savetheearth | I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!

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I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!

Who: Thorir and Killian
When: March 15th
Where: The Thorsson family HQ. Living room.
What: Learning a language pulses back another language.

They've turned the couch in the living room into a daytime dwelling for Killian, and right now he has company. Aside from the large mountains of fur that have decided to more or less camp out at his feet and sides, that is. They've taken to the Icelandic lessons a couple of days before, and today they're starting to go past the absolute basics like writing and greetings and how a sentence works, and short question-answer conversations.

It's not something that Thorir has done before, really teaching his language to someone this much younger, so there are even more bumps along the road than there would be normally, but it's working.

Right now, the older male is pointing at the Newfie that is lying comfortably at their feet. "Is Röskva a boy?" The words are slow, very neatly pronounced, to make it easier for Killian to understand the Icelandic.

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This just sucks. Really, really sucks. Killian has never seen the point in learning things beyond what's necessary to get a degree (or a GED, as the case may be) and even though he knows that Thorir has a bit of a point when it comes to learning Icelandic, he still thinks this is really kind of stupid.

It's keeping him from going nuts with boredom, though. Sure, he feels like an idiot, but it's better than nothing.

Killian rubs Röskva's sides, working his jaw as he tries to remember how to say "No, uncle, Röskva is a girl" in Icelandic (and how to even pronounce Röskva, he's taken to calling her Rosie).

"No--" He stops, thinks, and tries again. "She's--" Once more. "No, uncle, she's a girl." He stops again, only this time he's confused as he turns to Thorir. "Was that Icelandic?" he asks in English. "I don't think it was Icelandic."

Even weirder than suddenly hearing Killian reply fluently in a language that is very clearly not English is that he understands it - belatedly, it feels, like his brain took a moment to catch up with the switch (but then it does that sometimes when he swaps languages, so it's not all that surprising). But that does not explain...

"No, it wasn't." He listens to himself as the words leave his mouth - very familiar, a bit like coming home, very much his own language, but he's at the same time absolutely positive that a minute ago, he had never heard it before.

"A pulse, maybe?" Unlike with the little Icelandic he knows, it's the easiest thing to respond in this other language. It's like he's always known it, which is impossible unless it's from a pulse. "Dwarvish?" Or, apparently, Khuzdul, if he heard himself right.

Huh.

"It seems like it." That is not something that he would have expected to come out of teaching Icelandic, but then... it does sound a bit similar, just listening to it. But having this, it seems almost bigger than all the memories. There's a feeling that comes with it, a strong sense of belonging and kinship, if he is to put a name on it. Meaning. The language feels important, even though he could not say why or what the implications of it are. In a similar manner as Icelandic, yet ...more.

Thalfi, sensing his master's sudden unrest, rises and moves over to Thorir, resting a large had in his lap and looking up at him. Thorir in turn runs a hand over the dog, head to shoulder, and then just lets it lie there.

"So apparently learning one language results in me knowing a completely different one?" Killian switches back to English, a little unnerved by that. He could handle the crafting and the archery skills just fine, but this is just a little too odd for him right now. "What the heck--ow, ow, Rosie, no that's my bad leg." Like Thalfi, Röskva could sense that the men were uncomfortable and had done to Killian what Thalfi had done to Thorir. Killian starts trying to move her head, wincing.

"The command is up, still. Using a calm and clear tone should work the best." He could say that himself, but if Killian does it himself, it will easier for him to do the next time when Thorir is not around, both for the dogs to listen to him and for Killian to do it, he assumes. Plus here we have another good reason to learn Icelandic, even only a bit. If it doesn't work right away, he'll help though, because they really don't need to upset the younger man's leg further.

"U-up, still." Killian winces as Röskva doesn't heed and just scoots closer. "Why couldn't you teach them English commands too?" he says, whining just a little. He's too big for it and he knows it, but his leg is hurting and he has a giant dog's head in his lap. He's allowed a little childishness, he thinks.

"Röskva. Up." He waits for a moment as the dog stops and raises herself, looking at her master. "Still." She looks at him for a moment longer and then lies down, looking up at both men with confused eyes. Thorir maneuvers himself around Thalfi's head so he can lean down and pet her for a moment, before sitting up again. "It wasn't necessary to teach them English commands." Because everyone in the family speaks the language at least to a degree. And a few commands could be learned by everyone staying over more frequently.

Because of course everyone else would know it. Killian's the odd one out again.

Seems like he can't escape that, huh?

He leans over and rubs Röskva's neck as she settles back down, head not on Killian's lap this time. "Still, you'd think they'd know what the English words mean," he murmurs. "At least 'no', yeah?"

