"No, I mean, it sounds like you were saying them in Anglian."

Vir stops short. “So we’re dealing with more of a ‘universal translator’ situation? You don’t need a cravat to see how to exploit that... unless it only works with Anglian? But then how would it know that you’d...”

Vir trails off and stares up and off to the right with a puzzled expression.

"Also I said my last four sentences in Thulic and you didn't notice."

“Ohh, you’re good.”

"So this is an interesting situation. If you're telling me the truth, it's very strange, and if you're lying it's an even more baffling thing to lie about. --I ought to send Eli a letter."

“Well unless and until something even crazier than this happens to me, I’ve got nothing but time.”

"Excuse me." He writes a few sentences on a piece of paper, rings a bell for a servant to collect it, and then returns to Vir. "Your body language is all wrong and you'll never pass as a submissive. You're almost a dominant but it's not quite right either. It's uncanny."

“You know, where I come from people are judged by the content of their character, not forced to conform to rigid, stifling societal —“

He busts up laughing. “Holy shit, can you imagine? Anyway, got any dom tips for me, other than losing the dress?”

"It's hard to describe, I'm not an actor. You want to look-- confident, in control, powerful, someone who could definitely hurt you if they needed to? But subtly, you know, you're not a fifteen-year-old who just presented and wants to show everyone she's the most dominant girl in Londinium. --You keep veering nondynamic. It's very strange."

Vir rolls out his shoulders. He imagines he’s facing down someone he can’t bluster or bullshit. Someone who’s crystal clear on what they want, and won’t stop unless someone is willing to stop them. He imagines he’s in the room with Michael, Archangel of Justice. (Long story.)

“I can pass if I have to.”

“Again, obviously, once I’m out of this dress.”

"It's very interesting. Either you're a nondynamic person who speaks Thulic-- probably a spy-- telling a bizarre lie for no reason I can comprehend, or you are actually from another world."

“Spoilers: it’s the second one. And hey speaking of otherworldliness, I’m guessing there’s like several hundred things I should know about your society-slash-technology-level-slash-magic-system-if-any before running my mouth in front of anyone less level-headed than you.”

“I’m assuming you have shit you’re trying to get done today —can you send me over to, like, a hot scribe in your employ, or a nubile young occultist or something, who can give me Anglians-in-dresses 101?”

"Sir, I think you are unfamiliar with the ways of the gentry. We do not have shit we are trying to get done. We call on each other. We gossip. We read literature that is perhaps improving and perhaps less so. We manage our investments. The entire purpose of the gentry is to be as idle and useless as possible."

“So no chance you’re the captain of an elite military death squad then?”

"I am captain of the ship Hopewell in Her Majesty's Imperial Navy."

(The language is not in fact gendered, but does inform Vir that Her Majesty is a dominant.)