Adventure the Third

[philip_charming]

[Coming back to the cottage from the battle with the statue, Philip took care of his horse Samson, moving on autopilot... then just slumped in a chair even as the horse flopped onto a carpet nearby.

Just give him a minute, he'll reach for the bandages soon... Right now, he'll just sit and stare at his battered and aching hands.]

I helped today. I know I did. Lives were saved by my actions; mine, and those of others. But what do you say to the people that died anyway?

What do you do, when your best just isn't good enough?

Comments

[knight-in-red.livejournal.com]

Unroll? [Hikaru tilts her head to the side.] No, evolve means to change over time. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly, or a bud to a flower.

[philip-charming.livejournal.com]

[Well, that IS the literal meaning of the Latin root-word, and considering Darwin was a good 500 years in the future, it's pretty likely he'd link it to the original and not the borrowed meaning. But he's willing to learn!]

Strange... it sounds almost exactly like what's done to a scroll. But they have an actual word for the flowering of a blossom?

[He's not really grasping the wider implications of the word just yet.]

[knight-in-red.livejournal.com]

Flowering of a blossom? [Tilts head to the side, seeing she was misunderstood.] That's not the actual meaning of evolve. That was just an example.

[Thinking of another way to put it. Philip, meet a teenage girl from the year 1994.] To evolve doesn't actually mean to grow, it's a slow change. Like when you use a sword often it starts to dull down over time. But evolving is usually to advance, improve or develop into something else. Like a novice evolving into a master. Something like that will take time and dedication. The road to becoming an expert is the evolving process that makes it possible for the novice to become a master.

[Thinking of it more.} Does that make any sense?

[philip-charming.livejournal.com]

[You DO realize he still thinks Earth is the center of the universe, right? But even so, he's still rather befuddled.]

Not particularly, no. I mean, that kind of change... Isn't it just growth? I'm not sure why you think there needs to be a special word for it.

[Because yeah, he kinda thinks she's coming up with this all on her own. And no matter how interesting the premise of her code words, are they really something for normal conversation with people outside the loop?]

[knight-in-red.livejournal.com]

[Oh my. Then it would be terribly difficult for Hikaru to explain. Terracentric seems so nonexistent.

She laughs nervously.] Sorry. I may not be the best person to answer this...

But there's a big reason for that word, but I'm sure you wouldn't understand it even if I told you.

[Video]

[philip-charming.livejournal.com]

[As opposed to Japan being 'The Land of the Gods' that was the only important part of the universe until around the 1860's?]

You could always give it a try. I wouldn't consider myself so terribly lacking in understanding.

[After all, he can READ! And WRITE! And do ARITHMETIC! Slowly, of course, he's no scribe or anything... but if you wanted to know 571 minus 238 and gave him a whole lot of paper, he'd eventually come out with an answer that stood a pretty good chance of being in the general vicinity of correct!

(All those Roman numerals, you know. Made math a real pain.)]