//------------------------------// // Last Words // Story: Observations // by BaeroRemedy //------------------------------// Spring, Twenty-Eighth Day of the Third Moon, Year of Peace “Epil es gentan. Es epkres lepil goda trak. Es legil anvitarve et legil nitam anwerne antakane. Ortamfet lepil anismerne: es Skaroseliswer gatan. Upalas rakinti deulentan, nit deulentan dreblen. Ansotelve...” We will start there. This is the day where I will get them to help me bring this down. I do not know how, but I will get it through to them that it is important. Whatever this says will decide what happens to them. As fillies, even ones as assumedly powerful as they are, they cannot be left alone out here. I will either take them to their home on Skaros somehow or I will…well, if I am to bring them back home then it would have to be well after Bullion is gone. Princess Platinum may be many things, but she is certainly not her father. She does not possess the same mind or cruel cunning as her father. Any Unicornia ruled by her would be preferable for their existence. If I must stay out here in the wilds until that day comes, then I will. If their homeland of Skaros is at war, the wounds on Cer’s body seemed to indicate a fight of some kind, then they cannot go home and I will remain here with them until they can go home or until they are old enough to make that determination themselves. If, by some tragedy, Skaros is destroyed or too dangerous for them to return to then I will wait until King Bullion passes and take them back home. In that case, I must take care to preserve their culture and language. Any submersion into pony culture, no matter what tribe, at such a young age would risk alienating them from their very unique and different language and culture. I must be able to spend time with them before that and document it all so it cannot be forgotten. So they do not forget where they come from. My curiosity must also be sated. So I suppose either way I will be spending a lot of time with them. Rising Sun seems determined to help me, but her sister does not. Both of them teared up as I showed them the words and Little Moon ran out of the cave. That is fine, I think I shall only need one of them for this important task. The first word I do not know is ‘gentan’. Obviously -tan is the negation modifier, so we must figure out what ‘gen’ means. I will point to that and hope to get something understandable. Rising Sun is now pointing to her head and repeating the word. I do not think it means ‘head’. She has now picked up a book of mine with her magic and is pretending to read it, she then puts it down and points to her head again. Understand? Know? It has to be one of them. I will plug it into the sentence and see how it fits. Epil - My promise and I/We, referring to the physical body of Cer and the sky itself as her promise. Es - You, singular and referring to myself. Gentan - Know would make more sense here. Gen- gehn - know (This is a hard ‘g’ by the way, I know when I read it I still want to say it as a j) “Epil es gentan.” “We don’t know you.” The next sentence has some words I already know, the first half is actually translatable. “Es epkres lepil” “You my blood my(possessive)” “Goda” Rising Sun has sat down to think on this one. She keeps muttering to herself and tapping her head in frustration repeatedly. Whatever the word means, it must be difficult to get across through action alone. I can think of some words or concepts that would be nearly impossible to convey without words to go with them. Finally she gets up and nods vigorously while smiling as she says the word ‘goda’. Then she frowns and shakes her head while saying the word ‘woda’. She is now doing this again. I know it does not mean ‘yes’. So it must have another meaning still relating to a positive concept. My gut says it means ‘good’, partially because it sounds so similar and I know that there is some distant language we both share. Also it has an opposing word in ‘woda’ which could mean bad? It is my only lead, so I guess that is what I will go with for now. Goda - goh-dah - Good Trak is giving her fits just as goda did. She has been pacing in the cave for several minutes now. “Epkres goda trak.” She repeats the phrase, sits down and acts as if she is cradling a foal in her front legs. I cannot blame her for giving up on the word and trying to explain the phrase instead. Trak - trahk - Care for? Look after? Take care of? “Take care of my children.” makes the most sense in context. I will go with that unless I am proven wrong at some point in the future. “Epil es gentan. Es epkres lepil goda trak.” I don’t know you. You (must?) take good care of my children. The next sentence will surely be one that takes some time: “Es legil anvitarve et legil nitam anwerne antakane.” From the outset this sentence