It is in fact extremely bright; it's Laurelin's peak and those of Tirion's citizens who sleep every day are sleeping. And those of Tirion's citizens who have trouble understanding that the Ages of Arda aren't about to run out, and who accordingly sleep perhaps twice a week, are up writing speeches and tea invitations and reading about chemistry.

No one saw him fall; Tirion's insomniacs are a minority. A few people do see him on the ground. "Are you all right?" someone says courteously; he might be a Maia who is trying physical forms for the first time or something because his is not a very good Elf but it's reasonably close.

"...Say it again in the common?" Kib asks, squinting a little through his fingers in the light.

And there aren't many of the Maiar who would try an Elf form before learning Quenya, but - Are you all right?

"ACK," exclaims Kib.

She bows slightly and goes and gets him some water, that sounded vaguely like a thirsty distressed noise? Maybe?

He blinks at the water. "I'm not thirsty I'm confused - do you not speak the common, am I on the Faraway or something? Why is it so damn bright? Were you talking in my head or do I have a concussion or what...?"

Are you all right? Do you want to come inside somewhere? It's hot out...

Believe me I am completely taken aback and displeased about discovering that anyone is telepathic!

Oh. Well. All people are telepathic. Have you not met people before?

I think I'm lost, really really lost. Is there a way to - make sure you only get what I want to say, or something -

You should keep thoughts private if you wouldn't want people hearing them.

I don't know how to do that because none of the people I have ever met before and there have been some were telepathic how do I do that please.

I've, ah, never taught it, I don't have kids - I expect someone's written it down, or we could ask people -

I'm not going to be able to read your language, I only know the common, but I would like to learn this skill immediately if at all possible.

So she walks across the street to someone who is lying out in the sunlight drawing and says 'do you know how to teach the osanwë distinction to this very confused man I have just met who either doesn't remember it or doesn't know it?" and the person who's been drawing in the sunlight comes over and explains.

Not things that are word-like, but emotions and mental images, yes.

Seem fine to me! Practice every day for a few months and it'll be a habit.

If I practice several times a day will it come faster? Shines and shades and shines and shades and shines and shades.

Yes, I'd expect so.

Thank you.

My pleasure. Um, what are you?

I'm a Noldo, we're the second house of the Eldar. Do most humans look like you?

Not... exactly like me, but I guess more like me than like you? Round ears and not so tall and so on?

Um, thanks. Where is Tirion.

She gestures expansively at the extremely white extremely bright glowing city around them. In the Blessed Realm.

...in Arda?

Do you happen to know the name for Arda, or the Blessed Realm, or Tirion, in any other languages?

Uh, I think it's the same in Telerin, and no one speaks any Valarin but it's not the same in Valarin.

They created the Blessed Realm, and know much of Eru's designs for the world, and might know how to send you back home if you'd like, or tell us if humans need something we wouldn't think of, like if you live off radiation or something you'll die here and we need to get you out of here right away.

...I don't think I live off radiation but I don't know what that is so maybe I do so very discreetly. Who's Eru?

Eru is the One, the creator of all in the universe, the creator of the Valar and of the Children as well.

Okay. Pointy tall religious nuts. (...shades. shades shades shades.) I may well want to go home.

All right. We can get you a horse and go petition the Valar?

A horse?

The Valar live on the sacred mountain.

I don't know how to actually ride a horse. I guess I could figure it out if it I had it as a pet but that seems like a rude thing to do with a borrowed horse.

I am sure there are people who'd be delighted to teach you to ride horses. You could also walk, it's a very pretty walk, but it's a rather long one.

...how long a walk?

Six months?

Three weeks.

What would I be supposed to do in the meantime while I was learning to ride the horse? I don't have any - anything, to bring to eat or change into on the way -

We can get you some clothes as soon as the shops open, and you can find food along the way.

I do not know how to forage and I don't have any money.

What's money? And you don't know - how? What do you mean you don't know how?

Kib follows them.

They walk into a plaza that is even more dazzling, to the point of actually being impossible to look at, and through there to an enormous stone building that'd be stunningly pretty if he were looking at it which he's not because everything is too bright. The interior of the building is less bright and lavishly decorated.

Oh good less brightness. That's so good.

...Kib bows uncertainly. Um, hello.

Kib sits. It's - uh, how good is this telepathy thing at, like, sounds, should I just say it out loud -

"Nelyafinwë Maitimo," he says aloud, gesturing at himself.

