Also he was idly watching the lesson for the older apprentices through one of their eyes and now he can't see it, and there was singing and now there isn't, and the light in the sky has changed entirely, and this place is really really ugly except for the surprisingly intricate detailing on the placards everywhere - maybe they're communicative - 

- yep, after another few seconds of staring he is pretty sure they are, there are recurring characters and they're not a fraction as elegant or beautiful as his, they don't tell you anything about how to speak the language, but that doesn't matter because this is a place where literacy is so widespread you can just put up signs with words on them and he is wholly enamored. He walks up to one and starts clearing the dust off it, reverently. 

It says "32nd St".

There are people around, too, lots of them. None very nearby except the two unconscious ones in the weird outfits, because something scary was going on around here till just now, but a ways off.

He listens to them!

There is one overwhelmingly popular language and smaller amounts of a bunch of others, more and less similar!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee he bounces and traces the letters of '32nd street' and quietly repeats the things people are saying - they all keep enough thoughts public it's easy to tell what they mean -

Actually it doesn't seem like anybody is keeping private thoughts at all!

If they think it's rude for him not to then that'll be a little bit weird.

Though if they think it's rude to keep thoughts private and also rude to confront people on things they're thinking but not saying, that might be all right. 

Or maybe they're keeping some thoughts private and it's just not very noticeable because they leave a lot in public, he's not sure he'd be able to tell the difference. 

He makes everything public just in case that's the local custom - it's not as if he objects to people observing his process of figuring out the language - and continues repeating phrases. Singing them, because this place really is ugly.

Some people approach in a van. They intend to pick up the unconscious people and lock them up for being dangerous.

They what.

The unconscious people are dangerous, or will be when they wake up. So, van, locking up. Out come uniformed locals to collect them.

But they have writing! How could you have writing and -

He does not know enough to do anything about this yet and he does not want to be locked up and die horribly. 

He runs away.

The locals think he is very fast. They did not know he was going to be here. They are calling their bosses to ask if he is a known cape.

The concept for 'cape' is close enough to the one for 'dangerous person we will lock up' to be nervewracking. He continues running. 

- he looks around. Most of the locals have darker skin than he's seen among Elves, but not all of them, there are ones who could be Noldor. If they didn't cut their hair very short, or wear it loose, which they do. And if they weren't wearing skintight clothing in good fabrics but dreadful designs, which they are. 

Cutting off all his hair is better than being locked up but still pretty horrible, he's not sure he could make himself go through with it. 

There is a bridge. There are people sleeping under the bridge. He ducks down under it and leans against the ugly slimy wall and trembles.

Someone who lives under the bridge comes by with a cart full of things. "Hey," she says.

"Hey," he repeats, relaxing a little.

"Whatchoo doin' here?" Her hair is kind of long but it is distinctly unkempt. She thinks he looks way too fancy to be hanging out under a bridge.

He is super not looking at her hair. He stares off at the water instead. Even the water is ugly. "I'm running," he says. "Running - away? Fast. I speak Quenya, I not-speak this, yet, not-read this either but reading is good."

Oh, rich kid teenage runaway, that makes more sense. Maybe his parents hit him or something. He doesn't look like he's from Kenya though. "You shoulda stolen some of their money, got a car to live in. Help you get a job."

'stolen' doesn't translate at all. The rest is reasonably accurate, though, how'd she guess - "My mother's dead. My father - means well. His new wife is terrible. I get a job but then suddenly here."

"Wicked stepmother!" she cackles. "Gotcha. Gotcha. You gotta get a new job while you still look fancy though. Way harder after you've been under a bridge fer a few days."

He beams at her. Or at the water he's staring at instead of her. "I don't think I talk not-Quenya enough for a job here. What jobs are there."

"You got any Spanish? The spics don't have any trouble gardening and washing dishes and shit. Dunno how hard that is if you're from Kenya. You're pretty enough to be a rentboy if that's more your speed. Won't mess up your manicure."

"I don't know those words. I don't mind gardening. I don't got any Spanish, can you teach me -"

"I don't speak Spanish, I'm not some Mexican."

"Mexicans speak Spanish, here speak -"

"We're speakin' English." He'd make a really good rent boy, probably, maybe she should introduce him to Dolly.

"English. How about -" He says a couple phrases in the other languages he heard spoken.

"I don't know, all Greek to me, but if you don't figure out where your dinner's coming from soon you're gonna get real hungry and then you'll look like you have AIDS and nobody'll want you."

"There is not enough food?"

"What kinda Commie bullshit did you grow up on in Kenya? Gotta earn your supper somehow."

"I can go get food in the not-city if people are hungry. Is there not food in the not-city."

