It's a bar.

With exploding stars out the window.

And nobody around.

She gives the stars a suspicious look and wanders over to the bar. Maybe it's weird that she's wearing a nightgown in a bar, but meh, it ate her closet.

Hello. Can I interest you in a beverage? First one's free.

She stares at the napkin.

(She barely notices the pang of disappointment that she cannot bypass this method of communication with osanwe. It is an old hurt and one she has gotten used to.)

"What kind of drink?"

Whatever you would like, or I can recommend something.

"Without deciding, what would you recommend if you were going to recommend a thing?"

Chocolate-infused raspberry juice?

"...Yeah, okay."

Here's one. In a very pretty glass.

She looks at it.

She takes a sip.

She puts it down and buries her face in her arms and cries.

In walks a young woman in boots and jeans and a t-shirt that manage to look subtly unearthly.

Also that's a Valian hairstyle she's wearing.

"Um... Are you okay...?"

She takes one look at the hairstyle, give another helpless sob and covers her face with her hands.

The newcomer sits a few seats down from her at the bar rather than further interrupt the crying jag.

She doesn't speak aloud or receive napkins, but eventually she has a milkshake.

She calms down relatively quickly and sips her beverage again with a look of hopeless longing on her face.

"Hi."

"Hi. Sorry I'm depressing and crazy."

"I'm a therapist, I've seen worse."

"Among other things, I was shown a prophecy of immense suffering, assured that my sister and I were the only ones who could prevent it, we got ourselves killed, and then we reincarnated decades after the prophecy had been fulfilled."

"That's definitely the sort of thing that makes crying completely reasonable, I don't blame you a bit."

"We reincarnated so far in the future that no one knows that the culture we died in ever existed and so far as we know reincarnation is completely unprecedented. No one's going to believe us if we tell them."

Nod, nod.

"And I was married but we don't remember our past lives all at once, it was in pieces, and I was desperately lonely and kissed a boy when I was thirteen and remembered I'm married partway through it and screamed and pushed him away from me and ran away."

"Sorry, uh, you started explaining after I said I was a therapist and I don't know if you want my therapist hat on or if you just want to talk."

"I would fucking love to talk to a therapist whose reaction to my life story is 'let's deal with the shit that happened to you' not 'let's try to make you believe that none of this is real and you've never actually been loved by anyone but your sister ever.'"

"Okay. So, Bar says this is an interplanar bar, I don't know what your world's therapists are like but in my world you have to be a subtle artist to go into the field, and me with my therapist hat on usually involves at least low-level affect and/or thought reading."

"I would really love to be in telepathic contact with someone again."

What's your depth tolerance on that?

We're from different worlds and never gonna see each other again, right? If you see something that makes you judge me just--don't bring it up.

I can do that.

Okay.

This is a medium-sized college town in Kilaiuossa, where she grew up and was fine for the first (fifty-three but the years are shorter there; she was in her early twenties by the current reckoning) years of her life.

This is how her parents died and she and her sister had to leave.

This is a weird snake-monster.

This is where the snake-monster dumped them.

You landed in Valinor?!

You didn't wonder why I cried harder when I saw your hair?

Nobody's figured my hairstyle for anything other than personal eccentricity in - in almost seven years -

What happened to you?

Here is the university Bella attended. Here is where she wandered into an interplanar studies classroom. Here is where she landed in the palace with a little Quendi boy staring at her -

- here are the Valar saying she's disruptive and ignoring her while she begs for her life -

I'm so sorry.

...Was that Feanaro?

Yeah. - We must have had, different Valinors or something, I don't think they can have smoothed over what happened while I was there that well, you can't have just shown up after - but you met yours?

I married his son.

He wanted ten kids.

He had seven.

With who?

Her name was Nerdanel, she was an absolutely brilliant sculptor.

Aw! Tiny Nerdanel in her father's workshop -

Aww.

Wistfulness: She didn't want ten children, probably, but she wanted any, and now that is never going to happen.

Nod. Did you get the same prophecies I saw - She shows them; she remembers them very crisply for how long it's been.

...No. And there's context behind that oath, I agree that the oath was a terrible idea but it was a desperate gambit to keep him from literally dying of grief after his father died.

I was there, she says, referring to Alqualonde. I fought. I killed people. There's context for that too. We asked to borrow the ships. They said no. We asked for help building our own. They said no. We asked them to teach us how. They said no. They said if we had to stay in Valinor long enough we'd calm down and realize trying to leave--doubting the Valar--was folly.

