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English
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Gentronweek
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Published:
2020-08-06
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1,591
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1/1
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25
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138
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How to Count to Thirty

Summary:

Counting proves harder than one would expect. There is a “how many paladins” joke in there somewhere.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

Allura doesn’t venture into this part of the ship often. She keeps mostly to the bridge and the mess and the crew quarters, where the new paladins mostly stay as well. Slowly, they’re making those parts of the castle theirs. There are boxes of spices tucked into the corners of the mess counters now, with recipes scribbled on the data terminal. The tables and shelves of the recreation areas are gradually accumulating whatever tchotchkes mysteriously appeal to Earth sensibilities - cheap toys and puzzles, brightly colored stones, a pair of (discarded and thankfully cleaned) urusk exoskeletons. Even on the bridge, there are jackets slung over seats and discarded cups left by crew stations. It blunts the edges of the ship a little, breathes life into the old rooms and leaves little space for ghosts.

Untouched by the paladins, the ship’s archive feels like a tomb.

She used to come down here when she was feeling homesick. The lights are a warmer hue down here, and the wall panels are patterned in pretty, classical flower-and-maze motifs. There are tiny, glass-filled look-through holes at the tops and bottoms of the doors to let good luck in and bad luck out, and the index assistant is programmed with a slight Capital accent. She used to sit in the false sun and let her fingers trace through the wall panel mazes she while read read her letters until she missed Altea a little less.

Now, only she and Coran know to pass a finger over the look-though hole at the top of the door when entering or remember what the trick is to spying the right path in the flower-and-maze designs. There’s probably no place like the archive left in all the universe. Like them, it’s the last of its kind.

But they’re headed for a new system, and she would be remiss not to do some research. So she swallows her discomfort and marches down the hall to the central hub, a hand trailing along the panels. One or two quick queries, and then she’ll head back to the inhabited parts of the ship.

A noise coming from one of the closed doors catches her attention and she stops in her tracks. She can pick out a faint voice rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern. It’s Pidge - she can tell that much, but she can’t imagine what Pidge would be doing down here. She hesitates a second and then steps closer.

“…twelve, thirteen, fourteen, twosixesthree-crap. Fifteen! I mean fifteen!” 

It takes her a moment to understand why Pidge sounds so strange, and then she makes the connection and her eyes go wide. Without thinking, she runs a thumb over the look-through hole and palms the door open.

“Pidge?”

The counting stops. “Allura?” There’s a scuffling noise and Pidge’s head pokes out from behind a bench at approximately knee-level.

She picks her way over, past shelves of storage and a round-shouldered display unit. Pidge is seated on the floor in a reading nook at the back of the room, a stack of datapads next to her. Your First Course in Standard Altean! reads the one on the top of the pile.

Allura blinks. “Are you… trying to learn Altean?” she asks softly. She feels strangely disoriented.

Pidge grimaces. “Trying.”

She takes in the scribbled notes covering the tablet in front of her. “Ah.”

To her surprise, Pidge ducks her head and glances away. “All the writing on the castle’s Altean.”

Oh. Oh, of course. “I see,” she says.

Pidge fidgets a little in place. “I’ll stop if you want me to,” she says in a rush. “I don’t want to overstep or intrude or anything. It just seemed useful.”

Allura’s breath catches and something aches and swells in her chest. “No, no, of course not! Please keep learning, if you like.” She smiles, a little painfully but genuinely. “It’s nice to hear someone else speak it.”

Pidge exhales a rush of breath. “Good.”

There’s a small silence. Allura takes in the scattered datapads again and hesitates. “I heard you earlier. Is it… not going well?”

She groans and seems to deflate, slumping back against the bench. “It was. But then I got to counting. Ugh, why is your number system so weird?”

It startles a laugh out of her. “I had never noticed. Can I help?”

Pidge throws up her hands in a gesture that she’s learned to read as exasperation. “Why does it jump back and forth between base five and base six? I can only count up to twenty-four and it’s already confusing. What happens when I get to thirty? Do I pick the five version or the six version?”

She laughs. “You can pick either. People use… used them both. A number that divides into both six and five is supposed to be lucky.” She kneels down on the other side of the nook across from Pidge. “I suppose it would be confusing if you’re not used to it. Does your language count differently?”

