"Science is about learning. I need a jump on building."

"That makes sense. I think he'd still have a leg-up on Valdemar, but - hmm, if you give me a list of key questions, I can ask him when I next get the Foresight dream. Which won't be until sometime after we reach Valdemar so it's no hurry."  

"It'll kind of give away that I'm not doing a magical project."

"...Oh, right, fair. Well, I can show you the books I have already, some of them may be incidentally about building projects, although the only thing coming to mind off the top of my head is some aqueducts system he designed once, which isn't really the same kind of thing." 

"It's really not."

Dara gets back at this point, and gestures to a spot near the communal well where they can set up camp for the night. It's getting dark so they'll want to hurry. 

Vanyel can give them a nice bright mage-light, actually, but he's also tired so hurrying seems good. 

Tarinda can see in very dim light! But she will keep up.

They get the camp set up and some strangers wander over from the purple tent to offer them cooked food, some sort of stew with meat chunks in it. Dara chatters to them in their native language, which Page doesn't know at all, but Vanyel just politely thanks them for the food and then sits down quietly to eat it before smushing himself against one wall of the tent to go to sleep. 

Tarinda sleeps.

Page listens to people talking all night long and if there's enough night owls will have a tolerable grasp of the tongue by morning.

There are! Some teenagers are up well after midnight, gossiping by the campfire. 

The next morning's routine is similar, except that instead of cooking, Dara wanders back over to a different tent, catches up with friends there, and comes back with hot food and chava for Vanyel. 

Om nom nom. "How many languages is Page gonna learn before we get where we're going?"

"Depends how much they need to overhear? Jkatha and Rethwellan both have local languages, although they're closely related to each other, and then there's also the trade-tongue for this whole region." 

"It picked up a fair amount overnight when I was sleeping, though not enough to have a serious conversation unless it happened to be very similar to the conversation the people it was listening to were having."

"Hmm - Page will probably get basic conversational fluency in those three, then, though it depends a bit if we pay to stay in inns or camp, there'll be more people around talking in inns. Van, I think we should do that, we've got plenty of gold left and it's not like we're saving it for anything else at this point." 

"I don't want to strain your budget, so not on my account."

"No, it's not on your account - though I hope you don't mind sharing a room with us both, I'd rather not pay for two. We'll sleep better indoors and you won't have to endure my cooking." 

They pack up for the road. 

"Sharing's fine. Even if you snore."

"...I have nightmares sometimes," Vanyel admits, very sheepishly. "I'm likely to wake you at least once if we travel for a fortnight. It's not like that's better in a tent, though. Sorry." 

"No, no, you won't wake me, Page's patched into my ears. If you're just yelling in your sleep and not saying something important I should wake up for, it'll cancel the sound for me."

Dara gives her a look of startled envy. "Really? That's incredible." 

"I could've really used it in Kata'shin'a'in last summer when they were playing the drums half the night." 

They finish packing up and reattaching saddlebags in place, and Dara offers Tarinda a hand up to join her on Rolan's back again for the first part of the day. 

Hop! "What kindsa things is your king gonna wanna know?" she wonders.