"Akibel Mowar," Kib says, gesturing likewise. "Kib for short -" I mean, Kib for short.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Kib," he says sincerely, projecting a translation as he goes. What kind of aid do you require?

I have no idea where I am except in terms of names for places and surrounding places that I have never heard of. Telepathy is scary and I landed here with nothing but what I'm wearing and I don't know how to ride a horse and if I try to walk for six months to talk to the whatever they were called about sending me home somehow I will probably find a way to walk off a cliff and die in that interval because I have the gross motor skills of a drunk toddler and I do not even know how I got here, the last thing I remember before everything was way way way too bright was that some kind of bizarre snake monster was chasing people through town and because aforementioned gross motor skills I was not well equipped to run away so that's a complete mystery and I'm not sure whether to be optimistic about ever seeing anybody I know again. Help.

I don't recognize any of this. And I hadn't heard of bizarre snake monsters causing such things either. And seeing my what?

That would be very nice of you.

Done. I can have someone take you out to find some clothes as soon as the shops open, or I can have them delivered to you if you'll give me measurements for the tailors.

I don't know my measurements off the top of my head and doubt we use the same units and did I mention I don't have any money on me and even if I did I assume we don't use the same currency - and those other people didn't know what money was -

I have never heard of it. Do explain.

...when you suggest that I could get clothes from a shop what would the proprietor of the shop or whoever made the clothes be getting out of that?

They'd have given you clothes when you needed clothes. And enhanced reputation, I suppose.

If I needed new clothes at home, I would go to a shop and I would exchange money for them. Money is a generic store of numericized value which can be traded for near-arbitrary goods and services so that people who sell clothes can then go on to purchase eggs or sofas or whatever strikes their fancy without needing whoever keeps the chickens or assembles the furniture to care about their welfare personally or consider the transaction good advertising in its own right.

That sounds like a very clever way to do things but it'd be hard to implement here because there's an assumption that giving your things away means that you want for nothing.

It'd be hard to make the reverse transition, too. But if random clothiers wish to randomly clothe me I have no reason to complain about that.

They will be happy to, particularly if I am sending you to be clothed.

Then I will not have to wear this outfit for the next learning-to-ride-a-horse period of time, hurray.

You can also in that manner acquire anything else that you need or would like to make your time here more pleasant or joyful or interesting or comfortable.

I don't have the faintest idea how long it takes to learn to ride a horse well enough to do it for three weeks. Especially if the would-be horse-rider has the gross motor skills of a drunk toddler. This seems like it might be relevant to how much stuff I need.

It might take you a few months of regular riding lessons, he agrees. Having seen a lot of drunk toddlers, and taking you at face value on that.

About four times of five I can walk an entire well-paved block without tripping, if no one jostles me and I don't try to accelerate past "sedate".

That is very worrying. Hmm. I could also send someone to Taniquetil and petition that the Valar come here.

If they are portable and this is the sort of thing they can be induced to port over, that would certainly save me some trouble.

They can definitely go wherever they like. One doesn't usually summon them on errands but this seems like a good reason.

I've toyed with the idea of making myself a scooter or something but the six month hike probably is not all suited for rolling along.

We could send you in a wagon, if you'd like that.

'Like' is a strong word, but it'd be safe, at least.

No options leave you in any danger, just inconvenienced. This is the Blessed Realm. No one has died in living memory. A bit of a smile.

Well, that's very nice for you, and I mean that, but since I'm apparently a separate species and did not abruptly un-have my nosebleed when I landed I'm inclined to continue to expect myself to be very much mortal.

Alright. I was not clear what dangers you were fearing; I suppose I cannot promise you safety from falling over your own two feet. Do songs for grace help?

...This may be a thing we do not have where I'm from, assuming they could help more than by being generally encouraging or something.

They can definitely help more than that! If you are good at them you can do all kinds of dramatic magic.

We don't have music that does magic! At all!

Then I do not think you are from the Outer Lands.

Apparently!

Learning songs may not be much faster than learning to ride a horse, though I'm guessing for someone with the coordination of a drunk toddler and the singing skill of a normal person it'll be somewhat faster.

I have not extensively sought review of my singing skill but have no reason to believe it exceptional.

I can sing something for sure feet? It's meant for running through trees but I can't think why it wouldn't work for running on the ground. And the palace is currently empty so we can race about the hallways without causing anyone annoyance.

That would be an interesting experiment.

