Alchemical ABC's: Make My Dog Talk (Shai)

[Ginnie Dib]

The Cathedral Forge
Ziost; Mandalorian Space

The forge mistress of the Cathedral was hard at work sitting at the workbench of her alchemical work table. Her feet dangled off the edge of the stool and hadn't grown enough yet to hit the floor and maybe she'd been optimistic in how high she'd forged the stool itself, but someday Ginnie would be in here with her Daddy and then that stool could be for him. Hard, hard at work the child was, pencil crayon in hand drawing up the schematics to her dreams and wishes. Isley's holocron said she could do what she willed. . . what did the little girl wish most in the universe?

That her Dad could walk.

Next on the list, and more accomplishable in her own mind was another wish on the list: That she could understand her Tuk'ata puppy and learn his name. Come on, how cool would it be to translate Tuk'ata woofs, barks, scratches, all their noises sounds and body markers? In her research, Ginnie found that sentient Tuk'ata spoke in something called High Sith.

"H-I-G-H S-I-T-H." She wrote down beside a column marked 'I want to translate. . . ', but her Tuk'ata couldn't help much! He was a puppy! He spent his days at the Cathedral Forge nuzzling up to her, barking, running outside for branches and pieces of twigs and wood for the fires and catching fuzzy critters for their lunches!

Mommy would be even more proud if Ginnie could train the puppy to go get vegetables. Although Ginnie had a way with animals, and had trained in the art of animal husbandry through the Force, there was a lot lacking.

So it was Ginnie sent word out through backwater channels (and someone else's dog) to @Shai. She'd met the Tuk'ata once, when she was travelling for bounties and maybe an older specimen would help the translation process.

While she was waiting for the Tuk'ata to arrive (and laid out a welcome mat woven of stalks of evergreen in front of the Tuk'ata and child-crawling sized entrance tunnel), Ginnie opened a bag of miscellaneous quartz, solarium, and silica crystals she'd found on her troubles. Oh, and some pieces of fire-washed glass. The crystals were all but worthless to any but an inquisitive child. They couldn't be used to power a lightsaber nor were particularly rare.

But the child had learned by now not to trample on appearances over substance. The crystals could be used, she was sure of it. She could find a way to imbue them with something, even if it wasn't a weapon.

 

[Blackthorne]

"This is where her coordinates said to be," the voice of [member="Ivy Lasranae"] loosed in a sharp wind that cut across the scene before them. With the Egris sitting behind them, engines still running hot, and not but a whole lot of nothing but dark forests around them, what else was there to say?

"Suppose it could be a fluke," the Merc went on, looking down at the screen of her datapad where the destination continued to blinke, "she's just a kid, you know. This ain't a good place for a kid to be."

But Shai was not so sure, she sensed something her human counterpart did not - rather, could not. Despite the heavy presence of dark powers around them she was unphased. Having spent the better part of several hundred years guarding the tombs of Sith Lords, Ziost was nothing. The Tuk'ata couldn't fault Ivy for her lack of Force awareness, being what she was, but these sort of things were difficult to communicate with someone who was immune to mental intrusions. Gorram Epicanthix. No, there was definitely something out there to be found - she just wasn't at the right location.

"C'mon, let's go get something to eat, we can come back later," Ivy turned to make way back towards the ship, pausing at the low grumble reply ellicited from the hound.

There wasn't much for it. When in doubt, follow your snout. The tuk'ata took off through the trees, ignoring the Merc's fading voice.

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

A thin slip of a Tuk'ata puppy came bounding through the forest, barking and sniffing the ground. He smelled another one, a Tuk'ata! The pup was young, but growing into a frame which packed with the muscles of adulthood would make him formidable enough. He bounded toward [member="Shai"] and bore his teeth more out of fright than aggression, 'Protect the Forge, protect my kiffar-girl' the pup said to his elder.

With a big bark, the animal hopped off back toward Ginnie's Cathedral Forge.

 

[Blackthorne]

Wat.

Glowing eyes took in the sight of the tuk'ata whelp with a sense of irritation. There was little patience for pups, and in the wild a good many of them were cannibalized by adults. Survival of the fittest, indeed. Shai gave a soft snort, armored tail slowly snaking from one side to the other as the pup took off again, effectively leading the way to the very place he was trying to protect.

Kid had a lot to learn.

Shai pursued the pup at a full adult's pace, quickly catching up with fluid, bounding strides. It was only as he reached the cave entrance that his size saved him - in an attempt to catch him scurrying out of reach, Shai became stuck in a tunnel bore only big enough to permit that of the pup and his crawling child owner.

Not quite big enough for all 4'3'', one tonne bulk of Shai.

A raucus ensued of dastardly snarls. Knock knock little girl!