“Yeah. English counts in base ten.” She holds up her hands, fingers spread, and wiggles them. “Base five is pretty common too. I think there are some languages out there with other bases, but most human cultures tend to count on their fingers, so it’s much rarer.” She frowns contemplatively. “I don’t know of any with mixed bases.”

Allura hums. “I imagine it must be because most alteans prefer to have five or six fingers to a hand.”

Pidge stares. “No way. Are you kidding me?” She looks both delighted and fascinated.

She finds herself smiling back. “Not at all. There are some children’s counting games… let me see.” She considers, then holds out a hand, five-fingered.

“A flower for my hand
Two for my table
Three for my hair
Four for your cradle
Five for the wind
Six for the song
Seven for the road
Eight for those gone
Nine for the sun
Ten for the city
Eleven for the king
And twelve for the pity!”

On each number, she curls a finger down. When she gets to six, she focuses and brings out another stiff, short finger on her other hand. She counts down on this hand as well. On ten, she lets the new finger go loose and numb, shrinking down into nothing, and opens her hands again. She brings out another finger for eleven, and then on twelve, she holds both hands up in front of her, all twelve fingers spread. When it’s done, her hands feel warm and stretchy, loose in the joints. She lets out a breath and shakes them out, lets them go back to her usual five digits. “Whew. It’s been a long time since I did that.”

Pidge is watching raptly, eyes wide behind her glasses. “Cool. Gross, but cool.”

Allura blinks. “Thank you, I suppose?”

“No, no, it really is cool! I’d just never thought through the implications of being able to do that.” 

Allura smiles. “I’ve heard six fingers was fashionable in my grandmother’s day. I prefer five, myself.”

“Cool,” whispers Pidge again under her breath. After a moment, she looks up and tilts her head to the side. “Are there a lot of counting games like that? With the…” she holds up her hands and wriggles her fingers.

Allura smiles. “A great many. They’re supposed to help small children learn to change their shape.” She watches Pidge curiously. “What about Earth?” she asks after a moment. “Do you have counting games also?”

“Definitely.” Pidge frowns. “I don’t know too many of them, though.” She considers, then clears her throat and awkwardly holds her fist out in front of her.

“One pateitou, two pateitou, three pateitou, four,
Five pateitou, six pateitou, seven pateitou, more!”

With each count, she puts one fist on top of the other. At the end, she throws her hands up into the air. Allura claps, and Pidge takes a bow. “That’s the only kid’s counting game I know. There’s some clapping games too, but I’m no good at those.”

“Oh! We have those as well. I always liked them.” She considers, and hesitates a moment. “Forgive my asking, but… what is a pateitou?”

Something about this question sends Pidge absolutely hysterical with laughter. Allura looks on bemusedly while she guffaws. Eventually, Pidge trails to a stop, wiping her eyes.

“It’s… it’s a food. From a plant. They’re kind of round and ugly-looking, but they’re really good when they’re prepared right.”

“Ah. I see.” She doesn’t really - she’s not sure what exactly about the pateitou question is so amusing, but she supposes some things simply don’t translate.

“Can you teach me?” says Pidge suddenly. “Some of the counting games? I can’t do the finger-thing, obviously, but maybe it’ll help?”

She feels a smile cross her face like dawn breaking over the horizon. “Of course.” She thinks a moment, and holds her hands out, palms up. “Here, this one is for two people. Put your hands over mine.”

Carefully, Pidge hovers her hands over Allura’s. “Like that?”

“Yes, exactly! Now repeat after me.”

Pidge nods solemnly, already watching her fingers.

“One, two, I wish for a day,” she recites, tapping her fingers on Pidge’s palms. She nods, and Pidge hesitantly repeats, fingers lightly dropping against her wrists. “Yes, exactly! Now, three, four, and a land far away.”

Pidge’s voice follows hers, her accent, strange and soft on the consonants, rebounding off the flower-and-maze panels and ringing out through the still, bright air of the archive. Allura smiles and takes a breath for the next verse.

Notes:

Gentron 2020, promp "cultural exchange".

Probably not accurate to canon altean shapechanging, but I feel like if you can grow a couple of feet on demand, you can probably make some extra fingers.

The mixed-base numbering system originated as an administrative compromise between dialects which regionally used base five or base six and was adopted into common use for convenience in standardized Altean. Altean cultures had numerous complex fingercounting systems which were notoriously confusing to outsiders. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

My tumblr is here if you want to talk at me.