A girl his age with cobalt blue hair, pinned back slightly but mostly loose, steps out of the wardrobe and stops dead, staring at him.

...he had not realized there was anyone in that wardrobe and why is she wearing her hair loose. "Hi," he says, and gestures at his hair in case maybe it came loose and she hasn't realized yet.

She is holding very still like she's afraid to touch anything. She looks bewildered. She says something that is not at all in Quenya.

"- I don't think I speak that." I don't even know what language that is. What are you doing here?

Her eyes go even wider and she puts her hands confusedly over her ears.

- do you not like osanwë? I can try to learn your language but I'm not fast like my father. I could get my father? Should I get my father?

She says something in her language, slowly.

- well if he's reading her then he can tell what she said. 

It was "I don't know how to do that".

...oh. Okay. It's really easy, the hard part is not sending more than you mean to. You want to sort your thoughts into private ones no one can read and then public ones which people can read. People use a metaphor, like, private thoughts are under a blanket and public thoughts are on top, or private thoughts are hiding in your room and then public ones are in the hall. Until you do that everyone can read all your thoughts and when I wanted them not to be able to do that I practiced very hard and got it pretty fast, you probably will too.

She frowns. She continues carefully not touching anything. She nods slowly.

Do you want me to not read your mind until you've got it.

"I don't know anything important," she says, "it doesn't matter."

Okay. It makes it easier to understand you. I'm Nelyafinwë Maitimo.

"I'm Avalor."

Why are you in my wardrobe.

"I was in the wardrobe in the room I am staying in," it isn't hers, she doesn't have any things any more, "and it opened into this one."

...oh. Why do you not have any things, do you want some of mine? I have lots.

"It's complicated." Blood and strangers and a stolen house she lives in because she is small enough for someone to want her only because she is small and that will last at least till the end of spring.

...he puts down his calligraphy quill. He frowns at the wardrobe. - if this is a way of going back and forth between Valinor and Endorë then that's very important, he says, and I should probably tell the King.

She looks over her shoulder. "I don't know."

Do you want a hug?

"You have red hair and I mustn't touch you."

...um. Why?

"Reds are unclean. I will already need to wash because I was in your wardrobe. And I will probably have to get rid of this outfit."

I'm sorry. I don't think I've ever heard of that rule. We can get you a new outfit.

"I'm not sure what you are exactly, maybe you are another species and not a red, but I need to be careful." If her foster parents are not really attached to her by the end of spring because they think she has been doing disgusting things then she's in trouble.

...the place you are from sounds really horrible and I am increasingly thinking that maybe you could just stay here instead if you would like but I don't know about the hair thing and if it is really important then it sounds like it'll be inconvenient. We would have to divide the city in half or something.

Usually reds do not get an entire half, there aren't that many of them. "I am from a very nice place." It's just that there are terrible conquerors everywhere now.

There aren't very many of us here either but if we didn't have much space we would be sad, and there aren't that many people who can't touch red things either, there's only you. 

And there aren't terrible conquerors here. 

"I also can't touch things or people that have touched red people," she clarifies. "Unless they've been cleaned. The Empire of Oahk has the strength and the right to occupy all territory it sees fit to seize." Her foster parents like it when she says that and she tastes blood every time she does.

That makes it more inconvenient but I still think you should live here and not in the Empire of Oahk even if it means we have to build a whole new part of the city where I don't go. ...or I suppose we could topple the Empire of Oahk but I would definitely have to ask the King about that.

Yes do it destroy it gone gone gone Voa Voa Voa. "Oh."

Shy smile. I don't know very much about destroying empires but that's what we have a King for would you like to meet him.

These shoes are already wrecked she already has to take one of those interminable showers as long as she doesn't touch anything but what she's already wearing it won't get much worse. "Yes."

"Mother, Father, I'm taking Avalor to meet the King so we can fix the place that she is from because it is terrible," he calls, and sends her the translation, and holds the door for her since she probably can't touch it.

"Thank you," she says, just because he is some kind of possibly red alien does not mean she can't be polite, she's polite to the Imperials. She goes through the door.

His house is kind of spectacularly pretty! Really excessive! Handmade furniture and handwoven tapestries and fancy glasswork and all of it a remarkable work of art. He hugs the wall so he can slide past her without touching her and then darts through the rooms heading for the main entrance.

She follows him more sedately, she doesn't want to fall. And the art is distracting. It is weird for reds to have art.

A woman pokes her head through the doorway. She's heavily pregnant and wearing a stunningly pretty golden dress; her hair is braided. 

     "Maitimo what -"

"Send a translation to Avalor she is from some particularly horrible part of Endorë called the Oakh Empire and she doesn't know any Quenya."

    "Hello, Avalor," she says, blinking at her. "It's nice to meet you."

"She can't touch anything because it is a rule and her foster parents will be mad and something bad will happen."

