The tall person who looked like a Sarion kind of person except Pen heard him ask a question must've broke the door.
This is not Samaria and it is not the unpronounceable world Sarion is from either 'cause there's no Jane.
No Mommy or Daddy or sisters or any other ones of them either.
Not a one of the party people she can remember or any ones of those. She can't remember them all but still.
And the door isn't working.
Where is she?
She is in a hallway. The hallway is stone and the floor is thickly carpeted and there are glowing rocks set into the walls and spaced like torches.
Well the guy who was in the bar is long gone probably because the door broke and wasn't holding the time still.
Pen tiptoes down the hall. Oo, glowy rocks. Maybe they're magic.
And a person, tall, sweeps around the corner in long robes and draws up short at the sight of her.
Oh it's another one of those. They must be the kind of person here. They probably don't speak English then, English is mostly a humans planets thing. And nobody else speaks Samarian or Edori either. She'll try English, just in case. "Hi?"
That is not a human, because it has wings and he's also never seen a human dressed like that. She wouldn't be out of place in Tirion except for the looking human and the wings. That is not an Elf, because there are no Eldarin children, not here. That is not a Maia because the alarms would be up -
She says something. Not in Thindarin.
"Hello," he says, and privately to everyone else - I found this walking the corridors what is she and does anyone know how she got in.
"I not know that one and don't having any pentagons except me," sighs Pen.
We can do it this way?
Oh you having a brainphoney thing! Hi! Am lost.
You are. What are you, and where did you come from, and are the people here in danger from you?
...am angel from Samaria coming when door break from nice bar and um no?
Okay.
I have never met an angel before or heard of Samaria. Can you go back there?
Can't, door is break and no Jane or ones Mommies anybody.
He can't ask a kid for an oath.
Let's go outside, shall we? That way no people will get hurt if there's a problem. I can take you outside.
Who getting hurt? wonders Pen.
No one! Because we're going outside and then I'll call my lord to come and figure out what's going on.
Okay, Pen shrugs. This person is silly but going outside is fine.
So they go to the door and the guards don't look surprised because he's been communicating all of this, and they go outside, and they walk a nice safe distance away from Himring, and then when he's relaxed a little he says Hi. Sorry about that. I want to send you home but I don't know how. How did you get here?
Somebody from here breaking door. Supposed going home but go here.
Can you explain that in different words?
Was in bar that going many worlds and when opening door is supposed to put you home but it put here and there a tall pointy ears person in it and think he breaking door so it go here but then door wasn't to bar any more when turned around.
Okay.
There's someone approaching from the fortress. He looks a little scary. Scarred. "If she's really a child I should probably fetch someone else," he says lightly.
"It crossed my mind, m'lord. Sorry."
That is not a thing that should happen to a person. Pen scrunches her wings closer to her.
Hi, he says cheerfully. You are in Beleriand. Have you ever heard of it?
No.
It is not a safe place to be. Can you go somewhere else?
No! Was explain! Door break and no Jane or any ones any people here! Checked!
You came through a door from your world, but now you can't use that door to go back?
No, come through door from Milliways but door from Milliways is supposed going home for whoever going but instead it go home for tall guy. And then stop being a Milliways door but that normal.
Can you describe your home for me?
Um world or place I living on it?
The world. Does it have a sun in the sky? What kinds of people live there?
Of course having sun. Having angels, and mortals. And Jane, she back now.
Are you an angel or a mortal?
Angel, duh. She spreads her wings out and gives a small flap.
Are the wings the main difference?
Yeah, some other things but yeah.
Okay. We don't have a way to send you home. We can send you south somewhere where you are not likely to get hurt. Will people come looking for you?
Mommy coming and finding me eventually but time all funny without a Jane so could be so long a time. Pause. She fix you then if you want if you not wanting to have all the scars.
Oh will she. Your mother is a grownup angel?
Yeah. And she magic, all ones Mommies very magic.
Well.
All right. I will appoint some people to keeping you safe until you mother finds you, and that means sending you away from here because here's not safe. Okay? When your mommy arrives I would be delighted to talk with her.
Oh, am safe, Mommy safed us, we Mommy's treasures.
I do not want to chance it.
Okay. Where going?
Can angels be happy living in caves?
Live in a cave! Up a mountain. But needs flying.
Then I might send you to the Dwarves, they are very safe.
Am safe, telling you so!
There are a lot of ways to hurt someone, he doesn't say.
Okay. I'm sending you to the Dwarves because you'll like it there.
Room for flying?
Yes, it has very high ceilings even though Dwarves are pretty short.
Well. If they really really high. But supposed flying outside.
Do you need to - fly for your health? Or something?
...nnno? Am safe. But flying is good.
I'll send someone with you to make sure you - communicate with the Dwarves okay - and I bet he'll be happy to take you out to fly.
Dwarves not having this brainphoney thing?
They do not, and also they think a little differently than most Elves and maybe also angels. My brother likes them quite well and will help make sure you are getting everything you need.
Okay.
What kind of things do you like to eat?
Um, lots of things. Had cake in bar. Pasta! Pasta is good. And, and strawberries.
Lovely. We're going to stay out here until my brother arrives, but he's on his way. Would you like me to sing you a song?
Ooh yes what kinda songs having here?
All kinds. It might take me a minute to think of one appropriate for children. It has been a very long time since I have interacted with any children.
He thinks a minute then starts singing.
Pen listens very politely, nodding along.
This probably won't entertain a small child for the hours it's going to take Caranthir to get here. He tries to think what else small children like. Drawing? Want to draw pictures?
Drawing's okay. You wanting hear angel songs?
I would love to.
So Pen starts singing. She is quite good for her apparent age.
He compliments her enthusiastically. He had a musical prodigy for a little brother and is quite good at encouraging small children at singing, if those memories are trustworthy.
Pen appreciates this! Her wings fluff out proudly.
Great. He can continue dispensing enthusiastic compliments. They're sincere; she's quite good.
Good! Then he will get to hear more of her repertoire, which is in several languages none of which are local.
And at last Caranthir arrives, on a tired horse but that he can trade out for a fresh one. This is my brother, Maedhros says. Caranthir, this is Pen, and she is an angel, and she is lost but her very powerful mother will find her. She's going to stay in Tumunzahar in the meantime.
Half-Maia?
I actually don't think so? But something in the range. When the mother arrives Pen had promised me that her mother would 'fix' me. Can you request that she do attempt that?
Yeah, sure, I didn't realize that you wanted people meddling with -
I want to meet the very powerful mother.
Oh, right. He smiles at Pen. Hi, kid. You'll like the Dwarves.
Hi! Am Pen.
You are Pen. I am Caranthir. This is Maedhros. This is a war zone. You are, what, twenty?
Eight. You a growing slow kind of persons?
We sure are. What kind of people are you?
Am angel.
You are an angel. What makes angels different from the kinds of people you know of?
Wings! Feather wings not like dragons or whatever. And be from Samaria. There mortals and angels and other kinds people, lots other kinds.
What makes angels different from mortals, other than the wings?
We singing better for praying weather and stuff. And angels warm and strong. And not getting sick.
Oh good. That's sort of like the difference between Elves and Men here, except Elves don't have wings.
Having wings very nice. Flap. How far is caves where going?
It is a couple hundred miles. Can you fly that far?
Yeah sure. Hours though.
We can go as slow as you like. Unless there's trouble. If there's trouble I might grab you and ride as fast as I can, if that's faster than you can fly.
Horses not liking angels be on them, wings scaring the horse.
How fast can you fly if there's trouble?
Uh, dunno, but am safe keep saying safe, Mommy safed me and sisters real good.
The Enemy wouldn't try to physically injure you, kid.
Moryo.
Yeah, I know, sorry.
Got mind wards too.
Do you.
Yeah! Was Mommy do it, duh, not forgetting those.
Can your mother do that for other people, Maedhros says.
Yeah, is just wishes. I'm too little for have any for wishing yet even small wish. Soon triangles, then squares.
We can't do that with wishes.
Is not just, 'oh I wish', is wish coins. Having to be mint. Am not, too little. Not expecting be lost in other world or probably would having a Jane. ...Except not because is so bad if Jane breaking again.
Who's Jane?
Jane a computer person who be in all the worlds and talking between them for people and put people places and make time be the same all worlds.
Okay. We don't have one of those, either.
You still sure you want to send her to Tumunzahar?
I want her mother to come and fetch her, Maedhros says.
Yeah. Knowing that. Checked. If a Jane here she send somebody for get me home.
And without that? How will your mother find you?
Shell Bell maybe? She do doors. Or a one Daddy come find me, they have a weird Daddy going places thing.
Please tell them, when they come, that we should very much like to meet them. Or he could keep her within eyesight at all times but it could be decades or could be impossible.
Sure.
Why don't you stay over in HImring for tonight while I decide if I even want to send her somewhere or if I want to hope that her powerful family arrives quickly.
Sure, Moryo says, though even I can give the 'you are welcome for feeding and entertaining your missing daughter, want to take a look at our evil god before you go?' talk without causing offense.
Rather a lot at stake isn't it.
I'm impressed you're even entertaining the premise -
- I am entertaining the premise and don't want you asking how likely I really think it is.
Okay.
So which way flying to?
We're going to spend the night at my house today, Maedhros says. It is called Himring and I think it's very pretty.
Okay.
It is not in fact very pretty; it's rather grim. They find her a nice guest room. I should ask Tyelcormo over, Maedhros grouses, don't kids like dogs?
Pen politely doesn't comment on how unpretty the place is.
Caranthir does. "My brother thinks that water is the best-tasting food and that 'plain' is the best flavor and that black is the best color, too. He is not very sensible."
Giggle. He sing okay though.
We have a different brother who's a very good singer, you'd like him.
Singing very important. Angels singing for weather and stuff, is our job.
We do that sometimes too. Want to teach me one of your weather songs?
Okay! Won't work here because is no spaceship god for hear it but sure. Ummm rain song?
Our music is magic without a spaceship god. What's a spaceship? And rain'd be good.
Spaceship like a boat for space, holding in air. Our one having a computer in it that almost not quite a person, then Mommy take it over, then Jane eat it. It listen for singing and do weather and stuff and people thinking it a god but it not. She starts to sing for rain.
And it starts to rain.
We don't usually get effects that fast, he says, cool.
It not supposed to work here!
Well, we have our own music magic so maybe you're using ours.
How it knowing this a rain song?
Are you singing about rain? That usually helps.
Yeah, is about rain.
Then that'd be how the universe knows. You can do healing, too?
Um, can do medicine songs? For make ship drop medicine. But is no ship.
Huh. Okay. This is a ship in the sky?
Yeah, way high, can't see from planet. Having teleport up, is so high there no air for fly.
We don't have one of those. Guess that song won't work. Why do you sing to get the ship to drop things?
Is a kinda dumb thing Samaria settlers setting up, she shrugs. They kinda dumb. But singing nice.
It is a kind of dumb thing. They are kind of dumb. Not that you should say things like that about people but if you're going to you could say it in complete sentences.
Pen folds her arms and stops singing and glares at him.
He folds his arms and glares back. Calling people dumb isn't very nice. Talking clearly helps people understand you. Maybe they think you're dumb and you think they're dumb and you just haven't tried to be clearer with each other.
I having a grammar problem and is still there even when learn a language by magic and can't help it and Mommy scared trying to fix because not knowing exactly what problem is and am NOT DUMB.
Ah, okay. I am sorry. Though I didn't say you were dumb, I said that people who judged you as dumb would be making maybe the same mistake you're making towards them.
Settlers go live on Samaria and stop having all technology except ship they saying a GOD and some music machines and interfaces for oracle, everything else they stop, and lying to their children about all things, and was dumb.
...yeah, okay, that does sound pretty dumb.
Told you.
Lots of people call my brother dumb because he can't read, or call the Thindar dumb because they didn't even invent reading, and I think mostly they're as smart as anyone else.
I read. Can put all the words if they already put.
I am not sure what you mean there.
Like, songs, don't have to grammar, the song have a grammar, I just doing that.
Oh, yeah. Makes sense. And if you write?
Grammar problem.
Ah okay. Well your family's strictly more powerful than anyone on our side of the playing field so I think we'll just keep you safe and let them handle that.
Mommy thinking I maybe growing out of it, or maybe finding more of me who know what is enough for fix it safe.
More of you?
There lots ones Mommies, lots ones Daddies, lots a bunch people. Three of Dars two Keziah two Ariel - they sisters - only one me yet, my ones Mommy and Daddy only ones having four kids.
Okay.
So maybe one day find a Pen who, like, old, and she have a thing for fix it, and then borrow that.
You go around finding copies of yourself?
They just sort of being everywhere! Not here. Checked.
How do you check?
Brainphone.
What's that?
[Is this thing.]
Huh. We don't have that.
No, you this thing instead. Is okay thing. But probably not check whether a person anywhere in world.
