There were ten outstanding System notifications that needed to be dealt with before Sarah could use any of her new Skills, but her bottom was getting somewhat numb from sitting on the ground. The grass was nice and soft; the firmly packed soil from which it sprouted? Not so much.
Rising to her feet, Sarah brushed bits of nature from her clothes, stopping abruptly as she noticed a very determined little bright green ant that had made it all the way up to her shoulder while she had been sitting and ignoring the world around her in favour of dealing with the System.
She rather admired the tenacity of the little creature in going so far to explore what must have seemed to it to be a monstrous intrusion into its natural world. Partly out of respect for the creature’s great journey, and partly in deference to the unknown significance of its unusually coloured chitin – a particular shade of almost neon green that filled her mind with cartoon-style images of vats of bubbling acid – she refrained from simply flicking it away and instead plucked a blade of grass and used the plant matter to transfer the ant back to ground level.
She resolved to come back, once she could make use of her [Identification] Skill, and use it on this ant or one of its brethren. She felt uneasy about leaving the ant as an unknown for any longer than necessary, partly because she was pretty sure super bright colours like this on Earth creatures had generally been a warning to predators to steer clear, sort of a “don’t eat me because I will melt you from the inside” kinda thing.
Whether or not that template could be assumed to apply to alien creatures wasn’t something she had any way of knowing, but in cases like this she was a big proponent of the “better safe than sorry” school of thought. Besides, her all-time favourite Isekai/GameLit story back on Earth had included some insects, part of whose anatomy had been this exact shade of glowing green, which had borne the very literal and accurate name of “acid flies,” so it was theoretically possible, right?
True, the acid flies were fictional, but the Builders had based their entire System on human fiction, right? Either way, she was not going to make the same mistake as that story’s protagonist when it came to neon green insects, so these newly noticed ants were going to be treated as potentially very dangerous until, or unless, they were proven otherwise.
Neither the farmer nor the children had mentioned the ants, but Sarah knew there were a thousand little things that people familiar with an area would take for granted and never think to mention to a stranger, or might mention but only in an offhand manner; like that time she’d been visiting some relatives in the American state of Washington and her cousin had casually informed her – in much the same tone that one might mention a protective momma bird nesting in the back hedge – that Black Widow spiders liked to take up residence in the garage.
That particular childhood memory made Sarah shiver as she shook out her hair and carefully double checked her clothes, ensuring that the single ant had been the only one among his stalwart compatriots to attempt to scale the heights of Mount Sarah.
Satisfied that she was insect-free, Sarah crossed the lawn to the front of the house and settled down on a surprisingly comfortable wicker bench that was positioned just the right distance from the wall of the building. She shifted her weight. Okay, almost the right distance. A quick trip into the house produced a small cushion.
Retaking her seat on the bench, Sarah placed the cushion behind her for lumbar support and leaned back with a sigh of contentment. She raised her face to the warmth of the sun, closed her eyes against its dazzling brilliance, and turned her mind inward, reaching out with a flex of thought to the first of the waiting dots.
Congratulations! You have learned the Skill [First Aid (Basic)].
[First Aid (Basic)] is Level 1.
The pleasurable-painful buzz-zap of gaining a Skill level flowed through her body.
Well, that was…she wasn’t sure if ‘nice’ was the right word – the experience did include pain after all – but perhaps…‘satisfying’…Yes, that satisfying.
Plus, the buzz-zap had accompanied the acquisition of the Skill’s first level, just like it was supposed to. It seemed the System had finally gotten itself sorted out. Excellent.
Concluding that she must have earned [First Aid] from bandaging herself up after the [Horned Fox] attack, Sarah dismissed the System screen and reached for the next dot.
Congratulations! You have learned the Skill [Personal Mending (Basic)].
[Personal Mending (Basic)] is Level 1.
What? “Personal mending”? There were so many different meanings that could be applied to those words!
Sarah poked at the Skill, examining the trickle of knowledge that had come with its first level.
