She nods, promptly.

Well, she's been shut up in that place since she was five and they're apparently stingy with magic and also didn't think she was worth explaining things to...

"Ok." She tries to think where to start; decides to start farther back, in case. "You know that there are a lot of languages in the world, and people know different ones? And learning a language you don't already know can be hard and take a long time, but you might want to talk to someone with whom you don't speak the same language, or read something they wrote?"

She's listening attentively enough to suggest that this might be new information; she nods when Heria pauses.

"A translation spell is a spell that helps with this by letting people use and understand a language they don't really know. It's the kind of spell a mage who can do it can just hold in their head - that's what Shen was doing. And for non-mages it's the kind of thing a mage can make on a spellframe, and then someone else can use it.

So maybe you've seen in a tv show, someone meets someone else, and they don't know the same language, so they call for a mage or someone with a translation spell? Or a mage going with people to search for a new world helps them talk to the people there?"

She shakes her head. It's a confident head-shake; she's sure she's never seen that before.

Well, she is hardly an expert in shows, and there are plenty of genres that wouldn't have that.

"Ok. If you didn't see any shows that had that, does the rest of what I said still make sense?"

She shrugs, then nods.

"Ok.

This is the spellframe Shen made me," she gestures to a clip fastened to her shirt collar. "She's good at translation spells, and since she was here to do it, she could get it to work with your language. If I stopped using it, I wouldn't be able to say things in your language, or understand it if you did.

When I'm using it - they're not all the same, but usually what happens for listening is, you can hear that the other person is using words you don't really know, but at the same time you get words in your language and concepts you understand. It can - take a bit of getting used to, but there isn't anything hard you have to do. And reading is like that too, except you look at words instead of hearing them.

Talking can take some extra mental effort, but you don't have to do that, if you want a spell of your own - I'll still have mine, so if you say some word in your language again I'll still understand you."

She nods again.

"And that's all they do - they don't do anything else, and you can start or stop using one whenever you need or want.

Is that what you needed to know, or is there something else? Shake your head if there's more you need to know I haven't said yet?"

She thinks it over, then nods.

"Do you want one, then? It's still very alright if you don't."

Another nod.

"Alright. I'll tell Shen to work on that for you.

I saw you were worried before, when I said Shen was a mage. Is that something that's scaring you right now?"

"Eh?"

'Not really', or perhaps 'I suppose you could say that'. She doesn't seem scared.

"Ok. 

Nod if she should try to stay away?"

Shrug.

"Ok.

Shen says she should have that for you in about an hour.

Is there anything else you need right now?"

She considers, then shakes her head.

"Nod if you want me to stay some more?"

She shrugs.

"Ok. It's also getting later in the evening - would you like me to show you the room you can sleep in? You don't have to go there right now if you don't want to, but I can show you where it is and what's it like and see if there are any problems we didn't think of."

She looks a little worried, at this, but nods.

It is probably better to show her the room before trying to ask, if she tries, in case that changes things in a way or another.

She'll show the way out of the room and to a guest bedroom.

She follows readily, and hovers in the doorway looking around the room when they get there.