"That's why we're here. We were hoping this plane wouldn't have any gods at all."

"There's a lot of variance in technology and innate power, so whether there are gods here depends on what your exact definition is, but one can generally do whatever one likes without expecting anything like divine intervention. I was arrested by purely mortal authority. Who, I should mention, are mostly very good at being mortal authority, or I wouldn't be so keen to prompt prewarp civilizations to meet their entrance criteria."

"The Federation has a President," she says. "One typically doesn't overthrow those, one campaigns for and elects a different President. You've been here how long?"

"A few weeks, but Fëanáro's the only one who soaks up languages like a sponge and it took a while to figure out how to use the science ethernet, which unlike talking to people doesn't respond to subtle arts. People have been thinking I'm something called a Betazoid."

"You don't actually look Betazoid but they're pretty close to human, cosmetically, and the obvious guess if you display psi. I'm not sure Betazoids would do the thing you're doing where you talk but fill in the gaps, though."

"I'm trying to practice the language. This is the one it's important to know, right?"

"In the Federation yes, on Davlia no. I don't speak the languages here either, though."

"I'll learn them," he says. "Languages are beautiful, almost as beautiful as the whole concept of writing."

"Arda didn't have writing when I landed. I had college textbooks in my backpack and he thought they were the most beautiful things in the world."

"Writing's important!"

"Anyway, assuming the Davlians are okay with us being around - and we can psi at them, or at least the three of us can, as a stopgap - Fëanáro will be conversational in a day and fluent in a week and the rest of us can catch up."

"Wow. I do have psi but it's touch range, awkward to negotiate without preestablished communication."

"Quendi have osanwë, range is a few hundred miles."

"...That's really something, even Betazoids don't have that much range and they're basically the gold standard for psi around here."

"Well, you have to know someone well. I don't know if I'd count as knowing you well, since you're Bella but not my Bella."

"Nobody but my mother calls me Bella! It's Isabella, or T'Mir."

"Since you're sort of like someone I know, I might have a lot of range on you. Might not."

"Maybe we should find out before we know each other more individually, then."

"I don't have enough mana for another teleport, so let's try after I sleep."

"Is all this magic learnable?"

"Yes! Well, probably, I don't know if it'll turn out that everybody from every plane can learn it, but in principle yes."

"And on science fantasy planes we can test it and experiment and develop more of it."

"Science fantasy."

"My world doesn't allow science - experimenting systematically on things best case scenario gets the rules changed on you and more than likely gets you killed or worse if you don't stop. But we have fantasy stories about science working and how nice that would be, so I've been calling planes where science works 'science fantasy'."