Someone interrupts him in the middle of afternoon training to notify him that a stranger materialized out of nowhere a few miles away and looks human, except rather healthier than they tended to be, and also possibly has powers. 

Illia rather wishes Odette were here. Even leaving aside her the fact that her sister was just plain better at magic than she was, her own specialization of Effort doesn't leave her terribly prepared to gather information about where the fuck she is. Well, it's not like she's an incompetent at Sympathy. She ascertains the direction of the nearest people, and starts walking.

They stare at her from their ramparts. Young, definitely human-looking, definitely alone, definitely apppeared out of nowhere. It has to be a trap, but if so, why have her appear out of nowhere? Why not introduce her more naturally, where the other Men were?

Some kind of fortress? Where are they, the Germanies? But the architecture is wrong for a Schloss. Nowhere she recognizes, then, which bodes ill for her ability to communicate. Lovely.

She keeps walking. 

"I'm going to ride out," he says. 

"Wouldn't we rather have the walls, for a fight?" his father asks, frowning. It's not an 'I order you to stay right here on this battlement" so that's practically a yes but -

"I'll take two hundred men. If I lose I won't lose fast, and you'll have more time to get a good defense ready here, shoo the civilians out -"

This makes his father look even less happy, but it's good sense so a few minutes later he's riding out with two hundred men.

Holy shit are they riding horses? Who even does cavalry anymore? Is this Poland? She stops, puts her arms up--it doesn't matter practically, since she's a mage, but it still works as a gesture of intent--and tries, "Hello. I apologize for intruding, and I promise it wasn't on purpose," in Ashkenazi. There are people who speak Ashkenazi in Poland, right, she's pretty sure.

She surrenders, which is mostly what he'd expected, and says something in a language he doesn't speak, which is not what he expected. He has the men only half-encircle her, in case it's some kind of trap.

Hello, he says. This is Eithel Sirion. Identify yourself, please.

My name is Illia Zavier. I and my sister Odette are students of magic at the University at Genosha, in the Free City of Genosha. Recently we were assaulted by a mage with greater experience and power than ourselves, and my sister was forced to teleport us away. I don't know where I am, why I'm here, or why she isn't given that I am.

Well. That is not the story he was anticipating. More like "I'm lost and helpless", but perhaps they anticipated that'd be too obvious. 

This is Eithel Sirion, he repeats himself, of Beleriand. I have not heard of Genosha; it may be very far east of here, where there are mortal civilizations not known to us. Can you teleport back?

I can't teleport at all; my sister is a more gifted mage than I. Genosha doesn't have a fixed location. It flies. And I've never heard of Beleriand.

Ah. 

"Sorry, kid, but you're almost guaranteed to be an agent of the Enemy so I'm going to ask you to walk in a different direction" seems too harsh, probably just because he's been told he's almost guaranteed to be an agent of the ememy and it's still a painful memory. 

Let's head north, he says instead. We have a guard outpost there. With a garrison of only forty, she can only do so much damage assuming she turns out to be what she obviously is.

Um. Okay. Why do you have horses, anyway?

They are - the fastest way to travel, for those of us without your sister's magic, and useful in massed combat when the other side only has foot soldiers. Do your people not use them for warfare?

I think they still do in Poland? But not because it's a good idea. We have--and she shows him an image of an armored wheeled thing. It only takes a little magic to operate, well within the capabilities of even someone who never went for hedgewitch.

We don't have those. Do you know how to build them?

Um. Yes, but I am slightly leery of telling you how if you don't already know, given the circumstances. The word "circumstances" is accompanied by a mental image half-circle of unfriendly-looking people on horseback.

You do not think we could currently best you in combat, but if you taught us your capabilities then we could?

I think that if your reaction to a single stranger showing up in the vicinity is to send out a large number of fighters, there's probably an active conflict, and I should learn more about it before I give anybody anything.

I have knowledge, but first you have to earn my trust. A nice reversal. Except - still a rather obvious game, compared to some of the ones this enemy has played. Who was subtle enough to seed in all of his own prisoners the conviction that they still were, and then attempted impersonation by claiming to be a stranger from a distant flying city?

There is an active conflict. 

What are the sides?

Dry laughter. Us and the Enemy.

That...is a reasonable description of most conflicts.

Thus my amusement. The Enemy is known as Melkor, or Morgoth, but these are scarcely more descriptive than my first answer. Morgoth means 'the dark foe' and Melkor 'he who arises in might'. 

Why are you at war?

He wants to destroy everything in the world and fill it with his twisted abominations. We would like to stop this from occurring. He also killed - by now it's a long list - my grandfather, my brother, my uncle, my cousin, indirectly a sister-in-law, and many friends.

...

Let's think this through clearly, Illia.

Fact one: She's never heard of this place, and she did very well in her geography lessons.

Fact two: None of them are mages. She can tell. You learn to recognize another mage, after a while.

Fact three: If there were a great mage who was good enough at bloodworking to make things that were viable but still called twisted abominations...she can only beg the Sun she would have heard of it.

Fact four, and less damning than the other three, is that they still fight on horseback.

What exactly do you mean by 'twisted abominations.'

