And now she's in a desert. It's pretty extensively irrigated and farmed for a desert, almost like there's a spring somewhere nearby, but it is a desert. Someone a little older than Dosk is intrepidly trekking home with some old plastic cards, a plastic-wrapped book and an opaque package of what might be incredibly stale bread. He looks startled to see her and asks a question in a language she doesn't speak.

Woah.

She signs, and the crow on her shoulder - a healthy-looking glossy black creature - croaks a few similarly incomprehensible words.

That language doesn't sound familiar but someone older might have heard it before.

He says more things. He's trying to sound welcoming. He mimes that he's heading past some fields and toward the houses. He points to her and looks questioning.

She shrugs dramatically (the crow flaps up to sit on her head in protest) and mimes that she was going somewhere and then... got eaten? By something very much larger than she is? That makes no sense.

He says something. He sounds very exasperated but doesn't seem to be speaking to her.

Yeah.

She puppets the scooter forward a foot or so, demonstratively.

Now more than none of his annoyance is at her but he is still mostly annoyed at some invisible third party.

He asks her something else in his language.

She shrugs again. The crow's assertion - possibly a translation of her signing - is no more understandable this time.

He hesitates, then points in the direction he's going. There's gotta be some way to ask her to come with him and see if anyone there speaks her language, right?

She nods, and sets off, keeping the scooter to a reasonable walking pace.

Walk walk walk. At least the scenery's nice. There are cliffs in the distance and some drought-tolerant trees. Right now they're almost to a path between a field of corn and a pasture with cattle.

He points to some things on the way and names them. "Corn. Cow. Grass. Sky." He looks questioningly at her, in case she has signs for them or turns out to be deaf or something.

She shows him the signs for them, a little awkwardly since she doesn't want to take both hands off the scooter's handlebars at once. The crow produces words, too; it's obvious enough at this point that the bird is translating for her.

He tries to copy the signs. He's still not sure if she can hear but that seems like a question for later. He keeps offering his words just in case. Hands. Person. Artifact (her scooter). Money (the plastic cards).

She's confused at the cards, and doesn't seem to have a word for them.

That's weird but not shocking. He tries asking her a question with her signs. "Sky person?"

She's still confused, but gives him the word 'fly', having the bird - Nawi - demonstrate, and then "Nawi can fly. Person can not fly."

He would check that he understood if only he knew any more verbs.

"Artifact person..." he tries to say, assuming whatever she called her scooter means artifact. He makes a wobbly not-quite gesture. "...can fly...?"

Nope, still confusing. More so, even. "Person can not fly," she repeats.

Okay, maybe he just can't discuss theology with ten shared words.

He mimes eating, then going to sleep. He points to himself. He points in the direction he's heading. He points to her and raises his eyebrows.

Yeah, that's concerning. She shrugs.

He points in the direction he's heading. He mimes giving her something.

He could try to overcome the language barrier well enough to point her at every possible settlement and let her pick, but he has no idea how fast her scooter goes and if this is its top speed he expects she'd die of thirst trying to make it to Iron Heart, let alone anywhere farther.

She relaxes considerably at that, and launches into her own language lesson - that's 'give', and her name is Dosk, and the scooter and the crow and the two sleepy mice she extracts from a pouch at her belt and the bit of cardboard scattered with moving dots that she has the mice retrieve from the bundle on the back of the scooter are all examples of something - maybe that's the word for artifact, actually? - and the sandwich the mice bring out next is food, and if people give Dosk food and sleep she'll give them artifacts.

That's a really good deal.

The animals, though. He points to the scooter and the cardboard with moving dots, then points back the way he came, at a ruined city of glass and metal. He points to the mice and the crow and looks puzzled.

She's confused too, starting when he points at the city. But she points to the crow and mice and a hawk circling overhead and gives the word for animals, and gestures to the sandwich and (awkwardly, one-handed) mimes making one, and gives the word for make - "People give animals, Dosk make animals artifacts."

"...Dosk make people artifacts?"

