Lissa would never say it out loud and she was really glad that Rose couldn’t feel her emotions anymore, but every time she saw Rose’s father she felt a twinge of jealousy always crept its way in. Lissa was usually really good at pushing it away, she just had so much she wanted to tell her father, talk to him about but that wasn’t going to happen so she pushed the twinge away as her pale green eyes fell to look at her friends' father.
“Abe,” she greeted with a smile standing up from where she’d been sitting at Footsteps reading a book. Putting her book down in front of her and marking the place it was a language book, focusing on blending languages and strange translations, after her time in space she was curious about what exactly was coming next. “Would you care to join me?” It was thunder storming out but strangely the sun would peek through every few moments.
Usually at some point in the late afternoon, as the sun started to go down, Abe would take a walk around downtown to stretch his legs. Today was no different and despite the possible threat of a storm, he still ventured out for a walk. The sun hadn’t completely set, so there were still some pockets of sun every now and then, but it wasn’t high enough in the sky to bother him. Deciding to stop in one of the local shops, he soon saw Lissa reading at one of the tables near the window.
“Of course,” he said and sat down across from her. Of all the possible friends his daughter could have made, Abe could hardly think of a better one to have than Lissa Dragomir. It certainly was an advantage (to him) that she was also the Queen back in their homeworld, but she was also someone he liked and respected.
“Some light reading?” He asked and pointed to the book she had with her. It didn’t seem like anything he would have guessed to find her reading, but perhaps there was more to the book than met the eye.
Smiling as he sat down across from her she nodded with a small laugh. “I was curious about the message we from the strange space spa trip.”
Lissa looked back down at the book. “I was just curious about the implications and the psychology behind mixing languages together to send a message.” If anything else Lissa always wanted to understand the whys to why something was done. “It just seemed like an odd choice to me.”
Abe hadn’t necessarily been expecting that answer, but it was definitely a more interesting one than he would have thought. “What exactly was the message again? Were there specific languages involved?” While he was only fluent in three, maybe four, Abe knew bits and pieces of a handful of other languages from his travels. Enough to ask directions and order a proper meal.
“Atlantis reasoning can sometimes be in a league of its own, so discerning the meaning behind the message may take some time. Is there anything I can do to help?” He didn’t always know much about what was going on in command, but he liked to think that his mind was still sharp enough to possibly narrow down a meaning of the message.
"There were a lot of languages, Korean, Galician, Bulgarian, Hawaiian, among others. The translations from what I could gather weren't all exactly correct either, but that isn't too surprising." Lissa looked down at the note she had handing it over to him.
"Coidado du репликатори 아르 kokoke бір мың kaksisataa katreven kat oriau ar shiúl."
"I'm not sure they were actually from Atlantis, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit of course. Atlantis does have a way of surprising us." She smiled softly. "I'd be happy for some help, or a second opinion."
Abe took the note and studied it closely. Some words he recognized, some he could understand root words, some he could identify the language but didn't speak it, and some he couldn't place at all. His eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher what was there. Someone had worked hard to make sure it wasn't easily understood.
Most of the words he knew from his business dealings over Europe, but the first phrase he knew from personal experiences in parts of Spain. He'd grown mostly fluent in both Galician and Spanish because of it. “Be careful,” the note started. The next he knew was a Slavic language, but there were so many variations. “Clones?” He looked over at her and shook his head. Be wasn't sure about that one and didn't think it was quite right.
“I can also recognize a number - one thousand, I believe -, and this here is Korean, but I'm not familiar with much of the written language.” The rest he didn't know and handed the note back to her. “Regardless, it begins saying to be careful. I suppose that is not very comforting, is it?”
"The Bulgarian," she pointed to the репликатори, "translates to replicators." She knew some Slavic languages because of where her family was from and the languages had a good deal of similarity when it came to some words.
"Be careful is never a good sign, I figure the teams at base are working on it, I am more curious as to why they would choose to send such a message and why they'd put it in some many different languages, they're all earth languages too which has to mean something." Lissa frowned slightly as she looked down.
"It feels like there has to be something, but maybe I'm overthinking it." She offered looking up.
“Replicators,” he said thoughtfully. Clones was close as far as its literal meaning, he supposed, and he wasn’t sure what it meant by replicator. It sounded too specific for it to have some general meaning. “Yes, I’m sure that the others at the base are working on it and will figure out what the meaning is.” Sometimes he thought about taking a job at the base in order to have more information about what was going on, but so far he preferred the life he was leading here.
“Does anyone know exactly who sent the message?” He knew that she’d received it when they’d disappeared into space a short time ago, but he didn’t know anything beyond that about what happened. “That may give some more insight into what it means.”
Lissa liked her position as a diplomat although sometimes she didn’t feel like she was able to do enough with it, there were a handful of them but she wasn’t really sure where else she’d fit. She hoped she could be more useful.
“All we know is the aliens who took us to the spa delivered the message, I tried asking questions but they weren’t exactly keen on answering them. I’m hoping someone would know who they were but from what I’ve gathered so far that isn’t the case.”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask for aliens to be up front with their cryptic, coded messages, yes?” He smiled a bit but there wasn’t a lot of humor in his words. If the message was meant to be taken seriously then there seemed to be a particular seriousness about it. A warning.
“At the very least, we know that it’s best to be cautious for a while. Regardless if what’s in the message comes to fruition, it doesn’t hurt to be on the careful side until they’re able to understand the message.”
Smiling softly she understood the balance of wanting to laugh about it but also the potential for the seriousness of it. Lissa was more worried about the implications of understanding the full meaning of the note, not just the translation but the way of using all earth languages.
“With things here, cautious is second nature I think, which is good given the place we find ourselves in but I hope someday we’re all able to relax a little bit.” Lissa knew that wasn’t likely anytime soon though.
“One day,” Abe said with a small nod. Sometimes during the calms between the storms it was easy to forget their situation in Atlantis and the reason they were all there in the first place. It was true that there would always be troubles in life but not always in the middle of this war.
“I’ll see about doing some research on my own, and I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.” He wasn’t sure if he could find out anything or not, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. “If you need anything, please let me know?” He asked as he stood up from the table to leave.
“I will, thank you.” Lissa told him with a smile as she got back into her research.