Kerberan coffee, Kerberos himself was learning, was quite strong. Or maybe that was just the way he was brewing it–with cinnamon and cardamom, in a fancy press he’d picked up at an antique shop, based on his memories of Irit making the same drink and serving it to visitors who came to him for counselling. And then, of course, violating the traditional preparation by adding brown sugar and half and half because, alas, Kerberos’s palette was not made to handle strong black coffee. Coffee itself, fine, but this was different.

But he needed something. The caffeine helped him focus, as he dug into his cute little shepherd’s journal, taking his latest pass at translating the more common tongue of his world. Every time he poked at it, he felt like he got a little farther–like he understood more and more. Like the words felt less like random arrangements of symbols that almost made sense and more like…well…words.

Someday, he wanted to be able to devour it all. He wanted to know for certain that he could understand every word written in the little journal in front of him, rather than feeling like he got maybe one in ten (or one in fifteen on bad days, when his focus swam and he lost track of anything he was even kind of attempting to do). It was a ways away, sure, but Kerberos felt like it was worth it.

The first glimpse of understanding the words in books and scrolls on his world had made him feel so…connected to it. Another step towards understanding more of the complex history and culture of the planet he had inherited a connection to.

Every step forward made him feel more and more like he was actually doing something. Like he could maybe reconstruct more and more of what had been, inasmuch as one could when the world was so long gone and he was only one man.

For now, though, he had his little shepherd’s journal, and he had pieces and fragments of a life. He’d gotten the vague concepts–and many of the entries were thoroughly mundane, based on the little bits and pieces he was getting. Notes on herd movements, wool yields. Bits and pieces of what Kerberos was beginning to suspect was a narrative of his romance, woven in with the ordinary travails of running a ranch. Or a farm? Honestly, Kerberos was not a country boy, he was not exactly sure what the difference was or if it mattered.

That wasn’t the point. The point was to understand. And that meant more hard work, more digging, more reading.

And also, Kerberos suspected, a lot more coffee. At least he was starting to enjoy the taste; he could see why it had been so popular a thousand years ago.

Maybe next time he hosted people on his world (the first time had been so much fun, it was difficult not to want to do a second), he’d have a pot of this set out. Let people try yet another product of his world’s growth. That, Kerberos thought, sounded nice.

[wc: 521 words]