Thread: Shapeless Heart [Jeufufns and Sigr]

Yes! the slime echoed, not knowing what it was about, but trying to mimic the woman's happiness. It seemed that they were on the right track, but those people were so complex, interesting and strange, that the slime thought it would take it days, perhaps weeks to fully understand them. Oh, how wrong it was, as the deeper mysteries of human nature had eluded people for generations. Bowl the slime repeated, moving towards another one of those and grabbing it, leaving it on its proper place afterwards. Bowl it repeated. Basket the slime said, pointing at the thing, then outside. The memory it had even for the smallest details was wondrous. Basket said once more, awkwardly imitating the gestures the woman outside was doing to weave the baskets she was making. Table. Seat. Blueberries it repeated diligently, as things were starting to get more difficult, the slime's absorbed knowledge helped it a bit, but not too much. Food the slime said a bit doubtful, even if its face made no gesture. Blueberries. Food it repeated, it seemed that one thing could be more than one word, and would have different meanings. As the lower appendages were good for running and going slower, those small berries from the woods could be both blueberries and food. Blueberries. Food. Eat the slime ordered its thoughts. Eat blueberries. Eat food the slime wandered around, picking a bowl and a few blueberries with it. For now it was easy enough, it didn't know it yet, but limiting itself to nouns for things that it could see and touch made it comprehensible. Awkwardly resting on a seat, the slime left the bowl on the table, then picked up a blueberry and dropped it inside its mouth. Seat table. Blueberry bowl. Eat food tried to get together, having heard a few sentences from Emaline helped, but not too much. The next step was a bit harder. House. Wall. Roof the slime now had to work with the idea of a group of words forming a different one. It was already an odd notion for a being that was just one thing, one substance, while people seemed to be formed of many weird parts. Wall. Wall. Wall... the slime repeated, moving in a circle pointing at every wall as Emaline did. Wall. Roof. House it said. Blueberry. Eat. Food added, trying to reach the same conclusion. In the slime's mind there wasn't yet much difference between putting a roof on some walls to make it a house or eating some blueberries to make them food. Satisfied by the advances, Emaline's next lesson confused the slime. Pot it repeated. Understanding it wasn't hard. Pot. Pot echoed when Emaline left it besides another different pot. As much as the people outside, even if the differences were less striking or nuanced, the slime could understand that both things were a pot since they had more in common that they had different. Different pots were still a pot and different people were still people. It was the gestures that came next the ones harder. The slime knew that she wasn't referring to a thing, as Emaline was still focused on the pot. Was the pot full of that size she spoke about? But each pot had different stuff in it, maybe it was like the food and many things could be size. When Emaline added herself and the slime to the mix, for a moment it felt completely lost, since people and objects had little in common. Remembering the gesture she had made at the start, the slime thought that it had finally understood it, but wasn't sure. Bowl it said, emptying the last blueberries it had back to the basket. Getting close to the grain pot, the slime scooped a bunch of it with the bowl. Table. Seat repeated, returning to its spot back with the full bowl. Emptying its content on the table, the slime worked hard to make three different piles on the table. Bigger a finger tapped from the smallest one of the piles to the middle sized one. Bigger repeated, the finger moving from the middle sized one to the largest. Biggest this time the finger stood on the biggest pile of grain. Smaller. Smaller the slime said twice, the finger making the same trip backwards until it was at the beginning. Knowing what was bigger, biggest and smaller, the slime struggled to find a pattern. Smallest? it asked in the same questioning tone it had heard before from her. Bowl smaller basket. Table bigger seat the slime tried to use the newfound knowledge with the rest of the words. Blueberry smallest. House biggest added, trying to assign the proper size to the things it had learned.