"You wanna go camping and eat a poisonous mushroom that's your lookout. I still think you should go for the rent boy option. You're pretty enough you could make fuckin' bank, live in an apartment."

"Camping might be better than apartment if apartment is as ugly as everywhere else."

Snort. "If you're that picky maybe run back to Daddy."

"I would. No locking people up and we have food, we could send you food. But I don't know how."

"Guess you could go to the cops and tell 'em you're a missing person."

"No locking people up."

"I don't think they lock you up for bein' a runaway. Dunno, myself."

"Dunno not good enough. I - hide here a day, listen, learn English better, then go work and learn how hungry people."

"You mostly talk fine, maybe don't try to work in a call center but you could do a cash register okay."

"How do I do a cash register."

"They'll show ya, there's buttons and you make change and tell people to have a nice day and shit."

"Where will they show -"

"Oh, if they hire ya. Just gotta convince them you won't steal outta the cash register and that's way easier before you look too homeless."

"I don't know steal."

"Takin' shit without payin' for it."

"- I could just not take shit out of the cash register at all, would that work? I don't know payin for it."

She laughs. "You'll do fine. They might think you're slow, maybe they have you collect carts." She gives her cart a kick.

"But they won't the cops?"

"Not if you don't take their stuff."

He nods fervently. "I need English clothes?"

"They'll give ya a work uniform. Well, might make ya buy it but they can take it outta your paycheck."

"Okay. Thank you. Where do I go -"

"I dunno who's hiring, you gotta look for signs." He is passing up so much fuckin' money not even thinking about the rentboy option, maybe a few weeks on ramen'll change that and maybe it won't, his business.

"Can't read English. Maybe if I watch people more."

"I'm tellin' ya if you wait till you look like you live under a bridge nobody'll wanna talk to ya."

"Won't take me very long. Didn't any English earlier. What's a rentboy."

"Like a whore but not a girl."

"That did not explain."

"Fucking people for money. It's not bad work if you can get it, I was never any good at it past blowing dudes for meth and you don't want a meth habit, it's more trouble than it's worth."

" - I am not old enough to get married."

"I wasn't saying you should marry somebody. That'd work too though, find the right airheaded heiress..."

"I think I will try the cash register."

"Suit yourself. I usedta work at the Stop and Shop, it was pretty good till they caught me dealing."

"Where is that from here -"

"Ya go till the Exxon that way and then turn left and it's right in front of ya but I dunno if they're hiring right now."

"They might know someone else is hiring right now?"

"I guess, but they prolly don't keep tabs on that, why does Stop and Shop need to know if the CVS wants people?"

"At home people would know but at home is different."

"Yeah, you ain't in Kenya any more, this is America! Land of the free home of the brave."

"You lock people up and are hungry."

"They got starving people in Africa too, whatever your rich daddy told you."

"Valinor doesn't have starving people."

"Valley Nor someplace in Kenya?"

"Quenya the language, Valinor the someplace. Like America, English, Mexican, Spanish."

"Oh, that explains why you ain't black."

"Yes, I'm a Noldo. There are some darker than me but not that dark."

"You look like a white boy to me. Ain't never heard of Valley Nor."

"I think I'm in another world. Endorë is dark and here is not dark just lit funny, and also I think you all are not Elves."

"No shit we're not Elves."

"Where I'm from everyone is Elves."

Bullshit. "Uh-huh."

"If you're not Elves do you not have osanwë."

"I don't speak Kenya, elf boy."

Can you people do this.

"- what the fuck? If you're a cape you don't work a cash register, you rob a bank or work for the Protectorate or some shit."

"The people who lock people up? No. In Valinor everybody can do that - is that why you all leave your thoughts public, nobody can read them anyway -"

She has no idea what he's talking about. "Shit, I was saying how to get to the Stop and Shop and you're some kinda Thinker cape -"

"I am not going anywhere near the locking people up thing I don't want to die I don't even know how to get to Mandos from here! The cash register sounds great!"

"So don't rob a bank, shit, I don't care, but you don't hafta work minimum wage if you got powers."

"I wasn't going to work because I thought I had to. I want to learn stuff and working is how you learn stuff."

"Cash register jobs're shit for advancement, elf boy."

"I think you think the things I don't know are things people here mostly don't know but really the things I want to know are mostly things people here already know."

"I guess you could have a shit job as your secret identity," she says dubiously.

"See, like, secret identity, that's a thing I did not know. What does it mean."

"You wear a mask when you do cape shit and then the rest of the time you pretend you're not a cape."

"Why?"

"So nobody who's mad at your cape identity goes and kills your family."

"That happens?"

"No 'cause capes've got secret identities, see?"

"How did someone come up with the idea it might happen."

