Upon noticing Faylar waiting in the grove, Saphienne shut the door to her family home slowly, curious about why he was just standing there. He had obviously seen her come outside from where he was waiting, but he had said nothing, pretending instead that he was preoccupied by the morning clouds drifting overhead. A gust of wind ruffled his short hair, the breeze sending ripples along his thigh-length coat. He was dressed differently than usual, less casually, and his hair looked freshly cut.

“Faylar?” She called out to him, and walked closer.

Then he had no choice but to turn and wave, his other hand tucked into his broad pocket. Yet he still didn’t say anything, nor did he approach.

Saphienne sighed and went toward him. “Did you cut your hair? Why are you wearing your winter coat?” She lowered her voice as she came within easy speaking distance. “And those shoes — are you going for a long walk?”

“Good morning Saphienne,” he said, shaking his head. He had a small smile on his lips, which usually meant she had said or done something that he found odd. “Happy birthday.”

His birthday wishes made her smile back with knowing glee, in the childish way she did whenever he missed something she had pointed out to him. “My birthday’s not until tomorrow, Faylar.”

“Well,” he said, shifting nervously, “I know that. But tomorrow, you’ll be going to see Master Almon right away, won’t you?”

She stopped before him, placing her hands on her hips. “What does that matter?”

“I was thinking,” he explained, “that we should celebrate your birthday today. Since you’ll be too busy.”

Saphienne blinked. “But it isn’t my birthday today.”

“What does that matter?” He grinned.

Saphienne hadn’t celebrated a birthday since the day she turned twelve. Faylar couldn’t have known that, and she wasn’t inclined to tell him, or explain why. Only Filaurel knew what had happened, and had understood – without further explanation – why Saphienne treated her thirteenth birthday just like any other day. Saphienne had been equally thankful that her mother, predictably, had forgotten until weeks later — and had felt too ashamed to do anything more than belatedly leave an acorn cake inside Saphienne’s bedroom.

The cake had remained on her windowsill, untouched, until it grew stale.

“I don’t know…” Saphienne hoped he would take the hint.

Faylar was undeterred. “Well, I got you a present.”

She tried not to show how deeply her heart sank when he drew a small book from his pocket, and made herself take it from him quickly, maintaining eye contact. “Thank you.”

“Aren’t you going to see what it is?”

Steeling herself, she looked down. The book was newly bound, with no markings on the green leather of the cover.

“Go on, read it.”

Her hands were cold as stone, felt heavier than gold, but at least they remained steady as she turned to the first page.

* * *

“I suppose it’s my turn. Which language do you most want to speak?”

After agreeing to learn from each other, Saphienne and Faylar had went to the library every evening to study. In the beginning, Faylar was unsure he would be able to teach her, and he hadn’t prepared any lesson plan for the first session… which would have frustrated Saphienne, but he’d done as she’d told him without question or complaint, spending most of the day burrowing into her recommended books.

Saphienne shifted back in her chair, looking up at the frozen skylight windows. Her fingers drummed absently on the table as she considered the question. “My choices are Dwarfish, the language of dragons, the language of woodland spirits, and the human language?”

“Those are the languages I know, though I can’t speak the dragon tongue. But,” he corrected her, “humans actually speak several different languages, spread across different parts of the world. The common trade language is what they use to talk to us, and dwarves, and I suppose anyone else they want to buy and sell from.”

“Buy and sell?”

Faylar shrugged. “I won’t pretend I understand them well enough to explain it, but humans don’t trade in the way we trade. They’re similar to dwarves, using physical markers to represent their trading relationships, and they place a lot of value in rare metals.”

“They use coins.” She reached into her pocket and drew out her coin purse, and soon set the copper disk on the table. “I have one.”

That made Faylar lean across, and he almost picked it up before he saw Saphienne’s expression. “Um, sorry. Do you mind if I look?”

“As long as you give it back.” Beneath the table she clenched her hands.

He lifted the coin, turning it over. “I’ve not seen one like this before. Not surprising — every different human tribe makes their own, with different markings. I think the tree means it comes from somewhere near the woodland…” Very gently, he set the coin back down. “…But, I’m really guessing.”

The way he returned the coin to its resting place made Saphienne relax, and she slipped it back into her pouch with a faint smile. “So, how do the coins relate to their trading relationships?”