Oh, okay, that made sense. It was “mending” as in repairing clothes and equipment, and it was “personal” as in only her own clothes and equipment; as opposed to a tailoring Skill that would help her mend the clothes of anyone who asked.
That, uh, that will be useful, Sarah thought wryly, running her thumb over the row of atrocious-looking stitches with which she’d closed a tear in her left sleeve. She was slightly miffed that she'd only gotten the one level, after all the effort she'd put in.
Her body hadn’t been the only victim of her little foxy encounter. When, on her second day on the farm, the farmer had handed her a small basket of sewing supplies and gestured expressively to the various rips in her tunic and pants that mirrored the now-healed wounds beneath, she had blushed in embarrassment.
The farmer had simply smiled and seemed to indicate (this was before either of them had learned the other’s language) that there was no shame in emerging from a battle with one’s garments slightly tattered. He’d then left her to her mending and headed out to the barn, clearly satisfied that he’d eased his guest’s discomfort.
The thing was, he’d misunderstood the reason for Sarah’s embarrassment. The truth was, she’d never sewn a stitch in her life. Oh, she’d picked up a few things about the ancient art of sewing from the reading of books and watching of movies…for example, she knew that the hole through the blunt end of the needle was called the “eye” and she was supposed to put the thread through the eye, but other than that?
Fortunately, the simplest and most basic concepts of sewing could be deduced through a hefty application of common sense mixed with trial and error, but by the time Sarah finally closed the last rent in her clothing, her hands were cramped, her fingers were bloody, and she was crying tears of pure frustration with just a dash of victory.
When the family saw the results of her work, Little One had giggled and Young One had looked embarrassed on her behalf, but their father had taken in Sarah’s expression of exhausted pride and given her an approving nod.
Now, she was considering re-doing some of the work. Perhaps with a few more levels in [Personal Mending] her clothes would no longer look like they’d been repaired by a hyperactive toddler.
Eh, who was she kidding? She’d need a lot more levels. Still, there was only one way to get those levels, whether she liked it or not, but maybe now she could at least get the needle threaded within the first dozen tries. That would be nice.
She sighed, dismissed the notification, and opened the next one.
Congratulations! You have earned the Skill [Animal Care (Basic)].
*Vocational Skills cannot be activated without the appropriate class. Please visit a Town Monument to choose your class.
So, all those hours spent dodging temperamental lizard-birds to help the kids feed and water the [Raptors] and collect their eggs were good for something after all…not that she resented her bond’s requirement that she share in the upkeep of the household, no, it wasn’t that, it was just…well…she really didn’t like the creatures, especially the arrogant little [Raptor Roosters], and it had become clear that the alien chickens were aware of her dislike and nurtured their own. Earning this Skill after all that (even if she couldn’t use it) made her feel just a little bit vindicated.
Congratulations! You have learned the Skill [Running (Basic)].
[Running (Basic)] is Level 1.
As with the previous two non-vocational Skills, the feeling of this level-up swept through her, but before Sarah could contemplate her new ability, the blue screen vanished and the first of the remaining red dots opened up without her prompting.
Correction: [Running (Basic)] set to Level 10.
Sarah gasped at the flood of sensation. Sooo, the System was still being tweaked, was it? Nine levels in one go wasn’t quite as overwhelming as the fifty levels in one go when her [Language] Skill first showed up, but this time it was the full experience, the pain as well as the pleasure, and it was…well, it was a trip, that’s what it was.
Although…hmm…if Sarah’s suspicions about the origin of that particular idiom were correct…actually, she had nowhere to go with that particular tangent, which left her feeling faintly disappointed.
Why am I upset that I have no first-hand experience of LSD with which to compare the levelling-up experience? I can be such a dork.
At least all the running about the farm and surrounding countryside that seemed part and parcel of alien child care should be a bit easier now. Even if she wasn’t any faster, she was fairly certain she was now less likely to trip over her own feet while moving at speed, so that was a definite bonus.
