Christmas Special Request: Teaching Estelle the Earth writing system.
Probably takes place somewhere in the near future of the main fic's current place. Like, less then a week, first night they spend at an inn near future. May come back and tweak once I've actually reached that point in the main story.
More subdued writing than you're all used to from me. Definitely a lot shorter. Well, even Letha can't get into too much trouble just writing.
I discovered that HalcyonAdvent on deviantart had a key for the Vesperian alphabet up. So useful.
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FTaBV Omake: ABCs
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With Judith officially a member of our group and Brave Vesperia, Yuri decided that it would be a better idea to buy two rooms for us girls to share between us. He, Karol, and Repede stuck to their single shared room, and I wondered what they'd do once Raven finally settled in to stay with the group.
To my surprise, Estelle actually requested to share one of the rooms with me, leaving the other for the mage and the former Dragon Rider. Though it didn't take long for that little mystery to be solved.
"Letha, do you remember how you were practicing those ancient runes the other night?"
I blanked for a moment, "Runes?" What is she...oooh, she means when I was writing in my journal, and claimed it was an ancient writing system! "Yeah, I remember." I smacked a palm to my forhead, "Oh! I promised to teach them to you, didn't I?"
"Yes, you said you would teach me when you visited the castle. But since we're continuing our journey together, I thought we might have time after all."
I chewed on my lip as I thought. Man, too bad she didn't forget. But it really couldn't hurt, could it? It's not like she'll see this writing anywhere else, and as long as I don't leave my journal lying around... "Okay then, let's see if we can find some paper and something to write with."
In a few minutes I had her set up at the desk in the room's corner, a short stack of paper at hand and an extra nib pen just in case. I'd pulled the other chair up close so I could watch and correct her as we worked.
"Alright, we have twenty six letters and ten numbers." I drew out the entire Vesperia alphabet. When I'd first started puzzling it out, I'd been pleasantly surprised to discover that the basic letter designs were similar to a stylized version of the alphabet I'd grown up with. For example, the letter "D" really looked like a backwards lower case "d." "E" was "e" turned so that it was nearly upside down.
"First thing you need to know," I continued, "is that this writing system I'm teaching you has more than one way to write a single letter."
"Really?" she seemed puzzled but fascinated by the idea. "Why is that?"
"Well, the way you write the letter may affect the meaning of the word." I neatly wrote an upper case and lower case letter "A" next to the Vesperia equivalent. "This," I pointed to the "A," "is a capital letter, and this," I pointed to the "a," "is a lower case one. You use capitals for the first letter of the first word of every sentence." Now that I think about it, writing on Earth is a much more complicated process than it is here. "You also start proper names with capitals."
I continued down the alphabet list, making a chart for her. The lack of ink blotches made me feel quite proud of myself. Once I'd shown her each letter I passed her the pen and a clean sheet of paper. It was actually kind of cute to see the grown girl writing the letter "A" over and over again like a kindergardener. Though she took it more seriously and enjoyed it more than I think most kids would.
I remember I was terrible at writing back then. It seriously wasn't until second grade that I finally learned to read. Ironic, since even back then I loved books and needed to be read to every night before bed. Though once I finally learned my reading and spelling skills grew in leaps and bounds.
"Is this better?" Estelle held up the sheet for me to look at. It was covered in little "A"s and "a"s, like an army of invading ants. Alphabet ants. I nodded, "Loads better than some people's handwriting I've seen, you can try the next letter now."
She started sketching out a long line of "B"s as she asked me, "Other people? So you're not the only one who likes to write like this?"
Whoops, "Well, there might be a few others who know. I was referring to some handwritten journals that were in Sophia's collection. Terrible handwriting, gave up trying to read some of them. That part there needs to be a bit straighter..."
She tried to correct her overly curving "B"s. "That's too bad, they sound interesting. Maybe I can try to read them some time!"
Ohhh boy, girl wants to read books that don't exist. "Aaah, well, you'll have to practice some more first... And I haven't even shown you cursive yet!"
"'Cursive'? Does that have something to do with, well, the way you..." the pen paused as her question died off uncertainly. The way her words sometimes do when her princess' manners make her unsure whether it would be rude to say what's on her mind.
"The way I what?" I pressed. Estelle already had an inquisitive mind, encouraging her to pursue questions may be helpful for her to start thinking about the answers herself. Or did that not make as much sense as it did in my head?
"The way you curse a lot. I've never heard another woman talk like you before, I thought it might have to do with what you learned from your aunt's books."
I wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan. "Estelle. You've been in a castle for your whole life, where everyone, man or woman, is discouraged from swearing. It's not as unusual as you think. Also," and this was what made me want to laugh, "Yuri has a foul mouth too, when he feels like it, but can you picture him buried in books learning about ancient civilizations?"
Estelle started giggling at the mental image. I checked her progress, and saw that her "B"s were coming along nicely too. Girl must have a good eye for detail, wonder if she'd be interested in learning to sketch...
"Anyway, back on topic. I have no clue why they call it cursive, but it's used for more formal writing. Just like this it has both upper and lower cases. And..." I held my hand out for the pen, which Estelle gave back without a fuss, "it actually connects every letter in a word like this." I wrote out a sentence in cursive on another sheet of paper. My name is Letha Vitae.
"Oh, wow, that looks really nice!" she marveled at the looping letters.
"It does, but it also tends to vary with each person. And sometimes it becomes completely illegible to anyone but the person who wrote it." I grimaced. My mother had an absolutely beautiful signature, but I doubted I'd be able to read it if I didn't already know her name. ...Drat. "Like so!" This time I wrote as quickly as I could, adding exaggerated loops and scrunching some letters so small in my haste you could hardly tell they were there. She sells sea shells by the sea shore because she wants to save up and buy diamonds instead.
Estelle compared the two lines, and even if she couldn't read the letters yet I could tell she was starting to wonder if this would be as easy as she'd thought. "Maybe I'll wait before trying those journals..." Yay! Successfully curbed her interest in dangerous topics! Wait, am I being a hypocrite?
"Don't worry about it, we'll wait until you're comfortable with regular print before we try for cursive. Now the next letter is easy..."
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This really might seem boring to some people, especially since the last omake was pretty full of action and humor. But these moments of calm and fluff are important too.