"- Nelyafinwë Maitimë. I haven't been called that in a long time."

"Would you prefer something else?"

"I don't really have a preference."

"All right. Why is it you don't swear to things - it's a reasonable enough policy but obviously not universal among the lot of you, and it's going to be complicated to put you back with everyone else if we can't be confident of their privacy -"

"My memories can be tampered with. I don't really care where you put me but I'm not reading anyone's minds."

"I see. I look like someone you know?"

"Annie," she says very quietly.

"- a lot of people like me and corresponding people like you have been appearing in Khemet's palace. He's one of you. If Annie appears what state should we expect her in?"

"She's gone. She's dead. She's been dead for a long time."

"Ah." She looks at Khemet.

"How long."

"Thirty thousand years. Give or take. I can figure it out more precisely if it's important -"

"It's not." He shakes his head slightly at Mirelótë.

"I'm sorry."

"Maitimo, any revisions? - you might also want to pick a nickname, we're expecting more of you."

"No revisions." He repeats it as she said it. "What might distinguish me from the other ones you are expecting, or should I pick at random -"

"Of the three you're the only magic Elf; mine and Cam's are both chip Elves instead."

"...chip...Elves?"

"Instead of Ainu-style osanwë and such we have metal things serving for us as magic souls do for you."

He glances around as if hoping more context for this might be on one of the walls. Bows his head again. "I guess you could do 'Magic'."

"Well, she's magic, and so's Khemet, but it'll do as a stopgap when they show up if no one has a better idea."

"My legal name right now is Lisa Anderson."

"What's your world like right now?"

"Elves and humans mostly live separately, and have for at least twenty thousand years; humans do not remember Elves except in legend. The humans live in big hideous cities. They have machines that do computing. They've been to their moon."