Mythical Beings and Creatures
I sketch and colour various plants and animals native to Asgard on a few pieces of white, moderately thick parchment that Atlanta calls “good printing paper.” This activity is usually the purview of young children and women of all ages, but a bruised pride that nobody in Asgard will have to know is worthy as part of my repayment, in my opinion.
It is also worth the glowing joy and wonderment that almost instantly appear on Atlanta’s dusky face as she peruses the results, I admit.
“You are not from here, are you? Earth, I mean,” she writes on the piece of “paper” that we used in the first time we communicated through writing. She looks calm, non-confrontational, curious, and I can sympathise with the interest glimmering in her eyes, so I sign her a “Yes.”
“Where are you from?” she signs back; one of the sentences that she managed to teach me before we were derailed by other topics and concerns.
I hesitate, and not because the answer would be hard to spell out in her signage.
“Far,” I reply, at last, before purposefully telling her about Asgard’s inhabitants, flora and fauna, without giving her most of the names.