She has to pray for that long! If she doesn't she won't get spells! Wanda prays that long every morning! Other stick figures who get spells from gods also pray that long!

Wanda puts mint leaves in a teapot (vigger than the cups, with a short spigot), and some real tea leaves for herself in another. When it's done steeping they can pour it through this cloth strainer.

Oh, that's what the cloth is for!  Miriel had a metal tea ball at home, which she tries to sketch.

If praying that long is a normal way for people to get magic from the Valar... why?  Did they think the Three Prayers every year clearly weren't enough after how Numenor abandoned Eru, and so they made people pray that long every day?  Did they have a limited supply of magic and decide to give it to the people who were spending the longest in prayer?  She doesn't even try to communicate any of this, but the doubt's showing on her face.

Wanda's very sure this is how the world works but she has no idea why, or that it ever worked differently. 

If Miriel understood her, though, she might say: asking why the gods require an hour in prayer feels a bit like asking why they need clerics at all. Why not just do everything they want themselves, instead of giving people magic? There are many different answers, and some of them sound plausible but there are still many different answers going around.

All they know is, the world isn't how any one god would like it to be, and mortals have to do their part. And part of that is praying.

She can't say any of this with stick-figures, so she settles for pouring tea and serving snacks. 

It's good tea.  The mint's sharper than Miriel's had before.  Maybe it's the new air, or the walk, or not having the hopeless burden of leading Numenor, or having the loving presence of the Valar - but it's good tea.

Wanda will do her best to make Miriel feel at home, and if she wants a cosy spot to pray in Wanda will make sure she's not interrupted.

After finishing the tea, when Wanda gestures clearly indicating that she can pray now, Miriel hesitates.

Praying like she did on the seashore - that's one thing.  Praying for a whole hour, though, in here - why would anyone want to pray for that long?  At least, anyone who isn't literally her father endlessly repeating something that's never done any good?

And part of her wants to run to Pharazon and show him what the Valar have given her already, and tell him what their presence is like, and get him to change his ways and try praying too...

... But knowing Pharazon, that wouldn't work.  And she's not in Arda anymore.  She doesn't need to keep dancing around him.  At least not immediately.

If so many people here are praying for an hour... well, she can try it too.  At least once.

She stands, like at the Three Prayers.  It looks sort of silly indoors.  Against that feeling, she decides to start (in Sindarin) with some appropriate-sounding stanzas from the Song of the Sun and Moon.

"Ah! Arien great light that rules the day, before whom the creatures of darkness flee..."

Standing isn't objectively any sillier than kneeling, and lots of people do that. Praying out loud feels a bit weird, because Wanda often says private things to Pharasma, but no-one here can understand Miriel anyway.

Wanda will leave her to it. Maybe pray a little bit herself, asking Pharasma to guide the prayer of a new cleric to its intended target. This is part of how the world works and so kind of within Pharsma's remit, probably?

After some stanzas about the beauty of the sun (the Elves who wrote the Song can actually look at it; Miriel's taking that part on faith) and how it brings out rich new aspects of beauty in the whole world (she loves that!), Miriel gives up right after the Song starts talking about power and victory against Morgoth's servants.

She doesn't want war.  She didn't want it in Arda, where she was sure she and her father would lose if it lasted for any time.  She very much doesn't want it now, when she has no idea who would be fighting, and when she's just felt how the Valar love her and love everyone and want to help everyone...

... So she says that.  "And," she adds, "if there is going to be a war - there's always fighting somewhere in the colonies, at least - make it not so destructive.  And show me and Pharazon something good to do that isn't war...

"... and Pharazon, too.  I'm sure You know who he is.  Nudge him toward goodness, please - I don't see much in the histories of Your doing that very well - I don't know if You ever considered sending a different sort of messenger to Numenor? - but I know now that You want to..."

She continues like that a little before breaking into a song of the earliest days of the Numenorian expeditions to Middle-Earth, where they were helping teach the people there.

That is a valid prayer! She can sing or talk or think to herself, or she can dance or do any number of things. The important thing is that she's focusing on it and directing it correctly, and she is, she's praying so well, well done!

Sarenrae never wants war. Sometimes people She trusts tell her a war is necessary and then She doesn't try to stop it, but as far as She can see, it's just another name for organized mass hurting and killing of people. A name that people think is nicer than 'organized mass killing' (they're wrong), a name they think has a god behind it, but no more than that.

And there are always Good things to do instead. Showing mortals is hard, both innately and because there's a budget to work with, and Miriel isn't wrong that Sarenrae doesn't do it very well, but that's what She has mortal clerics for. She hopes Miriel will see and nurture the Good parts of Pharazon - they're the only parts of him that Sarenrae can see, and they are very definitely there. 

