The person utters a long, alarmed string of bizarre gibberish.

The girl waves back. She produces more gibberish. She pauses, then produces a halting sentence of what might be a different language of - total gibberish.

The girl mutters more gibberish and looks as confused as Emma.

"Good luck," Emma says rather helplessly. "I don't think she speaks Welchin. I don't even begin to recognize what she's saying."

The newcomer blinks at Jenny, and waves back, again.

Jenny stares in confusion. "Wait, what? Is she not with you? What's she doing here, then?"

Jenny lets out a high pitched squeak of terror that would put chalkboards to shame, and can now be found behind Alli.

"So I summarized. It's not less weird."

"There's more than one mouse?"

"The cage part is relevant! ...but yes. Still weird."

The girl jumps to her feet when Jenny squeaks, then calms down when nothing scary materializes. The mice don't wake up even at the sudden change of direction; they're very much asleep.

Alli looks rather impressed at the mice for staying asleep, then returns her attention to Emma. "Okay, so? Explain the Welchin-less mouse collector?"

"I don't know! She just- appeared!" Emma says, who is by now exhibiting minor signs of both hysteria and terror. "As in, very literally, I was walking down the stairs and then suddenly that part of the floor was no longer empty. She did not walk in, or run, or anything-" though the girl does look sweaty, so now Emma's retroactively doubting herself. She's good at that. "-she popped into being. Like magic."

"So, she's- what, some kind of foreign Prime?" Alli asks, more suspicious now. "What're you doing with her?"

"Don't know, don't know, and," she adds for good measure, "don't know. I mean- she did magic, so we should tell the Primes and the king, at least."

The girl is turning slowly on the spot, inspecting the surroundings. She holds up her hands placatingly and then slides her backpack off her shoulders slowly to put it on the ground and rummage through it.

Alli motions towards the placating gesture. "Come on. She's not dangerous, look at her. Weird, sure. Trying to kill us with crazy foreign magic, no. Why haul her to the palace? She can't even talk to them."

"Couldn't any of the Primes understand her?" wonders Jenny. Having never seen a Prime, much less interacted with one, she has a tendency to ascribe them Mystical Powers.

"None of them do anything special with languages," Emma says absently. It's one of the reasons her parents suggested she study languages. An in at Court, they said. "But even if they can't help... what else do we do with her?"

"Well, gee," Alli says. "If only one of us lived in a huge mansion with extra rooms."

The stranger has found what she was looking for: it appears to be a map. She flips through it until she comes to a zoomed-out page depicting a place of uncertain scale - a few apparent cities are dotted and labeled in unfamiliar script, there are mountain ranges in stylized flock-of-triangles form, there are bodies of blue water and a big ragged black spot of nothing in the middle. She points at a city-dot towards the bottom edge of the map (at least the way she's holding it; it's anyone's guess what direction the script is supposed to be read in) and shows it to the others, murmuring gibberish and looking hopeful.

"If she stays here can there be no mice?" Jenny inquires from her kind-of hiding spot.

Alli sighs and starts to shove Jenny library-ward. "Okay, seriously. They are small, cute, fuzzy and sleeping. And in a cage. How are you not super excited about this?"

"You. Think something is cute."

"I have weird tastes, okay? Also, shut up."

The stranger seems willing enough to follow them. She picks up her bag, mice and all, and goes where she is led.

Alli is mostly staying out of this, but at that she snorts. "I thought that was an inkblot. What is that, anyway?"

"Don't ask me," Emma shrugs. "I've never seen anything like that." She points at the blot and just shakes her head, miming confusion.

"Is that... your name is Sohng Room Pyay?" Emma guesses. She points at herself. "Emma Lalindar."

"You would include Lalindar," Alli laughs, and points at herself. "Alli."

"She gave us hers!" Emma protests.

"Jenny," Jenny finishes.

Sohng Room Pyay, or whatever her name is, frowns. "Sohng," she says, pointing at herself. Long pause. "Roooom Pyay."

"So... what, she has two totally different names? That doesn't sound like a last name, when she talks like that."

