Odd sounds by the river [Closed w/ Ragnarok]

[Haneroze]

(Legend: "Haneroze's thoughts" / actions / Haneroze's speech / (OoC) )


(Haneroze's current accessory: Feather Hairband: hidden hairband with feathers around the ears going backwards)

Haneroze finally felt ready for trying to practice pronounciation. But there was a problem of it. She needed a spot where to practice. A place where nobody would see nor hear her. Ideally, it would need to be in town, as to avoid interruption by monsters. However, the town is always crowded.

Haneroze wandered around, trying to get away from the crowd. The Inns were not good places, because the walls were not sound proofs and neighbors could hear her. Abandonned buildings were no good neither, if she could enter, others could and would do it to seek shelter. A ew places she came across felt like good places to hide, but they could be heard from places people could often cross, due to the silence.

As she continued wandering, she ended up on the river, much further than the usual corner where people fetch their water. She approched it, and noticed that the river's flow was somewhat loud. She looked around and didn't see anyone. This place seemed perfect. Not visited, and the river flow would prevent distant bypassers from hearing her.

She sat by the river on her knees, then took out her notepad and her drawing tools. She opened her notepad to the last page, then wrote the alphabet on it, placed like a grid: vowels written horizontally on top, consonants written vertically on the left. She thought about drawing the grid, but decided against it, space was kinda lacking because of still low-quality tools.

"Hmmm... The only sound I've said so far is the A, I think. That was back when I laughed... Remind the feel... The feel of the sound that naturally exited as I laughed..."

She took a deep breath, motionned her mouth as she was about to laugh, then released it all into a 'Ha!'. She retried three times, then stopped.

"Hmmm... This is wrong. It's not a A, right? That's a HA. Definitely." She drew an empty square at the meeting of H and A. "Let's try without the H."

She tried again a few times, but it would keep exitting as a 'Ha'. Knowing that the consonant was just a small moment, she tried extending the sound to only feel the A. But somehow, she could hear the H in the sound. It wasn't quite that. She wasn't sure what caused the H sound. She tried a few times again, but then she coughed. She wasn't used to letting sounds.

"It's... harder than I thought it would be. Should I try something else or keep trying? Hmmm... Maybe I'll discover the problem when trying other letters."

She motioned her mouth into a different and wierd way, then tried letting out a sound, which sounded like a 'Hei'. She adjusted and tried a few more times, until she said 'Hi'.

"That will be a useful one, I think?"

She practiced a few more times until she was sure she had it correctly, then drew an empty square at the meeting of H and I. She tried without the H sound, but once again, she was unsuccessful...

[Ragnarok]

It was just another day, until Ragnarok met her.

    Ragnarok had just been returning to Londenium from a small expedition with his party member, Saeko. For him, it was a tiring experience with having to deal with all the pain from the rabbits, but he'd have to get over it as soon as possible. As soon as he entered Londenium's zone, he unequipped his armor, allowing him to maneuver around the city easier. For now though, Ragnarok was tired after all of that work. His decision was to back to his own resting spot by one of the rivers in the Londenium. Usually whenever he was there, nobody stayed around or simply, no one kept to themselves there. Nature was always frequent there, from the birds chirping to the rustling of the air against the grass, along with the rushing of the water. To Ragnarok, the scenery was quite serene. It was nice to listen to while resting on the comforting grass.

    "Okay. That quest is over. I gained some experience in combat and I'm finally able to wield this katana much more proficiently. If I can continue to become stronger, then I'll be able to protect anyone in this world...But what do I really want...? Am I expecting myself to be this knight in shining armor? I don't know. It's just how I was back in the real world. I always helped my friends out, and I just ended up as the best player in our group. I guess some people hate that about personalities...Just keep your head up Ragna...Life will get better..."

    As Ragnarok approached the pathway to his resting spot, he could start to hear sounds of what appeared to be pronunciation of letters. He stood up against a tree leading to the river, waiting to hear more. For a while, the sounds consisted of Ha's with fluctuating differences as if the end Ahh was supposed to be present rather than the continued rhythm of H. All of a sudden, the note changed to what sounded like Hi. The pronunciation continued until a properly spoken Hi was formed. Ragnarok pondered to himself for several seconds, wondering what was happening.

