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Sarun, Appointee of Rixo, is pacing back and forth in his garden, lost in thought. Around him, the serfs are working the estate; inside, the servants are keeping up the house; his wife is around here somewhere, sitting outside in the cool of the evening with the kids, but he can't hear them, they probably went down to the stream. He is thinking about currency issues; they just keep coming up.
Silda in Cosel
the-golden-years
The economist looks around in circles! She seems very very surprised to Sarun! She appears to be staring at empty air as if she expected to see something other than empty air there!
She says something in a language he doesn't understand!
(It is "hi!")
She says something else, much longer!
(It is "excuse me, do you know what's going on, because I don't.")
Sarun says something to her back in a language SHE doesn't understand!
(It is "who are you and where did you come from?")
the-golden-years
She tries a lot more languages!
(It's about what she said in the first one.)
"- Aland!" calls Sarun.
A servant rushes over from just inside the house. "My lord?"
"Get one of the elementals, the youngest one you can collect on short notice."
"My lord," repeats the servant, and away he goes.
the-golden-years
(Maybe they're looking for a linguist? But the odds that any linguist will speak English on a low-tech planet like this are... not actually terrible but they could be worse.)
The economist points at herself. "Silda."
(She is breaking character over being TRANSPORTED TO ANOTHER PLANET, because Lila Banerjee would probably be panicking and Silda does not think this is an effective strategy.)
"Silda," repeats Sarun. He points at himself. "Sarun. Appointee Sarun."
the-golden-years
"Appointee Sarun," she says, nodding, pointing at him. "Representative Silda," she says, pointing at herself.
"Representative," he sounds out.
Aland comes back with a woman who has wings made out of wood. "She says she's 'Representative Silda'," Sarun tells this woman. "Is that enough to go on?"
"I don't recognize the word," says wood-wing-woman.
the-golden-years
She shrugs in sympathy; her job title is not that easy to pronounce, and then -
THERE IS A WOMAN WITH WINGS MADE OUT OF WOOD!!!
The economist DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THIS! It is NOT FAMILIAR TO HER!
"...Wood elemental," Sarun says, pointing at the wood elemental.
the-golden-years
"Wood elemental," she repeats.
... She pauses. She points at herself. "Human." Then at Sarun. "Human." Then at the wood elemental. "Human?"
"No, wood elemental," says Sarun.
the-golden-years
"Human," she says, pointing at herself. "Human," she says, pointing at Sarun. "Wood elemental," she says, pointing at the wood elemental.
... She's going to leave experimenting with 'robot' or 'person' until later, thanks.
"Yes - I don't think we need it after all," Sarun tells Aland. Aland takes the wood elemental away. Her stride timing matches his exactly.
the-golden-years
Well, that's either really impressive or really creepy.
Words time? Wordswordswords?
Wordswordswords! Sarun invites her into the house after he's exhausted the vocabulary possibilities of the outdoors.
the-golden-years
Great! She will happily accept! Are there important inside-house customs she needs to follow?
He seems to find her default behavior unobjectionable. Here is a chair. Here is a glass of water. The glass is actually quite prettily designed - the whole house, actually, is a strange mixture of barebones adequacy (rough-spun linen and wool clothes, less than innovative leather slippers for shoes), surprisingly high quality objects (seamless solid wood furniture, glass dinnerware, metal farming implements of precise manufacture), and literal magic objects, such as a little twist of metal he taps to light up the room.
the-golden-years
This is REALLY REALLY COOL. She is in the PAST in an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE with MAGIC and she doesn't need to murder ANY of her schoolmates! If she doesn't wake up this will be the best thing ever!
Can he explain how the glass happened? And the metal? And those amazing lights?
"A mage made the glass, and a different mage made the metal lamp," Sarun says, pointing helpfully.
"A mage is a human with elements. An elemental is not a human and has one element, or two. A mage is a human and has three or four or more."
"Shine," he points at the metal, "glass," the glass, "wood, like the wood elemental, adamant," he indicates both the metal and a coin in his pocket, "water," inside the glass, "fire," in the kitchen, "earth," he gestures vaguely outside, "ice, lightning, shadow -" the dark places under the furniture, "stone," the hearth, "air," he blows a puff of it.