Communication Barrier

Robin was busy, spinning in one of Theta's console chairs, as she was quite often these days. While waiting for whatever it was that Theta did in between trips that wasn't sleeping, she found herself drawn to them. They were spinny and she decided she was going to set a record somehow. Or at least beat Theta at it. Because that she felt was slightly more possible. 

As she was spinning, a sharp crack sounded behind her, making her jump and turn back to where the noise came from. On the other side of the console, something seemed to be smoking. 

Oh, now that wasn't good.

"Theta! I don't know how to fix things so get back over here!" She shouted, sprinting over pointlessly to see if there was, in fact, something she could do to stop it from being this broken. All she noticed was a little box shaped thing, and a big split down the middle, with sparks flying every which way - a thing she did not notice while spinning wildly 10 seconds ago. "Theta!" Robin huffed, stumbling dizzily towards the corridor she remembered him going down a while ago and trying to figure out which room he stopped in. 


////////so this is the worst intro but tbh this has less of a plot and more of a "let's mess around and break stuff" feel to it//

((let's try it anyways and see where it goes? no harm in trying, it's all for fun anyways lol
also, italics are gallifreyan, just so ya know ))

"I am going to learn how to cook if it kills me"

Theta stared intently at the ingredients for oatmeal raisin cookies lying out on the counter, which, unsurprisingly, were not fazed by his stare "and that's why you have to cooperate, okay? Eggs, don't get shell in the bowl, baking soda, don't explode the oven this time..."

Theta took a deep breath to prep himself, moving towards the cook book splayed out on the counter next to the ingredients. He'd been a little put off that Robin had gotten him a cookbook for his birthday a few weeks back, but after a while he had admitted that yes, a cook book was probably the best way to learn how to make edible food... better than his 'I'm winging it' had been. So, he was giving it a try, kitchen watch out.

"...I'll never understand cooking" the book was, as he looked at it, indecipherable (at best); Theta had thought Robin had gotten him a beginner's cook book, but apparently not, if he couldn't even know what it said, being so laced with cooking jargon! The numbers made sense, but for whatever was after the numbers, as well as the blocks of text on the page... he didn't even recognize some of those symbols! Glaring at the book defiantly, Theta searched desprately for any familiar word, any familiar symbol that would tell him the secrets of cooking, with no avail. He slammed the book shut and looked helplessly up at the ceiling.

"Is there any way you can translate cooking? Please?"

Robin raised an eyebrow, hearing some kind of muttering from the kitchen. Pushing the door open, she smirked a little to find Theta had attempted cooking again. The baking soda though... She wasn't entire sure it was used for baking, in all honesty, but she could be wrong. It wasn't like she knew how to cook either.

No, wait. Broken console. Worry about baked goods later.

"Theta, something busted on the control panel. Promise it wasn't me this time. Probably," She shrugged, pretty sure it was actually her. "Might be important. You should come fix it before that gas gets everywhere. Not sure if it's toxic." She leaned against the doorway, just waiting to hear that accusatory tone that he should stop leaving her in the console room alone and that those chairs were a bad idea, yada yada.

"Oh hey Robin"

Theta gave a small wave, moving towards the bowl on the counter and figuring, 'this shouldn't be too hard to figure out, even without a cook book; it's just cookies after all!'.

He was just about to crack the first egg into the bowl, half listening to what Robin was saying, before realizing just how much he should be listening to her words. Or, rather, lack of words; Robin was talking, and that was certainly her voice, but she wasn't speaking sentences, per say. She was... jibberishing, and some of the noises she was making sounded kind of like words, though he was certain she didn't mean the words she was saying. After all, how could 'dolphin' and 'Moscow' be used in the same sentence together? Theta set the egg in the bowl gently and turned to her, concern etched on his face.

"What happened?? Did some telepathic alien come on board and mess up your speech?" but no, she would be more concerned and panicky about something like that. He hoped, at least "Did you eat something you weren't supposed to? I told you to always look at the labels to see if there any things dangerous to humans in them!"