begins with dual pronouns yet again. “You them(possessive)” Then there are three words that all share similar construction: anvitarve, anwerne, and antakane all begin with ‘an-’, two of them end with ‘-ne’ while the other ends with ‘-ve’. Given what I know about the density of this language, I will assume this is deliberate and those prefixes and suffixes mean something. If that is the case then let us dissect the core words first. Vitar, wer, and taka. “Vitar.” “Fetram vitar.” Rising Sun answers immediately as she spreads out her wings, then points to my side. “Fetram vitan.” Well -tan means not. I know Fetram means wings and that I do not possess wings. I am without them and she is with them. That will do as a preliminary translation for now. I only need a feeling for what they mean, not something exact at the moment. Vitar - Vee-tar - with Vitan - Vee-tahn - without “Wer” Once again Rising Sun is ready with a swift answer. She stands up straight and looks ahead with a serious face. A hoof is brought up to her forehead and she scans the imaginary horizon. She then marches to and fro in the space of the cave while carrying the same demeanor. Is she trying to mimic a soldier of some kind? A guard perhaps? Wer - wehr - Guard “Taka” “Es!” She points at me and mimics my pose, sitting on the ground and writing in my journal and barks out gibberish in a tone approximating my own, then she stands up again. “Ep!” She points to herself and then marches around and does a variety of things. “Taka!” So she recreated what we are doing now. I suppose she is teaching me. Either teach or instruct, unless on the off chance she means mimic or copy but that does seem unlikely. I am very lucky that I have a very intelligent and creative assistant in this endeavor. Taka - tah-ka - Teach/instruct I am going to assume ‘et’ means and. We use that in academia still, old hints of a dead language, so I think it is a safe bet. That means the only unknown word is nitam. “Nitam.” “Nitam fetram et ker.” She says while pointing to her wings and horn. She then turns her hoof towards me. “Ker min fetramtan.” I believe it is a conditional term. In the first instance it means ‘both’ while in the second it means ‘one but not the other’. She has both wings and a horn while I have a horn but no wings. So ‘nitam’ should mean ‘both’ or ‘all’ depending on what is being listed after. Nitam - nee-tahm - ‘All’ or ‘both’ depending on context. So before the prefix and suffix that pervade three of these words, what do we have? “You them(possessive) with them(possessive) all/both guard teach.” an- -ne/-ve I am sure I can work this out logically without Rising Sun’s help. This is a final message from a parent, their dying words. That is the context. When Cer spoke the words they were desperate pleas. They were things she was requesting of me. Could that just denote a request? Need? If so, let us try to make this legible. “I need you with them and I need you to guard and teach them”? I will admit this might be me injecting some of my own personal feelings onto the subject. It feels right, though. Given the context, given…everything. “Epil es gentan. Es epkres lepil goda trak. Es legil anvitarve et legil nitam anwerne antakane.” “I don’t know you. You take good care of my children. I need you with them and I need you to guard and teach them.” “Ortamfet lepil anismerne: es Skaroseliswer gatan.” Once more unto the breach. Ortamfet. -am indicates something is plural while -fet indicates something in the future. So ‘ort’ is the unknown. Lepil is trivial at this point, first person plural possessive. an- -ne again and I believe that signifies a desire or need on the part of the speaker. I see Skaros and -tan. “Ort” Rising Sun says it again, gesturing from her mouth into the air as she does. The then comes over and points to my journal as I write and says “Ortam. Taka, wer, vitar, vitan. Ortam.” Ort - Ort - Word ‘Ortamfet’ would then mean future words. Ortamfet lepil - My future(next?) words. Anismerne. What we’re looking for is the root word, ismer. “Ismer.” Rising Sun put her hoof to her head and slowly pulled it away, as if she was tugging on an invisible thread. “Ismer” she stated simply after. Sadly, this is lost on me. It must be some sort of idiom for this word in their culture, but it’s not one in ours. I shrug my shoulders. She sits down and thinks. She is She grabbed my journal and flipped to the very beginning, then tapped her head again and repeated the word at me more insistently. I suppose she is trying to tell me to think, but that doesn’t fit. The only other thing I can think of for it to mean is ‘remember’. I confirmed this with a similar motion to what she did and mimed out some events from prior days. Ismer - eez-mehr - Remember Therefore ‘Anismerne’ would mean something along the lines of “I