    "- okay."

"She can maybe touch people who don't have red hair if they wash so someone should wash so they can give her a hug I think."

   "If she'd like that I am sure someone would be happy to do that."

"I don't think I particularly need a hug," says Avalor, "but thank you." Part of being wanted because it is spring and she is small is being smothered.

"All right. And you are going to talk to Finwë?"

       "Yes. Unexpected situations are what Kings are for," he says in a singsong voice.

"Do you need company?'

       "No not really I will not get lost."

"Then tell the King we're all faring well and send our love as ever -"

       "He'll know it was you and not Father said that -"

"Yes he will. Say it anyway?"

       "I will."

Voa did not have a King it had Five Lines and she thinks she is the only Line heiress left but there might be branches especially children.

They go outside. The sky is white and very bright. There's a cobblestone road; he walks along it. What happened to the other Lines.

Avalor squints in the light. "The Imperials lined up all of the Voa blues they could catch which I think was all of us and killed one in three plus anyone who tried to run away or change places." Blood and her father craning his neck to count and pulling her mother aside and blood and blood and blood and holding so still failing to not look.

He stops moving.

He goes very still and then slowly lowers himself to the cobblestones and touches them. They are very warm. 

I'm sorry, he says very quietly even though telepathy shouldn't have a volume. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry.

"Two in three of the ones who stayed lined up are allowed to live as subjects of the Empire of Oahk," she says, "which is very merciful," destroy it destroy it destroy it, "and allows us to contribute to the new order."

That is not very merciful and we will destroy it we will figure out how.

It's sort of interesting to be practicing being a docile conquered child and having him respond to how she actually thinks about it.

- sorry, should I not - I am starting to understand the thing they want you to do and I guess maybe if you stop doing it you get out of practice?

"I don't know anything important, it's all right." The obvious reason to have a problem with someone reading your mind would be if you knew state secrets. She was too young to know any state secrets even when she was an heiress.

...I think you could also just not prefer it. If it made you more sad or scared or something. That'd be a good enough reason. 

She prefers this to reciting platitudes about the strength and rights of the Empire of Oahk and having him believe her or something. "Why are you touching the street?"

I felt really shaky. I feel a little bit better now. I don't know if Mandos can bring back the dead people he's really slow sometimes.

Mother father grandparents more grandparents aunts uncles cousins the little brother she was going to have "Oh?"

Here if people die Mandos brings them back. But if they're in Endorë sometimes there are things wrong and he can't bring them back right away. I don't know. The King will send someone to ask right away.

"Thank you."

I hope there are no problems and he can do it really fast. 

He gets up, unsteadily.

She attempts not to get her hopes up and resumes following him.

A city! It is white and kind of outrageously pretty and distinctly low-tech, no buildings taller than five stories and no electric lighting (not that it'd be needed) and everything continuing to look handmade. People turn to stare at them.

I'm going to see the King it's important you can't touch her, he tells everyone.

Avalor does not make it difficult not to touch her even though most of these people have weird alien hair colors and not red.

He is crying and marching along and people mostly clear out of their way. The city streets converge on a stunning stone palace. There are no guards apparent. He walks right in.

These people are probably weird aliens of some kind. Since they are telepathic and old fashioned and have weird hair and are so tall. She will have to rely on something else other than hair color to determine who is clean and who is not. It is uncomfortable not to know and she keeps to the not touching anything protocol.

I think maybe everyone is clean. We all bathe and things.

She is pretty sure it is not that simple.

Well, is it something people can notice? Because if people can notice then we would probably have noticed. 

She has heard people muttering about how it isn't really scientific which is maybe the same thing as it not being a thing people can notice. At least not by itself. It would still definitely matter if the aliens handle dead people or waste.

Oh. Well, we don't. We don't have any horrible empires here so no one has died except my grandmother and I think they just left her there in case she wants to come back to life. I guess maybe my grandfather held her hand after she died?

That wouldn't do it as long as he has washed since and doesn't make a habit of it. Avalor closed her parents' eyes. Also she is not sure how the coming back to life part enters into it at all.

How would he make a habit of it when no one else has died. I really think we don't have that thing, the Valar would definitely know about it and have told us. There were lots of things we thought were all right before we met the Valar and then they told us better, so they'd have told us about that one.

Maybe everybody here is just clean. Although then she is maybe going to have an awkward time figuring out where to go to the bathroom.

Oh the Valar made little magic fountains in all the houses. 

...if they are magic maybe they can in fact just work without anyone having to touch anything bad. Huh.

I bet they'd do it for Voa, too, once we have Voa back.

Then they could get rid of all the reds and they wouldn't creep around being icky.

They wouldn't miss Voa like you miss Voa?