Congratulations! For raising a Skill to Level 10, you have earned one free Skill Point.
Oh right, that was a thing. Between [Language] and [Running], she now had three free Skill Points. She wondered if she would be able to spend them once she got all these notifications out of the way or if she’d need to wait until she found a Town Monument. Another thing to consider was if it might be better to wait until after she’d chosen a class to use them. Now that she had a decent grasp of the local language, she needed to sit down with the farmer at some point and have a chat about how classes and Skills worked, but that would have to wait.
Congratulations! You have earned the Skill [Farmyard Construction (Basic)].
*Vocational Skills cannot be activated without the appropriate class. Please visit a Town Monument to choose your class.
Sarah chuckled. The only farmyard construction she’d done was help the farmer replace that broken fence post. Guess that was enough for a Skill, she thought with a shrug.
Congratulations! You have learned the Skill [Gardening (Basic)].
[Gardening (Basic)] is Level 1.
Correction: [Gardening (Basic)] now set to Level 5.
Huh. She felt like she’d spent at least as much time gardening as she had running, or nearly so anyway, so why fewer levels? Was it because the gardening she had done had been a lot less strenuous and challenging than the running?
Most of the year’s planting had already been done before Sarah came along (or was that just the state in which the farm had been generated within the simulation? It doesn’t matter, brain. Not all tangents are helpful, you know.), and the farmer had rigged up a very clever little irrigation system involving a rain barrel placed beneath the downspout of the farmhouse’s eaves troughs.
That meant that, at this point in the season – with frequent spring rainfall and the various fresh shoots just barely starting to emerge from the soil – gardening consisted primarily of removing small weeds as soon as they emerged, opening and closing the irrigation system as needed, and keeping watch for various bugs, birds, and rodents that might wish to feast on the tender young plants.
The children were both quite competent and knowledgeable gardeners for their ages, and the farmer kept an eye on their efforts, so there hadn’t been as much for Sarah to do. She enjoyed the time she spent in the garden with the children, but she wasn’t sure if she enjoyed it enough to be properly upset over getting only five levels. She shrugged, set aside this point of self-reflection for another date, and moved on.
Congratulations! You have learned the Skill [Household Cooking (Basic)].
[Household Cooking (Basic)] is Level 1.
Correction: [Household Cooking (Basic)] now set to Level 14.
Congratulations! For raising a Skill to Level 10, you have earned one free Skill Point.
Shaking her hands until the last lingering tingles from the mass level-up faded, Sarah considered her newest Skill.
Just like [Personal Mending] was a limited-focus layman’s version of [Tailoring], [Household Cooking] seemed to be more about preparing meals for oneself and one’s household than cooking within a professional setting like a restaurant or tavern.
She didn’t get any knowledge of fancy recipes or complicated techniques, but what she did get was far more valuable for her immediate situation. For example, she now felt confident that she could chop ingredients at greater than glacial speed without also chopping her fingers. She also had a better understanding of the ingredients most commonly used by the local population, from their flavours to their nutritional values and the best ways to cook them.
The bit she was most excited about was her new sense of timing. She glanced at the position of the sun and she immediately knew how much time she had before the farmer and his kids would come looking for the noon meal. Then she thought about the various ingredients that were available for her use, and she immediately came up with three different dishes that could be prepared within the available time.
Sarah laughed in delight. Now this was a useful Skill! She couldn’t wait to tell her mom about it.
All outstanding System notifications have been acknowledged. Thank you for your patience. You may now view your updated personal status menu. Do you wish to do so?
Y/N
Oh. Really? Huh. She’d lost track of how many notifications were left, especially since some of them, like the free Skill Point notices, didn’t seem to have been represented within the row of glowing dots, only popping up once certain conditions were met.
Well, if the System said she was done, then she was done, so…Yes, by all means, show me my Status.