"Maybe it's a title...?" Emma suggests helplessly. "Like, Sohng is like Prime, and Room Pyay is her name?"

Jenny just shrugs and shakes her head. "Jenny!" she repeats firmly.

Whatever-her-name-is struggles with the first syllable of Jenny's name, finally settles on calling her "Ni" with an apologetic look on her face, manages "Alli" with only slight mangling of the first vowel, and has comparable luck with "Emma". Having established that she's connected names to faces, she then says, "Emma roooom...?" expectantly.

"Well, I officially declare the word 'room' to be 'and'," Emma sighs. "But I still have no idea what she wants. My last name doesn't make sense here, right?"

"Seems like," Alli confirms. "Nickname, maybe? You said that was 'and', right? Like she wants another name, wherever we'd get that from.

"She's going to think you're ignoring herrrrr," Jenny hums to them.

"Well, I don't know what to tell her," Emma points out. "Um. I can try this, I guess." She points at herself again. "Emma." Then she says, "room," and shakes her head, and repeats it. "Emma."

This appears to make sense to the girl, but be very surprising. Then she starts giggling. "Emma!"

"Seriously, you cannot just hand this girl to the court," Alli reminds Emma. "We now have one word and our names in common. What would they even do with her? What if they deport her? ...what if they deport her to Soche-Tas?"

"...ugh," Emma says. "She looks a little old for that, but still. Ugh. Okay, fine, I'll find her a place here. What about the servant's wing? The south half is empty, so proooobably no one would run into her."

Jenny giggles. "Don't ask us, it's your house."

She looks around the room, tilts her head, puts her bag on the set of drawers, detaches the mouse cage and puts it next to said bag, opens the little cage door and pokes the mice, seems encouraged by the way they yawn and roll over, and shuts the cage.

"Okay, fine, that's sorta cute."

Well, now she has no idea what to do. So, Emma falls back on her usual default: languages. "Soooo. Okay, um. Pointing at things, I guess?" She starts to point to the chest of drawers, thinks better of it because there are at least three words she can think of that would work, and points at the bag instead. "Bag."

Sohng-and-Pyay (or whatever that means) does her best to pronounce "bag", and other concrete objects. She seems to have a pretty good memory for them.

It being a fairly empty room, Emma runs out of things to point out rather promptly. Then she casts about for new ideas. "Um. Food, I guess? That was part of the original plan, right, Jenny? You didn't just come over to be like Surprise I Brought Alli?"

"Alli and dessert is definitely superior to Alli and no dessert," Jenny says blithely. "And I already said. There's blueberry pie, it's important."

"Trust me, we wouldn't dream of coming between you and your sugar."

"Why am I doing all the sign language and looking ridiculous," Emma mutters, but she goes through a pantomime of "follow us, you, eat," for the benefit of Sohng-and-Pyay.

Sohng-and-Pyay follows!

The kitchen is what Emma's mother would call "clean but not neat." Everything's been cleaned after dinner, but some of the oddly shaped dishes that don't lend themselves easily to hand drying are still laid out on mats on free surfaces to dry overnight. Emma picks her way through the kitchen to retrieve plates and forks for everyone while Jenny produces the pie. Alli, as is her wont, mostly does nothing, but she does at least scrounge them up stools.

Sohng-and-Pyay looks around at things - and spies a set of crystal cups and plates. She goes up to them and taps them. "Sohng," she says.

Emma looks at her in confusion. "Uh..." This is about her name? She points at the cup. "Cup." Then at the plate. "Plate." And holds out her porcelain plate, which is not yet em-pied. "Plate."

"Ah - hwatreemree," says Crystal-Pyay apologetically, with the first consonant being something frictiony in the back of her throat, and then the cup and fork are back to normal. She puts them down and clasps her hands behind her back.

"But- it's magic! It's cool!" Jenny says, worry and confusion on her face. She has nothing to compare Crystal-Pyay too; it's not quite as weird, for her. More 'awesome and cool' then 'strange and unknown and frightening.'

Alli wraps an arm around Emma's shoulders and awkwardly pats her. "You're doing really well with the language thing?" she says, trying to be supportive.