Melkor had fomented hatred in the house of Finwe, murdered him, stirred up shit against humanity, and fled to the Outer Lands where he was no doubt resuming his prior misbehavior. We had to try to stop him.

We tried to steal the ships. Maybe it was a bad idea. But. We weren't going to hurt anyone. They saw us trying to steal the ships, they attacked us, we fought back, we were losing and dying, and then the Nolofinweans showed up, knew nothing except that we were fighting and dying, and intervened, and the Teleri died instead.

When they found out the whole story they decided it would have been better to leave us to die instead. This even though they were going to use the boats anyway, instead of giving them back to the surviving Teleri.

I hoped, I hoped there was some explanation, I didn't have any context - I told Fëanáro bits of it and he was so frightened - Nolofinwëans?

Feanaro's younger half-brother, Nolofinwe. Tried to get him disowned, once, mostly because of Melkor's lies.

- okay, that I almost positively averted - in yours Miriel must have died -

Yeah, and then Finwe decided to pressure her to come back before she was ready and remarried in a deal that meant she'd stay dead forever when she told him to fuck off.

...Finwë is a good king as kings go and really, really terrible at having a family.

Yeah, I noticed. Feanaro seems much better at it.

He'd almost have to be, but I'm glad.

One of his sons--the one I'm married to, actually--has reading problems so he invented him a better alphabet.

I write everything that doesn't need to be comprehensible to anyone other than myself or my sister in it, now. To remember him.

Tiny Fëanáro asserting that his children will all be good at things and if they aren't he will invent them things to be good at.

He's good at things! He is so good at things. He can talk to animals (he apologizes to bees) he's an amazing archer (she's pretty damn good, by now, from his tutelage, but he's so amazing) he made my ring (she shows her her ring).

Fëanáro must be so proud!

Yeah.

I'm pretty sure they're all dead now.

Mandos isn't gonna let him out - I don't know about the rest of them -

She relates the exact terms of the Doom. They're not coming back. Not unless I--I'm magic, you saw that when I was explaining Kilaiuossa, nobody's ever managed to, to resurrect anyone or get somewhere clearly not physically on the planet anymore like Valinor, but--we've got really good biological science now, if I figure out a cure for aging maybe someday--

(She doesn't think this is likely but she can't just give up on them)

I can't do anything like that - I thought I was going to die on the spot when the Valar sent me back because I'd ever tried science, I don't dare do it actually in my world -

What?

My world's inherently inimical to the concept of experimentation. Universe doesn't like being picked at. I was - I was a really good wizard and getting better all the time in Valinor, I invented so many things - I haven't cast a single spell since I got back because I don't know how to be sure it's not too scienceified, I don't even cast high school level cantrips anymore - subtle arts, my mind powers, those are more practice based, so I kept what I learned there but -

And they sent you back? Fuck the Valar. I mean, except Orome, probably, I liked him, but if he was down with sending you home fuck him too. Now I'm very glad I didn't meet any of the others, I mean, probably they wouldn't have done that considering I was metaphysically married to a prince, but.

They told me I'd be safe but I don't know if I've stayed alive this long because they protected me somehow that actually worked or because I've been very careful and the world only cares about science on its own turf.

Do you want to come to mine, if Milliways allows it? We totally have science, if you're a great wizard maybe you could help with the curing aging thing but even if you just wanted to fuck off to a cabin in the woods and never speak to anyone again no one should have to deal with that.

I want to but I'm worried Fëanáro's going to try to rescue me and get himself eaten and I have a stack of foreign language dictionaries in my apartment to distract him while I run to the interplanar studies department in the nearest university I don't know what will happen if I'm not where he expects me if he tries that -

You could leave him a note? And then maybe he could come to my world too, I bet he'd love to help rescue his alt and his alt's kids.

He would, but - it's already been years, a note's not going to stay in my apartment long enough - maybe if I could get an a-mail to someone and have them tell Emily, he might check Emily -

- he used to write stories in which he landed in my world and had adventures and one time he was in a bad mood and wrote one where at the end a dragon ate him it was by far the most realistic -

Okay.

Feanaro learning languages is so cute, and I say this as someone who only ever met the adult version.

Did he still invent the Quenya alphabet in your world - I got there before there was one and he'd never seen writing in his life and I had a few textbooks on me and he thought they were the most beautiful things in the world -

He did! Imliss and I were so impressed, meeting someone who had invented writing.

Olórin told me once that he had nice prophecies - that thousands of years in the future everyone still wrote in his alphabet...