She isn't sure where they would go; nobody else will want extras. Maybe they could just stop having children and disappear. Not having children makes adults very very sad but some people have to cope with it until they can get into space.

...how would they disappear if they stopped having children?

...reds die of old age like everyone else.

...I have never heard of that. I don't think even orcs have that.

She's been forgetting to talk aloud, that seems rude probably. "I don't know what an orc is. People who aren't aliens die eventually."

Well we'll fix that too.

"Then I don't know what to do about the reds. And there wouldn't be room. All the dead people would take up so much space and we don't have any other planets."

Maybe the reds will want their own place to live, the Valar could raise an island out of the sea for them. Do you know any reds we could ask? And Valinor has lots of empty room, people could live here.

"A red island could be all right. But one more planet that we're sharing isn't enough space, we need to be able to keep finding more to have room for kids. People have stopped having them every spring but most people want at least five."

Well, we can ask the Valar, they might know about planets, I don't know anything about planets.

And they walk into an elaborate throne room. People turn to stare. 

"This is Avalor of Voa and we require an audience with the King," Maitimo says very seriously. Then he flashes a grin at the man on the throne. 

         "Do you?" the King says, looking at Avalor. 

"Yes your grace right away it is very important." - and he sends everything since she walked through his wardrobe -

         - the King nods. He does not gesture but people depart briskly in several directions. He leans forward to look at Avalor. "Welcome to Tirion."

Avalor produces a marvelously elegant bow, as though he were Great-Great-Great-Grandma, who is murdered with most everyone else. "Your majesty."

"Valinor is a safe place, built for people who wished to never again fear death or loss or war. We are pleased to meet Voa in friendship and would that we could have met you sooner, in peacetime."

"Voa is now only a colony of the mighty Empire of Oahk," hate hate hate, "but would have been delighted to make the acquaintance of the land of Valinor," she says from the bottom of her bow. It is technically peacetime. Conquest is one of the things that leads to peacetime. Hate hate hate.

"Maitimo thinks that this is a temporary state of affairs the Noldor need not bother acknowledging," says the King. 

Is he going to tell her she can stand up. "I see, your majesty."

"Please rise. That's not a commitment I can make lightly, but if it is in our power it seems very much something that ought to be done. And in the meantime you needn't pretend things are all right."

She unbows. "Thank you, your majesty."

"I've sent messengers to the Valar to request that they seek your dead, learn about and bring under our control the means of transit between worlds, and come here to offer any other assistance and assurance they can. Will you be missed, will people from your world come and look for you -"

"My foster parents" these are a pair of women, blue-haired like her, "or their servants will expect me to be in the room I came from. It might be hours before they look, but it might not."

- he looks horrified. "Well, we can't send you back to that -"

...she's not sure why any of that adds horror to what he already knew.

" - that's inherently disgusting," Maitimo pipes up helpfully. "Like bodies or sewage or something."

"...having servants? Foster parenting?"

"Having relations like a married couple between two women," the King explains. "It's - not worse than murder, not worse than all the other things this Empire does and justifies, it's just disgusting, but people who are doing that shouldn't be anywhere near vulnerable children -"

"If you would like me to wash, since they have touched me, then I can do that." Great-uncle Bar catching her by the hand he wasn't lined up because he's yellow and he was half-mad from grief over great-uncle Hazab but he told her be brave - she can be brave.

"No, no, dear, it doesn't make you disgusting, that part is - not the same as your world's concept. It's just another thing we'll have to fix, it's all right. We can find you a place to stay here. Do you - want to have foster parents, or would you sooner live alone, or with servants or with other children -"

Great-uncle Bar is still alive but probably she shouldn't say she wants to go live with him and she doesn't know what's become of him since he told her to be brave anyway, they didn't line up the yellows but - "I haven't given it very much thought, your majesty."

"All right. Would you like to tell us about your world - what the cities and peoples are, what daily life is like, any history you would like us to know -"

She's not exactly sure where to start. "My planet is called Amenta. It has nine billion people on it. It has - more than a hundred countries -" Hard to count exactly with Oahk everywhere. "- and seven castes."

"What are those, exactly?"

"A caste is a group of people with particular aptitudes and potential. I'm blue. You can usually tell by hair, but if people don't have their caste's hair they can dye it so people know what to expect of them."

"...I think then perhaps we have three."

"Oh?"

"The Noldor mostly have black hair with some red and our aptitude is for inventing and creating and building; we are sculptors and engineers and woodworkers and glassblowers. The Vanyar all have golden hair and their aptitude is for song and poetry and prayer and mathematics and lore. The Teleri mostly have brown hair with some silver and their aptitude is for seafaring and travel and fishing and knotwork and movement."

"Those are different from ours but it makes sense since you are not the same species."

Nod. "What are yours?"