Indeed it does not do that.
But doesn't need being same language! Brainphone do need. Or pictures, does pictures.
Osanwe's not usually used like this but we've gotten good with it because there are so many peoples in this realm.
Do languages with wishes usually. Is a pentagon.
Unless wishes are very limited that seems like a waste of a wish. Languages aren't too hard to learn.
Pentagons not doing so much. Bigger than triangles and squares but not super good.
Oh, I get it. What kind would it take to end an evil god?
Um, maybe depend how big a god? There one the ones Mommies haven't did yet because dunno how big... thiiiiink one with owl needed tenners for her one...
Ten might do for ours. How do you make these?
I not make them, am too little for be mint yet. Is mostly ones Daddy who making.
Do you know how, though? I'm not too little.
Isn't just telling how, is a magic thing, need a hex. Um, is hurting, hurting turn into coins, ones Daddy not minding. That or for enchanting hurting either, enchanting another magic.
I shall have to ask your Daddy. This thing would be very worth hurting for.
Thinking people mostly can't more than stars, without being special good at hurting. Is always ones Daddy for big coins.
What do you mean they can't?
Is not enough brain room, something? There only one one Daddy who go big enough for make tenners.
Huh, okay. Still. How long are you thinking it'll take your family to bring you back?
Dunno. No Jane here. Hasn't been long for Jane and Jane worlds or would have found already but without could be any time.
Are you the kind of being that gets old once you grow up?
Angels do but am magicked.
That's convenient. Okay. So if you're going to be staying for years, where do you want to stay? There aren't many safe places but we can at least give you your pick.
Am safe! Keep saying, am safe! Anyway dunno places.
Are you safe from watching other people tortured to death in front of you, or from being made to do things on the threat they will be hurt?
Yeah. We're going to send you somewhere safe.
Well. Dunno places.
Caves? Forests? Castles?
Just needing place for flying, does not so matter where other times.
Then Dwarf-kingdom with Elf-escort might really be the best way to go.
Shrug.
Do you like dogs?
Yeah.
Maybe we will have my brother with a dog come. He wouldn't like the Dwarf kingdom much but his dog might be enough all by itself.
Enough for what?
Enough to keep you safe in the way we mean it.
...how a dog do that.
He's a magic dog.
Ooh. The other one Keziah, Céleste, she have a griffin her one Mommy enchant her!
This is another version of your sister? And yeah, maybe a little like that.
Yeah. The griffin name Rainier.
Huan's name is - well, Huan. He's a Maia. He's able to do a lot of things.
Like what?
He is very very hard to hurt, and can see very far and sense lots of things and guess lots of things and run ridiculously fast.
Cool.
I hope you two get along.
Nod nod.
Should I feed you? Let you sleep? I am not accustomed to small children.
...grownups here not eat and sleep?
We do, but are better at saying when we need to!
Am maybe a little hungry.
He has them brought food. It is pretty boring. Remember what I told you about my brother's tastes? He is very silly.
This a whole city! Why everybody eating what he want?
They are his people and love him very much and blame themselves for things.
...doesn't explain.
When you love someone sometimes you love the silly things about them that you otherwise might not like.
...okay but this is boring food.
I will have better fetched by tomorrow. Perhaps you can try your logic on my brother's people and see if we can save them from themselves.
Okay.
Can you not sing food tastier? We can't do that but we can send mental impressions of tastiness.
No, are not angel songs for that.
I can try sending you mental impressions of tasty things if you'd like.
Okay!
So he concentrates on some vivid taste memories and sends them via osanwe.
Mmmm.
You have a very good public/private thoughts distinction for such a young child, you know.
...huh?
The only things you send me are the words you say. That's very good. Or is it more of your mother's magic?
...why would send you any other things?
Most people do, when they're just learning osanwe. Babies send everything in their heads.
Maybe is mind ward? If you doing impolite mindreading won't let you.
Ah! Useful, that. Do those come from wishes too?
Yeah!
I really wish this world had wishes. Is the food tastier with osanwe?
Little bit, maybe.
So he sends tastiness.
Want to sing some more songs from your world? They're pretty and kind of interesting. he asks after dinner.
Okay! Could seeing if more songs for getting ship do things be magic here.
Perhaps they are. That would be useful.
Um, is some for dropping seeds! And medicine. And more weather songs.
I will also enjoy the music for its own sake if it doesn't work. Don't worry.
What kind of seeds wanting? she asks.
Uh. What kinds of seeds do you do - things that'd grow in this climate would be useful, but our worlds may not have the same kinds of plants...
Um, I know wheat and oats and barley and assorted vegetables and I could maybe remember berries and potatoes!
Unless osanwe's failing us, all those would work!
Okay! I think I probably remembering berries and berries not so boring. Seeds here?
It'll create seeds? Yeah, here's a perfectly good place for them.
It falls them from sky.
And she starts singing.
Things do not fall from the sky. Yeah, magic songs cannot usually do that. I'm sorry. Berries would be nice.
Oh well.
You have a very pretty singing voice!
Am angel!
You told us! Is your singing voice average for an angel? It'd be good even for an Elf.
Am preeeeetty good. Mommy better. Dars loud and Keziah go soooooo high and Ariel just kinda okay. Daddy mortal but he singing too he have so big range and not even having wish it on!
Great. Okay. Bedtime? Is it bedtime. How long can they babysit a kid. Well, in a few decades she won't be a kid, at least.
Is night here yet? Is there even a window in here?
I think it should matter more if it was night where you came from. We are far north and it gets dark very late.
Went in nice bar and time do pausing in it. Am not really tired, anyway.
Alright. Read a book? Play a game?
Not know language of here, Pen points out, for books.
I can read you a book. Or teach you a game.
Kinda games?
I don't know. When I was your age I played a lot of gemstones, it's a sort of geometry game.
How do geometry a game?
Let me ask someone to bring you a set and I'll show you.
'kay.
It takes a little while, but someone successfully rummages up a set. A set is thirty or fifty stones and hundreds of the fine chains that go between them. He neatly connects the chains so they're all in a circle with an eight-pointed star of chains in the middle. Then he tangles them. Then he tangles them some more. The game is to remove chains one at a time until the gems shake out into - well, you're really little, maybe let's play 'shake out into a circle'.
This more like a puzzle than a game, Pen opines, but she starts picking at the tangle of chains.
Usually everyone has a different goal shape and we take turns.
Oh! That a game.
Yep! But I am not eight so it might not be a fair game.
Yeah. Pick pick.
You're a fast learner!
Am!
I hope your parents show up immediately, he doesn't say.
Her parents:
do not show up immediately.
Eventually she has circled the tangle!
Really nice! That was brilliant! You have good instincts for this, lots of people take a long time to not make mistakes that leave them a twig-shaped thing at the end.
Yay!
Want to try as a game? You can aim for a line, I can aim for a binary tree? That's harder so it might be fair.
What's a binary tree?
Every gem has three neighbors or exactly one. Then you can pick one and call it the top and it looks like that's the first Mommy and every Mommy has two children.
Okay!
So he does the starting layout.
Pick pick.
She is kind of a cute kid. They are really badly out of practice at kids. They are probably actually just bad at kids, most kids would not be this excited about singing and graph games and that's all he's got..
Pen is indeed excited about singing. She is apparently not so excited about the graph game that she won't sing while she does it. This song is not magic.
Singing makes everything more fun!
Yes it does!
And eventually Pen is tired and will go to bed. Does the bed have room for her wings, that's important.
It's not designed for wings, but it is designed for grownups and is a big bed. Does she need special wing accommodations?
No, just enough room to flomp them out. This bed would not be big enough if she was a grownup with a twelve-foot wingspan but it is fine for a smol angel. Flomp! ...These are not really sleeping clothes, can she get some sleeping clothes.
They don't have child-sized sleeping clothes. Or child-sized clothes, period. She can have tunics that are way too big for her and not meant for winged people.
...that's not really going to help. She will just sleep in her leathers. Maybe tomorrow they can just get some unsewn fabric and she can turn it into some kind of wrap so she doesn't have to wear this exact pants and vest forever.
They can in fact sew something for her overnight, no worries there.
Oh cool.
Good night! Tell your parents to come say hello if they find you during the night!
Pen is quite sure they will leave a Jane even if they whisk Pen away in her sleep and then they can talk to Jane and Jane can talk to everybody!
That works too. Good night, Pen.
Night!
And the little angel sleeps.
And the Elves stay up all night talking! It's not even really her fault; they don't sleep much. It's cold and windy and Pen's rainstorm has stopped.
She wakes up in the morning! Is there breakfast? Is it boring?
There's breakfast! Is is boring! Caranthir says his brother with the dog also brought some good food and is a few hours away.
Then lunch not so boring, predicts Pen.
Sure won't be. Want to try to convince Maedhros that his people deserve better food?
Why nobody else convincing him yet?
It would seem motivated by things other than the ostensible topic.
....?
We love him and worry about him. We can't say 'we are worried about you' because he will decide to make us less worried which is not the same thing. So instead we try to express our worry in more subtle ways but he is more subtle than us so we end up just not talking about anything he does. Which is clearly what he wants.
...well, I complain about food for you if wanting. But he hurting to look at.
In that case I think I'll just convey your complaints about the food. I don't think he'd want people around who find him painful to look at.
He didn't scars on purpose, did he.
He did not.
Couple ones Daddies do smile scars on purpose. That okay because they Daddies and wanting it. 's different.
What happened to him isn't okay, no. But not everyone finds it painful to be around him so he should probably just be around people who don't find it painful to be around him.
Nod nod.
What do you want to do today?
Go fly?
Great. Let's do that.
Want I bringing you?
You can make me fly too?
No, you not having wings and am not have wishes, but carry you.
I'm a fair bit bigger than you, sure you can do that?
You heavier than you looking?
Try from level ground, how's that?
Am little so having to swoop you. Can't pick up and take off, you too tall.
How much weight can you carry?
Can carry Daddy. He tall, not tall as you but tall.
Sure, why not. You may try swooping off a ledge with me. Let go of me if you can't stay up and might hurt yourself, okay?
Won't hurt myself! Will put you down if too heavy.
Great.
And they head outside.
Pen gets aloft, gets some momentum going, and swoops at him and catches him under the arms and gets him into the air too.
Cool! This isn't too heavy?
Nah! Wouldn't want carrying you hours but can a bit.
I have never been flying before and appreciate the treat.
Good. Flying is best.
Is that a wish thing or an angel thing?
Angel! Well, other magic people flying by magic but is not so much important.
There are things that Elves cannot live without. Like song, and beautiful things. Is flight like that for angels?
Do not think be dying if cannot fly but is very bad. Delilah once breaking a wing could not fly for a while, Alleluia had to Archangel while Delilah not flying, Delilah being so sad about it.
That sounds really hard. What's Archangeling?
Archangel rules Samaria. Mommy will next one but Linus finishing term first.
Ah. We are ruled by Kings but they do not take turns.
Mommy maybe just staying Archangel when getting there. But not hurrying, doesn't want spooking anybody.
Would that spook a lot of people?
Usually is only new Archangel if old one die or run out term. Would be all coup-y.
He likes this kid. Okay. Well, if your mother will be a good Archangel then maybe she's also the kind of person who will help us, in which case I wholeheartedly support her for archangel.
Helping with evil god? Yeah is a kinda thing ones Mommies do. Maybe not mine specially another one might do instead.
Well we aren't turning down anyone's help.
Good.
Are there other versions of all people, or just your family?
Well, not knowing all worlds yet. More people than family only though.
Have you seen or heard of other versions of us?
No, not familiar. Might be new face of someone forgot checking for?
That made no sense.
Okay. If you head west you'll run into my brother with the dog, arriving.
Ooh okay. She banks and heads west.
And there is a brother, with a dog, very surprised to see them.
Hi! Pen deposits her passenger neatly on the ground and comes to a running halt.
Hey, kiddo! That was a cool trick.
Thanks! Can I petting magic dog?
Yeah, sure. His name is Huan. I'm Celegorm.
Am Pen. Pen-in-nah. Pen proceeds to pet the magic dog.
Which just means she has good taste. Hey, he says to Caranthir. You sounded so stressed I thought she was a screaming terror.
No, she is lovely. There happens to be a war on.
Well, we didn't make her. So Nelyo's torn between sending her to safety or keeping her around in case that makes her magic family likelier to talk to us when they arrive?
Nelyo has already decided that getting her magic family's attention is the most important thing and is torn because they'll be unamused if they think we put their daughter in danger.
Right, fair.
She'll tell you she can't be harmed in any way.
Uh.
Yeah, I tried explaining that.
Why the Halls would you do that.
She deserves to be fully informed.
Moryo, I love you, but never have kids.
Soft magic dog! Yayyyyyyy. He says you are a singing magic dog?
Huan huffs amusedly.
He can do music magic, Celegorm says, but he doesn't usually do it just for fun.
