Chapter 14: Pancakes

Tom had spent damn near 2 decades on a school bench and now he was back at it. It did help pass the time though, as it was clear that he was not allowed to leave his bed without supervision, and that he should move as little as possible at all times. Apuma and Nunuk had come to him for his next Translation sessions, they had exchanged as many questions as time would allow.

Yes, indeed he was on a floating island. The keep had been here for hundreds of years. Lady Bizmati was in charge here, and she was, in turn, a vassal of the king of somewhere, names didn’t translate well. He would be treated as a member of the keep for as long as he held his oath, and hunted down and killed if he broke it… okay then, could have mentioned that. He could work with it though.

They had asked many questions about the things he had brought, his weapons, and anything else they could think of. The weapons especially seemed to interest the Lady, but Tom had refrained from explaining too much. He wanted to be sure giving these people the concept of firearms was a good idea. It hadn’t been hard to keep things vague. They were on a timer after all. about 20 minutes was all the Apuma could muster at a time. For his part Apuma was more interested in where he came from, Tom had managed to convince him that was a subject for more than 20 minutes of discussion though.

Sapphire had taken it upon herself to teach him the basics of Draconic while he was bedridden. She could hobble around on her crutches by herself now, and so slept in her own room. But there clearly wasn’t much for her to do, with the others being busy most of the time. All the other huntresses came by to say hi at least a few times a day though. Esmeralda had brought him his speaker, he had his backpack with him so he had a few power banks, but he would need the solar chargers before long. Still, it was good fun watching the others listen to new kinds of music for the first time.

Sapphire was clearly a fan of the more fast-paced action variety, she had taken right to Two steps from hell, it probably helped there weren't any lyrics to try and understand. Esmeralda liked to be happy and upbeat, and she loved it if there were bits she could sing along to, even if she had no idea what was being said. Come to think of it that was true of humans too, so not that weird. Dakota was into metal, The Warrior Song had really clicked with her it seemed. Jackalope had taken to Rock and roll, and a bit of metal too. And Fengi just loved anything with a dance beat. It was really rather funny how music transcended language, Nunuk and Apuma had been very curious about the speaker but seemed content that it wasn’t dangerous, after a short inspection.

As the days had gone by, people had come to visit. They had introduced themself, talked with Sapphire for a bit, some brought small gifts too. All looked curiously at Tom, some had stayed for a while to listen to the music before Sapphire had shooed them out and continued her lessons.

Their language was a strange one. You used your throat for most of the sounds rather than the mouth, his had gotten quite sore during the first few days. He guessed he would get used to it. But for now, it was really quite painful. He had tried to teach Sapphire a few words of English, as it would be the most useful Earth language for her to learn, after all. She struggled to produce some of the sounds though, resulting in a truly hilarious accent. She had seemed impressed he spoke multiple languages already, even if none of them were useful in the given situation. All that work for nothing he thought to himself…

The whole sleeping less thing was also getting annoying, there was nothing to do in the early hours of the morning. After 3 mornings of doing nothing, he had decided it was time for another expedition. He had been brought breakfast every day, even if it was more like a brunch by his time scale. It usually consisted of boiled whole eggs, bread, roast meat, and a few vegetables. He was gonna make breakfast today though.

Finding the kitchens wasn’t hard, but the fact there was nothing sweet there did hinder his plans to make pancakes a little. They loved sweet things so much but had nothing sweet? must have eaten it all he thought to himself.

They had plenty of meat, eggs and milk though. He found some smoked meat that he sliced as thinly as he could manage to try and make bacon. The cooking process was complicated a little by the whole open fire thing, but he was used to camping so not too much trouble.

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He used the bacon to make bacon pancakes. They came out pretty good if not quite the real deal, the meat wasn’t cured and very gamey. It would do though. He then set about making scrambled eggs, with bacon in it too of course. If he had just had his stuff he could have made this so much better, but in the end, his supplies were limited, so this would be the way at some point anyway. Besides if he was cooking for 20+ his stuff wouldn’t last long.

