Naima will return to their room and pack the food neatly away in a bag somewhere. Then she can... sit on the bed, since there aren't a lot of other places to sit in this room. 

She feels like she ought to say something, but she doesn't know what it is, so she defaults to silence, since that's usually less wrong than saying the wrong thing at an important time. Someone having offered to teach you to read is definitely an important time.

After a few minutes, Élie walks in. 

"I was thinking we might start with the Osirian alphabet, since that's your native tongue, but the Taldane alphabet is simpler, so – your choice."  

"Um - I'd like to learn both?"

"But is there one you'd like to learn first?"

"Uh... whatever they have books in in Alexandria, I guess. Which is probably Osirian, though I haven't exactly checked."

"Probably." Which means he has to show her the ugly primer. "We can start with the consonants, then. This is alif – " 

Naima doesn't know any letters! She will stare at them and try very hard to remember which ones are called what, though.

As long as Naima doesn't look too overtly confused, Élie will barrel on! Osirian letters are written like this, and they make these sounds, and to give them voice one adds some of these little dots, like so. 

She doesn't think she's confused! She certainly hasn't immediately picked all of that up, but she's focusing on it and trying to remember as much as she can. She doesn't repeat after him or say anything or really otherwise respond at all, besides watching and listening.

"Got all that?" 

And then, as he catches himself – "I don't expect you to have them all memorized yet. At this point in my education I think I copied it all out about two hundred times, but I was five years old and found it unbearably dull even then."  

"But you knew it all, at the end of that?"

"Oh, I knew it before, but we all had to do it just the same." 

"Oh," she says, like she understands, even though she doesn't. "So how did you learn it?"

"Oh, I suppose my parents must have taught me. There was this one book – I couldn't tell you what it was or who wrote it, but it was covered in green leather with the letters raised – and I remember staring it for hours and being furious I couldn't understand what it said. And then suddenly I could! Of course it couldn't have happened that way – " and at this point it occurs to him he's not exactly answering Naima's question – "but the copying seemed to work well enough. In the general case." 

Nod. "Is there any paper around, or should I plan to buy more in Alexandria?"

"I have paper, here – do you know how to use a pen?"

Of course there would be a trick to it, there's a trick to using anything. "Not in the sense of having done it before."

Then he can demonstrate. "There's really not much to it. Don't worry if you spill at first, everyone does. It's easier when one's not on a boat." 

Naima approaches this task with intense focus. She gets the ink into the pen, but also a few drops in some places she didn't mean to. She very carefully tries to copy Élie's letters exactly, holding the pen in a pincer grip between her thumb and her fingers. It's not that bad, for a first try, probably because she doesn't actually have the fine motor control of a six-year-old. On the other hand, she's very slow, and her letters look off-balance in a way that nobody who'd been writing for years would ever form them.

"You should see my handwriting when I'm not trying to set a good example." 

- so it's bad. That's to be expected. "Which parts are wrong?"

– he's an idiot, of course she'd be insulted, he should have kept his stupid mouth shut. 

"Nothing – it's fine – I mean, there's nothing incorrect. A little uneven, maybe, but that's to be expected, and it doesn't much matter as long as it's comprehensible." Gods, he sounds like a babbling ape. "Would you like to practice more, or shall we proceed to the ligatures?" 

So... it is bad, but he's bizarrely reluctant to tell her that she didn't get it perfect on the first try, and not going to tell her what parts make it look like a beginner's work. Well, she can learn it from careful observation, if that's how it is, there's probably something else going on here that she's not getting.

"Whatever's more convenient for you."

"Neither – I mean, I want you to learn at whatever pace you think best."

Why is he so focused on her! Doesn't he have things to do? - well, plausibly not, actually, they're on a boat and he may not have brought anything to spend all his waking hours on, but -

"I don't want this to become inconvenient for you," she tries again, even though she's pretty sure that's wrong.