He... smiles. That's a smile. Minimal amount of fang, which is still some.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

She smiles back.

... Then frowns.

".... Shit, uh - hold on," she says, "I have a thing with my brother open, where he could hear anything I said. He is probably very confused. Hi, Rylen, sorry, I was kind of busy and completely spaced on continuing my charming narration, um. You probably caught most of what was going on from what I said. Um. I'm pretty sure I'm okay, and I seem to be a unique case for being pulled in here, everything else is pending. There's - someone else here, you probably noticed that too. Sorry if I worried you. Love you."

He blinks.

"...but you can't hear him?"

"No, I can't. It's - my magic is intuitive when it comes to myself. It was actually a bit of trouble figuring out just how to send what I said, but I managed it with a bit of trial and error. Figuring out how to rig up something that would let him talk back is - trickier, less instinctive. And I hesitate to experiment too much."

"Do you want - I can - " Words fail him; he shakes his head and stands up. "Come with me, I want to show you something."

"Okay," she agrees, trailing after him. Trying not to be too intimidated by how enormous and scary he is.

He taps on the wall, and a door shimmers into existence, tall enough and broad enough for him to step through easily. He does that.

On the other side is a big round room with a round stone - table, you could call it a table - in the middle. The top of the table is shaped like a very large, very shallow bowl, and the bowl is full of water, nearly invisible against the dark stone except where it reflects the light.

"Show me Navethae's brother," he says to it. The reflections on the water spread to cover the whole surface, and then an image forms.

Here is a man that looks like he could probably be Navethae's brother, sitting outside with his back to a tree.

He looks vaguely unhappy.

Is that the Cursed Valley in the background? Those ominious conifers look familiar.

"..... Oh, hey. And if you learned the language it does sound, too, so - Rylen, guess who just got a way to actually hear you."

He blinks. He perks up immediately.

"Is it you?"

"It is!" she giggles. She turns to Tarakova. "Thank you, that's - amazing, I was sort of resigning myself to not having a way to communicate to the outside world."

"Yeah, thanks from me, too. Person whom I assume is responsible for this."

He grins delightedly.

It's... something.

"You're welcome!"

The smile is kind of terrifying, but honestly she's too pleased to really care right now.

"Okay, so I bet there are some holes in your understanding that I can patch now, wh - ..... Rylen did you try to break into the woods after me."

"Yes."

Navethae's palm, meet her face.

"Of course you did."

"Honestly, why are you even surprised? Of course I'd try to break into the Cursed Valley after you once I realized it decided it wanted to keep you. I would have been shouting at you about backing off once you got further in than anyone else if you could have heard me. Next time, for reference, wait for someone to tie a rope to you or something. At absolute minimum."

".... Well, okay. Yes. Sorry."

"Apology accepted. It seems like it's not the worst thing ever for you to be there, anyway - I'm going to act upon the assumption that your companion can hear me, hi, I'm Rylen, pleasure to counter-factually meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," he says to the pool, amused. "I'd invite you in, but I'm afraid the border guard is not under my command."

(Navethae relays this sentence to Rylen.)

"Yeah, they seem like they could use new management." He looks, grumpily, at the border guard.

He glances at Navethae and adds, "You can tell him who I am, I don't think you have."

"I haven't told him who you are, no, though he might have figured out some of it from context clues. Rylen, the person I'm with is Tarakova, former Emperor of the Artelindaion Empire. He's pretty sure the spell that did this was trying to kill him and instead got a bit fucked somewhere and made him immortal and trapped here instead."

He eyes the ominous conifers some more, sort of like he is considering a round two versus the border guard, but doesn't otherwise flinch.

"That sounds like a really shitty situation, regardless of anything else. I'm sorry you're in it. I think I'll agree with my sister's earlier assertion, about the two thousand years of isolation and how nobody deserves it. Honestly, I'm kind of really impressed you're something resembling sane."