Crystal-Pyay seems to like her pie too. A little ways in to her slice she says, "Hwatreesrayn."

"What, no credit for meeee?"

"It's still our pie!"

Crystal-Pyay looks between the other girls, uncomprehending but apparently picking up on the tone.

Jenny points at Emma and sticks her tongue out.

Emma mimes shaking an angry fist in response. It is not terribly convincing, because she and Alli are both convulsed with giggles at the sight of Jenny's blueberry-tinted tongue.

Hee hee hee!

Crystal-Pyay looks - pitying? Something along those lines. "Emma, Emma," she sighs, dispensing with further elaboration since Emma couldn't understand any of it. Then she looks thoughtful and (carefully, nonthreateningly) takes Emma's hand, leading her back to the room she was given, with the bag and the mice. Some of the mice are awake.

Well, now Emma is confused, but she follows along readily enough. Does the girl need something in her room, maybe?

Emma laughs, and points down the hall. There's writing implements back in the library, in the desk with the map on it, if Crystal-Pyay will follow her.

Well, they've already begun this. So Emma writes down all the words they've already gone over (it's a fairly short list so far, thankfully) and then hands the supplies to Crystal-Pyay. She points to the first word. "Bag," she reads, and then looks expectantly at Crystal-Pyay, so she can mark down her own word. Emma doesn't need to learn the language, necessarily, but Crystal-Pyay probably wants some way to remember what is what.

Crystal-Pyay writes two things in her own language, actually, in neatly spaced columns. "Bag," she repeats back, strongly accented but understandable Welchin. She hands back the pen.

Emma runs down the list she's already written, repeating pronunciations. When they finish, she can start on other words; this is, handily enough, a library full of books, occasionally with helpful pictures.

That's indeed very helpful! Soon Crystal-Pyay has a vocabulary of variously pronounceable nouns.

Once Emma has gone through basic nouns, she decided to attempt basic verbs. Starting with mime-able things, because she is lazy. Things like eat, walk, sit, sleep.

Crystal-Pyay seems to find 'sleep' worthy of giggling, but appears to have a word for it, or at least fills in both columns next to the word with her own strange characters.

Once they've gone over come, go, and Emma thinks Crystal-Pyay probably gets it she points at Crystal-Pyay. Then she says "come", and then points to the ground, and then makes as confused a face as she can possibly manage.

"Tlaaaah," says Crystal-Pyay, shrugging, unhappy, also confused.

Emma consults her list of "words Crystal-Pyay knows". "No know," she says carefully. "Emma no mouse. Emma sleep."

"Pyay mouse, Pyay and Crystal not sleep," says Crystal-Pyay. "More mouse?"

Crystal-Pyay shrugs. "Horse," she says. Apparently horses are better than cats for this purpose.

In that case, Crystal-Pyay is welcome to a tour of the stables. There are only three horses, so the tour will not take very long.

"Horse sleep," Crystal-Pyay points out.

Emma had not actually gotten to time words. She is now regretting this. "Horse sleep, horse sleep, horse sleep, horse no sleep," she tries as an alternative, complete with waving-forward-because-time-moves-I-guess hand gestures. "Horse no sleep, Crystal Pyay horse, Crystal Pyay no sleep?"

Crystal-Pyay nods. "More mouse," she mutters. "Mouse sleep sleep sleep sleep."

"No mouse, Crystal Pyay sleep... bad?" Emma guesses.

"Emma and - zero?" says Crystal-Pyay, improvising with her number words. "Emma sleep? Sleep not - bad bad bad. Sleep bad."

"Not -" Handwave. "Tlaaaaa. Klaonso - eat sleep."

"Sleep, klaon eat - sleep person. No klaonso?"

"Fkoooohk nook...?" She doesn't seem to expect an answer; she doesn't know how to translate this yet.

Emma stares at her blankly. Does she think Emma meant it's just her, maybe? She points at the world map from earlier. "People sleep," she says, and jabs her finger at a bunch of spots. "People sleep, no klaonso eat people. People no know klaonso. People sleep."