Her new cleric is Good and precious and beautiful and seen and loved and appreciated and so is everyone else, and She sends a little of Her feeling that that as Miriel prays. Not enough to overwhelm, only the lightest touch of the Sun shining on a mortal soul.

Miriel isn't asking for any particular spells so Sarenrae will give her two Comprehend Languages, and a Cure for the domain slot.

Miriel can feel Sarenrae's gentle warming gaze gradually settle on her as she prays. It's like what she felt at the seashore but less intense, because it has an hour to comfortably grow in, and it doesn't want to startle or distract her. It's a presence she can accept, a new direction she can mentally lean in as she prays.

And once an hour has passed, Miriel will abruptly realize she can perform two new pieces of magic. One heals at a touch, like the ability she already has, but this one works on any who are wounded and not only those at death's door. And the other will let her understand someone - at least for a little while.

Of course she's not asking for any particular magic!  She doesn't know what the Valar give out to people here, and she doesn't know what she might be wanting as soon as the next riders ride into town or something like that!  And she doesn't want to be begging like an impolite petitioner demanding something specific that she doesn't understand!

... well, all right, she could've asked for the one-way-translation spell.  But of course Arien realized she needed that.

Taken in that light, the healing spell might be ominous Foresight, but then people do get wounded every day even when there isn't any fighting.

She goes looking for Wanda to now actually talk with her some more - in the next room?  If not, then just outside?

Well if I gave you your other domain spell, you would definitely think it was ominous Foresight. 

I don't actually have ominous Foresight anymore, which is honestly pretty ominous all by itself, but healing people is always a good default. With time you'll learn to ask for other things if you want them!

Wanda is right here! She stayed close in case she had to tell people not to interrupt Miriel's (non-silent) prayers.

She holds out one hand toward Wanda and another up to her necklace and makes that mental motion!

"Arien gave me magic for hearing and understanding!"

Oh good that's a Comprehend Languages just like she used this morning! She's happy and  relieved that everything worked out and Sarenrae's new baby cleric is praying successfully, she heard some people fail their first time. 

(Wanda is of an age to be Miriel's mother, and  of herself as something like the community's godmother, being its midwife. She's always happy to see young people find their way in the world, although it's usually less dramatic than a cleric of Sarenrae fleeing Geb.)

"Wonderful! Then let me welcome you properly, to my home and to Fedele. The spell's time is limited - I really hope Pharasma will have a better one for me tomorrow - what would you like me to talk about?"

If Miriel doesn't have ready questions or can't make herself understood, Wanda is prepared to play Twenty Questions in reverse by suggesting topics until Miriel says 'yes' to something.

"Why 'limited time'* - or does Pharasma* have His reasons we don't know?"  She throws up her hands.  It's often futile to understand what the Valar do, but they interact with people so much here that she at least hopes enough to try.

"But - Andoran?  Tell me about Andoran?"

*She's repeating Wanda's Taldane words here, but (as Adunaic speakers could guess from the male pronoun) absolutely thinking of "Pharasma" as another name for Ulmo.

"Spells - don't last forever? I don't know why any spell lasts as long as it does and not less or more. Maybe wizards know, they say new spells can be invented." Wanda hasn't ever talked to a wizard about magic, but people pass through town and stay at the inn and wizards are always popular with children and so stories spread. "We clerics just get spells and use them, we don't - get told how the magic works. Except I guess very powerful clerics can ask their gods questions, so maybe they know? I'm not an expert on magic, I'm just a midwife." A very good one if she says so herself, but that doesn't mean understanding magic, just using it to cure people.

"Andoran is - I don't know what you want to know exactly, you didn't seem to know where we are on a map or recognize any other countries' names. Maybe that was because they're different in your tongue and you'll recognize them now, I don't know if that'll work" - she lists all the surrounding countries again. "Andoran is a good place with good people, a safe place for you to - find your way or learn things or whatever you need to do. We built it to be a good place, a good place to be Good in. There's no other country I'd rather live."

"...Maybe some people in other countries think the same about their country but I'm sure the ones in Cheliax and Isger don't, and I think the Galtans aren't very happy either." Since they were Chelish until recently, and then almost had a civil war, or maybe several wars, she's not sure.

She shakes her head at the country names; she still doesn't recognize them.

