thenearshore | [Closed]

Joss isn’t often seen without his overcoat and muffler. They make him look rather bigger than he really is, and he feels more comfortable wearing them. So it’s strange, then, that he comes bounding downstairs in his shirtsleeves and a dark blue sweater vest, seemingly heedless of the change.

Does this really mean spring is on its way?

He stops in front of Ginia and smiles up at her. “That’s for me, I trust?”

After all, what child doesn’t love presents?

Edited 2018-11-25 05:50 (UTC)

It's precious the way he dresses and Ginia knows it's a holdover from his actual age versus his apparent age, but it's truly charming. She smiles easily at him and holds out the bundle for him to take. There's a lot of high-end chocolate, but also a mix of candy sours, hard candy, soft jellies, and konpeito. The game is a new action-adventure platformer for one of his many systems. As he unwraps the present, Ginia types up a message to play.

"I have a little over an hour before I have to run back to work."

The candy is carefully put to the side as Joscelin examines the video game. Yes, this will do. It will do nicely. He'd actually been meaning to get it for himself, so this saves him a trip to the store and a probable theft.

He ties the package back up neatly and grins at her, only showing a little fang.

"Well then, we should probably get to it."

Ginia is the first outsider (Chikusa doesn't count because he lives here, and Hakkai owns the place so he really doesn't count) to come to his room here. Like the apartment Ginia remembers from the dream, it's neat and tidy with few personal touches besides the video games and books carefully organized on a shelf. Joscelin sits on the bed and invites Ginia to take the desk chair.

"How do we begin?"

If only he were a normal boy. Would it be better if there was a way to promise he'd never remember anything more? That he wouldn't remember any other memories of his life and could live out his days as a morally questionable child? No one should have control over the life of another, but at the small reminder of who (what) he really is, Ginia wishes she could have some assurance.

For his own good, but ah, when has that wish ever worked out?

She follows Joscelin to his room, noting the order and cleanliness of it. Many a parent would be happy to have such a tidy child. Ginia turns the chair around to face the bed and kneels next to it as she pulls things out of her pocket. A short metal container with some dry brush tucked in it, a lighter, and a flask.

"Water." Ginia shakes the flask and winks. She sheds her jacket and folds it up, setting the container on top of it.

"I'm going to demonstrate the spell first," she writes and plays on her phone. "Then I'll teach you the song."

Ginia shuffles the dry needles and moss and wood chips into a tidy pile and lights it, cultivating a small, manageable fire in the container. Small, but not one that can be blown out by accident.

Sitting back, Ginia starts whistling the song. Each note is crisp and clear, a gentle melody as she signs the spell with it, focusing on the image of the words and holding confidence and certainty within.

"Come, pillars of frost, crossbeams of crystalline ice, and girders of snow. Rafters of the falling rain, and thatch covering of dew."

As she whistles and signs the song, the fire dies down until there's only a thin line of smoke from the burnt materials.

Joscelin watches her with interest, brow furrowed in concentration. The fire goes out, and he's suitably impressed. It was never a big fire to begin with, but it's still a fascinating thing to see. Maybe it was good to start with this one; it seems like a small enough magic that even he, with all his apparent ineptitude, can probably manage.

He climbs off the bed and reaches under it, pulling out a small violin case (yes it's a half size violin it's not his fault he has short arms, okay?). He spends a moment tuning it, then exactly reproduces the melody she'd been whistling. "It's...that, isn't it?" He plays it again, more slowly.

Ginia knows she can put out a bigger fire - slowing down the attacks of a volcano god is all the validation she needs - but they're inside. Best to set expectations at a reasonable level. She watches him pull out a violin, tune it, and repeat the melody. Damn, that's impressive.

"Good ear." She grins and whistles the song again, slower so he can catch each note with clarity.

He plays it a third time, then scribbles the notes on a blank sheet of music.

"I've got it. What are the words, again?"

Ginia sends him a text message with the lyrics to the song. There's a kicker about song spells and that's they have to be performed in Japanese (or Japanese Sign Language). There's the lyrics in kanji and hiragana, the same lyrics in romanji, then a rough translation.

A second text includes a picture of the original scrap of sheet music Ginia found in the library. A handwritten thing that looks like it might have fallen out of a book, it's a guide of how the lyrics and song line up.

Joss can't read kanji, but he's just fine with romaji and the spoken Japanese isn't exactly difficult for him, since everyone in Heaven is randomly fluent in it.

He writes the romanji under the sheet notation, studies it for a moment, and starts to sing in a pure, unbroken soprano:

"Come, pillars of frost, crossbeams of crystalline ice, and girders of snow. Rafters of the falling rain, and thatch covering of dew."

What a beautiful voice. Ginia closes her eyes to appreciate it, but to also better focus on the technical aspects of what he's singing. His notes are accurate as he proved on the violin, and the clarity of his voice will give the song strength. As she's come to understand from asking the shinki at Ebisu's temple for help, vocal ability matters a lot with song spells. Can't carry a tune? Don't try.

When the song finishes, she signs at him to repeat it again.

He does so. He sings it a total of six times, back to back, until he is sure of each breath, each note.

"Right." After he finishes, he straightens and stares at Ginia with an intensity that doesn't match his young face.

"Show me the spell again," he commands.

He's definitely someone with musical aptitude. By the third recitation, Ginia opens her eyes and sits back to listen, confident he has a good handle on the spell. The technical aspect of singing won't give him any problems, but what about the spell-casting portion?