    "Hmm...These noises...They're formations of different words and sounds. The first one was the struggling of creating Ha. It really feels as if there's more emphasis on the H rather than A, and then the follow word was Hi, which was performed in success, but the note trailed off into a failed I, having only the sound of the H present...This person has problems speaking. I've never heard of someone having problems with...Oh...It's the same case with Pyre. He used to have a broken leg, being unable to properly use it, and when he became Pyre, he had full operation over his leg. He had to get used to it at first, but it eventually became easier for him. This means that this person used to be mute in the real world. This is terrible."

    Upon the horrible realization, Ragnarok slowly walked towards the river, hoping to see if his suspicions were correct. Only moments later, did he see her. He had been walking slowly as to not alert her, and he listened to her attempts at speaking. This one moment was all he needed to know, that this girl needed help from anyone. Even if she wanted to be alone and take this problem head on, Ragnarok wouldn't accept it to be like that. He wanted to help her.

    "Umm...Hey there...I'm sorry to interrupt, but...Do you need help with your pronunciation?"

    The girl looked back at Ragnarok, and all he could see was this innocent person. Her hair was pure white, and her eyes were of this vibrant blue-teal hue. He couldn't help, but feel deep sympathy for her, so approached step by step forward, moving centimeter by centimeter as to not alert her or cause her any trouble. His face was covered by a deep sorrow for her, but he hid it under a mask of a smile, hoping that she would at least be able to accept this act of kindness. He didn't know what he was getting himself into, but deep in his heart, he knew that what he was doing was right.

    "Look, I don't want to cause any trouble. I just feel that, you might need some help is all. We all had troubles when we grew up with our pronunciation. Even if you're just learning it, it's best to accept help from others. We all need a little push sometimes. I just want to help you now."

WC: 765

[Haneroze]

As Haneroze kept trying to get the H removed from her sounds, she was startled by someone's voice behind her. She blushed and quickly hid the face of her notepad on her dress.

"Someone came already! I didn't hear him come!"

She slowly turned herself toward the man. But as he said the word pronounciation, she stopped blushing.

"This man, he already understood that I was practicing pronounciations! Maybe he also guessed that I am mute?"

She continued listening to him. She felt he spoke a lot, trying to convince her even thought she was already ready to accept his help. She waited until he seemed to be done talking, then nodded while smiling. She then looked at and turned over her notepad, revealing only a square on the HA and HI, then looked back at the man.

[Ragnarok]

An aide to his friends in real life, a help to all in the game.

    Ragnarok smiled at the girl and sat down next to her with his legs crossed between each other. He himself felt some kind of void in him filled, being finally able to help someone which was a duty that hadn't been done in such a long time. His friends were the last ones he had given his hand to, and until now, no one had accepted his help. This girl was the first one who wanted his help, and to him, he'd give it any day. In his head, he thought that maybe the two of them could become close friends after this. If not, then who else would be there? He sighed under his breath, but quickly brought his kind air around him, facing towards the girl once more.

        He looked over at her, smiling calmly into her eyes while he waited for her info box to appear. In only a few seconds, her profile information appeared. Her name was Haneroze, she was an Elf, her class was Shaman, and her subclasses were Artisan and Scholar. He shrugged it off calmly as he looked down at her notepad, noticing a square surrounding the words, HA and HI, and within those two words, an empty square was between the consonants and the vowels. Ragnarok contemplated on what did it mean for a few seconds before turning to ask the girl what did they mean. Working with a mute person was hard, so he had to take a lot of liberty into guessing while making any of his questions a yes or no answer.
   
    "Oh I forgot to say, my name's Ragnarok as you can probably notice by the information on me, but you can also call me Ragna once you learn how to say it. Your name's..."

    Ragnarok stumbled on his words, wondering how to pronounce her name. Was it Ha-Nay-Rose or was it Hain-Rose? He was struggling in his speech and it was shown through his face as well, slightly flustered.

    "Your name's Haneroze(Ha-Nay-Rose). Did I say that right?"

    Ragnarok waited for her reply, and smiled after he received it.

    "Well, I'll call you Rose for now. So, let's work on what you're having trouble in. So, from what I heard, you were trying to work on the A and I of these two words. You were having more problems on Ha than Hi, and you were able to use Hi correctly, but when speaking the vowel itself, you fell out. Do you have problems with vowels?"

    Ragnarok decided to start off small. If she was having problems on vowels, then everything else would be a big problem for her. His focus now was diverted to helping her learn how to use vowels, if that was the problem in her speaking; however, he remembered that she was doing better on Hi rather than Ha, so possibly, she was already skilled in some of the vowels, rather than the rest. His mind was going through every possibility as he waited for her answer, either through sign language or through writing or even through broken English. Ragnarok didn't care if his entire day was wasted; all he cared about was that he was here, helping Haneroze.

