Just a heads up here: AIME happens tomorrow, and a two-day field trip overlaps - which means I won't be able to do much this weekend, especially that I'm not carrying my notebook around this time. Exams are also imminent (being on the 25th and carry on until the end of the week), so please excuse me if I don't show up as much for a while(Although I probably WILL sneak in writing in the afternoon breaks during exam time, hopefully effectively shortening the inactivity gap by a bit).
Looking forward to the surprise!
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"Wrong answer. If incubation began after the last one arrived, all the eggs received the same amount of heat, meaning that they should all hatch at the same time. If one hatches earliest than the rest, at a time it is not supposed to, it means it's a parasite, like the cuckoo bird. The chick will then push the rest out. So, there will be no more eggs in the nest."
Leila listened as the boy corrected her and explained the reasoning behind the correct answer. Alas, she knew terribly little regarding the topic of birds. She did, however, find this concept rather intriguing - and now being reminded, she remembered reading about something similar somewhere, sometime in the past. A species developing tactics that allows it to access the resources gathered by someone else - free lunch. A clever, although not necessarily agreeable, strategy.
"Ah...it does seem so." She said in response, smiling. She never did particularly mind being wrong.
* * * *
Leila did not know for sure when exactly she realized she was tired. But once she did, it was very hard to ignore that fact.
The road to their destination was far from without obstacles. The rocks of which their path was composed were greatly uneven, with many sudden increases and decreases in height, and several places where jumps were required for the gaps to be cleared. The moss - a simple life form that happily flourished on the humid surfaces of the various formations of rock - covered the originally rough surface of the rocks with a dangerous slime-ish texture.
Leila’s shoes didn’t happen to provide decent traction. That didn’t bother her much - the exact positions of footholds on rocks, even completely neglecting friction, could be quickly calculated. The major obstacle in her ascension along the path was, instead, the random variable that produces the unsightly probabilistic error margin to each and every part of the results; adding the dread of uncertainty every time before a footstep was secured or after a leap was taken - even with the operations being carried out being supposedly completely deterministic.
That random variable we speak of was, of course, no other than Leila herself.
The jaggedness of the terrain increased as the group proceeded, making the success of each step more thanks to luck and chance instead of caution, or skill - not like she had any, that. Every time she didn’t slip and topple over into the mud seemed more like a miracle. And just as the configuration of the stones became more and more peculiarly unpredictable, so did the level of illumination drop. It was truly discomforting for the girl - less light, more chunks of black in her sight, less information provided, fewer clues to base her actions upon. The group still carried on, and so did Leila’s predictions of possible courses to be taken, with data gathered from a combination of what was left of the visible cues and the trial-and-error of extending her palms in random directions in hope of getting a grasp on something. And the longer she stayed under such a state, the harder it was to fight the dread and anxiousness continuously brewing inside.
Leila did not like that feeling at all. Already screaming internally, she resisted considering the option of making it known to the others, as well as the urge to just cling onto someone or something and refuse to move until the environment changed - though, she would find it utterly unpleasant to have to do either. Instead, to distract herself, she focused on listening to the chirping of the creatures that resided in the area around them, although it did not account for much effect for she was far less adept in gathering clues through hearing as compared to eyesight, which she practically lacked at the moment; and she couldn’t really tell much from the sounds except the fact that they did contribute to a rather spooky background noise (the kind she would usually find comforting, and would have now if it were not for all the nervousness building up from not being able to see properly). She did, however, also overhear a slightly reassuring conversation that took place elsewhere in the group, slightly in front of her - signalling both that she had somehow not fallen too far behind, and that the journey was to come to a temporary end briefly.
”...Hakuren-san, how much farther?”
”...A bit more.”
* * * *
The caves were a wondrous sight. Great arches of stone, almost miraculously supported by their own structure. Flora - grass, fungi, and other shorter leaved plants on the ground, moss and vines where the walls extended upwards - provided a tint of life for the cave that would otherwise be devoid of it. Above them was the ceiling of the cave, constructed at a great height unreachable by all except the most simple, stubborn plants, whose trails winded some distance before halting, sometimes into unwilling dangling threads pointing, again, downwards. Sunlight - sunlight from outside of the mountain -showered in from an area where the composition of the cave had seemingly failed, where stones and rocks had crumbled and fallen to the ground of the cave, leaving a gaping hole that allows lighting to be provided; the mist in the moisture-saturated air revealed the course of beams of sunlight as they poured through the gaps between dangling vines.
Leila walked along the group behaving like a child entering an electronic arcade - turning around frantically, desperately trying to take in everything at once, gasping between her stammers to marvel at the surroundings.