"...just kinda obvious." Valley Nor must be a helluva place. Elf boy's gonna run home to daddy inside of like a day.

"I told you, I don't know how to get home."

"So you go tell missing persons."

"Only if I'm really really sure they won't imprison me!"

"You done anything illegal? Or look like you did?"

"I don't know what's illegal or what would make me look like I did!"

"Jesus, boy, I don't know what you want me to tell ya."

"It's not you. I'll do the cash register job and learn things - you have writing how are you so terrible -"

"Excuse me?"

"Everybody can read!!!!! Or enough people for making signs to make sense! But you have starving people and fucking people for money and capes and locking people up and killing peoples families!!! This is the most terrible place I can imagine and you can all read!"

"So we went to kindergarten and ain't illiterate savage rainforest people, so?"

"No one in Valinor can read but at least they don't do any of the other things either."

"What do they do?" she wonders, vaguely imagining savage rainforest people eating raw vague rainforest meat.

"No, see, it's like -" Tirion, glittering in the light of the Mingling -

"- that's real pretty."

"Yeah. And if you're hurt or sick or can't work people bring you food and no one has to be afraid people will kill their families unless my horrible stepmother counts."

"So go home."

"That doesn't actually solve any of the problems with this place - it's not like people starving is bad because I hear about it -"

"You wanna run around solving problems you do the superhero gig."

" - how many people live here."

"In Baltimore? Shit, I dunno, maybe a million? Maybe not that many."

"And are there other places like Baltimore. With the starving people and the murdering families."

"There's a whole lotta world."

"So that's too many people for me to fix by personally running around giving them food or stopping them from murdering peoples' families, there's got to be something wrong with you and I should be figuring out what it is."

"Eeeexcuse me?"

"It's not a personal insult, you seem very nice, but your world is a catastrophe and I don't know how to fix it yet."

"It's all the Communists' fault, you know."

"No, see, I didn't even know that. That's the kind of thing I'll need to know to fix everything."

"Communists." She nods.

"Okay. If work isn't the best place to go to learn things, what is?"

"There's libraries." She obligingly thinks of the concept of a library.

"That is the best idea I have ever heard of. Where's the nearest one -"

"Prob'ly one of the university libraries?"

"Which direction -"

She points.

"Thank you!" And off he goes, listening less to peoples' minds now that he knows they probably don't bother keeping anything private but still paying enough attention to notice anyone who might lock him up.

People think his clothes are weird and that he's pretty. They can't tell how old he is; he looks young but he's so tall.

That doesn't especially sound like a precursor to torturing him to death. He asks a few more people which way to the university library.

That way.

He walks. He runs. He looks at the signs and listens to the people and echoes what they say and bounces gleefully whenever he catches what has to be yet another language. He asks for directions in different registers - "hey, man, where's the library", "excuse me, sir, I'm looking for the library" - and notes the differences in reactions. 

He finds the library. 

He walks in .

"Oh," he breathes. "Oh."

He starts crying. He blinks and tries to calculate how many words - books and books of words - he could be here twenty Years just reading them all - in fact, he thinks he will do exactly that - 

- he heads over to the shelf and takes one down and begins.

After a few hours the floor is cleared for a wedding party but the guests are not allowed in the stacks.

He barely even notices them. He is reading, and this language is a strange and ridiculous mashup of half a dozen others and its spelling is even worse and he doesn't know how to pronounce most of the words even if he has guesses at their meaning but in 20 Years he'll know everything and there is so much to know - 

- what a good world -

- maybe you can't have something this lovely without also having the murder and starvation and if that's so he doesn't know which one he'd choose - 

- but maybe you can have it all and a library is the place where you figure out how -

The janitor finds him after hours. "Hey, what're you doing here?"

"I'm reading all the books!"

"Are... you a student?"

"I'm ....studying the books?"

"Are you a Johns Hopkins student."

"No."

"You're not really supposed to be in here."

"I really really really want to stay. I'll be so careful with the books - I'll write you copies if you want -"

Blink. "Uh, you're just not supposed to be on the premises."

"Yes, you said, and I assumed the reason for the rule was concern for the books. What is the reason for that rule."

"...I just work here, kid. Shoo and I won't tell anybody I caught you here."

" -okay." He puts the book back. He vaults the balcony and goes to somewhere else in the stacks.

The janitor lets out a strangled yelp when he jumps.

Well, the janitor is the one who told him to shoo. He pays enough attention to things which aren't his book that he can notice anyone getting close and flee to a different shelf before they bother him.

The janitor has concluded that he's a cape and is going to call the Parahuman Response Team.

Well that's not good. What is wrong with these stupid horrible people. He leaves the library and goes a ways off and listens for the locking people up people to arrive.