Maybe. I don't know. Not as many thousands as it took for me to reincarnate.

Yeah. I think I can get my crystal ball without letting go of the door and I can a-mail my parents to tell them I'm going and Professor Winters to ask her to tell Emily. And to cancel all my appointments. Not sure I can reach the bookshelves from here - well, maybe I could knock them over and then I'd be able to see at least some of the books from the closet door, bring a few with.

If you were sure your world doesn't care about science done outside of it I could grab things, but I am in fact very sciency in my day to day life.

I'm not sure about that at all. It could have been all the Valar, Fëanáro might die instantly if he sets foot - I think I still have their slow-aging thing that they gave me unless I'm just one of those people who keeps looking eighteen for the duration of their twenties - wouldn't risk it.

Yeah.

I got the slow aging, too, from Orome, but I'm pretty sure it didn't stick when I died and came back.

I - don't remember all the spells I invented in detail but I should be able to retrace my steps once I can - had some healing spells, wasn't prioritizing anti-aging but I can probably get somewhere on it before you die - my world doesn't have it but my world's fumbling around compared to experiment-aided development, it's amazing we have as much as we do -

Yeah, if you can't do science it's pretty impressive you've got the infrastructure you've implied.

We can do observational research. We can get value out of practice effects. Occasionally one of the unfairly powerful things is in a good mood.

Yeah, not miraculous or anything, just impressive.

I think it helps that there's lots of people, lots of kinds of people, lots of ways of thinking that get different results in aggregate without being too systematic to suit the world.

That does make sense.

It's not a bad standard of living in developed countries these days, if you're not too ambitious - or if your ambitions involve hitting things with swords, that also works for a lot of people - if I'd never fallen into Valinor I could have lived out my life there and it wouldn't have been great but it would have been okay.

But you did, and you--outgrew that.

Yep, and had to shove myself back into my box on no notice - they didn't even let me pack - I would've gone quietly if they'd just sent me to the Outer Lands -

Obviously when you die you can't take anything with you but at least I get dreamshaping replicas of my stuff since I mostly got my past life back in dreams and, like, science.

How does dreamshaping work?

In my original world when you have really intense dreams sometimes you get involuntary sympathetic reactions--like, if you're having a really intense nightmare that takes place in a swamp, your bed might start dripping swamp ooze--and with training you can learn to do something similar voluntarily. That's a massive oversimplification--she plays the memory of miscellaneous Feanorians interrogating her over her magic system.

Can you already lucid dream?

I wish.

Does it not interact right or do you just not know how?

I wasn't aware it was a thing you could learn, I thought it just--happened or didn't?

It's learnable, at least on my world, it's easier for subtle artists but other people can pick it up - Fëanáro wanted to learn but he doesn't sleep enough to practice -

I sleep plenty, it's important when your magic is dream-based. How do you do it?

You develop a really strong habit of checking things that dreams don't do reliably - like text, or checking clocks - to the point where you also check them when you're dreaming, and then if you notice a discrepancy asleep you can notice you can pivot into lucidity from there, although sometimes at first you just wake up instead.

I usually wake up when I notice I'm dreaming, she agrees. It's happened a few times.

Takes practice. If this seems like a really high-return possibility I can put people to sleep by subtle arts.

Being able to control my dreams would be pretty big, yeah. If I could have done that in Valinor we wouldn't have needed to steal the ships because I could have made them after looking hard enough. I mean, maintaining them the whole way across would have been tricky, but not impossible.

Yeah, mine won't have to steal boats either, he can just teleport. I might be able to teach you wizardry, the Quendi learned it fine and some Maiar.

That would be really great.

...I might need a bit to decompress from how long I spent in my world before I'm any good to you there but I'll manage.

Don't worry about it.

Oh, hey, if you've only ever met Feanaro as a kid you've never heard Macalaure sing! I should fix that!

Who's that?

His second-eldest son and the best singer ever.

I'd love to hear.

She grins, and the sound of music fills the room.

Bella grins and squirms with happiness. I miss Quendi singing so much but he's really head and shoulders above 'random passerby singing to themselves'.

I know, right?

Are your Valar still - Valaring around, because they can block wizardry when they want to -

I have no idea. Not so that anyone would have a clue what you were talking about if you mentioned them, but they might be a complication in, like, rescuing people from Mandos.

Yeah. I don't know if it's even conceptually possible for a wizard spell to beat a Vala if the Vala's not cooperating.

I mean, my plan was not so much direct confrontation as in, grab souls, out before he notices, reembody on Earth.

Earth?

