Spears of Uu'kata

Chapter 14 - Battle-Sickness

"Shap en-de eno'tesa?" Charlotte asked, then mumbled, "Where are my pants?" Then she said, " De olidint...in... olidentin he-hegrun? I am hungry."

As she spoke the words, she pointed at the writing on the page before her, and Ylini-her current tutor-nodded approvingly, or shook her head.

"Olidenten," the tall Uu'k'ash female corrected. " De olidenten hegrun."

"De olidenten hegrun," Charlotte repeated.

The female nodded in approval so Charlotte moved on to the next phrase.

"De olidenten tsagrun xe veer," Charlotte said, then mumbled, "I am thirsty for wine."

Ylini chuckled and shook her head saying, "Na. Charlotte. Veer titi..." She trailed off and tapped the tip of her nose. Then lifted her cup of wine and said, "Vier."

"Oh," Charlotte said with a frown. She pointed to a word and said, "No wine?" in what she hoped was Uu'k'asht.

Ylini shook her head and tapped a nail on the page, pointing out the placement of a pip beside the word.

"Oh, right," Charlotte said. So many words sounded exactly the same and were written with the same symbol with the exception of that little pip.

"Try," Ylini said, pointing at another sentence.

Ylini was a head and a half taller than Charlotte. Despite her height, she was willowy and dainty. Her nails were always perfectly polished, her hair perfectly neat. Every outfit she wore accented her slight frame. She was from a different clan, as many of Charlotte's tutors were. There was some kind of organization of women made up of different clans who had taken the lead on educating Charlotte and from what she understood, they worked apart from the clans. She didn't quite understand it. Yet.

Charlotte pointed to a character and said, "De neevo k' greece. I need to shit."

Ylini snorted delicately and pointed at the pip again.

"Oh, preece," Charlotte corrected. "Bathroom. What's the difference?"

Ylini gave her a droll stare.

"Okay, okay. De neevo k' preece. I need to go to the bathroom."

"Sia, Charlotte. Sia," Ylini said.

"Thanks. Sometimes I'm awesome."

Charlotte leaned back on her new pallet. She didn't know who'd brought it in for her but she now had something of a bed and it was soft. She hadn't realized how hard the floor was until she'd spent a night on the palet and awoke refreshed. Not even the nightly sexcapades had roused her while she slept and she'd been sleeping pretty well ever since.

She was wearing the pale green ensemble Ahnekk had given to her a few weeks back, right after being attacked by Timeout-who she hadn't seen since. At first, she'd refused to even take the garments out of the package, but she got tired of wearing the same smock and finally decided to try one on. It was so comfortable she found herself trying them all on. The expression of triumph on Ahnekk's face when he walked in and saw her wearing the red outfit had her nearly ripping it off her skin because she didn't want to wear anything that made him happy. But... the clothes made her happy.

Charlotte had never had a lot of clothes. As a pilot, she only had uniforms and one outfit that was exactly the same as what everyone else had on the ship to wear whent off duty. As a street rat, she'd barely had her own skin to wear. And before that... well, she had a hard time remembering anything like clothing before that. She'd certainly never had anything pretty to wear. And these clothes were pretty.