WC: 550

[Haneroze]

(Image of notepad: i.imgur.com/J8uLwxN.png (except more hand-written and bold))


Haneroze looked at the man as he sat besides her. She waited as he tried to understand what she wrote on her notepad, or at least spoke. Moments later, he introduced himself as Ragnarok. She slightly bowed, as to say 'Nice to meet you'. Then he asked for her name, or rather, it sounded more like an hesitation than a question. She thought he may have seen her status window. Then he said her name, thought with an english pronounciation. She smiled and shook lightly her head left and right.

"The pronounciation is in japanese. Well, I can't really explain that now."

Haneroze continued listening to him. She nodded at his guess of trying the vowel itself. However, the next question was kind of odd to answer to.

"It's not that I have problems with vowels. It's more that I've never gotten any practice, those two sillables are the only one I've gotten to practice so far... Let's see what Ragnarok understands if I do this."

She looked at her notepad and placed her right index and major on the H and A respectively, then followed the grid to meet at the square she drew. She then said 'Ha'. She did the same with H and I, except the 'Hi' she said messed up a bit toward the letter E. She grimaced a bit as she noticed it was different, but she wanted to keep on with her explanation.

So this time, Haneroze placed her index on an empty space over all the consonnants and her major on the A, then moved them right below the A. She then tried to pronounce twice, but again, she couldn't free the sound from the H. She passed her two fingers over all the 20 consonants written vertically on the left before removing them from her notepad, then looked back toward Ragnarok.

"Maybe he'll understand now that this is a grid and that the two squares are the only two syllables I've managed to succeed at pronouncing."

[Ragnarok]

Pronunciation. Vowels and Consonants. Syllables. Teacher-Student.

    Ragnarok watched Haneroze place her fingers on her notepad, trying to tell him something. With all of his power, he watched carefully, decrypting the words that she was trying to tell him. As her fingers passed the square which connected the H and A, she spoke with the corresponding word, Ha; however, she approached the connecting point of H and I and it was then where she messed up, heading more towards He. It was at this moment Ragnarok noticed something in the whole scheme of things; however, his suspicions had to be confirmed first, so he continued to watch her "speak". At this point, her fingers moved to the consonants and the A. She tried pronouncing a few of them, but she stopped herself, as the most she was getting out of it was the declaring call of H. At this moment, everything came into place for Ragnarok. He smiled calmly at her, ready to give her the help she needed.

    "I think I understand now. Even though you're still just learning how to speak, you can work well with vowels, it's just that forming vowels and consonants together to create an actual syllable is hard for you. From what I'm seeing, you seem to head towards the direction of using the consonant you've last been able to use. In this case, it's H, and as a result of this, your problem is connecting vowels with consonants without using what is comfortable. I'm going to assume that H is the first consonant that you began using, so you tried to learn that one first. You can't really do much else, so you've been prioritizing getting Ha right. That's quite interesting. I'm also going on the whim that you were able to get Hi on an accident on your pronunciation of Ha, right?"

    Deep inside of him, he felt quite prideful of himself. He was sure he hit the nail on the wall this time, and with this, he would be able to help her a lot more. First of all though, Ragnarok had to help her focus on practicing the vowels first, hopefully being able to complete the row of H's that were set before her; however, there was also the problem that if she had become too accustomed to only using H as the one consonant, she might have a harder time learning other consonants as well, but this was a decision she'd have to choose afterwards. Both sides gave positive and negative results, but the situation accepted both as the correct answer.

    "So, you have trouble pronouncing different syllables, and when you try to move onto a new consonant, you're stuck with using what you feel accustomed to, thus your comfortableness brings you to using H when you shouldn't be, or you just feel that your vocals won't allow you to move on. Am I right in what I'm saying before I move on to a new subject, Rose?"

    Ragnarok smiled at Haneroze, knowing that everything could only get better in this situation from this point on. He hoped that by the end of the day, her pronunciation of the English language would increase tenfold, bringing her closer and closer to being able to communicate through words with her friends.

WC: 549

[Haneroze]

(Legend: <Written text>)

(Avoid writting too much. If Ragnarok clearly notices Haneroze is showing he's wrong, he probably wouldn't continue talking like that and take a different guess or something!)