Modern name for Arda, or at least the parts of it that aren't Valinor.

Oh. Well, that might work.

Hopefully, yeah.

I don't think we introduced ourselves. I'm Bella.

Idaia. Idaia Zavari Lessnerai.

Isabella Mariel Swan, Bella elaborates.

That is a surprisingly Earth-normal name. Zavari isn't a middle name, in Kilaiuossa you get two surnames, one from each parent, I hyphenate 'em now.

Huh. I wonder why. Maybe Pax has a lot of the same phonemes as whatever you speak there. - We're going to have to talk in Quenya or by subtle arts until I pick up the language.

Conveniently, I speak Quenya!

Mine's rusty but it'll do!

"I'll definitely speak Quenya to you, then," she says in same. "It's a beautiful language and it would be a shame to lose it."

"Well, Quendi designed it," says Bella, likewise. "So of course."

"My sister was so thrilled by Tirion," she says wistfully. "She loves beautiful things, she was so happy living among Quendi."

"Does dreamshaping let you fly, did you ever get to see it from the air?"

"Theoretically, but I never dreamed the right things. And then we sorta got exiled."

"From Tirion?"

"Yeah. Built a new city, called it Formenos, it was beautiful too. We--Tyelcormo and I--we had a house there."

"How'd you get exiled?"

"Melkor manipulated Feanaro into pulling a sword on Nolofinwe."

"Wait, what, why was Melkor around doing anything."

"Because the Valar are idiots."

"They let him out? And didn't - didn't even supervise him enough to make sure he wasn't -"

"He was being subtle, in their defense, I don't think they knew subtle was in his repertoire."

"No, I guess that wouldn't have been obvious, but still -"

"Yeah, no, when I heard about him and what he'd done and that he'd been let out my reaction was basically, 'um.'"

"Did you know Rúmil?"

"No. Imliss might have met him, she spent more time in Tirion-proper than I did, but if so she didn't mention him."

"He was a prisoner at Utumno - he went around blind, borrowing people's eyes by osanwë, till I could arcane-heal him, he wasn't sure of the Valar's reembodiment process, I don't know how long he'd have kept the scars without me there - he's one of Finwë's advisors and even before I got there he was sort of trying to make up for how desperately inadequate Fëanáro's parenting was -"

"Well, when I see Feanaro again I can ask about him."

"He's great. Maybe yours is even still alive, if you didn't notice him with everyone the Valar were mad at... if he stayed in Valinor..."

"If he stayed in Valinor it's probably not worth it to try to meet him."

"I wouldn't go to Valinor but - I could try talking to him -"

"If you can do that from not-in-Valinor it might well be worth a shot."

"I had these things you could put on your ear and use to talk to people in the Outer Lands, so people could talk to their friends and family there. I don't know that it's a good idea - your Rúmil won't know me - but he might be alive, he might be able to tell us more about what happened after you died -"

"Maybe. I don't know how much people in Valinor are informed about stuff happening not in Valinor."

"Yeah. It might just be - silly, sentiment, but it might be better than working only off what we can remember -"

"And there's nothing wrong with sentiment. Every now and then I find a modern singer who sounds a little like Macalaure, if nowhere near as good, and I end up buying every album they've put out."

Nod.

"I miss them so much."

"Fucking Valar. Fucking gods in general, I thought the Valar were different from the ones in my world and they're just - different but only better if everything goes their way all the time -"

"They cannot fucking conceive that Incarnates' lives and priorities and autonomy might be more important than their own fucking whims and desires--" she chokes out, tears welling again. "They--they let Melkor out and they Doomed us to fail in fighting him because we defended ourselves, fuck--"

"Do you want a hug?"

"That'd be nice."

Hug.

Hug.

"So what was in your prophecies of Feanaro behaving badly?" she asks after a while. "I don't know if I'll be able to supply any more context--but--if I can know a little more about what happened to them after I died--"

"I didn't get all that much - they were just trying to convince me it was a bad idea to speed him up - Valinor has a time sliding effect, it took me a Year to notice it, and then I asked them to except me from it and they said they couldn't and I moved to Tol Eressëa and invented a magic necklace that would do it and I made a bunch and they panicked and broke all of them except mine but they did let me share it with Fëanáro - anyway what I have is -" this -

"So he died so soon anyway and that stupid Oath was for nothing."

"I remember the ships burning. Couldn't see it myself, but someone let me borrow their eyes."

"Left Nolofinwe's half of the host stranded in Valinor. And my sister and I, by accident. We were supposed to be on the first set of ships."