"It's mostly tone. If you are clear enough with that, the words aren't as important, even with intelligent breeds. They just make things more precise."

But, talking about languages... "You will tell Fil about it." Not a question, nor a command, simply stating what he assumes will happen either way. "Hjalti needs to hear, too. They should be able to echo Dwarvish back, as well."

Killian gives Thorir a Look. "I planned on it," he replies. "Really, I've shared every other pulse so far--" give or take a few details "--and since we know that Fil and Hjalti are Dwarves of course I'd share the pulse about our language with them." He's mildly offended by the implication that he needed to be told to do that.

"I never doubted that Fil would hear it from you. This was about who'd tell your father." Since unlike with Filbert, someone will actually have to go and tell him. Or call him.

But his thoughts are not fully on this. THey wander towards the others - mostly Eliot and Gabriel. And towards the things that he knows about dwarves and elves, in that other place.

"Oh." Killian shrugs. "I thought it would be me. I seem to be the sorta messenger-slash-go between," he points out. He was the one who sort of started all of this mess, as far as the Thorssons were concerned anyway. It only seemed to make sense that he be the one to share pulses and information between them all. "Besides, he's, uh, my dad and all."

Yeah, that was still weird to think about.

"That he is." And he will support that unconditionally, in all directions, even if he's not sure how much of a father Hjalti can actually be, at this point and just with everyone being themselves.

"I hope we will learn more about his former self soon." A name would be nice, but he would also really like to know where his brother stood back then. Thorin and Fíli and Kíli where related, but how about whoever Hjalti was?

"Well, he was on the quest, I think, yeah? At least, we haven't heard of anyone who's a Dwarf who wasn't," he says, thinking. "So we probably know his name, just not which name belongs to him, if that makes sense. I just dunno how to trigger that memory for him." If Hjalti even wants to. Killian wouldn't blame him if he didn't, really.

"Except for Thráin and Thrór." But he nods at the same time, because while he isn't so sure anymore that he really remember Thorin's father's death, he probably was too old for their journey if his grandchildren were coming along.

"None of them sounds like Hjalti - I would have said to try and call him one of them, otherwise."

"And he can't be Dís, because Dís was Fíli and Kíli's mother," Killian adds. The idea of someone being a different sex or gender from their past-selves is completely lost on him--surely the universe wouldn't be that confusing. "I wish I could remember faces. Yeah, I mean, there's no promises it'd help any but it might, y'know?"

"...he could be Frerin." He almost forgot about him, because Thorin's brother has nothing but a face and a name yet - he thinks that there is a resemblance somewhere in there, but with the hair and age difference that could just as well be wishful thinking.

"Speaking of Dís, though, ...you know that dwarf women had about as much beard as men, apparently?" It's still a bit hard for him to wrap his head around that.

Killian starts to ask who Frerin is, but then Thorir drops that. He stares at his uncle for a moment, trying to see if he's joking or not. He doesn't seem to be, though, so Killian just shakes his head.

"I did not." Though that would make what he knows about how atypcial Kíli was make a bit more sense. "You sure?"

"Unless Fíli's and Kíli's mother was a completely odd case and Thorin had unusual tastes in women, yes, I am sure." He has to think back to other memories. "It also explains why I have not a single memory of a dwarf without a beard, except for the very young ones."

"Assuming Thorin had any taste in women." Killian just feels that this needs to be pointed out as an option. "But, uh, I know Kíli didn't have a beard, or at least not much of one," he adds. "He was weird for it."

He actually has no clue about Thorin, but he knows that he himself has never before considered beards on women attractive. He's definitely never looked at Mardís and thought that she'd look even more beautiful with one, or daydreamed of her having one.

Things that he is not going to mention. Definitely not. But that came way too much out of the blue to not be a pulse. A really disturbing one. So he'll just... completely gloss over that. Whole. Complex of Thorin's sexuality. Yes.

"If also the women had one, that would make it even weirder, yes."

He just really felt he needed to point that out. After all, if the women had beards who's to say that Dwarves didn't care?

"He just generally didn't seem to be very traditional--I remember something about braids? And Elves, something about them." Killian wishes he knew what exactly that thing was, because Kíli seemed pretty involved with Elves for some reason. "He got saved by them a lot, but that's different, I think."

"He didn't travel with them, at least." That still seems to have fallen to dwarves and a hobbit and a ...wizard. Whatever his race was.

"That we know of. He may have at some point after or before going to Erebor or whatever." And he thinks that may have happened--Fil said he remembers Kíli being healed by an Elf with athelas and surely that means he was close to at least that one Elf, right?

Though if that Elf was the spider one, he wonders what happened between the two times.

"Still, nice to know 'weird one in the family' isn't just a me thing."

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