James smiled at the earnest young woman, reaching out to gently lay a hand on her shoulder, still wary of her fragile bones. It wasn't all that often that someone offered him thanks for his service, beyond hollow platitudes anyway, and it was nice to be reminded that some people understood and appreciated the value of the military's work.
"You're welcome," he said, returning her smile, "I'm glad to see you're learning so fast. Is there anything you need here?"
Haruka tilted her head at him, then glanced at Weiss hopefully.
"Time for another round of 'pantomime and image search," Weiss said with a faint sigh, "I hope you have a bit of time, General Ironwood."
"I have a half-hour scheduled for this meeting," Ironwood said with a nod, before pulling out his own scroll, "Now, please show me how you've been doing this."
Over the next several minutes, the three of them exchanged gestures, some of the limited words already in Haruka's vocabulary, and a wide variety of images. Extracting concepts, rather than simple "object nouns", James found to be surprisingly difficult. It wasn't like they possessed specialized images crafted to communicate a single concept, and thus most given images had multiple concepts potentially expressed in them. Even using a spread of different images would still generally have more than one common concept in them.
Eventually, through use of a combination of pictures of rooms with different numbers of people in them, and images of tally-marks, they were able to help Haruka learn the common-tongue word for "Alone".
"Haruka not alone please?" the young girl asked, and Ironwood was again struck by the strained smile she wore as she asked the question.
It wasn't a "false" smile by any means. On the contrary, Ironwood could see, even with the desperation cracking through it, an honest gratitude directed towards Miss Schnee and himself. Not for the first time, Ironwood wondered just how she had remained sane during her long isolation. Hopefully, it wouldn't be too long before communication was open enough that he could ask her.
"One minute," Ironwood said in more direct response to her question, before flipping through the contacts on his scroll, and calling Doctor White.
"Yes General?" the doctor replied, picking up after just two rings.
"Doctor White," Ironwood replied, "I'm with Miss Haruka, and with some difficulty, she's managed to convey a request not to be alone at any time. With her Aura activated, is it safe to move one of the door guards inside?"
"So long as they aren't actively sick," White replied, "It should be perfectly safe. Once she's regained some weight, we'll want to work on rebuilding her immune system, so please keep the number of people rotating through her room down in order to minimize risk of infecting her with something serious."
"Thank you doctor," Ironwood replied, smiling a little as he watched Weiss quietly try to explain the substance of his conversation to Haruka, "How long would you say before it will be safe to move Haruka out of the hospital?"
"... That's much harder to say," White replied, "There's not much literature on dealing with malnourishment or the like amongst Aura users. At an absolute minimum, a week, but it could be a month or more if her recovery rate is closer to that of a civilian."
"Very well," Ironwood said, "I'll pass a roster of potentials over to medical for screening by the end of the day."
"I'll tell them it's mid-priority," White replied, "Will there be anything else, general?"
"No, thank you doctor," Ironwood replied before hanging up, then turning his attention towards the quiet watcher hovering just outside the door, "You might as well come in now, Doctor Blonde, I believe Haruka is the only one not aware of your presence."
"Huntsmen," the doctor said with fond exasperation as she pulled the door, which had just been cracked, the rest of the way open, "It looks like she's socializing very well, which is an excellent sign for her mental health."
"I thought you were a language pathologist?" Ironwood said, raising an eyebrow at the woman as she walked in, followed by Nurse Sunshine with a large tray holding a wide variety of foods.
"Double with Psychology in my undergrad," Blonde said with a smile, "There's a reason I was sent, rather than one of my colleagues with more years in practice."
"Dinner time?" Ironwood asked.
"Of a sort," Sunshine replied, using a built-in attachment on Haruka's bed to mount the tray about a foot above the rails, "More it's time to see how her system reacts to food; we're breaking new grounds for handling Aura users in such a condition, so we're not sure how she'll react. Still, we want to get off of feeding her via IV as soon as possible."
"I see," Ironwood said, checking the time, "I have a few more minutes before I need to leave. Don't wait on my behalf."
"Alright then," Sunshine said, turning to regard Haruka, before picking a glass of apple juice up off the tray, and offering it to her, "Let's start with liquids."
Weiss had a slightly uncharacteristic smile on her face as she walked out of the military hospital that evening. Dealing with the language barrier had been frustrating, but it had also been freeing. Rather than attempting to use etiquette and social prowess to mask intent, her entire afternoon with Haruka had been spent trying to gain enough linguistic tools to communicate what was intended effectively.
And there was, at least for the time being, no worrying about double-talk, social backstabbing, or positions relative to which social or political bloc within Atlas she was dealing with. Even when Haruka did inevitably get sucked into the socio-political landscape on some level or another, their interactions had been so basic, and the language barrier so strong, that there was nothing thus far that the girl could turn against her even if she wanted to.
Down the road, things might be different, but for now… Weiss had long since learned to deal with what she could and must in the now, and not dwell too much upon that which was beyond her control, lest it devour her.