The woman looks—amused? Somewhat amused. Maybe she inferred a thing or two about what they were saying. Regardless, she returns the bow, and still gravity does not take hold of her impossible dress.

Zei claps his hands together and says something. Almost cheerful, it sounds, if it weren't for the slight strain to the corner of his eyes and lips. From the way he looks over his shoulder again at—most of the wreckage, and the occasionally visible corpse floating on the water in the process of being collected and placed into a coffin by the locals—one could surmise what he said was "I am not dealing with this right now."

Or maybe he did say something like that and the way Edmund feels weirdly sure of it is not limited to body language and inferences.

Regardless, he looks at Edmund and—how do you even include a sword in your conversational circle? who knows—Oni-Goroshi and says something that includes Lulu's name to them before he saunters off to go help with the dead.

Lulu looks at the boy and the sword and tilts her head in the direction of a makeshift tent that has been erected at the beach—one of many, ten-minute jobs made out of wreckage housing the surviving wounded and the shocked and the actual survivors who have come to help—before leading the way there without waiting for him.

Edmund follows along, trying not to look at the carnage. Instead, he will think about the odd feeling of comprehension that he got from Zei's sentence! "Maybe it's some kind of translation effect," he says aloud. "In which case the first word these charming people get of our language might well be tits."

"I apologize for nothing."

The tent Lulu leads them to has a bundle of travel bags that look somewhat out of place, in a corner there. She reaches inside one of them and when she turns back around she has a thick leather-bound book in her hands. She offers it to Edmund and says something with Zei's name in it that feels ineffably like she's relaying a request of some sort.

Yes that feeling is definitely separate from the obvious inference from body language, now that he's paying attention to it.

Edmund takes the book and bows. He'll... open it and take a look?

It's an utterly fascinating book.

There's nothing written on it, it's entirely blank, but it is still somehow extremely engrossing. He can very well spend an hour or two just flipping through the blank pages one by one, if he lets himself. And the way Lulu folds her arms and slightly leans back against a wooden pole, she seems to expect him to do just that.

...well that's... terrifying... but. It is fascinating. And he's fairly sure if this is some kind of trap, Oni-Goroshi can take direct control of him to defend his body. So...

He stares at the pages. Flips through the book, at his own pace.

And by the time he's reached the end of the book the sun is setting. No one has attacked him or anything, and other than a couple of people coming to ask Lulu about him she's been similarly unmolested.

When she notices he's reached the end, she straightens up and asks, "Can you understand me?" And despite the fact that she's speaking the second language Zei spoke to him and that he definitely could not understand it then, she is clear as day now.

"Um. Yes? Which is... admittedly not as strange as the book but still quite strange?"

"Oh, that's fascinating," Oni-Goroshi says in the same language. "-good evening, by the way, I love the dress."

She shakes her head and says, "I don't actually speak Al Bhed," in that same language. Then she switches languages again and says something that probably just means "wait here" before she goes off somewhere. Also maybe something about speaking? The mysterious feeling of understanding is not very clear yet.

He can wait here and - probably "don't say anything," right? That would seem to follow from the headshake. He can wait here and not say anything.

Zei shows up a couple of minutes later, looking like he's spent the past while in fairly strenuous physical labour. "The book lets you understand the next few sentences you say or hear in Al Bhed before the magic fades," he explains immediately, then waits to see if Edmund or Oni-Goroshi have anything surprising to say about that.

"..."

Nod.

Sharp metal noise. "Of course, it'd be far too convenient to - hang on a tic," Oni-Goroshi says, and then Edmund is on fire.

Zei takes a step back and looks a bit too stunned for a second to react before he grabs his staff and takes a ready stance to... do something... in case the fire needs to actually be put out

Edmund is gritting his teeth in obvious discomfort but does not appear to be screaming and dying, even though the flames seem quite hot from where Zei is standing.

"There," she says after about thirty seconds. "I hate magic that's too volatile to do its job - should be stuck in properly now."

He says something in not-Al Bhed because he doesn't want to waste the magic but the mysterious feeling of understanding is definitely along the lines of "Please elaborate", or perhaps just "What?"

"I heartily second that," Edmund says. "You said an hour ago you didn't have any kind of linguistic powers!"

"You of all people should know what arbitrary bullshit magic is," the blade says haughtily. "I have power over swords, flame, and my wielder. I may not be able to use that to do whatever you like, but with a translation spell already affecting you, it was not exactly a test of my abilities to keep it there."

Edmund turns back to Zei. "Women," he says with a vague hand gesture.

Zei tilts his head then shakes it. "So to be clear I can just speak Al Bhed to... both of you... and you'll retain all of it?"