Name:
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Sarah Overmeyer
Race:
Human
Class:
None
Level:
0
Attribute Points:
0
Attributes
Physical
Mental
Strength
0
Vigour
0
Dexterity
0
Dexterity
1
Endurance
2
Fortitude
2
Perception
0
Perception
1
Skill Points:
4
Skills in Use
Skill Name
Skill Level
[Polyglot]
Static
[Keen Eye]
Static
[Dimensional Storage]
Static
[Language: Bird People***]
50
[Identification]
2
[First Aid]
1
[Personal Mending]
1
[Running]
10
[Gardening]
5
[Household Cooking]
14
Skills Earned but Unavailable
[Wood Carving Proficiency]
[Animal Care]
[Farmyard Construction]
Titles and Commitments
Meat and Mead
It was an interesting feeling, looking at her updated Status. When the System had shown it to her in the pre-Tutorial stage, it had seemed very simple, like a static page, sort of a ‘what you see is what you get’ situation. After that she’d been so busy surviving and adapting that this was the first time she’d opened her Status from within the Tutorial.
If the System had been properly giving her Skills and levels all along that probably wouldn’t have been the case, but since it was…well, she couldn’t be sure if the new sense of dynamic depth she felt from her Status was a result of the influx of new Skills or simply a side effect of being in the Tutorial.
Either way, she now knew instinctively that much more information was available to her if she wanted it; all she had to do was focus. So she chose the first of her Skills and gave a mental tug.
[Polyglot (Legendary)]: Able to speak, understand, read, and write all human languages in use on Earth at the time of the transition; Able to learn non-human languages 50% faster (Increases by an additional 5% for every point in M-DEX)
Skill Type: Static (non-leveling) -- Attribute-Dependent, Catalyzing
Most of that she remembered from when she chose the Skill, but the “Skill Type” bit was new. It explained why nowhere in that raft of notifications and corrections had there been any level-ups for her three starting Skills, assuming the other two were the same. A quick mental check confirmed that, yes, both [Keen Eye] and [Dimensional Storage] were Static type Skills. [Keen Eye] was both Attribute-Dependent and Catalyzing, while [Dimensional Storage] was only Attribute-Dependent.
She could tell that more information on those terms was available but decided to save the deep dive for another time. For now it was enough to understand that the lack of levels for those three Skills wasn’t another System glitch; they simply increased in potency through a method other than levelling.
It made sense. If a Skill like [Polyglot] could increase in power through experience points and levels, on top of however many Attribute points she could dump into Mental Dexterity, it would become seriously overpowered in a very short time.
Instead of drilling deeper on her Skill, Sarah shifted sideways.
[Polyglot] -- Associated Masteries
General: Common Tasks and Abilities
Focused: Social Skills
Specialized: Languages (Locked)
Okay, so there were three levels of Mastery, and two of the three associated with [Polyglot] were unlocked and, presumably, earning experience.
Sarah could feel that there was an enormous amount of information here, just waiting for her to request it, but she could also feel her [Household Cooking] Skill ticking away in the back of her mind, telling her how many minutes she had before she needed to start making the noon meal, and there was one last important matter she needed to address first. With a disappointed sigh, Sarah set aside the mysteries of Masteries and focused on the one Skill in her list that felt like a burning itch in her mind: [Language: Bird People***].
In point of fact, it wasn’t the Skill itself that gave off the mental itch, but the phrase “Bird People.” When she first got her [Language] Skill there had been a single asterisk appended to the term, and though it had bothered her on an intellectual level, she had quickly been distracted by all that followed. Now there were three asterisks and the System was very clearly demanding that she pay attention. The moment she turned her focus to the Skill, a new, and very large, System screen opened before her.
*** “Bird People” is a temporary designation assigned to the species of people distinguished by their narrow faces (in comparison to humans), their ochre-toned skin, and their feather-like hair.
This designation has been assigned for use with and by the System for the benefit of humanity, since the true name of the species is impossible to accurately render in any known human language or alphabet.
This designation was derived from the most frequently used appellations contrived by the humans who have so far encountered this species within the Tutorial.
