To Speak, To Dream, To Commune (Kail Language Training)

[Taithrosa Eldytia]

The Opal temple was in many ways the Etheafel’s home now, and the library was an area that he spent much time during his studies here in the temple. The previous night he had been unsure of how to say good bye to Kail, but he was feeling more comfortable with her. Once he had returned to the rooms were he stayed in the temple. He sat down and practiced and reviewed what he had learned that day. He strongly felt that learning Kontinesse was critical, especially since he was currently working and living on their island.

So Taithrosa walked towards the back room where Kail worked and were they had agreed to meet to learn some of the Akalak tongue. Sadly Taithrosa’s knowledge of the dialect was a bit archaic, since his knowledge of the language dated back to before the valterrian in a city that had been lost under the Suvan Sea.

He smiled brightly as he stepped into the room, and looked at the beautiful woman sitting at the table. She was small, but not so for her race, and the violet scales that made their way across her body gave her a shimmer of color. His silver eyes looked into her violet eyes noting the gentle curves of her face, her high cheek bones, with her curved lips. Taithrosa’s own mouth spread in a smile his teeth flashing against his sapphire blue skin.

He walked forward and leaned forward and gave her lips a gentle kiss. A kiss that held promises of romance and commitment. It was a simple kiss, but it spoke of his feeling towards her. He then took a seat next to her. He greeted her as a close friend would be greeted, and waited for her reply.

[Kail D'Rea]

Kail watched as the blue figure entered the room and approached her. He gave her a simple, but obviously well thought out kiss. Kail couldn’t resist, she let herself feel Taith’s intentions. She was overwhelmed with the response. Clearly Taith has put a lot of thought into this action because there was no doubt in Kail’s mind as to what Taith meant with this kiss. It held promise. It held romance. It suggested that Taith wasn’t playing around as a diversion while studying Kontinesse, on even while entering the Opal Order. He intended to kiss her again this way many times, far into the future. He intended her as his own. She desperately wanted to ask if this intention was tied to emotion, or just if he wanted a Konti companion and found her convenient. Was that his goal here? Kail also wondered how often Taith changed his mind. Was he the kind of man who followed through on his intentions? Would he decide his first choice wasn’t the best and transfer his intention to one of her sister Konti? Maybe they all looked the same to him and a more confident, experienced girl would change his mind.

On the other hand, if he was a man who held to his intentions, she would be his. She couldn’t imagine herself resisting once she was sure of herself and of Taith. Kail knew right then she would be up all night thinking about how she felt about a man intending to posses her. It was exciting! There wasn’t anything malicious, or violent so she wasn’t afraid. Nor did she sense anything but respect, but still, would he wait patiently until she was sure? He was such a big man. Everything was happening so fast! Knowing and thinking in advance about what was going to happen might help her keep up.

In the meantime, she had to pull in her resolve to focus on learning the language. She carefully recited her practiced greeting, her mind still half on what she had seen in Taith. She was determined not to let him know that she was looking inside him this way. It was probably rude to him, or maybe cheating. Who knew? Really though, she just couldn’t resist and she didn’t see this harming their relationship. Maybe she would tell him later. Today though she just looked at him with solemn violet eyes and with a steady voice asked him “what does my teacher and friend have in store for me today?”

[Taithrosa Eldytia]

The Ethaefel knew nothing about Kail's abilities to tell intentions, but that wasn't here or there. He smiled as he prepared for the lessons. The first step he figured was going over the tukant alpahbet. It was important to understand the letters in the alphabet, especially the soft vowel sounds. They weren't exactly the same as that found in common, or what he had learn of kontiense.

Using a quill and parchment he drew the alphabetic characters on the parchment and pronounced each of there sounds. Some were fairly simple, others were more complicated.

He paused after each character and asked her to repeat the sounds to him, and then he would give her a word with that sound, sometimes two if there were multiple sounds. He could give the meaning of the word at the same time.

"Remember these words, but there are rules around their usage. Sometimes a word can have different meanings when used in compinations of other words. Common is fairly simple, one word means one thing, or maybe a couple of things, the meaning of tukant words are created by a combination of words."

He paused and smiled at her to see if she had any questions before he contiuned with the sounds of the alphabet. He took them at the pace she needed, helping her vocabularly at the same time he helped her to understand how to read, and pronounce the language of the Akalaks.

[Kail D'Rea]

Kail had always loved words, so while Tukant was certainly different, she felt that she was keeping up with Taith. She appreciated the way he had chosen to teach vocabulary along with the alphabet and sounds. It was different, but she was sure it they kept practicing, she could meet her own expectations. She hoped those matched Taith’s, but was prepared to be satisfied with herself for the first lesson. Again Kail was grateful for her own ability to focus on work. Somehow she managed to think about each of the letters and remember which sound or sounds went with each. She also retained a large number of the words, even though they had no similarity to her own language. A couple of the word Taith said didn’t really make sense to her and those she forgot. They were words that she couldn’t find an equivalent for in Kontinese. She was pretty sure that concepts that had names in Tukant didn’t in Kontinese. This was going to be a challenge. She hoped that Taith really would be around for the years it would take her to learn the language.

[Taithrosa Eldytia]

Taithrosa smiled over at the woman sitting next to him, as she practiced the sounds of the Tukant alphabet. He looked at her while she studied. Her focused look was so cute, it showed that she was seriouslly working on learning the language.

