She nods. "'Human'" (in Hari) "is person, yes."

I'm a person.

You're not exactly a central example of the category. But yes, Spite, naturally I think you're a person.

She repeats most of the words she's given him in her language, gesturing appropriately - food, table, person, Imrainai, Spite, one, two, many. Counting seems like a good basic thing to start with, so she gives him the other numbers, too, up through ten.

He repeats all those words. His accent is pretty bad.

"One Imrainai, many people. One Mahan, many people. One Spite, many...?"

She shakes her head. "One Spite. Uh, one bowl, two bowls, many bowls," she says, gesturing, trying to indicate that she gets the idea. "But one Spite."

If they were discussing this somewhere that wasn't the middle of the dining hall, then she might admit that Spite was a dragon and that the plural of dragon is dragons, but that doesn't seem like a wise thing to do at the moment, and he's not really a proper dragon anyway.

Poor lonely Spite.

He tentatively repeats all the Kaltish numbers up to ten. "Ten one? Ten two?"

She gives him eleven and twelve, then up through twenty, then repeats them to him a few times until she thinks he has the numbers. She corrects his pronunciation several times, especially on the ones that she thinks would be incomprehensible out of context. That's probably enough words for one day, honestly.

"Sleep?" she asks, miming placing her head on a pillow. "Mahan sleep?"

He really really wants to ask some questions... but on the other hand there's no telling how long she'll let him sleep for and if he delays it to ask questions there's no guarantee that'll let him wake up later...

But on the gripping hand it's still afternoon in his time zone. He tries to explain time zones with an imaginary diagram that he traces with his finger on the tabletop. Look how different parts of this circle wake up at different times! And therefore go to sleep at different times!

Yeah that's clearly some kind of complex idea that he's trying to get at there. She's not at all sure what it is, but he sure is trying to get at it. Something to do with time.

"Not sleeping now," she says, giving him the chance to confirm it. "Now, one... two... three... later. Mahan will sleep later?"

"Mahan will sleep later. Uh..." Imrainai has at least ever heard all the relevant Hari words, so he tries explaining what he wants to know in Hari. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Death mages have twelve deaths," is not even slightly what he says but it sure is the obvious interpretation of those words with the knowledge Imrainai has so far. "Imrainai, twelve nurse?" He uses the Kaltish word she used earlier.

Do you have any idea what that means?

Means you can stab him eleven times.

You would have more friends if you spent less time being deliberately unhelpful.

"Imrainai is a nurse. Twelve what?"

Well, "what" is pretty clear from context.

"Nurse is what?"

"Nurse is - " she mimes bandaging someone and gestures in the direction of the other building. 

Oh, that's the Kaltish word for doctor, not the Kaltish word for her magic.

"In Har, Mahan nurse. In Har..." He holds up his left hand. "Har." He holds up his right hand. "Rainfold." He holds up his left hand and coughs softly. "Caralendar pox." He mimes trying to bite her. "Rabies." He tries to mime a seizure as unworryingly as he can. "Distemper." He makes a vague dismissive gesture with that hand and squares his shoulders. Like those are no problem. Then he holds up his right hand. He looks at his right hand like he's not sure what it is and whether it's going to bite him.

Ohhh. This can't be what he was trying to get at before, unless he was maybe saying that there were twelve specific diseases he knows how to cure? But whatever, if he wants a list of diseases then she can try giving him something to work with.

"In Rainfold," she says, and mimes vomiting. (She is not immediately sure how to mime terrible diarrhea.) "Cholera." She mimes struggling to breathe. "Blue Plague." She puts the back of her hand to her head and tries to mime something spreading from her armpits to her wrists. "Creeping fever. And many other diseases."

"Cholera. Blue plague. Creeping fever." He makes a dubious face. In Hari: "I need to recognize the germs I need to kill, now how do I tell you that. Do you even have germ theory." He mimes drawing something and looks plaintive. "Can I have some paper?" he asks in Hari, as if the words will do any good.

She doesn't have anything to draw with on her right now. She certainly doesn't have paper, though she can probably get a slate tomorrow without a problem. She mimes drawing on the table. "Now, no. Later, yes. Sorry."

...These people are poor. And Mahan is going to fix that! Somehow! He's not going to live in a place like this. He refuses. No.

Time to try explaining germ theory with their couple dozen words of shared vocabulary.

"Person, spite, yes. Bowl, table, no. Is what?"

She frowns, then nods. "Alive. Spite and people are alive. Bowl and table, not alive."

He has no way of demanding payment up front. He can maybe trust them to realize that someone who knows one thing might know two and someone who doesn't get paid for one favor doesn't do two. They're not essi.

"Caralendar pox, distemper, rabies, and many other diseases are alive. Cholera, blue plague?" He shrugs. Trying to suggest maybe. Probably. "Alive cholera." He cups his hands and mimes drinking from them. Then he mimes vomiting. "Not alive cholera." He mimes drinking and then doesn't mime vomiting. "Mahan... not alive." He makes a wild guess about which part of "other diseases" means what. "Many other alive not diseases. Many other alive..." Mahan smiles and makes a point of looking healthy. "Many other alive later not alive... person not alive. Many, many, many other alive not diseases. Many alive, person, Spite..." Mahan holds his hands out half a foot away from each other. "Diseases and many, many, many other alive..." Mahan brings his hands all the way together, hunches over, tries to suggest very tiny as hard as he can. "Diseases not alive, many other alive..." Mahan takes a breath, tries to think how to say it, gives up, switches to Hari. "Look, I can't explain sanitation in a language I don't speak. Please figure out that this is important enough to pay a translator."

She frowns and bites her lip. Definitely got the part about some diseases being alive? Somehow? Which I suppose is implied by the ability to kill them, but what does that even - very small alive things, was that it? That he kills?

Something like that. I dunno, they don't pay me to translate stuff.

Maybe someone would pay you for attempting.