He stands up. Very gracefully. Now? Are you tired or anything?

Won't be for a few hours, it was coming up on sunset but it's winter. There.

We don't have winter in Tirion, I think there are places in the north that do. He walks into the hallway.

Follow follow. Is this place equatorial?

The word's not coming through as familiar.

Near the middle east-west band of the planet?

It is, yes.

Makes sense then.

Why would that have anything to do with it?

Something about the angle of the sun, I forget, I didn't stick long with general education and it's unrelated to my apprenticeship. I could reconstruct the reasoning if you want probably.

What's the sun?

...Big bright hot thing in the sky? Rises east, sets west?

In the sky?

That is where the sun, yes, do you not have one, what else could possibly be making it so stupidly bright outside but an extra-large sun.

The Trees. They're not in the sky.

To make the world bright? It's Laurelin's peak right now, she isn't always this bright.

Great, maybe next time I go out I'll be able to see.

Some people who dislike the light wear big hats, or dark glasses.

I would love some dark glasses. But why do you have shiny trees. Why are the trees shiny. Why are your shiny things trees.

The Valar tried lighting the world with lamps, first, but the Enemy knocked them over. Trees are hard to knock over.

The who?

The Valar are the powers who are going to help you return home if you so desire. The Enemy was one of them who'd turned to evil.

The Enemy was the one who hadn't been mentioned before. Seems like an inconvenient problem to have if they're as generally powerful as they sound.

The war between them nearly crumbled a continent, and lasted for a hundred years - though I don't know if our years are the same as yours, come to think of it.

I don't see how they could be, ours are based on the sun. They're three hundred ten days and a day is twenty four hours and an hour is sixty minutes and a minute is sixty seconds and a second is about how long it takes to say my full name.

At a guess our years are longer than yours. I am not sure how much longer.

For that matter, how long are your weeks?

Six days, and days are not subdivided beyond 'Mingling, morning, midday, evening, Mingling, late evening, night, early morning, Mingling'.

Our weeks are ten days and we have reasonably precise timekeeping within there. What's Mingling?

There are two Trees. When they're both active that's the Mingling; they cycle.

Ah. Of course. What natural behavior this is for trees. How could I not have guessed.

They're not natural, the Valar built them.

That would be why I couldn't guess, then.

I take it the creators of the world are not active where you're from.

To the point where there is substantial disagreement on all of their traits up to and including reality.

We manage substantial disagreement with them standing right in front of us, he says, so that does not surprise me. Want to try running down the hallway while I sing?

I may out of habit start with a brisk walk but yes.

He starts singing. He has a rather stunning voice, and it carries, and the hallway's well-designed for it.

He can briskly walk! Were he an Elda he could be racing through the treetops.

He laughs, and speeds up, and finally breaks into a jog and then a run.

Magic songs are great, aren't they? You should hear someone with a talent for it.

...What, you don't have one? I revise my estimate of the exceptionality of my voice.

I have no discernable talents except for being likable and solving problems competently. We are a people of talents and everyone was very disappointed in me. Now my little brother, he can sing.

Well, if you ever feel like having people compliment you on your voice and not be disappointed at all have the Valar send you where I come from, I guess. I think you sound spectacular. Also look at how I'm not falling over, that's also very impressive.

You don't have to have the voice of an Ainu to make the magic work, no. I'm glad it works for you! So I can teach you the song and then you can sing it as you go if you need to move carefully.

Cool. I don't know how to read sheet music in the first place so the fact that you undoubtedly have different notation won't in its own right slow me down, although learning the lyrics by rote will be difficult.

I assume they are written down somewhere and I can have that somewhere copied for you, or if you teach me your alphabet I can write it out in that. I'll tell the royal libraries to get us a copy of that and to look for precedent in snake-monsters, though I'm not optimistic on the latter front. I wonder if you could get some of the benefits just by humming it as you go?

What, nobody tested that? Presumably people who start out more graceful than me can go fast enough with the song that they'd have to worry about swallowing a bug or something and might want to consider humming if it does work.

No, they have, and the answer is it works sometimes, generally diminished, depending on the talent of the singer and possibly their experience with the particular song. So I just don't know if you will be able to do it.

Ah. Well, I think I'm about average for my world and on my world you could draw crowds, I might not be able to get it to work at all, but I would certainly like to try. If it works without lyrics maybe it could go in a hurdy-gurdy and an automaton could play it for me all the time.

Sorry, what?