"Not." She shakes her head.

Okay, he won't run away screaming about her making...

Wait a second.

"Dosk can make artifacts! Make! Can I?"

"Make," and she makes the wobbly gesture from before. She's still smiling, though.

"Dosk can make artifacts! Person can make artifacts!" Wow. Suddenly he's a lot more sure what he'll tell people when they get back.

If she can make artifacts maybe she speaks the same language as the people who made the ones in the city of the gods. He offers her a plastic-wrapped book in the language of the gods, in case she understands it and wants to read it.

She declines the offer, instead patting her scooter and pointing ahead to the town. But then she pauses, and gestures for him to get on.

He thanks her in his language that she definitely can't understand and maybe can't hear. He hopes she's good enough at reading people to understand anyway. He gets on.

And off they go, at a pace quite a bit faster than walking speed.

It's not long before they see some people. There aren't many out right now, not in the middle of a summer day, but there are a few out sowing for what'll probably be the last harvest of the year, wearing shady hats and carrying canteens. All of them find Dosk's scooter noteworthy.

She slows back to walking pace to watch them.

Some of them approach and say things that Dosk won't understand at all. Vaayo gives them an excited summary of things, including Dosk's name. The signed version, not the spoken one.

One of them offers Vaayo a mostly-empty canteen that he offers to Dosk immediately without drinking from.

"Thank you." She drinks, apparently unworried about the safety - or amount - of the water, and hands the canteen back.

The canteen-offerer smiles and tries to mime that Dosk should keep going in the same direction she and Vaayo have been going since she got here. By now part of a village is visible that way, but the rest is hidden by the crops growing between here and there.

Yup. She continues on.

There's some more corn and beans. There's squash and tomatoes and something that's just sprouting.

There are chickens closer to the little village.

And then there's the village itself, built around a spring. The spring flows pretty weakly right now, but it's the height of summer and it's still flowing at all. At the moment most people are indoors with all their south-facing windows shuttered.

Dosk waits until she's in the village proper to stop the scooter and look questioningly at Vaayo.

Vaayo gets off. He motions for her to follow him and walks over to the largest building.

She follows, and when they get there she gets off the scooter herself, adjusting the bundle to be a pack she wears on her back and then having the scooter fold itself up into something she can carry, though it's a little unwieldy.

Wow. Wow.

Inside the building are beds for maybe ten people. There's a baby taking a nap and two toddlers listening to a woman telling a story. A man in the middle of making a necklace from mismatched beads sets the necklace aside and gets up to greet them. Vaayo gives the same explanation as before.

The man gestures for both of them to have a seat somewhere. Vaayo gives Dosk a smile that is meant to be reassuring.

She doesn't seem nervous. She picks a seat with a good view of the room and tucks her things underneath; if it seems like it'll be more than a few minutes before they need her for anything, she'll bring Nawi down to her hand to pet while she waits.

The man brings both of them water and what seem to be homemade potato chips. He motions for them to wait and goes looking for something else.

The children watch them but stay where they are for the moment. The woman nods to them but doesn't interrupt her story.

Vaayo is a little too distracted by the water to try to say anything to Dosk. He might not have had much to drink today, by the look of it.

She sends the mice into her pack for a small, shallow wooden bowl, and pours a little water into it for them and the bird before drinking any herself. Similarly, the mice get half a potato chip each before she eats.

Eventually the man comes back with a worn, old copy of an even older world map. It's as careful a copy as they could make by hand. He shows it to Dosk. He looks at her expectantly.

She's unsettled by it even at first glance, but looks it over carefully, hovering her finger carefully over the paper as she traces the coastlines, making sure she doesn't overlook anything that might be familiar.

She shakes her head, when she's done.

He nods. He's not shocked by that.

He points to Dosk, then to his ear, raising his eyebrows.

That gets the wobbly gesture.

He positions himself right in front of her, facing her, his face a few feet away from hers. He asks her a question. It's just one word, not mumbled, with only one voice in the background to interfere.

