>>5892543At first it all seems like gibberish to you. It isn’t just that you don’t recognize all the symbols, or parse the meanings of the graphs axes and the charts’ waves and fluctuations—it’s that it all moves across the screen so SWIFTLY. Whatever these magical devices are seem to operate at something close to the speed of thought. Each operator stares into it like a divination-mage before a crystal ball or other amplifying apparatus, and the images and words flit before their scarcely-blinking eyes faster than you, yourself, could blink them.
But the Archmage didn’t train a quitter, and you didn’t earn the right to apprentice beneath such a personage by disappointing those expectations. With determination, you set yourself to exceed those expectations here and now. After all, you’ll soon be studying in an academy to make Hawksong’s stories school look like a glorified daycare!
>17Luckily, you are well-suited to the task. That your first language is that of the Sylvan Folk is to your immediate benefit, for if the language used on the moon is written somewhat differently than the script with which you are familiar, the locals still speak a form of Elventongue... Well, when they speak at all. You know from your classes on alternative magical communications that telepathy typically follows the same patterns and structures of a being’s familiar spoken or written language. This fundamental starting-point for translation and transliteration was further refined in your study session with Izirina Henzler, both before and after you began your relationship in earnest—she was always quite fond of Easterling texts, after all. You just need only crack a few familiar patterns in the organized chaos of the flowing glyphs and graphs to begin uncovering the secrets on the shimmering screens…
“Wait,” you murmur aloud before you catch yourself, “I know this…”