Why not?
Guess he doesn't think it's as much fun as you do.
Oh well. Seems like a waste of a magic singing dog but he's still soft. My music not supposed being actually magic! But it doing weather even here!
Music is definitely magic here! Maybe if you sing something Huan'll join in.
Okay! What kinda weather wanting? Seeds one not work.
Oooh, can you make it snow? I love snow. And Huan loves snow, he might help you.
Can snow! And she sings for snow.
Huan listens patiently, and then music arises from the air around them to harmonize with her, and it snows faster.
Yaaaaay!
Well, she's easy to keep happy.
No, Caranthir says, she isn't. She's exhausting.
Kids tend to be.
Well she's all yours if we can find a way to keep her safe with you.
I could go pay the cousins a visit.
Bad idea.
Probably. She might be safe enough in Himring.
Eventually the snow song is over. Pen runs around making footprints. Then she goes back and pets snow out of Huan's fur.
Huan enjoys this. The Elves watch, a bit helplessly.
Himring's in a war. Wars are bad for children.
Bad for grownups too.
She doesn't like being around Nelyo because of the scars.
Great.
You very quiet, she remarks to the Elves.
We were still arguing over where to send you! Himring seems like the wrong place for you to stay, but all the good places are pretty far away.
Boring food, she opines about Himring. Why wrong place? Is near a doors person.
We're fixing the food. What's a doors person?
Is someone who sometimes getting doors be to Milliways. Doors person here breaking door so I coming out this world not home. I get a door! But only one. Some people getting doors when wanting or lots times or stuff.
There is someone in Himring who opened the door between dimensions?
Yeah? Somebody having break door make it going here. Was a one of you.
Does Nelyo know -
No -
Tell him -
I just did -
Okay, he says. Tell me more about Milliways.
Is a bar! The bar a nice lady and she selling food and stuff. Is safe there so when I find I going in having cake. But when go out supposed for door going home but door break and go here instead.
It's a bar that opens through doors which only some people can find?
Yeah. It eat a door, then that door go Milliways.
My brother's going to find the person who opened the door from our end.
Maybe they getting many doors. Maybe not, sometimes only one.
If he opens more doors is it likelier he'll get another one?
Yeah. One time when Jane breaking Elspeth stuck Downside, she opening many doors.
Great. Thank you.
Welcome!
Maybe we can send you back that way.
Maybe! If a person who getting doors when wanting.
Or a person who is going to be ordered to do nothing but open doors.
That sound real boring.
It's also real important.
But what if he not wanting to just open doors?
Part of being a grownup is sometimes doing things you don't want to do.
Okay but if he a one door ever person not gonna help.
Well, if in a thousand years there's no luck Nelyo might let him stop trying.
That much much too long to spend opening doors all times.
Yeah I'm hoping he'll find one much faster.
Do not making him open doors for thousand years.
Your mother will find that objectionable?
Is not nice.
Okay, we'll be nice. Don't worry.
Good.
Liar.
A thousand years really would be cruel, if we have no reason to expect it'll ever work.
I think we'll all be dead by then if we haven't figured something out. But if we weren't dead opening doors would remain the best use of a person who might be able to open them to other dimensions for at least that long.
Yeah, I know. She's eight.
Mommies probably kill your evil god either way but if kings here not nice kings they having to stop kinging.
Niceness is not as important as some other things in Kings. Like willingness to do whatever helps stop evil gods.
Well, maybe convince Mommy, maybe not.
I'm going to be delighted if we even get the chance to talk with her. And if she wants to remove Maedhros from power she'll notice that, uh, everyone continues being super loyal to him, so it doesn't work very well, but okay.
Shrug.
I am not actually sure that any King you can remove from power by removing him from the throne ever really had any.
If she really mad put him another world.
Then we'd open more doors.
...um, not help. Doors only go Milliways.
You know, I'm just gonna take this up with your mom.
Kay.
And how this mysterious powerful person handles Maedhros will be valuable information about whether she has any business running a country herself, he does not say.
Want to sing something to melt the snow?
Okay. She sings a warm weather song.
Snowmelt! He flops down on the grass. Can I watch you fly around?
You want ride too? she inquires.
I am definitely eventually gonna take you up on that but right now I think I'll just chill here. You did kind of just threaten my family.
...what? I not doing anything!
If you tell people that if they're not nice enough your mother will send them away from everyone they love, lots of people will be sad and mad.
Pen's grammar is not up to this task. She takes off and flies.
And he watches! She's a cute kid.
She soars, she swoops, she turns circles.
Eventually she wants lunch.
They can do lunch! Less boring lunch, even.
Yay, less boring lunch.
All meals less boring from now on, they'll keep the incredibly powerful child happy, it seems wise.
Now what?
Does she like to swim? There's a river, they could swim. Or paint or draw or carve or sculpt or something.
Angels not swim, she says.
What do angels do all day?
Sing fly play games tell stories fly sing talk about stuff do politics shopping singing flying.
Well she can sing and fly some more or he can come up with some stories.
Stories?
"Sure. You like stories about adventures, or mysteries, or falling in love?"
"Adventures!"
"Well. Once there was an angel who came to a world with an evil god."
Pen snorts.
He goes on, undeterred, to give the angel all kinds of adventures.
Gosh. What adventurous things this angel might get up to.
She could meet the magic princess of the hidden forest. She could go sneak through the valley of giant spiders, if she's not scared of giant spiders. Celegorm has a very brave cousin who once fought a dragon, she could check if there are more dragons that need to be told to not hurt people.
Dragons here not nice?
Nope. Are dragons from your home nice?
There a one Daddy and some people who dragons! And pointy hat one Mommy having dragon friends. Think mean world one having bad dragons though? Because, mean world.
This is a pretty mean world too. Maybe in mean worlds there are mean dragons.
Yeah probably. Pointy hat one can telling when a world mean.
Pointy hat one?
There lots ones Mommies and Daddies and people and they having nicknames. I not remember them all.
Fair enough. What sort of things make worlds mean?
Mean world break Jane because is having no science. Um, the sunshiney worlds having many of monsters.
I don't think this world would break Jane. Fate mostly clings to the people born here.
Fate?
A mean thing about my world. It makes things go a certain way even if you try to change them.
That's dumb.
Agreed. Maybe your all-powerful mom can fix it.
Maybe!
Gonna fly and sing some more, or want more stories? I'm not doing politics.
How come?
I think they're yucky!
Pen giggles. More stories.
Yeah, okay, can do. Once upon a time there was an Elf princess..."
Ooh, princess.
He'll skip the parts of the story where the princess gets coerced into marrying an evil sorcerer and then murdered by him, but other than that it'll be a great story.
Yay!
After that she will sing some more, nonmagical songs, and then wants dinner.
They have dinner! Not too boring a dinner, even. It's weird how unused he is to catering to someone. Doesn't she know there's a war on? No, not really, and hopefully she'll be found before she's old enough to understand it.
Pen continues not knowing there is a war on. "Did finding door breaking person?"
Hey, Nelyo, did we -
Yep. Wasn't sure he hadn't just dreamed it or something, didn't want to make a fuss when he couldn't even reproduce the effect. Maedhros sounds furious. It is an interdimensional bar where time doesn't pass. Forget recruiting help, we could just invent everything.
Be nice to him, the kid's apparently decided you might be a tyrant.
I am.
Kid's mom doesn't think that's funny.
If kid's mom defeats the Enemy I do not care what she does with me.
Yeah, I know.
We did! he says to Pen. He's helping us try to get it back.
He a doors liking him person?
We aren't sure, but we'll find out!
If finding Milliways go in back yard talk to tower it having Jane.
...If we find Milliways, we go into the backyard and we talk to the tower, which will have Jane?
...Nod.
I feel like we missed some things because we weren't clear enough about what you were saying, and we could have looked for the doors person sooner. Does it bother you when I do that?
Sigh. Makes sense. Just annoying.
Yeah. I can try to only do it if it's really important.
Mommy thinking I maybe grow out of it but maybe not is happen even when learning language by magic. When bigger can do own wishing maybe think of something.
I can't read. Never grew out of it. I just do stuff that it doesn't matter too much for.
Talking matter for all things.
Not for creating things, that's something my people care a lot about. I don't think we'd blink at an artist who didn't talk, or a musician who always sang, or a dancer, or a hunter. Not that you should be going off what people care about anyway.
Can only singing words someone else writing. Happen same thing if I write.
D'you want me to try brainstorming approaches to the thing, or not, because I can but also we can just do something interesting like fly around.
Probably not thinking of any new thing.
Maybe not. But I'm three thousand years old and have had a silly broken brain the whole time, I tried lots of things and they might not all be things you tried.
Okay. Good if thing going away.
Yeah, I know, right? Have you tried learning a language with a crazy simple grammar? Like, every sentence is noun-verb, there aren't any modifiers?
Am only speak Samarian and Edori and English and Callian. Not worse in English even though English having stupid grammar. Just different kinds mistakes.
Okay. I don't happen to know a language with absurdly restricted syntax but I would be interested in whether you still have a hard time with it or whether there's a level of complexity at which you start having a hard time with it. If you can do simple, you might be able to do chains of simple or something. There's also magic that could help with memory, but doesn't sound like a memory problem. Also four languages is amazing for your age; you clearly have a talent for it.
Um, no, two is with wishes. English for talking party people and Callian for go visit Rose and Beast and rosebuds.
Wanna tell me some stories? I've never heard of Rose and a Beast.
Ooh okay!
The story is of course grammatically constrained... and she doesn't always remember to give context for magic things... but she tells an otherwise quite engaging story about how once there was a one Mommy named Belle and she was from a world with magic but not many people who could do it and she went looking for her one Grandpa in the magic woods and got stuck in a castle with a fluffy cat monster under a curse and tore apart the library to find a way to break it and learned about enchanting (Pen knows the basic principles) but wound up breaking it the usual way anyhow (and also there was a one Bad Lady but she wasn't magic so she was not as dangerous as a regular Bad Lady and died unceremoniously mid-narrative) and then they got MARRIED and went home and Belle became a powerful enchantress and made a new magic castle and has three children who match Pen's sisters and an apprentice and stuff!
Sounds awesome. Do copies of your mother tend to have adventures?
Yeah! Am learn them being bedtime stories so know all things when finding they real and when Jane come back and go visit. Jane was break before and Mommy not telling very small cherubs magic things because most Samaria people not know.
...when you were a kid your mom told you true stories as bedtime stories, because you might say something if you knew too much?
Yeah. Is lots to be keep track of, did not want having suddenly memorize so many people and stuff later, so instead bedtime stories then surprise all true also the spaceship Jovah.
What about the spaceship?
Spaceship usually what make praying songs work! But, people think it a god. Eeeeeverybody all Samaria think that except some people. Mommy find out it not a god because Alleluia find out she magic and Mommy been saying 'oh Jovah did it' and Alleluia knowing Jovah not able doing the thing so she asking and Mommy go 'oh but how you know wasn't Jovah' and so they told each other about spaceship and about magic and then Mommy go up spaceship and be captain of it and now it do what she say but she say keep make songs working for now. Except thunderbolts those it asking permission. And then there Jane, and Jane eat it. But it go back to being Jovah when Jane break but now she back and ate it again.
Okay.
Does Jane eat people often?
She not eat people! Jovah not a person, just talking computer program. Jarvises computer people and she not eat them.
Oh good! Magic songs don't work because of a spaceship in this world. I wonder what the difference is. Do all different worlds have different magics?
No, some the same! Are world families. Buncha Sunshine worlds, also Wellspring same sort of magic but not ooky from demons. There a family where it less the same but similar and people getting powers. Am supposed getting one eventually, one kind happen if parents mint wishes. Dunno when. Keziah find hers at party, same as Céleste, they get ook like from demons off things.
What's ook? What are demons?
Ook is - magic badness sticking to things. Demons are kindsa people in Sunshine worlds - or also same translation sometimes for other things, there a one Daddy who a not-Sunshine demon - anyway kindsa people in Sunshine worlds lotsa them eat people or otherwise doing bad stuff. And doing bad stuff sticking to that kind of magic making it bad. Sunshine one Mommy can't do it, she have the Mommy magic for stuff not happening to her head and it not let her. Ones Mommies having that when from a magic place can do it.
All right. Thanks. It's getting late, wanna fly to watch the sunset?
Okay!
It's a pretty sunset. Shame he's already exhausted every kid-entertainment idea he can think of. The war seems to be visibly looming over them. And then back to Himring to sleep.
Flomp goes the little angel.
And in the morning (no doors emerged in the night), tell me about more versions of your mother!
There so many! Where start?
Are there any who fought an evil god?
