THE BOYS ARE TOO REFINED {OPEN!}

[DAPHNE SAPPHIRE CYPHER]

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From the moment she hugged her family goodbye, Daphne was determined to go exploring the campus and find a place to play some music. She knew there were a few pianos littered around the campus, in classrooms, the auditorium, and some place called the hub. Having discovered two of the three, it was time Daphne found herself the last. Leaving her dorm room and toting only a bag with a notebook, some pencils, and blank music sheets, Daphne set out on her mission to find this mysterious hub. It was currently dinner time, and Daphne enjoyed relative peace on journey of not-so-epic proportions.

God, did she wish there was someone to talk to.

Sure, she had met her new roommate, and she seemed okay, but so far, Daphne had made very few friends. She didn't know if she had scared people off, or annoyed them, or was just bad at making new friends. She'd known her old friends for so loooooooong, and it seemed just so... difficult to find new ones! It was awkward, embarrassing, especially when they made her introduce her powers. Among all of the shape-shifters, the telepaths, the psyonic blasters, here she was, an omniglot. All things considered, Daphne probably didn't even need to go to this school. It was so... weird!

Subconsciously, this was the reason why she was choosing now to explore. Daphne wanted to hide away a bit, to just chill and play some music. And huzzah! There was the hub, the lounge, and the sexy, sexy piano. There didn't seem to be another soul nearby... at least, no one Daphne could see right away. Ignoring the majority of her surroundings, Daphne seated herself at the piano and began to warm her little fingers up. It sounded fairly in tune, but unused... unloved. That would be changing soon.

It wasn't long before Daphne was singing, playing around with harmonies, and jotting stuff down in notebooks and on the music sheets. She was so in the zone, just belting it out, and making music.

...Probably wouldn't be that hard to scare distract her.

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[ABDUL-RAHMAN AL-JARKAS]

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Abdul-Rahman wished and hoped that he had made the right decision in leaving the colder climes of his North Caucasus. He would try to be discovered in this new place to which he had arrived. His language skills aided him in communicating with many people, but he was so alone here. He knew nobody and most everybody here was very different from him.

He started to sing a song in his head-"Salam aleykum, severnii kavkaz!" He did not know why he remembered this song. In one hand, he held a copy of the book published at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting this year in Las Vegas. It had every abstract that was read at this meeting. He could always simply start reading a few of these to continue his own self-education.

However, there was always the option of leaving this place. It was always a viable option. If he did that, where would he go? Back to Syria, a country locked in political turmoil with the potential overthrow of Bashar al-Assad? He supported his country's people in their efforts against al-Assad wholeheartedly, but the protests made travel difficult.

He simply went to the interior of this island that could perhaps serve as his self-imposed prison. He could attempt to find a chess set and some hopefully skilled opponents who he could play against. In a place like this, something like that could very well easily happen. He headed for the student hub.

He remembered reading the directory, which stated that there was another omniglot who stayed here. Could he become lucky enough to talk to somebody in Adyghe? He recalled her name as he read it on the page-Daphne Something. He figured that this attempt was close enough.

He remembered the page again and recognized the face. He walked up to this person who was indeed actually a stranger and asked, "Aren't you the other omniglot?" If he was wrong, he just looked like a complete fool.

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[DAPHNE SAPPHIRE CYPHER]

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At the sound of the young man's voice, Daphne promptly jumped and hit a sour chord on the piano. She paused before responding, and hit the chord again, "Ooh, that's kind of a weird dissonance..." She jotted down the notes on a page scrawled with such notes and notes ON the notes before responding to the boy. "Hello, there! I am, in fact, your friendly neighborhood omniglot. My name is Daphne Cypher, but, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you know that." Daphne smiled brightly, extending a hand. "Oooh, you said the other- are you an omniglot? Or do you know one? It's kind of nice that there's another one. I mean, if you are. Just... it's so weird being around all of these kids who can like, possess people or shoot acid out of their eyeballs and I can, like, speak fancy, maybe hack a computer."

