Sure. He can pause awkwardly, in that case. 

Until Herald Joshel knocks on the door, and after Tran calls out to him, opens it. 

....He stops three steps into the room, and stares at the group of teenagers. (What are they wearing -?) 

(It started out as heavily embroidered cotton shirts and khaki cargo pants, but now it's layers of variously stained patches of whatever fabric was around at the time, plus a collection of mismatched metal jewelry. Also Marcy and Franklin both have Annisa's blood on their pant cuffs. Also they all reek of sweat and have totally failed to notice this.)

"Good morning."

- This is awkward and he shouldn't have expected anything else but he really, really wishes this entire month could have somehow been less complicated. Somehow. Surely this shouldn't have been complicated. 

Oh, right, apparently these are alien kids from another world, or something? Who don't speak Valdemaran, and so he needs to use Mindspeech with them even though they're not Gifted. 

And - also he's not supposed to trust them. Even though they look very tired and sad. 

He sits down, and casts a first-stage Truth Spell, and takes a deep breath and looks at the girl who seems to...apparently be the leader of the teenager team. 

:We've gathered that you didn't expect to end up here, is that right?: 

She looks back at him but her response comes on a delay, like she has to remember how to talk again every time. "Yes. We meant to go to Boston, on planet Earth."

Tran holds up a hand, indicating that the children should wait, and he and Joshel exchange a lengthy, unhappy Mindspeech look. 

And then Tran sighs, and turns back to Marcy. :Did you do anything unusual, that could have caused you to end up here instead?: 

"No, I don't think so." People have driven out of the graduation hall inside giant artifices before and been fine. It couldn't even have been confused about where to put them because they were all meant for the same place because Annisa was already dead by then.

She relays the question to the others but none of them can think of anything either, except that Kevin remembers that there was a moment of weird distortion in the air right before they hit the portal. "It couldn't've been us, though," he adds. "We didn't have anything that could look like that. Probably someone ran in front of us under an illusion or something."

:Has this ever happened before, with the Gate taking people to the wrong place?: 

"I've never heard of it happening? But it might have happened, to someone nobody happened to remember seeing them go through, and if they didn't come back everyone would have just assumed they died. But it can't be common, someone would have noticed."

Nod. 

Joshel frowns. :And you've, er, never heard of our local gods, is that right? Are any of these names familiar: Vkandis Sunlord, the Star-Eyed Goddess or Kal'enel, er, the Shadow Lover...?: 

Oh no, religion. She's too tired for this. "No. I don't believe in any gods--which doesn't mean I don't believe in gods here, I mean my world didn't have any. But some people there believe in Jesus and some believe in Allah and some people believe in Buddha and I never heard of anyone believing in any of yours." Hopefully that was both true and polite. If they demand she convert she'll--something. Something that doesn't involve lying.

:If a god of our world ordered you, or relayed orders via a servant or avatar, to do something that would harm Valdemar's interests, would you listen: 

That's so underspecified! The answer to that is her entire decision procedure and maybe if someone had asked her a year ago she could have provided a neatly organized writeup of her entire decision procedure but right now it is TOO HARD so they are getting a half-assed answer.

"I don't consider any of those entities sources of trustworthy orders. You have been kind to us and I want to repay you. I do not wish to harm anyone. I will act in each moment with honor and according to my best judgement." That was definitely a collection of sentences that related to the question.

That...was kind of helpful, but not because it was an answer to the question, which it wasn't. :I see. Would you be willing to give your sworn word, under the spell, that you won't harm anyone in Haven using your magic: 

Blink blink. "We will defend ourselves if attacked? We won't attack anyone." That first part might or might not actually be true of her right now, if someone tried to stab her or set her on fire or malefice her she might actually just stand there blinking like an idiot. Kevin would definitely attack anyone who attacked any of them, though. Kevin's not an idiot and has tons of self-preservation instinct and isn't scared of doing hard things. So would Franklin and Abigail. 

Tran flinches. He and Joshel exchange another deeply unhappy look. 

Deep breath. :If it - were a situation where it was ambiguous whether or not you were being attacked, but your life wasn't imminently in danger, can you commit to...waiting and confirming, and holding off on attacking unless and until you knew for sure?: 

This is so suspicious! What are they trying to pull! (Hopefully not malia.)

What would being ambiguously attacked even look like? If someone threw a spell at them but missed on purpose? If someone started trying to do something that might collapse the ceiling on them? In any case they're massively outnumbered and low on mana so the logical thing to do in even an unambiguous attack is shield and run away. "We can shield and run away instead of fighting back?"

:I....think that would help cut down the risk of something spiraling out of control until really stupid destructive things happen: 

There is a lot of....something....in the overtones. Not quite anger, it's too flat and cold and empty for that. 

Tran's eyes are haunted. And he does look angry, though it's - mostly - not directed at the kids. 

"You really sound like you're expecting something to happen that we'll interpret as being attacked and it's making us nervous. Can you promise you're not planning to attack us either? Or explain what's got you so worried?"

"We really don't want to hurt anyone. We're just scared."

It's actually kind of impossible not to feel sympathy for these poor children. 

He glances at Joshel, then back to the teenagers. :I know. And - so are we. Some...relevant background here...is that our entire kingdom almost just went to war, and the war would have been a terrible mistake. We were tricked into it, more or less, by - some of the local gods. Who were willing to kill a lot of people, including Their own worshippers, to - spook us into thinking that Valdemar was under threat from someone else. Someone who turns out not to be our enemy at all: