"Let's start by getting you set up with a room, then. Follow me?"

She nods slightly, and breathes out a little strainedly, following along once more. glancing nervously around.

She leads her up to the balcony level and opens a door for her. Inside is a small room with a standing desk and a bed. 

"Here you are," she says. "Want supper?"

..She nods, not really trusting herself to speak.

She brings her some kind of meat casserole on toast. "Here."

She pauses and stares and...

Slumps forward, a little. 

She takes a moment to take a deep breath, and closes her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

She shakes her head.

"..."

She's staring half-blankly half contemplatively at the food.

"Something wrong with the food?"

...She strains for a moment to speak.

"I don't know. I'm not even entirely sure that I can have food, physically, and I don't know what I can have safely, or if I can even justify ever bothering to spend the time to do this, when I have my heartsong and admin features. I don't know if I should bother thinking about that or eating or tasting or enjoying or even bother checking since I'm sure there's something that I could do to fix that sort of problem with some basic biological manipulation. I don't know what I'm supposed to care about or what it means to be summoned, or just... how I could ever do well enough to protect a whole world from a threat that I really don't have a great way to detect or understand."

"The world is not imminently under threat last I checked. Eat your grinder."

...She does a very small nod then starts eating.

"That's the problem. I don't have the capacity to scan more then this town for a core draw - it's free of corruption, as best that can detect, anyways - but I'm really confused about how the summoning system even works. Even assuming that there's no special advantage in age resistance, why wouldn't there just always be one, or why wouldn't I be summoned to set up defenses decades before it happens and-d..." 

She breathes out. 

"It's just a lot to have dumped on me, in the moment, and there's so much that nothing is stopping from happening, as far as I know." 

...She takes the time to eat more now, bites overlapping with each other so she doesn't have to have the time to think about what to say when her mouth is too full to gracefully talk.

"For what it's worth, I don't have any answers for you except "breathe, the war is just starting, you can afford to take time to rest." Okay?"

She breathes and nods. 

..."Okay." 

Her shoulders slump down a little as she keeps on eating. 

"...Gosh it's kind of hard to even know what to ask - I'd appreciate a room to crash in, or something like that, and it would probably be a good idea to do some sort of diagnostic test for my skills if you have that sort of thing but..." 

She shakes her head. 

"Need to breathe first, I think."

"We have space, you can have a room. And I guess I could get you a Hymnos proficiency exam like we use to tutor people? Not gonna push you."

She nods, slowly. 

"I think that'd be a good idea to do sometime, at least." 

She glances up at her nervously then asks. 

"...Can I have a hug?"

"Yeah, you can."

Hug.

She hugs her tightly, nd lets out a shaky sigh. 

"Thank you. Back in my world, it's... really suprisingly hard to get people comfortable enough to do that, and it does help."

"We're a lot more casual about that kind of thing here, it comes of being rel'he."

She smiles and nods.

"And Oh! We're in a rel'he collective so..." 

She blinks a little, and her voice starts lilting a little as she switches over to Hymnos, cleaningly escaping each sentence.

"I suppose we should be talking like this."

"No, don't, spoken Hymnos can execute as code you idiot -"

She sighs. "Yes, you can escape it, but don't just speak in it casually!"

"Oh I'm sorry..." 

She sighs a little downcastedly. 

"But why wouldn't you? Practicing a language natively is one of the best ways to learn it, I think I saw that casting required intent and... What does happen if the SYSTEM tries to implement some invalid hymnic code? Like, if I just listed off a grocery list without escaping it, what would happen? I can't figure that most sentences would compile into a valid program."

"Most hymnos is not a valid program, but even if you avoid dangerous side-effects from improper code, you're asking the Hymn to parse garbage. It's disrespectful. And no, you can cast without intent."

Tiny scared nod hugs tighter.

"...Okay? Though I'd still think you could do something like leave an escape open and only close it when you are conciously choosing to execute code and that'd... I think be about as safe?"

Hugs seem appropriate. 

"So," she asks. "What's your plan? Do you have one?"