"Nolofinwe's host decided to cross anyway. Over the Ice. Lots of people died. Including Imliss and I."

"He shouldn't have burned them. He gets so - so intense about things - he tries to do absolutely everything via sheer intellect and he's gappy on skills like emotional regulation but that's not an excuse I can just sort of see how -"

"He shouldn't have and I'm not just saying that because it hurt me personally. I just. Everything was so shitty, and I've--I've been in that place where everything's going wrong and it feels like the world is conspiring against you and you'll do anything at all to feel like you're capable of fighting back. I think when you're in that place people ought to stop you from doing things that regrettable but--it just--"

Nod.

"I'm so tired of losing everything."

"I hope I can help."

"I really hope so too."

"I'll open my door and telekinesis what I can out of my apartment."

"Thanks."

Bella opens her door.

She's got her crystal ball on a wheeled piece of furniture, and wielding a broom through the air she can bat the cart into view after fifteen minutes of trying and float the ball over; she composes the a-mails she wants to send.

She manages to knock her bookshelves over and pull across the books she can see where they spill into the hall, drag the shelves a little and prop them up just enough that she can see a few more. Swats the broom around in the bathroom a door down from her closet until the mirror shatters, sweeps out some shards, picks up a big one and uses it for an angle of sight on more books until she's got nearly all of them except the ones that went under the couch and she can't move the couch.

Sends the a-mails.

Retreats into the bar with her books and her crystal ball.

"Does your teekay have a weight limit such that I should be helping with those?"

"Yeah, it does, thanks."

She conjures a cart. "...Oh, hey, you saw the Oath, but--I don't think you saw the Silmarils, want to see the Silmarils?"

"Sure."

She can't generate any novel behavior from them but she can put what she saw on a loop.

"Oh wow."

"I know. I actually have three friends besides my sister who know--everything--Daphne's my college roommate and I spilled the beans after the third time I woke her up in the middle of the night leaking nightmares of the Helcaraxe, and she convinced me later to tell Gloria and Klaudia--and Gloria's a double art/art history major, beauty is one of the most important things to her, she almost swore retroactive fealty to Feanaro on the spot when I showed her them."

Bella giggles.

"Klaudia's actually the reason I don't expect you to be floundering horribly while getting started there and not speaking the language or having a legal identity, her dad has money and is vaguely incompetent at showing forms of affection other than spending it."

"I could also do the house in the woods thing. Tol Eressëa wasn't big on architecture, I don't think it'd take me that long to reconstruct my bungalow spell. But that'll be nice."

"That would probably also work, but I suspect stashing you in my dorm room for a couple of days and getting you an apartment in town will be more convenient."

"Suits me. I gather it's all humans and no subtle artists and I can't get around the language barrier that way?"

"Yeah, uh, and no one knows magic exists for some reason."

"...okay, your kind is a one-off, I assume, well, two, and I don't think you can do object magic the way Quendi do without osanwë, but not even the songs? Have you tried the magic songs, do they still actually work?"

"I've never bothered trying to sing one--it wasn't important in Valinor and any of 'em I can remember I can just play in the original singer's own voice."

"Does that not work?"

"It works, but it's possible the difference between Quendi voices and human voices does something?"

"Yeah, possible. I wasn't focusing on magic songs myself very much, I only remember snatches... but you live in a science world, you could just try it."

"Yeah."

She starts singing. It's pretty, but nothing happens.

"...and Bar says Milliways shouldn't be preventing it either."

"Then maybe it's not so implausible humans don't know about magic."

"Yeah, hard to know about it if there is none."

"Mhm."

"If I can teach humans from your world wizardry would it be a bad idea to publicize that?"

"Nah, I've been avoiding going public since I don't think mine's teachable so it'd be a whole lot of unwanted attention for nothing but I think that's a great idea."

"...unless the Valar get pissy about it."

"That'd be rich, seeing as how they've utterly neglected to do, like, anything outside of Valinor for at least several millenia."

"Would you put it past them?"

"Mm, morally, no, but...I really didn't get the impression they gave that much of a fuck about non-elves or shit going down outside of Valinor, so shit going down among non-elves outside of Valinor probably wouldn't get noticed."

"They could have sent me to the Outer Lands," mutters Bella.

"Should've. I don't know what they were thinking."

"...well, it's possible that I could've talked them down to that and they just panicked when Fëanáro ran into the room hollering that they were all Melkor's brothers and horrible, he'd followed me to Taniquetil."

"The Valar making terrible life choices around Feanaro does seem to be a thing."

