It's a good thing she's trying so hard to pick up his language, because although he's trying pretty hard too, he's much worse at picking up hers. And even in his own language he often has some trouble expressing himself.

She will, in time, start expressing herself almost totally in whatever language he's speaking. It's going to take a lot of consistent, conscious effort, but she's willing to put in a lot of effort if it means she can talk. Her grammar comes out a little wonky for a bit, but her expressive vocabulary is constantly expanding. 

"Difficult Saikirei for to make things?" she asks him, eventually.

...He shrugs, a more-complicated-than-I-can-express sort of shrug.

"Difficult to make... some things. Easy statues," he gestures at the marble replica of his drowned continent still sitting on its pedestal, "difficult gardens."

She nods, then hesitates, then forges ahead. "Imrainai ask Saikirei make more things? Or no? Or only very need things?"

He smiles and nods emphatically. "Ask things!"

She smiles and looks relieved. And then frustrated, trying to get her words out. "Saikirei - Saikirei follow?"

He blinks, but nods.

So she takes him to her sleeping corner.

It's less sad than it was two weeks ago. The pile of unidentifiable ancient wood scraps has been dwarfed by a much larger pile of sticks and branches, none of them bigger than what she can tear off of a tree using nothing but her arms and her pocket knife. She has a slightly larger pile of ancient rebar. She has eight glass bottles lined up very nicely along the wall, some of them filled with water and others filled partway-full of perishable food. The tiny statue he gave her sits in their center, in as close to a place of honor as the room affords. There's a very sad attempt in one corner at weaving some sort of fabric out of grass, but if there's a trick to it then she hasn't found it yet, and her results are all either too inflexible to use for clothing or else too quick to fall apart in her hands. There's another pile beside it of hard crab and fish parts, in case she figures out anything she can do with those.

The sleeping corner itself is now a pile of grass and leaves, painstakingly gathered little by little in an attempt to create a softer sleeping surface. It doesn't look very comfy, though, and in fact it isn't. She hadn't known that the leaves and grass would become harder and scratchier as they dried out, and continually swapping them out every few days is more trouble than it's worth. But she's still not sleeping ridiculously well. 

"Saikirei make - more good sleep place? Not hard?"

"Ah." The confusion clears from his face; he nods comprehendingly. "Not hard," he affirms. "Here? Not here?"

She motions hesitantly to an unoccupied corner of the room. "Not take away sleep place, uh - other sleep place?"

His cloak flows out to cover the indicated corner. It bunches up and roils for a bit, then retreats, leaving behind a bed. A thick, flat oval mattress rests in a wooden frame shaped to look like braided rope, with soft blankets and pillows piled atop it.

Woooah, what is that.

(It's possible that her standard for a good bed is a moderately claustrophobic triple bunk bed with foam mattresses and a single sheet.)

She pokes the blankets and notes their softness and then comes back to hug him, since that worked out so well last time.

Eeeeeeee hugs. Hugs are so good. Imrainai is so good. Giving Imrainai things is so good.

"Saikirei make two other things? Small things?"

Nod nod!

Oh good.

She brings over one of the empty glass bottles, indicates it, then makes a cupping motion with her hands, indicating an imaginary container with a flat bottom and sloping sides. "Not bottle. Bigger top."

A thoughtful look, and then his cloak wraps around itself in his hands and he is subsequently holding a stack of glass bowls in charmingly nested decreasing sizes. "Like this?"

Ooh. Emphatic nodding; not going to specify what she needs these for. 

For the last item she takes one of the blankets from the bed and wraps herself in it like a hooded cloak. "Not biosuit," she says, using her own word. "No helmet, not hard. Soft biosuit thing?"

He nods, and his cloak does the thing, and he hands her a bundle of cloth. It is very soft. Some dark greys and browns with bold-coloured trim; some bright sunny cheerful colours with subtle swirling patterns; some green things patterned like overlapping leaves.

She takes them and lays them out on the bed and makes sure they're going to cover everything that needs to be covered, then nods. "Good things. Saikirei word for things?"

He labels the bowls and the clothes and the individual articles of clothing—shirts and pants.

She repeats the words delightedly. She is just generally delighted at words. She wants the words for the bed and the pillows and the blankets, too.

She is so cute and good. He can name the bed and the pillows and the blankets! She now knows the names of many soft things!

This is good!

She now has all of the physical objects she needs to take basic care of herself, and words are, once again, the main thing she wants to spend her time collecting. More words, more concepts, until she can ask things that get her closer to knowing what is going on.

"How many days Saikirei alone, before Imrainai?"

...He frowns a vocabulary-related frown.

"Many," he says. "Many like..."

How does he do this?? Okay, perhaps a quick timekeeping lesson:

He produces a tiny round golden coin and calls it a 'day'. Lays out thirty of them in neat rows and calls that a 'month'. Produces a silver coin with thirty tickmarks around the edge, and calls that a month too, equating it to the thirty days. Lays out twelve months in a circle and calls that a 'year'. Condenses the year similarly into its own dark grey coin with a twelve-pointed silver starburst. Puts down a row of ten years, and another, and another, ten rows of ten: a hundred years is a 'century'.

The summary-coin for centuries is black and engraved with a very fine ten-point spiral. He piles up a heap of them, for an estimate rather than an exact count. It looks to be a medium-sized handful: twenty, maybe thirty.

"Days Saikirei alone," he says, pointing at the heap of centuries.