AN: Most of these next three chapters is set up and are slow, as much as I like what I did in this one with the Languages.
Chapter Title: In Tongues
Arc 1: Bubbles of Futility Chapters
I woke up to the sound of my alarm slapping my Scroll hoping that it would turn it off and thankfully it did, but that didn't change the fact that I needed to get up. Rolling out of bed in the most awkward way possible because Serqet was currently using my wing as extra padding, pulling my feathered appendage out from under the nude woman I stood up and lumbered my way into the bathroom, showered, cleaned up the beard that had begun to form quite nicely so it looked like less of a mess and dressed myself in one of the many tunic style shirts and cargo shorts I kept in drawers for myself here.
By the time I was done and out of the bathroom the hazel eyed woman was waiting at the door with a towel over her shoulder covering most of her body, as her bed hair frazzled as it was, began to be tamed by her hair brush. Stepping out of the way and picking up my Scroll off the bedside table on the right side of the bed I went out to the balcony of the apartment finding I'd left the packet of smokes on the table set out here.
Lighting up a cigarette I checked my Scroll seeing that no one had messaged me. As I was starting my second cigarette- I had become somewhat addicted to the way I felt whenever I smoked them over these last few days and I wasn't quite sure what actually caused that seeing as there wasn't any warnings only grotesque images of people with lung cancer not actually mentioning the other part of them that had taken ahold of me.
Anyhow as I was placing the second one in my mouth the dark haired woman with her olive skin appeared handing me a cup of what I presumed was coffee even though I didn't really like it. She eyed me curiously as I removed the unlit cigarette from my mouth to drink the bitter caffeine.
"As a Nurse who used to work in a hospital that saw people come in for lung cancer fairly often I can't condone you smoking- however as a friend with vested interest in keeping your head together understanding how messy it is I'll let this go for now because everyone needs something to help them decompress." Serqet said as she sat down on the other chair at the table.
Like my lack of intricate dress she was in a khaki button up shirt with the top ones undone and the rest of it tucked into green waist high pants with what looked to be flat bottom shoes. Her hair was done in a loose plait. There's something I feel like I have to point out is that she has enough of the buttons on the shirt undone that you can see her bra and while I'm sure she couldn't care less about it though.
"Mm..." There wasn't much for me to say about it.
"Don't you have classes?" The dark haired woman asked after a brief silence.
"Don't you have work?" I asked back.
"Well if you must ask I'm taking a few days off." She answered with a very knowing smile.
"You tricked me into doing that didn't you?"
"No one will ever know." the woman shrugged standing up and leaving with her empty cup taking mine with her as she went back inside.
Not too long after Serqet disappeared the sounds of music could be heard from further in the apartment, I wasn't really sure what the song was but I guess that meant she was cleaning because that's generally what happened when she started blasting music.
I dialed my mothers number.
"Hello Gaea speaking," she answered almost immediately.
"Hi Mum."
"Oh! Sweetheart, how are you?" Her normal caring tone came through.
"Not all that well, but there was something I wanted to talk with you about."
"Ah… I hope you feel better soon. What was it you wanted to ask me?"
"I think I might quit Beacon, I don't think being a Huntsman is for me." My reasons were fairly straightforward and I knew this must sound insane after having just done some crime fighting with my team the other night, but I just wasn't sure if this was what I wanted to keep doing for the next few years.
"Hm." she hummed with thought processing what I had said. "I won't tell you what to do with your life, I've told you and your siblings that much, but Azzy if you're looking for advice from your mother then I think you should wait until the end of the year since it's only a few months away from the end of school."
"..." I sat in paused silence thinking over the idea of waiting out the year before I actually quit.
I had been thinking about just signing out of Beacon in a few days without warning and going to see if Priscilla was doing any sort of work she'd let me join her with. I knew my sister went around to frontier towns and helped them for a third of the price actual Huntsman did because she cared more about helping others than actually making a living, but that didn't matter much anyway considering even a third of what a Huntsman earns is about a weeks wage for a dock worker here in Vale.
"I guess so… it's only a few months and I think Yang would hunt me down if I didn't at least show up to the dance that is coming up." I could almost hear my mother smiling.
"That blonde girl did seem like a reasonable person when we spoke, be sure to at least take care of those girls before you leave if it's still your decision at the end of the year."