Daphne stopped suddenly, and, still smiling, bit on the corner of her lip. "Sorry, I kind of... rant and ramble! Uhm, okay, new person, introductions. I guess the first thing would be to ask you your name, right?" She ran a hand through her hair, laughing lightly. "Sorry, I'm kind of rusty at this whole meeting new people thing. I just moved here, and it's the first place besides home that I've lived in." Daphne's cheeks gained a rosy pink hue, her somewhat indirect confession of homesickness (already!) embarrassing her ever so slightly. "But, hey, at least there are pianos here!" Her hands, unaware of what to do, immediately occupied themselves with Daphne's hair. There, they went to work braiding and un-braiding different sections of her hair. Daphne, meanwhile, hummed, waiting for a reply from the boy. That, or an excuse to talk some more.

Dahpne's mind, similar to her hands, was on its normal overdrive. Would it be rude to keep on playing piano? Or to write down some more lyrics? Should she invite the boy to sit down next to her? Or ask him about how he knew she was an omniglot? ... Hey, how did he know that? It took her brain a few moments to connect the dots. There was that student directory, somewhere, that Daphne had never bothered to look over in detail. After reading over the ridiculous powers, she just stopped. Because seriously. Freshmen that could create illusions in people's minds? Redonkulous, man. Hey, Daphne, pay attention to the kid right in front of you rather than the ones on paper.

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[ABDUL-RAHMAN AL-JARKAS]

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Whoever this person was clearly liked to talk a lot. Perhaps she was nervous. Abdul-Rahman didn't know. "It's okay, I rant a lot too. I'm really far from home. I'm Abdul-Rahman by the way," he said, shaking her hand. "I'm actually also an omniglot also. So, if you don't mind, can we speak in Adyghe from this point onward? It has been so long since I spoke to anybody in my native language," Abdul-Rahman said, hoping that this person knew his native language.

"Of course, if you can't speak Adyghe, we could talk in some other North Caucasian language. I'm just getting used to this place. Everybody is so different from me. It is simply very different from back home," Abdul-Rahman said, his mind flowing with a form of sentimentality. "I'm not exactly used to having people capable of doing so many, well, weird things. Perhaps that came out wrong," he said. He felt horrible at actually uttering such a statement. "And pianos are awesome. I had some limited experience back home, but not much. Also, do you play chess very well to any degree?" he asked.

He thought about what he was doing. He could simply go back to reading his abstracts or playing chess against himself. He was enough of a failure to do something like that. His mind drifted for several moments before he realized that he forgot to ask an important question. "I forgot-what is your name?" he asked, embarrassed that he forgot to ask such a question.

He hoped that this person here knew Adyghe. He had a finger on one page in the book of abstracts. He opened to that page to quickly glance over that page before looking up again. He seemed somewhat shocked. He shook his head to remind himself of where he was. He began to slightly kneel down.

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Read more: ENDOFASPARK.PROBOARDS.COM/INDEX.CGI?BOARD=LOUNGE&ACTION=POST&THREAD=192&PAGE=1#IXZZ1EV0QERQV

[DAPHNE SAPPHIRE CYPHER]

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Daphne snapped back to reality, her hand brushing against the piano keys once more. She smiled and scooted over to the edge of the piano bench. "Here, sit down!" She dragged her bag next to her legs, tossing in most of the pencils, pens, and notebooks she had strewn around. Daphne hummed a bit in thought. "Well, I've never spoken Adyghe, but if you start speaking it, I should be able to pick it up in no time!" Daphne was reining herself in, calming down her body and her tongue.

She chatted with Abdul-Rahman, pleasantly keeping up with him. "I know exactly what you mean about all of the kids here. It weirds me out quite a bit. Uhm... I know a bit about chess. I know, like, the basics, but I haven't played it much." Daphne perked up. "Ooh, maybe you can teach me some better strategies? I may not be much of a super-intellectual, hardcore partner, but it could still be fun!" She never seemed to stop smiling, but hey, it's Daphne we're talking about. "And then maybe I can teach you a bit more on the piano? Or... music in general?" Adopting a different facial expression, Daphne bit the inside of her lip in thought. She really wanted to have a new friend, but she was afraid of scaring him off.

