Vox Mentis

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I can't believe Vox Mentis was actually a Word Girl AU fanfiction the whole time

Haha, I hadn't heard of that show until you mentioned it. That's funny though. This is now the grounded and gritty reboot of Word Girl.

Tell him "Menditract"

That might be interesting to try, if you were able to get the word out without passing out. Maybe when you practice more. Besides, Jeremy's not your set, so the word would probably have no effect anyway. You'd have to figure out his set first, then a word that works on it, if you want to actually do anything interesting.

Words are meaning.

"A word is a unit of meaning."

"What's meaning?"

"Uh... meaning is an abstraction of characteristics common to the class of objects to which it applies. The meaning of ball is the set of characteristics common to balls, i.e. round and bouncy and often seen around guys in shorts."

Jeremy returns to the free throw line, saying nothing. You figure you must have that wrong, or at least not right enough.

"Words are power" seems a bit too cheesy to say.

You could say they're meaning, but that's not right, you can have nonsense too. I guess they're more like...

A means of transmission.

Signals.

Have the both of you studied any evolutionary biology? Particularly, signalling theory?

"It's only a little more complicated than a meerkat screaming "eagle", or maybe more like spots on a sparrow's chest so they know who's in charge without wasting time and energy fighting. They're little abstractions humans use to connect with each other in increasingly-specific ways, and I guess some wizards or whatever decided to take them apart and look at the ins and outs instead of taking them at face value."

Just for discussion - These special words seem to be outside of the standard way that words work. Like, words are generally subject to some degree of natural selection, where popular ones remain in the lexicon and unused words like 'clepe' and 'fayne' fall out of use. Generally speaking, you'd say that those words are less powerful in the sense that they're less useful, because their lack of use means that people don't know what they mean. You can rate the power of words by the appropriateness of their meaning for a given situation. These special words that you're learning actually have an effect without our knowing their meaning; they have power in a sense that real words don't.

"You mean from a neurological perspective? Okay. Words are a means of transmitting data into a brain. It's only a little more complicated than a meerkat screaming "eagle", or maybe more like spots on a sparrow's chest so they know who's in charge without wasting time and energy fighting. They're little abstractions humans use to connect with each other in increasingly-specific ways, and I guess some wizards or whatever decided to take them apart and look at the ins and outs instead of taking them at face value. But these words work differently from normal words. That's what that Gutturals book is about, isn't it? There's certain sounds - or syllables - that can cut through people's filters, regardless of linguistic evolution, depending on the sort of person they are. Sort of short circuit the neural pathways. Stringing them together is like making a recipe. What we're doing, or, I should say, what you're doing, since no one has taught me any good words, is dropping recipes into people's brains to cause a neurochemical reaction to knock out the filters. Tie them up just long enough to slip an instruction past. And it's a string of words because the brain has layers of defenses, and for the instruction to get through, they all have to be disabled at once."

Jeremy says, "How do you know this?"

"Do you think I'm smart?"

"I think you're scary," he says.

There's been a less philosophical question on your mind though about this place.

"You gather a bunch of sorcerers, though, the kind of people who could each rule a country. How do you stop them all turning on each other?"

"I can't be that scary," you say. "There's a lot of people here who are way beyond me, I'm sure. Eliot. Austen. Here's something that's been bugging me though: So we've got a bunch of modern sorcerers here. The sort of people that could take over the world. How do you stop them all turning on each other?"

Jeremy throws the ball. "Have someone at the top more powerful than any of them. Someone who can get through their defenses. To keep them in line. Not that that's really necessary; they're pretty careful about who they bring in. Everyone's on the same page already, so I don't think much force is necessary."

~

While he showers, you wait outside on a wooden bench. From here you have a vantage point across the soccer field to one of the parking lots, the one reserved for teachers, and you see four black sedans roll up, one after the other. People in suits climb out. You get off the bench and begin to walk over, because this is curious, but one of the men turns to you and you feel very cold and stop.

The people move inside. You return to the bench. Jeremy emerges, smelling of soap. "Are you okay?"

You shake your head. "I saw some people. Poets, I guess."

He looks at the cars.

"One was an older guy. White hair. Tan skin."

"Oh," Jeremy says. "Yeah. That's Thoreau."

"The teachers, they're in there somewhere. You know? They're brick walls, but you can tell there's something behind the wall. This guy had shark eyes. Nothing in them. Just... eyes." You shake your head. "Junkies get them, if they're in a bad place. It freaked me out a little."

"Come to my room," he says. "Hang out."

"Okay." But you're not ready to move yet.

"Seriously, don't worry about Thoreau. You'll never speak to him."

"Why not?"

"Because he's a million miles above us," Jeremy says. "You asked about why the 'sorcerers' don't turn against each other? Thoreau's why. He's the head of the organization."

~

Jeremy's going to graduate. You'd known it was coming. But he becomes a senior and you're no longer able to pretend the day belongs in some far-off future. He starts begging off slushie runs. He doesn't watch you play soccer anymore. Whenever you knock on his door he's deep in books, looking tired, making you feel stupid for bothering him.

"Just fail," you say. "Stay another year. We'd be about the same level. We could even study together."

"I can't fail, Elise."

You get off the bed, annoyed, because you were only joking. Or maybe not, but still. You start sifting through his drawers, looking for anything interesting. But of course there's nothing, because Jeremy Lantern has no personal effects. Certainly no hidden words. You've looked, a couple of times. Just out of interest. It hasn't always been like this: You remember a little toy robot with red arms. He's gotten rid of it sometime since you've met him. That's what people do here. They shrink and shrink until there's nothing interesting left.

It strikes you that he could use a bit more "interesting" in his life. Just a break from the monotony. Maybe a bit of loosening up, somehow. How would you like to go about that?