The interest in her eyes was charming, and the way her lips seemed to pucker when she was focusing made him want to lean forward and kiss those splendid lips. He controled himself and instead contented himself with the smeel of her. The smell of fresh ink and books, it wasn't exactly what Taithrosa would have though of in his romances thinking, but it was actually very charming and had an apeal. Much of that apeal was based upon his own interest in her, and he enjoyed the things he was learning about her each and every day.

"The sounds are coming along well, but I think out time is coming to and end." He said with a smile and a flash of his white teeth against his blue skin. "Shall we contiune tukant in two days. We will meet here for some more Kontenises tomorrow." He said.

[Kail D'Rea]

Kail was surprised how quickly time flew. She did love to study and even after sitting still working all day, this time seemed too short. She hadn't learned enough. Of course she did need time to study and practice and so the time would be nice. On the other hand, with the lesson over, she needed to talk to Taith about something she was not looking forward to.

"Do you mind if we make it the day after tomorrow? I have something I need to do tomorrow evening. It's my day off here and I'm going to my grandmother's home for dinner with my family as I usually do. I hope you don't mind. I just hate to cancel a standing appointment like that." Kail had wondered what to do about this earlier in the day when she received a note from her mother making sure she was coming. In truth she had forgotten that she had promised to go home for dinner on her days off, but she was guessing her mother wanted at least an update on her job, but probably she had heard about the time she was spending with the large blue man and wanted details. She could probably change future plans for family meals to a 'when I'm free' status after she told her mother why she wasn't going to change plans with Taith again, but this first time seemed important, like establishing that she still valued her family and honored her commitments. Now that she'd had a lesson, she could even share some of the words she had learned today.

She would also take extra time to work on her lists. She'd started word lists that had groups of words that went together, like things you might say or hear while asking someone for directions i.e. left, right, land-side, ocean-side, up, down... While you were eating i.e. common foods, and drinks, utensils, please and thank you... While shopping i.e. cost, and common supplies…

She wanted to make them not only as complete as possible, but put most important ones at the top of the list so she could emphasis them. She wanted Taith to be able to speak and understand quickly and this seemed a good way to go, but between work, studying and household tasks, she wasn’t near to being done. Working on it tonight would help.

[Taithrosa Eldytia]

Taithrosa blinked in surprise at the request. He smiled at her and said. “I don’t mind, spend time with your family.” His white teeth flashed in against his dark skin his handsome face with its strong jawline and cheek bones seeming to light up. “I will see you in two day then.” He said and patted her hand. “It must be nice to have the chance to visit with family. My only family are the other Ethaefel that I occasionally meet and they aren’t that great of family.” He said with a sad chuckle. He stood and leaned forward and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips that promise to see her again. “I will see you in two days then.”

Taithrosa went to the rooms he had been assigned continued to focus upon the notes he had taken on the basic of the knoti language. He worked on it through the night. It actually was easier to focus and learn in the evening since his true form seemed to learn better. This isn’t saying that Taithrosa was stupid as an Akalak, just so much smarter in his true form.

Two days later he returned to the library as the Kails work was ending. He walked into the room and smiled down at her as he sat down and gave her a greeting kiss. “Good day. How has your day been, and how was dinner with your family?”

[Kail D'Rea]

Kail blushed thinking about the conversation she had with her mother. Not that it was unexpected, or all that embarrassing, but it was all about Taith and she wasn’t really sure how to say that it had been an awkward dinner thanks to having to try not to tell her mom anything she would misinterpret or spread around to everyone Kail knew. She was sure she had anyway, but Kail tried to keep things non-committal. She looked away and replied “it was fine. My mom was impressed you were teaching me Tukant. I told her what I knew. It was good practice because she is really a drill master when it comes to my education. She knows I love it. My mom said to tell you she wants to meet you someday.” She tried to emphasis the someday. She wouldn’t have even told him, but her mom tried to make her promise to set up a meeting. She was sooo not ready for that, so she compromised by mentioning the possibility.

She rushed right on “I got some good work done on our project over the last couple of days. I came up with some vocabulary lists for you to keep about certain situations. We can go over them tonight so you can get all the pronunciation and practice saying them to me. Once you know these words, we can practice conversations and you can hear the articles and verbs that will flesh out your sentences. Of course we say things so quickly and so easily that really they are just a change of inflection, tone, or pronunciation, but we’ll get to that. Learn the words first, then you can learn how to change them to fit. How does that sound?” She laid the lists in front of him. “Pick anyone you want to start with.”

She looked anxiously at him, wondering if he would stick with her for the language training, or go back to talking about her mom. Or maybe just say this was a horrible way to learn and then she would feel really stupid. Calm, calm calm. She thought. No big deal here, really. But she couldn’t talk herself out of the nerves.

[Taithrosa Eldytia]

His silver eyes watched her as she spoke. She seemed eager to move on from the topic of her family though so he just smiled and said. "I would like to meet her at some later point."

He sat next to her and looked over the list she had given him. He read through it his eyes following the words as eh contiuned down the list. He looked over at her and smiled. "I think this will work. What subjects would you like to talk about first." He asked his eyes taking in the list as he looked at the words.

[Kail D'Rea]

"How about directions? You probably get around pretty well all ready, but it will sound informed if you can do it in Konti." Kail carefully ready each of the words, pronouncing them and them having Taith read them back. She occasionally corrected a pronounciation, but he was doing really well and learning quickly. Kail looked at his profile as he leaned over the page, carefully studying and memorizing the words.

She smiled thinking about his polite reply to her and non-concommital responce. He could be diplomatic, at least. Then she refocused and asked him "would you like to do another list?"