...But it still isn't a word in any language she speaks.

...yeah.

She repeats it back - it takes a few tries for her to get both reasonable pronunciation and reasonable volume - and then signs, a sentence or so's worth. The crow translates, still incomprehensible.

He shakes his head. He sits and gets comfortable, giving up on being particularly lipreadable. He frowns but it's the frown of someone who can't figure out an intriguing puzzle.

He points straight up. He wipes sweat off his forehead and exaggerates how hot he is. He raises his eyebrows and looks at her.

Okay. She gives him the sign for 'sun'.

"Sun," he says. He holds up an open hand and points to the thumb. Then he points to the index and middle fingers, briefly, then settles on the ring finger. He taps that an extra time and then points to the world map.

Four? Map? She'll give him the words for those things - and the numbers through five, while she's at it - but it's pretty clear that she doesn't know what he's getting at.

He points up. "Sun." He points to the ground. "Map." He points to Dosk, questioning.

Golems orient themselves with the sun, sometimes; if golems can do it, humans must be able to, too. She can't, though; it's a lot of complicated math that she's still working up to, and she hasn't bothered picking up the technique without the math to use it. She shrugs.

Sigh. He doesn't want to let go of the puzzle but there's not much he can learn with no language in common.

He says something to Vaayo.

Vaayo waves a little and turns so he's more visible, then signs. "Give Dosk food. Dosk," he mimes sleeping, then points to one of the beds. "Dosk make scooter, give me scooter?"

She shakes her head and gestures for them to wait, then retrieves a piece of cardboard from her pack and takes it to the doorway.

They wait. Both of them seem curious. Gari goes back to his necklace, but most of his attention is still on Dosk.

She stands there for a few minutes, and when she returns, the cardboard has several small glowing dots on it, as if it was lit by sunlight streaming through holes in something overhead.

Well that's amazing. Vaayo applauds.

She taps the side of the cardboard, and declares it to be a scooter. Then she signs "person make artifact," and touches it, and the dots move, each in turn. Then "not person make artifact," and this time when she touches it, the dots stay still.

She's not done, but looks to Vaayo to check that he's following so far.

He's... sort of following? He's not totally sure which of a few possible meanings she's trying to convey. He waits for her to elaborate.

Next she gets out one of the mice, and holds the cardboard still while the mouse scratches symbols into it. When the mouse is done, she taps the cardboard again, using a new word to describe it, and then touches it to guide a dot over the symbols; this time, when she takes her finger away, the dot keeps moving.

He has one guess he's more sure of now.

"Two artifact," he guesses. "One, make. One, make make make make make." He's not sure how exactly to ask "is that right?" but maybe she'll answer anyway.

"Mmhmm," she nods. "One make, not person not make artifact. One make make make make make, all," she gestures around the room, "person. Animal artifact, make make make, all person."

He... sort of follows. He checks that he understands again. "Make scooter, scooter. Not make scooter, not scooter. Make automaton," he uses the word she used for the lights that kept moving, "automaton. Not make automaton, automaton."

"Mmhmm. Dosk not give scooter you. Dosk give automaton you, Dosk give animal you."

He's so very impressed that Dosk can do all this, nobody in Yuya or the north has known how for centuries.

"Automaton," he says, then he thinks about how to explain. He picks up his empty water cup moves it a couple feet away, mimes dipping it in something, moves it back and sets it back down where it was.

Hm.

"Work," she tries. "Person make food, work. Person make automaton, work. Scooter," she mimes going along a trail, "work. Automaton work."

"Work. Dosk work make automaton. Person," he gestures vaguely at their surroundings, trying to indicate the entire village, "work make food." He points at the woman with the small children, "work," he mimes holding a baby. "Automaton work..." well, no use trying exactly the thing he tried before. He points in a direction. A little ways in that direction he mimes water flowing and flowing and flowing. There's a river that way, very far that way. He picks up the cup, moves it to where he keeps miming flowing water with his other hand, pretends to dip the cup in, brings it back, sets it down.

