The Weyr of Nomics and Yurith

[phyrstyr]

Nomics, being the strange and eccentric person that he is, normally has a room so messy that you dont know what color the rug is. Just ask his mother. But since his dragon is such a stickler for things being prim and proper, Nomics had to mend his ways.

Thusly, when one looks into his room, one sees a bed neatly made with a pound of blankets (due to the mild chill that he allows to pervade the room) and a large basket-like thing that looks perfect for a flitt to burrow into for a nice relaxing nap. A bookshelf eight feet high stacked full of books with titles spanning from 'The Gifts Of The Jews', 'England: A History', and The Bible, to 'The Name Of The Wind' and 'The Mating Habits Of the Common Dracus'. A futon that sat nicely in the middle of the room covered in pillows and a blanket spread over he top. Maps of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Pern covered the walls as well. There is also a dresser where, along the top, sit about twenty pictures of family, friends, and exotic places he had visited.

On the floor, placed neatly along the walls, are a myriad of trinkets and boxes containing trinkets. A shoe box filled with ticket stubs from various festivities, another filled with hotel key cards (he can tell you which ones came from where and at what time and under what circumstances he acquired them). There are also stacks of photo albums. many stacks of photo albums. they cover almost a whole wall. He is a firm believer in documenting occasions. There is also a boom-box surrounded by Mp3 players... (the boom box has a USB port).

There is also a desk in the middle of the room that sits on top of a large green rug. On the desk sits a new state of the art laptop and a notebook open to an unused page with a pen sitting to the side, ready to be used.

Yurith's place of rest is, if possible, neater than that of his Rider. Not to say that is is bare in the least. On the contrary, there is a myriad of stuff sitting on the shelves of HIS eight foot bookcase. But instead of books, his has delicate sculptures of dragons in flight, paintings and trinkets from pern, junk that Mari gives to him, and best of all a gold necklace made especially for him from His. It is expandable and so fits over his head to and goes down to the base of his neck. It has embedded rubies with pearl accents. It is his pride and joy.

[phyrstyr]

Nomics was excited. Today was the first of many lessons intended to teach Kumiko English. He took his laptop off his table and cranked the heat up to 75. He took out his lesson plan and wiped down the borrowed blackboard. He was going all out with this one. The dried flowers that usually sat on a shelf of his bookcase were in a little vase to show how much he cared for beauty. He checked to make sure that the snacks he had purloined from the kitchen were still fresh. The apricots still looked ok, but he should check one to make sure...

While Nomics noshed on his fruit, Mari flitted into the room. He dove straight for his little hideaway, all the while complaining about the heat. "You just stay in there now, ya hear? Don't be bothering our soon to be arriving guest." Believing he had gotten the message across, he turned back to give the room a once-over for the tenth time. Finally, everything seemed fine. Flopping onto his futon, he waited for his new 'pupil' to get here so the fun could begin.

[Samari]

Kumiko walked into the Weyr and looked around. She was kind of nervous. She fidgeted slightly and then spotted Nomics.



"Hello? Sir Nomics? Are you ready? Oh shoot..You can't understand me..Lemme try what I've practiced."


"H-Hello. Ready?"

She straightened up her hair while she waited for the bronze rider to respond. She was tired of always making Raynith translate for her. She had worked hard to learn just those two words. That made a grand total of 3 English words.

[phyrstyr]

Barely a minute after sitting down, Kumiko entered the room. He thought she looked rather uncomfortable. No wonder, she was dressed outrageously. and her hair nearly blinded him with its unexpected-ness. She started speaking in Japanese but then seemed to catch herself. She started over with what appeared to be the only English she knew.

"H-Hello. Ready?"

"Hm? Ah, yes. Ready and willing, my dear. If you come over here we can get started. I'll show you a good time, dont you worry." He paused for effect and then got up. "Nah, im just foolin'. I have everything set up on the table over here. I've never really taught someone another language, so i made some notes and," He jumped up and down excitedly then ran over to the commandeered portable blackboard. "I even got us a BLACKBOARD!" He stopped, looking thoughtful. "So, i guess we should start by figuring out where you stand. So you can speak a little, can you write? read? can you understand it well? ummm... if you can write then write it down. if not, ummm... shake your head in a negative manor? "

[Samari]

Kumiko blinked a minute. Maybe school could help a bit. She scribbled something on the blackboard.



"Can.Write.Some.English."



She chuckled softly and bowed to the bronzerider. She wondered if she was inconveniencing him.



She scribbled a bit more.


"Inconvenience? Kumiko. Problem?"

[phyrstyr]

Alright, she can write and understand. This shouldn't be as hard as i thought!

When she bowed to him, he bowed back unconsciously. A Pern habit.

"Oh! No, no, no, no,no! Far from it in fact! I have been looking forward to this for a while now! Haha, we should both learn something from this experience." He smiled to show his heartfelt goodwill. "Now, is there a particular place you want to begin or brush up on? If not i have a lesson plan that we can begin at our leisure."