want you to remember”, at least if all of my guesses line up. This is a lot of guesswork and I could be completely wrong. Best not to think about that possibility. We now have at least the first part of this sentence completed. “Ortamfet lepil anismerne” - “I need you to remember these next words” Skaroseliswer. Skaros, obviously is the name of their homeland. However this one has -elis attached, which we know to mean ‘place of’. Perhaps Skaros is not the name of their homeland, but instead just the word for ‘home’. Skaroselis would then be ‘place of home’ or…homeland. Wait, -wer. That should mean teach, right? I just learned this. How does that fit into this word then…? That doesn’t make any sense. Well, the ‘wer’ before was a root word. It had the an-/-ne addition to designate need. This -wer is on the end of the word. It is possible that it has a completely different meaning as a suffix. Which, quite frankly, is not helping with how dense this language already is. Perhaps the next word will provide me with some context. Gatan. Obviously -tan is the negation modifier. “Ga” Rising Sun got up and tugged on my cloak until I stood and is now pointing towards the hatch leading out of their cave and repeating the word. Once outside she does the same thing again, this time directing me back inside. Seems pretty obvious, if I do say so myself. Ga - Gah - Go Therefore: gatan - go not. Don’t go. The last little fly in my linguistic soup is that -wer suffix. Let’s see what this said, translated literally, without acknowledging it. Ortamfet lepil anismerne: es Skaroseliswer gatan. Words-next I (possessive plural) need you to remember: You (singular) skaros-place go-not. I think the only thing really missing would be a preposition. It is possible that -wer could mean something akin to ‘to’. “You skaros-place-to go-not” “You don’t go to Skaros.” Upalas rakinti deulentan, nit deulentan dreblen. I have seen the suffix -las before, twice in fact. Averlas and Avertanlas. I know what these words mean, but perhaps I do not understand them fully. Aver would be the root word then. Maybe it does not mean mother but ‘birthing parent’. This would make a lot more sense as their avertanlas was, or at least seemed to be, female. So let us assume that -las is some indicator of agency. “One who” “Upa.” Rising Sun went straight to the journal I gave her and got the quill and ink as well. She is now drawing something. It is a stick figure of a pony with wings and a horn wrapped in chains, then she draws the same pony free of the chains and flying away. Over the chained pony is the word “Rakin” and over the flying one is the word “Upa”. Upa - Oo-pah - Free Rakin - Rah-keen - Locked up/imprisoned/chained Now about the suffix -ti. I do not believe I’ve encountered it before. A cursory glance of my notes confirms that. Rising Sun draws another pony, this one with a frown on her face. A line connects her horn to the bodies of other ponies, all of them look sad. She labels the frowning pony “Upalas Rakinti”. Does the suffix make a word a noun? A proper noun as this seems to be the name of this pony. Upalas Rakinti - One who frees chains With a name like that I would assume they would be a liberator, then again most villains see themselves as heroes. What chains are being broken by this pony? What is she freeing them from? ‘Deulentan’ “Deulen” The response is simple and heartbreaking. “Nit Averlas, Avertanlas deulen.” Deulen - deh-oo-lehn - Dead. This pony, Upalas Rakinti, is not dead. “Dreblen” Rising Sun adds to her drawing. She draws a box around Upalas and scratches out the lines connecting her to other ponies. Locked away or trapped perhaps. Dreblen - drehb-lehn - Trapped “Upalas rakinti deulentan, nit deulentan dreblen.” - “The one who frees chains is not dead, both not dead and trapped.” “Sotel” Rising Sun got up and motioned to the space around her and repeated the word. She then pointed out to sea and said “Skaros: Soltan.” Limited, but knowing what happened to their parents in Skaros I think it’s safe to assume that Skaros is dangerous. Which would make this place safe. This is a very big stretch but I’m trusting my intuition here. Sotel - so-tehl - Safe “Epil es gentan. Es epkres lepil goda trak. Es legil anvitarve et legil nitam anwerne antakane. Ortamfet lepil anismerne: es Skaroseliswer gatan. Upalas rakinti deulentan, nit deulentan dreblen. Ansotelve...” “I don’t know you. You must take good care of my children. I need you with them and I need you to guard and teach them. I need you to remember these next words: don’t go to Skaros. The one who frees chains is not dead, both not dead and trapped. I need you to be safe…” I will not deny a dying parent their last wish. Whoever this Upalas pony is, they will never harm either of these foals. I will promise you that, Cer. -Starswirl