Faylar looked uncertain. “Well, the way my aunt described it, they don’t build relationships for trade. Or, they do, but the relationships depend upon exchanging coins, and not having coins means they won’t trade. Not even among themselves.”

“Your aunt, the wizard? She’s met humans?”

“She’s traded with them often. When I told her I was learning the common trade tongue, she took an interest, and she showed me her coins. There weren’t any made from copper — yours is copper, right? Well,” he went on, “hers were all made from silver and gold. She tried to explain their worth, in the appropriate language, but I wasn’t a very proficient speaker, and she ended up teaching me proper pronunciation instead.”

Saphienne had wondered about his accent. “Is that why your voice sounds strange?”

He glanced at her, offended, and then he realised she was just being descriptive, and he laughed to himself. “Yes, that’s why I speak like this. I spent half a year with her, and all we talked in was the common trade tongue, for hours every day. Even when she was… well, when she was trying to prepare me for wizardry.”

“Does she want you to follow in her footsteps?”

“Obviously! Of course she wants me to be a wizard. Why else would she teach–” Faylar caught up with her thinking, and his eyes widened. “…You know, I never put it together, but you’re right. She was always repeating what an advantage her trading was, and how eager humans are for trade with skilled wizards. I just thought she was boasting.”

“And the odd way you wear your hair — that too?”

Reflexively, he ran his fingers through his locks. “I saw some paintings of how humans cut their hair, and I thought it looked good. Different, you know?”

Saphienne nodded. “I think I like it. You definitely stand out. Almost everyone here looks and dresses alike.” Her eyes dropped to the table, and her voice became quiet. “I like differences.”

“Everyone speaks the same, too. Well, mostly. My aunt says it’s a good thing to stand out a little, as long as it doesn’t go too far.” He was watching her, recalling things previously shared. “You know, the other day, when I said an elder told us to make sure none of the other children picked on you? I didn’t mention, but it’s because you weren’t fitting in.”

Knowing that there were adults, even elders, who secretly intervened on her behalf made Saphienne uncomfortable. She changed the subject. “Why don’t we start with the common trade tongue?”

“Bad choice,” Faylar insisted. “It’s one of the hardest. Humans cobbled it together from all their own languages, along with Dwarfish, Elfish, and who knows what else. The grammar is a mess, the nouns and pronouns pointlessly gendered, and the spelling is–” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “There’s absolutely no relation between how words are written, and how they’re said. For the first month, my aunt was constantly correcting me.”

Saphienne could feel his exasperation. “Too messy?”

“Patched together. But beautiful, in its variety.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“How about,” she considered, “the language of dragons? Filaurel once told me that many wizards study dragons.”

Faylar squirmed in his chair. “I’m not very good at it. And it’s another hard one. Wizards study dragon’s speech because magic was first taught to elves by the dragons, or at least, that’s what my aunt said she’d been told when she studied at–”

“Dwarfish?”

“Very boring. Lots of compound words. And, speaking personally,” he sniffed, looking away, “I think it’s quite ugly.”

“That leaves the language of woodland spirits.”

“The tongue of the sylvan creatures — are you a good singer? It’s all about tone.”

Saphienne sank back in her chair. “Faylar,” she asked, sounding tired, “are you trying to discourage me? Do you not want to teach me?”

Guiltily, he looked down. “I’m nervous,” he admitted. “I don’t really know where to start. But I’ll try.”

That he was less than three years older than her – still a child, for all he was taller than her – meant that it was unfair of Saphienne to expect him to know what he was doing, and she knew he was making an effort. Not just to teach her, but to put up with her… prickliness.

So she clapped her hands as she sat forward. “Where did you start? Let’s begin there.”

A frown creased his brow as he looked back up, and then his eyes were bright, and his voice full of mirth. “I didn’t start with a language.”

“…You didn’t start learning languages by… learning a language?”

“Not a real one.” He laughed, and then laughed a second time, tickled by the memory. “My mother’s a Warden of the Wilds, and she used to tell me stories about her patrols. Every night she was home, when she put me to bed, she’d tell me a tale of adventure. She did impressions.”

Envious, with a deep ache in her chest, Saphienne was instantly spellbound, and leant her elbows on the polished table, craning forward to listen.

