The person exchanges a few words with Satenag, and then holds a hand to their chest and turns to address Cynthia.

"Penþa," they introduce themself.

Then they say a sentence in yet a third language that is probably questioning whether she can speak it.

Cynthia sighs before replying, mildly annoyed and apathic.

Penþa and Satenag exchange looks.

Penþa sits down on the bed, for lack of other furniture, and asks Cynthia a question in two parts. She gets the sense that they're offering her an alternative between something to do with language, and something to do with resting.

...she has an answer. (Could she please know the things they're actually saying? she thinks to herself.)

The gift stirs in its sleep. She's full; it can't help her unless she lets go of an ability or otherwise opens up space.

Penþa and Satenag stand, and go to talk on the porch in low voices.

Things are quiet, except for the crackle of the fire and the gentle patter of rain on the lake.

What do you mean you're full, Cynthia asks in annoyance? Help me get some way to get tons of nuclear energy! she thinks at the thing that is "full".

The gift wakes up properly.

Does she want to stop being able to easily accept the current situation, stop being able to intuit the thought-shaping powers that the gift can provide her, stop being able to guess what people mean, or stop being able to guess how to phrase things? Or to merge one of the two pairs of abilities, to clear up space?

Well... the situation seems fine enough? Cynthia doesn't need that, not now.

Her rejection sets one of the sparks loose and drifting, until it vanishes in some direction that isn't quite 'under' and isn't quite 'out'.

Does she want to have an intuition for working with nuclear physics?

Yes, that's what I asked for she thinks.

There's a sense that 'asking' and 'giving' are the same thing.

Nonetheless, she gains a kind of wordless intuition for how the energy levels of a nucleus relate to its structure and contents. Before, she knew that Uranium made electricity, somehow. Now, it seems obvious that it must do so by decaying into a more stable form and releasing heat and alpha particles in the process. And she could probably extract it from a mixture of similar atoms with a centrifuge, actually, since it has a different weight ...

Bootstrapping she thinks to herself.

There's a sense of confusion. The gift wants to help her, and it doesn't know how. Does she want to be good at holding complicated flowcharts in her head? Does she want to emit neutrons? Because she's full again and it can't give her either of those without space.

Emit neutrons! Cynthia is utterly shocked. She needs to know the situation more, ask these people who they are, where they are, how things are. She's not in a position to use any nuclear-related power.