"Blue are landholders and aristocrats and rulers. Greens are artists and scholars and musicians. Yellows do technical and bureaucratic things. Greys are soldiers and police and dancers and seafarers. Oranges care for people, like children or the sick. Purple do farming and manufacture and labor and crafts. Reds do unclean things."

"...that is an interesting approach to people who do unclean things. We would I think try to convince them to stop doing unclean things, instead of having a whole society of them."

"The red jobs are necessary. I think you get around needing them here. The castes aren't societies, every country has some of each."

"Do you think that if we stop people in your world from ever dying and get you magic fountains the reds will be happy to stop doing unclean things?"

"No, they will be upset and try to kill people."

" - why?"

"They want their jobs and get angry whenever anyone thinks about making machines to do them instead."

"Then I suppose we needn't get fountains but we can't have you keep dying."

"I think you should replace the reds with magic and stop them from killing people with magic."

"Do you know some reds I could talk to about that? I am confused about why they would be killing people."

"I don't know any reds." She's seen them, they came to clear away the bodies.

"Once the Valar can ensure it is safe perhaps we will go through and speak to people. Do you have questions about our world?"

She doesn't know where to start. "Do you have electricity?"

"No."

"I think it will be hard to destroy the Oahk Empire if you don't have electricity. Maybe you can do it with magic. We don't have any magic."

"The Valar have very powerful magic. In the last war they fought, continents broke apart but that would not be an acceptable outcome on Amenta because it sounds like lots of innocent people would die and we don't know yet if we can bring them back. How does electricity help with wars?"

"I don't know. Technology helps and electricity is a technology."

He nods gravely. "We will look into it. If we make the Oakh Empire go away, but we can't bring your dead back yet, are there enough people to rebuild Voa?"

"Yes. Most of the other castes lived. We can let people have more children to make up shortfalls."

"And are there enough of the blues to run it?"

"I think I'm the only one of the Five Lines but there were others who probably lived."

And he wants to know what electricity does and what wars are over and how many planets they would need to let everyone have as many children as they want and how they grow food and how they handle it when one citizen has a grievance with another and whether the Oahk Empire is presently hurting other people too and what she knows about those people.

Electricity turns on lights and makes trains go and keeps them warm in winter and makes phones work. Wars are over space and money and threats and hate. They need to keep finding new planets pretty much forever but even one entire planet would let them relax the population controls a little. Purples grow food. In fields. They have to water them. If the grievance is an emergency the police handle it and if it is not an emergency, or not any more, then a blue judge sees the case and decides what to do. The Oahk Empire has other colonies and is probably about the same to them.

Would it work for her to stay with the crown prince's family for the time being while they learn things and make decisions? 

It seems like they are probably clean after all so yes that will be fine.

Oh good. The telepathy works at a distance; one is not supposed to directly telepathy the King save in a dire emergency requiring his personal attention, but she can think at these people here any time and they'll bring any problems to the attention of the appropriate people.

Like with emergency phone lines, all right.

Then they can go get lunch maybe there are people offering food from little carts in the streets.

"I don't have any money, is that all right?"

"What's that?"

"...It's how you get things that you don't have and you want."

" - here you get those by asking."

"...does everybody do that or just princes?"

"Everyone does that but I probably get what I want more often, if it's a scarce thing."

"Oh. Okay."

"But there are enough people who like making food that food is not a scarce thing and everyone can have as much as they want. Scarce things are, like, nice houses in good places, or the time of a very good portrait artist, or magic items."

"I think maybe fewer Amentans like making food and growing food enough to just do it."

"It's probably a lot more work without magic."

"That explains it."

There are vendors! They greet him cheerfully and wave and her and shove food at both of them. "You might want to tie your hair back," he says while they are doing this. "Elves don't wear it loose except if they're alone. Or married."

"Oh. I only have these pins."

He goes up to a random vendor and gets a hair clip and hands it to her.

She clips her hair back into a ponytail.

That is okay since she is still little like him.  He nibbles on savory snack cakes and fruit. "I think maybe the Valar will just go to the Oakh Empire and tell them they have to stop immediately. Will they listen?"

"...I don't think so. Who are they?"

"The Valar are the gods here."

Blink. "What does that mean?"

" - do you not have gods?"

"I guess not."

"They made the world and can change the rules about how it works as much as they want and they only have a physical form if they want to and they can pay attention to a thousand things at once and they are very strange and not exactly like people."

"We don't have those."

"They are mostly nice, they make things nice. They teach us magic and science and they stop any wars from happening in Valinor. If we didn't have them we would have to be afraid of the Oahk Empire coming here if electricity is more useful for war than magic, but we do have them so if the Oakh Empire stormed in with all their soldiers the Valar could just turn them into trees or something - part of what I mean about being very strange is that the Valar would think of something like 'turn them into trees' instead of something like 'send them home'."

"That would be a lot of trees."