Haneroze smiled as Ragnarok said he understood. She continued listening, but his explanation started wrong. She lost her smile.

"I was not trying to form different syllables. I was just trying to get the vowel by itself, without the H sound. Did that last movement over all the consonnants lead him offtrack? I wanted to say by this that I didn't practice anything else..."

She nodded as the man assumed H was the first consonant she began using. But she remained passive on his next assumption.

"I didn't get the Hi by accident on Ha. I just wanted to try something else."

Haneroze grew already disinterested of all that explanation. She turned her head toward the river, then took out a second notepad from her bag. Without waiting for Ragnarok to finish saying his assumptions, she started writing on it.

<Let's just practice.>

She showed it as close as she could reach in front of Ragnarok's face, while doing a discontent face.

[Ragnarok]

Assume and then act. Improvisation at its finest.

    Ragnarok sighed under his breath, seeing the face of apathy from Haneroze. He knew that he had messed up, but he knocked the lurking idea away from his mind as he read the sentence on the notepad. Let's just practice. He sighed once more, recognizing his mistake, and immediately retaliated with the negative thought with wondering where to start at.

    "Sorry about trying to get that right then. Well, we can continue to work on your Ha's and Hi's. Might as well master what you already know before moving on, right?"

    Ragnarok calmed his breathing and started repeating the sounds. Ten Ha's, and then ten Hi's. He looked over at her after he was done, wondering if she could understand how the sounds were made and replicate them. It was a hard job, but the Assassin refused to give up on her.

    "So, do you kind of understand the sound I'm making? You're really just using your throat in this, and practically all of the vocals come from there. It's just when it goes into different ranges of speech, that different parts come into play, such as high notes utilize more of the upper body, while low notes utilize more of the lower region of the upper body, but that's not important right now. So, let's try and do this together."

    He started up once more, elongating the pronunciation of Ha, starting with a short H, and making his way to the A, extending the sound of the A as he watched her, hoping that she was understanding the "technique" behind speech.

WC: 270

[Haneroze]

Haneroze regained her normal expression as Ragnarok apologized. She deposited the notepad face down to her left, keeping the one with the grids on her legs. She then nodded at Ragnarok. It didn't matter what she practiced, any practice would help.

She observed as he repeated the 'Ha's. She tried imitating his mouth position, then tried a few times inbetween Ragnarok's repetitions, which she felt they sounded correct. She did the same with the 'Hi's, taking mental note of the exact mouth position. She felt they sounded silly repeating like that, but it was necessary. Hopefully no one else came in.

Haneroze stopped as he stopped repeating. She listened to Ragnarok, nodding once in a while to confirm she understood. Then she paid attention as he did the Ha slowly. She noticed he could easily detach the H from the A. The sound was similar to a breath.

"So, the breath makes the H sound? Now that I realized this, maybe I'll be able to leave the A sound alone!"

She tried doing the H alone, without too much trouble. She then successfully added the A sound, thought the transition wasn't as smooth as Ragnarok's. She then tried to remove the breathing while keeping the sound going. However, the sound disappeared.

"I felt something. I think I'm on the right track."

She retried two times, and she heard the A all alone before disappearing on the last try. She hung to that last feeling and retried, directly trying the A sound. She successfully said A. She successfully tried again, but coughed right after. After recovering from the cough, she looked at Ragnarok and smiled.

[Ragnarok]

Progress continues. A sense will be reawakened.

    Ragnarok chuckled at the girl, seeing that she had succeeded in pronouncing Ha. Maybe it was just this easy, all he had to do was pronounce what was set before him, and pronounce it slowly for her. Still, pronouncing these vowels and consonants were different than saying actual words, but for now, it was a great start for the lesson. He smiled at Haneroze, giving a calm and happy look before moving onto the rest of the pronunciations under H.

    "Good job. You're able to pronounce one of the vowels with ease now. All you have to do is get the rest of the vowels and that will help you out with other consonants. Learning the consonants will probably be a brand new experience than vowels, but you'll be fine. You're pretty good starting out as well...So, let's get started on working with the rest of the H's."

    He watched Haneroze's response to his talk, and began working on Hi with her. Same as before, he began slowly on the H and developed that letter into a protracted I. He waited for her testing of the syllable, consonant, and vowel before moving on to the rest of the syllables under H. Ragnarok went with what was simple, speaking ten He's, ten Ho's, and ten Hu's, before looking at her with another smile.

