He blinks at her.

...She can't even tell what species he is, he looks sort of like an adorable half-elf as photorealistically drawn by somebody who'd never met a real half-elf. "Hello?" she tries. Hello? she adds, belatedly.

He recognizes that and reacts a little, pulling himself into a tight ball. Then he sends something back. It's not in words, but the sentiment is clear. I don't want to talk to anybody.

"I can't understand you," she tells him, apologetically. "If you don't like subtle arts and don't speak Pax I don't think we can get anywhere."

Another image floats into her head: the kid toddling into the room, identifying the largest things he can move, pushing them in front of the door so he'll hear the clatter if anyone enters looking for him. And then a sense of confusion, but now the question is more apparent: how did you get in without knocking over my things?

When you leave, don't tell them I'm here.

I don't even know who they are, or you, she says. I don't know where I am.

You're in the west wing of the palace. And a diagram of a floorplan. You can tell you're in Tirion by the Trees, can't you? It's my parents' servants who are looking for me, and I'll come back, but I don't want to just yet.

I'm - thanks for the floorplan but I don't know anything about Tirion and don't see any Trees here...? I don't know if I've ever heard of this country before at all.

His eyes light up, Are you from Endorë? The Trees are - he gestures at the ceiling. That's Laurelin, she's golden. Telperion is silver and when they're both bright everything is white.

I'm from a country called the Imperium and I've never heard of Endorë either...

Well, we call it Endorë. In Endorë they might not call it Endorë, because Endorë means faraway-place.

Well, I'm definitely from somewhere other than here, I can't even quite tell what species you are.

He scrunches up his face. Since he's tiny, the effect is quite odd. I'm Fëanáro Curufinwë of the Noldor. Even if you're from Endorë you should know my father.

I guess I'm from even farther away than that, then, so I won't know all the things I should, sorry.

Ata'll help you figure it out, don't worry.

You don't think he'll be mad at me for landing in his palace?

Confusion. You said you didn't mean to.

I didn't, but some people might be mad anyway, or not believe me.

Ata's not mad, just sad, and he'll believe you.

Okay. Should I go looking for him first thing?

The rules about what people should do are strange and I don't really know. I'm not supposed to run off to cry but you might allowed since you're from faraway and it won't make Ata sad. You could go look for him so he can fix things.

...Why aren't you supposed to run off to cry?

Makes Ata worry, he thinks I'll be eaten by orcs. That's what happened to children who ran off to cry when he was little, and even though there aren't any orcs here he's always scared.

Oh. Well, where will I find your Ata?

He highlights a room in the palace floorplan he'd sent her, then stands there, warily watching.

Do you mind if I move the things so I can get out?

I'll move them back.

Okay. So she sets aside the things enough to let the door open and steps out, waving at the tiny articulate child.

He starts dragging them back into place.

And she heads for the room he pointed out, walking slowly and warily.

Someone heads down the hall in the other direction, does a double-take at the sight of her, says something in the language she doesn't speak.

Wince. I'm sorry, I don't speak your language.

The stranger takes this reasonably well. I see. Are you an Ainu of a distant land?

I don't know what an Ainu is. I'm from a country called the Imperium and I arrived here in a magical accident.

I see. And you are here to ask the aid of our King?

I'm trying to figure out where I am and what I should do next, and if your King will not be angry that I landed in his palace, that sounds like a reasonable thing to do next is ask his aid.

Of course he won't be angry, you poor thing. This way. An encouraging smile.

So she follows the person.

Into a marvelous and architecturally impossible atrium with soaring ceilings, lit again by an extremely bright gold light shining directly through all the rock. There are people crowded at the front of it, speaking. Her escort calls something, gets their attention, and then presumably explains the situation, as all eyes turn curiously to her.

Um. Hello, she says, shuffling awkwardly. She's still wearing her backpack in the presence of Apparently A King, how ridiculous.

The man who is apparently the King (his robes are most elaborate, he's wearing an elaborate headpiece and everyone steps aside for him, though he's not sitting on any kind of throne) sweeps toward her. Welcome to the Blessed Realm, child!

Thank you. I apologize for the, um, unannounced arrival.

But it is certainly not to me that you'd owe an announcement, and we wouldn't have known what to do with it anyway, save welcome you better. Are you well? Was your journey tedious?

