The table setting was normal at least. Approximately placed in the same locations that she had been used to when her grandmother had insisted on lessons, the dishes and silverware were fine and neat in style and arrangement, with a shining silver candelabra placed in the center of the table with three long candles and an arrangement of flowers at the base. The tablecloth was a rich red silk, with a fine silver trim and the design stitched into the fabric was of delicate silver flowers with vines trailing between each cluster of five flowers.
Sitting at the table she couldn't help but feel inadequate and unrefined, but a calm determination washed over her as she looked across the table at her self proclaimed teacher, appraising but not judging. She would do her best and make her grandmother proud.
Nora approached the table placing the first course in front of them, before stepping back to grab a bottle of some type of alcohol. As Nora began to pour the amber liquid into a glass, Albus began to eat his share, and Elise took that as her cue to begin as well.
As they ate the salad before them, Elise noted the portion size and the quantity of silverware before them and estimated that the meal would be 5 courses, and so began to pace herself.
As they ate, he began to speak, "So, I need to determine how much of an education you will require. You said you were educated. What did your studies look like?"
Elise took a bite, chewing slowly and contemplating her response. Swallowing, she took a breath, "in the world I come from, my education started at five years old and was ongoing for my whole life up to this point. Reading, writing, math, history, natural science, physical science, health... Not just that, after the invention of the internet, I had essentially unlimited access to the entirety of human knowledge worldwide. I could look up or find out anything I could think of wanting to know."
I wasn't expecting the clatter of silverware from a teacher who had completely lost his composure.
"Unlimited...?" came a near whisper from him as he struggled to grasp the enormity of the breadth of knowledge. The marked lapse was only momentary, as he collected himself. "I... I see. You are extremely learned. From what I can see, you've been taught table etiquette, speaking, and numerous other topics. To start with, we have to teach common, but with you having such a grasp on everything else you have stated, I believe both common and magicks will come quickly."
I blushed a bit, not expecting such praise. "What language have I been speaking? You said at one point, but the only language I know is English. I don't know how I would be speaking another language without knowing."
"Abyssal, which I've been looking into. You said that you were in the ocean, and then you were in a void. You said a voice spoke to you, there in the dark, and the next thing you knew, you were here. I think I may have an explanation. But the amount you understand will depend entirely on how much you can comprehend with a very simplified version of how magic works on a fundamental level."
I nodded. "Do your worst. I'll follow along and ask questions if I need to."
"If you think you can follow along we can try. Come, let us sit in the office chairs and we can be more comfortable."
I nodded, standing with him, and moving across the room to the desk, which was currently covered in papers. Our meal was forgotten in an instant.
"Let us begin, then, shall we? To start with, our current location is the Material Plane. This is the plane of existence in which material beings who exist in harmony between magick and flesh at a perfect balance of all magical domains exist. The material plane is essentially the center point of all other planes, and the one plane in which things may be or find balance."
He took out a clean sheet of paper and drew a circle, pristine and clear in the center, and wrote some lettering on the sheet. It took me a moment to realize I understood the lettering. Shock won out for a moment, before I decided that it was a question that could wait.
"Connected with our plane of existence are other planes that ebb and flow and touch in various locations, sometimes overlapping, sometimes moving, but always present. The planes that we are aware of include the other material planes, including the faerie-lands which lean closer to the magical dominant side of materium, and the shadowfane which leans closer to the flesh-dominant side of materium."
He drew two bordering shapes, touching, but not mixing, and labeled them as well.
"Next we have the elemental planes of fire, water, air, earth, as well as the secondary elemental planes which are a perfect blend of two elements, and then the tertiary elemental planes which are much more fluid in the mixture of elements."
These were drawn as a series of circles surrounding the original shapes, labeled with symbols instead of words, and I could immediately recognize some, especially as he named them in turn.
"The continuum planes, including the etherial and the astral are essentially the place in between planes where the soul and body need not mix."
These were off to the side as if sitting overhead compared to the rest, and duly labeled.
"Lastly, there are the far planes, which in order to enter, exit, or traverse, you need intimate knowledge of how you are traversing the plane in question. These planes are what people generally refer to as the afterlife in most cases."
Several circles were drawn underneath the rest of them as he began to label them each in turn, naming them off aloud.
"The Arcadian Plane, Celestian Plane, Elysian Plane, Primordian Plane, Asgard, Limbo, Pandemonium, and the Abyssal Plane."
As he finished writing the word Abyssal on the sheet, he paused and looked at me for a moment.
"So you come to me, only speaking Abyssal, only reading Abyssal," he waved haphazardly at the sheet he had been writing on, and I realized intimately, that he had been writing in this language to prove a hypothesis, "and with a story that means technically that you died, drowned, and wound up in the Abyssal Plane, not fully dead, but instead floating in the deepest sea of darkness, that when you were found and determined to not be a threat, you were thrown out of the plane and into ours."
He stood now, as he spoke, pacing as he explained, and the words came faster and faster as his ideas seemed to flood forth and his every explanation led to another, as though he was fully puzzling out the mystery of how I came to be there in this one conversation.
"By and large, none of that should be possible, but, if you were so close to the end of your natural lifespan, but held on long enough to be thrown into our plane, it's possible that your soul grasped the only source of magick available to you and used it as not only a lifeline, but a source of sense of self, and made a quasi-pact with whatever was there that found you."
He took a ragged breath as he turned toward me. He looked manic and haggard at the same time in that moment, as if a thousand new possibilities opened up in the air around him as he continued to speak faster and faster, like the words couldn't come fast enough.
"If only a little. This, by logic's truth, means that you are able to perform magic in the capacity you can via that pact. It also lends credence to the fact that your primary language thus far is abyssal, as that is your soul's lifeline, literally what is keeping you alive."
As he seemed to become more and more manic with the influx of knowledge, a shimmering light entered the room as a warm voice rang out, "My, my, Albus! You must calm yourself before your new pupil becomes dizzy. Rest, sweetling, before you give yourself more to do than you can physically complete in your lifetime. Sleep, my dear. Sleep."
The voice and light seemed to wrap themselves around him as they solidified and warped in shape, becoming the form of a young woman, nearly albino, save for a piercing golden eye, the other closed, contentedly as Albus was seemingly forced asleep in his armchair, and the embrace of this young woman.
"Now, child, we have some talking to do, you and I, about where you come from and what you seek to do here."