Staring at the board in front of him, Naph questioned again, "Why three different names for the same lesio?" His knees had begun aching forty-five minutes ago since he sat down cross legged, "The language of comprehension, the lesio for languages and what was the other?"
"Perspicuity's ember." Inri turned another page on a different book she plucked out from thin air. Naph had asked her about that too, but she just ignored him on that.
Inri instinctively gazed up from her book at Anaphol as he was about to ask what is perspicuity.
That gaze felt not just threatening but mere inches away from his death to Naph. So he reluctantly decided to do what Inri had asked him to do when they both came to his assigned room in Plora's wing.
To form connections between the different writing scripts she wrote on the board with the only language he spoke.
"I gave you a hint long ago." Inri's gaze fell down on the page again.
"And what was that?" Naph felt that peculiar feeling of a gaze on him without someone's eyes on him like he did on Rentilaco and Central Monite. Except this time Inri made it easier for him to guess it was her.
"That tingling is me."
Gulping down his half-cooked retort, he said, "Oh, right, yeah. Uh, visualize it?" He sneaked a glimpse of her on his left. Inri leaning on the polished wood round table gave the slightest nod.
'How am I suppose to visualize it when I don't know what visualize means!' He grunted under his breath.
This was not Anaphol's first time encountering the word visualize or even his hundredth. He just never felt the need to know its meaning before because of a simple wording rule followed impassively in conversation. 'Use your words in a manner that the other person could substitute an unknown word with one they feel closely resembles the meaning you are going for.'
The other problem was that the words on the board were not in the script of English he was well-versed in. 'How is it that one language can have so many different writing patterns?' Anaphol equated script with writing patterns based upon the way she talked of it as they both moved from the preservation hall to his room in the floor below.
Looking at her again for any hint, he wondered if the book she holds has any connection to it.
"What a world! As if it is in fact a dark fantasy wanting to be a steampunk." Remarked a noble that was referred to as the Duchess of Knowledge in the platinent Jhorime. Inri turned to the next page.
Whispering under a breath, "moron," Naph cursed his wondering that inched closer to being a wish.
Another hour went by, he was still staring at the script.
Inri had crossed off the book she was reading and now was on another book. Both hadn't spoken for the last nine hours to each other.
A few attendants came with next day's lunch after getting scolded by a supervisor who received a letter from a supposedly unknown sender. But the few who knew, that supervisor is not supposed to receive any letter, and that few were in the council of the emperor.
Anaphol starved and having not slept for even half an hour for the last day and a half finally broke and asked the one question he meant to ask only Don Extea. "What does visualise mean?" His knees and elbows aching from the still posture he had been in.
"Close to thirty-six hours." Inri rose her gaze from the page in front of her and let it fall on Anaphol like a feather made of lightest existence. "Visualise here would mean forming patterns and connections. But visualise normally means imagine, or," her right hand rose and fell in a swoop, "theorizing a possibility based upon the known knowledge."
Her gaze went back to her book instantly. Naph's didn't leave her. He was processing. Starved but processing what he had gained. And he gained plenty.
'She gave two meanings. One I understood immediately, the other elaborated.' His eyebrows furrowed. 'Wait, she gave one before too. What was it? Connections?'
"Visualise connections, huh."
So he did. Anaphol let his mind wander but didn't let it go away from the borders of the board. Everything he thought of for the next ten hours had the elements of the board interlaced all over it.
Naph gave the very borders of that board names only he knew. The texture the light showed on it during the day at different hours had its own names, let alone the effects of the moonlight.
But these were minute. His mind had wandered to the deep end. Starving and hallucinating but focused on the simple task of one act.
Forming connections between the symbols on the board to what he spoke as sounds recognizable by other humans.
Each connection in his mind kept gaining new meanings until he felt deep within that the meanings were all wrong.
Where did those irritating sensations of ephemeral nature came was shocking to him. It didn't feel as if it came from the depth of his mind, or his body. Something far intricately tied to his self had answered.
"Wrong."
Thus, he spoke it out as well.
Inri smiled. Yet, someone far away from the Plora's wing had a frown forming, that someone or she turned. She began walking.
From a jog to a brisk walk to a sprint. And she herself did not remember how she entered the Plora's wing of the castle, but she knew she had always known the how.
Banging open the door Izne Hont Keyriftrian said, "Anaphol! Your list of lesios have been decided. You will be informed of it on the way to The Sanctuary aspiring Proficiency and Wisdom. Thank you Duchess of Knowledge Inri Plora for being our representative host to the guest of the Keyriftrian Empire." She was not having anybody else speak, she did not want them to.
The darkness that had settled in the room from no movement except of the lips clung to Izne wanting to absorb itself into her.
Inri's smile stayed as it is. The Duchess of Knowledge had won against the council of the emperor.
Naph lost on the connections he was forming anew. Ones that were actively connecting accurately how each symbol should be pronounced after the last grueling forty nine hours born in stillness.
No amount of sound could have moved him without the proper rest. Thus, only when Inri was sure Naph couldn't be shaken out of his process said, "He needs to rest. Forcefully." The Duchess brought her fingernails painted in a silver and red finish close to her face as she scrutinized it, "Since the travel to Aergylden is long, and we don't know what his teleportation aspect of his lesios truly work with or as."