"I should have actually said instead of just thinking that if they didn't like his fate they shouldn't have done anything to restrain the behavior of a well-intentioned person with free will. They wouldn't have listened but I wouldn't have to wonder if they might've."

"And considering what they actually did it probably couldn't've hurt much in the long run."

"Yeah."

"The Valar told us we couldn't win against Melkor but as far as I know Orome was the only one who knew I existed and we never mentioned my magic to him so--we thought--I have no idea what happened but Melkor must have been stopped somehow but my family's got to be dead I have no idea how Arda turned into Earth."

"I never met Oromë except as part of the group. I met Aulë, first, but I didn't get much out of the meeting because I was fresh from my world and gods were universally terrifying, and Lórien, he seemed okay."

"I met Orome once individually. He slowed my aging and made it so I wouldn't have accidental children and it was obvious that he and Tyelcormo loved each other." She shows her the relevant memory.

"I wish I had a better sense of the internal dissent among the Ainur - they can't agree on everything, Mandos sent people back tampered with but I got permission to un-tamper them -"

She shudders. "My husband's bisexual, it didn't come up before the wedding--it didn't come up at all until Tirion, when someone stopped me in the street--" she sends the memory "he said most people would feel betrayed for not having been told beforehand, but that they'd forgive you it if you promised you'd grown out of it or had it corrected." She shudders.

"I didn't know how to un-correct it. Illegal in my province to do that with subtle arts and I didn't know enough to reconstruct it for the reverse procedure - and no one asked me to - But I could take the fuzz off the memories."

"Well that's--better than nothing. But."

"Yeah. ...So I gave a really passive-aggressive lecture on therapeutic ethics. I don't think it helped. Just agitated people. Mandos didn't care."

"Somehow I'm not surprised. It was Mandos who delivered the Doom."

"Ugh."

"Fucking Valar."

"Fucking Valar."

"I did like Orome. But that's not--worth it."

"They must just - value the appearance of consensus really highly, I think."

"They're not--people, or at least not the way we're people, they don't have human psychology--I mean, Quendi psychology isn't exactly like human psychology, but the Valar are something else entirely."

"Yeah. Some of the Maiar are pretty peopley. Olórin was always nice to me. Helped me do wizardry research. Kept hoping something would explode."

"A reasonable desire."

"Alas, never came up. I wasn't researching combat spells."

"There are things that explode that aren't intended for combat! Engineering involves a surprising amount of them, my sister's studying engineering."

"Oh - in your Valinor did they eventually invent glass and wheels as well as writing -"

"Yes. But they hadn't invented all the glassworking techniques I was aware of from Kilaiuossa, so--did you know spouses usually make each other rings--I showed you the one he made me, I made one out of glass with flameworking--" she shows her the memory.

"Aww! When I showed up it was so bright and I asked about tinted glasses and I was trundled off to Mahtan's and he invented glass from my descriptions with Aulë's help right then and a while later I woke up and realized I hadn't seen any wheels and I explained wheels."

"Oh, cool. Sunglasses weren't so much a thing in Kilaiuossa or I might've thought of it."

"They're handy. You just squinted a lot?"

"Yeah, and I was kind of distracted."

"Distracted?"

"By Tyelcormo. We didn't land in Tirion, we landed in the middle of nowhere, he found us pretty promptly."

"Awwwww."

"We got to comparing species differences and he said we could test strength with arm-wrestling except that he was exceptionally good at that and I said it was just as well since I'd fight dirty anyway and he said he had six brothers and doubted I could pull anything they hadn't and I said that if his experience with cheating came from brothers then of course I could and he asked if that was a challenge and I said yes and we started arm-wrestling and I kissed him."

"...Well, that's. Forward."

"Well, yeah, but he kissed back and I was pretty sure he would, so."

"The Elves pretty much thought I was jailbait. They were willing to treat me as an adult most ways but I didn't have any occasion to push it on whether I was old enough to kiss people."

"I'm pretty sure it helped that I didn't realize how much shorter Kilaiuossa's years were than Valinor's when I said I was fifty-three."

"Ah, yeah, that'd do it, I was just shy of nineteen in my world's years."

"Imliss figured out that Valinor's years were longer, did the math on how much, then promptly burned the paper and promised herself not to let it get out how young we were."

"That's one way of handling it. Fëanáro was annoyed that he was older than me and didn't get treated as an adult."

"Well, that was less of a problem for ours."

"Yeah. May have been exacerbated in mine compared to yours when he was a kid because I was around for comparison and I noticed the time slide."