It was instantaneous but disorienting; I think I'm all right though.

It would be our honor to aid you in reorienting, then, though I must admit we're mostly occupied at the moment. I can find someone to take you to a room, and then later offer whatever aid you might require?

That would be very kind of you. I apologize for interrupting. What a nice king. She is not even slightly executed.

So someone shows her off to a guest room. Before they give it to her they check under the bed and in the spacious closet and in the dressers - We're looking for the King's son.

After she's been sitting on the bed for a few minutes there's a knock.

She opens the door.

It's the very small child again. He mind-projects intense satisfaction. I thought they'd put you here! They did! And he ducks under her legs and into the room.

Did they find you? she wonders.

No. I know the palace better than them, but there's lots of them, so I have to go places they already checked. And they won't come bother a guest, so now I'll hide here and they won't find me. He looks up at her as if it is occurring to him for the first time that she might object to this. I'll be very small and won't cry loudly, you won't even notice.

Do you think your Ata might be annoyed if he finds out that I knew where you were? It was one thing when you weren't in the room with me and nobody asked, but if you're in here - I don't mean to ask this so often but where I'm from annoying powerful people is very dangerous.

Dangerous?

If I had landed in the Emperor's palace in my own country I would be (dead already) in very, very big trouble, not sitting in a nice guest room. And if he were looking for someone and I hid them it would be even worse.

You don't live in Valinor, he says, as if this explains everything.

And I've never heard of it before today, so I don't know how it works and I don't know what's safe.

I don't want to get you in trouble.

I don't either. Do you know if hiding here will get me in trouble?

No. He curls up. But I don't want to leave.

Well, this is about the extent of Bella's willingness to attempt to evict a crown prince who prefers to be in a room with her.

He is, as he promised, very very quiet.

Bella takes out a textbook to read.

After about an hour he creeps out from his corner and watches from across the room.

She glances up.

What's that?

The book? It's my textbook for the class I was trying to find when I had my accident.

But what is it, the artist is so precise and it has the same things over and over -

Fascination. Delight. He climbs into her lap. I want to see.

Oh gods there is a missing crown prince in her lap she does not know how to deal with this - It's not in your language, she reminds him, so if I read it to you it wouldn't make sense.

I can probably learn?

It takes years to learn a language, she says.

Okay. He leans comfortably into her chest. It might not take me very long. I'm smart. My mother says so. It's why she left.

I took too much out of her, being born, because my spirit shines too bright and I have the strength that should have gone into many children, so now she doesn't want any more, so now Ata's always sad and she's always sad and the Valar are trying to heal her and it's my fault. That's why I was crying. He says this very steadily, but curls up again as he speaks.

So she hugs him, since he's already in her lap and everything.

I think I do want a hug, he thinks after a bit, but mostly I want to learn your picture words.

We can do both. Do you want to learn some of the spoken language first so the writing will make sense?

Yes.

What would you like to learn to say first?

Maybe you can talk and I can listen? I don't talk much, I don't like it.

Okay. And she starts speaking soft Pax words while she translates by subtle arts. "I'm afraid I don't know how to teach a language. I was never good at the one I tried to learn in high school, and that was a few years ago now. I think they may have started us on the numbers one to ten or something like that. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten."

And the numbers after that?

"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen -" She keeps going to thirty, and then says, "The rest of the groups of ten are just like twenty through twenty-nine," and skips by tens to a hundred.

We don't go by tens.

"What do you go by instead of tens?"

Twelve. I'm nearly twelve.

"Your species must grow a lot slower than mine, then," she says. "Well, in Pax the numbers go by tens and they're written like that too." She puts the book on his lap and indicates the page numbers, flip flip flip, counting aloud again.

He watches patiently.

She gets to thirty-four ("Intake Interviews") and then skips back to the beginning. "The letters go in an order, sort of like numbers, except there are only a few of them. Some of them are more common than others because they go with commoner sounds, or more sounds. I might be able to find one of everything on this page." And then, haltingly, in order, she finds everything in the Pax alphabet in the first page of introduction.

He's tracing them out in the air, wide-eyed. So clever. Who invented it?

