Teach

Creativity comes from seeing the world through new eyes.
Learning is understanding the world in a new way.
Teaching requires one to see the way another does.
Always be prepared to learn and teach.
They'll open new ways to the world.

"Even though it comes in different colors, all popcorn is one type of corn, and not like the type of corn on the cob." Pearl opens the funnel and a mass of freshly-popped corn flows out. Pearl fills six different bowls. "It's called popcorn because when you heat it like this, it makes a popping sound."

"A lot of names are just talking about how stuff are, right?" Marina balances four of the bowls in her arms. "The orange fruit, the radio that picks up radio waves-"

"You mean they have descriptive names. Hang on, let's move first." Together, the pair of them carry the bowls to the next room: a lavish open living area with gold trim on the baseboards and plush carpeting with a massive TV and couch with a truly ridiculous coffee table parked in front of it. The two deposit their bowls on the table, among the salt, garlic salt, pepper, butter, cinnamon-sugar mix, melted caramel, melted butter, and assorted odds and ends. "Got your notebook?"

Marina digs in a pocket and pulls out a small notebook with a pen tucked in the spiral binding. She flips to a clean page. "Ready."

"Descriptive. From Describe," Pearl says, and spells both words, then defines them. Marina writes them down slowly, her fingers unsure on the pen. "You could also say those were self-explanatory names. Explanatory, from explain," and she defines them for Marina again.

Marina nods and tucks the pen back in the book. "It's almost a direct translation for—well, something."

"In the language you sing in? The one your parents spoke?" Pearl asks, but doesn't expect an answer. Marina never talks about her home. When the silence stretches too long, Pearl picks up the remote. "What do you wanna watch tonight?"

"Maybe something real?" Marina asks. "And then we can read another chapter of Waterfish Down before bed."

"Only if you read a full page this time," Pearl says. "You're getting good."

"Paragraph."

"Half page."

"Deal." Pearl grabs the remote and flicks to the history channel. Marina's a science and math nerd, the sort of person who finds a keyboard in a music store trash and fixes it with more trash, who asked to take apart and examine every appliance the staff was going to throw out over the past two weeks, and who fixed half of them. Pearl's learned some interesting tidbits about her past—she was forced to drop out of school when she was fucking nine, for crissakes, and worked ever since—so taking stuff apart is probably how she learned anything.

Marina's fucking smart, and they've got a fucking awesome song hammered out that's half in a language Pearl can't speak, and they're gonna be famous and Pearl's gonna make sure Marina doesn't look like an idiot. She deserves better than that. But she's also living in Pearl's place because Pearl made up enough excuses for her to stick around that she's stopped trying to go back to the bridge, and it's... it's nice. Having someone to talk to.

It's really, really nice.

"Looks like our options are... let's see." Pearl flicks through the descriptions. "A feature on the Great Turf War a hundred years ago, with an emphasis on the Squidbeak Splatoon."

Marina wrinkles her nose and puts butter and garlic salt on one bowl of popcorn. "Pass."

"Interviews with Sheldon—okay, I'm vetoing that, you haven't met him yet but the guy runs the weapons shop." Marina chuckles as Pearl adds, "he can't stop talking to save his life."

"I've known a few people like that," Marina says, taking a bite of popcorn. She adds more garlic salt. "They're dead now."

"What? How?"

"Wouldn't stop talking."

Her voice is dead serious, but Pearl's gotten to know Marina's sense of humor by now, so she grabs one of the couch pillows and bops her with it. Marina cracks a grin, then, arm half-raised to block the blow but she must've stopped herself partway.

Pearl shakes her head and puts the pillow back, grabbing a different bowl of popcorn and covering it in chili powder and melted caramel. "There's a documentary about the Octarians, from before the Great Turf War and their extinction-"

"Octarians are extinct?"

Pearl glances away from the TV. Marina's staring, her tentacles still. Marina's tentacles are never still. "Well, yeah," Pearl says, setting the remote down. Was Marina's family one of those weird 'Octarians are still around' sects? Though it's not that unusual. "After the Great Turf War, people just... stopped seeing Octolings. There weren't many Octarians left of the other sorts, either; pretty much all of them were too old to have kids anyway, my gran told me."

"But extinct?" Marina's voice catches; she shakes her head. "They've gotta be around somewhere."

"Well, yeah. Inklings weren't exactly targeting kids or civilians during the great turf war," Pearl says; that was covered in their history segment. "No one knows why or how they went extinct. But no one's seen one in eighty or ninety years." She leans back against the cushions and shoves a handful of popcorn in her mouth.

Marina frowns at her. "No one's seen any? Any ever?"

"Nope." Pearl shrugs. "I mean, sure, maybe they didn't die. Maybe they're coexisting with salmonids or hiding in caves underground or something even more ridiculous." Pearl laughs at the idea of it. "But one way or another, they're not around anymore."

Marina reaches up to fiddle with her shortest tentacle and looks away.

Pearl glances at the TV. "Oh! I think you'll like this one: a history of ice cream."

Marina looks back at her, grinning. "Put it on! Put it on!"