Seeing is Believing, when Hearing's a Dream.

[Imperial Obsession]

{{ ATTN: CERISE/MIRJA. }}

It was a long way to Rhedan's room, especially the way he was careful to guide Mirja around the twisting corridors of the Lower Caverns. Where he stayed was more out of the way than most quarters, in one of the newer tunnels, and the Starsmith had to be sure that he hadn't lost the girl along the way with his usual quick steps. "Just a little longer," the red-haired man assured her, turning a sharp corner into yet another hallway lit at regular intervals by glowbaskets that needed to be changed. "Here we are." He stopped before a door and searched about for his key in his pocket.

"Now I know I've put it somewhere...that sharded key," he muttered, patting his trouser pockets impatiently. "Ah, there it is."

The little brass key fit perfectly into the lock, and he turned it.

The living space inside was quaint and messy, but not disorganized. Everything was in baskets or on shelves or in loose packs, in its own unique spot, sometimes with little labels. The table at the center of the room was, perhaps, the most frightening (which really wasn't too too bad) -- its surface was littered with nuts and bolts and various tools and pieces of scrap metal, hooks, and chains. Springs threatened to roll off the edge, stopped only by other objects. Rhedan grinned sheepishly and turned to Mirja. "I'm...sorry it's so messy. Not many people come to visit, really. Please, come in and I'll find you a chair."

[Cerise]

The girl had followed willingly enough, able to tell where they were going with Aylen's constant transmission of images - and besides that, the mere change of the feel of the air and the scents it carried told her they were headed to the Lower Caverns. Close to the kitchens, all the nearby rooms held at least a faint smell of cooking food or boiling klah, no matter what the hour. At least, they did to her sensitive nose. When they came to a halt, she waited with a silent smile as Rhedan rummaged for the key, then opened the door to admit them both.

A dark brow raised slightly at his words, accompanied by a gentle laugh. "You keep speaking as though I have eyes to see this supposed mess with, or perhaps some kind of odd sonar that lets me know these things. Helpful as Aylen is, she doesn't always pay as much attention to the surroundings that aren't in danger of tripping me up." The green chirruped complacently, and the blind girl laughed again, stepping carefully through the doorway, just in case the 'mess' extended to the floor. When she didn't actively step on anything, she followed the direction Rhedan's voice had led her, coming to a halt a few steps away from him.

"And don't worry so much; I'm quite capable of standing. Now, what is it you wanted to show me?" She tilted her head slightly, as though she were looking at the man, despite the blindfold blocking her eyes off again. The green fire lizard on her shoulder copied the movement, making them both look rather comical.

[Imperial Obsession]

The man laughed at the gesture, and immediately switched to looking for exactly what he wanted to show her. "Well, you see, I was just thinking that if I myself were blind, I'd want to know these things. The tiny details." He rummaged through a pack, pulling out a smaller pack with a few bolts, a rather small sheet of metal, a hammer. "But, I suppose that that's a bit presumptuous of me, assuming that your preferences would be the same as mine. I apologize -- ahh! -- "

Rhedan held up a thin, flat rail of metal, examining it. Dots and dashes littered its surface in a straight line roughly across down the horizontal middle. The smith stood, placing the piece on the table; he reached for her hand and gently lay her fingers down on the first set of dots and dashes with gentle precision.

"Here. This is the letter 'a'." He passed her fingers over a slash -- "A space." -- over to the next set. "And this is 'b'." Rhedan let go of her hands. "I read about something like this in the Archives. It's how blind people on Terra would read, I think. I could be wrong, you know. Mixing things up late at night. Can you imagine a whole book written like that?"

[Cerise]

"The details don't matter to me - not as much as the potential missteps that lay before my feet!" Aylen made a mildly disgruntled sound as the gist of the conversation was mentally relayed to her, looking balefully at the Starsmith from her perch. Mirja raised a hand to soothe her, still laughing just a bit as Rhedan went on. "And you needn't apologize all the time, as I've said. Looks like I will need to break you of that habit."