"Dragons, probably, this is the same alphabet Draconic uses. I don't know which dragon, or if it actually was one of them personally or just somebody who wanted to write in their language."

Awe. What's a dragon?

A picture of a silver dragon, very scary and enormous. They look like that, but they can change shape if they want. They're extremely dangerous. The ones that look like metal will always keep their promises, but the other colors won't so they're worse - but any dragon is extremely dangerous.

There are no dragons here in the Blessed Realm. Maybe in Endorë, I don't know.

"I don't know either," she says, remembering to speak-and-translate. "There are fewer than there used to be in my plane."

He nods solemnly. What symbol is a dragon?

"Dragon is spelled -" She names the letters, finding examples on the page, point point point.

He nods. This story isn't about dragons, that doesn't appear anywhere.

"This isn't a story, it's a textbook. I was going to take a class about therapy, which is what I was going to do for a job when I got out of school, and this book was the reference for the class."

Oh. Job? School? Class?

"I spent a lot of time studying things, in groups, so that I could acquire skills, which other people would want me to use for them," Bella says. "A class is when somebody who knows a lot about something agrees to teach a group of people that thing, and a school is someplace where there are a lot of classes, and a job is using your skill once you have it so people will give you money."

He nods. Money?

This is a really fucking nice palace for illiterate pre-economic uneducated people. ...Stop thinking like a delving major. "Money is something that's hard to get a lot of, like gold or silver, and everybody will trade you whatever they have that you might want for some of your gold or silver, which makes it useful to get as much money as you can because that's the easiest way to get everything else."

Bella instantly stops hugging the prince and freezes in place.

Fëanáno does too.

She can't even think of a way to formulate an apology so she winds up scrunching her eyes shut and looking terrified, that's a good all-purpose response.

And now the King himself arrives, and storms into the room with a flock of other people looking absolutely furious. He directs a question in his language at Fëanáno, who shakes his head and curls up again.

Well so much for Ata never being angry just sad - Bella thinks but doesn't say when she peeks. She does not say that or anything else, she just shakes.

He pulls the prince out of her lap, hugs him, and makes some kind of demand of her in Quenya, which she obviously does not understand.

I, I still don't speak your, language, I'm, sorry -

What did you do to my son?

I didn't, I, he wanted to learn to read, I, please don't hurt me

There's a shocked and confused silence. No one's going to hurt you, he says after a moment, but we've been looking for my child all day in greater and greater panic. What did you do? What happened?

He was in the room where I landed and didn't want me to tell anyone and I don't know who it's safe to irritate and nobody asked so - so I didn't, and then when I was here he came in and, he was curious about my book, he wanted to learn to read -

Of course he did. He stands. In the future, if he comes to you, tell us where he is. Fëanáro, we're leaving.

Bella bows her head apologetically.

And they sweep out. The person who'd come in originally stands there awkwardly. I was supposed to show you around.

Um, okay. Bella gets up shakily to her feet and manages to follow her out of the room.

The external light is white now instead of golden. They walk down a few dazzling stone hallways. There are silk tapestries hanging on the sides, hundreds of feet long, stunningly realistic - all of this strange species, playing outdoors in forests or dancing under stars or relaxing on great green hillsides.

It's very pretty. Bella walks and admires and tries to calm her heart rate.

They enter a courtyard. It's extraordinarily elaborate, filled with colorful flowering plants. The sky overhead is an even brighter, unbearable, dazzling white. There's a waterfall that moves in a way definitely not natural to water.

Bella shades her eyes with her hand and squints at the water feature. Nifty. It's beautiful here, she offers.

Isn't it? Delightedly. We're glad you found us.

Blink. Um, you are?

Yes, of course. She hesitates a moment. Did you think you were unwelcome because you hid the crown prince? Finwë was very frightened, but not angry with you. Clearly you did as you thought best.

Honestly, if I'd landed in the Emperor's palace in my country and proceeded as I did I am pretty sure I would be dead at least twice.

Confusion. Your Emperor's palace must be very poorly designed.

The Outer Lands sound terrible indeed, she says, a bit complacently. It's good you're here now.

I suppose, she says. I guess it's not likely there's a convenient way for me to go home.

No, you have to stay! The Blessed Realm is the safest, happiest place in all of Arda, and the Valar are teaching us everything they know of the deep workings of the world.

