Challenge #00541 - A166: Ancient Curses

Fragmen of stupri mauris. Quare non opus est? — RecklessPrudence

[AN: I ran this through a translator and got: “Piece of fucking shit. Why not work?” :D LOL ]

There’s working on repairs with trained technicians… and then there’s working with someone who’s learned certain things by rote as part of a holy ritual. Someone who - though she had the brains to work out that the rituals were supposed to be useful, and had successfully applied some of them in other circumstances - still applied those rituals because they were the only way she knew.

Isobel could tell when her friend and ally Jem was reciting an incantation. Mostly because they were far more eloquent.

“Cock-sucking son of a bitch! Work you firkin dick biscuit!”

Sometime, possibly when they were on a break, Isobel would educate Jem on exactly what she was saying. And what some of those ritual gestures meant at the time they became part of the ritual.

As it was, she took it as a general sign that Jem was having trouble. Which left the problem of communicating what the trouble was with an ancient dialect that neither of them could use with accuracy.

Yep. Toasted circuit board. She’d have to fabricate a new one. “This one?” She disconnected it and showed it to her. “Bad-bad beans. Meringue umbrella. Jello roof.” And, in final clarification, turned her thumb downwards and blew a raspberry.

Jem blew a raspberry in agreement. “Fuk dup the ass.”

Okay… Isobel could work with that one. This whole first contact situation was going to give the Archivaas conniptions.

There were no replacements on their vessel, now called some variant of Home. Arta. They called their ship Arta.

Isobel would have to make a new one. Good thing they had plenty of raw material.

Jem kept treating the tech printer as an amazing holy relic. Isobel’s attempts to show her it was just a machine had negligible influence, but Jem would happily watch something come from component elements in avid and reverent fascination.

And holy song.

Such a pity that the ancient engineers of her ancestry had had a very crude taste in music.

Isobel would never have believed, before her arrival in Arta, that Charlotte the Harlot could have ever been sung reverentially.

With the new circuit in, the air generator whirred sluggishly into life. Isobel helped Jem restock it’s necessary supplies and tweak it into full functionality.

"Effing eh?” prompted Jem.

“Effing eh,” Isobel agreed. “Nek minit? That dick biscuit,” she selected the machine that looked ready to collapse.

Jem’s face said it all. “Jussinbeebur…” she muttered.

Isobel felt inclined to agree.

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