Do you not have hurdy-gurdies? They're cylinders with little - He attempts to send a mental image. Pick things arranged on them, and you set them next to a series of differently tuned pick-able musical pokey bits, and then the cylinder turns and as long as it does it at a constant rate it'll play the song on it in a loop.

We do not have that. I will suggest it to someone as something to attempt.

I don't know how to make hurdy-gurdies but I could probably figure it out given materials and tools and whatnot and maybe somebody with good ears to tune it, I was learning metalwork on the side.

He looks at Kib with considerable delight, at that. Oh, excellent. Metalwork and tools and people with good ears should all be plentiful. 'on the side' of what?

My main apprenticeship is servantmaking but I'm focusing on golems and you need to actually, you know, make, those, and I picked metal as my medium, I get along decently with the smith.

Servantmaking?

Golems and automata and shines and -? Do you not have this here?

We do not.

Kib looks around for a patch of light or a little shadow or something.

The light is streaming in through the ceiling pretty evenly, but there are definitely shadows.

It's really not hard, but if you don't have it here you might not be able to. Kib makes another one from the same source shadow, thoughtfully, and has them both scoot up onto his hand from the floor and wind up on his face. Should've thought of this before. Dark glasses. Since it's tolerable indoors he hides them in his hair. The thing you really ought to have noticed if people can do it is the version with animals.

What's that?

It's not as comprehensive as puppeting shines, which is good because then to get anywhere with a pet you'd need to know how to fly or walk on four legs or whatever and they're more complicated than mechanicals, they just take verbal instructions after a while of being imprinted on their servantmaker. I mentioned this earlier when those other people were talking about horses, I could probably ride a horse I could give instructions to but it would be rude to make a pet out of a borrowed horse.

Oh, I do have a brother who can talk to animals.

Okay, so maybe you can learn servantmaking. Do you want to try making a shade like I just did?

I'd love to. How does it go?

He can't. He pulls on it just so, and sends the mental impression, but nothing happens.

So maybe something else is going on with your guy who talks to animals.

He certainly hasn't been able to teach anyone else the trick of it, not even my father who can generally learn anything.

So maybe he can servantmake and he's the only one, but all humans can if they try it... for some reason.

We could try him on the shadows. I do not know how urgently you desire to get yourself returned home.

I mean, people will be worried about me, but they will be worried because I got eaten by a bizarre snake monster in the middle of the street, not because I'm urgently needed for anything in particular. It only makes a small difference if I'm back in two weeks or twenty and this is interesting.

Alright. In that case once I've conveyed a request for the grace song to be copied for me we can go find my brother and see if he's our world's only shadowmaker, which would be very interesting. What all can you do with them?

Shades - and shines, which are the same principle but spots of light and are more popular because you can get them in colors - get used a lot in theater and art, and you can also program them to do things without being constantly puppeted and then you can use them to send long-distance messages or keep time and stuff. They're not my focus, I just made one as an example because golems require parts and are really time consuming.

It's useful and I can see how it'd be very pretty. Tyelcormo - my brother - is awake if you'd like to go talk with him, but it's hardly urgent if you'd rather go rest and get acclimated.

Haven't established where I'll be resting.

There is a guest room here for you! I sent Capuraldë to check and she confirmed it should be no trouble.

Oh, well, that's convenient. I don't need to crash right now, if your brother isn't a long way away now seems like a fine time to check his shademaking ability.

I shall tell him to walk in our direction and then he won't be a long way away. He gestures down the palace hallways and then sets off.

Follow follow.

He pauses at the door. Have your shades for back outside? Tirion is a very glittery city. We may have gotten a little carried away, building it.

Kib puts his shades on. It looks like the shadows that would be cast by tinted glasses, only without any glasses.

And they go outside. There are still very few people on the streets of Tirion. The ones that there are scramble to a respectful sort of attention. Maitimo picks a boulevard and walks down it.

So what's a brother, anyway?

...and those are?

The people who bear and raise you.

Apparently! I am also confused. Among every species that I have heard of, an adult male and an adult female having intimate relations can result in the female getting pregnant, and then some time later having children. Is that not a thing your species can do?

...Animals do that, if I remember right. Humans don't.

Ah. Do humans awaken as adults? The first Elves did that, but we've had children ever since.

No - that'd be a lot more convenient, but no, we appear as babies.

...where? And how?