"A whole big forest. I think maybe you could give the Valar advice on how to talk to the Oakh Empire so they don't go there, tell them to stop, get told 'no' and turn everyone in the Empire into trees because that is kind of the sort of mistake Valar make."

"Maybe they could just turn the blues into trees. It's probably not the other ones' fault."

Nod. "Is it all the blues' fault."

"It might even just be the emperor's fault. - And the soldiers who did what he said."

"So maybe we can suggest to the Valar that they just turn the emperor and the soldiers into trees and then go ask the soldier-trees if maybe they were scared for their family if they disobeyed the emperor or something like that and untree them if they had a reason like that."

"Maybe. If you can talk to trees. But the emperor should stay a tree."

"He sounds like he is doing a lot of harm as an emperor."

"Yes." She nibbles on a bread.

"Will whoever replaces him be better or will the Valar probably have to keep treeing them."

"I don't know very much about his heirs."

"They wouldn't have to be nice, just sensible, but the people in your world don't sound very sensible."

"I don't know if they're sensible." Nom nom bread.

"Murdering all those people doesn't seem very sensible. If they hadn't been horrible you wouldn't hate them and the Emperor wouldn't be treed now would he."

"I don't think they were expecting me to meet magic people who could turn them into trees and if they had they would have killed me even though I held still."

" - yes but in general people hating them is bad for them, compared to people not hating them, you don't have to expect magic to expect it is better for people to not hate you."

"They wanted to have Voa for themselves. It has really good farms."

"Killing innocent people because you want their stuff does not seem sensible to me but I guess maybe it's sensible if you're evil."

Nod.

"Do you want to get anything while we're in the city?"

"I don't know what there is here."

"What things might you want in the next couple days?"

"I need food. I won't be able to read your books. I will want to wear different clothes if there is a special occasion or I spill something or it's a new day. And separate ones for sleeping. I need a tooth kit and a comb and soap."

"Then we should get those things," he nods. "Well, not books, those are too hard to make to be giving away."

"Hard to make?"

"Someone has to write them and it takes a long time."

"But once someone has written it can't you print the words for anybody who wants a copy? Even if you don't have computers."

"...how would we do that?"

"I am positive it was before electricity. I don't know exactly how."

"Well if you think how maybe we can try it."

"A grown up from my world would probably know. It'd be a yellow thing, you should ask a yellow." She tries not to think about her great uncle Bar.

"It's like the people who sweep the streets here."

"What's like people who sweep the streets?"

"Your great-uncle."

"...I don't understand."

"Here no one thinks there's anything wrong with it if you sweep the streets, and if you went to the street-sweepers and told them that actually they are disgusting and shouldn't touch their wife who does glassblowing or something, they would be so sad. And in your world no one thinks it's wrong for two men to act like they're married and if we go and tell them they're disgusting they'll be really sad. But maybe we have to do it anyway, I don't know."

"I think sweeping is okay because the broom is a separate thing. I've seen purples sweeping things."

"Okay. But if we had people who maintained the magic fountains, then we would have to tell them they are disgusting and can't touch their families?"

"Maybe. It probably depends on how magic the fountains are. We can touch taps."

"And when I think about how I would feel about that I would be - really sad and I wouldn't really care what your world thinks is disgusting. So that's probably how the people in your world who are doing disgusting things will feel when the Valar tell them to stop."

"Reds just only have red families in the first place. They didn't get surprised."

"And people here don't mind about it being disgusting to do that thing because they just don't do it in the first place. Telling people it's disgusting when they didn't know seems sadder somehow."

She doesn't think her great uncle even is disgusting. With the street sweeping thing if you didn't think there was anything objectionable about the stuff you were sweeping then you wouldn't sweep it away in the first place.

"...you might think it's fine but doesn't belong in the streets. Like if sand blows into the streets it'll eventually make them impassable but that's not something that's wrong with sand. I don't know how to explain the thing with people behaving like they're married because I don't know what exactly married people do."

"You can clean up things that are okay and that's okay. Like sand or putting books back on shelves, purples can do that, it's not unclean. My great uncles were married. Till they killed one."

"...are you sure about that."

"...I didn't go look in the hall of records but I didn't go look for my parents either."

"- what would that have to do with it?"

"That's how you look up if somebody got married."

"...I think we might be talking at cross purposes. Marriage is a blessing from the gods, and you can tell if people are married by looking in their eyes."

"We don't have any gods. Or any magic," she says. "Any magic, at all."

"Then I think you might just not have marriage." He perks up. "Maybe the thing they're doing isn't disgusting, then, and we don't have to tell them it is."

She's not quite sure how that works but okay. "Okay."

"I would have to ask someone married but there's a chance maybe."

"I would rather aliens did not go tell my great uncle that he should never have had his brutally murdered husband."

