"I imagine they've already been reembodied and wouldn't want to arrive here anyway."

"Is their having been dead going to have unpleasant long-term consequences for them?"

"I think being killed is traumatic even if you return to life. And the ships were irreplaceable, and were destroyed."

She nods. She pauses. "...You know...it wouldn't surprise me if Odette could recreate them. The ships, I mean."

"I don't think so. It'd be like duplicating the Silmarils. Some things, their uniqueness is a big part of their magic. Your sister seems like a very powerful Maia - everything she can do is a thing that it makes sense it'd be possible to do. That - the Valar couldn't even do."

"Oh, magically irreplaceable. I honestly have no idea what to expect about how those things interact, we can't do persistently magical objects at home."

"That's about the only kind of magic we can do, except for singing. Could do." He makes a tapestry ripple on the wall.

She grins. "I'm quite pleased to have helped with that. We can enchant things, but it doesn't mean the same thing--an enchanted object isn't magic, it's just easier to do magic to."

"Our means of making magical artifacts require osanwë, so it may be that you couldn't have stumbled on it."

"I am so tempted to break Taboo..."

"Hmm?"

"You're not supposed to use mind magic on another person. Ever. For any reason. Things like one-way translation, asking the world what someone just said when you don't understand the language, that's borderline but generally okay because people aren't sure it's mind magic, technically. Doing mind magic to yourself carries risks that doing mind magic to someone else or having someone else do it to you doesn't, but--it was ruled that that was something you don't ever want someone arguing their way out of, if they did mind magic to someone else without consent. So the whole class of thing is verboten. Osanwe sounds convenient, and I would like to learn about making magic things, at some time over the course of the next however long. But it would mind magic, to install it, and I don't have the Sympathy resistance to do it myself."

"Huh. The Valar do it all the time. I guess it's not such a taboo here."

She looks like she's about to say something and then stops.

"We don't do it. If the idea makes you nervous."

"No, I was just going to say...the Valar include Morgoth. What happened to your cousin wouldn't have happened at home."

"Well, that sort of thing isn't supposed to happen even here. Everyone is trying to stop Morgoth. But, like, Mandos, who judges the dead - when you die, he corrects you of your faults in life, and you can't return to life until you agree to being corrected, and then you don't remember what happened in his Halls. The prospect always made me kind of nervous, but perhaps I'm too attached to my faults."

"Damn straight! Your faults are part of who you are, there's nothing wrong with not wanting some--some person to just, just reach into your head and yank bits of you out!"

He grins. "I'm not surprised you'd think so. It makes sense that Mandos wouldn't want to return people to life who don't even want their faults corrected, though."

"Right. Because the Valar are terrible."

"Because it's fine not to be perfect, but there's something messed up about deciding you want to be wrong, that doing wrong is part of you and you have no interest in getting it corrected."

"I would be more impressed by that logic if I didn't know some of the things the Valar do and don't consider faults. Besides, even if you take that argument at face value, what about people who want to fix themselves instead of letting someone else do it?"

"I think Mandos would be happy to help you with that. The problem is things that you refuse to fix or repent of."

"And at that point we're back to the Valar having terrible judgement as to what is and isn't a fault."

"Yes, I think you'd have a lot of disagreements with them about that."