I think if we asked they would just suggest a place that was much less pretty. People here mostly don't care as much as you do about everything being pretty.

That's really good.

Yeah. It seems like it would be pretty hard if we did.

I mean probably then you would make things that you could live with. Or maybe you wouldn't have stopped having farms. Farms're plenty pretty if you're thoughtful about what you're planting. That's why I thought I'd earn a lot of money and then buy us one, I know how they work and they look nice.

We have farms, just, like, big ones with machines that feed lots more people than the little ones. We also have the little ones, but people mostly don't live purely off the food they grow on them.

Also, I admit that subsistence farming beats what I'm currently doing, but I don't think it's really, like, a super great way to live?

The people I have talked to who farm seem happy. It is probably not as fun as being a prince of the Noldor but one assumes that there is correspondingly less responsibility. And I am sad about it compared to being a prince of the Noldor but I think that might be because I miss my parents instead of because farming is a thing to be sad about in its own right.

I think - farming is really important for the kind of society where nobody can read, but this society doesn't really need independent subsistence farmers, and it's hard to feel good about spending all of your time doing something that other people don't really need you to do.

Lots of people do things other people don't need them to do. 

Sure! Just - not all the time.

I do want to help people but it's easier to imagine figuring out how on a farm than figuring out how here.

It seems very possible that we are imagining different things. But we'll see.

Nod.

I'm gonna read for a bit and then we're gonna have to go home. OK?

Yeah. Can I sing here?

Yeah. That's fine.

He walks cautiously forward and sings, louder than he was singing earlier. 

He looks very happy.

Adorable kidnapped probably-being-traumatized tiny child.

She reads for another hour and then lets him know that they have to go home.

Okay. 

What is this place?

It's a church. It's not my church. My church is... not this pretty.

What's a church?

It's a place where people come to pray and worship God.

Oh! I didn't know that. Can we ask God to help us out before we go?

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. 

He runs up to the front.

He stops when he gets halfway there because that's a weird piece of art at the front.

What's that?

It's a crucifix. A long time ago God became a human and died to save humanity from its sins. This is, uh, pretty important to people so sometimes they make art of it.