In front of the group, at the centre of the cave approximately beneath the source of light, was the mirror surface of a lake. It was not large in size - some might argue it was not worthy yet of being called a lake. The water was clear - almost unreally clear, a blue-green crystal lens through which the underlying structure of the bed was revealed. And if this was a pond and not a lake, then it sure was a very, very deep pond; the solid surface beneath the waters extending downwards and downwards towards the centre until all light from below was absorbed by the dampening layers of water before they could reach the surface, or any nearby human eye. It almost reminded her of something else that light did not escape, but she abandoned that thought in defiance of bringing back any memories from the Fisher. Instead she stared at the centre of the lake as the group wandered on along the gravel ground - the abyss that invoked that unique feeling that was a mix of fear, mystery, uncertainty,excitement, admiration, and something that was almost plain happiness.
‘Extraordinarily beautiful.”
It was one of the few times Leila spoke out loud what was going through her mind. That she remarked in a whisper, as if anything her voice would add to the scene would disrupt its perfectness. A whisper, almost as faint as the one coming from one of the caves, the one Leila did not hear.
She was never particularly good at picking up cues with her ears.
Leila listened as the boy corrected her and explained the reasoning behind the correct answer. Alas, she knew terribly little regarding the topic of birds. She did, however, find this concept rather intriguing - and now being reminded, she remembered reading about something similar somewhere, sometime in the past. A species developing tactics that allows it to access the resources gathered by someone else - free lunch. A clever, although not necessarily agreeable, strategy.
"Ah...it does seem so." She said in response, smiling. She never did particularly mind being wrong.
* * * *
Leila did not know for sure when exactly she realized she was tired. But once she did, it was very hard to ignore that fact.
The road to their destination was far from without obstacles. The rocks of which their path was composed were greatly uneven, with many sudden increases and decreases in height, and several places where jumps were required for the gaps to be cleared. The moss - a simple life form that happily flourished on the humid surfaces of the various formations of rock - covered the originally rough surface of the rocks with a dangerous slime-ish texture.
Leila’s shoes didn’t happen to provide decent traction. That didn’t bother her much - the exact positions of footholds on rocks, even completely neglecting friction, could be quickly calculated. The major obstacle in her ascension along the path was, instead, the random variable that produces the unsightly probabilistic error margin to each and every part of the results; adding the dread of uncertainty every time before a footstep was secured or after a leap was taken - even with the operations being carried out being supposedly completely deterministic.
That random variable we speak of was, of course, no other than Leila herself.
The jaggedness of the terrain increased as the group proceeded, making the success of each step more thanks to luck and chance instead of caution, or skill - not like she had any, that. Every time she didn’t slip and topple over into the mud seemed more like a miracle. And just as the configuration of the stones became more and more peculiarly unpredictable, so did the level of illumination drop. It was truly discomforting for the girl - less light, more chunks of black in her sight, less information provided, fewer clues to base her actions upon. The group still carried on, and so did Leila’s predictions of possible courses to be taken, with data gathered from a combination of what was left of the visible cues and the trial-and-error of extending her palms in random directions in hope of getting a grasp on something. And the longer she stayed under such a state, the harder it was to fight the dread and anxiousness continuously brewing inside.
Leila did not like that feeling at all. Already screaming internally, she resisted considering the option of making it known to the others, as well as the urge to just cling onto someone or something and refuse to move until the environment changed - though, she would find it utterly unpleasant to have to do either. Instead, to distract herself, she focused on listening to the chirping of the creatures that resided in the area around them, although it did not account for much effect for she was far less adept in gathering clues through hearing as compared to eyesight, which she practically lacked at the moment; and she couldn’t really tell much from the sounds except the fact that they did contribute to a rather spooky background noise (the kind she would usually find comforting, and would have now if it were not for all the nervousness building up from not being able to see properly). She did, however, also overhear a slightly reassuring conversation that took place elsewhere in the group, slightly in front of her - signalling both that she had somehow not fallen too far behind, and that the journey was to come to a temporary end briefly.
”...Hakuren-san, how much farther?”
”...A bit more.”
* * * *
The caves were a wondrous sight. Great arches of stone, almost miraculously supported by their own structure. Flora - grass, fungi, and other shorter leaved plants on the ground, moss and vines where the walls extended upwards - provided a tint of life for the cave that would otherwise be devoid of it. Above them was the ceiling of the cave, constructed at a great height unreachable by all except the most simple, stubborn plants, whose trails winded some distance before halting, sometimes into unwilling dangling threads pointing, again, downwards. Sunlight - sunlight from outside of the mountain -showered in from an area where the composition of the cave had seemingly failed, where stones and rocks had crumbled and fallen to the ground of the cave, leaving a gaping hole that allows lighting to be provided; the mist in the moisture-saturated air revealed the course of beams of sunlight as they poured through the gaps between dangling vines.
Leila walked along the group behaving like a child entering an electronic arcade - turning around frantically, desperately trying to take in everything at once, gasping between her stammers to marvel at the surroundings.