"I will."
"What's that music in the background?" she asked randomly.
"Oh I'm with Serqet, I think she's cleaning."
"Is she free to talk? there was something I've been meaning to speak with her about." My mother asked, sounding a little more interested in the idea of talking to Serqet than me.
"Yeah I'll se-" I turned around to call her but found her standing behind me in the doorway with a smirk.
"Eavesdropping pays off from time to time." The woman said taking my Scroll off me, I shook my head leaving her to speak with my mother.
[Morning Routine]
I found some sheets of paper with tabs on them in my guitar case when I opened it and decided to spend some time practicing my skills until I got my Scroll back from Serqet. Luckily for me I didn't write the name on them after printing them off so all I had was sheet music that I didn't know for what song.
So I just started practicing.
It was another half hour of learning the new song before I was handed back my Scroll, I had no clue what had taken them so long to discuss, but I wasn't all that interested either. Generally eavesdropping in my experience rarely bore fruit and often led to getting my assed kicked, which is why I didn't do it back to 'Qet after she did it to me.
"I heard you practicing 'come as you are'. You might want to sing the lyrics to find your rhythm with it." She offered advice looking at me as I was sitting on the couch in her living room.
"Is that what the song I was playing was?" I asked having not heard of it before, it was just in a pile of tabs that were in my case, because a while back I asked Yang to put a bunch of music in there for me to learn since she pressured me into playing at least once every week.
"It is, there any other songs by Samsara in there?" she asked, leaning over looking into the guitar case next to me. "How come none of these have names on them?"
"I wasn't the one who printed them out" I shrugged, no knowing the group she mentioned nor what other longs lay amongst the paper.
"What was that one about sailing? Or the one about creation? Could you play one of them and sing it? I really like the way the words are pronounced." Serqet queried and I was fine with it so I tuned my guitar and strummed it a few times trying to find the sound I wanted before I began.
"Þat mælti mín móðir... at mér skyldi kaupa fley ok fagrar árar… fara á brott með víkingum-" I started to sing away at the short but familiar song as it was an one of the easier ones to sing in old Ostmen.
She said the one about sailing and I've just realized that I've sort of gone around lying about the nature of this song. It's more about going off to join in the Ostmen raids and kill people. Also pretty sure the Ostmen raids are the 'expansion raids' my tutor mentioned all that time ago to me.
I never really did talk about which actual languages I speak did I? Only in passing so I guess its only fair to talk about it now.
For starters there's Umberian like I mentioned as being the most common language of the Vale side of Sanus, southwest Solitas and southern Anima. This is mainly because the Umberian Empire had a massive web of influence around Nineteen hundred or more years ago before the King of Vale took over when the Umberian empire fell. Anyway even though the Umberian Empire collapsed and Umberia is now Vale, and the Kingdom of Vale, because that's not confusing. I hate the fact that it's all Vale because when I talk to people I need to clarify which I'm speaking about, be that the country/kingdom, the city or province.
Anyway again, aside from Umbrian the other language I grew up learning was Sīn, it's the main language of Vacuo and more specifically the much-much older parts of the deserts and jungles.
Then there was Ostmen which aside from Umberian was the other language used on Solitas as Manus has mentioned it being his familial language. I think there were a few other languages on Solitas like Ruski, the one that the drink Hektor ordered for me that time was named after. As for the other language I learned and then the one I've been studying in my off time or not nearly as much as I would have liked due to how busy I've been.
So, Umberian, Sīn, Ostmen and then there is Altaic, one of the three languages of Anima, the other language of Anima is the one I'm studying. As for Altaic it is the main language of Mistral city and its surrounding towns and villages with a large group speaking only it and not Umberian leading to a big market for translators for things coming out of it. My final language is Hellēnikḗ which is actually the language from the part of Anima that Pyrrha is from, in fact if I'm not mistaken her name was a reference to a dance or a war? She's been helping me with it whenever I get a chance to sit down and practice or I need to do some back and forth conversation.
It's been a long while so I needed to brush up on my history and probably just ask her as well, she's been helping me with that though. When she found out about me learning it offered to help my speaking practice.