Just sort of around. It's really hard to actually catch a baby as it appears without camping out at a good spot for months on end, generally one has to find them later on, but they can be most anywhere sort of tucked away. Somebody anonymously invented a kind of golem that goes and listens for crying and brings the babies back to the nearest creche, that's done wonders for population stability now that it's not all hikers stumbling over infants tucked into hollow logs or whatever.

That is the most horrifying thing I've ever heard.

I mean, I'm kind of grossed out by the idea of babies being caused by sex in sapient creatures, but I'm trying to be open-minded here.

Our way, no child is brought into the world unless there are two people who wanted it to exist and who want to raise it, and none of them slowly die of exposure and starvation alone in the woods.

I guess there are advantages to that system. We get kind of used to it being a fact of nature that sometimes babies die of exposure and starvation alone in the woods, we can't find them all - there do seem to be new stork golems occasionally, somebody's still churning them out in batches, we just don't know who.

In the Outer Lands we were used to the thought you'd be kidnapped and slowly tortured to death at some point, being used to it doesn't make it not horrifying.

...uh, you'd be what?

The Enemy I mentioned earlier? That's how he earned the title.

That would do it, yep. We don't have one of those.

We don't anymore, as soon as the Valar found out they intervened. But it's not an easy thing to forget.

Wouldn't think it would be.

I cannot describe how awful it would be if babies were born alone in the woods. It was not safe to be alone in the woods fully grown.

Our wilderness areas are safer, I guess? I don't go hiking much for obvious reasons but I'm pretty sure it's commoner to find a live baby than a dead one.

He shudders. Now that the Enemy's dead no one dies. I have never seen a dead person, let alone a dead abandoned baby, let alone - a whole world full of them - what if you want to have children? You go out and find one? Wouldn't they not be anything like you?

I can't think of any earthly reason I'd want a baby around. I don't think I could stand to have an apprentice younger than four and it'd have to be a precocious four. Some people like babies and take them off the hands of overloaded creches, but that's not common at all, usually it's creches up until the kid's ready to eat with utensils and not throw rocks indoors and learn something. Some kids don't even get apprenticed, they just stay in the creche until they feel like striking off on their own.

Children are reared collectively, not adopted, if they don't slowly die in the woods? None of you have any families? I mean, that one sounds like a cultural difference not an ongoing atrocity and I'm willing to be open-minded but - seems terribly lonely.

I found my creche way too crowded, honestly. Skipped out with the first servantmaking teacher who came by. People make friends! The well-organized creches make sure there's some adult responsible for giving any given kid individual attention!

Most of the time the two people who decide to make a child together quit most of their other work so that during her childhood they can devote their full energy to raising and tutoring and loving and caring for her.

Well, that sounds really laborious.

If one were the sort of person who found it so, they wouldn't have children.

I guess. Creches have perpetual problems getting enough people to work at them, the staff are usually really dedicated but most people have other things they want to be doing with their lives...

I certainly don't think anyone would want child-raising to be the thing they do with their lives. But a thing you do, if you've decided to do it at all, wholeheartedly for the short time the child is young and can benefit from devoted attention.

Well, like switching from money to a communalist reputation economy, this would not be a readily accomplished transition on my world.

No, I think what I'm tempted to do about your world is bring the babies here but I don't know if the Valar'd agree or how many of them there are...

...what, and let my civilization die out?

No, of course not, send them off to go apprentice when they're ready just as you apparently do anyway.

Oh, you just want to supplant the creches or supplement them, gotcha. Although they'd wind up not speaking the language and stuff.

If one child could be prevented from starving to death or growing up parentless by the whole population of Tirion learning your language we'd all be fluent by the end of the month.

Children dying is really really bad!

Okay, but a ton of languages are spoken on my world; I know the one that's common to city-states in a certain region of the largest continent but there are dozens and dozens more. If the Valar can rescue all the babies as they appear I'm all for it but arranging that they're suitable to repatriate will be a complicated project.

Okay. What's the population of your world, are there estimates of how many babies awaken annually?

Hundred million give or take, and I don't have a formal estimate but say two thirds of babies are found these days and one percent of people are at any given time babies, so million and a half a year, worldwide, about.

How many of you are there?

About four hundred thousand in the whole world.

...yeah. Maybe you could take some of them but you cannot completely solve the problem like that. At least not on a parents-as-opposed-to-creche model.

Two-thirds of babies survive...

That's my estimate, I could easily be wrong - either direction.

He shudders. My father - the, ah, person who decided he wanted me to exist, and wanted to set some projects aside to make me feel loved as a small child - might be able to think of something.