Yeah-huh! One with owl. And so begins the story of One With Owl's evacuation of her worldsheaf's afterlife and dueling with an evil god's henchman and winding up finding the evil god himself not very interesting and okay to leave alone! It has many harrowing bits, which Pen has in slightly less detail but does still have. ...Some of the pronouns on some of the ones mommy and their significant others in this story may be surprising! The story introduces the concept of daemons. Pen does not know what her daemon would be yet because she is not old enough for it to have counterfactually settled but Dars would have an albatross and Keziah a pelican!
What a cool story! What's surprising about Mommy's lovers, is Samaria one of those places where boys marry girls?
Samaria's mostly that place - er, well, it is completely that place outside of Pen's province, but in their province Mommy changed the thing, but mostly it is a boys marrying girls place because Mommy isn't Archangel of the whole thing yet. There's Ysral but Edori don't do marrying. Except Daddy. But Shell Bell has a girlfriend and Cam has a boyfriend, they're from Atlantis and Syntropy, those are different. Shell Bell is already Empress of her world and just hasn't married her girlfriend yet because Pen isn't sure why they should totally get married, and Cam is not an Emperor because he is doing Motivated Capitalism instead and has not married his boyfriend because also Pen doesn't know why. Oh and at the space plant party there was a wedding!
Nice! Arda is one of the worlds where boys marry girls but I think it's neat there are other kinds of worlds.
Are so many kinds! At space plant party one Mommy who looking almost like a your sorta person, pointy ears, she marrying her ones Daddy, they the dragon one and the demon one, they sort of one and sort of two, used to be two but then did mind magic thing and then remember in one with owl story, dragon a daemon now, anyway she already marrying dragon one because he could be turn into same pointy ear species she is and go be married that way but they not having way for marrying her both, so my Mommy officiate it.
Cool! Can you tell me more about the pointy-ear people who are kind of like us?
They live in can't pronounce world! ...am not even pronouncing! Thilanushinyel. They not liking questions, is rude for them. They living in pretty houses hard to find in trees. The Mommy, um, Sarion, her nickname Sarion, she having magic from dragon one Daddy because that how they kind dragons work, and she also doing enchanting a lot because is easier for her handling than most people she can do a meditate thing. They wear pretty clothes and having unicorns there too.
I bet I'd really like it. Which is your favorite of the Mommies' worlds?
Have not been most. Went Thilanushinyel only for space plant party and was only in space plant not on world part of world. Rêverie nice, went there. Uuuum Chronicle supposed be very nice world! Is have pointy hat one.
And which is your favorite of the Mommies' stories?
Ooooh um the one where they conquering Downside.
Do tell.
She does tell! This one has lots of harrowing leadup some of which was definitely redacted for little ears, but Downside was Definitely Not Okay and the Mommies who were in the peal at the time attacked it and it turned out the admin was actually kind of a big deal but she was like, sort of not evil? Just... not unevil? Anyway she was fine cooperating with the Mommies on things and now the Mommies use Downside for stuff! It's useful for stuff and has a lot of Jane in it and now everybody can torch just in case something gets through their wards.
Torch?
If something going through wards and killing us we looking like on fire but not, and then be okay again.
All right. Sounds neat. I'm glad the Mommies were able to work with Downside's god. I hope they don't try working with ours.
Is depend on god, Pen assures him.
Oh, good. Some more flying and singing?
Okay!
And in between he'll keep picking her brain about this extremely powerful and good-or-good-at-giving-decent-reasons-for-things flock of versions of the same person.
There are so many stories! Although Pen's education about them has focused at least as much on the people as their adventures. Although some of the people are adventures. Soph is an adventure! And Helen! ...Pen's Helen information is also partially redacted but there's more than enough for Celegorm to put it together.
Why's Helen an adventure?
Helen is an adventure because when Jane broke her Mommy was out of the universe and the world was cut off for decades and her Daddy had her all by himself and then it turned out she was a Dars and when her Mommy got back she was already thirteen and her Mommy was upset.
'a Dars? what does that mean in terms of personality and stuff?'
They actually calling template Dominiques. That the Rêverie one, only she like middle name more and be Yseult now so Dominique template name instead. They, um, they all each other? They different ages, so is hard saying what them and what each one.
"There's not enough yet to say types, like all the Mommies want to be powerful?"
Um, Helen and Dars loud, Yseult not so much loud...
And Pens?
Am only one.
Which is why no one knows a grammar fix yet, you mentioned that.
Who's the scariest Mommy?
Uuuuum, maybe one with owl? Or Golden?
What can they do?
One with owl only one who using tenners for much. Think Juliet had to but was for putting evil magic-immune god Downside, not doing a thing all herself? Um and Golden just sort of scary looking, she a vampire. She Elspeth's Mommy! Elspeth is cool!
I bet! Is she a version of one of your sisters?
No, different daddy. Only one of Elspeth's daddy. He not coming parties because being by people who looking like his wife but not bothering him, so haven't met. Elspeth a half vampire and she do truth magic! Aurum one in the world family where people sometimes each getting a magic. Those ones called witches not ingots.
Okay! Are there are any stories where the Mommies couldn't win?
Uuuuum not couldn't ever. Haven't yet or couldn't without other ones them though.
What's one where they haven't yet?
Cam's world have evil god. It not make much sense for it to be powerful like it seeming and evil and not winning everything so they not sure how big it is, and is universe so populating hard to evacuate. They nervous about attacking it but going to eventually because world can't Downside and they not knowing what it afterlife like.
Can't Downside?
Does not attach so can be getting dead people out of Downside after they dying, they just - be dead somewhere, like one with owl world, only she fix that and Syntropy not fix yet.
Your moms have a really big issue with mortality? Honestly to me it seems better than the alternative.
People shouldn't having be dead if not want to!
Nope. But holding the strings on that gives you a ton of power over them, and if you also do a lot of deciding who's good and who's evil - well, let me just say that I have seen that end badly and wouldn't trust anyone with it no matter how nice they were.
If people evil they just have to be Downside or somewhere having ground rules or something.
My world's people would say 'you just have to open your heart to repentence'. It sounds fair. It isn't.
Uuuum point is be safe not be fair. Maybe point is a little be fair.
Like I said. It might be better than death but keeping copies of everyone's heads so you can sort out what's fair can also be much worse. I'd be suspicious of anyone trying to end up their universe's Mandos.
You having better idea?
Everyone can stop existing at any time if they want. People don't get judged and they don't get fixed and they don't get made safe, they get put around people who've consented to be around them. If no one consents to be around them then they're all alone.
Well if 'around them' in same world is lots like that. Think so anyway, don't remember all details.
I'm glad to hear it.
Lot of worlds can't putting people back because they not knowing about magic and nowhere for put them though.
Yeah, mortals in this world seem to just poof. There are worse ways but there could be better ones.
Well if this world not already having afterlife in the way can Downside and get all them back. Is no stop existing if that though, it make admin mad if things stop existing, but not having be awake.
But I know some people who wouldn't trust in the security of your admin, wouldn't trust that the copy of their minds she is keeping can never be read and never be toyed with by someone with worse sensibilities, and would want to stop existing and I have a very low opinion of anyone who'd stop them out of personal preference, he does not say because she's eight.
I hope they can get the mortals back. I expect once the war's over most mortals would be happy about being back.
Yeah!
All instances of your mommy end death?
Some can't yet, like, can't resurrect people Samaria, yet, everybody going 'huh you were dead what am confused', have to wait until Mommy can explaining better.
Makes sense. Another snow song?
Okay.
It is in fact the same snow song but it is still fun to sing.
And snow is fun. They can have a snowball fight; she has the advantage of flight but he has better aim.
Eee! That's fun. Pen does not seem to be cold while sleeveless in the snow and can handle snowballs in her bare hands indefinitely.
Then they can do this all afternoon, Huan'll warm him up when his hands get cold.
Good doggie.
At that Huan'll actually join the snowball fight.
Eeee! How is a dog going to make snowballs though? Are they ganging up on her?
He'll just growl the snow into snowballs, and throw them magically, and no, he's aiming at the both of them.
GROWLING SNOWBALLS. That is the BEST THING.
Huan is appreciative of her enthusiasm.
Is he appreciative of having snowballs thrown at him?
He sure is!
Yaaaaaaay!
Eventually Pen is tired.
Great, that was at least one of the day's secondary objectives. Goodnight, Pen.
Night!
Zzzzz.
No doors to interdimensional bars open.
Well that's disappointing. Don't want growing up here!
I know, us either. We're working on it. You can open doors sometimes too if you like, if you think the bar's likelier to give you one.
Dunno. Only get one ever. Where a lot doors all together?
We could have a room with lots of doors in close proximity built. I'll suggest that, if Nelyo hasn't already thought of it.
That work, agrees Pen. Think it not work so well with all one door over and over? Not sure.
You're the expert. Any chance the bar'll realize she lost you and try to help get you found?
Not sure. Time maybe not going. If any time going Jane noticing I gone, because, she taps the opal in her arm.
So it could be no one even realizes you're gone yet? Well, at least your parents won't have time to be panicked for you.
Yeah. But they upset if they come and I a thousand years old.
I bet. I'm three thousand years old and I'd still be sad to miss a thousand years of a kid's life.
And then having explain me disappear to Samaria. Because not look eight when a thousand, look, like, twenty something.
Yeah I figured. Keeping the secret's that important in Samaria, huh?
Can telling if wanting tell somebody specific. But everybody notice if Archangel-elect kid suddenly grown up.
Well, we can walk down the hallways singing and opening doors.
Okay.
Doors doors doors singing singing singing.
Nope. Ah, well.
Do you want to tell me more stories?
Okay! What wanting hear?
Do they bring back the people who are already dead, when they take over the world? Your moms?
If can doing without scaring people yes of course.
I mean, Elves get reembodied sometimes anyway if the Valar approve. I don't think people'd be too scared.
You already having afterlife? Is make harder if one in the way, can't Downside.
Yup, we've got Mandos. You're welcome to get rid of it, and Men don't go there.
Where they going instead?
No idea. Somewhere beyond Arda.
Arda this subworld?
I dunno what a subworld is. Arda's everywhere you can get by walking or sailing.
Planet is that, Pen says. Subworld everywhere you can get by going in a direction, worldsheaf all subworlds somebody can be going between with stuff can finding inside of sheaf not Milliways or Jane who going through Milliways or something. Like, one with owl have a sheaf, her bad wispy angels traveling around in it and it all share afterlife.
Then I guess Arda's the planet, and Ea's the subworld only there aren't other subworlds you can go to.
If is not a sheaf subworld just 'world'. ...Mandos not a subworld?
Nah, Mandos is in Valinor, just across the ocean.
Dead people just sort of over there cross an ocean?
Yup. The big thing is they don't have bodies so they can't do anything until Mandos gives them new ones.
Maybe brainphone still working, that be weird.
You might be able to talk to the dead?
If they just right there? Maybe? If they awake.
I don't think the dead sleep. Can you talk to my father?
Brainphone is languages, Pen points out.
My dad'll learn yours. Won't even take him very long.
Okay, I try.
[Hi?]
He hears it. It's the first voice he's heard in hundreds of years, and he doesn't understand it, but he hears it, and -
[Hello?]
[Hi am Pen, one your sons saying I trying talk to you by brainphone because you just sort of over there, he say you learning my language, sorry am not very good at.]
It work!
Eru. Oh, thank you. Just keep talking, he'll start picking more up.
And on the other end -
[Am Pen? One your sons saying I trying talk to you by brainphone because you just sort of over there, he say you learning my language, sorry am not very good at.]
[You not Pen, I Pen. And am eight not having any sons that be weird. And you learning my language not your language, not having wishes here so am just doing the brainphoney thing except is not really brainphone because is not languages and is not getting across ocean I guess?]
[You Pen, I not Pen? I learning your language. You not learning my language. Not having wishes here? doing the brainphoney thing? is not getting across ocean I guess?]
[You learning fast,] she comments. [Yeah not have wishes because am too little. Brainphone made by wishing but I just already have it when I go here. The thing that like the brainphone but not can't go Mandos? Brainphone can!]
[I learning fast. You Pen. I Fëanáro. not have wishes because am too little? I go here? I can't go here? You can't go Mandos?]
[Hi Fëanáro! You not having wishes because nobody giving you any, but when I bigger I getting some. You over there, I think you can't go here because you dead and not have body? And I not flying across whole ocean, yikes, and also am not Elf, am angel. And if I dying I torch. So I so not going there.]
[Hi Pen. I not having wishes. I over here, you over there. I dead and not have body?]
[That what your son saying, yeah. It sound really uncomfy, is it?]
[I learning your language, am not very good at. son? saying? yeah? uncomfy?]
[Um oh! Brainphone do pictures.] She sends him one of Tyelcormo.
[Oh! Son! Tyelcormo is son?]
[Yeah, he saying "brainphone my father" and I say "okay but brainphone is languages" and he say you learn mine.]
[I learn your language. Tyelcormo say I learn your language? I learn fast. I saying Tyelcormo father.]
[Yeah he say that. So fast wow.]