The PRT tell the janitor that being in a library after hours and knowing parkour is not something to call them over.

Oh good. 

So the janitor calls his supervisor, who says she'll call campus security.

This place has endless layers of locking-people-up, doesn't it. He should have taken a book but what if it got wet or something. He curls up and sings to himself and waits for this lot.

Campus security comes and prowls the stacks and doesn't find him and leaves.

Once they have left he climbs around the outside and forces a window and goes back in and goes back to reading.

It's dark but not pitch black so he can probably do that fine. In the morning the library opens again.

He pays enough attention to people to avoid them entirely. Towards the end of the day he is thirsty; he finds a corner and rebraids his hair so from a distance it might look like he mutilated himself like these people and then he goes out into the better-trafficked areas and witnesses a water fountain and drinks delightedly.

Drinking from water fountains: acceptable behavior that does not inspire anyone to try locking him up.

Oh good. Food is more of a problem. He goes outside and tries some of the trees and they are not at all tasty or very nutritious.

"Are you eating leaves," says a girl with a book.

"I am hungry and I have been advised to get a job but I thought I could just eat the leaves instead. These leaves are terrible so maybe I will get a job."

"...they're leaves. Like, off trees. You can't eat them."

"Where I'm from you can. You can here too but the nutrient value is really disappointing."

"They don't have nutrition facts on them they're just leaves. What's wrong with you?"

"I can obviously tell what I'm getting out of food I have eaten. Nothing is wrong with me, something is wrong with this place."

"...are you crazy? How old are you -"

"Thirty eight but I'm mature for my age."

She splutters. "You're nuts." She is going to go find somebody to call whoever one calls about crazy leaf-eating people.

"What is it with you people and your loony torture authorities. I didn't pick leaves the trees needed."

"Oh my god calm down the CIA is not listening to your teeth - stay away from me -"

He goes back to his books.

She talks to a librarian and the librarian declines to call any loony torture authorities and comes out to him. "Excuse me."

"Can I help you?"

"Someone said you were... eating leaves? And sounded like you might be having some... trouble."

"Where I'm from leaves are nutritious and if you've been working all day and gotten carried away and forgotten to eat you can grab a handful and get a perfectly good snack that way. That is clearly not true here, so I'll have to get a job if I don't want to chase down squirrels - I assume your squirrels are normal amounts of edible -"

"...I don't know how edible you expect squirrels to be," says the librarian. "Where are you, ah, from?"

"It's called Valinor. I haven't run across any books with references to it and the first person I spoke to hadn't heard of it and the lights in the sky are different so I think I may be in an alternate universe."

"...Did you have some kind of cape-related accident?"

"Maybe?" He sends her his memory of the moment of arriving in Baltimore.

She is startled. "- you're a cape yourself, then?"

"No, in Valinor everybody can do that and I'm perfectly normal, I'm just not from here."

"Does the Protectorate know about you?"

"I hope not, because apparently they torture people to death and I am scared of that, it sounds unpleasant."

"...no they don't."

"Well they definitely advertise that they do. Or maybe your species is different in some relevant way?"

"...they don't advertise that they torture people, to death or otherwise."

"Where I am from, if you lock somebody up, then they will experience steadily increasing adrenaline levels and eventual loss of capacity to control their own body and after a few weeks of intense unpleasantness they will die. Does that not happen to people here."

"...no."

"That is lovely for you. I have no reason to expect I've changed by landing here, so if your authorities decide I did something wrong or might've done something wrong or am crazy or anything like that then they will torture me to death and I guess it helps a little bit that they won't realize they're doing that but not very much."

"Look - what's your name -"

"Curufinwë Fëanáro."

Her nametag says Hollie Blake. "Right, ah, look, you can't just go around eating leaves and acting crazy and avoid the only people who might be able to help you just because they lock up criminals. Eating leaves isn't against the law as far as I know but it makes people uncomfortable and things can escalate from there."

"And when you are uncomfortable you torture people to death. I didn't even like Valinor very much but this library is the only thing nicer about Baltimore. I won't eat leaves. I'll get a job. I continue to not want to deal with any of your many locking-people-up organizations."

"I think you may need help to tell what things are like eating leaves and what things are normal, and this is especially important if you have powers."

"Do you want to recommend me a book that covers that?"

"There aren't any books that say things like 'don't eat leaves' and 'people don't die of being locked up' and such things because it's common knowledge. I think you need people to help you with that and the Protectorate is where you go if you're a cape and need people help."

"That's great for capes but I'm not a cape."

"You have powers," she says.

"I am a perfectly normal Elf. By your definition of powers maybe all Elves have powers but that's not a very constructive definition."

"The Protectorate is still the organization we have for dealing with people with powers."

"They might lock me up."