    "It's the same as before, just with different pronunciations. If you're easily able to get A right in this amount of time, then the rest of the vowels should just be as easy for you. Plus if you fail in the pronunciation, don't worry about it. Just keep on trying and you'll get it eventually."

WC: 284

[Haneroze]

Haneroze wasn't sure about the 'with ease' part, but she nodded at it. She immediately drew a square below the A and over the B row. Then she looked back at Ragnarok, listening to what he's saying. She nodded as he said to get started on the rest.

After his example, she tried, just like with Ha, to start with only the breathing for the H, then added the I sound. She tried, once again, to remove the breath, and successfully kept only the I sound. She tried it 3 more times without too much trouble. Happy to succeed, she wrote a square below the I on her grid.

Ragnarok then followed with successions of the three other vowels in H, starting with He. Haneroze observed, and tried between his repeats.

-Hei. Hei. Hee... He. He. He. She observed for the Ho, then reajusted her mouth. Hoa. Hoh. Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho. Again for the Hu, she copied the mouth position. Houh. Houh. Houh... Huh... Hu. Hu. Hu.

She struggled a bit more for the Hu, having repeated two more times after Ragnarok ended his sequence. But she managed to succeed it anyway. She smiled as she drew a square on all three remaining letters of the H row. She listened again to Ragnarok, then nodded at the end. Haneroze decided to retry all of the H sequence.

-Ha. He. Hi. Ho. Hue, Hu.

She smiled at Ragnarok. Learning proved not to be too hard with a teacher.

[Ragnarok]

Teacher and Student. His time with her was fulfilling.

    Ragnarok smiled back at Haneroze. She indeed had been succeeding in the pronunciations, being able to clear the entire row of H's, and he was sure that conquering the rest of the consonants combined with vowels was going to be cinch. In his own mind, the void of his forgotten friends was soon being filled by the day when her. To him, he enjoyed her company, being able to teach her speech, and more importantly, be in contact with another person for a while. After a few seconds of an exchange of looks, Ragnarok returned to his lesson.

    "You're doing a really good job at this. If we continue to work on this, your grid will be filled completely with empty squares. We'll even be starting on normal words and how to pronounce them in no time. Well, you probably just need to practice saying the words, because you've already heard them spoken by a lot of people."

    The young Assassin laughed wholeheartedly at the small mistake in his judgment, scratching the back of his head while looking out towards the serene water, knowing that he was doing a good deed today. Maybe one of many to come, but for now, he had to just wait and see.

    "So...Let's start on the rest of the syllables now? You're okay with working until evening to finish the entire grid you have laid out before us right? It's okay if you aren't, I just feel that this should be today's lesson, and we can work on more speech on another day."

    Ragnarok waited for her response as he watched her calm, innocent, and cute face. Who wouldn't want to help this girl? Maybe it was just his psyche that caused him to do this, but no matter what, even if he had to repeat it to himself time and time again, Ragnarok had to say that he would help Haneroze no matter what.

WC: 330

[Haneroze]

Haneroze felt that Ragnarok was exagerating.

"We're only by the beginning. We've only practiced the H consonant, which feels familiar to me. The rest may prove to be harder."

Suddenly, Ragnarok started laughing. Haneroze slightly tilted her head to her right, wondering why he was laughing. She couldn't understand what he was thinking. But he started talking again, so Haneroze just continued listening.

"Finishing the entire grid? It's going to take a while, I'm not sure it's a good idea to do it all in one go. Well, I could just leave once I believe that's enough."

She nodded. Then, she looked at her grid, wondering which one she could practice next.

"Hmm. Children often start with Papa and Mama, so I think they're easy consonants? I'll have some use for the M too, so let's start with that one!"

Haneroze placed her finger on the letter M, then looked at Ragnarok with a inquisitive look.

[Ragnarok]

Mama...Papa...I always had to be perfect, didn't I?

    Ragnarok watched her finger move towards the letter M on her grid, ready to take up another one. He took the motion as some arbitrary choice from the list, so he went into the "lesson" with a high spirit. M was one of the easier letters to work with on the list as well as a few others, so he was glad in a way that they were moving on to this one.

    "So, you want to work with M as the next one? Alright then. It shouldn't be too much problem. It's one of the easier consonants to learn from what I can tell. Then again, I've been talking the language for several years, so it's easy for me, but you'll get there in no time. Well, let's get started then.