In front of the group, at the centre of the cave approximately beneath the source of light, was the mirror surface of a lake. It was not large in size - some might argue it was not worthy yet of being called a lake. The water was clear - almost unreally clear, a blue-green crystal lens through which the underlying structure of the bed was revealed. And if this was a pond and not a lake, then it sure was a very, very deep pond; the solid surface beneath the waters extending downwards and downwards towards the centre until all light from below was absorbed by the dampening layers of water before they could reach the surface, or any nearby human eye. It almost reminded her of something else that light did not escape, but she abandoned that thought in defiance of bringing back any memories from the Fisher. Instead she stared at the centre of the lake as the group wandered on along the gravel ground - the abyss that invoked that unique feeling that was a mix of fear, mystery, uncertainty,excitement, admiration, and something that was almost plain happiness.
‘Extraordinarily beautiful.”
It was one of the few times Leila spoke out loud what was going through her mind. That she remarked in a whisper, as if anything her voice would add to the scene would disrupt its perfectness. A whisper, almost as faint as the one coming from one of the caves, the one Leila did not hear.
She was never particularly good at picking up cues with her ears.
Going to post tonight, when I get home. Looking forward to the caves.
Still had'y gotten the chance to discuss the conversation thingies with Phones - I'll put responses in the post anyway I guess. Editing is always an option.
Still had'y gotten the chance to discuss the conversation thingies with Phones - I'll put responses in the post anyway I guess. Editing is always an option.
Posted. Turned out to be a bit longer than I expected, and a bit lacking in content - probably because I spent a little too long fleshing out the responses and random thoughts and had to rush the ending a bit and didn't have the time to work enough event development in. WIll try to compensate for that in my future posts.
And about the clues and the Siren and the surprise...what is that they say again?
Oh,
And about the clues and the Siren and the surprise...what is that they say again?
Oh,
"We should piece a puzzle together sometime."
Puzzle?
Leila found Hakuren’s remark a bit sudden. Abrupt, almost nonsensical even, considering how much she expected at least some comments about her report to follow - much like the strong expectation of a U to follow, instead of any other letter, immediately after the occurrence of a Q in English text.
People just don’t make sense.
This, now, meant also that Leila will still have no idea what to look for next time - they were expected to visit a number of households, she assumed - and she felt somewhat anxious about that. It was not, however, about not knowing what to look for. She had no idea what to look for for all her life and she considered that acceptable. It was not either because she had to search for something - such a task was required to be performed multiple times in the past, and she would happily carry them out. In some cases she succeeded in completing the search, in others she failed miserably. She was okay with either outcome as well. What worried her, then, would only be the combination of the two statuses - the state of having to look for something, not knowing what to look for - and, to make things worse, that she was expected to know what she was supposed to do. While in reality she didn’t.
Sometimes she didn’t make sense herself, either.
But why puzzles? Leila did not understand. Puzzles were, as she considered them, a rather...puzzling existence. A complete, well-formed image contains information. A cut up and scrambled version of such an image - a corresponding puzzle - does not possess such a virtue, although it is presumed to be possible for the image to be recovered by the simple process of rearranging the pieces back into their correct locations, by guidance of various things - the image that meets the edge of a given piece, the shape of its contour allowing or disallowing its combination with any other given piece of the puzzle. One could say that the completing of a puzzle would be the retrieving of the information contained in the collection of pieces, which could perhaps be considered productive. Yet they print the image on the box, which you inevitably observe upon acquiring the puzzle, defeating the point of retrieving the information through the assembling of the puzzle itself, as you already know what the information will reveal. Or maybe you weren’t supposed to look at the completed puzzle, and the box serves as a reference only to the purchaser of the puzzle, and is meant to remain unrevealed to whoever was practicing the puzzle-piecing? If that were the case, there was also the question why a puzzle should be broken and reassembled beyond its first completion. What more was there to learn if you’ve already seen the result?
Or perhaps the information was something contained not in the image, but in the puzzle version of the image? Maybe what you really are supposed to learn from the puzzle is a property of a puzzle, but not - as weird as it is to express in language - the puzzle; where the clues you rely on when you assemble a puzzle serves really only as a set of guidelines, without which the true meaning contained in the puzzle cannot be properly revealed? Or what you learn from a puzzle is irrelevant to the puzzle itself, but only related to the process of completing a puzzle? The order you assemble the pieces, perhaps? Or the clues according to which one deduces that order?
Puzzles are truly confusing.
They were explicitly designed, though, to be confusing, Leila supposed.
”That would be nice.” She said.
* * * *
A kind of greenish, slippery substance with a fuzzy texture lined the edges and surfaces of the roads and stairs the both of them walked along. They assumed they were molds, but no-one could say for sure that just because something resembled the molds they knew, mold were what they were. Nothing in Nowhere seemed to conform to the the expectations a human would possess based on knowledge of their own world. Here, Ks and Ws, as often as U, can be found following the metaphorical Q. Whether this made things more interesting or merely rendered them meaningless was up to the interpreter to decide. Leila pondered, instead, over the fact that whether the fact that something is meaningless would necessarily mean that it would not be interesting.