Yeah?

He's not good at social problems but he's good at technical ones. Golems to save babies, except we don't have golems.

The storks do a good job. One of 'em found me.

...no, dead people continue to be dead, and frankly if I had to pick I'd much rather prioritize adults with friends and projects and communities over babies, can we import that trick?

Well, presumably you don't have nearly as many adult dead? I assume a third of them don't starve. But yes, we can ask the Valar if they can find your dead also.

Nnnnnno humans all die eventually. Did you not derive this from the "million and a half babies a year, about one percent of the population is babies" estimation.

I thought perhaps your world was very young; that would have described us, too, about two hundred Years after the awakening, adjusting for the sheer numbers in your world... you all die? Of what?

Old age, if nothing else, although I think disease gets more - used to anyway, we've got really good at quarantining and sanitation and vaccines and stuff last couple decades. For my estimate I was figuring everybody got a century but it's almost always less than that.

I am really wondering if your years are anything resembling ours. A century is not very much time, you'd barely reach adulthood.

...I'm eighteen.

Maybe your years are actually somehow longer than ours. A lot longer.

I don't remember how to make a shine clock or I'd do that. I guess I could still make one, it'd just be really imprecise because I don't have anything to go by for a standard of how long a second is. But I've been here for a couple hours, I will sleep for about eight, twenty-four is a day, and three hundred ten is a year.

Going off that your days can't possibly be longer than ours, and we have seventeen hundred in a year. Eighteen. Huh. I am almost two hundred of our years.

So you just get to adulthood and, what, stop?

I have never heard of people wearing out and dying before.

What about animals?

Animals don't wear out and die either. Maybe insects do, I wouldn't necessarily have noticed. In the Outer Lands animals die but that's because the Outer Lands are generally horrible. We don't wear out and die of age even there.

...how do you not have way too many animals, then?

We hunt some, and they don't have children if there wouldn't be enough food.

What nice restrained animals you have. Can't walk six blocks in my town without tripping over a stray cat that hasn't eaten in a week. I mean metaphorically, this isn't just because I am really bad at walking.

This is the Blessed Realm. If there were something that caused suffering or bothered people the Valar'd fix it. I - I so to very badly want to go to your world and also am worried that I'd realize I failed here to develop some necessary coping skills. Sitting on the ground feeding cats for a few centuries would be a very bad failure mode.

And our cats are not restrained, so eventually there would just be more cats. No, you should start a musical career and fund some suitably scalable project with the proceeds. Pay people to catch the cats and servantmakers to tell the cats to stop having kittens.

Do cats have to listen to servantmakers? Tyelcormo can talk to them but they don't actually have to obey him. And funding investigation into why you people die seems more important.

Yeah, I prefer humans to cats too. And I can't just order around random cats or I probably would, I'd have to hold one and pet it and probably get nastily scratched up in the process for twenty minutes, half an hour maybe, and then it would do what I said. Tyelcormo is your - brother?

He is! The same parents that made me, made him, and just like I assume in your world animals breed true on various traits, family members tend to be rather similar to each other.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to animal breeding. One of my co-prentices is mad about pets and I picked up what I know about animals from her mostly. And yes, one can breed animals for various characteristics, but it's deeply weird to think about that being foundational to how people interact with each other.

Oh, I think people'd interact the same with adopted children. In addition to shared blood you have shared upbringing, there's a cultural expectation that you'll be supportive of and there for each other. If I did something really wrong I might lose my friends but I wouldn't lose my family, generally. It works pretty well when it works.

...the advantage of there being a cap on social penalty for "doing something really wrong" is not obvious to me.

...do you think people should just - wander in exile hated by all and with no avenue to become productive members of society again? That doesn't seem very useful.

I mean, it depends on what they did, I'm not going to go harangue somebody visiting their spouse in jail for still loving them or whatever, but Designated People Who Are Going To Forgive You Because They Knew You As A Child seems - weird.

Not - forgive you, necessarily, just keep loving you. I can understand the principle that all social relationships should be strictly voluntary or something but I am very very glad to have a family.

Sounds like it suits you.

Tyelcormo meets them near the gates of Tirion. "Hullo," he says to Kib, and then, right, sorry, you won't have our language.

Indeed I have not. It sounds like the thing you do is not exactly like the thing servantmakers do, anyway.

I have never heard of servantmaking. The thing I can do is talk to animals.

