
>> your universe, they stay well away from Earth. In ours, one visited twice, once
>> 60 years ago, almost causing an ice age by accident, and again recently, staying
>> on the far side of the sun but neglecting to mention that it had sent androids
>> to Earth, to speak with a few people still alive that it had met on its prior
>> visit. They, the /Chelesh N’drageu,/ live in interstellar space, passing by
>> stars to feed on the sunlight.They have questions --how the universe that has
>> lasted forever came to be -- whose answers cannot be spoken, because the act of
>> speaking the answers causes the universe to delete the speaker. And its answer.
>> That was why I was here, to see if anything is known of the deletion.An effect
>> that causes the mass of a large planet to vanish, in a single instant, with
>> absolutely no trace left behind, might possibly have a few weapons applications.”
> Yeah, it might o3o; Fascinating. Makes me wonder further on the structure of
> this universe.
Yes, that is a tribute to Hoyle, the astrophysicist and novelist.




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