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"And the metal bits can . . huh. Okay so I've got some aluminum and copper, I can alloy that together and it'll be nice and light. I can't wait to know your name, buddy. . . Buddy?" Ginnie glanced around.

Where had her puppy gone? The Beskar'gam clad Mandalorian child put on her helmet and the most raucous collection of snarls and snaps came to her electronic ears. "Wow! Puppy!? Puppy!" Ginnie scrambled off the stool and raced off to the secondary entry tunnel to get a face full of @Shai.

"Eeeek!" She fell backward, tumbled and scrambled back to her feet and pulled her Tuk'ata puppy back. "Shai?! Shai is that you? What're you doing, lady? Don't eat him! He's mine! Are. . . are you stuck!? GOODNESS!"

Ginnie raced around the secondary tiny entrance tunnel and unlatched what looked to anyone outside as the side of the cliff face, then pulled the great durasteel doors open. "I'm coming! I'm coming! Don't eat me, I'm coming! You came! Hello! Hi! You found us! Yaaaaay!" Ginnie hopped in the air and giggled, she couldn't wait to get everyone calmed down and working. What fun!

 

[Blackthorne]

A guttural sort of baying could be heard echoing through the caverns at the retreating form of the little Mando-kid. By the time Ginnie rounded behind the beast, it had carved giant gashes into the dirt and rock that was the opening of her tunnel. With a great heaving twist the creature pulled free and immediately rounded upon her, eyes wide and nostrils flaring.

Shai was not your ordinary tuk'ata, if one could define tuk'ata as anything close to ordinary. Though her kind were well-known throughout the galaxy for their varying forms and heightened sentience to other creatures, there were very few quite as intelligent and skilled as she. For starters, Shai was possessed of the spirit of a Sith Knight - her sentience and intellect was on par and even beyond most that of the average human kind. So it was with human recognition that she took in the young child despite her beastly recognition immediately wanting to attack - which was lucky for Ginnie. Shai had a bite that was both lethally toxic and disturbingly strong, even where the Mandos were concerned.

She eyed the child and then the pup, tail twitching and armored scale hide slowly falling flat again.

You ask, I here, this response delivered via Force Telepathy, yet another peculiar thing about her. Tuk'ata, even the higher sentient variety, could typically understand some basic but rarely did they speak it. Shai, as Ginnie had come to find, could communicate in fluent, broken basic.

What want?

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"I wanna show you something and I needed your help. I can't talk to my puppy like I talk to you and that got me thinking there's gotta be a way of making a translator for Tuk'ata so humanoids can hear them without having to use telepathy. Cool idea, huh?" Ginnie trotted up to the beast and helped [member="Shai"] get un-stuck with the best of care she could. The pup continued to yip and bound around, wagging his tail and hopping up in glee at another Tuk'ata around. A big Tuk'ata!

The child led Shai into the Cathedral with its warm fire and whiff of the dark arts of Sith Alchemy and threw her hands out. "What do you think? Is it possible? Can we build a translator for the Tuk'ata?"

 

[Blackthorne]

Shai wasn't convinced that this was a 'cool idea' considering her familiars of tuk'ata. Most of them would sooner eat a human then spare time to converse - if they could even manage a coherent thought other than kill, maim, blood! But, with an unimpressed glance to the lolliping puppy, she nodded and followed the child into the Cathedral, giving the pup a shove with snout along the way.

Pet tuk'ata make few words, easy to learn, it didn't occur to Shai that perhaps her own broken language might've come across as dumb, but basic was not and had never been her native tongue. Not only that, but she'd spent the few hundred years speaking High Sith to her packmates and basic had only recently come back into play in the last year. Given the chance, her own level of intelligence could be made perfectly clear, but she didn't expect the girl to understand what was vastly considered a dead language.


She sniffed around at the various pieces of equipment before taking a seat and scratching at the alchemized collar around her neck. The crafting of such things was beyond her - Alchemy and metallurgy were not skills she had ever practiced in her original body.

How you make?

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Sure he might be of few words now, but he's growing and the more I bring him with me, the more he'll learn right? Just like any kid." The puppy sniffed at Shai's flank then trotted off to curl up on top of a roughly quilted circular blanket that nestled by Ginnie's cooking fire. He huffed a burbling sigh and settled as happy as a puppy could be with a big alpha around. Ginnie seemed safe enough.

"I'll take your experience with High Sith and language, turn it into an algorythmic wavelength and frequency then I'm gonna manipulate the geometric matrix of crystals to incorporate the shifts in language, both to funnel your speech and thought patterns and export it in a method the common Basic speaker can understand. Then it's a question of mounting the crystal in an appropriately alchemized alloy chain so it's sturdy enough to stay on a Tuk'ata's neck without chafing, pulling or getting crushed in battle."