Robin frowned, taken a bit aback by the sudden seriousness to Theta's speech. That, and the fact that this clearly wasn't English. Stepping out of the doorway and into the room, brows furrowed in concern, she tried to think of a logical reason he was doing this. "You know I'd take this as a joke, but you sound like you're trying to say something important. Which... makes me wonder why you're not speaking English. Need a reminder? Earth. Human. UK. English. Now come help me fix this thing, whatever it is." Robin motioned for him to follow her, keeping her eyes locked on him over her shoulder as he started to leave. 



////not the most exciting reply, but i mean... uegh.. >_>//

Theta blinked, not understanding a word of what Robin had said but 'Earth' and 'Human', though what surprised him was that the words weren't translated into Gallifreyan like they usually were, but in English. Thank Omega he'd remembered those two words from that once time that he'd tried to learn English, though it had only been about a week's worth of learning, before Kos had butted in and convinced him to learn Judoon with him, instead. He wasn't sure how many words there were in English, but he doubted the few he remembered faintly would be of any help.

"So, uh" Theta fumbled as we walked after his companion, not knowing what to say when Robin couldn't understand him, but having the desire to attempt to speak anyways "How did this happen? ...obviously the translator broke but" he sighed in frustration "Oh screw it you can't understand a word I'm saying anyways. Unless, wait, waitwait! I have an idea! It'll only be a second. Just in case fixing this takes longer than expected" just in case she didn't understand (which she probably didn't), he gestured for Robin to follow him.

Theta took a left into a hallway they were passing, striding briskly down a few doors till he got to a heavy pair of oak ones, little vine carvings crawling along the sides. Theta grinned at Robin as he pushed at the heavy doors of the library to open.

"Human" he pointed to Robin's face, trying to get her to understand that we was saying English in the best way he could, since he had forgotten the word for that. He then pointed at himself "Gallifrey. I can can get a translations book! It'll be easier to communicate that way" he pantomimed a book then waited, watching to see if she understood.

Robin raised an eyebrow, following the Time Lord towards some... well, some rather pretty doors, she must admit. This was the library or something, right? It'd been a while since she'd bothered coming down this way. She watched and refrained from giggling as her poor friend tried to explain something to her in his wacky alien language. Crossing her arms, she took in what he said the best she could, noting the uh... he was miming a book, right? Probably miming a book. Would make sense, considering the library. 

"Alright, then, a book. Works for me. Better than nothing, I suppose, and.... Why am I bothering talking if you can't understand it?" Shrugging to herself, Robin nodded for Theta to go on, having absolutely no clue where it was they'd find this book. She waved her hand in the direction of the door.

Satisfied that Robin had understood him at least partially so, Theta moved into the library, making a beeline towards the non-fiction section. Which was... actually most of the library, but then again it wasn't that big of a library. He scanned the shelves, eyes dancing in confusion at all the strange symbols on the ends of books, which, with the translator, would have been comprehensible titles. It was rather off putting; he couldn't even read his own books! (no wonder the cook book had been so confusing).

After a few moments of searching, he was lucky enough to stumble upon what he was looking for; a Gallifreyan-English Dictionary. It obviously didn't have all of the Gallifreyan language, and he wasn't sure about English, but it was a fairly large book, even with thin pages and a paper back.

"Hm, okay, first things first..." Theta flipped open the front cover, making his way back to where Robin was. The title was written three three times; once in Gallifreyan, once in English, and once with Gallifreyan symbols but with English pronunciation. He showed the titles off to his companion proudly.

"Gallifreyin-Ingliss, uh" Theta looked back at the title to figure out what the last word was "Dishinary"

(that was too much fun to write, that last part XD)

Robin snorted at the butchered pronunciation, giggling into her hand for quite some time before she caught her breath and pointed at the English title as she read it out for him. "Gallifreyan EngliSH DICtionary," she laughed, putting emphasis on the corrections. Tugging the book from his hands, she skimmed the pages carefully looking for something to alert him to the possible emergency in the console room. Of course, she wasn't about to figure out a whole sentence for him. Too much time. Frowning as she nearly skipped the word, she turned it back around and put it in his hands, pointing a tad frantically at the English word "smoke" and its Gallifreyan partner, gesturing back towards the console and looking up at him with raised eyebrows.