Telling herself to calm down and be cool, Daphne took a deep breath and resumed her smile. "Oh, my name is Daphne. Daphne Cypher. And you said you're Abdul-Rahman, right? No problem. Noooo problem." Daphne decided to sit and wait for the boy -for Abdul-Rahman- to respond rather than blabbering on. She played a few soft tinks on the piano, sitting near the high range.

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[ABDUL-RAHMAN AL-JARKAS]

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Daphne just said that if Abdul-Rahman wanted, he could just start speaking in Adyghe and she would pick up the language in no time. He viewed this statement as license to simply start speaking. He waited several moments to gather his thoughts and then started to speak in Adyghe. "Well, teach me about music! I haven't been here long enough to truly experience the culture. What is the music like here?" he asked.

He sat down next to Daphne on the piano. "How do you actually have the capability of playing this instrument with only ten fingers? Also, I have a rather rudimentary knowledge of reading music; how do you determine if you have a flat key?" he asked. "Also, I'm not that intellectually advanced. I just happen to be a loser with no life. This is all just an unintended side effect," Abdul-Rahman said. His mind and jaws were now getting used to the different grammar and sounds of his native language.

"Also, how do you harmonize? Unfortunately, harmonizing is a skill that I never developed. Hopefully, I have the intelligence to learn it quickly," he said. He took his finger out of the crazy abstract book and set it on the floor. He was now fully concentrating on the task at hand-music in this country that he apparently now called home. He read about the subject at home, but it was not enough.

Just to close, he asked "Do you understand me? I can easily switch to just about any other language."

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[DAPHNE SAPPHIRE CYPHER]

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Daphne easily understood what Abdul-Rahman was saying. The speech pattern was, naturally, different, but her ears adjusted easily enough. Tentatively, Daphne matched the language, and she found it easy enough to convey what she wished to say. "Oh, I understand you well enough. Kind of fun to speak in, I like it." Daphne was beaming at all of Abdul-Rahman's questions. She loved it. Music was something that should be shared, and Daphne was pleased to do it.

"Oh, wow, now you're starting to talk a bit like me! Music here is... Well, it's certainly varied. You can find every genre possible, though certain types of people like certain types of music. I love it all. What's it like where you come from?" Daphne paused, humming, then began to address the boy's questions. "The piano's an instrument pretty much anyone can play, even without all ten fingers. You move your hands to hit different notes, and when you sit in the middle, you can reach the entire range of it." Daphne demonstrated a bit, reaching as far as she could without awkwardly reaching over Abdul-Rahman. "Reading music is a bit trickier, but that comes more with practice. In fact, there are plenty of people who never learn how to read music. They play it simply by ear."

Shifting her playing pattern into a series of scales, Daphne began to talk a bit about the theory of music. "As much as it's an art, music is also a science. The distance between two notes is what causes different feelings to the listener. Keys reflect that- by changing the series of whole and half-steps, you can make something more or less intense. See, when I play this scale this way, it sounds 'happy', but when I play it THIS way, it sounds sadder, doesn't it?" Daphne chose to not go into which key had x amount of flats or sharps, but she continued to address the other questions Abdul-Rahman had. "That's also how you play into harmonies. See, when I play a major chord -once again, that bright, happy sound, I can match my voice to any one of the notes. Or, alternatively, I can add in another note." Daphne hummed accordingly. "There's a lot of music theory you can read about or discover, but it's also about going with what feels right, you know?"

Continuing to go through scales and arpeggios, Daphne chose to address one final thing. "And just so you know, book smarts don't really apply here. Lord, if I can be a piano player and music writer, you certainly can." Subtle digs at her intelligence beside, Daphne dug out one of her music notebooks and flipped to a page with a song written on it, the notebook lines serving as a sloppy music staff. "See, here, this is one of the songs I'm working on." Setting the open notebook up so that she could easily read it, Daphne began to play through the piece. She paused after a few seconds, repeating a chord several times. "You hear how that sounds kind of... wrong? That's dissonance. Aaaand theeenn..." Daphne played the next chord in the song. "It resolves itself, properly titled resonance. There's all kinds of stuff you can explore in music and songs and whatnot."

