"In what ways does it affect your life?"

"Cost of living, levels of policing in different parts of town, people use it to communicate all sorts of information about themselves, and you spend most of your time there. How could it not be important?"

She shrugs. "Maybe it's because I live in a really old city? Most of the buildings are old and from a bunch of different eras, all mashed together. I'm sure someone who knew a lot about architecture could tell a lot about an area from what type of buildings are in it, but I wouldn't look at the type of building to tell me the relative wealth of an area. There are former palaces that are now low-cost dormitories."

She giggles. "Really? Former palaces? What happened to their kings?"

"Kings, princes, nobles -" She draws a finger across her neck and makes a shlick sound. "During that revolution, we even had to invent a new machine to separate bodies from their heads as quickly and cleanly as possible. We are an efficient people."

"I love you."

She realizes after she said it that. Like. But anyway. It's true, too.

"Um, uh, thank you." She recovers awkwardly. "You're really cool and I'm very happy I met you and - so, I know what that word translates to in my language, but emotions are messy and apparently-synonymous words could be pointing at very different things in different languages. So it's possible that I am misreading the implied strength of, um, actually, I'll stop talking now." She glances around desperately. "So, given the architecture, how wealthy is this part of town?"

She mentally subtracts thousands of points from herself for Human Interaction Failure.

Awww, she's flustered! Usually she asks girls for favors once they're flustered but she's not actually trying to charm Carmen she's just being - charmed by her? Anyway, Carmen's world killed all the nobility super efficiently and this is adorable and she explains the architecture and the history of Numenorean architecture and symbolism and this is based on Gondolin and this is based on Tirion and all Elven cities, all Elven influence, it's the thing the Elrosians cling to...

They reach the coffeeshop.

Carmen is relieved that she was able to avert that catastrophe. Feelings are hard. It should be against the rules to spring that on people like that - no, that's silly, then it would never get said. And what if, some day, she wanted to say that to Gimlith - like, Gimlith is pretty and smart and motivated - it could totally happen.

She continues going over things in her head in increasingly flustered spirals until they reach the coffeeshop. The people in it are well dressed and many are speaking in a language she doesn't know. Excellent.

She translates under her breath. She is definitely more sour about Sindarin than seems fair; it's a pretty language and they're mostly discussing interesting things.

Carmen eavesdrops happily. She learns all about who is marrying whom, who broke of their engagement with whom, whose maid is a little too flirtatious, whose business partner is a little too corrupt, and all manner of other minor dramas. They're all so interesting in the moment, but she knows she won't remember any of them by the time she leaves.

She's less amused by them, but she comforts herself by imagining inventing a more efficient way of executing kings.

"So, I think I have learned it some." She tries in Sindarin. "Is this correct?"

"Sounds right to me" she says in Sindarin, "but my Sindarin is shit. Sorry."

"It is fine. I think this enough is for me to understand books. I can together put the rest with context."

"Put together the rest with context. And yeah. You learn really fast."

"Or maybe you just learn slow," She teases. "Although this does mean I will probably forgetting the Holy Tongue. Oh well, there are more pressing concerns of now."

"Languages displace each other like that?"

"Not exactly. If I were using several languages frequently, I'd be able to keep them all in head. However, if one is neglected, learning new languages will greatly speed up the loss of skill of speaking that language."

"Huh. I guess you pick it back up again really fast anyway if you go home."

"I probably will. It's not a problem. I should be making plans for this world, and I'll worry about mine if and when I next see it." She says, trying to hide her glumness over the prospect of being trapped here. "Let's head over to the library, then."

So they do. She feels awkward in this part of town, tries not to let it show. "The libraries. Don't touch old-looking things, otherwise no one will really bother you."

"...What's wrong with the old-looking things?" She asks.

"Delicate, usually tremendously valuable, often the only copy we have."

"Ah, OK. That is... More normal and less concerning than I'd imagined." She says, somewhat relieved that the shelves weren't cursed. "Why don't people just make copies of all the important stuff? And if they're delicate enough that they could be really easily damaged, why are they being displayed on the shelves at all? Why not put them in display cases or, better yet, in an underground climate-controlled vault?"