Given a little while to imprint an animal on me I can make it so it'll do what I tell it to. It seems like people here can't do one of the easiest-to-try kinds of servantmaking but your thing sounded a little similar.

I could talk an animal into doing most anything but I'm not making it, just befriending it and persuading it. Though maybe it's the same thing and different approaches?

It doesn't sound like it, but I guess if you have an animal around you don't mind me making into a pet that won't savage me while I'm holding it you could see? I can also check if any animals you have around already count as pets.

Nothing should savage you while you hold it, unless you want to go dinosaur-taming - do you want to go dinosaur taming? If you could give dinosaurs orders that'd be amazing - and he holds out his arm and a bird lands on it.

When the bird steps onto his hand Kib draws it closer to him and starts petting it. Mandos is the holding area for the to-be-reembodied? Yeah we don't have that, if I die I'm just dead. Please do not arrange to risk my being savaged by dinosaurs if that is a likely outcome of trying to imprint them.

It is not likely but it is possible, Tyelcormo says. Maybe very small dinosaurs. Where do you go when you die?

Don't, as far as I know. More or less the same state as not having appeared yet.

Maybe not even small dinosaurs. That's fucked up.

I am aware. Pet pet. Nice soft bird.

So how'd you get here?

The answer you are looking for may be either 'I have no fucking clue' or 'a bizarre monster that looked like a snake with a full-length mirror for a face ate me and apparently that causes people to land in strange worlds'."

Ah! I was looking for the second answer, it's more exciting. Welcome to Tirion. How are you liking it? I can't stand the place personally.

It is way, way, too bright, which is why I put shades over my eyes. And apparently our species have mutually disturbing traits. But it seems pretty nice overall.

I've been considering tracking down the inventor of storks and seeing if they'll take help filling out the ranks. I understand why they'd do it anonymously but they could clearly use a little more servantmaker labor on the project. I'm not best suited to detective work but it might be doable.

Why would they do it anonymously?

Uh, control of where children go could get intensely political very fast. If you control storks and you don't like some city-state or some culture or some ideological minority, bam, suddenly you have dramatically more kids than they do, maybe they don't have any, you don't have to lift another finger, they're out of population in a few decades.

Well your world's a horror show isn't it. Huh. Okay. Too bad none of us can do servant-making. I take it we can't just personally raise the kids.

There's too many of them, even if you assume absolute convenience of transport. It would also be a major project to raise them in such a way that you could put them back in my civilization so it didn't collapse, but apparently you'd all be up for that, it's just the numbers that don't work.

Yeah, I mean, we're not letting kids die because it'd be an awful lot of work for that to never ever happen. Huh. Okay. Someone should ride out and get the Valar.

I think that is the plan.

I'll go. If you haven't sent someone already.

Kib does not know if someone has been sent already. (Pet bird. Pet pet.)

He'll miss the results of this bird experiment.

Oh, will that not be done today?

It'll be done in a few minutes, but he just ran off.

So we can tell him the result when you're done.

Oh, you're long-range telepathic. I guess that must be handy.

It is how I was ordering music copied and guest rooms made available and telling him to meet us at the gates in the first place. It's very useful.

Freaked me way out at first but maybe I'm not leaking any more?

I think I am mostly only hearing things you are directing at me. If you want I can learn the language and then you can just ask people not to listen to you.

Are languages really easy for your species or something, you make that sound really trivial.

We're the Noldor, linguistics is something of a national hobby and/or art form. I would enjoy learning your language and will need it eventually if I want to help fix everything awful in your world.

All right. I've never taught a language before. Where do you want to start?

The bird sits, the bird flies? The Elves wake? The human is confused? The confused human is awake? Enough to get your syntax, and then you can explain how verbs change and then we can do vocabulary.

I don't think Tyelcormo could do that. The bird flies around the building? The bird flies near the wall? The bird flies too fast?

"The bird flies around the building, the bird flies near the wall, the bird flies too fast. Sit on my shoulder," he adds to the bird, and the bird hops up.

And they definitely don't take orders from him in spoken language. "The confused bird flies around the building? The bird sit on my shoulder? The bird flies near the shoulder?"

"The confused bird flies around the building, yes, but, the bird sits on my shoulder, the bird flies to my shoulder."

"The bird sits on my shoulder, the bird sits on Kib shoulder, the bird sit on Tyelcormo shoulder..."

"Sits on Kib's shoulder, sits on Tyelcormo's shoulder."

