By the time I finished cleaning Lilith's mess of a house, the sun had climbed lazily past the ridges and was casting golden rays across her front porch. I'd already scrubbed the floors, dusted her shelves, gathered all the empty bottles in a basket, and placed a jug of water by her bedside just in case she woke up with the hangover from hell. I even fluffed her pillow.
She'd thank me later. Or deny she needed help at all and groan herself into a pillow. Either worked.
With nothing else left to scrub or sweep, I finally turned to my real goal for the morning.
I reached for the thick old book tucked under the cushion of the sagging couch and cracked it open to a random page.
The cover said "Modern Conversational English for Trade and Travel" in faded, thick font. It was the kind of book scavenged from old-world ruins, most likely passed down by someone who thought it might be useful one day. It had fold marks, torn edges, and little scribbles written in pencil in the margins. I loved it.
I sat down cross-legged on the woven carpet and started to read, mouthing the words softly.
"'Can… you… show… me… the… way… to… the… air-port?'"
"Air-port?" I tilted my head. "I think that's like a sky-ship port? Or maybe where airships landed before they vanished in the Ashven chaos. Huh."
Reading English was... hard. No, beyond hard. It was maddening.
We spoke Maori here on the island. Not because it was trendy or sacred but because it was all we had left. The culture that birthed it, the traditions, the dances, the oral stories, the gods. they were gone. The ABR disasters tore through the Pacific like a rageful storm, swallowing culand burying legacies.
Even the bones of those cultures faded. The people adapted to survive. And when survival becomes your only goal, heritage starts to slip through the cracks. What was left of Maori was the language itself, a fossilized echo. Like Latin. Pretty to hear, functionally useful but hollowed out from the inside.
That was true for a lot of cultures, honestly. The ABR didn't care what flag you flew or what your ancestors built. It wiped out entire regions in waves of ash, rain and godstorms. And even though generations had passed since then, the scars never really faded. Most people didn't even realize their traditions were lost. They just lived in a patchwork world.
In our case, our "modern" life looked more medieval now. Medieval modern homes. Open markets. Bartering systems. Horses. Sometimes tech would flicker in and out but they were rare, and only worked when people remembered how to power them. Magic had replaced machines. Or rather, Flux had.
Back in my last life, though, I hadn't struggled with this mess of learning a language.
Why?
Because I had a translator Adjustor, a fancy word for a Flux artifact. Fancy, sleek, small enough to wear on the wrist or embed behind your ear. When I spoke Dutch, it auto-converted it into English. Anyone who heard me thought I was fluent. When they replied in English, I heard it as Dutch. It was elegant, flawless, and honestly, the laziest way to "learn" a language.
Now, here, I didn't have that tech. I didn't even have a Flux-rated device. I just had this beat-up book and a sharp mind.
So I read slowly. Painfully slowly.
"'I… would… like… to… buy… a… tic-ket.'"
I turned the page.
"'Where… is… the… nearest… rest…au…rant?'"
I furrowed my brow. "Restaurant. Right. That's a food hall. Got it."
My voice stayed low, almost a whisper. The trick was saying the words enough times to memorize the sound, the spelling and the context, like a puzzle. One page at a time, I made mental translations. I'd scribbled notes in a separate little book, translating English to Maori wherever I could. I also made drawings for hard-to-picture words. Like "elevator." Or "pharmacy." Or "passport," which looked nothing like it sounded.
But I was getting better.
The sentences flowed smoother now. My pronunciation had improved. Some words—like "hello," "thank you," "sorry," and "excuse me"—came out without thinking.
"'Where… can… I… charge… my… de-vice?'"
I blinked and laughed a little. "You can't. Not here."
But reading the words made me feel closer to something bigger. English was the language of the world beyond this island. If I wanted to leave this place—and I would—I had to speak it. Not just for survival. But for belonging and for fluency in a world that had long forgotten islands like ours even existed.
I flipped to another page.
"'I am looking for a place to stay tonight.'"
That one hit me deep. I mouthed it again, slower.
"I… am… looking… for… a… place… to… stay…"
It reminded me of all the nights I spent traveling in my last life. All the border crossings, the dangerous ports, the lost cities...
I'd asked that exact question so many times to strangers whose words I never understood. But the Adjustor did. And now... now it was just me and the raw language.