[I say Tyelcormo wow. Tyelcormo not dead.]
[Yeah he alive and he have a magic dog!]
[Say Tyelcormo father say wow?]
[...huh?]
[Tyelcormo not having brainphone, Tyelcormo not having wishes, Tyelcormo and magic dog brainphone with you? Say Tyelcormo, Fëanáro say wow.]
[I not put him on brainphone. I put, um, forget name... but not Tyelcormo. But he here! I say that.] He say wow.
My father says wow? About what?
[He wanting know what you say wow about.]
[Fëanáro wow Tyelcormo.]
He say he wow at you.
Tell him I love him.
[He say he love you.]
[Yes! Love! Fëanáro love Tyelcormo. Pen say Tyelcormo Fëanáro love you.]
[Okay I tell him.] He say he love you too.
Tell him that we miss him and we're trying, we're trying to do everything he hoped for...
[He say they missing you and try to do everything you hoped for.]
[I missing they. Not, ah, not very wow here.]
Pen giggles, aloud and over the brainphone both. [Sorry it not nice! When Mommy finding me she fix it but not knowing how long it take.]
[Mommy? Finding? Fix? Knowing?]
[Um like you Tyelcormo's daddy, that like a mommy. I getting lost, I not from here. Mommy very magic, she come here looking for me and then fixing everything because is what one Mommies do. Could be take a long time because the thing that making time be same not here.]
[Daddy, mommy, son. I from here. You not from here?]
[No, am from Samaria, is whole other world, way different.]
[I know. Language not from here. Samaria?]
[Samaria a world and a planet and a country! Has angels and mortals, not pointy ear kind people like here. And is not have own magic, all magic got other places and bring there. Do have a spaceship though.]
[Brainphone magic? Brainphone Samaria?]
[Brainphone magic! Is not from Samaria, is a wishes magic thing. Wishes from another world, Eos.]
[Say Fëanáro love Maitimo, Fëanáro love Macalaure, Fëanáro love Carnistir, Fëanáro love Curufinwe, Fëanáro love Ambarussa? Wishes?]
He love Maitimo and Macalaurë and Carnistir and Curufinwë and Ambarussa, Pen relays. [Okay, said that. Wishes a magic! Ones Daddies make them mostly, big ones, little ones anybody making. Except if too young like me.]
[I make them?]
[No, having be a mint. Probably also needing have a body.]
[Needing having a body. Not having a body is not nice.]
[It sound uncomfy. Mommy fix it when she come.]
[Mommy fix Moringotho? Needing fix Moringotho.]
[That your evil god? Probably yeah.]
[Needing it. Very needing it.]
[Can't making her come faster, is time problem.]
[Can I fixing? I fixing time problem.]
[Um, problem is, worlds all time different, except if sharing a thing. The share thing usually Jane. There no Jane here, or any other things, and if making a thing for worlds be sharing to make them time same still having put them each world.]
[I needing more language.]
[Sorry. I kind of bad for language. I a problem like Tyelcormo's reading problem only grammar.]
[Pen is wow, Fëanáro is needing more language because needing say time-hard things. Is hard learning language if no language sharing already. No is Pen.]
He nice, Pen opines to Tyelcormo. [Okay, um, need words... do pictures?]
[Yes. Pictures Jane, time, worlds, Milliways?]
[Jane have a face,] Jane's face! [but also is gems,] various Janegems, [and computers,] the servers in the Belltower. [Time, um, what clocks doing. Clock.] Clock! [Worlds whole big places of all the things being next to other things -] Samaria seen from the air and the deck of Jehovah and Ysral and the place Uncle Nathaniel lives on that moon; Rêverie; the space plant and a view of a planet from above. [Milliways a sort of world that be next to all other worlds if it want, it take a door and then the door being to there.] Milliways, interior and exterior, special focus on the door.
[My sons finding Milliways for you?]
[No, I find it myself, and some guy, he find a door, and he breaking door so it not put me home Samaria, put me here instead. They having the some guy open more doors in case helping but doors not liking him so much so is not work so far. Might having wait for Mommy having enough time notice I missing.]
[Pictures Mommy, Samaria?]
[Already showing you Samaria!] Samaria again. [Mommy looking like this.] Winged, serene, leather outfit and speckled wings and opaled arm.
[I showing you brainphone pictures?]
[Sure!]
[Tirion!] He sends it. [Fëanáro and sons!] He sends dozens of images for that. [Magic dog!] Tyelcormo coming home with a Huan who could fit in his arms - [Enemy] Not of him doing anything, that'd be too scary for a child.
[Oh magic dog so little a puppy!]
[Magic dog so little a puppy! Tyelcormo so little a puppy!]
[People not puppies people children.]
[Pen children? Huan people.]
[Okay well people having two legs not puppies. Am eight.]
[Eight?]
[One two three four five six seven eight! Nine ten.]
[One two three four five six seven eight nine ten! Samaria by tens? One-ten? Two-ten? three-ten? four-ten? five-ten?]
[Samaria by tens, most places by tens. Two ten is twenty three is thirty four is forty five is fifty, sixty seventy eighty ninety a hundred!]
[Most places no by tens, here, by ten and two. Pen eight? Fëanáro dead four hundred.]
[Ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty,] Pen adds. [Four hundred years so long a time!]
[Very not wow,] he agrees. [Needing to not be dead.]
[Mommy fix it. I can't, sorry.]
[Pen not sorry. Pen talking, Pen languages, am needing languages. Are not people talking here. Is long time no talking.]
[Sound so boring! Four hundred years no body no people aaaaah! Um I knowing four languages. This one English, am like it because it having most words, is for people using in lots worlds, Samarian and Edori only Samaria, Callian only Rêverie.]
[I want knowing four languages! Pen talk in Samarian and Edori and Callian? I learning English first, am like it.]
[English is good! After English can talk other languages too sure.]
[How saying when a person giving a nice thing?]
[Saying 'thank you' and then they say 'you're welcome'.]
[Thank you giving English and saying Tyelcormo I love you and saying other languages after English!]
[You're welcome!]
[Say Tyelcormo how is stopping Enemy?]
[Okay.] He say, how is stopping Enemy?
Uh, tell him we've bought Beleriand four centuries of peace but we expect the price is going to start getting steeper, we don't yet have anything that'd conceivably kill him, and we might be waiting on Pen's mom.
[He says they buy Beleriand four centuries peace but expecting price starting get steeper, don't have anything yet for conceivably killing him, might be waiting on my Mommy.]
[Tell Tyelcormo I very wow with him and all my sons, now I know I can talking with you I think of something, also he needing not hard words I learning English and not know hard words yet. Steeper? Conceivably?]
He say he very wow - thinking he mean impressed? - with him and all your brothers and he thinking of something now he talk with me, and that you not need hard words because he learning English not know them yet. [Steeper, um, is usually about like mountains?] Pictures: the slope up to Monteverde, the craggy unclimbable peak to the Eyrie, [less steep, steeper, but thinking he mean it just being harder? Conceivable things things you can thinking of.]
[Thank you. I can thinking of something to stop the Enemy if your Mommies taking too long. Enemy gets stronger in time, so thinking to stop him gets harder. I thinking faster than the Enemy.]
[You thinking so fast,] Pen agrees.
[Can brainphone Enemy? Don't! But can?]
[Um, don't know if don't try.]
[Okay. Don't try. Enemy not knowing you existing. If Enemy knowing that, very bad.]
[Yeah figured. Am safe but only some ways I guess.]
[Safe is hard. Magic dog and Tyelcormo helping. Four hundred years safe, long time. My sons very wow. Needing words not wow for good things.]
[Um, when you saying you wow with them thinking you mean impressed.]
[Impressed? More words like impressed?]
[Uuuum delighted pleased overjoyed?]
[Thank you. Am thinking all the time any minute sons dead. Nothing can be doing. Am so wow they all well, but not wow, better word?]
[Happy! Relieved? One those.]
[So happy! So happy learning English! Need more words, need talking sons, to be knowing what things they knowing already...]
[Um, one, forget which, already having brainphone, can put more ones.]
[Can give sons brainphones? So can be talking to them, not saying you say things? Thank you doing that!]
[Yeah sure you're welcome!]
Can just giving you brainphone, Pen points out to Tyelcormo. [Here!]
[Ata?]
[I'm sorry, I should have asked Pen that much sooner, I assumed if it were possible she wouldn't have been dutifully repeating everything for me -]
[I missed you so much.]
[I'm not sure how much I can help you from here but there's no reason I can't do any purely mental work or be a soundboard for experimental results or design things for you -]
[Maybe it's a good thing we didn't think of just giving us a brainphone, the restricted vocabulary forced you to be more sentimental -]
[This is me being sentimental I am trying to protect you.]
[Yeah, okay. I'll ask Pen to connect Curufinwe. You should keep talking to her, I think she likes you.]
Hey Pen can you add people by name or do you need to see them?
Having to know who they are. If is knowing is your brother and a name can.
Curufin. He's smart, he can help my father. You probably shouldn't give it to Maedhros.
Okay doing. [Here have thing!] Why not?
If he hears my father's voice talking in his head he won't believe it's my father.
Brainphone is have anti spoofing thing.
I believe you but he wouldn't.
Okay.
If we explain it to him he'll start using it but don't just spring it on him from a distance.
Nod.
Thanks.
Uh, the King'd probably like one - my uncle Fingolfin - and his son Fingon. And my brother Maglor and my brother Amrod.
Okay.
[Hi his uncle Fingolfin!] [Hi Fingon!] [Hi Maglor!] [Hi Amrod!]
She gets four confused and kind of alarmed responses and then Tyelcormo explains things.
[Sorry, everyone, new long-distance communication method. It's safe and impossible to spoof, we're pretty sure. It's mediated by an eight year old who doesn't speak any Thindarin, so don't barrage her with questions. Also anyone who uses it to yell at my father loses it but it can reach Mandos.]
Pen, can you add more dead people? My cousin Aredhel? Her sister-in-law Elenwe?
Sure!
[Hi Aredhel!] [Hi Elenwë!]
And he'll offer names and descriptions - there are a lot of dead - until she starts to get impatient.
She will put up with this for a few dozen people and then she is bored and wants to do something else. Am sorry am only putting people not putting putter people but so many!
Yeah, I figured. Elves are pretty patient, don't worry about it. Want to use the snow song to get enough ice we can make ice cream?
Ice cream!!!! (That's a yes. She sings the snow song.)
And he hasn't done this in a really long time and it's going to be more of a sorbet because Elves don't really keep animals for milk but they can make ice cream.
Sorbet's good too. But if Elves don't have cream that is very sad for them, it is important for putting on oatmeal. And for making actual ice cream.
I guess I would need to talk to a lot of cows or goats or whatever but if I found some who were okay with it we could keep them in Himlad.
Talking to cows and goats?
I can talk to animals. They aren't people so they don't want complicated things but they can still be happy or sad and I wouldn't want to keep them in conditions that make them sad.
Don't know if farm cows and goats are sad.
Yeah so I'd want to ask. Bet with me to know what they want we can find an arrangement that makes them happy.
Yeah! The one Mommy who a boy can talking animals. But he can talking everything, is a wizard thing, and animals and stuff in Syntropy smarter than other animals and stuff.
Cool! I have no special advantage at talking to people.
He only better at people if they, like, stars or something. Oh and aura a little bit, that help.
Are some people stars? Here the stars are lights in the sky.
In Syntropy stars that, but also they people. And trees? I think Syntropy trees people.
I suppose that's not any more absurd than anything else.
Is silly. I never meet a tree though, Syntropy no tourism.
Why's that?
Is have evil god not dealt with yet.
Then we're probably no-tourism too. Why hasn't Syntropy's god been dealt with?
Dunno how big it is or why it doing what it do.
Fair enough. At least we don't have that problem.
Why yours doing what he do then?
He rebelled against the divine plan, and thought the best way to do that was to be as much of a monster as possible, to mar Arda.
...oh.
Pretty bad reason but I don't think there are good reasons to be an evil god.
Well, admin had reasons that letting her stop?
What were her reasons?
She just not wanting be bothered, and people who wanting bad things bother her. Then Mommies bother her and help her setting up things so people wanting bad things not do that anymore.
Not want bad things anymore, or not bother her with it?
Not bother her with it.
That's good. What kind of things did she think were bad?
The admin? She not like things stopping existing. Or dust.
Huh. Takes all kinds, I guess.
Thank you for letting us talk to our dead family.
You're welcome!
Wanna open some more doors before bed? Just in case?
'Kay.
And Pen opens some doors.
...And one of them goes to Milliways! "Ooh!" [Jane Jane got lost in a world send Mommy!]
Mommy is there in a moment. She takes in the scene, and does not pick up her daughter - who is holding the door - immediately.
Something glints between her fingertips and then she says to Tyelcormo in fluent Thindarin, "Can you hold the door to your world for a moment, please?"
"I'd be happy to."
