Then Ambela will be quite conversant by nightfall.

Everyone is very impressed.

They do not have an entire extra house for her and it'll be a bit cramped if she tries to fit into one of theirs, but there's a couple of spare beds she can put together and a tent to put up over them in case of rain, and if she really wants a roof over her head then she can probably find a spot on Viasarae's floor with room for her to curl up in.

Or she could just not sleep tonight.

...she can do that? Well, all right, if she likes. None of the villagers are staying up, though.

Do they have any books? She can try to teach herself to read.

Viasarae lends her a small stack and introduces her to the fairly straightforward alphabet. There's a recipe book with illustrations, a longish history of the empire, a short book about magic, and a book of nature-focused poetry.

That should keep her occupied.

Yep! And here's a little magical lamp to read by!

Some of the recipes are a little baffling; others sound delicious. The poetry is hard to decipher, but rewardingly pleasant to read aloud even when the meanings continue to elude her. The history of the empire is mostly kind of samey, although if she reads closely enough there's an unsettling implication that everyone (with the exception of the Emperor) just dies eventually and then is never heard from again.

Magic seems kind of complicated, and she might have to get someone more interrogable than a book to re-explain the basics in the morning.

She makes a mental note to do so! And murmurs poems and songs softly to herself.

The night goes by quietly. She does not get rained on. The moon spends half the night hiding behind clouds, but is very pretty when she finally gets a chance to see it. The sunrise is spectacular, and is also when the villagers start waking up again.

Good morning villagers.

Good morning Ambela!

Kioh wants to know if she enjoyed the books and whether she really didn't sleep all night and, if so, whether this is a teachable trick.

"I enjoyed the books! I really didn't sleep but it's an Elf thing."

"Oh," he says, disappointed. "Oh well."

"I'm sorry."

"Maybe I'll dedicate Life when I grow up," he says. "Do you know about dedication yet?"

"Not really, will you tell me about it?"

"Okay!" he says. "So there's three ways to get magic - do you know the nine elements? Life and Death are the first tier, and Land and Sea and Sky are the second tier, and Fire and Ice and Light and Shadow are the third tier. Some people are born with a little bit of magic in some of the elements, and the day you're born someone can pick you up and dedicate you to some elements and you'll get a little more magic than that, and the day you turn sixteen you can dedicate yourself to some elements and get a lot of magic. But dedication is more dangerous the more elements you're trying for, especially if you already have some of them. Like Grandmama, she was born Sea and dedicated Sea as a baby and then again on her sixteenth birthday, and that's really dangerous and she could've died but she didn't. I was born Fire, that's why I can light fires by magic. And I want to dedicate Sea like Grandmama but sometimes I think I want other elements too, like Life so I can learn how to not sleep."

"How dangerous?"

"We dedicate all our babies Sea and every few generations somebody's kid dies. And most people who self-dedicate anything die, but for self-dedication it matters how good you are at it and I think I'd be good, and Grandmama thinks so too and she'd know."

"Good at what?"

"Self-dedication is like - like sailing in a storm, but maybe you've never done that. I dunno. You could ask Grandmama."

"Ask me what?" says Viasarae, passing by.

"What you need to be good at for self-dedication."

"Pain tolerance, tenacity. Going without sleep, if it's a long one. And something physical - dancing, fighting, sailing. When I took Sea it was four hours of feeling like I was drowning, on fire, and wrestling a bear, all at the same time."

"...on fire, for Sea?"