Fascination. Delight. He climbs into her lap. I want to see.

Oh gods there is a missing crown prince in her lap she does not know how to deal with this - It's not in your language, she reminds him, so if I read it to you it wouldn't make sense.

I can probably learn?

It takes years to learn a language, she says.

Okay. He leans comfortably into her chest. It might not take me very long. I'm smart. My mother says so. It's why she left.

I took too much out of her, being born, because my spirit shines too bright and I have the strength that should have gone into many children, so now she doesn't want any more, so now Ata's always sad and she's always sad and the Valar are trying to heal her and it's my fault. That's why I was crying. He says this very steadily, but curls up again as he speaks.

So she hugs him, since he's already in her lap and everything.

I think I do want a hug, he thinks after a bit, but mostly I want to learn your picture words.

We can do both. Do you want to learn some of the spoken language first so the writing will make sense?

Yes.

What would you like to learn to say first?

Maybe you can talk and I can listen? I don't talk much, I don't like it.

Okay. And she starts speaking soft Pax words while she translates by subtle arts. "I'm afraid I don't know how to teach a language. I was never good at the one I tried to learn in high school, and that was a few years ago now. I think they may have started us on the numbers one to ten or something like that. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten."

And the numbers after that?

"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen -" She keeps going to thirty, and then says, "The rest of the groups of ten are just like twenty through twenty-nine," and skips by tens to a hundred.

We don't go by tens.

"What do you go by instead of tens?"

Twelve. I'm nearly twelve.

"Your species must grow a lot slower than mine, then," she says. "Well, in Pax the numbers go by tens and they're written like that too." She puts the book on his lap and indicates the page numbers, flip flip flip, counting aloud again.

He watches patiently.

She gets to thirty-four ("Intake Interviews") and then skips back to the beginning. "The letters go in an order, sort of like numbers, except there are only a few of them. Some of them are more common than others because they go with commoner sounds, or more sounds. I might be able to find one of everything on this page." And then, haltingly, in order, she finds everything in the Pax alphabet in the first page of introduction.