Crystal-Pyay taps her chin, then holds her hand about a couple feet off the ground. "Person." She holds her hand at about her eye level. "Person."

Emma supplies the words for "child" and "adult".

"Adult sleep?" She starts jabbing her fingers at random places on the map - not even cities, random tiny towns. "Adult sleep adult sleep adult sleep adult sleep?"

"Emma and zero Emma and zero Emma and zero, people one one one one one...?"

"Two people! Crystal and Pyay. Crystal not-sleep, Pyay -" Wobbly uncertain gesture. "...sleep. Pyay not-sleep, Crystal sleep. People two two two not sleep."

"But- but- but-" Emma splutters. She gestures at- she doesn't even know what to call her now. Crystal? Pyay? Is... one of them... sleeping? "One person, not two."

"Crystal and Pyay and Praip and Fwaysyee walk, walk, walk. Tlaaaa - not klaon - tlaaaaa - mmm - walk walk walk -" She jogs in place. "Eat Crystal and Pyay. Not know - Praip and Fwaysyee."

Emma supplies the word "run" sort of automatically, then attempts to process. So- the thing that keeps people from sleeping caught Crystal and Pyay, and- ate them? "Eat Crystal and Pyay, and- Praip and Fwaysyee- run?" she suggests. "Run good, Praip and Fwaysyee good?"

Crystal - or Pyay - shrugs. "Tlaa eat Praip and Fwaysyee, not know."

If Crystal-or-Pyay got that, it's not clear. She shrugs again. "Eat Crystal and Pyay. Crystal and Pyay -" She gestures. She - they - don't look very eaten.

Emma looks at her. "Emma see Crystal and Pyay. Crystal and Pyay not eat," she points out with a grin.

"Crystal and Pyay not sleep. Crystal and Pyay eat."

Oops. "No, no, um. Crystal and Pyay say, tlaa eat Crystal and Pyay. But. Emma see Crystal and Pyay. Tlaa eat? Tlaa not eat?"

Crystal-or-Pyay giggles.

Well, that's unhelpful. Emma makes her best mock-haughty face. "Crystal and Pyay here, tlaa eat bad," she declares, trying to suppress her smirk.

Crystal-or-Pyay laughs harder.

"More book," says Crystal-or-Pyay, calming down.

Crystal or Pyay wants to learn more words and put them in her little glossary. (It comes up over the course of this that Emma is talking to Crystal and not Pyay. And, when Crystal finds a botanical field guide, that Pyay means "holly".)

"Holly eat pie," Crystal says. "Holly front - one-ly?" She might mean 'first'. They haven't covered ordinals.

Well, Emma is happy to detour to cover the word "number" and then the ordinals, to see if that clarifies things.

"Holly front first. Crystal now."

"Well. Hi Crystal," Emma says, smiling. "But. Now, Crystal say, Crystal front. Not now, Emma know...? Crystal Holly say, Emma know? More know?"

"Holly front now?" asks Crystal.

Crystal makes a vague, noncommittal gesture. "Emma say, 'Holly, Crystal' we say?" she suggests.

"Yes."

Well, then Emma will sneak her some food for the pantry. She doesn't bring her, because there are now people cooking breakfast and she doesn't know how to explain her, much less her complete lack of Welchin, but she returns reasonably promptly with a couple of stolen pastries.

Yay, pastries. Om nom. She gives the mice a bit of one. It looks like most of the mice are dead, but there are a few alive. She picks up one of the dead mice and looks questioningly at Emma.

Emma attempts to suppress a panicked squirm. That is a dead rodent in her house. Ick. "Garden?" she suggests, and pantomimes digging, adding, "Bury?"

Crystal nods, collects all the dead mice, closes the cage on the live ones, and follows Emma.

Crystal buries the dead mice. She looks at the sun, frowning inscrutably, then shrugs and goes back inside.

Breakfast time. "Emma go, eat, come," she promises, offering a selection of children's books she dug out of the library they hadn't yet covered. "Crystal read?"

"Crystal read," agrees Crystal, "Holly read."

"Books... good," agrees - whichever one is out right now.

"In garden-" Emma starts to ask, but pauses. "Um. Holly Crystal?"

