"Many," she agrees, sadly. "Saikirei not - uh - " she makes a stabbing motion at herself and mimes dying as best she can.

"Saikirei not die," he agrees. "Not die many days, not die other things."

"Meraiyu aisara die? Before Saikirei?"

Nod.

"Other alive things? Before Saikirei, Meraiyu have - build cities, light language, skin like crab alive things?"

He puzzles over this question, then shakes his head.

"Build cities alive things only aisara."

Troubling. Unless this is - hm.

She points at the day coins. "More circle days? Please?"

A tendril of shadow-cloak uncurls out to the grid of thirty little golden days and deposits a pile of extras beside it.

She lays out rows of days until she has a full three hundred and sixty, broken up neatly into months.

"Meraiyu year?"

Nod nod.

She adds five extra days to the last month. "Meraiyu year? True Meraiyu year?"

...He shakes his head. A cloak-tendril reaches out and separates the five extra days from the last month, then nudges away two more.

"Meraiyu year before," he says, and then scoots the two missing days back into place. "Meraiyu aisara change year—before Saikirei, many before. Now year this."

Huh. She looks at the day coins and frowns, then sighs. "Meraiyu not Earth. Not Alteri, but not Earth."

"Earth year this?" he asks, pulling the five stray coins back.

She nods.

He nods too, thoughtfully.

"What thing crab skin build city?"

"Alteri."

Huh. He recognizes that name from her memorable fishbone-stomping session, early on.

"Meraiyu no Alteri, only aisara."

"Earth only Imrainai place have aisara and no Alteri. Meraiyu - how many centuries aisara live Meraiyu?"

"Many. Before aisara live Meraiyu, no aisara."

"Alteri make Aisara. Or - Alteri make Liars."

He considers this.

"Alteri not make aisara. How Alteri make Liars?"

She frowns thoughtfully and then shrugs. She is unfortunately not a biologist. 

Then he shrugs, too.

Sigh. But she can't give up yet, she still needs to figure out more things about their situation.

She takes one of the day coins and names it 'Meraiyu', and takes one of the month coins and names it 'star', in Etra La. She moves Meraiyu in a circling motion around its star, until it's all the way around. "One Meraiyu year?"