    The young teacher started on his repetitiveness of the syllables, starting on the ten Ma's until slowing down half-way through. It was as if some memory triggered in his head, and all the depressing thoughts continued to flow in to him. Ragnarok looked down at his legs and hands, his face void of any happiness and filled with a strange depression.

    "Ma...Ma...Mama...Mother...Father...Were you ever really there for me?"

    His words seemed forlorn as his voice was lost. His own eyes were lost, staring at nothing. His thoughts drifted to his memories of his mother and father who had always pushed him to be the best, but as time progressed in his life, he only seemed to get worse and worse, and so he felt more abandoned. His grades and their love were directly proportional. As grades fall, their love does as well. As his grades rise, their love increases too. Video games and his life now in the game were a result of the mentality given to him, a mentality his parents disliked.

    "I'm sorry...Mom...Dad..."

WC: 315

[Haneroze]

Haneroze nodded as she was listening to Ragnarok. Even he agreed on the M being an easy one. But then, he decided to start directly on the repetition.

"Without prior practice?!"

She observed Ragnarok, noticing that he was actually starting the sound before even opening the mouth. So she tried making a sound with the mouth closed. She didn't succeed the first time, but did the second time. So she decided to open her mouth into the A sound, and the MA sounded away easily. It felt wierd to Haneroze, but that worked. So she tried two times again, before noticing something was wrong with Ragnarok. He seemed away from the practice... And then suddenly spoke something wierd.

"W-what's going on? Why is he...? He seems to have had family problems? But why would he get depressed now?"

She stood upon and walked in front of Ragnarok, before crouching and giving him a worried look. If just showing herself up wouldn't work, she intended on pinching his cheeks to bring him back to Earth. Or whatever the planet was called in this world.

[Ragnarok]

My family's gone. My friends are gone. Am I alone in this world?

    In his lonely emptiness, Ragnarok had no one else to go to. In the real world, Oswald was just a teenage boy, wanting to have fun and live a good life, doing whatever he wanted to. At home, he would be playing games most of the day, and then working on his homework at night. In the outside world, the teenager would either be going to boulder at the gym or he would be playing games at his friends' house. He developed a sociable personality through them; without them, Oswald would never be here helping Haneroze.

    Abruptly, a figure appeared in front of his vision. The boy looked up and saw the face of Haneroze, glancing at him with a concerned look. His hands immediately fell to his lap, and the air around him soon changed, discarding the thoughts of depression, favoring the care that he felt for the girl. Ragnarok was able to manage a smile towards her direction, telling her that he would be okay.

    "It's nothing. It's just...It's just something that has to deal with my family. It's nothing important, so you don't have to worry about me."

    His eyes soon brought him back to the calming flow of the river. The soothing feelings of being drifted away by nature in peace was something that was desirable. His face was void of any emotion at this point. Most would say that he was thinking about something, but in his own mind, he let everything go. His head was void of any thought, not knowing what to do next. This moment lasted only half a minute as he looked calmly towards Haneroze.

    "Well, I heard you doing Ma with some trouble, but you seemed to get it as you continued. Do you need any more practice with the M or any of the vowels before we continue to learn the rest?"

WC: 326

[Haneroze]

Haneroze saw Ragnarok came back to his senses. Despite trying to reassure her, she still knew there was something wrong. She thought he must surely have gotten traumatized from events in the past. But whatever that was, he was not likely to speak about it. So she just nodded as he said not to worry about it.

-Mmmm.

She went back to sit where she was sitting. She picked back her drawing tools and wrote a square at the MA case. She then looked back toward Ragnarok, who was again behaving strangely, thought not as extreme as the time before.

"... Should I do something? It doesn't seem to be a problem, this time, but... Maybe I should really pinch him?"

As she hesitated on doing it, Ragnarok spoke again, as if he didn't stare at the river a moment before. At this point, she decided it was best to assume it never happened, and just continue with the practice.

She shook her head at Ragnarok's question. She felt that consonant was easy to do, she could just practice further by herself. So she looked back at the list. She felt the P would bring back that trauma of his, so she decided against it. Instead she placed her finger on the letter N, thinking it would be useful for her name and for saying No. She looked back at Ragnarok with her inquisitive look again.

[Ragnarok]

At least I have a friend here, helping me more than I'm helping her.

