449
Can we set this on the 18th? c: I have another thread set on the 16th, if you don't mind. xD

Sparrow still wondered if she was allowed in the Mansion or not. No one said that anyone who didn’t live in the building were barred from entering it, and no one seemed to noticed her momentary presence within its walls when she borrowed the bows for training with Max that she found in one of the rooms, or at least did not care for it much. Yet, she was still nervous about the ominous building, but also curious. She heard a term once, or a saying, that curiosity killed the cat. She wondered if creator’s words warned her to rebel against her inquisitiveness for situations like these. For once in her life, she ignored her instincts, and carefully entered into the D’Nellive house.

She did not normally barge into human structures often nor took fancy in them, but she assumed that this was a crown jewel among other abodes. It was certainly spacious, and thought that maybe the humans had a big pack and had to build this house in order for them to have shelter. It was littered with mysterious objects that Sparrow did not pay much attention to, since she found no use for the half-destroyed décor besides to take up space that could be used for better. She continued on through the building, glancing at whatever was in her line of sight, letting her feet lead her wherever they pleased while her mind studied the front lobby.

Her body led her unconsciously to the left, leading her into a new room. It was lined with—with what? Whatever they were, there was a lot of them in this room. They had a peculiar odor about them, almost like wood, but not quite like it, and it sort of scented of slight decay. And dust, plenty of dust. Since she wasn’t sure about exactly what those things were, she continued on, making sure she was not close enough to knock off one of them in case they broke easily. Her eyes suddenly landed upon another female, and froze in place for a moment, as if she would blend into the wall and the other would not notice her.

But, the fawn made herself less tense, knowing that anyone in Inferni was not a threat. Yet, she still held on the air of timidity. “Hello,” Sparrow greeted the other female in case she did not sense her coming in, looking at her bandage for a moment before looking back towards her blue eyes. She wondered if they were by those wolves Vesper told her about, the wolves that everyone was preparing against. The female seemed quite on edge, so the girl assumed that it must have been so.

419
Its a-okay. :> Take your time~

Sparrow stood there for a moment, as if she did not hear the woman’s invitation to continue into the room. But, she inched closer to the hybrid at a normal pace, if not slightly timid in nature that could be marked as shyness. She glanced away from the floor, hoping to herself that she would not feel the urge to stare back at them, and looked at the woman to try to build her confidence. She had an interesting appearance; even when sitting, she could tell that she was quite taller than her, and had the body of a wolf while her face told that she was a coyote as well. What struck her the most was the other’s hair, bright in coloration and nicely designed, which Sparrow, for a moment, felt a little enviousness. Her own mane was dully colored like the rest of her pelt, and forget about style—when she first slashed her hair, she wasn’t aiming for beauty, only for convenience. But, vain fluttered out of her as quickly as it came, when she realized it wasn’t that important.

“I’m Sparrow,” she replied, offering a small smile in return, to at least show that she didn’t dislike the woman; she was nice enough, for a strange. Her name sounded familiar, and decided to comment on it. “I think my sister, the Optio, I mean, mentioned your name to me. You are a… history teller, correct?” Honestly, the girl didn’t quite remember what Vesper called her, most likely in another world in her mind when the sibling was explaining things about Inferni to her, but her memory believed that Myrika was that, if not dumbed down to the basics. She looked off-handedly at the things on the table, the same thing that lined the walls, on the table, and furrowed her brows at the sight of it. It was covered in weird markings, though the symbols seemed somewhat familiar, or at least their reason for existing was somewhere shelved in her memory.

“What is this room, and what’s all of these… things?” the fawn continued to ask, her yellow eyes sweeping the room once to see if the answer was anywhere in sight. It was still mysterious to her as ever, but she was now interested, looking back at Myrika to see what she had to say. Again, curiosity began to ebb away her fear like calming waves against sand, leaving her relatively peaceful and giving her the urge to learn more about this strange place.

362
~~

Sparrow noticed that Myri seemed interested when she mentioned Vesper and her relations with her. She then remembered, as an after-thought, that her sibling may have never spoken about her, and again the fawn felt the pang of emptiness she felt between the sisters. The girl felt a little sad when her thoughts were confirmed, but pushed the feelings aside, and nodded to show mutual feelings towards their meeting; now that they were together again, the mottled female will make it a priority to become close to her sister, to maybe even impress her one day. That, though, was a long road that Sparrow had only began to step upon, and it was going to be a journey to find its end that won’t be finished overnight. Besides, at the moment, all she was concerned about was with the ginger hybrid in front of her and the thing she possessed.

