"Buildings don't have shoulders."

"The shoulder sits on the building's bird?"

Kib bursts out laughing. "Shoulders don't sit and buildings don't have birds."

"Birds don't have buildings and Tyelcormo don't have shoulders?"

"Birds indeed do not have buildings! Tyelcormo has shoulders, though, I saw them."

"I saw birds fly around the buildings. I saw them fly around the buildings? I saw them fly?"

Kib confirms all these sentences.

"Kib and Maitimo fly around the palace?"

"We can't fly, we aren't birds. It would be nice if we could fly though. - Wait, can you fly? I can't fly."

"I can't fly. I can't -" I don't have the words for other means of transportation.

I don't know what other means of transportation you find yourself incapable of. Let me see if I can do the projecting a translation thing... "Swimming, walking, running, riding...?"

"Kib and Maitimo walking to the palace. I can swimming, I can running, I can riding."

"We're walking, Kib and Maitimo are walking. You can swim, you can run, you can ride; I can swim, I can't run, I can't ride."

By the time they reach the palace there are more people on the streets, mostly walking briskly or assembling vendor carts, and Maitimo has a slightly better command of the language. "My - you don't have a word - Atar is the Quenya - says this way to learn a language. Most people don't want to talk, they know they will say things wrong, so they are too quiet. My father says use all the words you have, guess, just keep talking, you learn faster."

"Seems reasonable. You're learning it really fast," Kib agrees. "Which of the family concepts is 'Atar'?"

Father.

"I'm sure there's a word in the common for that in use by animal breeders but I don't know it."

We would design a suited one rather than borrow, but for now we can borrow. "My father is the - is there a word in the common for the person in charge of a large land -"

"Governor?"

"My father's father is the governor of this land. Here, if your father is a governor then when he gets tired of being governor you will be governor. I am sure that is not how you do it."

"...That sounds like a really weird way to do things."

"I expect it would, yes. How do you do it?"

"Different places have different procedures but mostly everybody picks someone they think would do a good job, and then whoever has the most support gets to be in charge. Some places are ruled by whoever had the idea to go live there, and then they pick apprentices and the best apprentice gets to be next when they die? That's closer to your thing."

"That is very close to our thing, except that we do not die and so the governor can pass on power when he wants to and does not have to at all if he does not like his apprentices. And his apprentices are all his -" descendants.

"Yeah, I guess if you don't die having a limited apprentice pool isn't that big of a deal."