Ohhhh.

She nods emphatically. "Automaton work."

"Dosk make sun automaton," he points to the cardboard, "sun give sun. Dosk make scooter," he points to the scooter. "Dosk make automaton," he points to Nawi. "Nawi give Nawi. Dosk make automaton," he picks up the cup again, makes a gesture at the pick-up-and-carry-water mime he did earlier but very abridged. "Give?"

He's not sure that's clear enough but he's trying to ask if she needs materials to make the automaton with.

"Person give," she nods. "Dosk," wobbly gesture, "make. Person make scooter, artifact make scooter; Dosk make scooter artifact."

He does the cup-water-carry gesture again, "automaton, give...?" He picks up the cup, like he's trying to ask if the cup would do it. He points to his hat, like he's trying to ask if his hat is the right kind of thing.

She shakes her head, and pulls out the folded-up scooter to point out how the wheels still spin and the hinge is still a hinge.

He says something to Gari. Gari thinks about it and says something.

Vaayo gets up and motions for Dosk to follow him. He brings the plastic cards he was carrying before.

She slings her bundle back over her shoulder and brings the scooter with her, but follows.

Out they go. He knocks on a door, has a brief conversation with the person who answers, hands over one of his cards.

He leads Dosk to a wagon that's meant to be drawn by some kind of animal but is slightly broken so it would be hard to harness an animal to it. It isn't broken in a way that would keep it from rolling. "Give Dosk," he says. "Dosk make automaton?"

She looks it over, then points to the handlebars on her scooter. "Give?"

He thinks about that for a while, then motions for her to follow him somewhere else. He knocks on another door and has another conversation that ends in him giving this person a card, too. "Give Dosk," he says. He points inside. The crafter whose door he knocked on stands aside to let Dosk in to look around. There are all sorts of odds and ends, broken things and half-made projects and tools and materials. Wood waiting to be made into things, a broken steel blade, an axe head without a handle. Vaayo and the crafter seem to expect that whatever Dosk was asking for is in here somewhere.

Dosk looks around, paying special attention to anything with moving parts. It looks for a while like she's going to choose a toddler's riding toy with handlebars similar to her scooter, but then she finds an experimental butter churn with a crank that will do the job nicely, and then goes to look at the hand tools.

There's quite a variety of them. None are the least bit automated but other than that there's just about anything. Most of them are iron or steel.

The crafter watches her curiously. Vaayo seems pleased that she's finding what she needs. Both of them seem to trust that she knows how to be safe with sharp tools, neither of them try to stop her or steer her toward the relatively less dangerous ones.

She looks them over carefully, and puts together a set that meets her standards - sharp and relatively lightweight, with large enough handles to let her get a good grip. That done, she brings them and the butter churn back to Vaayo. "Dosk work."

Vaayo looks concerned for a moment, then smiles and offers her his shady hat.

She's a little confused at that, but takes it and puts it on. "Thank you."

Back at the wagon, the first thing she does is settle in the shade of it to plan out what she's going to do on a piece of cardboard from her pack; she sends Nawi off to hunt while she works.

After a little while he comes over and sets a full canteen down beside her. He doesn't seem to want to talk, just to make sure she has water.

She's far too engrossed in her planning to notice.

Next time he comes by, though, she's started work on the wagon itself: the butter churn is lashed to one side of the bench, each wheel has a ring of symbols around the hub, and she's started carving more symbols into the sides of it, carefully.

He stops to watch for a while, fascinated.

He also takes a look at her, checking if she seems like she's okay to keep working in this heat.

...not really. It's pretty obvious that she's not used to it, now that he looks: she's not avoiding the sun nearly as much as she could be, and while it has occurred to her to roll up her sleeves, she hasn't done anything about the too-warm pants she's wearing. And she's sweating more than he'd expect even given that, and hasn't drunk enough water to counterbalance it. She's doing an admirable job of powering through regardless, if you can call something so unwise admirable, but it's still concerning.