"Only if you hurt people."

"Or if they think I did or if they think I will or if they think I'm crazy. And I might do something that hurts people that I didn't know would hurt people - like if, I don't know, your toes are really sensitive and they will break if I accidentally step on them - and it is not really fair to torture me to death for that."

"I think you are likely to accidentally hurt people. Is that what you want?"

"No!"

"You have powers, today it was eating leaves but tomorrow it could be something else, you need help and you have powers and that means the Protectorate. Capes are usually kind of eccentric, they're not going to try to send you to a psychiatric hospital for thinking you're an Elf or anything, they'll want to work something out where you can use your powers safely to help people."

"I just want to stay in the library and read until I'm caught up enough on everything to fix it."

"You can't get a job like this. What are you going to eat? Where will you sleep? Are you even old enough to be out of school?"

"I was led to understand that jobs provided you with food. I can sleep under a bridge or something if I'm not allowed to sleep here. I have no idea what school is."

"...you need someone to help you - I - look, the Protectorate will let you join them as a cape, that's a job."

"I don't want to work with or for the locking-people-up people."

"They lock up dangerous capes who would otherwise kill a lot of people. And being locked up doesn't hurt people, uh, here."

"But you also said they would lock me up if I hurt people and that I was likely to accidentally hurt people."

"They will explain how not to and it will be much better if they know in advance that you don't know basic things like not eating leaves."

"I know that one now."

"That's just an example."

"This sounds like a worse idea than the meth lady's idea about doing intimate things for money and I thought that was a pretty terrible idea."

"You can't keep doing this forever."

"- yes, I easily can. I've been here less than three days, and I spent most of them picking up the language and learning about fruitfly genetics and the Haspberg dynasty because those happened to be the books I read. After a few weeks I'll have it all figured out and I won't alarm people and I can just read your books which is the only worthwhile thing about your stupid terrible world and I know I have to be really careful now until I've figured things out but it's not like I am going to starve - I could live off those leaves if I really had to, I'd just have to eat a ton of them and adjust my digestion -"

"- you have digestion adjusting powers? - never mind - look, you still really can't do this forever, especially not without PRT attention."

"Okay. But if they torture me to death then when the Valar come and find me they're going to be really mad at all of you."

"I am trying to help you."

"So was my father!! People are usually trying to help me when they put me through horrible things!"

Ms. Blake facepalms. "Look. You have two options. Attempt to continue hiding in a library you aren't even supposed to be in eating leaves until the Protectorate decides to arrest you just to figure out what's going on after which they are very unlikely to believe that confinement is unusually bad for you, or go talk to them on your own recognizance and get a job and an education and a place to stay legitimately."

"If you don't go surrender to the people who want to torture you to death then they'll definitely torture you to death. I am not saying you're giving me bad advice but I hope you recognize that that is the content of the advice."

"That's not what I - That is not the content of the advice. You're not listening to me."

"Look," he imitates her uncannily, "'You have two options. Attempt to continue hiding in a library you aren't even supposed to be in eating leaves until the Protectorate decides to arrest you just to figure out what's going on after which they are very unlikely to believe that confinement is unusually bad for you, or go talk to them on your own recognizance and get a job and an education and a place to stay legitimately.' In other words, wait here for them to come and torture you to death, or go surrender to them and hope they don't do that and instead waste your time with things you don't need or want."

"Have you considered the possibility that this like so many other things is a thing you don't understand."

"I'm trying. I'm learning as fast as I can and I'm terrified that it's not going to be fast enough but I can't just go walk up to the torturers and hope they don't think I've done something wrong -"

"You have! You aren't supposed to be in the library at times you have been in the library!"

"I was assuming that wasn't a torture-to-death worthy crime even on this horrible catastrophe of a world. Fuck you people."

She turns on her heel and stomps back to her desk.

He leaves. He finds a tolerable path around the campus and walks and sings. 

A fellow in a mask suddenly comes into existence nearby.

Thinking -

Yep, this kid meets the description. "Hey there."

"Hey there."

"You're freaking everybody out. Can we chat?"

"My familiarity with the language is limited but I think 'chat' describes what we are doing."

Wow he's obnoxious. Whatever. "I'm Neighbor, have you got a cape name?"

"No. I am not a cape."

"Parahuman, whatever." What was his trigger, people hauling off and slugging him because he was such a pedantic asshole?

"I am also not that. I am not any kind of human."

And Glaistig Uaine's a fairy, sure. "Are we doing the person first language thing, person with powers? Whatever. What do we call you."

"Curufinwë Fëanáro."

"That's way too many syllables. Anyway. You're freaking everybody out. We want you to stop that. JHU can't use the library if there's a rogue in it being a creep."

