What is ...old age?

Um, your species might not have it, but I'm a human, and we last about eighty, ninety years gradually wearing out and eventually die...

Oh no! That's terrible. You won't die in Valinor, nothing does, but we have to get the rest of your people here as quickly as possible!

...how?

How did you get here?

It was an accident. I was in the wrong building and someone was doing something magical I didn't get a good look at, and I tripped and fell into it and the next thing I knew I was in the palace.

Then we may have to rely on them to learn what they did and get the rest of your people here safely, she says, though I'll ask the Valar if there's anything that can be done. Anyway, I think it would be quite impossible to get yourself killed in this palace.

I don't think they're going to be able to figure out exactly what happened to me like that, let alone figure out how to do it just the same way a few billion times.

I'm very sorry. I hope the after-lives in your world are nice?

Some of them are supposed to be nice.

Okay. Would you like to see the city of Tirion?

Okay.

The city of Tirion would be very pretty if it weren't way, way too bright. It is laid out with wide circular avenues around a grand central square, packed with people, packed particularly with children. There are elaborate fountains everywhere. All of the buildings are in different kinds of obscure stone. Many of them are still unfinished. Her tour guide happily talks about the buildings and the people who live there as they walk.

Bella squints a lot and wishes she had sunglasses. But it's still really pretty and the walk's pretty relaxing.

Eventually they stop walking. This area of the city is more under construction, with wide empty spaces between homes. Would you like your house to be here?

I - my house?

You don't have one, right? Because you came here from another world?

I don't have one...

So would you like it to be here?

I'm missing some steps. Where exactly will a house come from? Will anyone mind if it's here?

Of course not, this space doesn't yet have a house in it, does it? You start sleeping here and you go around and find the kind of stone or wood or design you like and ask that person who designed theirs, and ask that person to design yours, and compliment them very specifically and usefully on their past designs and explain why you desire their aid as your designer. Then you help build other peoples' houses, and they help build yours once you have a design. The Valar make it go very quickly, and they've held the rains in the city until we are finished.

I see. That isn't how one gets houses built in my plane, so I was confused. Um. What exactly are the Valar?

They designed Valinor and ensure that it is utterly safe and peaceful and that no one comes to harm in it, unless they go seeking it out, and even then they are not harmed seriously or irrevocably. They love beautiful things and they love teaching us what they know of the world. They helped build the palace and they're helping build the city.

Okay, but... what... are they?

The creators of the world.