"Ha, I just bet Emmy would like to speak our language," says Mark.

(She chirps at her name.)

"I have a spell for that! - well not for letting her speak your language, that's second circle and I'm only first circle. But for understanding when anyone talks to me. It's not like the Plasma thing, I can't do it all the time, only when I cast the spell."

Mark and Ilana glance at each other.

"Well, if you wanted to hear what she had to say, we'd be honored," says Ilana after a moment.

"Sure, I can cast it again tomorrow, I only had one today. I have to prepare my spells in the morning by asking Shelyn for them."

"Oh, you can talk to her?"

"I can talk to Her all day long! What's hard is Her talking to me. But I can feel Her presence when I'm praying."

At this point, a young woman carrying an electric guitar walks in. "Mom, Dad, I'm ho— who's this?"

"Have you been following the news about the alien who can heal people?" asks Mark.

"...One of the kids at the gym today said something about that but I thought he was, uh, making it up." She looks Mark up and down.

"Well, he wasn't."

"Hi there! My name is Laia. What've you got there?"

"It's a guitar! Want to hear me play?"

"Please!" beams Laia.

She starts strumming her guitar, playing something with a quick tempo. After a few moments she starts singing, too; it's not very lyrically complex, but she's got a powerful, resonant singing voice, and it complements the guitar well.

What if Laia gets up and dances about this.

She looks delighted!

After a couple repetitions of the chorus she tries to get Laia to sing along.

It is not hard to convince her to do this.

Oh good!

If Laia doesn't object she's going to keep this up until dinnertime.

YAY

Eventually dinner is served. They're having mushroom soup with fruit compote on the side. (There are also seeds and nuts for the Pokémon.)

Laia puts out little dishes for her three and praises the compote. Refills her own water glass, ta-da.

Oooh! Can she do theirs too? Everyone wants to taste the magic water.

"It doesn't taste different, but sure!" Create Water Create Water Create Water.

"Water doesn't taste the same everywhere! Everyone knows it's worse in Castelia."

"It's literally fine, Mom, I don't know what you're talking about."

The three of them agree that Laia's magic water definitely tastes fine.

"If you have a cistern or something I can fill that up too, though I'm starting to get the feeling nobody's using cisterns, I don't see any out and about."

"We have, uh, sinks? ...Do you have sinks where you're from?"