Ginnie was proud of her Cathedral den to the Alchemical Arts, she stood even taller as [member="Shai"] took a seat after sniffing things out. "I figure I can start by making one for my puppy and one for you, too. As a thank you. For it to work, I gotta meditate with you, while you focus on High Sith and your own language skills. Then I can start channeling that into the quartz crystals I picked up. Aren't they neat?"

The crystals in question were by far average transparent rock. They were not rare, nor particularly expensive, but the properties they contained were sufficient that the girl could manipulate their molecular strata to better fit her needs. Mostly clear or lightly clouded with grey, they were hewn in chunks that fit inside the girl's palm.

 

[Blackthorne]

Shai eyed the girl dubiously, lowering her fore-quarters to the ground in a lounging position. Only then did Ginnie stand barely an inch above her. Hide like dragon-scales frilled at the mention of High Sith, a red tinge overcoming the tuk'ata's frame, her claws raked the floor of the Cathedral with sanguine amusement. If Shai were physically capable of sneering, she would be.

The tuk'ata did not bring up any mention of concern regarding meditation with her. There were risks, certainly, considering her own skill with several very dangerous Darkside mental techniques, but she'd had several hundred years to temper and sate her corrupting tastes. Shai sniffed at the crystals in [member="Ginnie Ordo"]'s tiny hands, Powerful rocks make good gift, she nodded and curled her head upwards, statuesque and refined, true tuk'ata made by the Sith Lords. We royalty.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"You are royalty, and it befits royalty to be fully understood, doesn't it? Most people underestimate the Tuk'ata 'cause they think you're not commanding of enough language. They don't get you. Everyone should be fully understood. There's a reason I wanted to find a Tuk'ata to be my companion and every day friend."

How often had Ginnie herself had problems with understanding? Deaf since the age of seven, without either her helmet or the force skills taught to her by the legendary Sith Lord Ket Van-Derveld, Ginnie would rely only on her eyes, and the sign language her father had made for her. Understanding was the first of the gifts Ginnie hoped to bestow on the galaxy and this was the perfect trial.

"I was hoping you'd say that! Okay, Let me get comfy." Sitting down by the fire in front of [member="Shai"], Ginnie centred her breathing and shut her eyes. 'I'm ready, Shai.' She held the stones in her palms, open and out between them.

 

[Blackthorne]

The tuk'ata did not close her eyes as the child did, but maintained an unblinking vigilance. A mind half a dozen centuries old began to churn through memories and time, back to the days of yore and darkness. Back to the days of mighty and terrible Dark Sith Lords and their eloquent dead language.

High Sith. Poetry in blood and anger, greed and malice. It filtered through the blood, boiling, and reverberated through the vocal chords, deafening, slipping off the tongue, poisonous. It was not a language for the faint of heart or weak of constitution. It was not a power to be used by the weak or the doubting. High Sith was a veritable song of raw, unbridled power and knowledge for the nobles of the Darkside - spoken only to those deserving to hear it. Shai remembered these things fondly and the prose soon flooded her mind and thoughts.

She directed all this into the mind of the child, and it would hit the young [member="Ginnie Ordo"] with the full profuse sting of the ancients and their legacy. If she could not handle it, could not funnel it, the resulting corruption would be immeasurably painful.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The child funnelled the raw, emotion-biting pain into the forge fires. From a happy umber the fires cascaded to a frothing, lethal white pouring from the Forge and sending their owner into a tooth-grit, groaning whine. Ginnie didn't know the sounds filtering through the Cathedral were hers, she didn't know sounds were happening at all but for the long dead language pouring with its hate and authority and wicked sense of power. Ginnie's head felt lighter the more the language poured in. [member="Shai"] 's memories and thoughts and undercurrents of rage, poison and power shuddered through the conduit blacksmith girl with the force of her own beskar smithing hammer.

Ginnie shook in her armour. And then a curiosity occurred. The Tuk'ata pup rose from his vantage point and padded over beside his master. Licking her face, the Tuk'ata pup set his head on one of her knees and curled his body around her, his eyes staring straight at Shai.

The pup was learning and his eyes were opened. Born of Akure Executive's Sithspawn labs and nefarious secret bestial couplings, the Tuk'ata pup had never known the length of time and lack of conscience as his natural born cousin, nor had he served any lords or ladies darker than the girl. As Ginnie struggled, the Tuk'ata learned and as the Tuk'ata learned, the struggles ceased. Ginnie breathed easier and soon the quartz gemstones in her hands began to glow a balmy, pleasant red.

The red would soon enough shift from happy docile shades to a frothing deep blackened crimson. It would be the colour of time and the weight of unholy prescience. Still the girl's gut twisted with the horrors of the sounds and memetic associations.