"I don't want to freak anybody out. I haven't initiated interactions with anybody and I don't intend to. In a couple of days I will know enough to pass for human and get a job and then I will do that and then I will get an apartment and read books and there won't be any problems."

Like hell you will you're in the papers at this point. "You're freaking people out anyway, man."

"It has been made abundantly clear to me that if I am not good enough at doing this then various institutions dedicated to hauling people off to prisons of one kind or another will involve themselves. I don't really want to die but that is obviously their prerogative."

"Look, the Protectorate wants to help you out. You don't have to join up long as you can, like, not freak people out." What does dying have to do with anything? Some kinda won't-take-him-alive credo? Stupid.

"Great. I would love to not freak people out. Do you have advice."

"Yeah, come in with me and talk to the director." Please do not be convinced to join up then Neighbor will have to interact with you every day what a nightmare just stop being such a fucking freak.

"There is absolutely no way I'll join up, don't worry."

Right the mindreading thing. Yech. "Yeah so just like come talk to the director."

"Okay."

And then they are somewhere else, thirteen times in total until they're stepping into the front hall of an institutional building. Neighbor leads him over to the elevator.

It's not even an especially ugly human building. He reminds himself he can leave. He gets into the elevator.

It elevates. It stops. Neighbor leads him to an office, wherein a director.

"Director, gotcha the library rogue."

"Thank you, Neighbor, that will be all."

Neighbor vanishes.

"Hello," says the director.

"Hi. I don't suppose one can learn to teleport, that would be really useful."

"If that's not one of your powers it is unlikely to become one later." He's kind of a weird combination of powers, telepathy and parkour. Unclear how telepathic. Don't think about sex. Pink elephants. "We've been led to believe that you're missing some key skills necessary to function in society. We'd like to help you with that." He'd be the prettiest Case 53 she's ever heard of, but the pointy ears and the extreme cheekbones and such could still be the same thing, maybe? Could've invented the whole from another world thing to cope.

"No, I'm actually just from another world. If you have any linguists around I could teach them Quenya and then that would at least get you as far as 'invented a language with no etymological roots with any known ones, or is telling the truth'. Elves all have osanwë - we can share thoughts, senses, memories, and emotions with each other - and I guess we're also physically stronger than you though I hadn't actually realized that until the janitor got upset."

"You've upset several people. If you'd find it easiest to accept remedial skills training from someone who's also a linguist that can be arranged. We'd like to prevent any serious misunderstandings before they turn into big problems." Wouldn't want that nice library to explode because he offended a villain or something.

"- okay, that's reasonable. I'm not going to get into any fights, the fights sound really dumb. I want to live in peace and read all the books there are and that's all I anticipate doing for the next twenty Years."

"You might not plan to start any fights, but things happen." Capes happen. Capes will fight anything that looks at them crosseyed, let alone actually acts obnoxious.

"I'm not a cape. I can notice them coming and avoid them."

Oh whatever you're a fucking cape kiddo. - psychic. ...don't think about sex. Pink elephants. "People, including capes, are going to think you're a cape."

"This world is full of violent morons."

Gosh she never noticed. "Whatever you'd like to call it, it is what it is. I can call Johns Hopkins for you and see if they'll send you a linguistics grad student to help you figure things out. Are you very attached to that specific library?"

"I really like it but if there's another one that's sufficiently big and pretty that'd do too."

"...pretty?"

...Tirion looks like this.

Valimar looks like this.

Alqualondë looks like this. 

"Elves need places to be pretty or we're miserable. Humans obviously don't need that or you would all choke on the hideousness of your own cities."

She flinches when he starts sending things but manages not to hit the panic button just because he's using freaky psychic powers on her without invitation. "...ah-huh." Well, as demands go residence privileges in a library and being some kid's thesis are pretty reasonable and a psychic outright-villain would be way too much trouble, she thinks she can justify appeasement to the higher-ups on this one.

"Thank you."

Next time you want to terrify people into giving you what you want consider phoning somebody who can give you those things with your demands - ugh, psychic, ugh, ugh. "You're welcome."

"You could consider the possibility that the reason I didn't phone you was because I didn't want to terrify people into giving me what I want."

Capes parking in a library they have been told they aren't supposed to be in are not unthreatening. "I'm so glad we've cleared that up."

"Can I go now?"

"How old are you?" Gawky thirteen, well-preserved 25...

"Thirty eight but I think maybe our years aren't the same length."

"So how old are you in elf years?" And do you bake cookies in a tree.

"No, I mean, I am thirty eight of my years old and I don't know how the length of our years compares to the length of yours."

"Yes, and are you an adult and if not how far off are you."

"We come of age at fifty."