No tech. No Flux. Just willpower.
I kept reading until the sun rose a little across the carpet and Lilith's soft groan echoed from her room.
I smiled and turned another page.
"'Do… you… speak… English?'"
One day, I'd say that without a pause.
"Ugh… is that the sun? Why is it so loud in here…?" Lilith's voice croaked from the hallway like a resurrected banshee.
I looked up from the book, lips already half-formed around the phrase "May I see the menu, please?"
Lilith stumbled out of her room like she had just returned from the underworld, her hair a full-blown rebellion of curls and tangles, her oversized shirt falling off one shoulder and one sock halfway clinging to her foot. She had the look of someone who had argued with a wine bottle and lost.
"Morning," I greeted without thinking. "There's water by your bed. You're welcome."
Lilith blinked once, then again, squinting in my direction as she staggered to the couch and dropped beside me like a corpse clocking out of life.
"I swear the town chiefs drugged me with politeness and liquor." She groaned, then paused. Her gaze sharpened. "Wait... were you reading?"
"Yeah. English."
She leaned over, staring at the open book in my lap like it was cursed.
"You can read advanced books now?"
"Trying to," I replied with a smirk. "I'm not staying on this island forever."
Lilith rubbed her temple. "No offense, but why does 'trying' sound a lot like 'succeeding' right now?"
I laughed, closing the book slowly.
"Because I've been practicing."
Lilith stretched, back cracking in three different places.
"Yesterday feels like a fever dream. You, me, the ritual, your Flux… that was something."
"It was. I still feel... different. Like I've been rewired."
Lilith said, pointing at me as if that alone was proof enough.
"Also, not to make it about me, but I feel weirdly proud I was there for it. I was your awakening buddy."
"My ceremonial witness," I teased.
"The spiritual midwife of your new power."
We both burst out laughing.
It wasn't until we'd calmed down, a soft breeze wafting through the open window and fluttering the curtains, that Lilith went quiet and stared at me again.
"…wait a minute," she muttered, voice suspiciously low. "We've been talking this whole time. Right?"
"Yeah?"
"In English."
I blinked. Naturally, I speak the native language with Lilith but... was I speaking English this entire time?
Lilith sat upright with the most dramatic gasp I'd ever heard from her.
"We've been speaking English this entire time!"
My eyes widened. I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
"...Oh my gods. We have."
The realization hit me like a gust of wind through an open door. I hadn't even noticed. The conversation had flowed so naturally. No stutters, no mental translation, no double-checking grammar in my head. It had just... happened.
Lilith clapped like I'd just pulled off a magic trick. "You know what that means, right?"
"I already knew English," I muttered, still in disbelief.
"You just didn't know that you knew it. Why didn't I do this before??"
"Apparently," I murmured, laughing softly. "That's terrifying and awesome."
"You're a total dork for only figuring this out after reading textbooks for years."
"In my defense," I said, folding the book closed with mock solemnity, "I still mess up the pronunciation. My accent's thick. I sound like I swallowed three vowels every time I try to say 'birthday.'"
"Okay, fair, you still sound like a possessed toaster sometimes. But, you've got the vocabulary of a diplomat. That counts."
"I did learn it for four years." I sighed. "Or I guess I absorbed it back then, with the Adjustor doing most of the heavy lifting. I never thought of actually speaking it out by myself."
"Still counts," Lilith said, elbowing me. "Besides, we're islanders. No one here knows the difference between a Dutch accent and English."
"I'm still working on it."
"Just don't start sounding like one of those North American singers. You'll be unbearable."
"I'll try to restrain myself."
I leaned my head back, staring at the wood-paneled ceiling.
Maybe it wasn't perfect yet. Maybe I still needed to tune my ears, practice tone, master rhythm and pacing, but I could understand English, speak it and think in it. And that meant something. It meant I had one more bridge between me and the outside world. One more way to step beyond this island when the time came.
I was ready.
Almost.
"Wanna help me go through another chapter?"
Lilith groaned. "Does it involve food metaphors?"
"Yup."
She groaned louder.
"Fine. But only if you explain what the hell a 'brunch' is. That one sounds made-up."
"It kind of is."
And just like that, we started again, page by page, word by word, building fluency and laughter together. And honestly, this is my own type of celebration. Just silence learning a new language with my teacher.