"Sits on Maitimo's shoulder, sits on building's shoulder?"

"Buildings don't have shoulders."

"The shoulder sits on the building's bird?"

Kib bursts out laughing. "Shoulders don't sit and buildings don't have birds."

"Birds don't have buildings and Tyelcormo don't have shoulders?"

"Birds indeed do not have buildings! Tyelcormo has shoulders, though, I saw them."

"I saw birds fly around the buildings. I saw them fly around the buildings? I saw them fly?"

Kib confirms all these sentences.

"Kib and Maitimo fly around the palace?"

"We can't fly, we aren't birds. It would be nice if we could fly though. - Wait, can you fly? I can't fly."

"I can't fly. I can't -" I don't have the words for other means of transportation.

I don't know what other means of transportation you find yourself incapable of. Let me see if I can do the projecting a translation thing... "Swimming, walking, running, riding...?"

"Kib and Maitimo walking to the palace. I can swimming, I can running, I can riding."

"We're walking, Kib and Maitimo are walking. You can swim, you can run, you can ride; I can swim, I can't run, I can't ride."

By the time they reach the palace there are more people on the streets, mostly walking briskly or assembling vendor carts, and Maitimo has a slightly better command of the language. "My - you don't have a word - Atar is the Quenya - says this way to learn a language. Most people don't want to talk, they know they will say things wrong, so they are too quiet. My father says use all the words you have, guess, just keep talking, you learn faster."

"Seems reasonable. You're learning it really fast," Kib agrees. "Which of the family concepts is 'Atar'?"

Father.

"I'm sure there's a word in the common for that in use by animal breeders but I don't know it."

We would design a suited one rather than borrow, but for now we can borrow. "My father is the - is there a word in the common for the person in charge of a large land -"

"Governor?"

"My father's father is the governor of this land. Here, if your father is a governor then when he gets tired of being governor you will be governor. I am sure that is not how you do it."

"...That sounds like a really weird way to do things."

"I expect it would, yes. How do you do it?"

"Different places have different procedures but mostly everybody picks someone they think would do a good job, and then whoever has the most support gets to be in charge. Some places are ruled by whoever had the idea to go live there, and then they pick apprentices and the best apprentice gets to be next when they die? That's closer to your thing."

"That is very close to our thing, except that we do not die and so the governor can pass on power when he wants to and does not have to at all if he does not like his apprentices. And his apprentices are all his -" descendants.

"Yeah, I guess if you don't die having a limited apprentice pool isn't that big of a deal."

"And people think that personality is -" inherited"...if your father has it you are likely to also have it. I am not sure if this is accurate. I think I am very like my father but I might think that anyway."

"How would you know, if you're all also raised by your fathers?"

"Well, that is probably the reason that people have personalities like their fathers."

"Apprentices are both chosen and raised by their teachers so it's hard to say whether the similarities are learned or selected, but it's probably both."

"I wonder if apprentices are more like their teachers than children are like their fathers. That would be interesting."

"I would need to meet some fathers and their children to have a guess."

"I will introduce you to my father. He will be excited about the language. I have six brothers so you will also get to see how brothers are like each other."

"I will also need to meet more of your species so I know how much of it isn't just you being different from humans as a group."

"You can meet anyone you would like! What I was saying about being the governor before I got distracted by explaining families is that anything I say is the law unless the governor says otherwise, so if you are having problems settling in here you can let me know of them and they will stop being problems."

"That is more power than governors usually have at home."

"I assume if your governors had the same power that governors have here, everyone would not die."

"...that would require a different kind of power than the political kind of power where people do what you say. We can't just have somebody going 'you, stop that dying thing you're doing', it wouldn't work."

"If people were dying here I could focus all our resources on learning how and fixing it."

"For some reason it is actually not considered a very urgent problem by most humans. I mean, they're glad when any specific thing that kills people is addressed - it's good if you eradicate a specific disease or put up a guardrail along a cliff or invent storks - but old age, nobody's seriously working on, and there's not an obvious way to start."

"I would consider it an interesting problem and suggest we study lots of biology until we make sense of it, but it is too urgent to make a science project of and we should probably just ask the Valar."

"Good plan. If they can do it."

"It depends a lot on where your world is. But it would surprise me if there was nothing they could do. They are very powerful - not politically powerful."

"I'm not actually sure it makes sense to ask 'where' my world is, things are so different here, it seems like a parallel universe more than just another planet."