Merrin is finding it somewhat hard to parse his tone - Estha is less grumpy than this, normally - but possibly she's just never actually interacted with him when he was having a bad day?

And, like, she does actually know people who sound like that when they're being as close as they ever get to complimentary; some of those people work in Exception Handling and give her performance reviews. She's not going to take his crankiness about being injured and in pain personally. 

She smiles reassuringly at him. (Mariona would NOT smile like that. It's an extremely un-Chelish expression.) 

...Is he going to cooperate with her carefully putting his hand splints back, now? 

He will initially withdraw his hands, and try to give her a likewise un-Chelishly blatant skeptical expression meant to convey, "ARE YOU SURE", because Esta does not actually know why that would be at all necessary or helpful at this point.

But he's not wearing his Rings, either of them, and that also makes terribly little sense in the context of altered-Mariona apparently being obedient and helpful and leaving him his belt and headband.  There are things going on here that he plain does not understand, and perhaps dangers that he knows nothing about.

(In Merrin's world-model, broken bones take like six weeks to heal properly! And obviously you would need to keep them externally immobilized for that long, if you haven't made the risky-in-these-circumstances decision to stabilize the fracture surgically! It is absolutely going to be news to her if it turns out that having given him some fluids and put splints on his broken limbs and then parked herself here for blah blah hours to monitor him is going to mean that his injuries mysteriously heal completely in 24 hours!) 

She's SO confused and concerned about the inexplicable language barrier. Her top theory would be (hopefully!)-temporary cognitive dysfunction from the head injury and near-drowning, but it doesn't feel right - he's alert, he's tracking his surroundings, he's clearly capable of strategizing ways around the language problem, it seems to be literally just speaking Baseline that isn't working and he's instead speaking clearly and fluently in some other language and that's just not actually how concussions work.

She would, at this point, be wondering whether it's just not Estha at all, but....the thing is, it's not just that he looks like Estha and sounds like Estha except for how he's not speaking Baseline. He's reminiscent of Estha in some harder-to-describe vibe way, too, just - something is off, in a way she can't pin down but that she doesn't think is just not actually having seen him in non-date contexts.

(It's kind of uncanny, actually, though Merrin feeling creeped out is not important.) 

...Maybe she can try drawing something, to solve the communication impasse?

(Merrin is going to be SO ANNOYED if this is some sort of "Reality is straight-up messing with her for narrative trope reasons" thing where it's a more entertaining story if she can't just talk to him.) 

She gets out the paper again - she's gone through a lot of her paper, and hasn't yet gotten her local-fiber-made ""paper"" to a point where she can reasonably write on it, but she's started rationing it more carefully and has some left - and starts drawing. 

She draws a planet with a moon orbiting it - not realistically or to scale but in the conventional-stylized-schematic-diagram format that anyone in dath ilan is going to recognize from educational materials - and sketches in the recognizable dath ilan continents, pretty well she thinks, and then some other planets around a star,  as "this is a solar system". 

She takes a different piece of paper, and draws another planet, with the same stylized format but - larger planet, lots of squiggly-shading instead of continents  - a conventional-stylized way to convey "????? do not actually have maps of this territory????" - with a much larger closer moon, and then a larger star, also a larger distance (she has to get a second piece of paper to tape to the first one to show the scale she means) - more squiggly-shading where additional planets might or might not be, she has suspicions there are both inner and outer planets from her stargazing but she's not really an expert astronomer... 

She shows probably-but-maybe-not-Estha the first one, and then the second one, and then she puts the second big-planet-big-close-moon-big-distant-sun one right beside him, and carries the dath ilan diagram over to the other side of the room, and gestures with her arms to convey "very very far"? 

Does that seem to communicate anything successfully? 