That doesn't sound cultish at all. I wouldn't know anything about that, but my parents probably think I'm dead and I was in the middle of a course of study I find it unlikely I'll be able to continue here.

Well, your parents will join us if they ever die, and their land sounds very deadly.

Everyone comes to the Halls of the Dead here in Valinor when they die, and then the Valar help them heal as swiftly as possible so they can rejoin the living. We're going to be reunited with everyone we ever lost.

That, um, it sounds very nice that it works that way here, but on my plane when people die they go to one of several afterlives and then they stay there until a living person resurrects them, which is expensive and uncommon, especially for people who die of old age like my parents are likely to.

Ah. Well, whatever the expense, we can always resurrect your parents here.

People who die of old age can't be conventionally resurrected at all; it takes particularly inaccessible feats of magic to do that.

What is ...old age?

Um, your species might not have it, but I'm a human, and we last about eighty, ninety years gradually wearing out and eventually die...

Oh no! That's terrible. You won't die in Valinor, nothing does, but we have to get the rest of your people here as quickly as possible!

...how?

How did you get here?

It was an accident. I was in the wrong building and someone was doing something magical I didn't get a good look at, and I tripped and fell into it and the next thing I knew I was in the palace.

Then we may have to rely on them to learn what they did and get the rest of your people here safely, she says, though I'll ask the Valar if there's anything that can be done. Anyway, I think it would be quite impossible to get yourself killed in this palace.

I don't think they're going to be able to figure out exactly what happened to me like that, let alone figure out how to do it just the same way a few billion times.

I'm very sorry. I hope the after-lives in your world are nice?

Some of them are supposed to be nice.

Okay. Would you like to see the city of Tirion?

Okay.

The city of Tirion would be very pretty if it weren't way, way too bright. It is laid out with wide circular avenues around a grand central square, packed with people, packed particularly with children. There are elaborate fountains everywhere. All of the buildings are in different kinds of obscure stone. Many of them are still unfinished. Her tour guide happily talks about the buildings and the people who live there as they walk.

Bella squints a lot and wishes she had sunglasses. But it's still really pretty and the walk's pretty relaxing.

Eventually they stop walking. This area of the city is more under construction, with wide empty spaces between homes. Would you like your house to be here?

I - my house?

You don't have one, right? Because you came here from another world?

I don't have one...

So would you like it to be here?

I'm missing some steps. Where exactly will a house come from? Will anyone mind if it's here?

Of course not, this space doesn't yet have a house in it, does it? You start sleeping here and you go around and find the kind of stone or wood or design you like and ask that person who designed theirs, and ask that person to design yours, and compliment them very specifically and usefully on their past designs and explain why you desire their aid as your designer. Then you help build other peoples' houses, and they help build yours once you have a design. The Valar make it go very quickly, and they've held the rains in the city until we are finished.

I see. That isn't how one gets houses built in my plane, so I was confused. Um. What exactly are the Valar?

They designed Valinor and ensure that it is utterly safe and peaceful and that no one comes to harm in it, unless they go seeking it out, and even then they are not harmed seriously or irrevocably. They love beautiful things and they love teaching us what they know of the world. They helped build the palace and they're helping build the city.

Okay, but... what... are they?

The creators of the world.

Okay, gods. Of course they don't have 'kh' in their collective name, this isn't her language. I see.

If you don't like this place for a house we can have it somewhere else.

It seems like a fine place, I'm not sure what I'd most want to be near but if you're suggesting it I'm sure it's fine...

The concert hall and palace and art centers are all in the center of town, but it's not too long a walk and most of the houses there are taken. You could ask people if you may live with them, or on their roof?

I don't know anyone that well. Here's fine.

Lovely! She practically radiates delight. Then we'll keep walking - you should leave something here, so everyone knows this is your home-in-progress - and you can consider as you go which designs you like so you know which designers to speak to.

I didn't realize I was going to be picking a place to live so I left my things in the guest room. I guess I'm still wearing my knife.

She looks rather horrified. You carry a knife around? Why?

Um, the place I lived required it because there were a lot of dangerous things around and they wanted us to be able to defend ourselves. I would have gotten in trouble if I'd left my building without it.

