Cass plops onto that same couch. It's comfy.

"Okay so now what," she says.

Their host says something back, which of course they can't understand.

Edie sits down next to her sister.

She points at herself. "Kyralaine."

Okay, introductions, sure. "Anna."

"Cass."

"Edie."

"Emily."

Kyralaine says something that is probably a pleasantry from context.

"Nice to meet you too?"

"Yeah. Um, your house is really nice."

She smiles wryly and says something else, a couple of sentences long.

There is a sound from the hall, and then someone opens the door and walks in from that direction.

His appearance is significantly less human than the woman's. His ears are long, pointed, and mobile; his teeth show noticeable fangs; his fingernails are short sharp claws; and there is a sleek-furred black tail swishing behind him.

He blinks at the woman, blinks at her four guests - pays particular attention to their odd clothes, especially Emily's petal-dress - and then asks the woman a question.

She answers briefly, and then makes introductions, correctly remembering all the newcomers' names and introducing the boy with the tail as "Ashras".

Ashras turns a friendly smile on the four strangers.

"Hi, we don't speak your language," she says wryly.

He nods, smiles wryly, and - goes to fetch some paper and a fountain pen, with which he approaches the guests' couch.

"Feinth," he says, indicating the paper, and he writes down a word; and then "sina," the pen, and he writes down another word on the next line, and marks off those two rows and divides the page into two columns, and offers pen and paper to the guests to see if any of them will continue the game.

This seems reasonable

"Paper," she says, writing the word beside the first of his, and "pen," beside that one.

He nods, takes it back - echoes "paper", writes something after where she wrote that - echoes "pen", writes something after where she wrote that - hands the implements back to Edie. There is enough space for her to put down similar transcriptions of 'feinth' and 'sina'!

She will do that, then, and hope the English alphabet doesn't prove too torturous.

She points at him, says "man", then points at herself, Emily, Cas, Anna, and Kyralaine, and says, "woman." Then she writes those down as well.

He hmms, and glances at Kyralaine, and then gestures something that might be meant to convey hang on a moment and leaves the room and comes back a minute later holding a small framed portrait of a young woman with serious eyes and long pointed mobile ears like his. This he offers to Edie with a half-shrug, as though to say, categorize this?

Ah. Yes. "Woman," she says.

Clarification achieved, he transcribes the gendered terms, offers translations, lets Edie transcribe the translations, and then provides the other category distinction - the four guests and Kyralaine are Ceirene; he and the portrait are Aluvai.

Helpless shrug.

He glances at Kyralaine again, then shrugs slightly himself. All right, what other vocabulary can they exchange, here...