As he was working mumbling a little tune to himself, he had become completely lost in his work. Somebody cleared their voice in the doorway. He froze as if that would help him in his current situation, then slowly looked up to see one of the guards that had first come out to meet them and Fengi standing looking at him.

“Hungry?” Fengi had asked, looking quite accusative.

The guard said something to him. Tom thought he could make out “steal” in there, and the guard didn’t seem happy, oh nooo...

“No, breakfast.” He tried sounding as innocent as he could, gesturing at the large plates of food. “Breakfast.”

The guard searched him and found nothing that wasn’t supposed to be there, even if he took the chance to look at some of the things he found, clearly not understanding what they were.

“You just cooked for us?” Fengi sounded more quizzical now he thought.

“Yes, Pancakes” Fengi tilted her head at the odd word and tried to emulate it “cancakes?”

“yes” Tom handed them each a hot bacon pancake and crossed his fingers, so far his food adventures had been a success.

Judging by Fengi’s pupils he had succeeded once again. She held up her finger to her mouth “No say, now follow” Tom nodded and followed Fengi out the kitchen, looking back at the guard already going for the second pancake. Well, that went well, sort of... he mused as he got back in his bed, and Fengi closed the door leaving.

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Tom had taken to the schooling well. It was clear he was used to being a student. From what Sapphire had gathered during the week he had spent most of his life learning! They had managed to get greetings done, and simple things like asking for something. They had started on numbers, at least he had seemed to use the same counting system as them, with just the names being different. There had been some confusion with the ones between teen and twenty but they had figured it out. He also talked about something called percentages which Sapphire didn’t understand, he had left the subject for now though.

Tom for his part had started trying to teach her a bit of English. Sapphire had thought it was his mother's tongue, but as they spoke over a delicious breakfast made by Fengi and Balethon. They had gotten to the subject of his home country. Apparently, they spoke a language he called Danish. She had questioned him on how many languages he knew. He had answered five?! Sapphire had gone to find Apuma When she learned this.

Apuma was also enjoying his share of the funny flatbread with meat and had nearly fallen off his chair when Sapphire told him. He was loremaster of the keep, an accomplished scholar, and educated in the capital. Yet he knew only three. When he had tried to ask Tom how many languages he knew existed he had answered hundreds, so there was clearly still some work to do on the numbers.

It was an arduous process to teach the human, his endurance was damn near frightening. He would go on for hours, listening intently. Trying to formulate sentences and asking questions. Sapphire was equal parts impressed and despaired, her head was sore after just the first day. But the more the guy learned the more he tried to teach her in return. Even if most of it was impossible to understand it was fascinating, to be learning about a different world. Apparently, he came from the countryside and grew up in a small town. Later he had studied in a massive city with over a million people in it. Sapphire could hardly comprehend what a city of a million people must look like. If that is Tom had gotten the numbers right this time.

Besides Apuma had to stop the daily sessions they were getting too expensive. The materials for such rituals were not cheap, and only available through trade. So for now Sapphire was the main way of communicating with Tom. When Tom was feeling better it had been decided he should join Apumas classes with the children. There he would learn the alphabet as well as more complicated things like grammar, so Sapphire just had to focus on vocabulary and pronunciation.

When he was considered fully recovered he would join the guard. They had figured out that Tom didn’t sleep as much as they did, so he would be well suited to standing guard. And judging by the fact he didn’t carry a sword or spear, there was a good chance he had no clue how to use one. That just wouldn't do.

Following their great breakfast, Fengi and Balethon had been charged with making breakfast twice a week from now on, it had spurred some protest. But they refused to tell their secrets on how they had made the first one. Sapphire had a growing suspicion she knew why that might be and made a note to try at least to check on Tom as soon as she got up from now on.