She heard of books before, the things that held knowledge that humans recorded before the virus came. But, never seeing one before, she was unable to recognize them, and now looked upon the open book on the table. Now the symbols had meaning—they somehow showed information to the canine, which was probably why Myri was staring at them earlier. Sparrow glanced at the seat that Myri offered, and carefully walked towards the couch, floating down to sit how the other was sitting; it felt awkward, not sitting on the floor and not pulling her legs up to her chest like she usually did out of mannerisms, but did not make any remark upon the position that the human furniture caused.

“How do the words… ‘tell’ information?” she asked. She knew that Myri did not literally mean that the written word had a tongue, but she was still confused as how it was used. To Sparrow, they just looked like a bunch of weird markings, as if a human just took some mud, scribbled things, and let the sheets out to dry. It didn’t look like mud, though, so the fawn was also silently curious as to how the words came to be, but, finding it a moot question, held her voice.

OOC here!

Sparrow’s yellow eyes furrowed at the words that Myri spoke. It still sounded strange, trying to put voice upon paper and, that, somehow, allowing another to hear it without another telling them the information. As strange as the concept was, she attempted to understand, for the other’s sake. She could tell she was having trouble explaining, and it didn’t help that the listener was not well educated on the fact. But, the fawn concentrated on the ginger-haired words, taking a moment for her mind to try to decipher their meaning. Almost like a riddle, she thought, remembering how much she liked to solve riddles. Seeing it as that, she began to put more thought into it.

“So… Like for your name it would be,uh… Mer… M…” She fell silent again, her mouth moving along with what her mind was saying, and a quick moment later asked, “It would be like M-r-e-k-a?” The idea was somewhat easy to understand: sounding out what each part was, breaking it down into little parts. Of course, she did not know that she misspelled her name, not knowing that a letter was missing and another was deceiving in sound. But, at least she was getting somewhere.

“I don’t think you’re a bad teacher though… I’m not a great student in the first place.” She glanced around the room when she mentioned a book about books, and looked back to Myri. “But… There are so many. How are you going to find it? They all look the same.” Though she did not doubt the woman’s abilities, Sparrow did not see how she was going to find a certain book out of so many. But, what did she know? She looked upon the other curiously, wondering how she will go about this.

404
Out of Character text

Sparrow blinked at the fact was she nearly spelled Myrika’s name right. At first she thought it was too simple, perhaps overseeing something important when she was sounding out her name in her head, but apparently, that’s what was to it for the most part. She felt something unusual inside of her, some emotion she never felt when living with her father—it was definitely pride, satisfaction that she did something right. She liked this feeling very much, and suddenly became more attentive to the woman’s words. Despite not getting her name right in reality, the other seemed to see this as progress.

Dog seemed simple enough, but as soon as she got past the D, she was stuck on the second part of the word, -og. While thinking over the word, now wanting to get it right even though she lacked knowledge of this subject, she watched Myri pulled out a book from the sea that was the shelves and explain what they were. “If they are easy, it’s best to start there, then, even if they are for younger canines…” Her ability on the situation on hand might as well have been juvenile anyway, so she took no offense. Again, she thought of the simple word “dog”, and asked, “How many letters are in this… alphabet?”

The fawn blinked in surprise at the rather thick book Myrika showed her, in awe at how anyone, even with skills that were honed with many years of experience, was able to read that, much less a beginner. Then again, it might not have been much for the historian to take in, probably being raised and combed to be learned since birth. When the other mentioned that there was more than one written language, her mind did a double take. She hoped that they wouldn’t be necessary to learn, not wanting to learn some foreign tongue in order to read, which sparked the interest of the girl. But, it seemed she did not have to, and sighed audibly in relief.

Thinking that she had left the word alone for too long, Sparrow said softly, “Is dog spelled as… d-a-g?” The middle still confused her, having the aww sound, not knowing what thing could be placed there. It sounded somewhat similar to a letter that Myri mentioned when she spelled out her name, the “a”, so she went with that, though was not confident with her answer.

383
Spar is putting on her smarty pants. 8B And I didn't even notice the error. [/needs to put on her smarty pants]

Twenty-six was not a bad number; at least it did not sound like one. “I know a little about numbers,” she offered in slight defense to herself, though it was not rallied from the idea that she was offended by the historian. It was more or less just a piece of information to give in case it ever came up down the road of learning. She knew the basics at least, though it was primitive, such as if you had a certain number of berries and you ate so much, you’ll have this much left. The idea of multiplying and dividing or counting to large numbers never came up in the schooling that mother nature taught her, and only the simple mathematics were needed for her to survive when she first turned. Numbers were interesting enough, but whatever attention she had for them were turned back to the words and letters.