Faylar was too caught up in fondness for his past to notice how she hung on his words. “My very favourite stories,” he said, “were her encounters with goblins. The Wardens of the Wilds have to shoo them out of the woodland every fifty years, give or take. To hear my mother tell it, though, they were always memorable encounters. You know about goblins, right?”

Saphienne knew a little, but she didn’t want to interrupt, and so shook her head.

“They’re pitiful creatures.” He was smiling still. “They’re short, ugly, brown like mud – or green like pond scum – and they’re almost feral. They’ve got no culture, no ability to understand culture, and they don’t feel any emotions but anger, fear, simple happiness, or childish wonder. They’re also quick with violence, but only really dangerous in groups. And they have very short memories, so they can’t even remember simple lessons — like staying out of the woodland.” He tapped the table. “But, they’re so hopeless that they’re funny. They’re so outrageous, and outrageously stupid, that the Wardens of the Wilds gave up trying to teach them to stay away. Every time they show up, people like my mother track them down, see what sort of creative trouble they’re causing, and then drive them out.”

For her part, Saphienne was smiling as well, though in confusion. “What does this have to do with languages?”

“My mother speaks the goblin tongue.” Faylar smirked. “If you can call it that. She repeated some of their words when she was acting things out, then answered my questions, and eventually taught me it. We’d laugh over how silly it was.”

Saphienne stood up. “Sounds easy enough. I’ll find a book on the goblins’ language, and you can–”

“Oh, but — there aren’t any.” He saw her surprise. “I told you, it’s not much of a language. They have a few hundred words, and all of their sentences are exactly three words long. Their grammar is so simple, even a small child can understand: no past tense, no future tense, no adjectives, not even pronouns.” Faylar waved his hand, as though calling forth the words. “Goblins have very simple thoughts… let’s say I was trying to tell you, ‘There are no books on goblin speech, sit down.’ Using our words instead of theirs, a goblin would say something like… ‘Elf want book. Book is goblin. Elf look book. Elf get no. Book is no. Elf sit yes.’ Except, they don’t actually have a word for ‘book,’ because they can’t read.”

“Surely,” Saphienne replied, “someone has to have written about their language?”

Faylar shrugged. “Quite a few books about the study of language describe it, but only in bits and pieces. It’s so primitive that it’s not really worth learning; it’s more useful for illustrating concepts that are found in proper languages. If you were to call it a language, its only virtue as a language would be as an introduction.”

Saphienne doubted him. “I’ll ask Filaurel. At least one library in the woodland must have a book on it.”

* * *

Except, when she had asked Filaurel, the librarian had never heard of any such book. Nor was there a category under languages reserved for goblins in the standard she used to organise the library. Filaurel was so intrigued that she unlocked the lowermost drawer of her desk and took out a tome that Saphienne had only seen her write in once or twice before — a magical tome, which contained within its pages messages written by other librarians, messages that were added to by means of matching tomes in other libraries.

Saphienne had wanted to try writing the question, but Filaurel flatly brushed off her excitement. As she lifted the pen, the librarian explained that her peers all knew each other’s handwriting, so if they wanted a good answer, the question had best come from the known librarian for their village.

Later, after a week had passed, Filaurel would declare definitively that no librarian across the entire woodland had ever heard of any such book, and that no less than forty pages in the tome had been filled with arguments over the subject. In the end, there was a list of seventeen books that mentioned the goblin language in lesser or greater detail, but only nine covered the grammar, and only two of those featured word lists. Knowing Saphienne as well as she did, Filaurel had requested a loan of them all.

Meanwhile, Faylar had already found a few of the nine in the village library, and Saphienne copied the relevant sections out before combining and rewriting the information in her own style. To this she added a detailed list of all the words Faylar could remember, which she subsequently updated whenever a new word was found in the slow trickle of texts from the other libraries. Faylar also checked with his mother, who had direct experience, and received a handful of corrections to the material Saphienne had researched.

Although they had already moved on to Dwarfish by the time Saphienne’s notes on the goblin language were finished, Faylar asked to borrow them anyway — in case reading them would remind his mother of anything else.

