Grammmarrrrrrrrr

DAY FOUR: Start redoing all my grammar rules!

I like the idea of agglutinating languages, still, but I think I have too many... things. So. Starting with nouns: what do I need? Singular, plural. Subject and object can be differentiated by form and/or position. That, I think, is the core.

So. What do I want...? I like the locative case a lot, "place (relevant to) where the thing is done". A form similar to ablative; indicating means, method, process, the like, similar to saying "by way of" in English. Two object forms, "done to" and "done for", loosely speaking (like accusative and... dative?). Subject, the doer. Possessive... hmmm! You know. I think I might rather like instead having the "ablative" combine with a reverse of the genitive. That is, instead of having the owner be a modifier of the thing, the thing is the modifier of the owner. I will... tentatively put it down.

That's five cases, which seems enough. Now then... ah, blast, I forgot about vocative, a.k.a. the "hey you!" case. Hmm... I'm (tentatively) not going to use it.

NOW THEN. I think... case will be a... suffix? Ach. Suffix or prefix, I can't decide.

After much thought, I have settled on suffix. Therefore, five case endings, plus plural forms. I think they will all follow the form of (fricative)(vowel), let's see what that gives us... ah! Let's do this.

Singular
nominative: -ha
accusative: -sha
genoablative: -fa
locative: -fe
dative: -she

Plural
nominative: -hao
accusative: -shao
genoablative: -fau
locative: -fea
dative: -shei

These probably vary with the major dialects. Yay. I'm not touching that yet.

Mistakes Were Made

Cya was happier. Every time Leo had started wondering what the hell he'd been thinking, he reminded himself of that: not dealing with Apollo had made a visible difference in her. That's why he volunteered to take Apollo off her hands, and it'd worked. Having to live with a confused and still resentful teenage Kept for ten months was a small price to pay for helping Cya.

Leo sighed, resisting the urge to put his head down on his desk as the first few students for his last class started wandering in. He'd known the kid was going to be a pain. He'd known he was reckless and stupid and full of himself in that way his fellow cy'Luca graduates specialized in.

He hadn't realized how little Apollo knew. The only things Addergoole'd taught him were from his Keeper (whoever she'd been). Leo'd disagreed when Luke said he'd "failed" Apollo when he'd come by to check on him, but now... Well, he was feeling a lot less sure about that.

Not that he was complaining about the situation. Leo flipped through his notebooks, looking for the one with today's lesson. Apollo wasn't outright rebelling or anything. He hadn't trashed the house or tried to run away or refused to come home or started sabotaging things or... well, Leo could think of a lot of ways to be a deliberately bad Kept, and so far Apollo hadn't done any of them. And it was nice having someone around the house besides Sayuri (his cat). Even if that someone was still too annoyed about the situation to be much good for conversation.

It had only been a week. Apollo'd been months with Cya before he started even trying to cooperate; he wasn't going to get used to being Kept by Leo in just one week. Leo could give him at least a month for things to settle down; maybe even two. The last thing he wanted to do at this point was make Apollo hate being Kept even more than--

The sound of a throat clearing caught his attention and he looked at the door. To his surprise, a young woman with metallic flower-like patterns on her skin and wearing the city guard uniform was standing there at attention. Frowning, Leo stood and gestured for her to come over, searching his memory for her name.

"Sondra, right? What's going on? Did something happen?" He kept his voice low, though the students had probably already started rumors about this...

"Not to the city, sir. I recognized him from your description," she added, just barely loud enough for him to make out. "Says his name's Apollo. We're holding him at the hospital until you get there."

The hospital.

He nodded curtly. "Thank you. I'll be there shortly; I need to let sa'Doomsday know."

"Glad to help, sa'Lightning-Blade." Sondra inclined her head and left.

Leo's jaw clenched and he flipped the notebook back shut. So much for giving the kid a generous adjustment period. Now, now he was annoyed.

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