"Give me some scrap paper." With more paper, Ginia builds up the pile in the bowl again and sets the rest aside. She creates a new fire and whistles and signs the spell, focusing on smothering the flame under will. The fire again dies down.

"Confidence. I imagine the visuals of the song smothering out or freezing the source too. Ready to try it yourself?"

Confidence.

Joscelin is full of confidence--or bullshit that he tries to convince others is confidence--except when it comest to magic. Months into his time in Heaven, and he still can't manage an effective borderline. Still, he nods and takes a large drink of water to prepare himself for the next test.

"I will certainly give it a go."

Confidence comes in many forms. Sometimes it's bullshitting enough until you believe it too, sometimes it comes from within, and sometimes it's built from pure stubbornness. Whatever works.

Ginia builds up a smaller flame pile for him, a light flame that will hold without burning out too fast, but small enough for a beginner to work with. She lights the pile and sits back to let him work.

Joscelin takes a deep, steadying breath, and begins to sing.

At first, the spell seems to work. The flame flickers and dies down before jumping right back up again and angrily consuming its little pile of tinder until nothing remains.

"Light it again."

"you're making progress. Don't get frustrated."

Easier said than done, right? But getting wrapped up in his failures won't do him any good. He's technically sound, what he needs now is experience. Ginia sets up another small flame pile for him and lights it. At this rate, she'll need more paper or a trip outside for twigs and leaves.

They go like this for almost two hours, but Joscelin doesn't make any more progress on it than his first try. His voice is turning hoarse, the frustration threatening to overtake him until his fists are white-knuckled at his sides and his tense little body looks ready to explode.

Perhaps it's time for a break.

"I hate this."

It's definitely time for a break. Ginia gets it though; she threw herself into learning the song spell similarly, beating herself against a wall for days. It wasn't until her first breakthrough with Sabimei did it begin to make sense.

"You need to give it time, Joscelin. No one learns a spell in a day." Would be nice, but it's not how it works. "It took me a long time to learn too. Come on, let's get tea for your throat."

Tea sounds lovely right about now.

Intellectually, Joscelin knows that he shouldn't be so frustrated with himself over his lack of skill with magic. But he can't help it. He's brilliant at everything else he does, he figures, so he must be defective if he can't do in magic.

(He doesn't realize that his talents come from centuries of practice and not because of natural prodigy.)

"I tire of this nonsense," he says suddenly. "Let's work on something else. Teach me to sign."

'Please' still isn't a common word in his vocabulary.

"Please," Ginia signs, reminding him of the word. One day he'll remember to use it. But a change of lessons over tea is the perfect thing to focus on. To the kitchen they go and once there's a kettle simmering on the stovetop (or an electric kettle heating up, who knows).

Numbers. Mundane, simple, easy to remember, and she knows Joscelin knows them. It's a warm-up of sorts, a reminder that there are things he knows and are good at as she drills him on counting and reading longer numbers.

"Yes, that." It's the closest she's going to get to please, but at least he isn't ignoring her entirely.

The numbers become a bit boring after a while, so they move onto greetings and the alphabet. Joscelin had created a name sign for himself the last time they did this, but half forgotten it in the time since. Seeing her use it again reminds her of why he'd done it in the first place; it's much faster and more attractive than spelling out every letter of his absurdly long name.

He wants to impress her, so he comes out with a phrase he'd been practicing with the help of a Youtube tutorial. It's mostly unintelligible; the Youtuber teaching used British Sign Language and not its American counterpart. Still, he looks quite proud of himself for it, sitting there, waiting for praise.

Such is the convenience of name signs along with being a sign of closeness like a personal nickname. Ginia repeats his name sign as well as her own - the letter G into the sign for seven - and lightly drills on a few other things.

When he signs a phrase at her, her brows nit a bit as she tries to read the signs. He's clearly practiced, she can tell they aren't just signs he created, but they also aren't signs she knows.

"Where did you learn that from?" She signs slowly, using signs he knows and spelling out ones he doesn't before showing the proper sign.

Ginia isn't praising him.

Instead, she just looks confused. He repeats the phrase, slower, but she responds with a question.

"YouTube," he says uncertainly, and digs out his phone. A couple of taps brings him to a video in which a person with an accent like his teaches some other useful phrases. There's a Union flag in the corner of the video. That means it's English. Just like what they're speaking right now.

Doesn't it?

Oh. Understanding flashes across Ginia's face as she watches the video, fully understanding where the mistake came from. If nothing else, he did a good job learning from the video.

"That's British Sign Language. I'm teaching you American Sign Language."

Which is maybe a bit odd considering how they're in Japan and she knows Japanese Sign Language, but ASL is always what she reaches for first. It also seems to be what everyone else knows oddly enough.

Joscelin looks confused.

"But...it's all English, isn't it?"

It doesn't matter that Ginia's American and he sounds like he just stepped out of Downton bloody Abbey, they both speak the same language and mutually understand each other. Even if Ginia's method is by using her phone or signing.

Now he's feeling sheepish, and he's not a child who responds well to making an ass out of himself. He angrily grabs his phone away from Ginia and shoves it in his pocket.

He'd be right if it wasn't for the fact American Sign Language isn't rooted in English at all, but based off French Sign Language. That's a distinction not worth making when he's already upset as is.

"I really appreciate you going out of your way to learn something on your own."

Even if he learned BSL instead of ASL, it's still something he did own his own volition. It's still worth praising and encouraging.

"Can you send me the channel? I'd like to watch it."

[Closed]

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