He hesitates, not wanting to block her view of her work, not wanting to rely on sound when she's hard of hearing. In the end he settles on the second thing and waits for a moment when she seems least poised to do serious damage to anything if she startles and jerks.

"Hey!" he says, a little louder than he would for someone else at this distance but arguably not shouting.

She does startle, but his timing is good; she drops her chisel, but doesn't gouge the wood or herself in the process. She picks it up again and checks the blade before turning to see what he wants.

He points to the canteen. He points to her.

He's visibly worried.

She investigates the canteen, takes a sip, and then offers it to him, clearly confused.

A sip is better than nothing. He's less worried now, anyway.

He points to her. He tries to mime sweat dripping off his face.

...yes...?

It's really too hot for someone with no comprehension of basic summer safety to be working outside. And he can't explain all the things she failed to learn in her non-desert homeland because they don't share a language.

Then he has an idea. He gestures for her to wait a moment and runs off.

...okay.

She sets a mouse to alert her when he comes back, and goes back to her carving.

He comes back with fruit to show her. One fresh apricot and one dried.

...okay...

He holds both in one hand so he can gesture with the other. He points to the fresh apricot, then to the sun. He mimes sweating, like earlier. He points to the dried apricot. He enthusiastically mimes dying, taking some artistic license with heat stroke symptoms.

...oh.

Well that's alarming.

He mimes drinking. He offers her both apricots.

...yeah. She takes them, thanks him, takes a good drink from the canteen and a bite of the fresh one, and then looks back to him, still concerned.

Good. He tries to make it very clear with his face and body language how relieved he is. It would be bad if they had a Dosk prune instead of a live Dosk.

She's still a little worried, but if he thinks that's good enough it probably is.

She gives the mouse a little pinch of apricot and sits in the shade to finish it.

He leaves her alone for another while.

She's being more careful, when he checks this time; she still hasn't done anything about the pants, but she's staying in the shade and drinking more. She has a little artifact set up with a glowing dot on a folded-over piece of cardboard, too, with a mouse napping inside.

In that case he'll just watch for a while, as long as she's not bothered by that.

She doesn't notice, intent as she is on her work. The dot moves along the cardboard, though, slowly, and a few minutes after it reaches the edge, she notices that, and stops to take a drink.

"Oh, hello."

He figures that's probably a greeting and repeats it.

He doesn't have the vocabulary to tell her her work is fascinating and important but he sure can look conspicuously delighted and fascinated by all the carving.

Hee.

She can mime at least a vague explanation - this part makes it go, and this part that she's working on right now does the steering, and over here she's going to put the part that lets it see, so that it can't accidentally run into anything.

Wow. He applauds softly. He figures she might be familiar with the idea. It's worth a try anyway.

He watches delightedly until he decides that having lent her his hat and left his water inside he should probably not try to stay out too long.

It's a lot of carving, and not particularly interesting to watch. She's pretty engrossed, though; she'll work through almost to sunset, left to her own devices.

By then people are making dinner. Vaayo invites Dosk to come eat with him and a few others.

She's definitely up for a meal by then.

Inside the building Vaayo invited her to earlier they're having chunks of hard old cheese and salted raw potato, artistically carved carrots, some of the year's last cherries. Someone seems to have decided that cooking is for cooler weather.

It's probably not a coincidence that less than half the people there are adults.

There's a little water and soap for handwashing before dinner.

She washes up and checks out the selection. She's dubious of the potato, but takes a piece to try, and another one for her pets, and some of everything else - it's all finger food, so that's convenient. At the table, she sets a piece of cardboard that she's done using for servantmaking notes down to give the mice a clearly delineated place to be, and arranges their meal before starting on her own.

One of the children points to the mice and says something. The man who showed her the map earlier responds. The child watches the mice but eats without mentioning them again.

The old woman who was telling a story to children earlier says something congratulatory to Vaayo and asks something that Vaayo responds to with a long story.