The U that followed the initial Q came a little bit later in the discussion, yet Leila noticed it, nonetheless. She also inferred from it that touching one’s nose or neck was considered a strong indicator for lies.
Then the boy asked her to tell him more about herself. "I'm not going to brag about it, if that is what you're worried about," he said; a statement Leila considered curious. She never had anyone brag about an encounter with her, or anything else about her. It was just as weird a notion to imagine someone that would. Even more curious, to imagine someone imagining her imagining that someone would go about bragging about her.
And then she panicked because she had no idea how to speak about herself. What about her was important, what was not? She was, again, met with a similar dilemma as the one she encountered earlier with collecting and reporting information gathered from a session of speech. She struggled with this sort of things - when she was met with “you can’t do that” or “be more specific” when she says “everything”. And in the end - quite some while after the initial question was placed, that was - she retorted to the one old line that was repeatedly carved into her memory since her childhood.
”Noelle. Leila Noelle. Seventeen years old. Daughter of Joseph and Zora Noelle. 317 Westbourne Avenue.”
What was important, and what was not?
* * * *
Their little stroll continued for quite a while without interaction. Hakuren had collected his notebook, and in response to that Leila focused her remaining attention to not kicking the moss-covered stones that littered the road.
"Say, Leila-san."
Leila turned to look at the boy. The “-san” suffix confused her greatly as Leila was not familiar with many foreign languages, and she could only speculate that be something they said, wherever Hakuren was from.
"If you have a nest with four eggs, where the mother had begun incubating after the last one arrived, and one hatched early, how many eggs would there be left in the nest?"
Sometimes people really didn’t make sense. Sometimes they seemed much as confusing, and, perhaps, meaningless, as puzzles.
Leila would have liked to take some time to determine whether people were to be considered interesting.
"Three."
* * * *
The residence of Mister Mathema was an intriguing place, to say at least.
There was a fair collection of books, for starters. The layers of stacked shelves, some half-covered in cobwebs, had been the centre of Leila’s interest since the two of them entered the house. A scene, it struck Leila, not unlike a miniaturized version of her own living quarters if left unattended for a sufficiently long amount of time. It had been a while since she had something to read - ever since she boarded the train, in fact; and she kind of missed the feeling of reading.
Another way to put it, though, would be that that books were an enormous distraction. Leila was near completely not paying attention when the boy remarked that
"I'd hate to be in his class."
Hakuren did, however, regain her attention when he mentioned he was going upstairs.
"I'm going up. If I don't come back in five minutes...Oh, wait, time doesn't exist here.
Time.
The boy had mentioned frequently that Time didn’t exist in Nowhere. Leila was slightly puzzled why he was so sure of that.
How do you construct a procedure to measure time? What do you measure it in correlation to? What exactly was time anyway, and what does it mean that time doesn’t exist? Nothing made sense. The time when she had passed out and stayed in bed on the Fisher - she couldn’t remember why - broke her perception of time just that bit. It now felt like she could understand, yet again she was confused, by the notion of Time in Nowhere. It’s like being able to construct a proof for both the validity and the falseness of a mathematical statement.
Speaking of mathematical statements. As Hakuren scurried in his investigation upstairs, Leila returned her attention to the scripture collection of the eccentric Nowherian who bore a name that was the study of numbers and logic with the last four letters truncated. Despite the accumulated dust that indicated their old age, the books themselves, sheltered by the shelfs they lay in, were in rather good condition. A quick skim across the titles would reveal the subject of the books to be much as expected from the collection of a being whose head was a giant square root sign:
Anatomy of a Natural Number. Technologies of Travel in (Linear) Space. Algebraic Phycology. A Non-Exhaustive Documentation of Obscure Geometrical Objects and Other Unnecessarily Complex Mathematical Constructions - that book was large enough to be divided into two volumes, with the title printed in three separate lines on the side of each of them. And beyond that there was Mister Mathema’s Fabulous Formula - probably a dozen copies of it, perhaps, lined up more neatly than any nearby books. A rather self-indulgent act of collection, surely a thing one could easily imagine the good gentleman who had an abundant amount of copies of portraits hung all around his place doing.
Leila smiled slightly, and then stood on her tiptoes and proceeded to slide a little book off the top layer of the shelf.
Elements.
* * * *
"Leila~ Find anything interesting~?"
Leila had her head buried in a copy of ALGO Rythms (A collection of lyrical poetry written in an archaic programming language, obviously) when the boy called from halfway down the staircase. She also reminded herself that she was probably supposed to be looking for things beyond the words and symbols on stacks of paper. As a sidenote, she mentioned to herself - “any signs, vocal or gestures” - that the fashion in which Hakuren uttered those words was a bit peculiar as compared to how he usually acted, although Leila couldn’t tell exactly what the difference was. She wondered if she should report it to him.
“Ah, um...”