"You're supposed to be enrolled in school till you're an adult, here." And she pities the teacher who has to interest him in papier mache.

"School's like an apprenticeship? I had an apprenticeship in magic at home."

And she's the princess of Candyland. "Similar, I suppose."

"What is wrong with you people and your priorities? This organization is large, I found references to it everywhere, you know there's a lot you don't understand about capes and how they work, my world would be a tremendous asset in solving all your stupid problems, and yet it is evidently not worth your time to verify straightforwardly verifiable claims about it."

"You'll get your linguist," she says.

"I have no objections to an apprenticeship or the local equivalent but at home you can resign an apprenticeship if it's not working for you and I'd definitely like to know the process for that here."

Sigh. "Education is compulsory to age eighteen."

"Does it say specifically age eighteen."

"I believe so, but no lawyer is going to tell you it doesn't count because you're older in Mars years or whatever."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm more than 18 Earth years. Your years would have to be more than twice as long as ours and ours have more days."

Sigh. "Well, if a truancy officer comes by tell them that."

"Okay! Can I go now?"

"Do you know the way back to the library?"

"No. I was planning to ask people."

"Please do not terrorize random passersby. If you'd had the foresight to wear a mask while doing obvious cape things you might not be intimidating out of costume, but here we are."

"The masks thing sounds dumb and my family doesn't require protection. Does being asked questions terrify locals?"

"If capes do it and they aren't heroes, yes."

"Okay. How does one learn things if they can't ask questions and it's rude to read minds -"

"One doesn't go around brandishing one's powers. One attends school and watches the news and has parents."

"My mother is dead - permanently dead - and my father is in another dimension."

As opposed to what, dead till her alarm clock goes off? "I see."

"As opposed to dead until Mandos - you don't have Mandos - when humans die are they just - disembodied forever?"

"...when we die we're dead." Unless you go in for religion, but she doesn't.

"I'm sorry. I can look into doing reembodiments like Mandos does but it'll be a long time even if I figure it out."

That doesn't have anything to do with parkour or telepathy. "Mm-hm."

"Yeah, see, if you keep assuming I'm a cape you're going to keep being wrong about what I can do, that's another reason to take me seriously."

"If you can resurrect the dead I'm sure everyone will line up to apologize for assuming you were anything other than what you said you were. The library is straight ahead as you exit the front door."

"Maybe Father orchestrated all this to make me appreciate good governance." And he leaves. And he goes back to his library and he is pretty hungry by now but drinks more water instead and he reads and he reads and he reads.

A linguistics grad student shows up and wanders the stacks vaguely.

Looking for him?

Yep. Oh psychic ca-ape where aaaaare you.

He sends his location.

...the student jumps. But climbs the stairs and finds him. "Um. Hi."

"Hi!!! I approve wholeheartedly of the entire field of linguistics I've been reading about it and it's great! I have a bunch of vocabulary questions -" He has twenty books spread around him on the table.

"...we can start there if you don't want to go to McDonalds first, I was told you were hungry enough to eat leaves."

"- I mean, yes, but this is way more important."

"Okay. What are your vocabulary questions?"

He goes through them all! They are mostly linguistics-specific words he couldn't figure out from context but then there's also 'chimney', 'overdraft', and 'divorce'.

"...have you discovered dictionaries yet -"

"No - what's that -"

"Books of definitions."

"Oh good - okay, I'll get one of those -"

"Reference section. Uh, but a chimney is a hollow column leading up from a fireplace in a house to let smoke out, and an overdraft is when you try to withdraw more money than you have out of a bank account and they charge you a fee for the unexpected credit, and divorce is getting un-married."

"This place is weird. Okay. Did the incompetent government people explain why I asked for a linguist -"

"...they said you were a weird cape classification and showed up talking about being from another world and that if I fed you occasionally and explained that you shouldn't eat leaves and stuff you would teach me your language which supposedly isn't related to any, uh, Earth ones?"

"It's not related to any Indo-European ones and it's not related to any Polynesian or South Indian ones and it's not related to Mandarin or Cantonese or Japanese and I meant to get to Mongolic today but I should actually probably eat first, if that's possible. I don't expect it to be related to those either because I'm from another world."

"I can get you McDonald's."

"I don't know what that is but sure."

"It's a fast food place." He heads back to the stairwell.

He follows.

"I'm Dylan. People're calling you Library Elf."

"My name is Curufinwë Fëanáro."

"That's really long."

"Not especially. I usually just go by Fëanáro."

"That's not as bad." Out the library, down the street. "McDonalds has burgers and chicken nuggets and fries and stuff."

"I haven't heard of any of those, you can pick something."

"Long as you aren't a vegetarian or something."