...okay, he's worked out that she thinks they're not in Golarion anymore, or indeed the Cage's whole solar system, assuming the first diagram is meant to represent a normal planet like Golarion.  Plausibly valid, that sun and sky were not correct, and also Ẏ̸̧ö̴̮́g̵̺͂-̵̡̕S̴̪̕o̶͈̾t̸̖̑h̶̩́ô̵͕t̶̫͌h̶͎̑ ̷̳͊m̶̭̍a̸̯̎ḏ̸͝e̴̝͑ ̵̟̓h̴͕̓ḭ̶̀m̴̰̃ ̷̳̓ṣ̵͗e̸͎͗ê̴̪ ̴̭̊t̵̼̕o̴̪̐ỏ̴̘ ̴͚̀m̵͇̋a̵͕͘n̴͎͐ẏ̸͚ ̵̲̐p̷͕͋l̶̞̐a̵̱̐c̶̛̟ẹ̶̊ṣ̷̒ ̸̪͆a̸̩̋ṉ̷̑ḋ̶̥ ̴̪̆f̸̯͗o̶̗͘r̵͖̊g̴̞͊e̷̯̾ť̴̪ ̵̝́w̴̬̕h̷̖͒ę̸̃r̴͇̾e̷̪͑ ̶̘̾h̵̥̚e̵̪͝ ̵̱͛h̷̞̐i̵͍̋m̶̰̂s̴̝̔e̶͙̒l̶͇̆f̸̳͝ ̸͈̽w̴̲̎ạ̴͝s̴̳̈́.

But what is she asking him with respect to that?

His own ability to get them out of this place?

Esta lifts his damaged hands, and tries to gesture with his chin at them, to indicate that sure, he can do that once his hands have healed.  Word of Recall might get them home on a verbal component alone, it's theoretically not distance-limited within a plane; but Esta suspects this case involves Plane Shift and not just Word of Recall.  Assuming his Bag of Holding made it through the water, at least; Esta's tuning forks for Hell and his own Prime Material are there.

Merrin isn't sure what he's trying to convey with that? (She was less trying to ask a question, really, and more trying to explain the situation, because in his position she would REALLY REALLY WANT TO KNOW. It also hasn't occurred to her to draw the part where she died in a plane crash, since from her perspective he PRESUMABLY HEARD and it would have been REALLY VERY MEMORABLE.) 

Going off body language and her intuitive sense of subtext, which to be clear are NOT trustworthy tools for communication, alone, she sort of has the impression that he's trying to convey some sort of...plan...? 

...Merrin is too tired. She's way, way too tired for more. Stuff. 

She kind of really wants to ask him for a HUG but he has two broken arms and also the VIBES are REALLY OFF and it feels too weird to try to mime this desire of hers

Does he look visibly in pain, such that she should offer him more painkillers before she checks that all of the alarms will scream really loudly about a problem and then passes out in a pile of emergency blankets since her sleeping bag is occupied? 

(Merrin is, to be clear, not calibrated on how much distress Chelish people will allow to show visibly about being in pain.) 

He has at zero points given the slightest visible sign of pain, including when she was taking the splints off his fingers or when he himself was trying to move them.

....If Merrin were any less fucking exhausted, she might think to be suspicious of her observations, just on the grounds that it would seem really implausible for all of that not to be painful when he last had painkillers like ten hours ago. 

She is, however, too tired for that right now. He's not showing physiological signs of severe pain - no elevated heart rate, no sweating - and he's not appearing distressed, so probably it's fine? 

...She's going to go dig out a pile of emergency blankets, and put it nearish him, and gesture at the pile and mime laying her head on her hands and closing her eyes?

(She's going to be right there, if he has a problem he's conscious and can yell to wake her, and if he has a problem that results in no longer being conscious or able to shout then probably one of her alarms will tell her? The only thing she can think of that could go wrong and stay undetected for a while is if he does start bleeding into his brain and it takes a long time before it affects his vitals, but she'll just be really really conservative on the low-heart-rate and high-blood-pressure alarms, that should warn her pretty early on if his intracranial pressure is rising... Merrin is still kind of stressed about it but she really, really needs to get some sleep in order to stay functional.) 

Un-Chelishly wide blatant smile of approval!

(He is not sure if nods still mean the same thing, but he has seen her smile.)

Awwww. That is the first moment where it's felt to Merrin like the vibes were not upsettingly off and he's actually glad that she's here and not permanently dead and stuff. To the extent the smile is odd or uncharacteristic, it's entirely explained by being groggy and uncomfortable; Merrin is very used to ICU patients having smiles that look strained and off entirely for those reasons.