She waits for Vaayo's story to be done, and then instructs the mice to listen to him before getting his attention and miming that he should try talking to them.

"Hi, mouse, I think I'm supposed to talk to you? I'm going to feel really silly if that's not what she means."

Dosk chuckles and shakes her head. She gestures for the mouse to twirl, causing her to spin in place, and then she gestures from Vaayo to the mouse again.

"Sit? Stand?"

The mouse sits on her haunches, then balances on her back feet, watching him closely with her whiskers twitching.

He looks at the other two adults. They both start suggesting uses for pets. Vaayo frowns and looks at the mouse and then at Dosk, trying to figure out if she's trying to suggest using animals for something specific.

She doesn't seem to be; it seemed more like she was showing off, and that she's satisfied to let the adults figure this out now.

Aelor and Gari discuss using Dosk for their cattle or to convince local animals to stay away.

Aelor, the woman who was telling the story earlier, turns to Vaayo. "Well? What do you think?"

Vaayo draws a breath, hesitates, frowns. "...I think she doesn't know what the sun can do. She could've taken a break when it was hottest, I had to scare her into drinking any water, I'm worried about having her do things."

Aelor nods.

"Can you tell if she's from somewhere cold or somewhere always comfortable?" Gari asks.

Vaayo shrugs.

"Explain summer and winter safety," Gari says. "Use any materials you need."

Aelor gives him a disapproving look, then looks to Vaayo. She looks like she's quizzing him and there might be a wrong answer. Vaayo meets her gaze, smirks, pauses before answering.

"Gari's right," he says, "she needs to know. And maybe other things, too, but I'm not sure what else yet. Anyway, I don't know what to do to our animals."

Dosk is nibbling on a carrot, by then, but keeping an eye on the proceedings.

After dinner some kids get picked up and one gets dropped off. One of the people there to pick up a kid looks curiously at Dosk and tries to say hi.

She's friendly enough, though Nawi's translation of her reply is still in the wrong language.

She seems pleasantly surprised and tries a different language. Still not one they have in common, though.

She shakes her head. "I only know one language, yet," Nawi relays, uselessly.

Well now she really wants to learn that language. And the signed one.

...But now is probably a bad time. She wishes Dosk a good night and leaves.

Meanwhile Vaayo is off getting some water and other bathing supplies.

That is a good idea, she's pretty sweaty. She goes over; a questioning look will have to do for asking how that's handled here.

Hard to tell if she's offering to help or unclear on something. He offers her a pile of towels and other cloths in case she'd like to help carry them.

Sure, she can do that.

It turns out they bathe in their farms here, where the plants can enjoy the rinsewater. The amount of water per person is probably more sparing than she's used to if she's had baths in bathtubs or showers where the water was constantly flowing. It's still enough that Vaayo makes two trips carrying it all out. The very youngest children get help but no one seems to expect Dosk to need help.

...what.

No, seriously, what.

She doesn't manage to get a bath. She doesn't actually even get as far as getting her clothes off. She's still staring in stunned bafflement at her bucket and sponge setup when everyone else is done.

Vaayo tries to ask what the problem is using only his face.

Gari takes the kids in and Aelor stays out in case Dosk wants her help.

It doesn't seem to be a specific problem so much as just that she's confused. Very, very confused.

If he tries pointing to things will she pick them up?

Yup.

And if he mimes actions really slowly and precisely can she mirror him?

It's not going to get her to take her clothes off in the middle of a field, but yes.

Okay. There's varying amounts of tall plants around, maybe he can help her find a spot that's hidden enough. How does she feel about the orchard?

She's still dubious, but that's enough cover, yeah.

It would probably defeat the point for him to hang around watching to make sure she doesn't have any more problems. But he stays close enough she can come find him if she wants.

Aelor leaves, though.

She's still not clear on this 'bathing out of a bucket' thing, but she's gotten jolted out of being too stunned to try, at least. She doesn't get very clean, but she's better than she was. She looks around for a change of clothes.

