wounded; Good question! As I’m sure you may know (if you’ve looked at her fact page) she is a native of Akkad, thus making her native language Akkadian. It’s a very intricate language that has many accents and dips in tone, and was the only language she knew growing up. Having been raised to be an all-around servant to the Duke, she, of course, was taught how to read. She was to be the heir’s shield; his champion; his waiter; the supplier of his every wanton need. And to properly fulfill her role she had to be able to do anything that was required of her, from filling out documents to protecting his life. Thus, she was given lessons just as many other nobles were provided.

However, following her self-enforced extradition from Akkad after the death of her parents (her father by her own hand and mother by an unfortunate accident), she leapt directly from her training to the services of a full-fledged mercenary at the tender age of 10. (Let me make a note that because of how ludicrously young she was when she began the occupation, she was not expected to live long. However, her luck that would be better appreciated elsewhere is good for nothing other than keeping her alive despite ridiculous odds. Which, you can imagine, is simply sad.) Anyhow, as I was saying, at the age of ten, she was a mercenary in all but heart. She still retained all her noble ideals from her training, and she was still naïve, believing earnestly that her valour would have weight on the battlefield — a notion which was swiftly crushed in the heat of actual bloodshed. Now you may be wondering what relevance this has on her being able to read.

In the wake of events following her initiation as a mercenary, she was a rather traumatized shell of what she used to be, and mentally ceased to develop. Considering the fact that she hadn’t even finished her studies and become fully literate in her own language, the culture shock that she experienced was great and all but stunted her ability to read by nullifying her WANT to read, let alone understand what was being said to her.

Akkad is a empire that has a strict policy of isolation, meaning that all interaction with outside countries, empires, provinces, were strictly regulated and they were hardly afforded any space in the empire itself, so their effect on the people of the Empire was minimal at best, and this also meant that Caelan had no idea what to expect once she left. She hadn’t an inkling of the language and how to communicate properly, she had NO UNDERSTANDING of the culture and how it differed from hers, and instead of having a mild reaction, she entirely retreated into herself in this ‘strange new land’ and devoted herself nearly entirely to her work save for the caring of her sister, the only person with whom she was capable of communicating. This proved to be an immense strain upon their relationship later on, as despite her overwhelmingly charitable and caring nature, she completely misunderstood how to ‘make up’ for her consistent absence and the (obviously) perilous nature of her occupation. Caelan attempted to assuage her sister’s fears that she wouldn’t return from her contracts by materialistic means; trinkets and other things of value, which only caused for their relationship to slowly deteriorate over time. Not for any lack of care that Caelan held for her (in fact, if we’re to be truthful, her sister could be named the sole reason for her perseverance through her arguably difficult adolescence, simply for Caelan’s sheer devotion to her.)

ALL OF THIS ASIDE (oh my GOD am I rambling..) the point is, due to culture shock, trauma, as well as a number of other factors, CAELAN NEVER LEARNED HOW TO PROPERLY SPEAK THE COMMON LANGUAGE, LET ALONE READ. To be frank, she finds difficulty in understanding a majority of what people say to her, and though she may be able to infer the meaning of what they’re saying from the general tone of their voice, she doesn’t really know as we would. As a mercenary, she was exposed to numerous cultures, but because of the nomadic nature of the job, she never had any reason to directly engage and truly LEARN any of the languages, let alone read. She has no use for it; a contract is a contract and all that mattered was that she did her job and got the pay. It never really matters to her how much she makes, so she’s rather indiscriminate in the contracts that she takes on, as she fulfills them within her own moral compass and executes them how she sees fit, as even after all these years, she still holds the teachings of her youth in high value.

This is the reason that Caelan speaks with incredibly incorrect grammar (if you manage to get her to speak; that’s the trick) but this isn’t for any lack of trying. It’s much the same with her reading; over the years, she can recognize a few words, but she is by no means literate. Basically she has the lingual ability of a five year old. Give her a word and repeat it a few times and she can regurgitate it in turn, but that doesn’t mean that she understands what you’re saying.

I guess that all of this is just an extremely verbose explanation to say that it’s somewhat of a combination of both (‘can’t read’ and ‘not her native tongue’), since she never finished learning her own language, and never had a real opportunity to learn the common tongue. She’s rather illiterate, but this does not mean that she’s unintelligent, and you would do well to make note of the difference.