"Holly. Garden?"

"Crystal- I think Crystal- not like sun?"

"Sun -" Holly flips through their notes. "Oh. One sun. Sun go up." Holly makes a confused gesture.

"Suns, suns suns, go across. Colors. Big suns little suns fast suns slow suns," says - is this Crystal now?

Crystal makes notes on that. "Sun at night where?"

Emma names a country from the far side of the map. "They sun, Welce no sun." She draws a circle in the air, then jabs her finger to locate the two countries.

"Sun go -" Crystal traces from Welce to the faraway country, then back across the same line.

Emma nods. "Circle!" She can't get the map into a sphere, but she can (carefully) fold it into a cylinder. First in one direction, then the other, to show how it overlaps. It's not the best projection, but it's close enough. "See? Circle."

"Circle." Crystal shrugs, and writes this down.

Emma giggles. "My world-" she gestures to encompass the whole map, to explain the world. "not not not your world, I think, yes?"

"Not," agrees Crystal. "Not not not not."

"Um -" Crystal taps the books. "Book. Person Book. Crystal's and Holly's -" She's missing the word.

"Person Book?" Emma says, confused. She offers a quasi-medical textbook.

"Person Crystal, person Holly. Person Book - Praip. And person - Fwaysyee. With Book."

Oh! "Name," Emma supplies. "Emma my name, Crystal and Holly your names. Book person's name?" She recalls vaguely that she was missing a word. "Friend?" she tries. "Alli, Jenny, my friends."

"...Book with Crystal and Holly," tries Crystal. "Book go with Fwaysyee... Fwaysyee friend. Book..."

"Book brother," says Crystal decisively, when supplied with the words. "Holly and Crystal sister sister, Book brother."

Awwww. That's just sad, they left their brother behind and they don't know what happened to him. "Sorry," she says helplessly. "I hope- um, think/want?- him good."

"Book asleep, Fwaysyee awake, tlaa eat Crystal and Holly," sighs Crystal. "Tlaa eat Holly and Crystal go here. Tlaa eat Fwaysyee and Book - go -?"

"Not eat, not - no tlaa eat Crystal and Holly here, not go Kuigao. Not see. Eat, go - here, not here -"

"Um..." Emma attempts to parse this. "We go- not now, more day go- search Chialto, see Book, no Book?"

"Yes."

Well, then Emma is going to try to get slightly fancier with words. There might even be verb tenses.

Crystal is extremely confused by verb tenses.

"Now" and "later" come easily; "day" takes a while for the girls to get used to, even after they seem clear on the general concept of a routinely scheduled visit by the same sun over and over.

Holly and Crystal figure out how to say "sand", and draw a recognizable hourglass, and say that at home they keep time by "sands". (Plurals are not as confusing as verb tenses.) They seem to conclude after prolonged observation that a sand is about one and a half hours, maybe, probably.

"Oooh! Yes please, yes please!"

Holly and Crystal study when left to their own devices, and blink along politely when this mostly incomprehensible conversation occurs.

Holly isn't following most of this, but she takes occasional notes when she understands something well enough to want to be able to review it later.

"Oooooh, Emma, we should ask for blessings for them!" Jenny says insistently.

"Holly," says Holly, "now."

"Hi Holly!" Jenny says agreeably. "Let's go! You need blessing coins. They're important!"

"So you know, Holly," Alli contributes, "Jenny really likes blessing coins."

Holly, puzzled, accepts a talent, a clarity, and a persistence; she pockets them. Crystal emerges and takes a kindness, an intelligence, and a loyalty.

"Those are good coins!" Jenny tells them encouragingly. "I guess Holly's pretty sweela?" she asks Emma as an aside, who has more familiarity with the girls to go on.

"I have gotten other things ever," Alli retorts, but accepts the coins with a smile.

Crystal tries to follow along, but doesn't seem to understand the meanings attached to their coins.

Emma finally just waves a hand at them. "They say- together, it is- wait, and do not be sad?"

"Coins know things?" asks Crystal skeptically.