* * *

Standing in the grove outside her family home, Saphienne should have been annoyed that Faylar had lied, but she couldn’t smother the grin that bloomed across her face as she read aloud. “‘An Exhaustive Compendium of the Tongue of Goblins, penned by Saphienne of the Eastern Vale, compiled by Faylar of the Eastern Vale, with thanks to the Wardens of the Wilds.’” She looked up at him, manic. “Tell me you included the sources.”

“At the back!” He moved beside her, took the book from her, and flipped it to the bibliography. “Exactly as you wrote it, with added page references.”

For once, she had no idea what to say.

“Do you like it?” he asked, closing the book and clutching it in both hands.

Saphienne nodded. “Is it really all my work?”

“Every word, supplemented by some direct quotes from my mother and her fellows — in support of the corrections.” He blushed. “…And maybe to slightly pad the word length, since you were a few pages short of a full book.”

Taking it from him, she held it against her chest. “This must have taken weeks. Why did you…”

“Oh, um.” He looked at his feet as the wind stirred again. “To thank you. I’d have given up. And, truthfully? I couldn’t think of anything else.” He was even more flushed when he met her gaze. “I know what you’re like as a person, but I don’t really know much about you. All we ever talk about is, well, studying. I have no idea what you do for fun.”

“I read.”

“Besides that.”

“I…” Saphienne felt self-conscious, which was a rare feeling. “…I work on my sculpture?”

“I thought so.” He crossed his arms. “You don’t know how to have fun.”

“Well, you don’t know half of–”

“Prickly.”

Saphienne stopped herself, taking a deep breath.

Faylar waited.

“…You’re right.” She slowly breathed out as she accepted it. “I like reading, I like sculpture, but I don’t do them because they’re fun. I don’t do anything because it’s fun, and never just because it’s fun.”

Faylar accepted this without judgement. “Would you like to change that?”

“In what way?”

“Starting today, one day a week, we figure out what you find fun.”

The thought made her anxious. “I have to meditate every day, and tomorrow I’m going to Almon to–”

“You can meditate, and we’ll fit it around your studies.” He sounded confident.

“I really ought to prepare today, it’s my last chance to–”

“Maybe you’re overprepared?”

Saphienne snorted. “No such thing!”

“Well, maybe you need to finish getting ready by relaxing.” He gestured out into the forest. “I was thinking, maybe we go for a walk today, up to the lake? We can meditate there, and then see what takes your fancy.”

“I’ve never been to the lake,” Saphienne said, and glanced down at her feet. “I’d need to change my shoes.”

“And wear a warm jacket, too, in case it rains.”

“Is it alright to go that far? On our own, I mean.”

“Children of fourteen years or older can wander from the village, as long as they tell someone where they’re going, and they’re back before sunset.” Faylar could see an objection in her eyes, and sighed. “Nobody will care if you’re a day early, Saphienne, especially if you’re not alone, and definitely when you’re walking the direct route in daylight. We can tell Gaeleath, or Filaurel, or both.”

There was no good reason to refuse, not that she could think of…

Nor did she want to. “…Wait here, then.”

A few minutes later, she emerged properly dressed, still holding the book. In due course they told Gaeleath, and then Filaurel, and then made their way into the local woodland.

As they climbed, Saphienne wondered aloud whether there would be any frogs or toads spawning at the lake. Faylar thought it unlikely, so far into spring, but supposed there might be, and promised they would look.

* * *

The next day, on the day of her fourteenth birthday, Saphienne awoke from a deep and pleasant sleep, taking her time to bathe and dress. She breakfasted on the leftover pastries that she had enjoyed the day before, remembering how Faylar pleaded with the baker to bend the rules and let her request food for herself just a little before she was old enough. After all, it had been nearly her birthday, and wasn’t that close enough?

The leftover strawberry tarts were still delicious.

She felt no fear as she put on the pale grey, well fitted robes that Filaurel had commissioned for the occasion — and that Jorildyn had expressed unexpected pleasure in tailoring. Her former tutor had even complimented Saphienne on her choices, sincerely, bizarrely reconciled to her pursuit of wizardry by the simple act of making her first robes.

Filaurel hadn’t been able to explain why. “People contradict themselves,” was all she said.

Fully prepared, and more relaxed than she imagined possible, Saphienne departed. Her mother was still asleep when she left.

And Almon was waiting when she arrived.

End of Chapter 13