Challenge #86
Apparently I'm in a very Dawn mood...
Title: Slytherin Smackdown
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/HP
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Dawn was concentrating so intensely she didn’t hear Draco’s warning hiss until it was too late. She’d already tipped the boomslang skin into the cauldron. The results were spectacular. Her fellow potions students yelped and dived for cover as the contents of her now multi-piece cauldron rained down on the dungeon.
“Oh, well done, Summers. I still don’t understand how you didn’t end up in Gryffindor with your lack of self-preservation instinct,” Draco drawled.
Dawn glared at him.
“You could have said something, you arrogant asscracker,” Dawn snapped. “But no, you’re still hung up on that ‘mustn’t talk to the filthy American mudblood who somehow ended up polluting my common room’ thing.”
Draco matched her glare and raised it a Malfoy sneer.
“It’s hardly my fault your ignorance of wizarding ways regularly gets your sorry arse into massive trouble!”
“My arse, Malfoy-“
“Language, Miss Summers, Mister Malfoy! Ten points from Slytherin and detention!”
Neither combatant had noticed Professor Snape’s arrival.
“For how long, sir?” Draco ground out.
“As long as it takes to sink into your stubborn skulls that you are both Slytherins and should not be shrieking at each other like a pair of banshees or destroying my classroom.”
Title: Learning to Speak
Word Count: 100
Fandom: BtVS/LotR
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Trying to wrap her head around the various forms of elvish language and letters had taken Dawn several years. Not that Galadriel or Celeborn seemed to mind. She supposed patience came slightly easier to people who were several thousand years old. She often wished she could borrow some of it. The letters were easy enough, but trying to distinguish between Sindarin and Quenya wasn’t. Neither was speaking- which frustrated Dawn no end. The day she could finally construct whole sentences in Sindarin that didn’t sound like the work of an angry toddler was greeted with smiles from everyone. Even Haldir.
Title: We All Have A Talent
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/CSI
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Dawn rolled her eyes. Sometimes she was amazed at how much her sister knew. She’d once heard Grissom tell Cath the breadth of her social experience never ceased to amaze him. Dawn agreed. But she didn’t get how Cath could be so bad with languages. Then again, Buffy had trouble with just English…
“It’s Aramaic,” Dawn interrupted, unable to contain herself any longer. But Hodges had been suggesting Sumerian, when any fool could see that the letters were nothing like cuneiform.
“But I googled Aramaic,” Hodges protested. “Look, the letters look more like Hebrew.”
“He’s right,” Nick pointed out, turning the screen so Dawn could see.
“Yes, but that’s a later Aramaic script. This is ancient Aramaic, well before the Persian conquest. The early Aramaic alphabet was based on Phoenician. I’m not an expert, but it looks like this is some sort of purification ritual, used to consecrate an offering place. If your perp was working from this text, he was way off.”
“How the heck do you know all this, Dawn?” Catherine demanded. She’d gotten used to the occasional mini-lecture on Latin and Greek, but Aramaic and Phoenician?
Dawn sighed.
“We haven’t introduced you to Giles yet, have we?”
Title: The More Things Change
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/BSG
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Starbuck glared at Dawn. Honestly, she was thrilled that her kid sister had survived the nuclear holocaust on Caprica. She wasn’t going to let her out of her sight again until they were safely back on Galactica. Well, ok, she had to let her out of her sight sometimes. She’d tasked Helo- on pain of death- with watching Dawn at those times. But Dawn’s insistence that the Sacred Scrolls couldn’t be trusted was infuriating.
“Look, Kara, I get it. What’s left of humanity needs hope and a goal to work towards other than just making it through the next day alive. But how can we use scripture as a literal guide to Earth?”
“Why can’t we?” Starbuck shot back. “Give me one good reason that doesn’t have to do with you not being religious.”
“Um, the language shift for a start?” Dawn said, her tone screaming ‘duh!’ “We know there have been lingual shifts since colonization. That’s why we call the planet Caprica instead of Capricorn, Picon instead of Pisces... We know what we speak would not necessarily be intelligible to the original colonists.”
Starbuck knew perfectly well where Dawn was going with this, and didn’t want to hear it.
