"I can speak any language I want but I can't do 'I want to be speaking the language Urtho speaks', not if I don't actually know what language that is. Now I've heard it spoken and I can speak it to do a Sending. He might also speak the local language but I don't want to bet on it and I only have a couple more scrolls of Sending. Let's have a nice fancy dinner while we think about ...what to say... I get 25 words..."

Shortly later there's a knock on the door and the two of them are escorted to their dinner! It's in a big room with a high ceiling and actual-glass windows with gauzy curtains, and a long dining table which looks a bit silly set just for the two of them; at least the places have been set close together. 

Ma'ar is immediately very overwhelmed, though he hides it well. For some reason he has two plates one on top of the other! And two different forks and three spoons! He was only just introduced to the concept of forks period!

Also there's watered wine in a decanter, which the girl serving them pours into a fancy cup for him too, and it tastes awful. The girl brings them soup in bowls, which she puts on top of the weird double plates. He has no idea which of his multiple options for eating-utensils he's supposed to use. 

She has no idea if the Chelish rules for utensils are the same and finds she doesn't much care. She compliments the soup.

She misses home, quite acutely. Urtho can maybe get them home. Assuming it exists and she hasn't just travelled in time. And if she has, well, that really sucks, but she can at least make it go better this time.

Ma'ar copies whatever Carissa does with the utensils. The soup is good. The wine continues to taste awful but so do lots of things, it's fine. A second course is brought out, bread with generous amounts of butter and some green leaves tumbled together with sweet dried raisins and a sour sauce on it. And then fish, and potatoes. And then bread except when he tastes a bit it's SWEET bread.

At some point he has to stop trying to finish all the food they're serving on his plate and just taste it, but to his surprise no one seems mad about this. It's so overwhelming and also his head feels very weird now. 

It makes her steadily more homesick, even though this mostly isn't Chelish food, and even though she's been living in the palace for all of six months. Cheliax has - lots of stuff, even for people who aren't rich, compared to Predain. 

Young Leareth had wanted to fix it. Had ended up destroying everything. But hopefully - if she just warns Urtho...

Eventually dinner is over and they are escorted back to their room. Ma'ar is still feeling weird and giddy, and nearly trips over the top of the stairs when they're going up to their room and then giggles about it, catching onto Carissa's hand. Once they're back in the suite, he goes to the bed and flops on it and rolls around. It's so soft. 

...He remembers that they have work to do, though. "We should decide the message," he says. He doesn't really have any ideas right now. He's too full to have thoughts. 

"Yeah." She smiles at him. "I'm thinking 'arrived via powerful magic from more than thirty years in future, urgent message for you. In capital of Predain. Pickup appreciated.'"

"I guess maybe the rest is too complicated to explain in twenty-five words. Where you know him from the future and you also have a different kind of magic from ours, and god magic from another world but not right now." 

"Yeah. Ideally I would explain more of that but I'm worried it'll be too complicated. He'll at least hopefully notice the Sending is different than mage communication-spells. ...maybe I'll add 'communication magic limited'."

"Will he have any way to answer you - to say whether he's going to do a Gate and where he would put it? I guess you could tell him where we're staying but if he hasn't been the city then maybe he won't know it." 

"Unless he's very good at Gates the person doing one will have to have been here. I can hear his response but I suppose he won't know that - unless he can see it right away from the spell-structure, which . Hmmm. Maybe 'arrived from more than thirty years in future, urgent message for you, at Pig's Ear in Anrod, Predain, appreciate pickup. Communication magic limited, reply aloud."

Ma'ar listens closely, mouthing along, and then nods. "I think that sounds good," he says uncertainly. Carissa is probably better at this than he is and shouldn't listen to him anyway. "Are you going to want me to pretend to be - Allereth? With him too?" 

"No. If you are - the person I think you are - you are supposed to be close to Urtho and learn from him and I think it'll mess things up if you have to pretend anything, and it wouldn't be fair to you."

Ma'ar looks confused again, but nods. 

"The other thing that I'm going to tell Urtho, so I should tell you now as well, is that in about thirty years much of the world is destroyed in a magic accident called the Cataclysm that Urtho accidentally kicked off. He didn't mean to and I am optimistic that if he is warned not to that'll be enough to prevent it."

Ma'ar goes still. He looks upset and confused, and says nothing. 

She gives him some time.

Eventually Ma'ar takes a few deep breaths. "Are you going to do the message to Urtho now?" He's not sure why it feels like a rush. It might not even be the right decision. But - he's a lot more scared than he was a few minutes ago. 

"I think so, yeah. We're not in a hurry but we're not waiting for more information, so."

She pulls out a scroll and does the Sending. "arrived from more than thirty years in future, urgent message for you, at Pig's Ear in Anrod, Predain, appreciate pickup. Communication magic limited, reply aloud."

Nearly eight hundred miles away, a man stops dead in the middle of a lesson he's tutoring, raises a hand for silence. Stares into nothing, all of his Othersenses suddenly engaged. 

He doesn't recognize the magic at all, and he wants to grab the spell and shake it until answers fall out - he's not sure he's ever felt such a sudden intense rush of curiosity in his entire life, and that's saying quite something. 

- he doesn't know how long it'll last and needs to reply now, even though he would desperately prefer five minutes to think and to summon some of his senior mages.

"Await a Gate tomorrow at dawn." He doesn't have the faintest idea what Anrod's geography looks like; he hasn't been himself; he's pretty sure at least one of his Adept mages will have, some are from Predain and it's a major city, and Predain was a much more appealing destination for visitors a few decades ago. But that doesn't mean they'll know a particular inn, especially not if they last saw the place in their teens. There's only one landmark he knows of off the top of his head. "College of Chirurgeons. Main entrance." Hopefully 'main entrance' actually specifies something clearly, if not there'll be guesswork on both sides. 

" - tomorrow morning," she says to Ma'ar. "Gate for us tomorrow morning at the College of Chirurgeons."

He grins. Nervously. "Oh. That's - good."

After a long pause: "- Can I have a hug." It's probably not rude to ask, she offered the first time and seems to like hugging him, and it's sort of silly for it to help, especially when he's trying to remember that he doesn't know whether to trust her yet, but Ma'ar has decided hugs are nice. 

"Of course." Hug. 

He leans into it, not saying anything but slowly relaxing.