"I was planning on hunting squirrels when it turned out this world has terrible leaves. I guess if you imprison the animals or something then that wouldn't be okay but why would you do that."

"...uh, so they don't get away?"

"Are you all really really really bad at hunting?"

"I've never gone hunting in my life."

"Do you keep the animals in, like, pastures, or little tiny cages."

"I've never been to a farm? I think it depends."

"- maybe I will be on the safe side and not eat any animals here unless I catch them myself."

"...okay, uh, fries and... a... milkshake?"

"From cows in tiny cow prisons?"

"Fries and a salad?"

"I am sure you've done something appalling to carrots but I can't actually think what it might be and I can't fix it if I starve to death. That's fine."

"Okay."

They arrive at McDonald's. Dylan gets Fëanáro fries and a salad and a Coke and gets himself chicken nuggets and a milkshake.

The food is weird but he's really really hungry. He eats it. While he does he explains. "I was born in Tirion, which is the largest city of the Noldor, one of the three Elven nations in Valinor. I've been there for thirty-eight of our years which I think are at least four and possibly as much as twelve times longer than yours - I think humans grow up faster or something. I was bringing some materials in for the forge I work at when suddenly I was here instead - and you had writing, so I was really excited. I don't actually have any powers. All Elves can do the things I do and the Ainur can do more than that."

"Powers are defined relative to human baseline," Dylan says.

"Okay, but also there's a whole set of expectations about capes - that they triggered, that they'll find being a hero or rogue or villain appealing, that their powers are - coherent, a suite of related abilities - and none of those apply and that's kind of important."

"You're still more like a weird cape than anything else we have words for."

"Elf is a word. And eventually it's likely that my people will find me. Not guaranteed, though, it might be even the Valar can't do interdimensional travel. Anyway, do you want to learn Quenya -'

"Yeah I was going to do fieldwork in Senegal but my funding dried up so I'm doing this."

"I can send meanings while I talk, it goes faster," he says, doing that.

"- cool. Uh, you were impressed we had writing, does that mean no alphabet - I can just transcribe in IPA I guess -"

"I was working on inventing one but there's not a proper one yet, no. We're really new as a species - humans've thousands of years of recorded history -"

"Okay, IPA -" He has a little notebook, writes downs the sounds he's sure of and asks about the ones that seem ambiguous.

IPA is such a good idea! He can explain how he was planning to do his alphabet - a character for a sound, which modifiers for whether it's voiced and for the point of articulation -

"That's very systematic - the Roman alphabet we use wasn't invented all at once, it's descended from others -"

"Yeah all your languages are so old it's amazing but Elves're very systematic and they'll be easier to convince to adopt it if there's a logic to it - plus it's just nice -"

Dylan makes an IPA/tengwar chart.

And he teaches him Quenya!

...Dylan cannot learn Quenya anywhere near as fast as Fëanáro could learn English.

He's a little worried he's teaching it badly. "Or maybe having osanwë helps more than having someone else use it to translate for you."

"I, uh, don't know. It does usually take at least months to learn a language and that's if you're good at it, some people just kind of can't get past very basic rote stuff in non-native languages. I'm not one of those though, I know French."

"English took me like six hours but I was cheating with osanwë. I haven't tried picking up any others yet though I do want to - do you want to teach me French -"

"...six hours is definitely you being a ca- an Elf, humans definitely literally can't do that unless they have powers for it. I can teach you French but I want to know more Quenya first and then I can maybe see how having Quenya as your native language affects how you pick up French? For my thesis."

"Sure that works but it might be confounded by being an Elf. And by being me, I'm smart for an Elf. Why can't humans do that, it's not that there are more than six hours' worth of information you need -"

"We... don't have perfect memories and need lots of examples of grammar to have a good feel for it? And there are definitely more than six hours of details of intonation and register and accent and idiom and stuff."

"Oh, I didn't have it perfect - still don't - just good enough to get to the library - libraries are amazing, I don't understand how you can have murder and have rentboys and have villains when you have libraries -"

"...rentboys?"

"Uh when I got here the Protectorate was arriving to arrest some people and Elves aren't like humans, we find all forms of confinement literally torturous, only I didn't know you were humans so I assumed that you knew that and just didn't mind torturing people to death if they annoyed you, so I ran away and hid under a bridge, and I met this lady who taught me more English and explained how you have to have jobs to not be hungry here and she thought I should do that - I'm not old enough -"

"Just doesn't seem like it belongs on a list with murder and supervillains. I don't understand how libraries are supposed to prevent any of those things..."

"Libraries are nice. I'd think that people who had - knowledge - would be less violent and petty and cruel but instead you're way moreso."

"Some people just suck. Learning stuff doesn't make them not suck."

"Like Melkor, I guess."

"Hm?"