xvii. dictated, action

[heloise]

Paradisa
For my Giovanni. If you would be so kind.


[ Lucrezia can be found at highest roof with a wooden box inlaid with pearls at her feet. It is small and finely made, but the real (belated) gift is within: a white silk shirt fit for a little prince with golden narcissus embroidered on its sleeves. She turns away after enough time, retracing her steps back to her room. ]

Ovid once wrote, est etiam placuisse sibi quaecumque voluptas: virginibus cordi grataque forma suast.

But mirrors never turned out for good.

[ Translation goes: Besides, all women take a secret pride in being fine or else they are belied; for when the conscious maid explores her mirror and finds she's handsome, she herself adores. ]

Comments

[heloise]

Carpe diem is a good one to know.

You must speak more languages than I do.

[kryptonian]

Lots, but that's only because my powers make it easy for me to learn them. I learned English in ten minutes.

[heloise]

Ah, perhaps you could teach me that.

[kryptonian]

I wish I could! What would you want to learn?

[heloise]

The basic greetings, first. Or silly phrases.

[kryptonian]

In English? To say hello, you'd say...

[She grins, and switches over to English, which sounds really weird considering this is typed in English but they're actually speaking a common tongue...]

"Hello!"

[heloise]

[ One day she will show this to the two queens of England and none will understand why she's saying hello twice... ]

Hell-o...?

[kryptonian]

That's right! And to tell t hem that your name is, you say "My name is Lucrezia."

[heloise]

[ She hesitates because wow that sounds hard. ]

My name is Lucrezia. [ Though it all sounds like Italian. ]

[kryptonian]

Very good! You'll be a natural in no time.

[heloise]

[ She laughs and draws her cloak tighter around herself. ]

You flatter me!

[kryptonian]

Hey, it's true!

[heloise]

Soon I can at least tell them I speak no English.

[kryptonian]

Ah, yes. "I do not speak English."

[heloise]

[ She laughs. How do you say "English." ]

That is too difficult!

[kryptonian]

Take it slow!

"I. Do. Not. Speak. English."

[heloise]

"I do not speak English?" [ Though that doesn't sound like English, at all, and she says a bonus 'e' at the end. ]

[kryptonian]

Close -- very close! Try again. "English."

[heloise]

[ She bites her lip. Kara that sounds like what she said. ]

"English"?

[kryptonian]

Right! You've got it.

[heloise]

[ She laughs. ]

What is the strangest language you speak?

[kryptonian]

Strangest to you would probably be Kryptonian -- my people's language.

[heloise]

What does it sound like?

[kryptonian]

A bit like German?

[She speaks a line:]

[heloise]

[ Bzuh. She smiles politely. ]

It-- yes, it does sound like German.