Atrius heard her words and caught the notes of confusion within them. It was simply so frustrating that she could not speak his language, but he remembered when she began writing that she could at least read and write it. This cheered him up considerably, now the wait would not be as boring. He pondered over her message and then with  his knife and a leaf he wiped out her words and wrote his own. He was not as practiced as her. He had a decent education in letters, but it was not a very practiced one.<br/><br/>He sounded out the words as he wrote them with the blade of the knife, "Until... dark... Alina..." he said scratching away. He stopped and thought for a moment, with the storm coming and his house about a mile and a half north of here, perhaps the monks had given up their search. He amended his message with a question, "How... long... has.. it been?" he wrote beneath his original words.<br/><br/>It felt like a few hours, but you never really knew. With all of the storm clouds he could not get a reckoning of the time from the sun. First earthquakes, now rainstorms, what was next--no no, he knew he should not tempt the gods. They were weak-willed and idly bored entities to say the least. He physically shook himself trying to dispel the thought. He did not want to bring more misfortune than he already had. Atrius crossed his arms as he waited for her next message.