She almost considered shoving the book back onto the shelf and pretending to be doing something else, yet when she collected her attention enough sound of the creaking stairs under the boy’s footsteps had already came to a stop at the end of the staircase.
That was, then, when Leila noticed something else.
It appeared that Leon and Mado were outside. Leila pushed the closed book back onto the shelf, feeling a little guilty of not having properly carried out the search, having learnt next to nothing about this Mister Mathema, or anything important concerning the Siren case.
Leila made sure Hakuren was aware of the presence of the two other members of their team, and proceeded down the decaying wooden front steps of the house.
Puzzle?
Leila found Hakuren’s remark a bit sudden. Abrupt, almost nonsensical even, considering how much she expected at least some comments about her report to follow - much like the strong expectation of a U to follow, instead of any other letter, immediately after the occurrence of a Q in English text.
People just don’t make sense.
This, now, meant also that Leila will still have no idea what to look for next time - they were expected to visit a number of households, she assumed - and she felt somewhat anxious about that. It was not, however, about not knowing what to look for. She had no idea what to look for for all her life and she considered that acceptable. It was not either because she had to search for something - such a task was required to be performed multiple times in the past, and she would happily carry them out. In some cases she succeeded in completing the search, in others she failed miserably. She was okay with either outcome as well. What worried her, then, would only be the combination of the two statuses - the state of having to look for something, not knowing what to look for - and, to make things worse, that she was expected to know what she was supposed to do. While in reality she didn’t.
Sometimes she didn’t make sense herself, either.
But why puzzles? Leila did not understand. Puzzles were, as she considered them, a rather...puzzling existence. A complete, well-formed image contains information. A cut up and scrambled version of such an image - a corresponding puzzle - does not possess such a virtue, although it is presumed to be possible for the image to be recovered by the simple process of rearranging the pieces back into their correct locations, by guidance of various things - the image that meets the edge of a given piece, the shape of its contour allowing or disallowing its combination with any other given piece of the puzzle. One could say that the completing of a puzzle would be the retrieving of the information contained in the collection of pieces, which could perhaps be considered productive. Yet they print the image on the box, which you inevitably observe upon acquiring the puzzle, defeating the point of retrieving the information through the assembling of the puzzle itself, as you already know what the information will reveal. Or maybe you weren’t supposed to look at the completed puzzle, and the box serves as a reference only to the purchaser of the puzzle, and is meant to remain unrevealed to whoever was practicing the puzzle-piecing? If that were the case, there was also the question why a puzzle should be broken and reassembled beyond its first completion. What more was there to learn if you’ve already seen the result?
Or perhaps the information was something contained not in the image, but in the puzzle version of the image? Maybe what you really are supposed to learn from the puzzle is a property of a puzzle, but not - as weird as it is to express in language - the puzzle; where the clues you rely on when you assemble a puzzle serves really only as a set of guidelines, without which the true meaning contained in the puzzle cannot be properly revealed? Or what you learn from a puzzle is irrelevant to the puzzle itself, but only related to the process of completing a puzzle? The order you assemble the pieces, perhaps? Or the clues according to which one deduces that order?
Puzzles are truly confusing.
They were explicitly designed, though, to be confusing, Leila supposed.
”That would be nice.” She said.
* * * *
A kind of greenish, slippery substance with a fuzzy texture lined the edges and surfaces of the roads and stairs the both of them walked along. They assumed they were molds, but no-one could say for sure that just because something resembled the molds they knew, mold were what they were. Nothing in Nowhere seemed to conform to the the expectations a human would possess based on knowledge of their own world. Here, Ks and Ws, as often as U, can be found following the metaphorical Q. Whether this made things more interesting or merely rendered them meaningless was up to the interpreter to decide. Leila pondered, instead, over the fact that whether the fact that something is meaningless would necessarily mean that it would not be interesting.
The U that followed the initial Q came a little bit later in the discussion, yet Leila noticed it, nonetheless. She also inferred from it that touching one’s nose or neck was considered a strong indicator for lies.
Then the boy asked her to tell him more about herself. "I'm not going to brag about it, if that is what you're worried about," he said; a statement Leila considered curious. She never had anyone brag about an encounter with her, or anything else about her. It was just as weird a notion to imagine someone that would. Even more curious, to imagine someone imagining her imagining that someone would go about bragging about her.
And then she panicked because she had no idea how to speak about herself. What about her was important, what was not? She was, again, met with a similar dilemma as the one she encountered earlier with collecting and reporting information gathered from a session of speech. She struggled with this sort of things - when she was met with “you can’t do that” or “be more specific” when she says “everything”. And in the end - quite some while after the initial question was placed, that was - she retorted to the one old line that was repeatedly carved into her memory since her childhood.
”Noelle. Leila Noelle. Seventeen years old. Daughter of Joseph and Zora Noelle. 317 Westbourne Avenue.”
What was important, and what was not?