Title: Slytherin Smackdown
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/HP
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Dawn was concentrating so intensely she didn’t hear Draco’s warning hiss until it was too late. She’d already tipped the boomslang skin into the cauldron. The results were spectacular. Her fellow potions students yelped and dived for cover as the contents of her now multi-piece cauldron rained down on the dungeon.
“Oh, well done, Summers. I still don’t understand how you didn’t end up in Gryffindor with your lack of self-preservation instinct,” Draco drawled.
Dawn glared at him.
“You could have said something, you arrogant asscracker,” Dawn snapped. “But no, you’re still hung up on that ‘mustn’t talk to the filthy American mudblood who somehow ended up polluting my common room’ thing.”
Draco matched her glare and raised it a Malfoy sneer.
“It’s hardly my fault your ignorance of wizarding ways regularly gets your sorry arse into massive trouble!”
“My arse, Malfoy-“
“Language, Miss Summers, Mister Malfoy! Ten points from Slytherin and detention!”
Neither combatant had noticed Professor Snape’s arrival.
“For how long, sir?” Draco ground out.
“As long as it takes to sink into your stubborn skulls that you are both Slytherins and should not be shrieking at each other like a pair of banshees or destroying my classroom.”
Title: Learning to Speak
Word Count: 100
Fandom: BtVS/LotR
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Trying to wrap her head around the various forms of elvish language and letters had taken Dawn several years. Not that Galadriel or Celeborn seemed to mind. She supposed patience came slightly easier to people who were several thousand years old. She often wished she could borrow some of it. The letters were easy enough, but trying to distinguish between Sindarin and Quenya wasn’t. Neither was speaking- which frustrated Dawn no end. The day she could finally construct whole sentences in Sindarin that didn’t sound like the work of an angry toddler was greeted with smiles from everyone. Even Haldir.
Title: We All Have A Talent
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/CSI
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Dawn rolled her eyes. Sometimes she was amazed at how much her sister knew. She’d once heard Grissom tell Cath the breadth of her social experience never ceased to amaze him. Dawn agreed. But she didn’t get how Cath could be so bad with languages. Then again, Buffy had trouble with just English…
“It’s Aramaic,” Dawn interrupted, unable to contain herself any longer. But Hodges had been suggesting Sumerian, when any fool could see that the letters were nothing like cuneiform.
“But I googled Aramaic,” Hodges protested. “Look, the letters look more like Hebrew.”
“He’s right,” Nick pointed out, turning the screen so Dawn could see.
“Yes, but that’s a later Aramaic script. This is ancient Aramaic, well before the Persian conquest. The early Aramaic alphabet was based on Phoenician. I’m not an expert, but it looks like this is some sort of purification ritual, used to consecrate an offering place. If your perp was working from this text, he was way off.”
“How the heck do you know all this, Dawn?” Catherine demanded. She’d gotten used to the occasional mini-lecture on Latin and Greek, but Aramaic and Phoenician?
Dawn sighed.
“We haven’t introduced you to Giles yet, have we?”
Title: The More Things Change
Word Count: 200
Fandom: BtVS/BSG
Challenge: #86 - Language
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own these characters.
Starbuck glared at Dawn. Honestly, she was thrilled that her kid sister had survived the nuclear holocaust on Caprica. She wasn’t going to let her out of her sight again until they were safely back on Galactica. Well, ok, she had to let her out of her sight sometimes. She’d tasked Helo- on pain of death- with watching Dawn at those times. But Dawn’s insistence that the Sacred Scrolls couldn’t be trusted was infuriating.
“Look, Kara, I get it. What’s left of humanity needs hope and a goal to work towards other than just making it through the next day alive. But how can we use scripture as a literal guide to Earth?”
“Why can’t we?” Starbuck shot back. “Give me one good reason that doesn’t have to do with you not being religious.”
“Um, the language shift for a start?” Dawn said, her tone screaming ‘duh!’ “We know there have been lingual shifts since colonization. That’s why we call the planet Caprica instead of Capricorn, Picon instead of Pisces... We know what we speak would not necessarily be intelligible to the original colonists.”
Starbuck knew perfectly well where Dawn was going with this, and didn’t want to hear it.