Yes, yes, he has brain damage, he knows. Back on goes the disk. His eyes and reflexes and memory are all pretty good considering.

They have more devices made of stone or wood with blue bits, like the disk, that they wave near him or in one case would like to put on his head.

Can he still do magic, like this? (the doctor holds his hands together and makes a bright dot of light appear above them.) What did he do for a living? Can he remember his friends, workmates, or family? Complicated details about the days he's been having? If some of it's secret, that's perfectly fine, they want to know if he can remember. What did he have for breakfast this morning? Does he remember what the animal-like woman he mentioned looked like? Because they are not seeing anything that normally indicates damage and memory loss and are very confused because people don't go from planet to planet, and Ibyabek doesn't seem to be a real place. 

"I have never been able to do magic like that or in any other way. I was a star cadet in the Ibyabekan military. I can remember the names of people I knew and what the days before the incident were like. She had a large, fluffy tail, and was up in a tree at one point."

He can't do magic??? This confuses and alarms them considerably more than talk about planets.

Does he feel anything like - dots or points in his head? Possibly overlaid on his vision or making a humming noise or something, some people have synesthesia about it? That might have suddenly appeared one day? They're not asking for a number or kinds, just, any at all?

No, this phenomenon is completely unfamiliar to him and he is assuming that there must be brain damage because he would have expected to say last week that this wasn't a thing at all.

There is a lot of ??? at that. Two other doctors show up, one of them being the man from last night.

...They'll leave him in observation for now, then? And send off confused letters to other experts, which might start coming back in a week or two. They want to examine him with their hands some more, and wave the devices around again, and then repeat the mental acuity tests without him touching the disk, and then it's time for lunch.

The spicy pastries are replaced by pickle-sandwiches but his other options remain the same. They think he's fine to eat hot food but it's his choice, of course.

He'll eat whatever they suggest, he's not choosy.

They'll go with 'nutritionally complete' and suggest the fish and fruit, then.

He likes both of those things and eats what he is served as quickly as is decorous.

Would he like to try learning Kelosian? He probably can't keep the language disk forever.

Yes, of course, that makes sense and he should have thought of it himself. He'll apply himself to this study.

Okay! They send him to a room in a nearby building - the complex seems to be surrounded by forest - which seems to be a sort of schoolhouse. A white-robed man and woman are walking around teaching people, including half a dozen ordinary seeming children of various ages and a pair of teenagers, one of which has cat ears sticking out the top of his head, and no ordinary human ears to go with them.

The teachers are patient and cheerful and are big fans of full immersion learning! They can start with you-I-him-her type pantomiming and go from there. The smaller children think this is a fun game.

Well, it's sort of embarrassing but clearly they do not care to look after his dignity and that's not unsurprising. You-I-him-her indeed.

After a little while one of them, Kessel, will indicate that he should use the language disk.

"Thank you for coming to build your white with us today, Kyeo. I noticed you seem a bit uncomfortable, though, and that's not good for learning. Is it the immersion? I find immersion helps learning the most, but it's not comfortable for everyone. It's my duty to make a good learning environment for everyone here."

"I am not accustomed to it," he allows.

"What sort of classes are you accustomed to?"

"More written material - though of course it would be unsurprising if you don't have any in Ibyabekan - or Kularan either, I suppose."

"We don't. You could make some yourself with the language disk, writing in Ibyabekan along side Kelosian... We might pay you for that actually, preserving and spreading knowledge is all for the good. But we can't speak Ibyabekan or Kularan, the disk is encoded with Kelosian, which is a pretty arduous process as I understand it, I think you need to be a native speaker and white expert to do it."

"I'm not accustomed to being paid but if making myself study materials would constitute earning my keep I am happy to do it."

"-Not accustomed to being paid? Are you from a tiny hamlet where everything is handled with barter and favors?"

"No. On my planet we have moved beyond the need for money."

"...Well, we use money here, and we'll see if we can shake some pay out of the temples for recording down a new language and probably also information on what your, um, planet was like."

He nods glumly.

"I know it must be a huge adjustment, I just don't know how to help with that. Besides trying to teach you. How about we prepare a study sheet for you, you can write the Ibyabekan words for things on the left side and I write the Kelosian words on the right, and we can go from there. One hour at a time."

Kyeo nods and diligently writes down vocabulary.