Yup. Vaayo left her some clothes with the towels, they seem to have been previously owned by someone at some point but they've been washed since then.

That's fine. Secondhand clothes are usually softer than new, anyway. She gets dressed and gathers up her things and goes to look for Vaayo.

Here he is, waiting for her, glad to see she figured everything out okay.

More or less okay, anyway. Now what?

If she'll follow him they can go back to that building.

Follow follow.

Only a few of the kids are staying the night. There's room for Dosk to take one of the beds.

That's a little odd, but she's not complaining.

She's not really sleepy, though. Are there any books around?

There aren't any books around.

Disappointing.

She spends a few hours working on a transcription golem program, instead. She was most of the way through designing one, before, and she doesn't have her notes, but she expects it to go much faster the second time anyway. And then she sleeps.

It gets chilly by morning.

People start getting up and moving around early.

That wakes her. She spends a few moments figuring out where she is, and then rolls over and tries to go back to sleep - surely they can't expect her to be up yet, right, they must have an early shift or something.

When it's clear that she's awake, they leave her alone, but they don't bother to keep any quieter than they would otherwise.

Fine.

Breakfast?

A woman brings over some potatoes, cooked this time, and a small child. The child isn't breakfast but the potatoes are, and so are some fresh apricots and some more of the same kind of cheese from yesterday.

Yeah, all right.

She feeds herself and her pets and watches to see what everyone else is doing.

Vaayo watches everyone else like he's hungry for the sight of them. The woman who brought over the food drops off the child and leaves.

When he's done eating, Vaayo offers Dosk a wool hat.

She is very skeptical of the wool hat. She takes it, but doesn't put it on.

Well, it'll be too warm for it in a couple hours anyway, it's not winter, she probably won't get dangerously cold before it warms up.

The older children and Vaayo and Gari head out to go do things. Not all together, they all seem to have different plans for the day.

She's awake enough, once she's done eating: she goes over her notes and gets back to work on the wagon.

After a few minutes outside, she goes back for the hat.

After not too long, Vaayo brings her some milk. It's lukewarm like it was in a cow recently.

She's already engrossed enough in her work that it takes a while for her to notice him. She's pleased to see him when she does, though, and thanks him for the milk.

He thanks her for the automaton.

She's pleased at that. 

She points at the sun, then at the spot on the horizon where it sets, and then where it rises, and to where it'll be in the afternoon, lateish, and then waggles her hand in the gesture they've used for 'maybe'. Then another sunset and sunrise and late morning, and then she pats the wagon and grins.

He grins back! That will be so good.

He hesitates, waiting in case she wants to try to say anything else or ask something.

She waits too, for a moment, and then goes back to her work.

He leaves. For a while. If she's still at it when it gets hot he'll stop by again.

She's still there, but taking a break from engraving the wagon to sit in the shade and sketch something.

Good, he's glad she takes breaks.

He leaves her some water.

She wasn't running low yet, but after yesterday that's a fair enough concern; she thanks him, takes a drink, and gets back to her sketch.

He leaves her alone for another while.

Next time he stops by he brings fresh fruits and carrots.

It's reasonably enough lunchtime, so she pauses for a break; she leans against one of the wagon wheels where it casts a shadow and pats the ground next to her to invite Vaayo to sit.

He sits and watches her.

She watches him back, for a few moments, and then looks thoughtful.

She points to herself, and then signs: "Dosk." Points to the bird, signs again, "Nawi." Points to him.

"Vaayo," he says out loud, enunciating carefully. He would give her a sign if he had a sign, but he doesn't.

"Vaayo," she repeats back, in her own voice this time, and then signs to Nawi for a few seconds without him translating. Then: "Vaayo work?"

He signs his name so he'll remember it.

He thinks about how to explain himself. It's not going to be easy, he can tell already.

"Vaayo work." He thinks for a while and then smoothes the dirt in front of him and tries drawing. Three boxes. In one box he draws a row of growing corn. In another he draws an adult with several children. In the third he draws a hammer and knife. Then he makes a dot outside all the boxes. "Vaayo," he says, then touches the dot.

