Bouquet cipher

Dbfr db nc ref sba nfbue.

— A note written using the bouquet cipher

Summary

The bouquet cipher is one of the many traditional ways people communicate with each other in Saveni. It is used most often by the lovers, who invented it to make their love letters and rendevous notes legible only to themselves. As it happens, the name comes from the way of forming the code, i.e., the first letters of the picked flowers. Bouquet cipher is in fact a very simple replacement cipher and with a bit of knowledge could be easily broken. That is, it could be, if it weren't for tricksters, who used it to write useless notes and complicating the system. Because, why not?

How it works?

Bouquet cipher is created by forming pairs between the alphabet of the message and the alphabet of the code — the bouquet. The replacement weave is prepared by collecting flowers (but other plants and minerals work fine) and chanting ██ is for ███████, where the first blank would be filled with the message alphabet letter and the second, by the collected item starting with the code letter. For example, chanting Á is for Neòinean, will result in N replacing Á.

One must be careful not to misspell the code item, otherwise the weave will need to be worked out from the beginning. Once the weave is made, only a fragment of the item is essential for the replacement weave to work. The small fragments can be formed, e.g., into a bead and fixed on a ring, bracelet, etc. The object holding the weave must remain in contact with the writing hand to make it work. Now, while writing the hand will unwillingly change its moves to replace the letters according to the bouquet cipher.

Examples

A simple example that illustrates the idea behind the cipher was written by a Gáláwán pair a long time ago. Based on the weave found in the glass bead, the reconstructed chant would take the following form:

B is for Neòinean,
C is for Uinnseann,
D is for Ailbhinn,
E is for Beithe,
E is for Fraoch,
H is for Eidheann,
M is for Donn,
R is for Staoin,
T is for Raineach,
Y is for Cluaran,

Would rewrite the note: Meet me by the red beech. into: Dbfr db nc ref sba nfbue. Notice, how letter E is rewritten into B or F, depending if it is the even or the odd occurrence. This makes deciphering the code a bit more difficult as the EE will not always be turned into BF.