Theta looked at Robin, slightly offended at her giggling. English wasn't an easy language, and at least he'd communicated... sort of correctly? He rolled his eyes at her, smiling in amusement as he thought about how bad he must've sounded without the translator.

"Yes, yes laugh at the poor Timelord will ya'" Still smiling, Theta looked down at the word Robin had pointed out to him. And stopped smiling immediately; he looked back up at his companion, rather panicked and already moving towards the door "Smoke?? I mean, smoke? Why didn't you say so??" By the time he had finished the sentence, he was already in the hallway and running for the console room, not checking to see if Robin was behind him.

He could see what she meant, as soon as he made it to the room; a small black box on the console, the translation cicuit, was cracked down the middle and smoking rather badly. And as he jumped up the steps and neared the damaged box, he could see that there was getting to be a mini puddle of conductor water around it, slowly spreading as time went on. He set the book down on the floor and darted forward, fishing an old oil rag out of his pocket and trying to mop up the puddle.

"No, no, this isn't good. The tubes must've been overloaded" he glared in the direction of a school of the fish, who were swimming around innocently "I like having you in here, but can't you just do your job correctly?"

The water was starting to soak through the rag, now, and starting to burn his hands as he held it there. He had to patch up the tube, quickly. In his panic, he forgot that the circuit that had busted was, in fact, the translation circuit.

"Robin! Could you get me some towels and a 10mm wrench? It's kind of important" Theta hissed as the water got on his hands more, and he was forced to pull away. He frantically digged around in his pockets for something else to stop the water flow "Robin?"

Robin dashed after Theta, relieved something was finally getting done about this. It was probably a miracle nothing had exploded yet, anyway. Maybe. She didn't know how this thing worked. When she got there, though, she was thrown a rather unexpected flurry of Gallifreyan. She blinked, really hoping he didn't expect her to respond to any of that. Instead, she moved over towards the leak and frowned, crossing her arms and trying to keep calmer than Theta was. She really didn't have any clue as to how bad his panic was, right now.

"Human. English."

Theta blinked up at Robin, remembering the language barrier they had between them. Muttering in annoyed Gallifreyan to himself, he went to retrieve the book from where he'd dropped it on the floor; as quickly as he could, while still keeping a nervous eye on the leakage, Theta flipped through the book.

It wouldn't be the end of the world if the leakage spread more, but it could possibly burn through what remaining wires there were in the translator, meaning they'd have to go get a new one, without the help of a working translator, which would be fairly difficult to achieve. Not to mention, it might get into other circuits, too. Not that the ones around the translator were that important; they were just the communication circuits for contacting other ships. It's not like breaking those would pose any immediate threat to their safety. He found the words.

"Taweles, no no, towels. Uh, Many" he glanced back at the leakage; it was still smoking, that was good. That meant there were still wires in there "And I'll get the wrench I suppose"

Robin nodded warily, very unclear if that last sentence was intended for her. She hoped it wasn't because she had nothing to go on. "Alright. Many towels. Good plan," She nodded with a frown, running off towards uh.. Well the only place she knew to have towels was the bathroom, but she needed those. Whatever, they'd get replaced later, hopefully. 

It wasn't long until she was returning to the console room, a stack of folded towels in her arms from her chest to the top of her head. That counted as many, right? She figured out of all the things she could be doing to help, this was the one that involved the least possibility to screw things up. Then again, what good were these towels if the leak wasn't fixed? It wasn't like blood, it wasn't going to clot. Then again, this was a living machine.... Shaking her head, she got on her knees and pressed one of the towels against some of the water, yanking her hands back with a yelp at the burn she received because of it. Right, alien water. Burning alien water. Great. Sighing, she carefully dragged the sopping towel out of the way and grabbed another - leaving it folded this time. Much better plan.

Satisfied Robin would bring back some towels to help stop the water from getting anywhere, Theta hurried off to the tools room; it was fairly simple to find the wrench he needed (Lady kept things organized, thank Omega, this place would be a black hole without her), in the drawer where all the other wrenches of its type were kept. As fast as he could, he started back to the console room.