And then Pen is scooped right up. "Where've you been, treasure?"
"Is world called Arda! It needing help. Tyelcormo this my mommy. Mommy this Tyelcormo."
"Hello, Tyelcormo, I'm Isabella but you can call me Angela because there are a lot of Isabellas. I'll get Glass to have a look at Arda, shall I, just in case it's not okay for Jane."
"We were worried we'd have to open a lot more doors. Pen, you can't call me Tyelcormo out loud, that language is banned here."
"What but that's dumb."
Another one shows up. "So what are we calling you then," she says, squinting past him. "Oh ew. You okay, Pen?"
"I fine! What wrong with it?"
"You know it's hard to describe these things. But ew. - I don't think it'll hurt Jane, or if it does it'll be local."
"I don't know what you're picking up on, but this world has an evil god and a pantheon of incompetent ones and we'd be delighted to have your assistance."
"That's not it, I can't see your gods per se from here, I'm looking at the underlying fabric of the world, and this one is like the equivalent of going out in a sleet storm because you think being miserable is really poetic only it's a world."
"Oh. That'd be Eru, and fate, and the symphony of creation and so forth. You can see that kind of thing?"
"Yes. At least this one isn't trying to make me puke. And I don't think it'll do Jane any harm." Something materializes in her hands and she twists it into two parts and one vanishes; the other's a lovely blue faceted gem. "Here, have a Jane and then if you stop holding the door you don't go careening off into your own time pace and have to wait for a million years until we get Shell Bell in two seconds."
"That'd be bad, yes. The war's going on four hundred years but I'm not sure we could hold out for a million. Pen's okay?"
"Yeah, I don't see any magic stuck to her or anything, although just to be really sure maybe Keziah should check."
Keziah is another angel, early adolescence! She takes a turn holding Pen, handed off from their mother. "Pen's okay," she reports, and then she double-takes at Celegorm. "Ack!" Angela has to grab her by the collar to keep her from lunging at him. "Mom!"
"You explain and you ask first," Angela says firmly.
"Something wrong?"
"Keziah's ingot power thinks there is something about or on you of the sort that she can remove. She has never met a thing in that category that she likes, but it's possible you were using it for something and do not want her to take it off. Previous examples include residue of some emotion-affecting powers and effects of contact with hostile magical beings."
"Ah. Well. Might be the Doom that the gods laid on us because they were angry with us for rebelling against them, or might be oaths, in which case I guess I will just re-swear them. That's a bit of a terrifying power, if she can rub oaths off people."
"There's two things," Keziah confirms, "Glass can you see them -"
"Maybe? I'm not Lazarus, kiddo, I see all kinds of stuff but I have to pick up what it is the long way."
"So get Lazarus!"
"Pen explained who a lot of people are, but not everyone, is there a guide somewhere? Also, Pen didn't like looking at my brother, is everyone going to feel that way, because if not he should be here."
"Why didn't you like looking at his brother, treasure?"
"He hurting look at, all over scars. Fix it."
"If he wants me to. You can go sit at the bar and not look, or go home, if you like."
"Okay." And Pen scurries over to hop up on a barstool and orders cake.
Found them. We're on the second floor. Pen's safe, they can remove oaths, they can remove the Doom -
On my way.
"He's coming."
"So's Lazarus, he'll be able to get a better and more interpreted look at whatever Keziah and maybe Glass are seeing."
Lazarus arrives! He is tall for a human. He peers worriedly at Celegorm.
"Keziah doesn't like two things on or about him. Can you figure them out?"
"There are at least three things I don't like going on here," says Lazarus. "Um. The horrible curse and the unbreakable oaths are what Keziah is picking up on, but there's an underlying phenomenon, it's... why would you do that... there's sort of a Fate thing? I do not like the Fate thing. It's not quite ooky by Keziah's power's standards but I do not like it."
"None of my oaths were coerced. Elves don't have free will, maybe that's what you're seeing?"
"'Not having free will' sounds like an accurate description of the thing, sort of! It is an unsettling thing! I'm not sure if it's okay to do that to a sapient species, and it was definitely done, it has a design sense! The design sense is very elegant!"
"Elegant's one word for it."
"Eru. He created the universe. I've never met anyone who desperately wanted free will, and I'm not sure what'd happen if you tampered."
"I am not a tamperer. I just squint at things," says Lazarus. "I have now squinted at you. Do you want Keziah to de-gook you of the horrible curse and/or the unbreakable oaths?"
"Curse, Halls yes, oaths I'll keep if she can separate like that, a lot of them are oaths not to reveal strategically important information under torture and Pen thinks you'll obviate that but you haven't yet and she said in some worlds it takes a long time for one reason or another."
"...I don't actually know if I can separate it," Keziah says dubiously. "I just degook as all one thing."
"We will certainly do our best to obviate that but we aren't actually omnipotent - and your world's not Downsideable, either."
"Then go ahead and degook, I can swear the oaths again."
Maedhros arrives. "Ah, Angela, Lazarus, Keziah, Glass, this is my brother."
Maedhros looks respectably awed and delighted.
"Hello, pleased to meet you -" She tightens her grip on Keziah's collar.
Keziah makes a very unhappy noise. "He has an extra thing!"
"- sorry, Keziah was called in to make sure there wasn't any unpleasant magic clinging to Pen and it turns out she doesn't like oaths or Doom or whatever extra thing you have, Lazarus what is it -"
He blinks at Maedhros.
"...Obnoxious amounts of memory-related mental tampering," he says after a second or two.
"Yes."
"Fix it!" Pen yells over her shoulder.
"I apologize for her. Pen wants me to fix your scars, Keziah wants to remove all three things she's observed from your person, I suspect somehow we've come up on a deeply incorrect priority order here but because your world's not Downsideable it will require special caution anyway."
"The best priority order would indeed be to stop the person doing it. The scars do not especially bother me but I could use two hands probably as much as everyone can use two hands, if you can do that. I would like all magical mind-tampering gone as soon as possible."
"Keziah will need to touch you to 'degook' you - treasure, do you need Céleste too?"
"Mmmmmaybe yes."
Céleste appears. "Oh no!" she exclaims of the Elves.
"Apparently the evils wrought by our Enemy are visible to your people?"
"It's just our template, we have almost the same ingot power, I'm here to fix that, right?"
"Yeah c'mon." And they reach in Maedhros's direction.
He does not flinch, though it takes an extraordinary effort.
The process is not painless, but it is not-painless in a sort of pleasant way if you are the sort of person who finds being unburdened of various magical horror pleasant.
"Thank you," he says levelly at the end of it. "I swear never to tell anyone anything of strategic relevance or bring about their awareness of it if I have reason to believe I am in Enemy custody."
Keziah opens her mouth; Angela coughs and she just sighs and waves Céleste over to Celegorm, whom they degook.
And who says the same thing. "If you don't like it we can sit down and try to sort how we can stop the Enemy," he says.
"...I wanna just go home if you're gonna keep being gooked."
"Thank you for your help, treasure. You too, Céleste."
And the teenagers vanish.
"Apologies for activating their magic sense unpleasantly. I do appreciate their help."
"They found their power pretty recently and are still learning to be well-behaved with it. So. Your actual priority is an evil god?"
"Indeed. He has a fortress a few hundred miles north of here and could be at minimum put out of commission for a while if that fortress ceased to exist, though actually killing him is going to take some doing. I swear that everything I am saying to you is true as far as I know and that I haven't deliberately skewed my knowledge and have good reason to think it's accurate. He has about a million orcs under his command and in constant physical and psychological torment. They're all sworn to him. He has some minor deities in his service, many of whom can shapechange. The other gods in our world cannot kill him but could keep him indefinitely imprisoned; they released him."
"I have a perfectly good lie-detection power, you do not have to swear things. ...Lazarus, your ingotry works through pastwatching, yes? Can you give us an idea of the size of this thing?"
"Of the evil god? Um," he says.
A quiet moment of squinting at nothing in particular.
Then: "That is more sizes than I was expecting one entity to have! There is a human-sized body and a city-sized fortress and an amount of surrounding landscape. Everything is very horrible there and I am very upset about it. But in terms of magical size... not intractably big? I would not, for example, be worried about unintended consequences to the universe if you wished him out of existence. Although it would not be any good for his body or his fortress or his surrounding landscape."
"Those should probably stop existing anyway."
"Not Downsideable so anything we delete from existence we can't just get back later. The orcs and minor deities should likely not be in the way if the place will blow in his absence. How does being sworn to him affect them if he ceases to exist?"
"They stop being sworn to him. Maiar are nearly impossible to kill and an exploding fortress shouldn't do it, and the orcs will go to Mandos which is not good but probably retrievable."
"Mandos?"
(Glass disappears, apparently feeling she is no longer needed in particular.)
"Our afterlife. We can in principle be reembodied from there but the god of the dead won't reembody orcs."
"These all about the same caliber of god?"
"They are. Eru'll definitely object if you kill them, though."
"That being a higher caliber of god? But will Eru object if I remove dead people from their custody?"
"...possible, but less likely. Eru didn't think the Valar did a particularly superlative job reembodying the dead."
"...then why didn't he fix it?"
"I have no idea. Nothing he does makes much sense to me. This is how he wanted history to go and I don't know why."
"This is complicated enough that we are probably going to want to permanently assign your world to a Bell rather than doing the whoever-saw-it-first-spot-fixes thing; and whether that Bell should be me or one of my alts is an open question. There's a variety and the most substantial factors are probably how busy each of us are at home and cultural similarity, did either of you notice any substantial culture gaps with Pen?"
"We disagreed on whether giving people the option of permanent information-lost gone-forever death was really important, she objected to us ordering someone to open doors indefinitely until we got Milliways, otherwise I think we agreed. She's a nuanced thinker, for an eight-year-old."
"Pen's very bright. Opening doors a lot pretty much only works for the kind of person who has a fixed chance per door-opening as opposed to per day or something, it wouldn't have helped if you didn't have one of those on hand. We are not in the habit of total information loss in part because one of our greatest tools is Downside and it's both administratively and structurally opposed to the concept, but your world can't be Downsided at least right now anyway."
"People who want to really-irrecovably-die, around here, it's mostly because they have decided that the risk of someone someday torturing them isn't worth all of existence up to that point, and I don't think you could convince them to be certain enough, not with lots of universes with varying capabilities. But I don't think I'll clash with someone who's working with the constraints of their own finicky universe."
"Anyway, I'm probably as reasonable a primary Bell contact for Arda as anyone. While you're in here with the door closed and there isn't a Janegem in your world its time will be paused; you can take as long as seems most prudent to explain everything I may need to know to start slinging godkilling magic around or ask any questions you have."
So he explains the war, from the start, with digressions to tell the history of Arda. He elides politics as irrelevant. He tries to make guesses about the current capabilities of the Enemy but their intelligence is mostly out of date.
Lazarus pays attention, because he might be useful to this enterprise, they might need him to past-watch more magic for strategic purposes. But he was not kidding around when he said he was very upset. He's being quiet about it, but he is in fact very, very upset.
Which is kind of soothing, really. It is nice to know there's a shocked and appalled multiverse out there. When he gets to the present he says "...so, any questions?"
"Do you anticipate interference from the Valar if I evacuate Angband and then obliterate Melkor? Would the evacuees of Angband likely do anything unfortunate with their sudden freedom?"
"The Valar wouldn't interfere with that. I have no idea how many of the Enemy's lieutenants would continue doing evil if evacuated but it's certainly some of them. Even if orcs weren't bound to serve Melkor at this point there's also four hundred years of wars with Elves as reason they have to hate us. There might also be infighting, not sure. The prisoners might be some of them rigged by the Enemy to snap and kill everyone around them, that's something that happens."
"The standard solution for this sort of thing on worlds that are being actively ruled by Bells who are openly deploying magic is a generic prohibition on nonconsensual violence applied uniformly to the entire world. Would this be likely provocative?"
"That sounds fantastic."
"Okay, so no design challenges, just a ground rule, evacuating Angband, and obliterating the Enemy. Jane, I need Stella."
"You rang?"
"Three wishes. Does your sorter work if you don't even know what they're for?"
"...Apparently," says Stella, clinking coins into Angela's hand. "But I can't tell you which is which."
"I'll figure it out."
"Pen mentioned wishes."
"They're our most flexibly applicable form of magic. They come in sizes and one of Stella's aura powers" (Stella kisses Lazarus on the forehead, then vanishes) "can determine in advance how big a coin is needed for a task, so I don't have to step up gradually and guess. Looks like this doesn't even need a tenner. Would one of you hold the door for me, please?"
They do.
And Angela pokes her head into Arda and makes three wishes.
"There you go."
"That's - it? Angband's evacuated, the Enemy's dead, and there's no nonconsensual violence anywhere in the world?"
"Yes. I suppose the evacuees might not be in a maximally convenient place, but I found somewhere with room for all of them and nobody else in the immediate vicinity."
