"Yes. I've no idea how I'd twist it to apply to a more convenient language, like the one your lady-friend speaks, because magic where we're from doesn't reference concepts as vague and arbitrary as language in the first place. But he'll understand it, and as he's my wielder I will too."

"Trust me if I had the time to do science to magic I would. But the last thing anyone here has is time, so—walk with me? I need to send the souls of the departed onwards to their final destinations."

And then he says something in the other language that is... a very similar length? And content? He may in fact have just repeated himself in the other language actually.

Also, there's that strain around his eyes and lips again.

Edmund nods and walks along.

"You're - some kind of priest, then?"

"Some kind. I'll explain when I'm done with—with everything, here. Sorry about the rush." Then he repeats it in the other language.

Outside, the remaining villagers are huddled together in a crowd by the water. They put tall torches up along the sand, so the whole beach is lit by fire. When they notice Zei coming back over, they part for him, and he makes his way all the way to the water.

Lulu is there, too, and when she catches Edmund's eye she motions him over.

(And while most people here are human, one person standing next to Lulu isn't—he seems to instead be a tall humanoid creature with a face resembling a lion's as well as long claws on his fingers and digitigrade feet, plus what looks to be a broken horn sticking out of his forehead.)

Edmund is... not unsurprised by this, but Lulu's nonreaction is reassuring enough that he files in next to her.

No one really remarks upon him—or even really notices him. They're all watching Zei, who's standing at the edge of the water. He's taken his sandals off at some point, and is breathing slowly with his staff in hand while he watches the soft waves and waits for something.

The tall torches have been also set into the soft wet sand and a ways into the water, a short corridor of light leading to where the dead are: numerous boats and underwater coffins can be seen, the water mysteriously clear despite the mess the attack should have made of it. Clearly Zei is meant to walk to them and do—something.

And he does. He takes one step, then another, but he's walking on the surface of the water rather than on the sand. This becomes clearer and clearer the farther down he goes, until he's past the torches and just standing there amidst the boats and coffins.

And then there's drums. Except—no one is playing them. And the voices start singing—except it's no one in the crowd. The song comes from all around them, but mostly from the direction of the water, where Zei slowly starts to sway in time with it. As the music picks up, so do his movements, and he's effectively dancing with his staff in hand, swirling in place as the water stirs beneath his feet.

And finally, the dead. Wisps of blue and white light, ethereal flame emerging from within the boats and coffins, from within the corpses. They grow in number the longer Zei does this, and start surrounding him before spreading outwards and upwards, zigzagging between the people still alive, disappearing off into the sunset sky.

And the people cry. They finally let themselves mourn, finally stop holding their breaths now that the rites are underway, now that they can see that at the very least the creature has not robbed their loved ones of peace. It happens almost at the same time for everyone, all of the villagers breaking down in tears or falling to their knees or wailing in their despair.

Zei just keeps dancing, his face a mask of concentration, and the dead are Sent.

Edmund... doesn't let himself cry with them. He's tempted. But this isn't his grief. He has no right to mourn with these people that he wasn't able to save their family and friends.

Instead he watches the wisps rise. I guess their priests do more than ours, he finds himself thinking.

It takes a bit less than half an hour, all told, for all of the souls to depart. The sun has set, by then, and most of the mourners have cried their grief out, too. The eerie hymn fades with the last wisps to disappear into the heavens, and then it's just Zei, standing still, alone on the water.

He runs a hand against his face, after a minute, then walks back to shore, slowly sinking down into the water as he does. His toes are firmly on the sand by the time the small party of non-villagers he seems to be with meets with him. The villagers have started dispersing by then, some to other parts of the beach to pay some private respects to the dead, but most walking back to the inland parts of the village that didn't get hit by the attack.

Lulu takes him into her arms and hugs him, quickly but tenderly, running a hand through his hair for a second before letting go. "You did a good job," she says, and Edmund can even understand a word or two of that sentence now, as well as the general gist of it.

"Yeah," he says, voice hoarse from the crying he'd clearly been having there. He clears his throat and pulls away to look at Edmund. "Let me introduce them," he says in Al Bhed again. "This is Kimahri," lion dude, "and this is Wakka," dude with a hairdo.

(Hairdo dude looks very uncomfortable with the language switch for some reason but doesn't actually say anything.)

"They're my guardians," Zei continues, "which you won't know about because you're from much farther away than I thought someone could be before."

"If it helps, we're almost as confused. We've been exploring alternate realities for some time, and this is the first we've come across where magic itself was different."

"...sorry about the timing," Edmund says quietly. "We actually landed... a bit before... all that. What was that thing? The one that did this."

Zei reaches down nearby for his sandals, which he'd left on the sand by the water before the ritual, and says, "Mind sharing a room with me? It'll be easier to explain if I don't have to worry about other people maybe running into me speaking Al Bhed, which I'll also have to explain about."

Wakka makes more of a face when Zei repeats that in the other language—Edmund is definitely starting to be able to pick up on a word or two, there—and says something to Lulu that sounds like worry about... evil people? Or something?

To which Lulu says something that sounds like it's trying to be reassuring but which comes across as kind of inpatient and a bit snappish. Zei's name is in there too.

"I don't mind sharing a room," Edmund confirms.

There weren't many people who lived in the destroyed buildings and didn't get got by the attack, but enough that the bigger inn further inland between the cliffs is much fuller than it usually gets. The party stops by the tent where they left their bags (the book used to teach Edmund Al Bhed was apparently Zei's) before getting there, and after a short conversation with the innkeep (who wanted to make sure to give Zei the best room) they get two: one for Zei and Edmund and one for Lulu and Wakka. Kimahri (who hasn't said a word so far) is going to sleep outside.

The inn is three stories tall and their rooms are on the third. The one Zei and Edmund get is indeed reasonably large, with two straw beds, a short cupboard with a decorative plant, and an area sectioned off by a wooden divider with something like a drain on the floor and four greenish-blue glass spheres resting on a shelf.

Zei locks the door behind them and makes a beeline for that sectioned off area, undoing his armwraps and taking off his harness and jewellery as he goes along. "Going to assume you don't have [____] either," he says, using a loanword from the non-Al Bhed language and gesturing at the spheres.

"We don't have [____]." He will not touch the spheres until and unless someone tells him to, how about that.

"These are pretty standard ones for cleaning." He steps out of the last of his clothes, kicking them all to the same corner he left his bag at to deal with later, and grabs one of the spheres. Then he raises it above his head, squeezes the sphere in his hand, and it starts... spewing hot water at him. It stays in the air when he lets go, floating there and serving as a showerhead, and he just stands under the water stark naked for a few seconds, just relaxing.

Edmund doesn't seem to care. He leans against the wall and - doesn't stare, but doesn't look away either.

"Why don't we have virtue gems for that?" he asks Oni-Goroshi idly.

She clangs sarcastically. "Apart from the fact that imbuing virtue gems is an incredibly costly and delicate process, and only someone with more wealth than sense would ever think to use them for any purpose less vital than life and death?"