"Mermaids are another species here, right? They don't do soul jar things?"

"I think they have souls but if anything happens - if a human doesn't jump to another human body, they'll still come back, just with amnesia. No one knows of anyone ever recovering memories of having been a mermaid. I'm not totally sure what happens if you target them with human magic since it's all touch-range and mermaids rarely have much to do with humans. I think I've heard of someone casting a spell on a mermaid?"

"Huh. I wonder if I have a soul. - but don't urgently want to check."

"Well, you don't have to check by taking a new body, all human spells target the interaction of body and soul in some way."

"If you did a sleep spell on me would I have to eat herbs? I want to see how the fruit sits before I try anything else."

"You don't eat spell ingredients. I mean, some of them are edible, at least for us, but that's not how you use them in spells."

"Huh. Well, I don't usually have trouble sleeping. But I also do it every day."

"If the days here are a different length, or the same length but it was a different time of day where you came from, maybe you'll want a spell tonight. If the discrepancy's in the right direction."

"Yeah. I have been here for -" He looks at the time on his everything. "About twenty minutes. That's about one seventy-second of a day."

"I didn't see you arrive but it doesn't sound obviously wrong."

"And I would usually go to sleep in another couple of hours but I can stay up late if that's wrong for local time."

"Hm, I think you're more likely to be slightly early than late relative to the local time."

"I can also go to bed early. Being suddenly in a different universe is a little tiring."

"As you like. You can at least watch me set the spell up - there's a last step you can do any time after you've set it up, it doesn't usually go off instantly."

"I'm curious, if that won't interfere."

"It shouldn't. Come on, I left some of the materials back where you first met me."

Nelen follows agreeably.

Chanai sets up with his tiny candle and explains the fencepost problems that make it more efficient to do two of these at once and explains how the various components contribute and then burns tiny amounts of herbs and chants a bit and does something with the amethyst. It takes a few minutes.

It's interesting sort of in the way watching TV is, at least, even if there is no immediately visible special effect.

And afterward nothing still happens, but Chanai announces that he's done and starts cleaning up the ashes and putting things away.

"Speaking of sleep, uh, where will I be doing that?" asks Nelen.

"Oh, this house has more rooms than she's using right now, I can show you a couple you can probably just pick from."

"Thank you. I want to make sure I understand all the alien things so I definitely won't need to wake anyone in the night."

"...Well, I'm not sure I know everything an alien from another planet might need to do in the middle of the night, but I can show you the rooms."

In particular Nelen wants to make sure there is a bed, and inquire about how cold it gets here and whether there are spare blankets in case he and locals have different temperature needs, and make sure that there is a bathroom-like situation he can use without irrepressibly screaming about it (or at least get the screaming over with while everyone's awake).