The Ways of War

Chapter 10

I immediately regretted my willingness to start learning Tseeren. Kelly tried to start with something basic, and I was lost from the second she opened her mouth. I would attempt to mimic the sounds that she made, but as soon as I finished the first hiss, Kelly would be shaking her head and Nico would have a grimace on his face as if my butchering of the language was causing him physical pain.

After the first ten minutes I was getting frustrated and Lucas had excused himself, saying he needed to get back to training as he was helping another class. Opher had sounded in my head a couple of times asking where I was and what I was doing, but as soon as he sensed how frustrated I was he fled back to his own mind, leaving me to fume angrily and silently.

"Okay Royse, maybe try using your throat more when you do the grunt on this part? It should help!" Kelly recommended, trying to be cheerful, but even her peppy attitude was starting to wilt on my complete failure at this language.

Nodding my head, I cleared my throat before copying the noise that Kelly had demonstrated, a growl that would be fitting if it came from a cornered cat, and faded into a hiss, which was more snake like. My screwed up throat made the growl more dramatic, making the hiss sound pathetic in comparison, and I was wincing in preparation for the criticism that I was about to get. However, to my surprise, Kelly's encouraging grin turns to one of thrill and Nico starts nodding his head.

"That was amazing!" Kelly cheered, nearly leaping across the table in an attempt to give me a hug.

Nico was thankfully more reserved. "Very good Royse, you just successfully said hello in Tseeren." He said as he looked around the tent. "I believe that that has earned you a reward." He told me with a conspiratorial wink before he went back to the cabinet and returned with a strip of meat for all three of us. I happily ate my reward before I looked back towards my teachers, who were busy conversing across the table from me.

When the two of them noticed my attention on them, they stopped and turn to me, both of them wearing smiles. "Alright Royse! So we have to get back to work and you have to get back to training so what we are going to do is give you some words that are close to the one you already know. We want you to try and pronounce them as much as you can. Odds are, you'll do it right, but we'll meet up before dinner to go over and make any corrections!" Kelly chirped to me as Nico pulled out some paper and started to scribble on it.

From my angle opposite him, the words he was writing looked like a bunch of scribbles, and I assumed it was because my brain didn't recognize them as real words, but when the paper was slid to me I realized it was because Nico had astoundingly bad handwriting.

Despite the childlike scrawl, I could still make out the letters that were strung together in an order that made no sense to me. It was a lot of the letter r and the letter s, however I guessed that I would be able to figure out the way to pronounce the words without too much trouble.

Looking up from the paper I gave a small smile before I pushed back from my seat. "So, I'll meet y'all back here?" I asked, my voice sounding more grating than normal.

Nico nodded and gave a smile. "Of course, and I believe Lucas will be meeting you outside." He told me before he gave quick instructions on how to leave the tent.

The instructions were fairly straight forward, meaning I literally just had to walk in a straight line. While I was walking I dove into my head and reached out towards my link with Opher. "I'm finished now; I might have a couple of seconds." I called out to him, missing his presence.