"Oh. I think I've read something about a process to determine if something is poisonous but it's long and tedious, you stick the piece of food on your wrist first and leave it there for fifteen minutes, then you stick a piece on the inside of your lip ... plus if it's magic it might work 'on consumption' and not otherwise. We could try both ways just to see, or we could stick to the food in the hut until we have more of a range of options?"

"… Maybe try the tedious method and then we at least has some sort of evidence against it being non-magically poisonous?"

"We should probably go back the hut, then, just in case it's a slow-acting paralytic or something."

"Yeah, sounds like a good idea," he agrees. The translation pen is probably going to be extremely useful for learning his language.

He picks a few of the fruit – they're more cherry-sized than apple-sized – and then they can probably go back!

They do!

Naomi does the first test -- holding the flesh of the fruit against her wrist -- for fifteen minutes while she practices Itaruko's language.

It produces no visible or tactile reaction! (Nor, for that matter, an audible or olfactory or other sense-based reaction.)

Itaruko continues to be quite good at providing lists of common vocabulary when desired or at constructing basic sentences showing off varying levels of grammatical complexity and explaining them as necessary. Or, y'know, using the translation pen. His language is quite simple, most sounds consisting of whole syllables that get approximately equal-length stress and timing, as in Japanese. It contains a couple of phonemes likely unfamiliar to Naomi if she only speaks English, but knowledge of Spanish or French will help out.

It's weird that the fruit doesn't smell like anything. Naomi cuts it in half and sees if that makes a difference. 

Her language learning is much better than it would have been before she got her boosters. The only things she really has trouble with are the unfamiliar phonemes -- she is not familiar with Spanish or French. Having the intellectual exercise available even calms her down from the unease at being in an unfamiliar place with no food and no way of returning!

Itaruko is very good at teaching his language and Naomi tells him so. 

He's glad! He's never actually done this before – he's kinda curious about her language, in fact, since they don't have many on his world.

The fruit smells kinda sweet, sort of like a low concentration of some artificially-fruity candy. Perhaps it was present before, but if so it definitely wasn't very strong.

Does the non-halved fruit smell as fragrant as the halved-fruit?

It does not. The smell is barely present but also just barely perceptible when the fruit is not halved.

Itaruko thinks the fruit is weird, though perhaps not actually harmful.

"Want to try it, then?"

"I do not particularly wish to be the test subject, no…"

Well then, Naomi's going to continue to tediously experiment. What happens when she puts the halved-fruit flesh-side-down on her lower lip?

It does not appear to harm her.

Alright then. Here goes.

Nom nom.

It tastes sort of like candy! Quite like how it smells, actually.

It does not appear to do her any harm, at least not in the first few moments after she eats it.

Huh. Then she'll refrain from eating anything else magic so she can observe the effects.

"Itaruko," she says in his language, "what are your plans for ... for being here? Leaving? Staying?"

"I don't know," he says. "I would like to find some way back but since you're not from my world, that might not be too easily doable."

"Are those ... Is my being here related to how difficult it is to leave? I don't think so."

"It means that this place is possibly not even on my planet, so," he shrugs. "The fact I got teleported here suggests weirdness anyway, though."

"My, ah, first thought, coming here, was that I had crossed through an astral plane." Astral doesn't translate, so she uses her word. "'Astral' means magic, where the spirits are from."

"We do not have spirits either, as far as I know."

"Do you have spirit-stories? You talked about gods before. Do you have, uh, small gods?"

"That's all a mythological thing – they're not so much, uh, gods, as bits of nature that people used to personify and sometimes still use in lucky charms and things?"

"Our spirits used to be like that. Then they returned. Like the magic, and the elves and orcs and dwarves and trolls."