"A person gave Jenny's mom a coin for baby Jenny," Emma says. "The coin said Jenny would be a very happy person." She does not even bother to continue explaining. She just- waves, speakingly, in Jenny's direction.

Muffled giggles!

Notes, notes, notes - also giggles!

Holly comes forth to follow along. She seems keenly interested in most of the things that are around.

Holly opens her mouth, decides she has no prayer of getting out a coherent version of the sentiment in mind, and shrugs and follows Emma to them.

"You can pay them coins or pay them by telling them new things," Emma explains. "Things about your brother might cost a lot of coins-" someone appearing via a brand new magic would be expensive- "so I will tell them about you. Is that okay?"

"...They... see?" ask Holly.

"Nope," Alli says. "People call them the blind sisters. Blind means they can't see. Is no one blind, where you live?"

"...Person not see. Mouse not see, person see," attempts Holly.

That hadn't occurred to Emma, though she supposes it makes sense. But, she should make sure what Holly means, just in case. "Person tired, mouse not tired. Holly touch them. Mouse tired, person not tired. Same?"

"Yes."

"Wait, Ems, does she mean she can fix blindness?"

"No Praip and Fwaysyee?" says Holly, confirming sadly.

"No. Sorry," Emma says. She pats Holly's shoulder awkwardly.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of you," Jenny tells Holly, draping her with a hug.

Holly smiles tentatively and pats Jenny's hand.

"So... no river then?" Alli asks.

"It doesn't seem promising," Emma admits. "Holly? Do you want to look by the river?"

Holly has to look through their notes to find 'river'. When she's found it she shrugs.

Emma looks around. It's getting dark. "We should probably go back," she says reluctantly. "But if I don't buy anything, my parents will be suspicious. Let's stop for something quickly?"

"Holly and Crystal need their charms!" Jenny points out. "Buy them bracelets!"

Alli rolls her eyes. "And then get yourself something too. Otherwise your parents will still be suspicious."

Alli looks around. "What, you want to buy a mouse?"

"Mouse, mouse, mouse. Mouse sleep. Mouse not-see, mouse - more mice."

"...Emmaaaa, translate please."

"She uses them to make herself stay awake or heal blind people or whatever, and so she needs more?" Emma tries. "The mice seemed okay when she woke me up, though, I guess it's not like... immediate mouse death."

"But the cute mice!"

"What, seriously, you were hiding from them earlier."

"Well, now they're cute."

Emma rolls her eyes and ignores them. "We can look," she tells Holly doubtfully. "I don't know of any places that sell mice, though."

"Mice or -" Vague gesture. "Small, eat small. Mice good but -" Vague gesture.

After some searching, it's Jenny who finally locates the store with some caged gerbils in the back. "Aren't they cuuuuute," she purrs, scooping one up to cuddle it.

Ali peers at it. "Cute," she says grudgingly, "but I like the mice better. These are too... fluffy."

"You're weird," Emma tells her matter-of-factly.

"There is no such thing as too fluffy," Jenny tells her indignantly.

While Jenny and Alli bicker happily about the ideal fluffiness level of pets, Emma tunes them out and looks at a much more alert-seeming Holly. "You saw the gerbil, touched the gerbil, are you good now?" she asks. "Or do you want to buy one? More?"

"Mouse not - like gerbil," says Crystal. "Mouse, gerbil -" She mimes claws and bares her teeth.

While Emma has no doubt that this is perfectly true, she doesn't have any idea how that works with Holly's- whatever it is she does. "Um," she says blankly. "Claws," she supplies the hand gesture, and "fangs. Sharp," she uses her canines to attempt to demonstrate. "So- gerbil not like mouse- gerbil good? Gerbil bad?"

"Mouse good. Mouse?" asks Crystal. "No mouse - gerbil, gerbil, gerbil, gerbil. Child gerbils."

Holly looks over mice to see how they compare with the mice at home.

Jenny joins her, cooing delightedly over the small fuzzy creatures, her initial fear of 'mice!' apparently totally forgotten.

Holly picks over the mice, makes sure they aren't prone to bite, and eventually has six lively ones that she likes swarming around in her hands.

"Good."