    Ragnarok's thoughts of family slowly flowed away from his conscious as the present soon took over the harmful imagery. For a few seconds, he was able to gather his scrambled mind, being able to notice that Haneroze had pronounced M without much difficulty. Ragnarok wondered if she had been thinking about something, but he moved on from the past thought. Momentarily, his eyes were brought towards her list of letters once more. Due to her quick reply about the practice of M, he was able to put two and two together when she had pointed towards another letter, this time N. Cracking his fingers and head, Ragnarok was growing weary of all the practice. In the moments that began the tiresome exercise to the end of the cracking sounds, his thoughts began to develop once more.

    "Geez, this is more tiring than it is in hindsight. Well, no stepping out of this situation. I've made a promise and I promise to keep it. That moment of depression is gone, I'm better now, there's no point in crying over something that's insurmountable. Just...I wonder if they're okay without me. Who knows if the real world is still progressing or we're just stuck at a static moment? It's a pain having to be here, knowing that when we all go back to the real world, we'll all be back with our own bodies, our own sicknesses...This teaching will have been for nothing..."

    He exhaled calmly as he looked over at Haneroze with a kind smile, tossing away the sorrowful thought. He started to pronounce N, taking into note that she had already been versed in the five vowels of the language, thus he wouldn't have to work to pronounce the other five combinations of N and A, E, I, O, and U. His decision was to only pronounce or extend N three times, beginning with how a normal-length N at first, following up with a longer N, and going last with a N that easily showed the mouth's particular position as Ragnarok had finally notice amidst his repertoire that she had been mimicking his place to fit into her own. After the last one, he smiled at Haneroze once more, watching her pronounce N on her own.

    "You're doing a lot better than when we first started, and even then, you still did an excellent job. Props to you Rose."

WC: 412

[Haneroze]

Haneroze felt he was finally back to his usual self. That was a good thing. But she already had to be ready for the next consonant she had requested.

Haneroze watched Ragnarok's mouth position, seeing some sort of smile. So she imitated and tried, but it came out as some sort of vowel-less sound. She tried again, and again, but without success.

"There's something going on behind the teeths. But what?"

Then, Ragnarok clearly showed what happened behind the teeth. So she stuck her tongue right behind her upper teeth, and tried again. Nnnnnnn.

"So that's how you do it! Is it like the M, where I can simply release into a vowel?"

She tried releasing into an A, and successfully said Na. She tried again, but this time into Ne.

"It's not like the Japanese pronounciation. I guess I'll have to practice that."

Haneroze then said No without too much trouble. She then smiled at Ragnarok, who just complimented her. She then looked back at her notepad, writing a square on the NA, NE and NO cases.

"Next comes the R letter in my name. I believe that's an hard letter. Should I leave it for later? But I don't think I'll be able to discover that one by myself... I guess I better ask while I can."

Haneroze pointed to the letter R, and looked back at Ragnarok.

[Ragnarok]

Another letter, this time R. Maybe his own name or hers?

    Ragnarok had calmed down from his earlier expedition into personal business, continuing on with the lesson as he tilted his head down to see the next letter on the list. She was progressing fairly well, taking on letters H, M, and N, and succeeding in their pronunciations. For a moment or two, he could feel some kind of pride coming from within him, and all he could do was just wipe a piece of hair out of his eyes as he wondered what the next consonant was. His eyes caught the point of the finger and took in the notice of the choice of R as the next pronunciation. Under his breath, he chuckled calmly as his own name started with R. The commonly optimistic boy looked over at Haneroze once more, ready to start on the letter.

    "So, you want to work on R, then? Well, to be honest, it is one of the harder consonants as the letter is just made in a single position, and it doesn't sound...good on its own. Here let me show you."

    Ragnarok calmed his breathing and began on pronouncing the R. Before the boy started, he opened his mouth up and showed the position of his tongue where the R sound would be created. He waited for her expression to change to understanding the situation to start on this letter. As soon as he started, Ragnarok immediately knew that he hated the pronunciation of this consonant. He took five seconds in total, lengthening the sound of the R before he finally stopped. He sighed as the consonant on its own wasn't enough to fully complete the lesson. The teacher looked over at Haneroze with a face of quiet embarrassment.

    "Heh...That wasn't great...So, instead of just pronouncing the consonant on its own, can you instead pronounce the five combinations of R and the vowels? If you need me to still help you, then that's okay. My thought here is that the pronunciation of R isn't as good as I thought, and sounding the letter with the vowels would make better sense. It's just me on this, but it's okay to tell me if you'd prefer it another way."

WC: 376