"The first place I was at was a forest, high in ambient magic and hostile monsters - there was some kind of... magical something or other that was driving the nearby animals mad, and making the trees and flora try to get people lost and die in it. It was also pretty haunted, but I'm not sure if that was related to what was going on with it on a large scale. If that describes anywhere you know, then maybe I'm not too far off? But according to my castle it was a very long trip, and it thinks we might've moved to another dimension or something." She squints at the charades.

"Are you asking if... I'd like to go back? I think as a place for a vampire to live in, forest is better than desert by a large amount, on account of the cover from sunlight and how I just generally like plants. I also kind of liked attempting to combat the cursed nature of the forest and make it behave itself and stop driving things mad, though possibly that is what got me evicted. Having animals that don't hate me is nice, though."

Actually she was mostly trying to get the different dimension thing across, but that works too. Numair might know the spells for banishing things back to their previous location. If nothing else, Mama Daine can maybe get the attention of some gods. Immortals aren't supposed to be coming into the mortal realms any more, after all.

Nod and bounce at the 'another dimension' bit. If she likes forests, the closest forest is not nearby. (Also rainforests are all wet. Not like proper pine at all.) But Numair could probably make a spell to keep her in shade if that was important, and she looks like a human enough to travel with them.

Back to the first blob. Around the castle: a sketch of a pine tree, cone-shaped and with quick strokes of lines along its branches? A blobbier oak tree, its leaves billowing out in an oval,a quickly doodled oak leaf among them? A tall baobab, sprouting a thin and wide layer of leaves only at the top of the trunk, drawing in a five-pointed star shape of the pointed ovals a baobab leaf is shaped like? 

Interrogative trill. Point, point, point?

Ah! A question about plants! She is so incredibly equipped to answer this!

"So the tree type was more like the oak than anything else you've shown, but oak itself is not quite right - some pines were present in the upper altitudes, but were generally outcompeted everywhere else. The land was swampy and more temperate than tropical, but above average humidity, it was not inaccurate to say I lived in a swamp, though I was careful to place my castle on firmer ground and was therefore just near the swamp -"

She pauses as she realizes this is not what the little creature was asking about. What could it have been instead...?

"... Or, are you asking me about my preferred relocation options? Because if I had to choose, probably somewhere colder with high ambient rain and cloud cover? Pine trees over oak or baobab."

The creature was actually following along enthusiastically as she described plants! But a nod and chirp at that. Gesture at the castle? Claw on the drawing, and she walks over and acts as if she's puuuuulling before collapsing back in apparent exhaustion?

"I think I can move my castle elsewhere, actually, now that I've seen it done? I would need to be on the other end, and it'd be a bit of a production, but the mechanics are very straightforward. It's - like how vampires move, but on a castle scale. Bringing along a little part of it to put somewhere else, and then having the rest of it join itself, is the principle. It doesn't like being in the desert much, either."

It's all exposed, and the foundation is all - sandy!!!! Barely firm at all!! It liked the trees better!!!!!!

Yes dear, sorry dear, we're talking about getting you to a non-desert location.

(Iovetra absently pats a wall, without explanation.)

There are definitely places where a castle would fit in Tortall! She likes solving problems!

...Tortall is far away. And if she can't be out in the sunlight she needs to travel with Papa, and Papa is doing this tour right now. But maybe there will be somewhere later she also likes! Or some way to get her to Tortall fast!

Whistle chirp. Tail-point in the general direction of the other humans, and a claw-drawing of tents. Can she find her way out and back from here?

"Are you asking if you can go back to the tents? Because the answer to that is that I'm not going to keep you from leaving and you don't need my permission. If you're asking me to go to the tents - I don't think I can make it across that stretch of space in direct sunlight without burning to death? Which is rather avoid. But if you have something for handling that, then I am amenable."

If she can find her way out, she indeed does not need permission! Off she goes.

And eventually she returns, accompanied by a tall man perhaps in his mid-thirties. He knocks politely at the wall.

Oh. Accompanied by a tall person that cannot fit through the door her last visitor fit in through. Right, okay.

One of the glass panels of the greenhouse attachment swings open inward. It is quite large enough for even a very tall person to go through.

Iovetra gives a nervous wave, from inside her garden. "Hello," she adds, heavily accented in the local language.

It is, to its credit, a very pretty, and also very magical, garden. She's kind of regretting not putting a table and chairs out here, though, she'd thought about it.

He walks in. "Hello!" And then something incomprehensible — maybe inquiring about how much she understands of the local language?

Headshake.

"I have a few scattered words, but approximately no grammar or complicated concepts."

Tweedle! Descending chirp. Back up a tone, and then stop.

Something incomprehensible. Gesture to himself— "Numair. Human." To the lizard thing— "Kitten. Dragon." To the drawing of tents, adding some stick figures— "Human, human. Humans." Point to Iovetra?

"Iovetra. Vampire." She can play this game: she points at one of the stick figures, says, "Human," then draws an arrow, and another stick figure with pointy ears and little fangs on its mouth. "Vampire."

She was a human once, but became a vampire. Is that properly communicated?

Nod nod. Sun drawing above Iovetra's stick figures?

She adds fire on the vampire one. The human stick figure is left alone.

She does, actually, know the native word for this one, and says it. "Fire."

That will make testing this harder. Does she know what it is about sunlight that matters? The University has recently done some very impressive work on isolating national properties of—

She will understand exactly none of that. Another vampire, this time holding a parasol over its head. Sun directly overhead?

She makes an 'Ehhhhh,' sound, tilting one of her hands back and forth.

There is a longer answer that she can't really explain to him. She'll say part of it out loud as she tries to explain it, in case Kitten can communicate with him better than she can.

"So vampires are just highly flammable in general -" She uses the few words she has to try to explain, "Vampire fire," with a vampire next to a little stylized fire and it spreading to the vampire. Which is to say: she is just very extremely flammable. Then she continues in her native tongue: "Exposure to non-reflected sunlight heats up my form until it catches fire. Things that reflect sunlight well can also be dangerous at close range, such as, for example, sand." She draws a representation of the ground, then draws a line from the sun to it, then back up to the vampire. Which then is given flames around it.

"So it's not entirely direct sunlight, and I will be heating up until I burst into flames the more of it I'm exposed to, and a desert in particular is magnifying risk factors on several different axes."

Being near fire is bad... but what does that have to do with sunlight? If—