* * * *
Their little stroll continued for quite a while without interaction. Hakuren had collected his notebook, and in response to that Leila focused her remaining attention to not kicking the moss-covered stones that littered the road.
"Say, Leila-san."
Leila turned to look at the boy. The “-san” suffix confused her greatly as Leila was not familiar with many foreign languages, and she could only speculate that be something they said, wherever Hakuren was from.
"If you have a nest with four eggs, where the mother had begun incubating after the last one arrived, and one hatched early, how many eggs would there be left in the nest?"
Sometimes people really didn’t make sense. Sometimes they seemed much as confusing, and, perhaps, meaningless, as puzzles.
Leila would have liked to take some time to determine whether people were to be considered interesting.
"Three."
* * * *
The residence of Mister Mathema was an intriguing place, to say at least.
There was a fair collection of books, for starters. The layers of stacked shelves, some half-covered in cobwebs, had been the centre of Leila’s interest since the two of them entered the house. A scene, it struck Leila, not unlike a miniaturized version of her own living quarters if left unattended for a sufficiently long amount of time. It had been a while since she had something to read - ever since she boarded the train, in fact; and she kind of missed the feeling of reading.
Another way to put it, though, would be that that books were an enormous distraction. Leila was near completely not paying attention when the boy remarked that
"I'd hate to be in his class."
Hakuren did, however, regain her attention when he mentioned he was going upstairs.
"I'm going up. If I don't come back in five minutes...Oh, wait, time doesn't exist here.
Time.
The boy had mentioned frequently that Time didn’t exist in Nowhere. Leila was slightly puzzled why he was so sure of that.
How do you construct a procedure to measure time? What do you measure it in correlation to? What exactly was time anyway, and what does it mean that time doesn’t exist? Nothing made sense. The time when she had passed out and stayed in bed on the Fisher - she couldn’t remember why - broke her perception of time just that bit. It now felt like she could understand, yet again she was confused, by the notion of Time in Nowhere. It’s like being able to construct a proof for both the validity and the falseness of a mathematical statement.
Speaking of mathematical statements. As Hakuren scurried in his investigation upstairs, Leila returned her attention to the scripture collection of the eccentric Nowherian who bore a name that was the study of numbers and logic with the last four letters truncated. Despite the accumulated dust that indicated their old age, the books themselves, sheltered by the shelfs they lay in, were in rather good condition. A quick skim across the titles would reveal the subject of the books to be much as expected from the collection of a being whose head was a giant square root sign:
Anatomy of a Natural Number. Technologies of Travel in (Linear) Space. Algebraic Phycology. A Non-Exhaustive Documentation of Obscure Geometrical Objects and Other Unnecessarily Complex Mathematical Constructions - that book was large enough to be divided into two volumes, with the title printed in three separate lines on the side of each of them. And beyond that there was Mister Mathema’s Fabulous Formula - probably a dozen copies of it, perhaps, lined up more neatly than any nearby books. A rather self-indulgent act of collection, surely a thing one could easily imagine the good gentleman who had an abundant amount of copies of portraits hung all around his place doing.
Leila smiled slightly, and then stood on her tiptoes and proceeded to slide a little book off the top layer of the shelf.
Elements.
* * * *
"Leila~ Find anything interesting~?"
Leila had her head buried in a copy of ALGO Rythms (A collection of lyrical poetry written in an archaic programming language, obviously) when the boy called from halfway down the staircase. She also reminded herself that she was probably supposed to be looking for things beyond the words and symbols on stacks of paper. As a sidenote, she mentioned to herself - “any signs, vocal or gestures” - that the fashion in which Hakuren uttered those words was a bit peculiar as compared to how he usually acted, although Leila couldn’t tell exactly what the difference was. She wondered if she should report it to him.
“Ah, um...”
She almost considered shoving the book back onto the shelf and pretending to be doing something else, yet when she collected her attention enough sound of the creaking stairs under the boy’s footsteps had already came to a stop at the end of the staircase.
That was, then, when Leila noticed something else.
It appeared that Leon and Mado were outside. Leila pushed the closed book back onto the shelf, feeling a little guilty of not having properly carried out the search, having learnt next to nothing about this Mister Mathema, or anything important concerning the Siren case.
Leila made sure Hakuren was aware of the presence of the two other members of their team, and proceeded down the decaying wooden front steps of the house.
Fully aware that I'm one of the people that lack consistency most in the group right now. Really sorry about that. And, um, no, I was not saying I would only be able to go at one post a week the rest of the RP - there's always writing time to squeeze up, but that I'll be doing most of my WRITING on the two days at the end of the week, and the weekend; meaning either that my supposed posts every week will either not be placed as evenly as I'd prefer, or that I'll have to come up with rough drafts to only be quickly edited and posted in the earlier half of the following week.
Once again sorry about wording my statements in the last post to be a bit confusing. My thinking process was probably also a bit messed up back then. Will try to assure you that the concerns are unnecessary.