Think that's all regarding the languages I know for now unless I really feel like going into the nitty-gritty of Vale's history or the other kingdoms, which I don't because it's a long complicated mess of affairs that I'm not qualified to explain and it's been a while since I read about it.
[Differing Vernacular]
A few days down the line I was back in the infirmary at Beacon getting the cast on my wrist removed and went through some small amount of physical therapy where they just made sure my hand was fine and the alignment wasn't off.
Pyrrha hadn't told the others about what I said to her the last time I saw her.
When I was returning to the dorm so I could get what I needed before heading off to my next class, I accidentally walked into someone knocking them down.
"Oh ah sorry about that I wasn't looking where I was going." I apologized looking down at the person who I had bumped into.
It was a woman, she was about as tall as Pyrrha from what I could tell, her eyes were green, her jet black hair was tied up in a ponytail and she wore a black with amber coloured accented Kimono top that had a similarly amber sash around her midsection. Her arms were covered by bandages from her biceps down to her fingers, as well she was wearing dark stockings and almost glass looking heels. Lastly was a pair of black rimmed glasses.
I offered my hand out to the somewhat familiar looking woman, she took my offer and I pulled her onto her feet.
"Thank you, also you don't need to worry about it. I was lost in thought myself." Her voice sounded so familiar and there weren't that many people I had met with the accent she had.
Why was it so familiar?
As I was turning to walk away she spoke up. "Ah wait, would you be able to help me find the dorms for the transfer students arriving from Haven Academy?" she asked.
"I do-" I checked the time on my Scroll. "Here I'll show you to it." I said adjusting my mask, I was wearing the black wolf one.
"If you would." the woman answered with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "My name is Cinder Fall." she said introducing herself as she followed along next to me.
"I'm Azrael Solatium." the longer I stared at this Cinder…
Wait Cinder Fall?
Fuck…
How?
I still had her id in my drawer back in the dorm.
Her eyes were different… and well working… How the hell did she?
I was very glad I had a mask so she couldn't see my eyes or face in full at the moment.
'Baast if you're listening right now I need some help!' I mentally screamed in prayer.
My prayer was answered almost immediately when Diarmuid approached, giving a smile as he waved, passing by a small group that was standing in the hall talking.
"Azrael! I was looking for you" My dark haired friend said as he came to stop in front of us.
He was wearing a long crimson sleeveless gambeson, a bluish grey long sleeved shirt with bracers, gorget, a pauldron on his left shoulder with plating down his left arm, tasset, leg armour over his dark pants with sabatons over his shin high boots. Not to mention one of his pairs of weapons- today he was wearing his crimson and golden coloured swords on his hips.
It was a lot, but Diarmuid had decided to add a lot of armour to his combat gear after the incident with the boar and beowulf on the Forever Fall trip.
"I'm Diarmuid and you are?" he asked, facing the woman next to me eliciting a smile from her.
"Cinder." She offered a hand and he shook it.
My friend turned to me. "Are you free? I need someone to spar with." I looked at him and felt like there was a glint in his eye that was giving me the opportunity to leave.
So I did what I needed to.
"Yeah I'm not doing anything, I'll see you around Cinder." I said, just up and leaving the woman in the middle of the hall on the other side of the school from the dorms that were allocated for visiting students.
When we were well on our way to the lockers so I could get changed Diarmuid finally spoke up in my silence or fretting over the situation.
"Tell me what was up with that chick," he said very seriously. "And don't tell me there wasn't anything wrong because I've known you for long enough now to notice your very obvious tick where you put your palms together to pray when you're super nervous or concerned."
Damn it, do I tell him about all the other stuff…? I don't even know. How do I explain it to him?
"Ah well… how do I..." I mumbled out.
He shook his head with a knowing smile. "Don't worry, you can tell me later when you can find the words, but for now just know that you owe me."
"Did you actually need someone to spar with?"
"No, I just saw you were in trouble and thought I'd help you." Diarmuid shrugged. "I just came from my combat class, hence the outfit."
"Fair enough, so I don't need to get my stuff?" I checked, in case he wanted to spar anyway.
"Hm why not we haven't really fought and after that battle with Astēr, I think I have a pretty good chance." He smirked.
"You're on." and without saying we raced through the halls.
AN: The stuff with Cinder having a new set of eyes is part of the set up for the revamping of the Maidens and their powers I've done.