Elves are generally much more intelligent than humans. And their superior variant, high elves, are supposed to be a lot more intelligent than elves.
Ririi started opening her heart to me, and quickly learned how to eat and go to the bathroom on her own. She still didn’t want to take a bath by herself, but it was much easier compared to her first bath.
But it wasn’t all good. The lonely face she made every time I went out made my heart hurt.
“A.”
“A.”
“I.”
“I.”
I wanted to teach her words, but honestly, I didn’t really know where to start. After thinking about it, I decided to start with sounds.
Ririi really was smart. All I did was open my mouth and make sounds, and she immediately caught on to what I was doing and copied me.
“Ra.”
“Ya.”
“Ra.”
“Uya!”
“Hm, that’s not quite right…”
I was teaching her one sound at a time, but she was having trouble with the ‘r’s’… I assumed Ririi was about four or five, and wondered if that was just normal for elves her age. I wanted to talk about that with someone, but there was no one in Zenith I could have that kind of innocent conversation with. It wasn’t like Loretto ever raised elf kids either.
“Oh well.”
I wasn’t in any hurry anyway. I wanted Ririi to talk, but it wouldn’t do any good to rush. We would just have to advance slowly and steadily.
“All right, let’s eat.”
“Uya.”
Ririi raised her hand high in response. Did she actually understand me? She seemed happy. She might have already connected the ‘eat’ sound to the act of eating. She is a high elf after all.
“Uu.”
Ririi flapped her legs and climbed on her stomach as she sat on a chair in the living room. My chairs were a bit too tall for her, so she couldn’t just sit on them normally.
But she managed to climb on it, and once there, she quickly turned around and sat facing forward. She really was smart.
This was one of many things to change during this period. When I went to the kitchen to prepare our food, Ririi would sit in the living room and wait. And when she figured I was done, she came to me.
It confused me that she went through all that trouble to climb on the chair only to climb down again, but I was fine with it. After all, it kind of felt like she liked me.
“All right, food is ready.”
“Food heady.”
I held her with my hands below her arms and lifted her to sit her on the chair. Maybe that was why she climbed down, because she knew I would sit her back on it. That would be pretty smart of her. Ririi really is a genius. She could turn out to be a great scholar one day.
…Just a bit more until Ririi gets her name.
◆
I decided her first word would be her name, but I obviously couldn’t name her ‘a’. There had to be a certain standard.
“A! I! U!”
I said while pointing to letters, with Ririi sitting in front of me. I’m not sure if it was because Ririi is a high elf, but I only had to show them to her once before she tied sounds to letters. I figured at that rate, it wouldn’t be long until we were having conversations.
The idea of talking to her made me happy.
“Ya, ih, yu, ie, ro.”
Despite how smart she was, Ririi was still having trouble pronouncing ‘r’s’ . I figured she was going to have to go without a name for a while longer.
I gave her a few picture books for children that I got from a general store, and left her to go wash the tableware from breakfast. She sat at the table, looking very interested in them.
At that point Ririi was starting to become very curious and wouldn’t leave my side, so I needed something to distract her while I did something on my own.
“Ririi!”
“!?”
It was so sudden.
She pronounced those ‘r’s’ so cleanly, that I dropped what I was cleaning and turned around.
She was pointing to the cover of a picture book. I looked closely, and saw she was pointing at the author’s name, Ririi Reed.
“Ihih Ihd!”
“Oh dear…”
That first one was just a fluke. Ririi Reed became Ihih Ihd. After that, Ririi started randomly reading words out loud. I watched her for a bit, and headed back to the kitchen.
“…Let’s go with Ririi.”
Once I made that decision, it just felt right to me.
And that’s how the nameless slave elf became my daughter, Ririi Frenberg.
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