From an in-character perspective, I'm trying to get developments ensue so she talks to and cares about people more - perhaps some part of that will already be noticeable in her interaction with Haku, although maybe only just a bit. And now she has quite a bit to answer to, so we'll see about that.
Again really sorry about slowing down after I said I was expected to be able to go with a more steady pace.
Expect a post before the end of this day I guess.
Once again sorry about wording my statements in the last post to be a bit confusing. My thinking process was probably also a bit messed up back then. Will try to assure you that the concerns are unnecessary.
From an in-character perspective, I'm trying to get developments ensue so she talks to and cares about people more - perhaps some part of that will already be noticeable in her interaction with Haku, although maybe only just a bit. And now she has quite a bit to answer to, so we'll see about that.
Again really sorry about slowing down after I said I was expected to be able to go with a more steady pace.
Expect a post before the end of this day I guess.
@Music: PACH I APPROVE OF YOUR MUSICAL CHOICES
@Fox: About the lying thing: I randomly mentioned, in Leila's recap, the Nobody's gesture of "scratching her nose or neck". Incidentally, those gestures are commonly considered strong indications of lying.
Sour throat. Went to the doctor. Turns out there's an infected wound down there. Welp.
I'd say that I have a hole in my throat now, but strictly speaking my throat is a hole itself, which would lead to ...some...complications. Nothing makes sense.
Writing up a post, taking a while because there's quite a bit to react to. Sorry about being late. I expect to have some time tomorrow though, so expect a post up then, I guess.
About consistency - a little info about my schedule: In this semester it seems like only the last two days of the week (Thursday and Friday) are free, and Weekends depend. I unfortunately have to rely on the posting gap to fall in that interval, otherwise it'll be a couple of days before I reply or even go online. But on the bright side, the two nights are almost completely free (unless emergency events arise, like today), so I can be sure to at least write something up and pull no week-scale-length disappearances.
@Fox: About the lying thing: I randomly mentioned, in Leila's recap, the Nobody's gesture of "scratching her nose or neck". Incidentally, those gestures are commonly considered strong indications of lying.
Sour throat. Went to the doctor. Turns out there's an infected wound down there. Welp.
I'd say that I have a hole in my throat now, but strictly speaking my throat is a hole itself, which would lead to ...some...complications. Nothing makes sense.
Writing up a post, taking a while because there's quite a bit to react to. Sorry about being late. I expect to have some time tomorrow though, so expect a post up then, I guess.
About consistency - a little info about my schedule: In this semester it seems like only the last two days of the week (Thursday and Friday) are free, and Weekends depend. I unfortunately have to rely on the posting gap to fall in that interval, otherwise it'll be a couple of days before I reply or even go online. But on the bright side, the two nights are almost completely free (unless emergency events arise, like today), so I can be sure to at least write something up and pull no week-scale-length disappearances.
the Train OOC has begun its descent into the darkness. Peculiar, exotic, absurd darkness.
Run everyone. Run.
Run everyone. Run.
Threw up a post.
Writing is a bit sloppy, I admit. Still a bit sick, but mostly alright now. The Facebook thing made my day although it's already 10:27 and the day is a bit late to be made already.
Okay if I keep on typing I'll just start sputtering nonsense so...yeah, as usual, I look forward to the remaining events of this chapter.
And goodnight.
Writing is a bit sloppy, I admit. Still a bit sick, but mostly alright now. The Facebook thing made my day although it's already 10:27 and the day is a bit late to be made already.
Okay if I keep on typing I'll just start sputtering nonsense so...yeah, as usual, I look forward to the remaining events of this chapter.
And goodnight.
Leila found Hakuren’s answer to her question rather incomprehensible, much as expected. It was loaded with conditions and speculations and metaphors, and concluded with "Well, it's not wise to try making conclusions just yet".
Which, Leila could only reasonably translate to, “I have no idea either”.
She did agree, though, that the presence of shoes would prove a significant barrier in examining whether one had cold feet.
Leila continued to think about the Siren’s song as the two of them approached to inspect the first house.
* * * *
“That’s why I never visit my grandmother” was, uttered by the boy, a very appropriate way to sum up their visit at the Anaisiuol’s. The cameleon and the crocodile were and interesting couple, to say, but as far as Leila noticed, there was not much significant information to be gathered.
Leila eyed Hakuren as he scribbled into the notebook he had in hand - an action that had been observed more than once. Back on the Star Fisher, in the cabin...he seemed to be writing stuff into that little stash of paper at the most peculiar of times, and she couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he had written down - that compulsion to read whenever there was something to be read had always been a part of her: the subconscious urge to lean in and make out characters she couldn’t see quite clearly on pieces of paper nearby, or the attempts to memorize the sequence of bus stops on signs in those few times she went outside. The need of revealing a message when it is made clear that there exists a message to be revealed.
Leila then reminded herself of the task she was assigned. And it was not randomly speculating what the boy was writing down.