Well, here there are no dangerous things and you don't need it. Except for cutting food, and if it's not that kind of knife you should be rid of it entirely.

It's not, but it is magic so it seems a little weird to just throw it out.

Magic?

It's enchanted so it can't cut me. If I'm going to help people build houses that might be useful, because I'm very clumsy and might slip if I were using something that could cut me for any house-building activities that require tools.

Can it cut anyone else, though?

Yes.

Then you should give it to the Valar and ask them to fix that and enchant it so it can't cut anyone.

Um, is it a good idea to go ask for their personal attention?

Yes! You accidentally have a weapon! They'll be delighted to help you.

I mean - is it safe. It wouldn't be safe to do that sort of thing at home. At all.

This is Valinor, it's entirely designed to be safe.

Even if you go bother a Vala? People just do that all the time?

It's not bothering them, they take joy in aiding us and teaching us.

The gods of my plane are. Different. People get help from them but in a systematized way, not by - going and asking.

Well, we just go and ask. Let's do that right now, we can leave my shirt for the house marker. And she takes it off.

Okay. Topless local. Bella will pretend she's a nymph from the waist up. Um, if you say so.

They keep walking, out of town entirely - Tirion has glowing white walls with extraordinarily elaborate scenes carved in - and down a hill.

How far is it?

Oh, Vána's in town helping build the music hall, they're very close. But we're going to Aulë since this is metal, and he's at the bottom of the hill where they're bringing in stone from the mountains.

I should probably learn to pronounce all their names right.

Aulë is just what we call him, their names are in their language and it's not suited to our tongues.

Even so.

They reach the bottom of the hill. You should probably do something with your hair, she says anxiously, if i'm not rude in saying so.

I - what? What should I do with it? Why?

Just, you know, a very careful braid so none is sticking out, some people are developing styles for the Valar but I don't think those have been announced yet. You just shouldn't have it loose, it's indecent.

I didn't realize, I'm sorry. Do you have something on hand to tie it with?

She has several ribbons.

Bella pulls her hair into a braid - she can't quite manage "none sticking out" but she can make it look like she tried - and does her best to get a ribbon around the end, although the task seems to require three hands. She winds up cheating with a little effortful telekinesis, although she has to stop walking to do it.

Thank you. Her guide pointedly avoids watching. And now they take another step down the hill and everything feels different; the air prickles, the sounds from town die out entirely.

That's weird and spooky but she does not want to be a difficult guest for these creepy cult people aaaaaaa

The world continues to feel weirder, and then her guide kneels.

Oh shit kneeling time okay Bella kneels too.

Bella scrambles to unbuckle the sheath from her jeans and put it on the ground in front of her, head bowed.

And he - takes shape, perhaps - out of the air in front of them - like a cheerful bearded man, except too big, and too perfect, to quite seem like a man, and he's still emanating the effortless raw power. He picks up the knife. He sets it back down. There you are, dear. May you use to to craft many beautiful things; may all Valinor find joy in your creations.

Thank you, she replies anxiously.

And Aulë is gone. They both feel energizes as if they've just awoken from a long, refreshing sleep. The light is more tolerable.

Bella is trembling very badly as she goes to buckle the knife back in place.

She puts an arm around her. Their presence becomes easier to enjoy, with time.

Excellent! Let's go see the other side of the city, and arrive at the music hall in time for tonight's performance.

Okay

The other side of town is equally lovely, equally unfinished, and equally full of joyous Elves. A seamstress notices that her guide has no shirt and presses one into her hands. She then says something in the local language to Bella, and gives her a scarf. Because you have a shirt already, her guide explains.

Thank... you...?

I can talk, I just have a different language that no one here would understand. It will take me at least a few years to learn yours, probably longer because you don't have writing and I am used to learning with a lot of writing.

I'm sorry. Perhaps teaching people your language can be the thing you offer them? You can say nice things in your tongue, and then they will hear something new and beautiful and delight in the words.

If you think people would like that I can do that.

I'm sure they would! And they wind their way through the rest of town being offered no gifts more substantial than various sugary delicacies.

And Bella says-and-simultranslates thank you whenever she accepts a sugary delicacy. Maybe if she eats something she'll feel less dizzy.

Um, okay. ...Is it okay to miss the music, I don't know where I'm supposed to be -?

