It's words, it's a way of putting words into little regular drawings so they can be found again later just as they were, she says, after a few moments' confusion.
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 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.
Do you want a hug?
So she hugs him, since he's already in her lap and everything.
We can do both. Do you want to learn some of the spoken language first so the writing will make sense?
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."
"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.
"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.
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.