She hugs her. They talk about the right timeline on being the first to reach out, if it keeps on this way.

She says night prayers and sleeps beside her and she'll be there for nightmares, one kind or the other.

L doesn't take over her dreams to show up talking, either.

In the morning they'll wake up, and go about what they do, and wait for Denice to wake up.

She sleeps through the morning. Scans show she's fine - tired, malnourished, with a new bruise where she flinched into the doorframe, but nothing concerning; she just doesn't wake up. (Records from the Asylum show that she's used to being woken fairly early.)

They don't see a reason to do that. 

Kids go Learning Center-wards and Laeres heads to work. Shen and Heria stay.

She wakes just before lunchtime, and stays very still for the first few minutes, then takes the fresh set of day clothes to the bathroom to change into and returns to the couch when she's done. (She doesn't touch the remote. They probably worked out that she'd used it, overnight - she hadn't intended to leave the TV running, that was an accident - but there's no reason to give them more evidence that she can do things.)

They hadn't been sure if she'd left the screen on on purpose, but better to default to not overruling what Denice does, as much as they can.

(If they thought she couldn't use the remote, they'd be trying to figure out something else. But they're not going to try to cause her to touch it.)

She comes into the room.

"Good morning. Food in the dining room again, or should I bring it here? Follow me to the dining room if you'd like?"

Dining rooms are for eating in and day rooms are not, yup. Follow follow.

Dining room!

"Would you mind if we eat with you? Absolutely alright if you'd rather not. Nod if that's ok?"

She shrugs, then nods. (She's used to being monitored while she eats, and having other people around; eating alone was a little weird, last night.)

They don't want to force company, but isolation can be its own harm, and Denice clinging to her the night before is something for the direction of her maybe getting things out of company. And they are who they have, here.

Heria brings out food for Denice and for them; she and Shen sit down as well.

She eats. Again, she doesn't pay any more attention to the food than is required to get it into her mouth without making a mess.

They eat, and talk (in her language) about various minor things. 

She listens in, circumspectly and without commenting. It doesn't take long for her to finish her meal.

Such-and-such person Heria knows had a baby! The sister of such-and-such other person Heria knows is going on vacation to the moon! This polity they're in has politics! There's construction going on by where Shen usually works!

Vacation on the moon. Okay. That's less surprising than the magic, she supposes.

When she's done, Heria will clear away her plate, and then take out a clip like the one she's wearing.

"Here's the translator for you. This one will work if you wear it in the right place - you can wear it like I do, or in your hair, or I can get you a bracelet or a necklace or something like that for it."

She takes it, carefully, and turns it over to examine the clip; she's fully expecting that it will be too small and fiddly for her to use, but it might not be.

'Clip' is a bit of a misnomer- it doesn't actually have anything that looks clip-like by earth standards. Just the front-facing portion, and a differently textured back.

"If you put it to your collar and tap it, it'll grab on."

She demonstrates by taking hers off and putting it back on.

Well, it's magic, she probably shouldn't be too surprised that it's more magic than she was expecting. She attaches it to her shirt, near her shoulder.

That'll be close enough.

"If you don't mind if we test it, Shen can try talking in our language and you can see if it works alright?"

She shrugs, but she seems relaxed about the idea.

"I'm speaking Reynan right now, can you understand me?" say Shen.

And - if Denice wants to pay attention to it specifically she'll hear that, words she definitely doesn't know in an odd-to-her accent. But at the same time it'll feel the same as if Shen said it with her own translation on, English and understandable-to-her coming across easily.

It's weird, and a little overwhelming; her face goes blank for a moment as she processes it, but then she nods.