Yes, yes, there's music all the time, the King takes priority.

Okay. So she heads into the palace apprehensively. It would be just her luck if the prince chose this moment to come down with a disease or something.

Um. My name is "I-Isabella Mariel Swan," she says softly, out loud. Or just "Bella."

He flinches. My wife's name is very close to Mariel. It is good that you are safe in Valinor, Isabella Mariel Swan. My son desires to speak with you again; you will see him once a week, supervised, to tell him the things he so enjoyed hearing this afternoon.

...Okay. Um. How long is a week here?

Twelve Minglings, or six waxings and wanings of each Tree.

Okay. So, I'll... come back in six of those...? How long are they?

They are the unit by which we measure time. What do you mean?

In my plane we don't have trees that glow like that so we measure time differently. Um, about what fraction of a Mingling have I been here so far?

You've been here since Laurelin was at her height, and now Telperion is waxing. Whenever both Trees shine at once, that's a Mingling. The white light.

I'll see to it. His thoughts seem a bit cool.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

It is no inconvenience but a great honor you have been accorded.

I - I'm very honored, she backpedals, of course.

You should retrieve your things from the guest rooms, Isabella.

Nod nod scurry scurry.

Fëanáro's there. He is reading her book, or at least holding it and staring very intently.

"Um. Are you going to borrow that until I come back next week?"

His hands tighten around the book. Where are you going?

"Apparently I'm supposed to just sort of sleep outside in a place where a house could go and compliment architects and help people with their houses until a house appears in my place where a house could go. Is what I was told. I don't really understand anything that's going on."

I want to learn to read. I can't do it quite yet because I don't know enough words.

"Your father says I'm to come back once a week and teach you," she says.

How about you just stay here and teach me now?

"He didn't say I could do that. He said I should come collect my things."

"I'm sorry." She puts the book in her backpack and zips it up.

Can you leave it? So I can keep trying?

"...can you ask your father if that's all right first?"

He stands up, a little shakily, and scoots out of the room.

And Bella proceeds king-location-ward with her backpack on her back.

I'd be happy to. Bella swings her backpack around and unzips and pulls out the intro textbook and offers it to Fëanáro.

Thank you. She bows awkwardly and edges towards the exit.

Fëanáro watches her go with wide eyes, clinging the book protectively.

Bella waves at him a little, tentatively, but then all but flees the palace and tries to find the shirt-marked House Location so she can sit there and scream internally for, oh, six hours.

Luckily, the simple structure of the city makes it relatively easy to find the shirt marker.

She goes to it. She sits on the ground by it. She takes off her backpack and puts it in her lap and hugs it and puts her face on its top loopy thing and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

Luckily none of the passersby notice that she looks distressed and try to help.

The light in the sky is now bright silver, and makes the streets silvery.

It is in fact never dark here. When the silver light begins to fade, the golden one starts up - thus creating a period of blinding white light - and then when the golden one is weakening the silver one kicks back in.

The shirt doesn't really cut it. She is going to find someone who designed a house with thick curtains and compliment the fuck out of them when she feels like she can speak to somebody without wanting to throw up. Eventually she takes all the books out of her backpack, stacks them up, and sticks her head in the backpack; it's more opaque than the shirt and she dozes off.

When she wakes up people have left confections and a few gifts at the entrance to her house plot.

Okay. Confectionery for breakfast. She's not sure how else to get food so she fills up on the sugar and tentatively opens the presents.

Earrings, precious and semi-precious stones, and hair adornments, looks like.

She doesn't have pierced ears but they couldn't reasonably have checked while her head was in a backpack. The gems are weird presents. She has no idea what to do with them and doesn't know what the gift etiquette is; it seems likely that leaving them around in their packages is the wrong answer. She winds up arranging them in a little design. With the earrings. On the ground. Ugh. Is this what all those nonhumans at school who came to her with questions felt like all the time? If so, where's the local equivalent of Bella? The hair ornaments at least she can figure out. She rebraids her loosened hair and adorns it.

There's someone walking down the streets, giving out something that smells cooked and savory.