"Yeah, that seems like it would do it."

"He was very convinced that the problem was that he was not tall enough and not that he did not come across as particularly mature. I gave him stilts. It was adorable."

"Awwwwww."

"I noticed the time slide when his birthday snuck up on me and I finally did the math and did not have a decade's worth of work under my belt. His birthday present was a bouncing spell and he used it constantly -" Tiny Fëanáro, bounding roof to roof through downtown Tirion - "Then we learned to fly -" Tiny Fëanáro swooping down to receive snacks in the square like a seagull.

"Awwww. Aw. Aw. Aw. That's cuter than the statues, I didn't know that was possible!"

"Statues?"

"Nerdanel made statues of all her and Feanaro's children when they were little. They were incredibly lifelike."

"Awwww."

"So very aw." Memories!

"Nerdanel's adorable. Fëanáro was jealous that her father apprenticed her before him."

"Of course he was."

"And he had me ask Mahtan what criteria he was looking for there and I translated it into Fëanáro-comprehensible instructions and he didn't do half bad with them, got signed on, I don't know if it was earlier for mine than yours."

"I don't know. I didn't ask much about that kind of thing."

"Yeah, wouldn't have expected it to come up."

"Naively I'd guess so, though."

"I do like to think I helped."

"If you hadn't been helping the Valar wouldn't have kicked you out."

"I mean, I give them enough credit that I think they'd have also expelled me if I were a serial killer, so that's not totally guaranteed, but yes, thanks."

"I think if you were a serial killer that would be a bit less ambiguous."

"Yeah."

"Frankly even if I thought you were a serial killer I might still let you into my universe, as long as I was also confident you were going to fix aging. I seriously doubt you'd kill as many people as the slow degradation of our own bodies."

"...I mean, you are right on the math but if I met a serial killer here I'd probably try to extract their useful magic without having to let them into my world."

"Well, yeah, I did say 'might'."

"Fair enough. I was always used to some people being unaging and some people not, it's like that in my world too."

"Dreamshaping was the only magic there was in Kilaiuossa, and if it's possible to use that to fix aging it took more than a natural human lifespan to get to it, and then there was Valinor, and then..."

"Yeah."

"I don't miss Valinor, exactly. But I miss the possibility of being not-in-Valinor in less terrible ways."

"I miss Valinor. I loved Valinor. Substantial parts of Valinor loved me back. But I loved it the way you love something you want to nurture, not like it was already literally perfect."

"I didn't have the patience for that," she says wryly. "And I'm pretty sure I never got to see it at its best."

"It was - it turned out not to be really safe, but before I was there I didn't even really know what being safe would feel like."

"So far every time I've ever thought I was safe something horrible decided to prove me wrong."

Nod.

"I hope your Feanaro finds us."

"Yeah. Me too. Maybe he'll be able to target me instead of the place, and won't even land in my world at all."

"That'd be nice."

"I miss him. And Rúmil. And everybody else but mostly them."

"They're not dead. We're getting you out of that place. You'll see them again."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"- I'm going to grab my purse," Bella says. "And spend all my Imperium currency getting stuff from Bar, whatever would be handy to have in your world. She can't sell magic stuff, though."

"Oh, that's a good idea."

Bella opens her door again. Her purse is hanging off the doorknob that lets out into the apartment complex hall; she can float it over easily. "I don't have that much, but what would be good to bring?"

"Good question. Things coming immediately to mind are like toiletries and food and things."

"I was thinking more things that would be hard to get in your world."

"Yeah, makes sense. Fake documents?"

"What kinds will I need?"

"Unless you know how to drive, a driver's license probably isn't the best idea, but I can teach you. Um, passport, birth certificate...I'm assuming Bar can't get you a valid Social Security number..."

Technically, none of these things will be valid or appear in corresponding records. I can exceed the threshold at which most bureaucracies will assume the problem is on their end, but it may be unwise to do this with multiple documents for a single person.

"Hmm, true. Do you know if there's anything on that list besides the birth certificate that she'd need in order to make it look like she was a perfectly valid citizen with, like, crazy religious conservative parents or something?"

It is technically possible to be a valid citizen with no documentation at all, merely difficult to prove that this juxtaposition is in place. Birth certificates are relatively harder to check up on than anything with a central issuing authority, and my recommendation is one of those and an expired passport to be "replaced".

"That sounds good to me. Bella?"

"You'd know better than I would. As best as I can follow the conversation, sounds good."

Where would you like to have been born? Do you want to translate or transliterate your surname?

