Another for the Alphabet Soup! And I'm heading out of my usual territory again! Soon I'll have to stop calling torturing Emil my usual territory!

Warnings: books, snoring, talk about studying

Reynir opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Mikkel snored beside him, but that wasn't what had woken him up. Lalli still wasn't back from scouting and Emil and Sigrun slept quietly in their beds. Reynir rubbed his eyes, tried to remember if he had dreamt something again. He stared at the ceiling, yawned and tried to go back to sleep. No success, he wasn't tired any longer. He let out a sigh and sat up. Tuuri wasn't in her bed and Reynir got up, sneaked out of the bedroom. There was a light coming from the desk and he went into the radio-room, leaned against the wall.

"Hey."

Reynir's voice was only a whisper, but in the quiet of the night it carried and he could see Tuuri freezing up.

"Interesting book?" he continued and pulled up a chair behind her.

"Oooh, yes. I know I should sleep, but it was just so exciting and I wanted to learn more!"

"Mhm, which one is it?"

Reynir leaned over Tuuri's shoulder and noticed it was the book she was transcribing for Mikkel. He glanced at her and she quickly closed it and pushed it to the side before turning around to face him.

"Anyway, why are you up? You're usually a heavy sleeper."

Reynir shrugged.

"I woke up and wasn't tired."

He grabbed some of the papers on the desk, flipped through them. It was the papers Tuuri had made for their language studies and he looked at her again.

"Why did you have me learning Norwegian? I didn't question it then, but you had Emil, Sigrun and Mikkel studying Finnish and Lalli studying Swedish. Why was I the odd-ball? You don't even know Norwegian yourself."

"Well, Mikkel already knew Icelandic and I didn't want him to feel excluded. Sigrun and Emil works with Lalli, I figured it was best if they learned some Finnish..."

"But Norwegian? Why not Swedish?"

He looked at the paper with the Swedish words. They didn't look that much different from the Norwegian ones.

"Are you trying to pair me up with Sigrun? Because I think she'd rather eat me alive."

"Would you rather learn Swedish?"

Tuuri looked curiously at Reynir, who frowned.

"I don't know..."

"Anyway I went with Norwegian for you since, you know, a lot of Icelandic mages end up working with Norwegians. But if you don't like it..."

Tuuri made a move to grab the papers, but Reynir quickly rolled away from her.

"No, I don't mind, I was just asking."

"I never did ask what you wanted though, did I?"

She leaned back in the chair and Reynir shook his head, started going through the papers again. He stopped when he came to the papers in Finnish and looked at them.

"Tuuri..."

She stopped fiddling with the book and looked at Reynir, tilted her head.

"Could you... teach me some Finnish?"

"Why would you need that?"

Reynir's cheeks got slightly pink.

"I just... Well, since both Lalli and I are mages it'd be helpful if we could communicate a little, don't you agree?"

"I guess it would."

She smiled and reached for a paper, then stopped halfway through.

"You're not going to hit on Lalli, are you? He doesn't like people."

Reynir's blush got more scarlet.

"I would not! It's for purely professional purposes!"

His voice was a little higher than he had intended and Tuuri shushed him, then leaned down over the paper.

"I'll teach you a few words to begin with. Lalli isn't much for communicating though."

"It's okay, I just want to make an effort."

Also, Reynir thought, it isn't so much for Lalli as for another Finnish mage I know.

A/N: I had planned for this o be a Reynir/Tuuri-story but of course Reynir didn't want to work with me, I'm too deep in the Reynni-void already! Hope you enjoyed anyway!