Jemma looked on in confusion as Del seemed abashed by Gem’s outstretched hand. It was not like Gem was asking her to dance or anything, but the blue-haired woman seemed confused and wary all the same. When she finally spoke, her accent seemed a bit heavier. English was definitely not Del’s first language. Maybe Jemma would be better off learning more Russian… Perhaps Del could help her learn as Gem helped her with English?
"Do excuse me, but I wish to understand to what extent you signify your social advances through your hand? Among our people's Empire, we do take to ourselves meaning of hand bond, I do not know what the hand bond signifies to people to... English speaker".
“Oh!” Gem said, coloring slightly. She had dealt with other cultures fairly often, but it was always embarrassing when she ended up doing something that was more offensive or intimate than what she meant. She withdrew her hand and began nervously fiddling with her fingers. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware of that. In most cultures, it is just a polite greeting. Like, you know, when you meet someone or are conducting business especially. No biggie though,” she said hurriedly. Though Gem had been looking down throughout most of the speech, she looked up at Del with the last sentence and gave an embarrassed smile. It would not be cool if Del had thought Jemma was upset over the misunderstanding in any way. She already decided to be a bit more cautious about what she did. It would probably be awkward at first trying to navigate around the possible pitfalls of an unfamiliar culture, but Jemma was willing to do everything she could. It would probably end up being really fun to learn about this new culture.
Del’s response to what the so called “People’s Empire” was only confused Gem more. It seemed that Del had sort of misunderstood her question. By quite a bit, actually. Gem stammered, “No, no. I did not mean what language you speak. I—” Gem said, cutting off because she did not really know how to explain. She was beginning to think that Del was not exactly from Russia. The question now was where the blue-haired girl was from.
A look of what Gem hoped was understanding crossed Del’s features. She motioned Gem over as she sat on the bunk and began opening a metal canister of some sort and sorting through rolls of blackened paper. Jemma was immediately curious about what was on the papers, but that did not seem to be Del’s focus at this point. The thing Del pulled out was triangular, with one side higher than the other two. Jemma looked at the object curiously. She had never seen anything like it before, and had no idea what its function could be. She did not see Dell move her fingers or press any sort of button, so she was surprised when the device suddenly changed shape.
Jemma moved to sit on the bed near the girl, her eyes fixed on the now larger machine. Small dots of light speckled the surface sporadically, and Gem tried to make sense of what they were meant to represent. As the design fully surfaced, she was able to make out different, irregular shapes. After a moment, Gem’s mind was able to grasp the meaning. “Oh, it’s a map!” Del explained that what was shown was the People’s Empire, with a whole bunch more poetic phrasing that completely went over Gem’s head. Jemma examined the map carefully, trying to figure out what country it could be. The shape did not seem familiar at all, and Gem’s lack of knowledge frustrated her more than a little.
Not wanting to seem overly ignorant, Jemma suddenly said, “Yeah, now I get it. I know where that is. Thanks! I… uhh...” she stammered, not sure where to go with that. As if on cue, a voice suddenly sounded out of nowhere, rescuing Gem from her awkward lie. Gem jumped at the unexpected noise and hit her head hard on the wood of the top bunk. Jemma flopped back down on the bed for a second. She groaned softly, rubbing the sore spot on her head as she stood. The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and she looked around for it as it spoke.
"Hello there, participants. I hope that you are all settling down into your rooms and getting to know your partners. As you've probably realized by now, half of you... aren't from around here. As its getting later, the staff of this facility have decided to order you all pizza. If you could begin to make your way to the foyer downstairs for dinner, that'd be great."
As she was unable to find where it was coming from, Gem just guessed there was a small speaker somewhere in the room. She opened the door and looked out as a couple more doors opened around the hall. She turned to face Del as she fully opened the door. “Might as well, right? Wanna go get some of that pizza?” Jemma said, smiling uncertainly.