"No idea where I should have been born. Uh, but I would like to be age of legal majority only just barely. Translate it."

"Oh, huh, I heard your surname as a word in my language, d'you think you can pronounce it like a name instead of a word?"

"I'm not sure, depends on how this translation effect works. Swan? Swan?"

"I heard the word the first time and something different the second time."

"Well, the second one is technically my name, but I'll just use the bird. Where should I be from?"

"Probably somewhere in the south of the country, if we're saying your parents were crazy religious conservatives and that's why you don't have any other documentation or vaccines or anything."

"Vaccines. Wow, okay."

"Science!"

"More science than Valinor, even! Okay, where's a good south-y place?"

"The most stereotypical places off the top of my head are Alabama or Texas, but we'd have to pick a town--oh, and I should teach you the basics of the religion, at least, for your cover story."

"I can't just paraphrase Khersian stuff?"

"I don't know enough Khersian stuff to answer that question."

"I can pretend to be a specific religious background if it'll be more plausible."

"Ah. Yeah, the places I was talking about are stereotypical for having crazy conservatives from one religion specifically, but pretending your parents were from some kind of obscure cult no one's heard of would also work. Makes geography less relevant, though."

"It'll be easier to avoid verifiable mistakes on the obscure cult theology."

"Yep."

"So if that unconstrains my geography where should I be from?"

"Somewhere fairly far away from California where I am. Kansas, maybe."

"Okay. Bar, can you pick me a place in Kansas?"

Bar picks her a place in Kansas. Now Bella has a prettily embossed certificate and a beat-up old passport with a picture of her at age nine cribbed from the local newspaper of her hometown, just recently expired.

"Perfect."

"I've got a little left over. If vaccines are real I'm tempted to name absurd science fantasy stuff but Bar cannot sell anything as big as a spaceship..."

"We have spaceships but they're still insanely expensive."

"Yeah, I don't have that much money on me. What else is hard to get and useful in your world?"

"Hmm...nothing's coming immediately to mind, but that doesn't mean much. Bar? Any recommendations?"

In this price range, very little. Possibly actual vaccinations.

"...I wouldn't know how to administer one if you gave us a syringe."

You can go around the corner to the infirmary.

"And there'd be someone there who would?"

Of course; it's always staffed with someone who has all the expertise necessary for the duration of their shift.

"Cool!"

So Bella plunks down some cash for a course of vaccines and goes around the corner and comes back with a band-aid on her arm.

"Science: It works, bitches."

"Actually the infirmary guy said that the course he was giving me was alchemized so that they could be given all at once and a science-based vaccine would have to be staggered out."

She bursts out laughing.

"What?"

"Just the irony!"

"A bit, yes."

"...You know what would have been hard to get in my world? Anything from Valinor."

"Most of the objects I really miss from Valinor Bar wouldn't be able to conjure. Miriel gave me a tapestry - I can make my own better pair of boots over again once I dare cast spells - I have a little left, is there something you -?"

"If you read my mind and show Bar what exactly they looked like can she make exact replicas of our wedding rings?"

I'm somewhat limited in my customization ability but I have a large inventory to search and may be able to get very close.

"If it's not the same, then never mind," she shrugs.

I do apologize.

"Not your fault, don't worry about it."

"How'd you customize my forgeries?"

An extension of the napkin ability.

"Cool."

Thank you.

"Oh, I know what I need," Bella says, "I need scroll supplies, once you know some basics you can get a little more slapdash in how you learn spells especially since I can transmit them by arts but to start out you'll want scrolls to look at."

And she purchases a scribing kit.

"Do you need special ink for that or something?"

"It doesn't have to be that special but it does have to be really high quality and this is a good price for a scroll kit."

"Oh, good."

"...and with my remaining one silver and four copper, uh, are these going to be worth anything to coin collectors or something in your world?"

"Probably not, they're not, like, actual historical coins or anything."

"Okay, then I want one of those spinachy cheese things from Tirion - how do you price things that are only ever given out for free -"

Unfortunately the answer is that I must price them by extrapolation from comparable goods; I cannot distribute them for free. But Bella gets a spinachy cheese thing.

"I remember those. Can I get one too, I do have some money on me."

Of course. Spinachy cheesy thing for Idaia. Tastes like Valinor.

She's going to cry some more.

Bella sniffles a little too. I learned to cook. Managed to get halfway decent at a couple things. Couldn't figure these out. Wrong kinds of cheese or something.

What kind of cheese is it? she asks Bar.