She's full of sugar, but maybe she can save it for lunch? Or should have saved the sweets? (Insert thirty seconds of internal screaming. It doesn't seem to her like it's such a hard question, 'how do you deal with an extraplanar visitor', at least not hard to handle better than this, even if you happen never to have thought about it before!) She... sits there, doesn't stare at the passerby with the something-cooked.

He doesn't bother her. More people are coming down the street; a couple of them are watching her curiously. No one steps onto her house plot.

Indeed, people now look up at her and smile cheerfully! Some of them start talking in the language she doesn't speak!

"I don't speak your language," she says-and-translates, "I'm sorry."

Um, hello. My name is Bella.

Rúmil. Would you like to talk? You look very torn.

I'm stressed out and confused by everything. My home is drastically, starkly different from here in almost every way and I don't know what to expect or how to do anything.

Can we find an environment more similar to your home in an important way? Did you live in a city?

I lived in a school near a city, when I wasn't with one of my parents, and the important thing is not that wherever I am resemble it but that I understand - anything - which I don't.

All right. Would you like your explanations here, then?

Here seems fine.

I... come from a very, very dangerous place, if not dangerous in the same way as that, and I think a lot of my habits are maybe not what they should be if I'm going to live here instead but I don't know what to replace them with. And my home makes a lot of use of writing and money, to record and share information and to regulate the exchange of goods, and you don't seem to have either one and I am not sure I understand what you do instead. There's infighting among the Valar...?

Eru? And - there's a lot of very powerful beings and they are usually not friendly and don't keep each other in check much. And a lot of monsters and - risky social institutions which I knew how to navigate but which have me nervous about doing anything here where I don't know how to navigate.

Created the Valar, and asked them to do the work of creating this world and looking after his creations in it. I am straining to imagine how a social institution can be risky save reputationally, and no one expects you to get everything right, they know you're new.

Um, I landed in the king's palace here. If I'd had a magical accident that had landed me in my own Emperor's palace instead the guards would probably have assumed I was an assassin or something like that and would have at least locked me up while they investigated and possibly also killed me. This isn't usually a problem because usually people don't have magical accidents that land them in other people's homes, but that's an example.

No one will kill you here; assassins are not a thing it would even occur to us to worry about, and I'm sure if someone deliberately killed the King because they desired him dead the Valar'd bring him back immediately just on principle.

Well, I... guess that answers that. How long does it usually take when they're not being immediate about it?

We have just arrived here at a people and reembodying all of our kin who died in our old home is proving to be slow and complicated, because one can reject the body if it's too shocking and being reembodied is a shock all its own and Valinor is so different from what they remember. But it's only been a few years yet. No one's died since they arrived in Valinor, but I imagine it wouldn't even take a few years to return them to us.

Oh. Um, I was told that the way I get a house involves complimenting designers on their past work, which I think I can figure out how to do, and helping build other houses in progress, which I'm not sure I have the skills to do usefully at all.

Well of course not! We didn't either, when we started. You have the advantage of being around some people who now sort of know what they're doing. Just watch and ask questions, everyone will be happy to teach you, and after a few days you'll be contributing usefully, and after a month you'll know house-building, which is a valuable thing to know.

Okay... uh, how long do you think it will take before I have a house? I heard it isn't going to rain and the ground's pretty soft but I like having privacy and. There aren't any walls.

If you are unusually unhappy about not having a house then obviously your house should be built first. Have you settled on a design?

No, I just wanted an estimate for how long it'll take after I find designers to help me with that.

A week, probably. If you pick a design that's physically impossible then the Valar will have to raise it for you and they'll do it in a day.

I don't think I need anything that inherently requires magic to put up, just - a way to make it dark inside and enough wall that people can't see me or hear me when I'm inside and they're outside.

Reasonable. I could try to have you stay in the palace until that's established? You frightened Finwë out of his skin but I expect he'll be recovered by this evening.

I didn't mean to scare him... um, also I think the prince will probably follow me around wanting to be tutored and the King said once a week and that doesn't seem to be as often as the prince had in mind and I really don't want to be in the middle of that.

He laughs. The King is under the impression that it's possible for people to exist in Fëanáro's presence without either ignoring him or tutoring him. As far as I can tell, this is impossible even if one has the powers of a Vala. His expression changes, You can tell Fëanáro to go away.

But he's so cute. I'd rather avoid having to. I can sleep outside for a week or two, I was just worried it would be months or something.