Huh.

She gives him the words for "farm" and "creche", and "make" he already knows. Then she draws a box around his dot and looks at him questioningly.

"Three person. Farm person, creche person, make person. Vaayo... not three."

...fair enough. She shrugs and nibbles on a carrot.

"Dosk make-person?" He gestures at the three pictures of things a person can do.

She nods. "Dosk make."

Nod.

He has so many questions and so few words so he'll just wait and see if she wants to try to say or ask anything else.

She really should get on teaching Nawi the language, soon. Can she even explain that she wants to, though?

Well, she can try.

"Nawi speak -" conveniently, the sign involves pointing to her mouth, that should give him a clue. "Vaayo speak. Dosk not speak." She looks questioning again: does he get it?

Yep. He nods and doesn't look lost. He waits for her to say more.

"Nawi speak," some new word, which she doesn't try to translate. "Vaayo speak...?"

He guesses she might mean the language. "Yuyaem," he says, enunciating very carefully.

She nods, and takes a moment to teach Nawi this word too.

"Dosk and Vaayo work Nawi, Nawi speak Yuyaem. Vaayo work Nawi?"

He doesn't know how to teach a language at all, he definitely doesn't know how to teach a language to a crow...

"Vaayo work," he agrees. But he looks pretty confused.

"Nawi little" - another obvious sign - "Yuyaem. Speak Vaayo, speak Yuyaem."

He tries pointing to a couple things around them and saying their names in Yuyaem.

He looks questioningly at her.

"One," she points out, and then teaches Nawi the last of the set he's given her. "Okay."

He tries one more nearby object.

Yep!

They can do quite a few this way - they only take a few seconds each - while Dosk eats.

What if he tries getting up and miming things? Can he teach Nawi to say "walking" and "standing" that way?

Yep! That doesn't seem to be any more complicated than the nouns.

He'll teach Nawi as many words as they have time for.

She does eventually finish her lunch, apart from the chunk of carrot and smidgen of fruit she's saved for the mice. She won't chase him off, though.

If she doesn't mind extending the lesson he'll just keep teaching Nawi for another hour or so. Being able to talk with Dosk is really important.

She has no objection to that at all, and more than a few suggestions for words, once he starts running out of obvious ones; she can teach Nawi almost any concept he can get across.

He eventually has to go get some other things done.

He thinks for a second and decides to invite Dosk to come with him.

Ooh! Yes, she'll do that.

Vaayo introduces her to an old man called Viyem, easily the oldest person she's seen in this village, who's sitting on the shady side of a building and carefully hand-copying the book Vaayo brought back from his trip. Viyem doesn't rise when they're introduced but he doesn't seem to mean that rudely and he has a cane leaning against the wall beside him.

That seems entirely reasonable. She takes a moment to teach Nawi his name, too.

"Automatons can do this," she tells Vaayo, of the copying.

Viyem likes that idea when Vaayo explains it to him.

"She wanted to know what I do and I couldn't figure out how to answer," says Vaayo.

"That's not hard." Viyem points to himself and to Vaayo, then to the book.

"That isn't all of it," says Vaayo.

"It's enough of it."

Vaayo turns to Dosk. "Vaayo work," he signs and points to the book.

That's about as illuminating as a shade. (They're...teachers? Why would that not count as creche work, if the categories are so loose that they only have three? Writers, maybe? Weird that a writer would spend time transcribing, though, that doesn't seem very related. Most likely she is just failing to get it, whatever it is.)

Viyem asks Vaayo to stand somewhere not directly between him and Dosk and tries something else. He points to the building right behind him. He points to the other buildings that he has a good view of from here. He points over in the direction of the ruined city, mimes snapping something, mimes carrying something from that direction. He points to the book.

They're... messengers? Okay, sure, that makes some sense. It explains why Vaayo wanted a scooter, too. She nods.