The horse's name was "Horse" (Buttercup was never long on imagination) and it came when she called it, went where she steered it, did what she told it. The farm boy did what she told him too. Actually, he was more a young man now, but he had been a farm boy when, orphaned, he had come to work for her father, and Buttercup referred to him that way still. "Farm Boy, fetch me this"; "Get me that, Farm Boy- quickly, lazy thing, trot now or else I'll tell father."

"As you wish."

This was all he ever answered. "As you wish." Fetch that, Farm Boy. "As you wish." Dry this, Farm Boy. "As you wish." He lived in a hovel out near the animals and, according to Buttercup's mother, he kept it clean. He even read when he had candles.

This was the passage that Kiilee, Shark, and Vector were working on one morning in the cold season. They'd been cooped up like this for over a moon, which gave them a lot of time to work on learning different languages, both in speech and in writing. As long as the weather allowed them, Shark and Vector had worked on sword fighting skills. To Shark's disappointment (which he was careful to hide) Vector wasn't very good opponent. He was, to be brutally honest, an incompetent oaf when it came to sword play. Shark had eventually grown exasperated with not having any challenge at all, and so had taken it upon himself to teach him some basic grips and stances. Vector had said it was hopeless, until they had started making a game out of it. Kiilee, on the sidelines, would be Buttercup, held captive by Vizzini, Vector would be the masked man, trying to steal her from her kidnappers, and Shark would be Inigo, the dueling wizard who wanted to test his skills against the mysterious man in black. Getting into character as the hero of the story, Vector's confidence and ability had soared. Of course, none of their duels had ended the way the one in the book had- Shark, though a bit rusty, was still skilled with a blade, and Vector was still an amateur.

Then, the cold season had come, and no one wanted to go outside and practice anymore. So, attention had turned to language study. Shark would copy a passage from The Princess Bride, translating it into Barian. Vector would then attempt to translate it back into Salkie, so he could learn the language. At the same time, Shark would write it in Heartlandish, using the alphabet Kiilee had taught him, and Kiilee, who could speak Astranian but not read or write it, would attempt to write the passage in that language. Of course, all of them had to ask questions of each other about words they didn't know, since they had only covered the basics of the language before beginning. While they translated, they also took notes on new information, so they could have it as a reference. As Shark said, they weren't just trying to translate one book into multiple languages; they were also trying to learn those languages. Once they had mastered Barian, Astranian, Salkie, and Heartlandish, both in speech and in script, they would move onto Dracht, Tenjonian (Kiilee's native tongue), Arclightian, and Tsukamonian. Shark hadn't had so much intellectual stimulation in a long time. He'd forgotten how much he missed it.

"I wonder," Vector spoke up, when he was about halfway through his translation, "If we should write the Barian translations in the Heartlandish alphabet and the Heartlandish translations in the Barian alphabet."

"Why would we?" Shark asked. "It's not like anyone would be able to read it accept us."

Vector's face lit up with inspiration. "Hey, you're right!"

Both Kiilee and Shark stared at him. "Why are we happy about that?

"Because we could have our own secret code to write each other messages!"

"Why would we need to send each other information in code?" Kiilee asked.

"I don't know. But it would be fun, wouldn't it? To have a written language no one else could understand? Who would guess that the symbols," he picked out a piece of paper from his notes, ""S,' 'H,' 'A,' 'R,' and 'K' refer to you, Shark? There are only three sounds in your name, so it's written with three symbols from the Barian alphabet. No one would guess five letters could make up the same name."

Vector was right, Shark realized. The Heartlandish alphabet was overly complicated. For instance, in his name, two Heartlandish letters, 'S' and 'H' were combined to make a sound that one Barian symbol could make. Unless you were very skilled in deciphering language's, Shark's name, in the Heartlandish alphabet, would sound like sss-haa-erk to any Barian. It was a concept Kiilee had struggled to explain to the two boys.

She had eventually taught them her native alphabet and how it worked by writing her name in four different ways. First, she had written it in the Barian alphabet, using the symbols for 'K,' 'I,' 'L,' and 'E.' Then she had written it in Barian using Heartlandish letters. 'K' was pretty straightforward. To symbolize what she called the long 'I' sound, she'd written two I's next. Then came the 'L,' and finally, two Heartlandish e's to make the long 'E' sound. Altogether, it looked like 'Kiilee.' Next, she had written her name the way she had at home in Tenjo- 'Kylie.' Finally, she had translated each of those Heartlandish symbols into their corresponding Barian letters, so the final product looked like ka-ya-el-ih-eh to Shark and Vector. It was baffling.

"Alright," Shark said slowly, warming to the idea. "So we write the messages in the Heartlandish alphabet. What language do we use?"

"Any of them! We could even write in a combination!"

"Preferably," Kiilee spoke up, "We should use Salkie and Heartlandish, since they are the least likely to be recognized if someone did manage to decipher the alphabet."

Shark nodded his agreement. "Good thinking."

"Wait a minute," Vector said, deep in thought, which was unusual for him. "What it we can't get a written message to the other person? What if we just have to shout out whatever we want to say in front of whoever, and there's no time to sit down and code a message? What if we have to speak in Barian or Astranian?"

"Do I want to know what type of situation you're thinking of?" Shark asked dryly.

"Maybe not. But it made me think of something else. You know how whenever the farm boy tells Buttercup 'as you wish,' he really means 'I love you?'"

"Yes…"

"What if we had something like that?"

"You want to tell one of us you love them?"

"Of course not!" Vector said, turning bright red. "I just meant that we could say something and only one of us would know that it meant something completely different."

"Okay. Give us an example."

"Well… if I shouted, 'he's not left-handed either' to one of you, what would you think I meant?"

"The person we were dealing with had a trick up their sleeve."

"Exactly."

"You know something, Vector?" Shark asked, grinning, "I like the idea. Let's get to work and work out the kinks in this secret code of ours. It mind come in handy someday."

He could never have guessed just how handy.

Next time on A Tale of Two Slaves: It's back to Tsukamo to meet another familiar face.