At this point she kind of runs aground on her hazy understanding of the empire's organizational principles, and switches to filling in more general vocabulary like, oh, numbers, numbers are probably good for something. She can try to translate all the major place names on her map of the continent, maybe. Southport is called that because it is a port (a place where boats can dock) in the south (that end of the map, with this relationship to the path of the sun). Skygarden is called that because it is, at least poetically speaking, a garden (a place where plants grow, but more decoratively than agriculturally) in the sky (up there).

They are pretty sure they can't visit Skygarden, and curious if the fact that it's in the sky is the reason Viasarae had reservations about suggesting contacting the Emperor.

Oh. No, there are airships for that, boats that fly by magic. You can get on one just the same as you'd get on a ship that stayed in the water, by paying money or by working for your passage. Once you get to Skygarden it's all built on normal dirt and rock like a normal city, just a long way up. The Emperor did make it but that's one of the least concerning things about him.

...That is honestly very cool.

Well, they suppose they'd at least better stay here until they know enough of the local language to conceivably have a productive conversation with the Emperor and coincidentally also to hear more about Viasarae's concerns. Unless she wants to volunteer any ideas to get them home faster than that.

She does not volunteer any such ideas. She does volunteer all the new vocabulary she can think of a way to convey. Kioh, when he's around, is also happy to chatter aimlessly at them about the concerns of his life such as whether yesterday's catch was good and his excitement for helping his uncle build a new boat soon and the fact that he fell down and clonked his head a minute ago, and might manage to accidentally introduce a useful topic or two that way.

It's something! They take very detailed notes. Long before they're actually anything like fluent they can decipher over the course of several minutes sentences that only use words they've already taken notes on. Possibly worth trying again on figuring out whether they should go to Skygarden and see the Emperor, once they're starting to worry about the expense of the writing implements and starting to mostly vibe with the simpler grammatical constructions.

Nobody seems inclined to bother them about expense-related concerns. They can stay in Viasarae's hut and help Kioh with miscellaneous chores seemingly indefinitely, and eat a lot of fish and be supplied with a lot of bark and charcoal.

Viasarae does try to elaborate on her concerns regarding the Emperor again, once they've got a steadier foundation of words to understand such an explanation with. Her concerns about the Emperor involve the intersection of two facts: one, the Emperor is very, very powerful. He has the most magic—the most magic out of anyone in the world, and possibly also the most magic it is possible for a person to have? If the entire rest of the world were to try to go to war with the Emperor for some reason, Viasarae would very firmly bet on the Emperor winning. And she'd stay out of it herself, even if all her neighbours were very keen for her to join. But even if they somehow got her into it, she wouldn't expect her presence to help.

Two, the Emperor is... hmm, rumour has it he angers easily? Though it's a very distant rumour, to come here all the way from Skygarden, and the details may have gotten smudged on the way. Rumour also has it, somewhat more reliably, that he likes to hurt people, and buys slaves to hurt them for fun. It's said that he does not just scoop people off the street for his own entertainment, but if for some reason he felt like doing that, per point 1, there really isn't anything anyone could do to stop him.

On the other hand, Viasarae does think the Emperor is more or less reasonably well invested in the safety and prosperity of his empire, in a general sense. When something catastrophic happens, a landslide or a flood, that only a catastrophically powerful person could do anything about, he'll show up and settle things and fix what he can and then leave without hurting anyone. If something catastrophic happened here, if the whole village washed out to sea or if someone showed up from a strange world who was less friendly than Valan and Feris and powerful enough that Viasarae couldn't handle them herself, she'd get the Emperor's attention and she'd expect good things and not bad things to result from doing so.

It may take some vocabulary detours to successfully communicate all this, but Viasarae is pretty patient about making sure she's understood.

They confer about this.

" - Basically the only reason to seek this guy out is to go home, right?"

"Well, there's also curiosity," Feris muses, "not that he's likely to want to answer questions and there's Viasarae here..."

"So no good reasons." Definitely not going home, not if it involves bringing Sesat to this person's attention.

"No, no good reasons."

Valan sighs. "I guess all this being terrified of coming to the monarch's attention is probably how all the other boring fishermen feel."

"I'd write a book about it, but."

"Well, you can tell me what the book would have in it."

And in the end they thank Viasarae for her help and decide to spend the rest of their lives right here in this village being as boring as possible.