Ouch. That last bit really didn’t speak well for humanity, did it? The middle bit, though, that made sense. Now that she knew the so-called “Bird People” language included a significant number of sounds that were outside the range of human hearing, she could easily understand why no human alphabet would be equipped to handle it. As for why the name couldn’t be translated into any human language, there were plenty of words and phrases within the alien language that she still struggled to understand, even with her Skills, because there simply was no comparative human concept. Still, her fellow humans ought to have been able to come up with something a little kinder and more creative than “Bird People”, right? She sighed and continued reading.
As the first human to both earn the Skill for this species’ language, and to raise said Skill to Level 50, you have been granted the honour of choosing the permanent name by which they will be known to your people.
Consider carefully, for once made, this choice will be irrevocable; furthermore, the “Bird People” will be made aware of the name you choose for them, and its full meaning, both literal and cultural. Your choice, therefore, could have a significant impact on future relations between your two peoples.
No pressure.
Sarah gaped. Did the System just drop a diplomatic nuclear bomb in her lap and then…sass her?!? She read the message again, and then for a third time. Yup, that was definitely sass, not to mention a significant case of offloading of responsibility.
How could the System, or the Builders, possibly think that any human – let alone little ol’ Sarah Overmeyer – could be qualified to name an entire sentient, sapient species; a species the possibility of whose existence had – until very recently – entered into the consciousness of mankind only as the imaginings of minds creative or the ravings of minds unhinged?
But now she was waxing poetic and the Skill ticking away in the back of her mind was a steady reminder that matters of a more mundane nature must soon take precedence. So Sarah gulped down her shock and dismissed the System screen, intent on dealing with it at a later date, when she wasn’t pushed for time and sanity.
Except the screen refused to be dismissed. That intangible, impossible surface that hung before her, unsupported by any physical force, invisible to every eye but her own, able to be manipulated (usually) by mere thought and effort of will, refused her mental command. Instead, the screen grew in size and opacity, until she could see the farm around her through peripheral vision alone.
It seemed the System, or the Builders, or both, would not allow her to delay or deny the “honour” of making this choice. And so Sarah closed her eyes and thought, as hard and as frantically as she’d ever thought before.
First, she chose the language. That was the easy part, thanks to [Polyglot]. Humanity might very well have once spoken a single universal language, but no longer. Whether one believed in such a thing or not, the truth of the matter lay so far in the distant past as to be beyond even the slightest chance of producing objective, definitive proof acceptable to modern sensibilities.
No, the sons and daughters of Earth had no universal tongue, and choosing just one of the thousands of languages [Polyglot] had gifted her would be a choice fraught with ethnic, racial, historical, political, and even religious tensions, not to mention inevitable claims of favouritism from those with a tendency to be easily offended. Sarah did suspect such people might have more pressing concerns at the moment – what with the end of the world and all – but there was no accounting for the petty side of human nature. Still, it was true that even the two languages most spoken on the planet at the time of world’s end had claimed between them only two and a quarter billion native speakers, out of a global population in excess of eight billion.
No, none of the living languages would do, but perhaps one of the dead ones would. In amongst all the living-and-much-used languages to which [Polyglot] gave her access, right next to the living-but-nearly-extinct languages (those that claimed mere handfuls of remaining native speakers), were a few languages that scholars on Earth had long considered dead.
That was the beautiful, incredible thing about [Polyglot]; the reason the Legendary Skill so excited and awed Sarah wasn’t what it allowed her to do – though that was incredible in its own right – but what it preserved.
Sarah wasn’t certain if the knowledge of Earth’s languages was actually imprinted on her mind, or if her Skill merely gave her access to, and understanding of, the knowledge stored within the System itself. She suspected the latter, since her brain hadn’t exploded, but that wasn’t the important part. The important bit was that when the Builders and their System created the [Polyglot] Skill, they hadn’t cared about human classifications of which languages were living and which were dead; they hadn’t cared if a language still had native speakers, those who claimed it as their mother tongue. All they’d cared about was if a language was “in use” when they gathered all of humanity into their sci-fi version of Noah’s Ark.
