It was quickly becoming apparent that with restored sight, Serenity was absolutely fascinated with Ami's blue hair. And it was impossible to disguise her ability to see since she kept reaching out to pet Ami's head and tug on her hair. Ami weathered the playful and sometimes painful tugs with a docile smile.
As they walked, Ami and Serenity began to puzzle out basic communication. Ami would string words together in the foreign tongue, and then gauge and write down Serenity's reaction and amend her words. This went on for several hours before any signs of progress began to show through.
"What is 'routellek'" Ami asked as they walked around a pair of mating lizards.
Serenity made a happy noise when she recognized the word, pointing upward to the canopy.
"Treetops?" Ami pulled a nearby branch forward, pointing to the leaves at the top of the plant. Serenity shook her head, making a thoughtful expression. She pointed to her eyes, then back upward.
"Sky?" Ami scribbled something down, probably that she'd have to determine the exact word later. She looked at the next word on her lsit. "What is 'vuk'ta," Ami asked. Serenity stopped walking, looking suddenly fearful.
"Vuk'ta?" Ami repeated. Serenity turned sharply to her, making a slash with her arm in the air and said another few words in her own language. "You don't want me to say it," Ami made another note in her pad, moving on to the final word on the page.
"Bp'eyk," Ami tried. "No, maybe its Beyk…"
Serenity picked up a rock, plunging it towards her chest, stopping a few inches short.
"To die?" Ami frowned. Disturbed by the translation revealing itself, Ami closed her notebook and tucked it back onto her side. "Hungry?" She asked. Serenity nodded eagerly. "Yes," Ami said, nodding her head so Serenity would understand the correct word to match the gesture.
"About time, my feet are killing me," Rei was still partially-encrusted with dried mud despite her many attempts to scrape it off while they walked.
As everyone sat down to eat, Serenity took a handful of dirt, bringing it to her mouth and pressing it to her lips before releasing it.
"Uh…we have food," Mamoru said, eyebrows raised at her strange behavior.
"Its probably a custom," Ami supplied, making a mental note to write it down later as she chewed on her sandwich.
"How well can communicate with her, Ami?" He asked.
"I can ask her basic questions, but only questions where the answer is something easily defined like an object."
"Can you ask her where she's from, or if she has any family we should return her to?"
"I'll try." Ami turned to face Serenity. "Where is 'yumnast'(home)?" Ami asked.
Serenity shook her head, giving a sweeping gesture to the jungle around them.
"No," Ami shook her head to convey that that wasn't the answer she was looking for. "Yumnast," she tried again.
Serenity's brows drew together, but after a few moments she smiled. Reaching downward, she picked up a few twigs, sticking them into the soil and angling them together to form a sort of teepee structure. Breaking off a piece of a nearby stalk, she curled it into her hand, putting the hand down on the inside of the structure. "Home, Beyk," she said. Releasing the stalk, everyone watched in confusion as the stalk's leaves sprung back up and pushed apart the hut of twigs, leaving them scattered in the dirt.
"Your home is 'Beyk'?" Ami asked.
"Yesa," Serenity replied.
"Yes," Ami repeated for her. Serenity tried the word a few more times, smiling when she got it right.
"I don't think I have enough words from her language to ask about her family," Ami said, unable to draw her eyes away from the broken twigs.
"What did she say about her home? Beyick?" Rei took another bite of her sandwich and made a face of distaste.
"Should have brought more tuna," Mamoru teased.
"She said its dead," Ami recounted.
"Typical," Rei muttered. "Girl shows up somewhere impossible, without a past, and no communication skills. Its like every anime I've ever seen."
"She'll have a family," Mamoru said, trying to convince himself as much as the others. "There must be someone else who got out before her home got dead-ed."
"I hope so," Ami said, watching Serenity eat.
After packing up their cooler, the group set out again. The plants and animals began to thin as they approached the edge of the forest.
AN: This is not the end of the chapter, and this chapter has not been betaread so please excuse any mistakes. This is just where I finished writing up to, the end of the chapter is more than 1000 words a head of this *sigh*. I'm sorry but this story is going to be temporarily put on hiatus, I need to focus on some IRL issues right now that take priority over this nano attempt. I'll still finish it later on, but for now, please enjoy this and the other pieces of fanfiction I've put up, and I'm sorry for not being able to deliver the story up to the planned chapter 10-15. I'll finish writing it up to that point as soon as I get real life sorted back out.