Phase Ten: Wine and Dine

[emorangerpink]

1. (daytime in Neo France)

[Laura's taking advantage of a place with - recent events notwithstanding - peace and quiet and stability to go... shopping! Bookstores! Boutiques! Jewelers! ...Hardware stores? Huh?]

Surely somewhere must have it... Is it because I'm asking in English?

2. (that evening, locked to Dita)

Comments

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[chozo_girl]

[And Laura may see something towering over the Neo-French people. It's, indeed, Samus! It's just a bit harder to realize at first because she actually put on those civilian clothes she got some time ago - it's not frequent to see her out of her self-cleaning Zero Suit. Still, despite the intent, the brown trousers and jacket do not make her much less intimidating, and people seem to part a bit as she goes through.

She stops in front of what looks like a bookstore, eyeing the things in the shelves with her usual impenetrable frown]

[emorangerpink]

Samus. Are you looking for something?

[Laura's in a good mood, it seems, and barely even double-takes at the sight of Conventionally Dressed Hunter.]

[chozo_girl]

Laura.

[A slight nod]

I have been reading some of your planet's literature. But it has all been borrowed. I prefer to avoid that.

[emorangerpink]

Well, that's why we set up the library! I'll be adding a few items of my own to it after this. Is there anything in particular you wanted to read?

[chozo_girl]

No. I merely intended to find a dozen or two that appear interesting to bring back and add to the library.

Were you looking for something?

[emorangerpink]

A couple of technical manuals - I've found one already. And, well, the same as you, really. Anything interesting they've got that I can read. Have you picked out anything yourself?

[chozo_girl]

A few things.

[She points Laura at a nearby bag. In there, Samus seens to already have put about a half-dozen things, ranging from historical fiction to philosophy. A couple of them are in French, though]

[emorangerpink]

Oh, you read -

Well why wouldn't you read French? It's no more foreign to you than English.

[chozo_girl]

Not completely yet. I only found out we would be coming to this place three days ago, so I read a little on it. The grammar is remarkably similar to several languages I am acquainted with, so it was easy (Yes, she learned enough French to actually communicate herself with snooty elitist Neo-French shopkeeps in a couple days).

It is more foreign, however. For whatever reason, English and the lingua franca among human sectors in the Galactic Federation are nearly identical. It was the language my birth parents used before I was adopted by the Chozo.

[emorangerpink]

That's... pretty amazing. I mean, both parts. The coincidence especially, though.

[Because, of course, for Samus to have yet another a superhuman capability is barely even a surprise at this point.]

[chozo_girl]

Yes. Both similarities are rather interesting. (She is even less impressed, not appearing to even register Laura was referring to the learning with the "both" and just apparently assuming she was referring to the two similarities. She's always had a pretty freakishly ridiculous knack with languages, as the two had talked before, so she never saw it as particularly notable)

I knew some things would inevitably be similar among different realities. But I did not expect languages to be one of them.

[emorangerpink]

I would say language seems less surprising than humans being almost identical, but, well, we've already got Irgelions right here in the same dimension, so...

What have you liked most, then, out of what you've read?

[chozo_girl]

I could not say. Much of it has been interesting, and much of it has been but drivel.

I have been recently reading the works of a man named Jules Verne. It is an interesting read. Instructive. You can practically see the technological paradigms of your people change across books.

[emorangerpink]

Twenty Thousand Leagues, and all that? I've never actually read any of his. ...I guess "interesting" is a better reaction than "laughable", when it comes to old science fiction...

[chozo_girl]

He was a man making guesses with what he knew. That what he knew was wrong does not diminish the attempt.