Sparrow’s small half-smile grew a little more as Myrika stated that she was near the mark again. The nervous and sensitive air that was usually around her began to shrink back, revealing a slightly confident, curious girl, ready to spell out any word that was to be shot at her, or at least eager to learn from her mistakes. She noticed that the word cot was like dog, having the aww sound; the o made that sound, her mind registering in that information. She also noticed the slight verbal difference in the “c” and “k”, also making sure to take note of that. The “i” in kill was like the one in Myri’s name; the “i” made an “e” sound. The fawn managed to take this all in, deciphering it and memorizing it, her hearing the best aid of all. It was almost like she was built to do this, the learning coming so easily.

She took a moment to think over the two words that the woman gave her. She started with cut—the second letter made her pause for a moment, but with Myri’s words about vowels, decided what it was. Cat was easy enough, taking her a very short moment to figure out. “I think cut is c-u-t,” she spoke, a little tentative about that answer once again, but her next one was more certain, “and cat is c-a-t.”

365
;w;
officially one of my favorite thread evar

Sparrow became excited when Myrika made it clear that she had gotten the words right, even going as far as to swish her plummy tail behind hr. But, like the woman with the mahogany locks, the fawn force herself to be still, and though her movements were limited, behind the mask was a Luperci bouncing with joy. For whatever reason, the yellow-eyed hybrid found great pleasure in being correct. Whether it was pride in or the enjoyment of receiving words of support from the other, she found herself in anticipation for what she had next for her, as if her mind hungered to be filled with this delightfully unusual information. She wondered for a moment if Vesper could read, and also thought that maybe they could discuss the wonderful world of spelling words, but she found it hard to focus on her sister when the woman spoke again.

“So…” she started, nodding and brows furrowing to show how somber she was taking in what Myri was saying, “its kinda of like sun—the bright thing in the sky, s-u-n—and son—a male offspring, s-o-n? Though they sound the same, their spelling is different, making their meanings different… And as for sow and sow, how they are used shows their meaning… But it’s not easy…” As she trailed on, her words became more or less thoughts that made their way to her voice. It helped to repeat the phrases, to hear them again in order to assist in remembering them.

She became so lost in thought in a matter of a few moments, that she nearly forgot the presence of Myrika before the other moved, handing the thin book towards her. Sparrow met the other’s blue eyes, and her smile grew one, last time, and became a full, genuine one, barely any shyness to be shown to the other. The mottled female gingerly grabbed the book from her, and quickly, though carefully, opened the cover to the first page, a finger brushing the page delicately. “…Thank you, Myrika,” she said warmly without looking away from the paper, though eye contact was not needed to express her gratitude. The feelings that coated her words were enough.

372
Spar and Myri are going to be BFFs forevar~ and perhaps future sister-in-laws <3

Sparrow faintly nodded along with Myrika, as if to confirm this for herself as well in her mind. It made sense, really, and it what was the historian said: the written was the words being able to be spoken without a voice. It was amazing, a discovery that she would not have thought would be useful prior to this meeting. She saw the possibilities that writing could do; messages, historic accounts, stories, the list went on. It was a no wonder that some followed the humane culture, now seeing their benefits.

“So it’s like an incomplete puzzle, pieces missing from the big picture, or in this case, letters and words. But… it’s rare? I thought all Luperci would know how to read…” This was a stereotype that the fawn held, that all whom were born for two legs would know all about reading. Or, at least all the Luperci had, thus far, seemed to be a follower of such human practices, while those who remained untouched by the virus lived on like that had even before the time of humans, like when she lived with her mother and sister.

The hybrid grinned a little at Myri’s comment about her being a pro, finding it amusing, but she listened to the woman said with attentive ears. “Well, I’ll be carefully with this book, anyway, I swear,” she said, her tone somewhat serious, though still cheery, “And, I don’t think I’ll be reading anything else anytime soon… I have to learn…” She was quiet for about ten seconds before she spoke again, “the other eight letters in the alphabet and a few of the vowel sounds before I can move on into something with words in it.” A brilliant, cursed mind she had, though it had its uses.

“Hey Myrika, if you don’t mind me asking, but do you live here…? I really like talking to you, and you have a lot of things to say, things to teach. I wouldn’t mind running into you again,” she said, slightly meek. This was probably the first time she had asked someone to meet again, and found the idea have having an acquaintance, maybe even a friend, strange. But, it was pleasantly strange.