(...She had kind of been expecting more confusion from him about that, come to think of it? She's now wondering if, like, maybe this isn't as completely unexpected an outcome as she assumed, and is something that smarter people than her in dath ilan might just know is how Reality works? Or something??? - ugh she's too tired to think about it.) 

- Merrin is actually just going to fail her own Will save against the temptation to go (very very carefully) hug Estha, before she goes to sleep. She is indescribably starved for human contact, see, and she has been using all of her cognitive skills and training to cope as well as she can and she's managing but she's perhaps not really entirely okay, and then today was INCREDIBLY STRESSFUL and she REALLY THOUGHT she was going to fuck up and fail to save him and she, just– look, Kalorm thinks she should go for it, okay. 

He'll maintain the smile that produced this huge reaction bonus, in lieu of showing any actual surprise or alarm.

WHAT THE ABYSS HAPPENED TO HER.

(This version of Mariona is actually quite a lot more socially perceptive than his, in general, having not spent her entire life incentivized not to be. Her job involves people stuff! She had better be okay at it! ...That being said, Esta has a better Bluff than Merrin is used to, and also Merrin is really, really tired, and she isn't going to notice anything off.) 

She double checks all the alarms one more time and then she lies down in her pile of blankets - she'll be cold later, but she actually wants to be sure she wakes up when the temperature drops in here, if she's cold then presumably so is Estha - and she goes to sleep. 

Two Heals, then, next time he prays for spells, and two Break Enchantments.  Mariona is insane or cursed; and reason declares that there must then be an excellent chance that so, likewise, is he.

(And a little tiny jar of dissonance, very far back in Esta's mind, as the thought occurs to some tiny piece of himself that Aspexia Rugatonn is very unlikely to be lurking invisibly in this room to Detect his Thoughts; and that he need not take his usual pains to finish this paragraph of internal monologue with a rationalization about why Mariona is a valuable piece that he is not being un-Asmodean to protect.  It is a very tiny jar indeed, quickly squashed and forgotten; for Asmodeus's gaze sees all; and a 6th-circle is worth Discern Location or even Gate for Rugatonn to retrieve, if he painfully fails to return by his own efforts.)

They seem to be alone in this place, and insane or not, he must take care to protect all pieces he has to play.

Esta will attempt to doze or sleep, if he can; and use his Wisdom for thinking of things that are not how he got here or what he saw just before then.  For if he cannot dance his fingers to Heal himself, it is not a good time to go any more insane.

If Merrin were thinking more clearly she might have remembered to offer Estha food and water - or, more likely, food in water, she has one of her calorie-containing meal replacement powder pouches left - but she is not thinking that clearly. 

She closes her eyes and remains conscious just barely long enough to notice that imaginary Laeirthe is trying to have a thought, or something, and it feels important, but...nope, Merrin's cognitive processing capacity is no longer working well enough to run a coherent Laeirthe so it will have to wait until she's slept. 

(Merrin did think to switch the tent to Night Mode, before she slept – the door is cracked open for ventilation and the tarp is put away – and the temperature is going to drop faster. Not quite as fast as the outdoor temperature, but lately Merrin actively tries to get the inside air temperature down to -5° C or even -10° C by the early hours, since she's normally spending those hours in her insulated sleeping pod, and it's the only way she can keep the temperature inside from rising dangerously high by early afternoon. She has perhaps not fully re-evaluated this strategy in light of having an injured person staying in her cave tonight, though even if she had she would probably come to the same conclusion, given her expectation that he'll continue to be injured for multiple days before he makes a natural recovery, and it's not like afternoon heatstroke would be any better for him and also if he's cold later she can just cuddle him, she would kind of like that.)  

It's not going to be that cold for a long time, though! Even coming up on 22 days after the spring equinox, the night is still 27 hours long. At 59:00, eight hours after sunset and five hours before midnight, it's still 13° C outside. The cave is a few degrees cooler - it's ventilated from the deeper, colder caves below them - but the underground-cave air is coming in above freezing. Once the outside temperature is below freezing - sometime around 03:00 local time, eight hours from now - it'll actually be a warming factor, and the rest of the cave may not hit 0° C until 05:00 or 06:00.