Signs. Verbal and gestures. Yeah.
Leila actually had no idea what she was supposed to look for.
“Twenty two times she touched her forehead when delivering a sentence. Eighteen times she scratched her neck or nose. Eight instances in which she appeared to have decided to go off and take care of or look for something but then changed her mind against it afterwards...” Almost as if compensating, she immediately started to recite much random facts about the events that occurred throughout the conversation “...Eleven parts of her various stories conflict mutually in chronological sequences, five of them circularly.” She decided to leave out the parts about the ones which contradicted themselves logically(Turned into a hotdog? what.) ”The support for the stairs leading the second floor is likely partially rotten. Might collapse the next time the crocodile fetches tea. ” That should raise the odds about enough, she thought. And then, almost as an insignificant afterthought, Leila added one last comment: “A pot of liquid has also been boiling in the kitchen throughout the course of the latter half of our visit and hadn’t been attended to.
That must have been one of the largest sequence of words she had delivered in a monologue in a very, very long time. She didn’t have many chances to do so since after the time when she was a bit obsessed with reciting decimal representations of transcendental numbers. Leila smiled weakly, looking at Hakuren, with the hope that at least something in there was what he was looking for.
"I found the sweets far better than the tea. And you?"
She did not remember when exactly that question was dropped - perhaps before, perhaps after her rant. She only remembered that it was placed and not yet answered.
Might as well do that now.
“The tea wasn’t bad.” She said. Her opinion was probably biased, though, since she was a fan of tea in general although really lacking the taste to distinguish good tea from bad tea; and also because of the fact that she only tried one of the sweets under the urging of the overly enthusiastic host.
The two of them continued to walk along the road. Do they call the investigation of the first household a success? Leila could barely tell.
She persisted to make efforts to resist the urge of kicking the cobblestones that littered the roads, and that of trying to peek over at the writings in Hakuren’s notebook.
Which, Leila could only reasonably translate to, “I have no idea either”.
She did agree, though, that the presence of shoes would prove a significant barrier in examining whether one had cold feet.
Leila continued to think about the Siren’s song as the two of them approached to inspect the first house.
* * * *
“That’s why I never visit my grandmother” was, uttered by the boy, a very appropriate way to sum up their visit at the Anaisiuol’s. The cameleon and the crocodile were and interesting couple, to say, but as far as Leila noticed, there was not much significant information to be gathered.
Leila eyed Hakuren as he scribbled into the notebook he had in hand - an action that had been observed more than once. Back on the Star Fisher, in the cabin...he seemed to be writing stuff into that little stash of paper at the most peculiar of times, and she couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he had written down - that compulsion to read whenever there was something to be read had always been a part of her: the subconscious urge to lean in and make out characters she couldn’t see quite clearly on pieces of paper nearby, or the attempts to memorize the sequence of bus stops on signs in those few times she went outside. The need of revealing a message when it is made clear that there exists a message to be revealed.
Leila then reminded herself of the task she was assigned. And it was not randomly speculating what the boy was writing down.
Signs. Verbal and gestures. Yeah.
Leila actually had no idea what she was supposed to look for.
“Twenty two times she touched her forehead when delivering a sentence. Eighteen times she scratched her neck or nose. Eight instances in which she appeared to have decided to go off and take care of or look for something but then changed her mind against it afterwards...” Almost as if compensating, she immediately started to recite much random facts about the events that occurred throughout the conversation “...Eleven parts of her various stories conflict mutually in chronological sequences, five of them circularly.” She decided to leave out the parts about the ones which contradicted themselves logically(Turned into a hotdog? what.) ”The support for the stairs leading the second floor is likely partially rotten. Might collapse the next time the crocodile fetches tea. ” That should raise the odds about enough, she thought. And then, almost as an insignificant afterthought, Leila added one last comment: “A pot of liquid has also been boiling in the kitchen throughout the course of the latter half of our visit and hadn’t been attended to.
That must have been one of the largest sequence of words she had delivered in a monologue in a very, very long time. She didn’t have many chances to do so since after the time when she was a bit obsessed with reciting decimal representations of transcendental numbers. Leila smiled weakly, looking at Hakuren, with the hope that at least something in there was what he was looking for.
"I found the sweets far better than the tea. And you?"
She did not remember when exactly that question was dropped - perhaps before, perhaps after her rant. She only remembered that it was placed and not yet answered.
Might as well do that now.
“The tea wasn’t bad.” She said. Her opinion was probably biased, though, since she was a fan of tea in general although really lacking the taste to distinguish good tea from bad tea; and also because of the fact that she only tried one of the sweets under the urging of the overly enthusiastic host.
The two of them continued to walk along the road. Do they call the investigation of the first household a success? Leila could barely tell.
She persisted to make efforts to resist the urge of kicking the cobblestones that littered the roads, and that of trying to peek over at the writings in Hakuren’s notebook.
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