[OOC: If you want to check more stuff out, there's all kinds of junk on youtube. Here's one on major/minor scales and keys, and here's one on dissonance. Another note: I do not play piano, but I play stand-up bass and I really really enjoy music theory. :D I'm a neeeerd.]

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[ABDUL-RAHMAN AL-JARKAS]

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"Well first, wow. I actually need to listen to a song in a given language before I can speak it to any degree of fluency. But you, you just picked it up with just me speaking it! Incredible!" Abdul-Rahman said, impressed by a display of polyglotism much greater than he could even begin to comprehend. He always figured that picking up a language after just hearing a song in it was somewhat impressive, but this was truly incredible.

"I always figured that music was much more mathematics than it was science per se. Picking up music by ear is a skill that I never developed. I've had my fair share of music theory, but I haven't remembered much. As you just said, much of this is truly from the heart and also one of the few universal languages," he said.

"Where do you generally get your inspiration?" Abdul-Rahman asked. "What do you plan on doing later in life, may I ask, if it isn't too personal?" He listened intently to the general harmony of notes as it seemed to smother him like a wave.

ooc: I already know a lot of this stuff. Being in the school choir every year but this year and taking personal voice lessons does have its side effects.

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[DAPHNE SAPPHIRE CYPHER]

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Daphne's cheeks became rosy with the praise. "Oh, well, you know, it's just my power working overtime... Because, you know, it's been growing and stuff and I'm concentrating." Daphne hummed in thought. "So you learn your languages from music? That's really cool! I don't think I can do that, actually. I mean, I've never really tried, but it's a lot harder for me to just... focus, you know?"

Daphne sighed in contentment. Her fingers began cramping up, though, and she took a small break, turning to face Abdul-Rahman better. "My inspiration, hmm?" Daphne took a moment to think and compose an answer. She massaged her hands in the meanwhile, and suddenly the room felt much more empty without the piano playing. "Well, that's hard to say. Like, a lot of the time it can just be my emotions or whatever's happening in in my life. It's totally why most of my love songs suck- I've never been in a real relationship except for like really brief hookups and those aren't great song material unless you get really creative. But experiences are more for writing lyrics and songs for my band... When I'm alone and just improvising or whatever, I think I usually... just... go with it." Daphne shrugged. "It's hard to explain."

Her phalanges sufficiently massaged, Daphne resumed playing and continued talking. "Oh, I really, really want to be a musician. I have a band, back home, and we've played in places, but it's hard being away from them and stuff. But, should that fail, and I really hope it doesn't, I've pretty much set my sights on being a teacher. I don't know what I'll teach, or who I'll teach it to, but I think it's something that would suit me, you know? What about you?" Daphne smiled, feeling very warm and content. "Any other questions before you start teaching me chess?" She winked with the question.

[OOC: Ha ha, okay! I'll prolly be bsing it from now on, then, just to make my posts a bit more manageable. But man, I'm a big music nerd <333]

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[ABDUL-RAHMAN AL-JARKAS]

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"Me? I've got nothing special planned. I hope on becoming a self-taught paleontologist. On the side, I want to actually become a great chess player. I have International Master ranking, but that's it. Maybe one day I'll be rated higher than Magnus Carlsen," Abdul-Rahman said in regards to his future. He suddenly thought back to his busy life in actually learn these things and winced inwardly. Players like Aronyan or Carlsen were indeed prodigies; how could some guy like Abdul-Rahman ever reach that level? Self-teaching took some discipline that he tried hard to acquire.

"Learning a language through music seems like the most stable way to learn it-at least to me. I actually get a sense of the correct grammatical structures. That's just the way I learn," Abdul-Rahman said.

"Chess? You want me to teach you chess?" Abdul-Rahman stammered. Trying to teach any bit of opening theory simply became very complicated very quickly. Could he think of a question quickly? His mind blanked out.

"Do you mind if I speak in Kyrgyz for a bit for research purposes?" he asked. He suddenly got a whim to try to reconstruct proto-Turkic.

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