She doesn't feel poisoned. There are slow-acting ones, but slow-acting ones that a foreigner could identify immediately, that a coffeeshop she didn't even particularly frequent kept on hand? Three blocks west, three more north, and they're at the apartment of a friend. 

Carmen observes the building. The arcitechture around here is strange.

She knocks.

The door opens.

"Izindal," she says. "I met a stranger in the streets today. She doesn't speak a word of Adunaic or Sindarin, but when I ate a biscuit she absolutely panicked, and indicated a belief I was now going to die. So I thought I'd bring the suspect biscuit by. So you can check it, if I do die or fall gravely ill. Carmen, Izindal. Izindal, Carmen."

Carmen raises the palms of her hands in greeting "Izindal."

She feels goofy, but she's trying.

He nods gravely. "Carmen. Can you understand me? Can you understand me? Can you understand me?" He looks at Gimlith. "That was Quenya, Taliska, Rhûn."

She nods her head to say no. The second one sounded related to the language Gimlith had been speaking, but she doesn't actually understand it.

She's nodding, but doesn't respond. Izindal tries some more sentences anyway, encouraged. "If you speak a related dialect, perhaps some of the sounds or more obscure words will be familiar? If you speak a related dialect, perhaps some of the sounds or more obscure words will be familiar? If you speak a related dialect, perhaps some of the sounds or more obscure words will be familiar?"

She nods again to indicate lack of comprehension. Luckily, she has figured out an OK amount of Gimlith's language. She points to her chest and mimics what Gimlith said earlier <<She doesn't speak a word,>> She tells him.

So the nodding apparently didn't mean "yes, you're close." Oh well. Izindal shrugs, pockets the biscuit. "Hello," he says, and then pointing at himself. "I don't speak a word. You don't speak a word. She doesn't speak a word."

To Gimlith: "you're not feeling poisoned?"

OK, he held <<speak a word>> constant and varied one word, and it wasn't their names, so she assumes they're the pronouns of this language. First, second, and third person pronouns; probably.

She turns to Gimlith and asks <<She know poison?>>, gesturing to Izindal.

"I"m not poisoned, you're not poisoned, he's not poisoned."

"You've got to give her some sentences that aren't negations," Izindal says. He picks up a few wooden dice, hands them around. "This is my die. This is your die. This is her die."

OK, so this guy knows how to teach languages better than Gimlith. Was that his job?

Carmen points to Gimlith's stomach. <<This is her not poisoned?>>

"We hope," Izindal says. "This is my stomach, this is your stomach, this is her stomach. She ate a biscuit. I -" he walks away, grabs an apple, walks back - "eat an apple." He bites it. "You eat an apple?"

She gasps and jumps backward. Why do people keep swallowing solids do they want to die???

<<Apple!>> She shouts. <<Buscuit! Poison! Not not not not!>> She nods her head vigourously to indicate what a horrible idea that was.

Izindal puts the apple down. 

"The other thing I'd considered was that their society has a taboo against eating in public," Gimlith observes.

"Yeah, maybe. Did you tell her that the gods won't smite her -"

"Because they probably don't exist?" Gimlith finishes. "No, I didn't. I'm already on the naughty list."

<<Taboo against eating apple!>> Carmen interjects. <<Taboo against eating buscuit! Poison! Not eat. This eat.>> She pantomimes drinking from a cup.

"Okay," Izindal says, "Nothing but liquids for you? We can do that. For us, no taboo against eating biscuits, no taboo against eating apples."

She's incredulous. They eat solids? I have to find out more about this. What are their words for 'solid' and 'liquid'?

She decides to just give them hers. <<Biscuit.>> "Solid." <<Apple.>> "Solid." <<Coffee.>> "Liquid." She pantomimes water. "Liquid." <<You eat solid and liquid?>>

"Yes," he says, "we eat solids and liquids. You do not?"

"I do not. I eat liquids. Solids is poison. I eat-" She points to the veins under her skin.

"Huh," Izindal says, staring at her fingers with confusion. "How do you get enough nutrients that way? I can make you some soups, I guess? Where are you from? How did you end up in Romenna?"

She misses the latter half of that, but at this point her food vocabulary is decent. She points to her veins again "This is 'soups'?"

"No, that's your skin. Soups are things you drink for nourishment, so you're not hungry."

"'Drink' is 'eat'?" She confirms. "I drink skin. Skin is best food."

"No," he says, "you don't. You drink soup, maybe, or ambrosia or something. Skin is this."