"Where? We can send food and supplies and so forth - and the people who do oath-scrubbing could see what that does for orcs..."
She brainphones him a picture of the area and a zoomed out aerial view. "I'm sure Keziah and Céleste will be happy to come back and de-oath more people but it may also be doable with wishes, and if it is it'll be more efficient that way, this is a pretty big population and there are only the two of them."
"Okay, yes, we can send food and supplies there. If wishes aren't a limited commodity then that'll be far more efficient, there are nearly a million orcs."
"They're slightly limited, they just batch well - if I can de-oath with a hex I can probably de-oath thousands with a star and cover the entire orc population with an evil."
"Fantastic. And some people might panic if they run into orcs and find themselves unable to draw weapons on them but no one will actually die and I'm getting the word out as swiftly as I can, the King's already told his people."
"People can brandish weapons all they like, it's less constraining than that."
"What does it prevent? If it doesn't prevent talking people into suicide I know one of the Enemy's lieutenants who was really excellent at that..."
"It, uh, doesn't prevent that. Should I perhaps add an extra precautionary layer to this person in particular?"
"Thauron. It would be good if he were actually just unable to take actions or something, he's really good at finding ways to hurt people and you don't want to keep adding patches."
"Unable to take actions seems drastic. I could just put him Downside very far away from anyone?"
"I don't think I understand how Downside works well enough to evaluate them but I am not completely sure of the safety of any sentients he'd in any way have the opportunity to interact with."
"Well, I meant something like many astronomical units away from the population so it would be necessary to teleport to visit him if for some reason anyone wished to do that."
"That should work temporarily, assuming brainphone doesn't have that kind of range. He has in the past waited several thousand years for suspicion to blow over before doing things, so I'm not inclined to say he wouldn't just patiently start Maia-ing in your direction, but at least it'd take him a while."
"Brainphone has the range but I don't see why anyone would add him to the network and it has a block function. Maia-ing in our direction?"
"Travelling at whatever their top speed is. And people might, you know, in a couple hundred years, not know the name or want something he can offer them or be intrigued for historical reasons."
"I suppose we can leave him in the catacombs to be addressed later when we get around to other people who are that dangerous. Anyone else you want to single out for that?"
"No one else known to me personally. Other prisoners of Angband might have suggestions."
"Do these people work quickly enough that it would be ill-advised to give the prisoners an opportunity to decompress before attempting to poll them?"
"No, you're probably safe. The Maiar tend to respond very poorly to surprises and won't be in top form."
"Okay, so we can catacomb Thauron and address any other problem Maiar later on - one moment -" She vanishes very briefly, then comes back. "Done."
"Thank you. I can't think of other things that'll immediately go wrong under a permanent nonconsensual violence ban."
"So next is the dead people. I don't know what we'll be able to do about the ones who aren't just disembodied on a perfectly accessible continent - outright afterlives are somewhat tricky - and separately it's probably the best policy to avoid provoking Mandos if possible, but if some of the dead are so convenient as to be brainphoneable it seems unlikely that they're actually difficult to reembody by wish."
"Mandos will in fact be provoked, but he put up with an evil god on this continent for a really long time and doesn't seem likely to be moved to action by losing all his dead. Not an impossibility but not a likelihood. Some of them he'll reembody pretty soon, you could try just doing the Doomed."
"What about the orcs?"
"The oaths mean they cannot be reembodied. He might refuse to reembody them even with the oaths fixed but perhaps he'll show some character for once; hard to predict. I expect he'd take less offense at having them snatched from him, he might even be relieved."
"So we should maybe test better-scalable de-oathing methods than my daughter and nieceoid. Perhaps not on an orc."
"What's the failure of testing? And you can de-oath me again now that I don't need commitments to keep secrets under torture."
"There's not really a failure mode of the test, it'll work as designed or the wish won't go, but going and picking out an orc would involve a lot of tedious explanations or Elspeth. Who is lovely but not necessarily good at moderating how much information she gives a random orc."
"Ah, all right. Well, you have a test subject. I won't swear the mind-altering oaths but I'm happy to swear things for a few tries."
"I wouldn't dream of asking you to swear a mind-altering oath." She starts going through progressively pointier coins, the smaller ones in a feather pattern like her wings and the larger more colorful, until she manages one that can remove his oath.
"So then what'll it take to remove all orc oaths?"
"A hex to do one means a star to do a batch means an evil to do a large batch." She produces one. Its colors shift. It is very evilly pointy.
"I am confused by your magic system but deeply grateful for the aid to our world in any event."
"There's a lot of magic systems interacting with each other here but wishcoins are pretty simple, if sometimes awkward to explain." She pokes her head into Arda. The evil disappears. "Eos - the same world ingot powers like Keziah and Céleste's are native to - also has 'mints', who can make coins. Coins are made out of pain, so we spend a lot of time exploiting masochists. It's a triangle to do something little like flick a switch or braid your hair or iron a shirt, a square to conjure most smallish nonmagical objects, a pentagon to learn a language or apply most traits that can reasonably apply within nonmagical species variation for the target, a hex for a single issuing of a magical superpower, star if you want to terraform a whole planet, it takes an evil to apply magical traits that will persist through torching, a niner will impose stable magical conditions across an entire subworld, a tenner's enough to create a new subworld in a sheaf or affect many subworlds or do something that just requires a ridiculous amount of oomph. Haven't had anyone try for the level past that so far; they go up exponentially. The most common sapient species can't actually make anything bigger than a star without being magically augmented."
"I wonder what a Maia could do. Don't happen to know any masochistic Maiar, though, and they presumably wouldn't become mints even if they went to Eos. Maiar have about a hundred times as much attentional capacity as us."
"Minting is generally wished on. There must have been an original ingot mint, but since then it's a hex per. We require a fairly high standard of trust to give it out, though, and the problems tenners can't solve are generally ones where wishchoins categorically do not work for some reason."
"And I suppose oaths are no longer stunningly perfect for trust because you can wipe them off. Well, if you don't need it badly I suppose it can certainly wait."
"It's generally a more interpersonal sort of trust than that. Helps when we get to know many versions of people and have their perspectives on each other. Some templates just automatically get whatever of the transmissible powers package they'd like."
"I have to admit to finding it strange that a personality type would be so trustworthy you'd trust any instances of them; most people I know are capable of being worthy of trust but wouldn't be under literally all possible environments they could have been raised in. No one'd be a trustworthy orc."
"I'm not sure that's actually true. Some of the stronger templates - 'stronger' here means 'commoner and not a followon to another template' but we also seem to have more standout personality traits - violate otherwise overwhelming regularities in our reference classes in order to be consistent with ourselves. It also might just be that we couldn't be born as orcs in the first place. You'd want to talk to Glass about this if the subject interests you, although she finds her inability to pin down much useful detail with her metacausality-vision frustrating after a while."
"Fair enough. I'm sure someone's appropriately catalogued the consequences for nature versus nurture debates. Or my species could have different psychology."
"We're definitely keeping an eye on template regularities and how they work. 'Metacausality' is our word for whatever it is that causes things to line up in such a way as to causally produce the results we see - parallelism in worlds that have more than enough reason to diverge, matching templates from wildly disparate backgrounds, that sort of thing. We only have observational work on that. Except Harley, I suppose Harley's experimental data."
"I do not think Pen told us that story."
"My husband's template has invariably abusive childhood situations. There's multiple sets of parent and non-parent sources but it's very consistent. And then we found one while he was still a baby, with one of the abusive parent sets - so my nieceoid Elspeth kidnapped him and brought him up herself only to discover that as far as Glass can tell the template is guaranteed to get through a certain minimum quota of suffering and Elspeth could only delay it. So when Harley was an adolescent he spontaneously developed the power to interdimensionally teleport, landed in a world we hadn't put a Janepoint in yet, and found the situation he landed in so unpleasant that he spent most of his time stuck in that world repeatedly torching in the middle of the sun as soon as he managed to control his teleportation power well enough to get there instead of somewhere it would be easier for his captors to retrieve him from."
"Oh," he says knowingly. "Torching?"
"Most of the people in routine in-the-know contact with the peal are torchable. It's an admin-conferred ability and means that if we manage to get into a lethal situation we reset to a healthy state on the spot instead of actually dying. It's usually handy but combines best with better freedom of movement than Harley had mastered at the time."
"I would say."
"We normally have excellent freedom of movement; but handing it out to the kids has its own hazards - Pen could have had a Janegem on her person, but if she had then walked into a world that, unlike Arda, was hazardous to Jane, Jane would have broken and most of the worlds would have gone into temporal de-sync and most of our people would be stuck where they were whether that was their original world or not. Harley could have had a standard teleportation power but it's hard to know exactly when to wish that on while someone's growing up and Glass is convinced that he would have managed to find something awful to get stuck in anyway."
"You have a standard teleportation power?"
"Yes. It doesn't go interdimensionally, though, that's beyond wishcoins - all of our interdimensionality options are ultimately Milliways- or Downside-based one way or another."
"That might be better; could give it to more people if there's less disastrous outcomes should they abuse it."
"We don't usually hand out even the hex powers casually, spending a few large coins on a new world is par for the course but vetting people for and then spending hexes - or, if they torch and need the powers to stick through torching, evils - on everyone who asks would be pushing it if we adopted the habit."
"We could try to work out a system of payment, see if there's anything this world's native magic does as well as hexes. What kind of coin is irrevocable suicide going to take, or is that not something you're willing to hand out?"
"...I don't have a way to guarantee genuine irrevocability. It might be conceptually impossible to do with coins because coins can themselves pull information out of the past."
"Okay. That's a magic that'll be asked for more than anything else, I expect, and I think everyone who'd want it would settle for teleportation, though perhaps I should survey them all first."
"It'd be pretty safe to give out teleportation powers on a ground-rulesed world - it'd be better if I installed the complete set and not just the violence one, but not essential - and if it's batched it's not too coin-inefficient."
"I think given what I understand of your goals that'd be a good use of coins. What are the other rules?"
"They vary slightly by locale, but in general they include something making it impossible to impinge on someone's life if they don't want you to and a system to make sure that if there's some kind of emergency Jane is notified - in particular we don't like having people torchable if they can't contact her to have someone come and help should they get trapped."
"Those sound great. Does the brainphone do for the communications?"
"It's the minimum. I believe Pattern also has something that notifies her if someone torches at a worrying rate and they're not a member of my husband's template, in case someone has something going on that makes it difficult for them to use the brainphone. My world has few torchable people so far and my entire culture wears tracking devices that Jane can monitor as a matter of course anyway," she taps the opal in her arm, "so I haven't installed anything that sophisticated myself."
"Those might become popular here as well.
It sounds like the most pressing priority at this point is ending mortality for the races that don't go to the Halls of Mandos?"
"Yes. Which normally we would do with torchability - but this may not be a one-size-fits-all solution. Coin resurrection might work, it depends on how greedy their afterlife arrangement is. We'd need to watch out for forks; naive coin resurrection in a Downside-attached world resulted in a fork of one of my alts once. Coin wards and unagingness are easy."
"Forks as in two different instances of the person being alive? And I can't imagine what'd kill them if you can do unagingness and presumably also malnutrition and disease."
"Yes, as in that. It happened to another person too, same reason, he was from a Downsided world before we discovered Downside and his boyfriend resurrected him naively by coin. That particular problem has been patched now and Downside will yield up anyone we try to resurrect if we do it that way - such as when Jane's been down. It might easily be that nothing in Arda would kill them," Angela says. "They could have a problem if they wanted to be interdimensional tourists."
"Unless you're enhancing durability a lot some of them will occasionally die of having tried to invent heavier-than-air flight or something."
"Wards would handle that. If they're not having tremendous fun with the experimental phase we could also just tell them how heavier-than-air flight works."
"My father'll probably feel slightly cheated but not for very long, not as long as there still are some open engineering problems, magical or otherwise."
"We brute force a lot of things that could probably stand to be investigated with more finesse. My alts do that with heavier-than-air flight, too, I'm the only one who was born with a solution to the problem."
"I noticed it! Pen gave one of my brothers a ride around. Arda's native magic is suited to lots of useful things - we can dramatically enhance memory and recall and reflexes, I don't know if you've mentioned if your magic does that - but it doesn't move things much and isn't suited to flight."
"Bells've all got wished-on perfect recall. We don't have a reflexes wish per se as part of the standard introductory package for new arrivals - although we do have grace in there because one of our template features is being disastrously clumsy - but it would not be hard to wish on as an as-needed."
"I don't know anything about the wish process so I can't estimate comparative effort per item. Getting those to everyone on this planet'll be a peacetime priority of ours, once we have cities built."
"How much of your postwar reconstruction effort do you just want to do yourselves?"
"Having non-war things to do will be useful for us, but everyone'll feel insulted if they could have been done with the twinkle of a coin or something. Things that you can do for us with difficulty, we'll do ourselves with difficulty. Things that you can do for us with ease, please do. And books. If there are lots of universes there must be lots of books; we would like them."