And so, all those languages – some lost in ancient times, some gone only generations past – that had been revived, recovered, rebuilt, with enormous and painstaking effort by the descendants of people whose culture and speech had been lost, or morphed, or diluted by foreign settlers, by conquering armies, by migrations fleeing disease, famine, natural disasters, and oppression, or perhaps simply by the unceasing, uncaring, unrelenting march of time itself; all those languages were now preserved, to never again die, so long as the Builders’ System, and even one person with the [Polyglot] Skill, remained.
It was enough to make a person cry. Sarah, of course, did not cry, at least not right then. If pressed, she would admit that her choice of [Polyglot] as a starting Skill had not been entirely a matter of practicality, but she didn’t have time to focus on all that now.
The point was that [Polyglot] gave her knowledge of quite a few languages once thought dead; languages that might, just might, not carry the same burden of modern political baggage that was inevitably tied to English, or Mandarin, or Hindi, or Russian, or any of a dozen, dozen others.
The choice then, was which “dead” language to choose. If Sarah had been born to a particular group of people, in a particular region of Australia, she might have chosen Diyani; if she’d been born in India, she might have chosen Sanskrit; if she’d been born to the same heritage as one of her closest childhood friends, she might have chosen Siksiká; but she was a fourth-generation Canadian of primarily European descent, so she chose the one ancient-yet-not-lost language that had been a significant influence on nearly every branch of her ancestry: Latin.
Of course, choosing which language to use truly was the easy part, comparatively speaking. When she pondered choosing a name from that language, well, that’s when she really began to sweat.
The conversation she’d had with the children only a few hours earlier still rang in her ears. The way their people thought about names, as reflections and expressions of their very souls, terrified Sarah; not the tradition itsel but the idea of having to emulate it. The personal names of the farmer, his children, and his late wife were each their own little melody, with complex concepts all crammed together in such a way as to seem an entirely different language from their everyday speech.
It reminded Sarah of that German thing of sticking a bunch of words together to make one long new word, except comparing that German quirk with the names of her new friends was like comparing the scribbling of a toddler with the elegant prose of an esteemed elder scholar (no offence intended to the Germans, but they were only human).
And if their personal names were mini melodies, the name they had for themselves as a race and a species was an entire song. It was so long, in fact, that they didn’t use it in casual speech, referring to themselves simply as “the People,” or – when speaking to outsiders like Sarah – as “our People.”
Actually, now that she thought about it, the farmer didn’t use his children’s names very often either, referring to them mostly as “Son” and “Daughter.” Oh, that tied right in with the other thing the kids had said about using titles or simple descriptions instead of nicknames, and…and that was it…that was her answer.
She didn’t need to come up with a Latin phrase that accurately reflected the soul of an entire people to whom she’d barely been introduced. She only needed to choose a simple description that would not be considered offensive or derogatory in any way, and could be accurately applied to any member of the species regardless of age, size, shape, colour, social position, gender, or any of the thousand other ways in which individuals differed from one another.
“No pressure,” eh? System, I really, really want to slap you right now, you know that? Think you might generate an avatar of some kind and put it, oh, right over here? I’ll even stand up and move over a bit if that is more convenient. C’mon, it won’t actually hurt you and it will certainly help me to, uh, regain my emotional equilibrium. Which would be good, and…you either can’t hear my thoughts or simply aren’t listening…or are scared to get slapped. Wuss! … … Nothing? Nuts. Well, it was worth a try.
Sarah sighed and glanced at the sun from the corners of her eyes, which took a bit of head tilting to accomplish, what with the big blue floating box in the way. It was long past the time when her [Cooking] Skill had wanted her to start preparing the noon meal. In fact, if the Skill was to be believed, any moment now the farmer and his children would come trooping hungrily up to the house and she hadn’t so much as stepped into the kitchen.