It was years before we even started building, because we were rejoicing in the new environment and weren't used to sleeping enclosed anyway. But it can certainly be done faster than that.

What do you mean?

In my world when we want water we can get it inside the house... for drinking and cooking and bathing and stuff...

Hmm. We don't have that, but it sounds delightful. How is it done?

I don't know. I think it's usually installed with magic in my world but so are, like, bricks, half the time, I don't know if spells are actually necessary or not.

He frowns. You could have a fountain in your house, easily enough. Is that the same principle?

Maybe. I don't know anything about housebuilding, like I said. Um, do the fountains bring in fresh water and carry away or disappear used water, that's kind of the key thing...

They must, otherwise their waters would get dirty over time.

Then it's probably the same idea, and a fountain would be fine for drinking but not what I'm used to for the other things.

Well, if you describe what you want I'm sure we can figure out how to do it.

Who should I ask?

Ask what? You should decide exactly what you desire, and then you can ask designers if they can do it, or if not petition a Maia to set it up for you.

A Maia?

The lesser Powers of this land. The Valar are the greatest ones, and while they'll do us favors, with questions that everyone can be presumed to have - like house features - it's customary to ask Olórin or Arien before you ask the Valar directly.

And they're safe to just go talk to? I'm going to have a really hard time getting used to that, on my plane the very best thing to do with anything particularly powerful is hope it never notices you exist.

They're delighted we're here, and very eager to help us! Your world sounds very troubling. Why acquire power if it'll just make one resent the inconvenience of being able to change the lives of the powerless?

The problem is less about people who acquire power. It can be dangerous to go talk to a very advanced wizard or a high-ranking paladin or something, but they're still basically regular people and being polite and not barging in on them or making demands usually helps. Although they're not exactly normal people because you have to be willing to take a lot of risks to get to that point and very good at getting past those risks. The problem is stuff like gods and fairies and dragons and demons who've always been powerful and don't think of non-powerful people as mattering except when they're fun to play with.

Ah. The Maiar do not understand us at all, but they are trying very hard to make us feel welcome, and they certainly think we matter.

What don't they understand? Because that sounds like its own kind of danger.

What it's like to live in a physical body all the time - when we first met them they were unsafe to touch, because it didn't occur to them that we can't handle any possible temperature. They learned. They'd do very badly at guessing what we want or what makes us happy, but luckily they mostly just do precisely what we ask of them, and they do know enough to tell us if something we've asked will endanger someone or something.

Oh. That's... nice.

Their nature is to rejoice in creation and desire to share it.

And they're not so busy that it's important to be really careful to only go to them with important things to avoid wasting their time...?

There are hundreds of them, and they're extremely pleased to be helping, and we've only just arrived so everything is still new and delightful to them as to us.

Okay. Um, at home using subtle arts to talk this way is dangerous with some kinds of beings...

Subtle arts?

The way I'm talking to you without language? If I had a conversation like that with some species in my plane it'd fry my brain.

The Valar can be very overwhelming with osanwë if they're trying, but I don't think it's possible for osanwë to damage someone.

Does everyone here do osanwë? I guess the conversations are a little different from how I'd talk to another subtle artist or someone who wasn't at all but I've been too preoccupied to focus on it.

Yes. Though Fëanáro must have been quite curious to try to communicate with you, he usually does not.

He did say he doesn't like talking.

Thank you for agreeing to tutor him.

You're welcome.

Was that everything you were frightened and confused by?

I'm sort of frightened and confused by everything but that's maybe enough to get by with for now. It, um, might take me a while to completely believe that the Valar and the Maiar are safe to... have around.

You could ask them to help with that, if you're not too nervous to do that.

Um, help how?

I'm not really sure. Help you acclimate to their presence, take you on a tour of their domains, tell you stories about the creation of the world, if any of those things would help. They can also help with anxiety in a physiological sense, by slowing one's heart rate and making you feel secure and so forth.

I very much do not want to be directly made to feel secure. The other stuff - maybe when I've gotten a little farther with this on my own.

By all means. Welcome to Valinor. A bewildering place, to be certain, but we have high hopes we'll find it a joyous one.

It does seem like it'll be really nice once I'm more used to it.