"In general magic does not speed up anything best described as a design step. Does your world have computers in any form?"
"Nope. This war was fought with swords and bows, if that gives you a sense of the approximate technological level."
"Paper books are a little harder to curate and Jane can't help, but you can certainly import books. Milliways is actually a good place to do that, Bar has literally all of the books."
"We can also invent computers. The name itself might be enough for my father to go off. What sort of help would you provide if you weren't worrying about cultural sensitivity or obviating us?"
"I'm not the ideal Bell to ask that, because on my own world I'm very worried about both. But the fully openly magical, well-established Belled worlds are thoroughly post-scarcity imposed top-down."
"Goal sounds great, process would reopen old wounds. We did top-down imposed post-scarcity and we were desperate to escape it. Maybe those worlds deal with the problem better."
"The worlds I'm thinking of are mostly terraformed and colonized neighboring planets that take immigrants from the original populated planet in the world. Although one of us did have to conquer her entire planet, it was just that badly run."
"That might work. The problem was that the Valar were so much more powerful than us, interested in keeping us small and easily contained, and warped our culture and our values in a way that I think occurred even with some values that were good. And we felt meaningless. And they had an endless litany of excuses for keeping us so. What would work best here would be a paradise with no overlords - beyond the ground rules, those can count as laws of physics - and no restrictions on local leaders beyond that they permit emigration."
"Since we don't even have a worldless Bell free to install for full time management that sounds mostly fine to me. Permitting emigration as the sole limit can get complicated with children, though, we tend to be more affirmative of children's autonomy than most people we run into."
"You're worried that there are too high barriers in practice to children emigrating? My father ran away from home at twenty-eight and did all right, we can obviously replicate the features of Valinor that made that an option..."
"...how developmentally advanced is twenty-eight for your species?"
He sends an image of someone roughly the age of a human nine-year-old.
"All right then."
"We're fully grown at a hundred. Of age at fifty - I could lower that, but I don't want forty year olds marrying..."
"We don't have anyone on tap whose aging works quite like that so I'll just take your word that this would be undesirable. The main thing is that we don't want anyone stuck with parents they can't stand, partly because we run into this problem so often - alts of my husband are very common and they're not the only ones with this as a feature, either."
"We are very amenable to policies that let children leave bad situations. I don't think Elves in general will be as delighted but they'll be supportive enough of the main policies that'd enable children to live on their own, like transplanting Valinor's ecology - everything is edible and nutritionally complete, that contributes more than you'd expect to freedom of movement..."
"Oh, that sounds lovely, and if it's already being done somewhere might be fairly easy to wish into place."
"That'd be great, thank you, we have a few species' seeds but not enough to pull it off everywhere. And obviously you can import it to anywhere else that'd benefit, it works for human and Elven and Dwarvish dietary needs and Pen seemed all right though she's also magicked even for an angel, right?"
"She is indeed magicked even for an angel; she gets hungry because I didn't think it would be wise to completely dissociate a small child from all the customary sensations her peers are growing up with - although I did tighten her physical ward because she couldn't stand even scraped knees and bent feathers - but she doesn't get very hungry or find it impairing beyond distraction, and if she didn't eat for a while even that would go away. It seems likely to go over well for use in terraforming projects if it turns out that other species, humans especially there are so many, can eat the same things."
"If our Men are the same as your humans they can," he says. "I highly recommend terraforming projects use Valinor's ecology, it's lovely and durable and resistant to damage and requires little maintenance."
"All good traits."
"Nice to feel like we'll have something to offer the multiverse even before we get up to speed."
"Lots of places do, especially if they aren't 'another Earth with no magic'."
"There are lots of those?"
"A surprising number. Only one of them has a native Bell."
"I am terribly curious about lots of different things but I think they ought to wait for demobilizing, aid to survivors of the collapse of Angband, bringing back the dead and building a peacetime civilization. I shall look you up when it's curiosity-satisfying time."
"All right. Jane can forward any messages. I don't think you've been introduced - Jane?"
[Hi.]
He shudders slightly. [Hi.] "Bringing back the easily-retrievable dead is the other thing you might want to do here immediately. I think it may be worth it even though it could annoy the Valar."
"Likely. Lazarus, would you mind having a look at their dead?"
[Something wrong?]
[Enemy can talk in my head, and liked doing it. The internal experience is not identical but it's very close. Don't worry about it.]
"Are their dead likely to horrify me?" he wonders, but he squints at thin air anyway. "Oh, that's hardly horrifying at all. They're just sort of hanging around insubstantially in a physical location which they are unable to leave. And... conscious and isolated and I think something is going on with their sense of time... but they are not being actively tortured at all times by their own inherent magical properties, so that's still better than what I saw in the evil god's evil fortress!"
"Any visible problems with just rendering them alive, or relocating them in catacomb-type storage - perhaps not actually Downside; Pattern keeps something like catacombs on her moon - so they can be more piecemeal rendered alive?"
"Their custodian will certainly notice and I have no special insight into what he will think of this development but as far as the magic is concerned you should be fine," says Lazarus. "This world is thankfully not like Thilanushinyel in that way."
"Thilanushinyel? And the Valar are very - slow, their reaction will probably take years to manifest and isn't likely to be immediately dangerous to anyone."
"Thank you. Jane, Amariah's please -" Vanish, reappear. "- All right, on my wish, please -"
And Angela again disappears very briefly into Arda and then reappears. "There, I've got them catacombed in Amariah's afterlife, that won't present the same depth of incompatibility with the possible desire to cease existing as a Downsided world would. Anyone who should be fast-tracked out?"
"I expect all of the Elves who weren't prisoners of the Enemy could be reintegrated nearly effortlessly with the peoples that lost them, they'll mostly have loved ones still living. I don't know the right way to do orcs. The ones who were prisoners of the Enemy - well, I don't know all of what can be done for them. You can give them local teleporting, you can fix the memory tampering, you can fix coerced oaths, people were forced to bear orc children they might want to meet, I don't think anything else is fixable with magic."
"Standard procedure includes living loved ones of the deceased to request them specifically from Jane and then she'll fetch them out; that should do for the first category just fine, and the others, yes, will require a little more detailed attention. I meant more like 'should anyone currently dead be part of this conversation'."
"His daddy Fëanáro maybe!"
"I think he'd be delighted to be part of the conversation. Pen contacted him over brainphone, apparently they were fast friends."
"He nice."
"All right. Anyone else?"
"...there are people who'd be annoyed politically if they weren't invited, but no one else likely to think of information you'd need or projects with unusual leverage."
"I will weather some political annoyance. Will your father be alarmed if he suddenly appears here?"
"No, he'll be delighted. He was in Mandos for four centuries. Um, want to fix the scars so Pen can tolerate looking at me and talk to him if she wants to?"
"Sure." Pentagon goes. "Jane?"
[Coming right up.]
And here he is.
He blinks. "Oh!" he says delightedly in English. "Mommies work fast! Thank you! Is Moringotho stopped doing evil?"
"Did Pen teach you English?"
"Yes. Pen teach me English, Pen promise teach me Samarian, Edori, and Callian, but -" apparently? - "you came fast. Am not sad, you needed."
"...anyway, yes, he's been deleted from existence. Would you like to just have those languages wished on...?"
"Would I like - I would like learning all languages. This is maybe not a good use of wishes and will not take long."
"Milliways is a terrible place to try to learn a language because it has a translation effect. I could only tell that you're speaking English because it's not my native language but I speak it anyway; if you were speaking something I didn't I'd hear Samarian."
"Then am inventing non-Milliways-dependent interdimensional travel, probably."
"We have some of that, and the effect doesn't persist if you use Milliways to go to another world anyway."
"All right. Is not -" priority? -"fast thing anyway, need build this world."
"I evacuated Angband, removed the Enemy, enforced a ban on nonconsensual violence, extracted Thauron in particular on request and put him somewhere isolated, and have extracted the dead from the custody of Mandos and am presently storing them unconscious in my alt's afterlife subworld from which they can be retrieved on demand."
"Thank you. Am thinking more things like build pretty cities, Elves needing pretty cities, decide King, invent things, join multiverse."
"If I'm presented with a design for a city I can wish it up but you'll probably want to specify the aesthetics rather than relying on mine. I do not at this time have an opinion on your monarchy. Jane will be able to tell you what things have and have not already been invented in places we're aware of. If you'd like to roll out computers sooner than later there's a multidimensional Internet project underway, although your world would be an outlier among participants."
"An outlier how? Maitimo, are having city designs ready to wish up, or need those?"
"I don't have those," Maedhros says, "unless we want Tirion."
"Am wanting anything but Tirion, sends wrong message."
"Then I will have some people start designing something suitable."
"You can let Jane know whenever you're ready."
"Thank you! Pen, thank you! Not being dead is wow."
Pen beams at him and applauds. "Am glad you not dead!"
"Am glad you came to Arda. Be fixing everything now! Thank you teaching me languages, too."
"You're welcome! ...Maybe is better pentagon them for right grammar though."
"Pentagon will teach how Mommies speak English? I can speak how Mommies speak, Mommies have grammar, Pen has different grammar, am understanding both. Am speaking Pen's because rude switch the minute learning new one, like new one is better."
"Is, though."
"...my template is called Bells to people who are not actually one of our children."
"Is not better! Can draw you syntax trees, Pen's grammar, Bells grammar, silly say one tree is better! Prettier, maybe. More people speak, maybe. But syntax trees just syntax trees, not better. Language is how people talking. Quenya having rules because Elves want Quenya prettiest, but English not trying prettiest."
Well, Angela can sure see why Pen thinks he's nice.
Pen giggles tentatively.
"Fëanáro can talk Pen's way to Pen, Bells way to Bells, if Bells needing Bell syntax trees. Pen have own syntax in every language Pen's speaking? That's amazing!"
"Yeah that happen! Even if wish on language like English or Callian. Is different kinds things each one."
"Wow!!! Pen wow!! I needing learn those from you and other people, then, knowing twice as many!"
Pen's wings flutter in delight. "Okay!" she laughs.
"Dad," Tyelcormo says, "they can also remove the Doom. And oaths, though we can reswear them if we see fit. And anything Mandos did-"
"I refused to speak to him," Fëanáro says dismissively. "Could do without the Doom, though."
"Keziah do it."
Keziah is retrieved presently. She has the initial flinch reaction on looking at Fëanáro but then squints. "...huh. My ingot power doesn't actually hate all the oath things I guess?"
"Marriage? Am married, son's aren't, might be you seeing marriage oaths and liking."
"...did you let Pen teach you English? Sweet Jovah singing why would you do that."
"Pen the only English-speaker on Arda at time! And speaking with unique syntax in every language she speaking! Is amazing! Am impressed."
"She's just got some neurological thing and can't keep the standard grammar straight."
"Keziah, if you are actually having trouble understanding him you can find something more productive to do about that problem than mocking your sister while she is right there."
"...I just don't get why you wouldn't pentagon it? Like, I guess Pen would be fine for vocab if you really wanted to learn English and she was the only person around..."
"I think by now I have familiarity with your mother's syntax and can use that if it'll make it easier for you to understand me. My son has a neurological condition that means he cannot read the standard alphabet so I invented him a better one. I'd also have done that if he couldn't read it because of a curse or couldn't read it because he found it too ugly. The information that Pen's syntax is a 'neurological condition' does not to my mind change the appropriate response. Can you remove the Doom without erasing my marriage?"
"Yeah, I think I can leave it alone -" She looks at Lazarus, gets a nod. "Yeah. I kind of want to know what Céleste thinks of it if you don't mind though, she's my alt and she has almost but not exactly the same power as me."
"I don't mind at all."
Céleste comes and has a look. She does not find the marriage oath as unobjectionable as Keziah does and is not sure she could leave it alone but agrees that it is less ooky than the other things. Since she is not sure she could leave it alone she goes home instead of staying to help.
And Keziah degooks Fëanáro by herself.
Fëanáro asks questions about Milliways.
Angela will answer the first several of these but then refers him to Bar.
Fëanáro will ask Bar so many questions. His sons watch him with weary amusement. "Thanks," Maitimo says to Angela. "I expect our world can cope from here. There are a lot of people who will deservedly want to punch my father; nothing bad will happen to them if they try, right?"
"Well, perhaps they'll be frustrated at failing to connect, but no, nothing will happen to them."
"Great. Thank you. That may be all; we'll contact you with cities in a bit."
"Lovely. I'll go put a Janepoint somewhere out of the way for redundancy with the gem Tyelcormo's holding - oh, also, the ansible connection in the gem will still work for time-syncing and brainphoning if you turn off the sensors in the gem, which you may do at any time, there's a little switch -"
She goes and installs a Janepoint out in space and bids the elves a polite goodbye and takes Pen and Keziah home.