"It seems like a very mean thing to do. But it also seems mean to tell people who touch the dead that they are inherently unclean. It seems like exactly the same kind of mean, really."

"People don't tell them, everybody just knows it."

"I guess that's okay. If no one bothers them because of it there isn't much you could do about people knowing it."

"They live off by themselves."

"Well, if people here have jobs that would count we aren't going to tell them they're disgusting I think."

"I think you probably don't, there seems to be a lot of magic and people aren't doing it for generations and generations."

"Why does that bit matter?"

"I don't know exactly. I touched my parents a little after they were dead and I could wash it off but reds are still how they are even if they take a shower, but I don't know how it works."

He acquires her clothes and soap and so forth. "Do you mind if I have Tirion sing for your parents."

"Sing for them?"

"That's what we do here when someone dies. We sing for six days and share memories of them and mourn together."

"I don't mind."

There's a sudden quiet. And then in telepathically coordinated unison Tirion starts singing. It is a very very sad song.

The aliens have fairly astonishing singing voices.

Oh.

Thank you.

...how does she - doesn't want to talk over the singing -

For what?

Letting us - grieve with you. 

You're welcome but I don't know why you want to.

Because they are dead and that is horrible and maybe gone and that would be the most horrible thing in the whole world and it is - good to have people around to be sad and angry and remind us that we are right to be sad and angry. At least for me it's good. It'd be worse to be alone.

She wipes her eye with the edge of her sleeve a little.

They sing.

I wasn't really allowed.

To grieve, you mean?

To think they shouldn't be dead.

Well. They shouldn't be dead.

She nods. She cries.

Hug?

Okay hug.

He hugs her and sings.

And she cries on the last bit of her bread thing.

They have all their things and could go back but he thinks maybe staying where everybody is singing is better.

For a while, anyway.

We can go home when you are ready.

Eventually she's done crying for the time being.

She looks at her cried-on bread thing. Where do I put this.

Little boxes with the flowers on top, inside them things decay and will turn into dirt for the flowers.

She didn't think compost worked that fast. She puts her bread thing in a flower box.

Decay works as fast as the Valar want which is usually not at all.

That seems like autumn would get very piles-of-leaves-y very fast but maybe they have something for that. This place is so magic.

Yeah Yavanna makes plants behave how she likes. She might do that for Voa too if you want she really likes it.

Maybe. She's gotten turned around.

It's this way back home. Do you like babies my parents are having one soon.

She was supposed to have a little brother in a couple of months. She starts crying again.

Stupid evil emperor.

I don't have any particular opinions about babies in general yet, she says, I haven't done a spring.

Done a spring?

Oh, right, he's an alien. Amenta has four seasons, in the places people like to live. We're born in the spring or early to mid summer. When we turn four, sometimes not until we turn five especially if we're sickly or were born later in the year, spring comes and then most people suddenly really want babies. Some people like babies before that but I don't.

That doesn't happen to people here. And we can't have kids until we're fifty.

We live to be about forty.

You might have different length years.

Yeah maybe. I am sixteen of our years.

You look my age and I'm two.

Huh. What do you die of when you all randomly die -

Just of being old.

How horrible.

I guess. It always seemed very remote.

Are there other horrible things going on too?

She doesn't really have a list. And she's two. Maybe.

Well we can help you make Voa really nice with magic.

Thank you.

Home they go. There are people keeping an eye on the wardrobe.

Avalor is not sure what to do next.

Maybe she should learn the language.

Maitimo's father would be so so delighted to teach her! And learn hers!

Avalor has actually taught Voan before, a little, her family entertained the ambassador from Tapa and she tutored a boy her age in the language. In addition to Voan she has a decent command of Tapap and Evaleen and Anitami and she's been learning Oahkar.

He is kind of absurdly delighted. 

It's pleasantly distracting. Can she start by learning the Quenya alphabet?

He is so delighted to teach her the Quenya alphabet. He made it, see. The shape of the letters tells you where in your mouth to pronounce them, like so. 

...he made it. Okay.

...well, someone had to and no one had yet so he did. Elves haven't existed for very long, and they've only existed someplace bright enough for reading since around when he was born.

Okay. Every major language on Amenta uses writing.

He would love to learn as many alphabets as she knows!

Tapap and Anitami are related and share one. Voan's alphabet is a little like Evaleen's but not much anymore. Oahkar is different, it doesn't use phonetic writing.

He takes detailed notes and has lots of questions some of which she probably, being two, cannot answer.

Not most of them, no.

That's okay! He is wildly envious that her world has so many languages.

It's kind of a headache, you need translators to get anything done if you have to talk to a country where you don't know the language.

From the other side of the wardrobe: "Avalor? Avalor?"

Elves responsible for watching the wardrobe reluctantly inform Avalor that the disgusting bad people are calling for her.

