on a lark

[alicornucopia]

She combs and combs the world aside and there is another world, just ahead, and she steps in.

The combed-away hole closes behind her. She puts her comb in her pocket.

Thanjen (Unbitwise)

Blueberry (kappa)

Hivers (Rockeye)

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"The rest of me?" she asks.

[wind_on_my_face]

“The rest of your kortarem.”

[alicornucopia]

"I don't know what you're talking about."

[wind_on_my_face]

“Your kortarem, the matter that is you and is not your body.”

The glass-plane-bird-people-person are quite sufficiently distracted that they aren't practicing their symmetry very much. The one in the middle, who is still speaking, demonstratively waves a white glass wing — which becomes transparent, loses its shape, and falls to the rock in a gloopy kind of way, leaving behind a human arm.

The rest of the glass follows, and there is a perfectly ordinary human being standing between two glass plane bird people. Still looking confused about why this maybe-stranded-or-something-stranger person is confused.

[alicornucopia]

The girl watches the glooping with a thoughtful frown.

"I don't have any of that. Will you please explain how it works?"

[wind_on_my_face]

(If he thought it was a reasonable option, he would be trying to talk to her parents, but he doesn't especially want to try asking for them. This is either a child playing make-believe really hard, or a child raised in isolation and not being taught how to live. The first does no harm to go along with for a while, and the second is a problem that needs fixing.)

“Sure! The first thing is, um—”

(He needs a lesson plan, doesn't he. He doesn't exactly remember how this was explained to him all those years ago. Compose reference request; subjects: kored & (parenting | primary education); format: split attention-friendly; preparation if needed: yes; urgent: yes; transmit. He'll live with someone maybe asking why he needed it. Later.)

“Do you have any tools with you? I mean, things that you hold in your hand, to do things with? I can give you something if you need it, but something you're familiar with using is better to start with.”

(He is so not qualified for this.)

[alicornucopia]

"...I have a pencil," she says, pulling a yellow nubbin out of her pocket. "Will that do?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“—I don't see why not,” he says, a little dubiously. “The usual sort of tool would be a thing you use to move other stuff that already exists separately, like a fork or a hammer. But it's more important that you are familiar with using it.”

[alicornucopia]

"I use pencils all the time," she nods.

[wind_on_my_face]

“Okay, so what you need to do is use it, write with it. Then try to forget it exists. You're not writing with a pencil, you're writing on the paper. Because you are writing on the paper, you can feel the texture of the paper.”

[alicornucopia]

"I don't have any paper."

[wind_on_my_face]

A portion of the previously gloopy glass lying around (which has neglected to gloop any farther downhill) pops up into his hand and forms itself into a flat rounded rectangle, also turning milky white again, and he hands it to her. It proves to have a rough surface, like frosted glass. “Paper would be better, because you're familiar with how it feels and it has a little more texture, but this should do.”

He glances around. “And you need somewhere to sit down, don't you.”

More glass moves. Now there is: a patch of rock covered in clear glass, a chair seat formed of thousands of little glass tiles hovering above it, and a child's-height desk, also lacking in legs.

“Would you like shade? Or we could move into the forest, or go somewhere else, if you prefer. We’re going to be working on this for a while.”

[alicornucopia]

"If... it's going to take a while, then yes, I'll sunburn out here," she blinks, watching the gloop do its thing.

[wind_on_my_face]

More glass! Mirrored! Also, formed into a bowl shape. And some kind of machine floating above the bowl. Whatever all that's about, there's certainly shade under it.

Presumably realizing an explanation is needed: “Might as well collect the sunlight if we're going to bother stopping it. You'll want to learn this too.”

(This is all out of order, isn't it. Hurry up, lesson plan.)

“I don't know how long it's going to take you — usually children are taught how to try early and they get it as soon as they're practiced enough.”

[alicornucopia]

"If younger children can do it then I probably can too." She looks dubiously at the chair setup, then sits in it.

[wind_on_my_face]

It is considerably more comfortable than your typical glass chair. The individual tiles squish down like there's padding behind them.

“Well, give it a try, then.”

(He hopes she doesn't have entirely unreasonable success and, say, accidentally stab herself in the eye with the pencil. Most children are protected, but he doesn't know what's going on here and if she isn't it would be still be completely inappropriate for him to do it, regardless.)

[alicornucopia]

She starts writing out simple algebra problems and solving them. Scratch, scratch.

[wind_on_my_face]

He quietly watches how she is using the pencil.

(Oh, hey, there's that material on teaching basic life skills why is he having to do this he asked for. What does it say?)

He's still just watching, but now he knows what he's looking for.

(This is an unprecedented situation, but there ought to be something she will be able to notice and improve directly after at most twenty minutes more, and likely less if she's good at focusing on the work. He'd say so, but that would be a distraction.)

[alicornucopia]

Algebra. Some of a poem. Some of a book report. Scratch scratch.

[wind_on_my_face]

There's what he's looking for. He waits a couple more minutes to make sure she won't just lose it when interrupted, then:

“Take a look at your pencil.”

It doesn't look any different, but without a firm grip she should notice it being lightly stuck to her hand.

[alicornucopia]

She looks at her pencil.

"It's... supposed to do that, then?"

[wind_on_my_face]

“Yes, you’ve started to claim your pencil. You've probably got just the paint on the outside, but not any of the wood yet. You should be able to move it around a bit. Think of it like trying to move a finger you didn't have before.”

[alicornucopia]

She smiles, like she thought of something funny. The pencil twitches. She turns her hand over and the pencil turns with it, only partially.

[wind_on_my_face]

“Now try to feel something with it. Tap the side of the pencil against the desk, or your other hand. Your sense of touch and temperature should extend through the pencil.”

[alicornucopia]

She prods the pencil with her other hand. Gingerly, lest she get stuck to it.