You know what, [Cooking] Skill? They’ll understand. And if they don’t, well, no one is going to starve if lunch is an hour late. Besides, it’s not like the System is giving me a choice. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face through this blue box; I certainly can’t cook without chopping off my fingers or setting the house on fire. Plus, if they really are run by the System, the System will make them understand.
Reassured, despite the urgent prickle of [Household Cooking], Sarah returned her focus to finding an appropriate name. As hard and fast as the thoughts raced through her head, she could hear subdued chatter of the farmer and children approaching the house by the time she settled on an aspect of their people that she was certain could be applied to most every member of their species. She tried to accelerate her thinking but didn't skimp on taking the time to re-examine her choice. This had to be perfect; she only had one shot at it.
The first aspect she decided to highlight was their hair, which even the System had called “feather-like.” The Latin word for feather was pluma, but that wasn’t quite what she wanted so she went with plumae, which meant feathered. She could have found a word that referred to their “ochre-toned skin” or their “narrow faces” but the thought of naming an entire race of people by the colour of their skin or the shape of their faces made her very uncomfortable. Maybe it wouldn’t matter for aliens, especially if they were all the same colour and the same general shape, but this name she was creating was intended for use by humans, and identifying groups of people by physical features alone was a very touchy subject for the people of Earth.
The “feather-like hair” seemed, strangely enough, a safe enough focus, possibly because it was so alien, but it was insufficient on its own. Plumae described an aspect of who they were as physical creatures but not who they were as people; calling them Plumae Populus would be marginally better than “Bird People” but only in as much as “bird” was significantly less accurate and appropriate than “feathered”; it was still just a flat description of physical appearance. She needed something more.
As she pondered, Sarah listened to the quiet voices of her fellow household members. From the sounds of it, they had paused a short distance away, as if they were waiting for her to finish up before resuming their progress to the house. Had the System told them to stop? Could they actually see her System screen this time? Maybe they just recognized her posture of intense thought and didn't want to interrupt whatever strange Human epiphany was in progress. Whatever the reason, they were far enough away, and speaking in soft enough tones, that she could pick out only the occasional word, while the rest blended together into a symphony of sounds.
It truly was a beautiful language, she reflected. From the first time she’d heard it, she thought it sounded like choruses of bird song. Now that she had a broader range of hearing, she knew that the birdsong-like melody had an accompanying harmony that sounded like the elements, from the whistle of the wind to the groan of shifting ice, the rumble of sliding stone, the rustling of tree leaves, and even the hissing crackle of hungry flames. It was almost like every time they spoke they were singing the song of the natural world.
Aha! That was it! They were singers, the Feathered Singers.
“Plumae Cantores,” she said quietly.
The System screen flashed and its message changed.
You have chosen to name this species “Plumae Cantores.” You will not be able alter your choice. Do you wish to confirm it?
Y/N
Sarah hesitated. Latin was a tricky language. You couldn’t just stick two words together and assume it was a grammatically correct phrase, which of course was true of any language but Latin was a real doozy.
Individually, the two words she’d chosen were correct – plumae meant feathered and cantores meant singers – but as a phrase, “feathered singers” actually translated to pennatis cantoribus.
For a long moment, Sarah fought against her innate dislike of improper grammar (a preference that might have been incredibly hypocritical of her except internal monologues didn’t count) until finally she conceded that she wasn’t writing a sentence, she was creating a name, and that gave her some latitude. Besides, Plumae Cantores just sounded so much snappier than Pennatis Cantoribus.
“Yes,” she both said and thought to the System.
The intangible blue screen folded itself away, giving her an unobstructed view of the three Plumae Cantoresians…oh, that was a bit long, um, Cantoresians?...Cantorians?...yes, the three Cantorians staring at the air with unfocused eyes and surprised faces.
Clearly the System hadn’t been joking when it said they would all be informed of her choice of name. Sarah’s stomach clenched tight in a sudden bout of nerves. These three aliens might not be real people, but she was coming to the realization that she valued their good opinion nonetheless. She really hoped her choice of alternate name for their species met with their approval.