Maybe Avalor should learn to do private thoughts if she is trying to be diplomatic about that thing. "Should I go through -"

Elves think not but they will not stop her.

"I don't really want to but if it would be bad if they found the passage, or something..."

It would be convenient if they didn't find the passage until there was a Vala available, just so there was no confusion about the potential outcome of an attempted invasion of Valinor, but they are not going to send a child to terrible people in order to have a slightly more convenient first contact with Amenta. 

"They aren't very terrible apart from being Imperial."

And being disgusting. (Maitimo asks if it is disgusting given how they are aliens and don't have soul marriages. It is gently explained that yes, still disgusting and horrible, he'll understand why when he's older.)

She is going to have to learn private thoughts.

"Avalor, where are you? It's suppertime," says a foster mom. "Darling have you seen Avalor -?"

"No, I thought she was in her room?"

"She's not in here unless she's hiding - Avalor don't hide -"

Elves assure her that they aren't offended that she doesn't understand how it's disgusting, children shouldn't know about such things at all. 

She is going to have to learn private thoughts if these Elves won't shut their faces about her great-uncles who loved each other and doted on her and one of them was beheaded.

Presumably there are reds who love and dote on each other? The existence of disgusting people who love each other doesn't prove anything and definitely doesn't make it okay. 

Maitimo tells them to maybe drop it please. 

The Elves are stupid. Maybe not Maitimo.

Public thoughts can be declaimed from the balcony of her room in the city house where she used to live, she used to be allowed to make announcements from there. Private thoughts are under her bed in the wintering house, where she had a pillow nest and it was dark. The Elves being stupid goes in the pillow nest.

If the Elves still hear it they do not comment on it. 

Fine.

A foster mom looks in the wardrobe and starts pushing clothes aside.

At the back of the wardrobe there is - no back of the wardrobe, just more clothes.

"...Darling come look at this."

Other foster mom comes and looks. "What in the world...?"

"Avalor?"

"Avalor are you all right?"

Elves look at each other and go back to singing the sad song.

A foster mom steps all the way through the wardrobe into Maitimo's room.

Maitimo is at his desk again. He turns and waves because he can be polite even if she is disgusting especially if he doesn't understand how.

"...um." She looks at his hair, but she also notices the ears and doesn't tense up quite as immediately. "Hello?"

"Hello. Only say a bit of Voan. - magic," he adds, pointing at the wardrobe. "King sent -" gesture at the Elves who are responsible for wardrobe. "I am Nelyafinwë Maitimo."

"...Darling there's a - an alien? Who - speaks bad Voan?" says Foster Mom #1 in Oakhar. "Your Voan's better -"

"An alien? Are you saying aliens abducted Avalor? If we tell the Emperor oh, yes, that Voan child we were looking after, abducted by aliens, we're never going to get a permission -" Out pops #2. "- wow."

"Hello." Points at wardrobe. "Magic. My father says Oakhar a bit - Father -"

His Oakhar is not quite as good as Avalor's yet. "Oh, hello. Welcome to Tirion. Your world sounds very interesting if completely appalling."

"That's not very diplomatic," he complains in Quenya.

Foster Moms blink at them.

"There are aliens in Avalor's wardrobe?" says #2.

"Avalor made first contact with aliens?" surmises #1.

"It looks more like the wardrobe permits transit between worlds than that either world is properly conceived of as inside the wardrobe," he says.

Say 'Avalor had only complimentary things to say about the Oakh Empire and the generosity of her foster parents.'

But she was thinking about how much she hated them! "Avalor had only complimentary things to say about the Oakh Empire and the generosity of her foster parents."

"This is - bizarre. Very bizarre. We need to tell the Emperor."

"Tell him that there are aliens in our Voan fosterling's wardrobe."

"He can come see! Or send someone! It's not like we'd be making it up!"

"We could send a diplomatic envoy but require a day to assemble one."

"That - sounds like a good idea - where is Avalor, is she all right?"

"The King arranged accommodations for her. I do not think she was further traumatized by our company."

His son glares at him.

"We'd like her to come home now, please, since the - wardrobe - goes both ways."

"You are welcome to tell the King so."

"Is she not here? Where is she?"

"In the accommodations that the King arranged for her." His Oahkar is notably better.

"Can someone bring her back here or do we need to go fetch her?"

"It sounds like lots of people recently died. The King might be reluctant to send a child back into the world that killed her parents and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and greatgrandparents, lest something happen to her too."

"She's fine we're looking after her -"

"Then you can tell the King that and perhaps he will find his worries misplaced."

Sigh. "Where is he?"

"The palace. I can take you there."

"We should wait for the Emperor -" one whispers.

"They're holding Avalor hostage and the Emperor won't care about that," the other whispers back. They obviously have no idea how good Elf hearing is, let alone about the mindreading.

Father now they're scared could've been friendlier and then they wouldn't be scared we don't want to turn more people into trees than we have to.