[Samari]

Kumiko smiled again and sat down. She looked around Nomics' weyr and sighed. She nabbed a loose piece of paper and scribbled something down.


"You sure? I only know 3 words."



She wished she could have learned more in school before taken to Benden. She felt like she was at an disadvantage.

[phyrstyr]

"Sure about what, teaching you? Yeah! I wouldnt have said yes if i didn't want to. i would have made up some excuse about needing to feed my cat or something." He pulled up a stool and sat down too. "So she knows the meanings of the words. she just cant say them. Interesting.", he mumbled to himself. Yurith! Maybe she is faking! maybe she-

She is not a Russian spy. Get it out of your head.[/color]

Nomics muttered incoherent curses that would make even a sailor blush. But, there was company and he must retain some semblance of sanity. So he said, "Alright, would you rather start with writing or speaking?" Then a thought struck him. "Would you like some fruit?" he asked, proffering a bowl filled with exotic delicacies like mango, dragonfruit, plums, bananas, apples, and pears. Not to mention about ten apricots.

[Samari]

Kumiko giggled and took a banana. She peeled it and chomped happily. She smiled and wrote something down.




"Its easier to write English than to speak it. Lets try Speaking first."




Hikari popped into view and landed on Kumiko's shoulder. She giggled again and gave a chunk of banana to her green flit.

[phyrstyr]

"Ok...hmmm" He paused, checking his notes. Still looking at his papers, he said, "well...i guess we should start with sounds. lets see here." He began writing all twenty six letters on the board. " We should start with visual recognition. Since you know how to write, speaking should follow soon after once you know...well...yeah. What they sound like. Then we will start with the basics. Greetings, asking where the restrooms are, saying you dont speak much English. Which will be fixed soon enough."

Nomics realized that this was harder than he thought. Having known English all his life he had no idea how to systematically teach it to someone. So he drew on his knowledge of other languages. Spanish and Russian. He could remember how he learned those.

[Samari]

Kumiko nodded and wrote down all 26 letters. She studied them all and decided to test out the sounds.



"Ayy. Beee. C. Dee. E. Eff. Gee."



She smiled and looked up at Nomics, wondering how well she was doing so far. She bit another piece of banana off, and tore another piece for Hikari.





She looked over the rest of the letters and sounded them out in her head.

[phyrstyr]

"Wow...are you sure you need lessons? You are pretty good at this!" He tried to think of what the next step would be. He checked his notes again. "So you are aware that the letters only give a general idea of what the sound should be, yes? Like 'A' could be aye or ahh and 'c' could be cee or make the 'k' sound. If you want we could go over the regular sounds further and then do the 'inconsistencies' later today or even some other time. I dont want to fry your brain the first day."

Nomics paused, realizing he was making little sense and was probably confusing the poor girl. He gave her a charming smile and said, "I am really sorry if anything i say makes no sense. Just let me know if you need me to clarify anything, okie-day?"

[Samari]

Kumiko scratched her head and looked over her notes. She looked to Hikari as she chirped and sent images of Kumiko preparing for basics to Nomics. She wrote something on another page.




"We went over some basics of English in School..


She wrote down what he'd told her about the A and C sounding different in some cases.




She felt confident that she was doing better than expected for her first day.

[phyrstyr]

Nomics was startled by the picture sent to him by the girl's flitter. But it made him see that she was a hard worker and really wanted to learn. He saw what she wrote, about school and also the notes she was taking of what he said. Hmmm... i guess i had better get this right the first time, she is documenting everything i say! Now he was revved to go.

"That is excellent! I can tell that it payed off. Now, i will try to show slash explain the other exceptions to the sounds of the letters." He then proceeded to chalk up the board with the other letters and how they could sound, all the while wondering if she was understanding it all.

[Samari]

Kumiko scribbled more notes and fed another chunk of banana to her flit. She looked back up at Nomics and spoke again.



"H. Ai. Jay. Kay. Ell."



She chuckled and looked back at Hikari. She wondered what she had showed him.

[phyrstyr]

Nomics clapped loudly and incessantly. Finally realizing he was eating up precious time with his tom foolery, he stopped and coughed loudly while straightening out his clothes. "Indeed, i am amazed at your skill with language." He stated formally. But the effect was ruined by his unconscious lopsided grin.

"Alright, which would you rather do next. Practice word pronunciation, or move on to what i have next?"

On a whim, he decided to be a little flirtatious. He really did like the girl, if only she was a little older... He took the silly approach. He mock sneaked behind her and peeked over her shoulder to see her notes.

"Aya! Is that English? Dear Lord above!" Reaching over her shoulder, and lightly brushing her arm, he snatched her book away from her and pretended to try to decipher what it said, turning it every which way as if a different angle would suddenly make her chicken scratch legible. "Oy vey!" He declared. In reality, it wasn't that bad. He had friends that were ten times worse, heck, when he was her age people couldnt even tell whether or not he was writing in some made up language. But this seemed the easiest way to play around with her.