She looked a bit surprised as he took her hand again, moving it onto some metallic surface or another. Eyebrows furrowed slightly, confused for a moment, but her entire face seemed to light up as Rhedan began explaining what this odd object, with its bumps and lines, actually was. "You - you found mention of this and remade it?" The girl sounded more than a little incredulous. With this alphabet, with this she could read again, like she'd used to! It was quite an amazement, to possibly be returned to something she had thought she'd lost. "I... that's incredible. This is incredible." Her usual eloquence was gone as she continued to run her fingers over the varied bumps - dots and lines, she could clearly feel the difference - trying to ascertain what letter each set would be.

Leaving her hand on the metal plate, she shook her head, still rather lost for words. "... you've got to teach me this whole system," she managed, than broke into a laugh at her own bluntness. "I mean, if it wouldn't be too much trouble... I would love to be able to read again, really read... "

[Imperial Obsession]

Rhedan's face lit up. "I would love to, Mirja. It's a little difficult, as I haven't figured out how to separate the letters from each other and it's all linear, but... I suppose you can get used to the rief spaces between..." He rummaged about his room a little bit more, rushing due to his excitement, spare parts and pieces rolling all over the floor. The Starsmith produced a few more plates no more than a minute later, bringing them back to the table triumphantly. "I don't have all of the letters, but you can start with these."

The man found a chair and sat her down, the small separate plates each holding a different letter. Furrowing his brow he brought out a piece of hide and used it as reference, his own set of dots and dashes in ink. "This, one, I do believe, is 'c'," he murmured, placing her hand on top of the plate.

_•_•

"And this is 'd'..."

_••

===

The miniature lesson soon turned into one that took an hour, when Rhedan frowned and rearranged the tiles one last time. "Okay, time for one last test -- what does this say?"

_•• / •_• / •_ / _ _• / _ _ _ / _•

[Cerise]

She was absolutely speechless then, excitement emanating from every pore of her skin as she willingly say, allowing Rhedan to guide her hands over the various letter plates. It was difficult to remember each of them, and as he'd said, the entire alphabet wasn't there, but Mirja applied her mind to remembering the letters that there were. This could be wonderful for her, a breakthrough of old Terran technology that would allow her to do something she had thought was completely lost when her vision had gone. She wouldn't have to rely on people to know what things said anymore; she could read Records again, correspondences translated...

Pausing for a moment, she considered the potential difficulties. If the only way this could be done was letter by letter, the raised dots and dashes pressed into metal, well, that would take a lot of time, a lot of materials. And considering the relative rarity of blindness, what Smith would waste their time creating such things? Perhaps this wasn't going to be as grand as she'd thought.

Still, the girl was going to learn, was going to remember. She had to.

~

How much time had passed, she wasn't sure. She'd had to go over the letters again and again until they seemed ingrained in her mind, fixed in her memory like carvings in stone. As the Starsmith laid out a final line of tiles, a 'test' as he said, Mirja ran her fingers carefully from one letter to the next, brows furrowing lightly above the cloth of the blindfold. The first, yes, she had it... then... finally a grin lit up the girl's face again, and she raised her head from where it had been craned over the table. " 'Dragon,' " she said confidently, sure she had it right. Rhedan was a good teacher, after all.

[Imperial Obsession]

Rhedan broke out into a crooked grin, brought on by sleep and enthusiasm. "Good!" He slumped down on the table. "Very good. Now, in order to make this useful to you, I don't think metal plating is really the most logical, yes? I'll have to decide on what to do with that. This is only amazing if it's useful, which it currently is not." The Starsmith's head began to whirl again, but he immediately put down his thoughts. Not now. He'd get lost in the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of his mind again, and completely ignore Mirja.

"Perhaps on paper," the man mumbled thoughtfully, before shaking his head. "Enough thinking for today, though. Do you reckon your little Green can find out what time it is?"

[Cerise]

The girl gave a slight nod at the mention of the impracticality of the metal plates, though she shook her head with a broad grin not moments after. "It's still amazing, even if it's not perfectly efficient yet," Mirja declared staunchly, clearly completely convinced of the validity of that statement. Even though it wasn't practical for everyday use, the re-creation of Terran technology was something brilliant. And it meant a great deal to her, whether or not she could use it!

She chuckled lightly and transmitted the request to Aylen, who cheeped before blinking between, returning to her owner's shoulder within a moment's notice. " 'Night,' is about all I can get from her," she said with a grin, stroking the green's head. "But then, you shouldn't expect a lizard to know much of time."