Turn people into trees?

Or whatever the Valar end up doing.

Well it seems to me like they deserve it.

I am sad and mad too.

Pat. 

The Elves start singing again.

...foster moms do not know how to react to that.

Meanwhile, Avalor has been lurking and listening. I can go with them if that makes it easier.

No. - I mean, if you want to go with them, we have no right to hold you here against your will and won't do it. But we are not in danger and if I were you I'd never want to see any of them again until the Empire was toppled and if you want that you are welcome here until then or forever.

- my father adores you and my grandfather is reminded of himself. They're not going to decide it's too much trouble, they're really not, not ever.

I don't know what exactly you're trying to do so I don't know how much harder it will get if I stay.

We are going to try to fix the things that are horrible about your world starting with the Oakh empire.

It might be easier if you stay really because you will think of things we might not think of because of being aliens.

Okay. I'll stay then.

Foster moms are confused. One tentatively heads back into the wardrobe.

Elves make no move to stop her.

The other says, "...so you're keeping our foster daughter until we are ready to speak to the King?"

"The child is safe here and repatriation would need to be discussed with the King, yes. If only she had any surviving relatives who could reassure us that she'll be safe."

"We have custody," says Foster Mom.

"Well, now we have custody."

"...I meant we have legal custody."

"This is a different country. The King's word is law here. You don't have legal custody here."

Hostage, right. The Emperor doesn't value Avalor, he won't care if they threaten her, Avalor makes a terrible hostage. She is suddenly unsure of her own freedom to leave - the Emperor doesn't care about her much but her father-in-law is important - she edges back toward the wardrobe.

Elves make no effort to stop her. 

That's weird.

Presently there are some guards on their side of the wardrobe too.

After some discussion Elves read their minds.

They are missing dinner till the next shift comes by. The ladies must have lost their minds. Maybe the kid escaped. This one has a kid that age and he can get out of anything, can't take your eyes off him for a second.

Are the Valar coming quick.

Quick for Valar, I suppose.

It might be important that it be actually quick. 

I know that. So does my father. Only so much we can do.

Okay.

Elves keep singing.

Avalor likes the singing, in a crying sort of way.

If she wants more hugs he will give her more hugs. 

That would be nice.

Hug hug. 

Sigh. You all sing so nicely.

People don't sing where you're from? Maybe that's why they are horrible, they haven't better coping mechanisms.

There are singers but most of them aren't that good.

Huh. 

And after a while someone brings them dinner and suggests that children often benefit from sleep.

Where should I sleep?

There's a bunch of guest rooms you can pick the one you think is prettiest.

Okay. Where?

Mental map! Here here here here here and here.

Gosh. She goes and looks at a guest room and cannot imagine that there exist prettier guest rooms because how would you do that and she changes into her sleep clothes and goes to bed.

Elves hang out around the wardrobe singing.

After a few hours a green haired person steps through, festooned with devices.

"Hello!"

"...hello!" He checks devices. "Wow, it's really not radioactive here... Sorry, I'm not the diplomatic arm, I'm just here to make sure it's safe even though the ladies seemed all right."

"I am also not the diplomatic arm just picked up the language fastest. What all are you checking?"

"...I was assuming you were using some kind of translation software that's just a lot better than ours. Uh, radioactivity, pathogens - I can't check very well for those but I can do a first pass - chemicals, gravity, temp and pressure."

"I think we're just a better species design - being, uh, a designed species in the first place, I hear you're not."

"...we're not, no. Uh, why do you think that?"

"Picked up the language faster, sleep less, pathogens have never had any noticeable effects on us to the point where I don't know how to check for them -"

"I meant why do you think you're designed."

" - I have met the designers. And the first Elves to wake up - as healthy adults with no language or memories - remember it and answered a bunch of my questions about adult language acquisition."

"...ah."

He looks at the gadgets curiously.

Some of them beep or blink! The green looks at all of them. "No cell signal... wired signal works..." A device indeed trails a wire into the wardrobe. "...seems safe, they want me to hang out for a few hours in case I die or something, is that okay?"

"Yes, sure, but the child who wandered in has been here nearly a day and remains not dead -" his brow furrows - "yep, not dead."

"...how did you check?"

"- most answers I could give to that are either unhelpful or - I don't have the word - the King prefers not shared -"

"Secret? ...You have 'acquisition' and 'pathogen' but not 'secret'?"

"I wasn't filling out a dictionary, just talking with Avalor, and she taught me Voan and Tapap and Anitami also."

"She's two. And blue. How did pathogens come up?"

"The word I learned from you, the concept in relation to - whether our world took adequate precautions about your world's hereditary uncleanliness thing -"

"I used it in a list, how do you know that 'pathogens' means that and 'chemicals' doesn't?"

"Unhelpful or secret."