It is nighttime, but the Lands Between are never dark. Even with sun's light, the world is lit by the Erdtree, the stars, and the moons - her mother's Full Moon, her aunt's Twins, and the Dark Moon that is her own.
Ranni stands on western edge of Moonlight Altar, from where she can see all of the moons. She sits alone, in contemplation. Silently, she asks questions of her moon, and her mother's, though they never answer directly.
She's not alone any more. There's a hyperventilating young woman in foreign clothes right over there.
She knows the faces of everyone who tends to visit the altar, and she's never seen her before. That is unusual.
"Who are you?" she asks, in a calm, dignified voice.
"Moonlight Altar plateau, west Liurnia, ..."
She looks at Bella's clothing, and adds "...The Lands Between, are you from beyond the fog?"
"I... am from the Magisterian Imperium? It is not... principally described in relation to any fog..."
"That would be beyond the fog, yes, though I have never heard of someone passing through without knowing their destination, nor appearing so suddenly."
She points to the horizon, where an endless expands of water vanishes into dense fog. "The Sea of Fog surrounds the Lands Between, sometimes pilgrims from distand lands sail in."
"I stumbled into some kind of magic project that teleported me here. Is the pilgrim situation how you learned Pax?"
"Language... Right, I think I understand. I think, it is the effect of the Golden Order, that all in these lands can understand each other."
"You ask deeper questions than most people care to think about. Let me think... Golden Order is... a set of princples that define how the world is? It is the will of Queen Marika the Eternal, and all of the Lands Between are shaped by its light." She points at...
"I'm... not really trying to ask deep questions, I just didn't recognize the phrase."
"I apologize, I have never actually spoken with any pilgrims before. It must be hard, not knowing what the world around you is."
"I... don't think that it makes anything about anything obviously easier to have seen the tree...?"
"The Erdtree is the heart of the Golden Order, giver of life. I suppose that it doesn't help much when I explain it like this, in parts. My father was better at describing it in a way that made it all make sense..." she sighs wistfully, gazing at the Full Moon in the sky.
"Okay, uh... is there a good way for me to get home from here? The university might pay for it, or some of it, though I don't know the exact terms of what they're legally obliged to do to retrieve students that get teleported in a magical accident."
"You can find a boat and cross the fog, though I don't know how you'd find your home, there are many lands across the fog."
She pauses, looking at the sky.
"I think, there might be a sorcerous way to do it, too. Take the basic structure of a sending gate, finding the destination is still tricky, but should not be impossible..."
"Where do the boats put people off at? Or - actually do you just have a mirror I can borrow to call the school, maybe they know where this is relative to the Imperium."
"I'm haven't actually heard about anyone who left the Lands Between to go across the fog, and then decided to come back. People leave quite rarely..."
"A mirror? There's mirrors in the manor, but I don't believe they can be... used for communication? They just reflect light."
"I mean a magic mirror? One that can call other... mirrors...? You don't have any here at all? ...when you said I could take a boat you didn't mean that there are ship routes that take passengers, is that right, you meant something more like I could try to buy a canoe and row?"
"I have never heard of a mirror enchanted like this."
"No, there's nothing like that. Well, the church occasionally sends emissaries beyond the fog, to spread their words, but they also don't sail to any specific destination."
"Church of the Two Fingers." she says, with a carefully concealed bitterness.
"The Fingers are envoys to Greater Will, the source of all life. Queen Marika is their chosen, carrier of the vision, vessel of the Order." she recites, dryly.