Chapter 3: Making and Taking Risks
But the next few days changed that. New people arrived, carrying their own tablets and the air of scholars. Instead of entering the prisoner's chambers, they sat outside, lowering a layer of the golden barriers so that sound could pass freely. Each of the three had their own technique for learning the language as fast as possible, now that they were no longer fighting just to be spoken to. Simon, master of systems and structures, focused on grammar, drawing diagrams to help him identify the basic building blocks of the language. Chandra was the best artist of the group and had her translator describe the images on her tablet. It took more time for Arianna to get her translator to understand her meaning, but soon enough she was sitting happily, listening to the scholar tell story after story from memory.
The only one of the trio who had actually studied language was Simon, and he used this to his advantage, masking his growing understanding of their language by using simpler language and asking more questions than he needed. He felt especially vulnerable as the most suspicious of the group. Though he warned both Chandra and Arianna of this worry, Chandra was progressing at a slower pace than the other two and wasn't drawing much attention anyway. Arianna, however, didn't listen.
She started asking questions as soon as she got enough of a handle on their language to do so. She learned that they called themselves Asgardians, that they held a long and proud history of battles hard fought by famed and powerful warriors, and that their magic was like her own - it did its work through both careful control and intuitive understanding. But, as Simon feared, her perfect pronunciation of childlike sentences indeed drew suspicion, and after 3 weeks of linguistic development, the scholars stopped coming. Instead, the calm interrogator from before returned; but this time, she went straight to Arianna's cell.
She watched her with an iron gaze, which she returned stubbornly, though with less intensity.
"Why are you and your friends here?"
"It was an accident. We don't wanna be here too."
"How did you come here?"
"It was an accident! I don't know."
"What realm do you come from?"
She paused a moment. She wasn't sure yet which realm, if any, would serve as their template origin - that is, the place where, in simple terms, they would have been born if they had been born in this world.
"I don't know. A place with mortals."
The woman gave a slight start. "Midgard?"
"Maybe. Does Midgard has seas, and trees, and lots of peoples?"
"You mean people?" she asked.
She frowned slightly, looking for a better word, and gave up. "No, peoples. Same people but different ways to doing things. Many battles."
Understanding dawned on her face. "The mortals of Midgard are indeed quite divided amongst themselves, yes."
"What?"
"Yes." Then she frowned. "You are no human. You obviously have natural magic."
She shook her head emphatically. "I am human though. We are human!"
She scoffed. "Why must you continue with these lies? You and your fellows were caught trespassing in the royal palace in the dead of night and yet you still uphold this farce." Her eyes burned. "We have no patience for such insolence. Confess or suffer for your foolishness."
"I can't!" Arianna's voice nearly cracked from frustration. "I want you to trust us! What can I do? I will do anything!"
"Anything?" The woman sat back in his chair, but her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched for her response.
"Kind of," she admitted. "I won't die or something."
"I see. So you would be willing to undergo something quite... strenuous, even painful, to prove your innocence?" She leaned forward again, the better to lock Arianna's gaze down with her own.
Arianna steeled her own gaze to meet it squarely. "I will prove our innocence with any way I can."
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