"'Powerful clerics' go where gods are and 'ask questions'?"  She sketches on the board a person walking to the symbols of the gods, and then on second thought sketches a ship around him.  She also wants to ask whether they're all Elves, but she doesn't have the words.  If the Valar are letting humans from here into their country -- she still doesn't think she actually wants to do that, but it'd be amazing.

About Andoran... it's good that Wanda thinks so well of it.  That doesn't tell her everything she wants, but it's something.

"Andoran -"  She sketches multiple crowns and people, sort of like the sketch Wanda made earlier, and looks questioning.

"Powerful clerics do go to the gods' homes, there's a spell for that! It's not what I meant, that was another spell for asking questions directly, but you're right that if they go there they can meet - maybe not the Gods themselves but definitely outsiders and other people who know them or work for them. And those people can also come here, it's rare and I've never met one but I think the clerics can bring them back, or maybe they're clerics themselves."

"But they don't sail there on ships," she clarifies. "They use a spell, like teleport but a different one, which just - brings them there. I'm not nearly a powerful enough cleric to cast something like that, I'm only second circle, it's something adventurers do in stories."

"Andoran doesn't have a king like most countries do. We - wanted to make very sure that a future king couldn't be Evil. So instead we made it so every five years, everyone in the country votes - that is, says who they want from their district to sit on the People's Council - and then the Council elects the Supreme Elect, who leads the country. But he's still bound by the laws, he's not a king. The Supreme Elect right now is Codwin, a paladin of Iomedae. Paladins are like clerics, the gods give them spells, but they're meant to fight Evil - in wars and so on - while clerics do, well, everything else."

Miriel's eyes go wide and a thin smile drifts across her face as Wanda's talking about Andoran.  But only a thin one.  She picks her words carefully, trying to repeat a few scraps of Wanda's words...  "A 'Council' is good - but, Andoran likes 'paladins'?  What if 'five years' from now Andoran 'Evil'?  Then 'vote' for whom?"

Well, Numenor did worse if anything; the Kings were among the first to abandon the Valar... but it's still something that's immediately in her mind.

"Why would everyone suddenly become Evil? And - an Evil king can hurt their people. Because he has all the power, he commands the army and writes the laws. So just one Evil person - or I guess several, an Evil king might get deposed, but even a few Evil people ruling a country would be terrible. But if all the people are Evil already, I don't think a Good king is going to save them."

Wanda isn't sure how this is landing with Miriel, but - oh. Foreigners already have a hard time understanding democracy; how much harder must it be for someone who doesn't know the context?

"So this all happened because of - a lot of history, I'll try to tell it very briefly, let me know if you want me to keep talking until your spell runs out."

"Andoran used to be part of Cheliax. A hundred years ago there was a terrible civil war and eventually the church of Asmodeus, the Evil God of Hell, won it. I - honestly have no idea how this sounds to someone who doesn't already know it - I'd say you can't imagine what true Evil ruling a country is like but maybe you can if you're from Geb - anyway. Forty years ago we rebelled and after we won our freedom we - wanted to make certain it couldn't happen again. I wasn't born yet, my parents told me about the rebellion and about Chelish rule before it, everyone's parents or grandparents told them - anyway. We made it the most basic and unchangeable law that everyone is free, that you can't enslave people. We made it the law that you can't hurt innocent people, torture them and - a thousand other things."

"And we made it law so there were no more nobles and no king, because the civil war was all the nobles fighting each other and arguing over who was the rightful heir, leading armies against each other - which meant forcing normal people to fight each other - until they had all killed each other and let Hell take over the country. Because they all thought that - who was the closest male descendant of Gaspodar or something - was somehow more important than not making people kill their neighbors and letting Hell take over. So we decided there shouldn't be kings anymore. Kings think who your father is is more important than who you are, for ruling a country. People electing their ruler aren't that stupid."

Miriel doesn't know what it's like to have Evil ruling a country - Wanda's heard of Numenor, but she must not have heard how Tar-Palantir was good - oh, she suddenly realizes what it must have been like to people in Middle-Earth to have Gimilzor and then Pharazon ruling rapaciously, nominally in Tar-Palantir's name.  And if that's where Wanda and her world has heard of Numenor from...

...and even that, Miriel knows, would quail before being ruled by Morgoth.  Or any of the evil Maiar following him.  She hasn't heard of Asmodeus at least by that name, and enough connotations come through with the language-magic that she's doubting whether "Hell" is anything she's heard of at all, but she's pretty sure it has to be something like that.

And she knows she should be offended by what Wanda's saying about kings (Wanda might get a flash of offense from her face) but really, when she thinks about it - if the people of Numenor wanted to choose someone else whom the Valar supported, she'd be happy to step down and rest.