Esta's Endure Elements will wear off a little before 62:00, if it was cast shortly before the Worldwound incident that brought him here, but he's in a sleeping bag rated to -20° C, and he probably won't even notice it's chilly unless he tries to exit it. 

A sudden temperature change on Esta's face will be sufficient to wake him up, especially given that he had previously had some enforced rest and was trying deliberately to doze.  Among the many ways that divine casters are superior to arcane casters is that they can cultivate a normal adventurer's virtue of waking up for small anomalies, rather than trying to stay asleep at nearly all costs.

...that was his Endure Elements wearing off.  It was cast on him within three moments of arriving at the Worldwound, and they could not have been there for longer than three minutes before t̸̬͘h̷̜̚e̸̜͌ ̶̮͆c̷̭̕u̶̱̔l̸̘̿ṯ̷̉i̶͔̽s̵͙̑ẗ̸̰́s̷̭̄ Esta is not thinking about that thank you very much.  The point is, Esta has now been here for 24 hours, it was daytime when he arrived, and it is currently night outside.

Esta's first thought is that they have Teleported to a different timezone.

Esta's second thought is that he is a fool.  Mariona was not asking him about plans by showing him those diagrams across their communication barrier.  Mariona was trying to communicate the important fact that they were on a different planet with a non-24 day-night cycle.  Esta does not remember off the top of the head what Castrovel's cycle is said to be like, but he remembers it not being 24 hours, and that Castrovel's seasons are not like Golarion's seasons.

If Esta was ever taught how praying for spells works under those circumstances, he has incompetently forgotten the fact.

...Esta does know that Teleporting to a new time zone with intent to stay a while will sync you up to its dawn.  And Esta also knows, or rather considers it obvious without quite bothering to distinguish observation from inference, that you couldn't possibly Teleport around from dawn to dawn, picking up more and more spells each day.  Everyone sufficiently high-level would do that, if it were that easy.

Esta therefore knows (still not quite distinguishing observation from inference) that it is not a matter of dawn being magical.  It is a matter of divine compacts.  You can't get new spells "every dawn" by Teleporting, because it's not allowed.  The Compact of Creation would of course have loopholes, for that it was written by Asmodeus Himself.  But it would not have loopholes so obvious that mortals would see them, for then the gods of Good would have seen them too, and before it was too late for Them.

So -- what does the Compact say about his being on a different planet?  Must he wait a long time between dawns?  That doesn't seem any more sensible than being able to get spells twice as fast if the planet's dawns come more frequently... and Esta does not really know which of these is the case on this planet.  It was night when he opened his eyes again after drowning, and it is night again now, but that could have reflected multiple day-night changes.  His intuition says no, but this, Esta knows for intuition and not knowledge.

...Why is Esta not dead.  Mariona would have needed to reach him within four moments of his unconsciousness to use Breath of Life after his death, and Mariona is not 5th-circle in the first place??  Esta is reasonably sure her fortress does not have an emergency Raise Dead scroll.

Esta sets aside that question.

Esta was not woken by a sense of Asmodeus's presence, within those 24 hours, to cue him that it was time to pray.

Maybe the Compact just says at this point that Esta can pray at will, but only once every 24 hours, if there is otherwise no civilization here?

Maybe Asmodeus is out of range of wherever they are.

It is with a strange sense of internal conflict, which Esta is himself suppressing and not thinking about and not allowing himself to be aware about at all, that Esta decides that clearly the correct thing to do here is immediately test his theory that if he prays to Asmodeus then of course surely Asmodeus will hear him.

My Lord, I have been sent far from where this wretched worm may be of use to You, to a place where I know not the hours of its dawns.  If I yet have the smallest use to You, or may be of use to You in the future, and the Compact permits it to be so, I beg of You that power which You grant to even the foulness beneath Your feet, if it serve Your plans; and serve You I will...

WOW that squirrel has gotten itself lost.  Asmodeus can, like, barely hear it from here.

There is a sense then of His presence, but diminished, so faint that for a terrible moment Esta dares to wonder if he is imagining Him.

...no, no no no, Esta is not imagining Him --

Spells.  Spells would be the proof.