TAKE TWO, kotlc

Chapter 7- Arella

"Hmm... what should we test Ms. Sencen for next...?" Sir Rosings mused sourly, pacing back and forth around the crowd of Level Ones. "How about... a Polyglot?"

Arella rolled her eyes- she could definitely agree that Polyglot was probably the lamest of her mom's many abilities. But in spite of Sir Rosing's malicious smirk, she simply shot him a death glare and stood up as confidently as she could.

"You will be listening to an hour of Trollish, Gnomish, and Human history lessons and will be repeating phrases from all three languages to see if you can pick it up instinctively," Sir Rosings directed- wow. He really just had to pick out the most boring tasks, didn't he?

Arella sighed and slipped on the pair of headphones that he gave her. Instantly, inaudible words filled her ears- and at first she couldn't understand it.

But half an hour in, the chattering... morphed. Into words.

That she could hear. And part of her tried to convince herself that she couldn't understand it- she refused to be a lame Polyglot, out of all the useless abilities...

But soon she could hear every single thing that the voice was saying, translated instantly into the Enlightened Language. Even worse- she could speak it upon command. The correct phrases, even the accent, slipped off her tongue so smoothly she could hardly recognize her own voice.

"Congratulations Ms. Sencen. You have manifested as a Polyglot and will therefore be taking sessions after Elvin History with Lady Cadence," Sir Rosings announced, his voice sounding way too loud.

Out of all the stupid, useless abilities- she got a Polyglot.

Arella had heard plenty of stories from her mother about Lady Cadence- the bossy, inconsiderate Linguistics Mentor that Sophie had suffered through. Torturous, miserable sessions full of confusion and defiance and shame and humiliation...

And Arella couldn't wait to see the look on her sisters face when she'd realized she'd manifested as a Polyglot.

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"Don't worry, I think it's a cool ability," Keefe offered, letting her curl up closer to him and sniffle against his shirt. "Trust me- do you know how many times I've been able to fool Foster- er, your mom -by mimicking?"

"Exactly! Even non-Polyglots can mimics, I just wasted an ability-"

"But Polyglots can manifest twice, remember? Imagine if you became a Telepath and a Polyglot! See? Then you could one-up Oralia! Isn't that what you two are always trying to do?"

He flashed her his famous smirk. "Besides. Think about it this way- Oralia is the only one in the family that can't mimic. Don't you think that's cool?"

A small smile curled at her lips- probably against her will. "That is kinda cool..."

Keefe patted her on the back and stood up, carrying his daughter on his shoulders. "See? Polyglots are cool enough."

"Oralia's going to laugh though," Arella whispered.

"I already am!" Oralia poked her head out from behind the corner of the room, indeed laughing. Arella turned red dashed towards her twin.

She could faintly hear Keefe saying something from the living room as she chased her giggling sister across teh house: "I really am worried Soph."

She had no idea what Keefe was worried about, but part of her wished she knew what her mother had said back.