Robin was already there when he arrived, trying to soak up the water with the towels. That was a good thing, just... she was getting burned. Hopping up the steps, he glanced at her burnt hands worriedly.

"Robin, perhaps I should do that. Uh, I mean. Gallifreyan, Towels? No Earth" moving forward with a towel and the wrench, he started to work on some of the bolts around the translator box; luckily, they had retained shape enough to have the wrench work on them. Sighing at the mess he was sure he was going to see, Theta lifted the box off the console and set it to the side, and grabbing a handful of towels, he set a bunch in front of the small tube that had been feeding to the box. Then, he took the box, and looked inside.

Normally, the translator would have many tiny water tubes in it, so small they were like wires, with little circuit boards and alien devices connected to the tubes. But now, the interior of the translator was a complete mess; there was water dripping down from the top, dribbling through the melted tubes with a sizzling sound and falling upon the other side of the box. He frowned, glancing over at Robin. The translator was broken, that was for sure. And that meant they'd have to get a new one. This was bad

...You just try buying a new translator from someone who you didn't share any language ties with.

Robin huffed, extremely confused by his broken English. At least he was trying, which was more than could be said for her. From what she got - mostly by his actions - he really didn't want her using these towels. And why was that? Sure she was no good at fixing things but she could certainly drag a piece of cloth around the floor. "Yes, Earth," She argued, grabbing another folded towel and carefully mopping up the best she could. Had to admit, the burns didn't feet too great. And last she checked this stuff was toxic and perhaps she should be doing something about that. But all the same, what was done was done and she was going to help. Somehow.

But it was pretty clear that the mopping up was rather useless.

"I, uh. Don't know why I'm bothering to talk, hang on," Robin moved to grab the dictionary, skimming through to try and find a word that was useful. Wasn't fun handling the paper, though. Maybe she should grab some bandages from the medbay. Would bandages help? Oh, here was something. "Oh how the hell do you pronounce Gallifreyan? Whatever, Earth heelp?" She knew for a fact she had to be screwing that up, and figured holding up the page and pointing at the word was a better idea. So she did that, too.

Theta snorted in amusement at Robin's botched attempt at Gallifreyan ('not that you're doing any better with English', his mind annoyingly reminded him), grabbing a whole handful of the towels and setting them on and around the leak to soak up the water.

"Earth no help... toow-towels"

Theta stumbled through the English as best as he could, glancing worriedly at the damage that had already been done to Robin's hands. His weren't that much better, but they'd probably heal faster, without the radiation from the water screwing with everything. Speaking of... Theta really hoped Robin wouldn't get radiation poisoning. That'd be bad enough under normal circumstances, but without a working translator it'd be hard to let her know what was happening. It'd probably be best to get the translator as quickly as possible, then check to make sure the radiation wasn't going to damage her hands at all. He took the book from Robin, quickly flipping through it.

"Boy-" more flipping "New" flipping "Traangator, no no wait I've got this... Trannnslator"

He held up the fried translator as a visual aid, hissing as a few drops found their way onto his hands. He quickly set the box down, onto some of the towels on the console. Theta would take great joy in throwing the fried circuit into a black hole, once this was all said and done.

"New trannnnnslator? Hm?" Robin joked, shaking out her hands by her sides. Man that really did hurt quite a bit. "Not sure where boy came into play there, but alright. Again. Talking to myself here." Sighing, she resigned towel duty and figured that if she at least pretended her hands were okay enough to flip the pages, he'd let her play translator. Then again this'd only be helpful if they were getting their translator direct from Gallifrey - a thing she's learned, quite recently, is an impossibility. Holding up a finger, she gestured for him to hold on while she found the right words.

"Uh... Okay, uh, book? No that's probably not very clear, um..." Robin frowned, wanting to not have to create an entire sentence. Wait, he knew some English, now. Maybe she'd get by with something broken. "Earth book translator. Gallifrey, uh.... buy? buy. translator?" Was that clear? That wasn't clear at all, was it? Groaning in frustration, she buried her face in the pages. "Why is there not an easy way to do this..."