Orcs, great scaled beasts, Balrogs. He sends memories. She's panicky. Not that he blames her, exactly. Hopefully that's convincing enough. If she decides to get the other side of the story about the war and march off towards Angband he'll have to stop her and then things will get interesting.

My. Sister. Has managed to get me lost in--in a completely different universe, it looks like. Or at least another planet, or--or something!

I was guessing you're just far east of here, he says, refraining from mentioning the guess that she's an enemy. There's lands we have not charted.

This is the entire world, as my people know it. And she shows him a world map and a globe, with the implication that the former is an imperfect representation of the latter.

He raises an eyebrow. In that case, yes, you are somewhere else. Your sister is a creative person.

I sincerely doubt she did it on purpose. If she had, she would be here, or I would be wherever she is.

He nods. What exactly happened?

My sister is probably going to be a Great Mage someday. One of our teachers has philosophical objections to the existence of Great Mages. He decided to kill her to prevent that, and me so I didn't tell people it was him who had done it. She grabbed me and then--I was here. I can only assume she was trying to get us away and wasn't careful enough about where we ended up.

I'm glad you both made it out alive. What's a Great Mage?

A Great Mage is someone with the pain tolerance and mental resistance to do as much magic as they want, who's been doing it long enough that people agree they really are one.

I see.

That's a hook to ask for an explanation and perhaps demonstration if he's ever heard one, but 'Enemy scout, somehow' makes far more sense than 'interplanetary visitor' so he does not ask. 

I can send messengers inquiring after the wellbeing of your sister. It is possible she landed elsewhere in this world.

Perhaps they'll 'learn' she landed in Angband and needs rescuing; that'd be a scenario designed for his specific weaknesses.

That would be kind, but if the situation is as you describe I would hate to take resources away from where they're needed more.

Well, excuses to send messages to my cousin are arguably moving our resources in more of a strategically adviseable direction, he says lightly, and dismounts because she really does not seem likely to immediately attack.

In that case, I would be happy to accept.

Nolofinwë can hear him from here, is anxiously watching them still. My counsel is that we tell everyone - and I do think it ought to be everyone - that there's another one like this out there, and she says her sister has greater capabilities. We're going north where it's less of a disaster if I'm wrong in my judgement of her character.

I'm not sure how useful it would be to describe the workings of our machines in any case--nearly all of them require at least a little magic to use. I suppose I could see if I could teach you that, too.

We'd certainly be interested. In your world, these machines have replaced horses in war?

Yes. Horses are considerably more fragile than steel, so a contest between a man on a horse and a man in one of these is all but predestined.

Steel costs a bit more, though, and moves a bit slower.

Movement's what the magic's for. I don't know what a horse costs but steel isn't that expensive.

Here it is very expensive. Do you have magic for its production, too?

Part magic, part chemistry. Most things aren't pure magic unless they're being done by a Great Mage.

I see. They're walking rather slowly. Do you know how to ride a horse? It'll get us to our destination much faster.

Um. I've never done it before. Is it hard?

One doesn't usually pick it up instantly. Ah, well, we can walk. Can you pick up the pace slightly, so we'll be in by nightfall?

I'm an Effort mage; I can run for hours if that would help.

It would. 

She starts running. She's not as fast as a horse, of course, but it's a very respectable marathon pace.

Men are much slower than Elves, but as far as Men go this is tolerable, and in fact surprisingly good if she's really a Man. He keeps up, warily. Tell me more about your world.

Um...the Free City of Genosha, where I was born and raised as well as attending the university, was founded a hundred and seventy years ago by the Great Mage Atennesi Cohen, who enchanted it to fly. My father's from Anglia and my mother's from Prussia. Those are here and here, she says, indicating their geographic locations on her mental globe.

Your world really is a sphere? That's not just how you model it?

Why would I model it as a sphere if it wasn't?

I have no idea. It seemed less odd than a world being spherical. More magic?

I have no idea, sorry. She starts gently accelerating.

At this rate they will make the garrison by nightfall. He feels himself relaxing slightly. You said you were a student of magic in your home city?

Yes. I'm not as good as my sister, but I have the Effort resistance to make it more than worthwhile even if our parents weren't both retired mages.

It is an inherited ability?

No, but being a mage is prestigious that any of the other things I was interested in--smithing, art, and herbalism being the three major other things I was considering--would have seemed like a social step down to a lot of people.

Those are highly valued abilities among my people.

They're something nearly anyone could do and not be miserable. If my parents had just been teachers, instead of teachers who had spent decades as mages in their youth, I could have done any of those three things and been accorded significant respect. But being a mage hurts with every working, and carries the chance of warping your personality beyond recognizance if you go into it without knowing yourself well enough to keep your center.

Oh dear.

It's fine, mostly. I don't like pain much, but I've got decent resistance to the mental effects of Effort and I--usually--have my sister around for anything else. I can always just choose not to do magic if I don't feel like hurting.

I was thinking more of the idea of people being warped permanently by doing things without undrestanding what they're doing.

Oh. Well, that's why most people aren't mages.

Anyone can learn, though?

Oh, sure. Why wouldn't they be able to?

No one I've known has ever used such magic.

Maybe I could teach you.

Is it likely she can harm him that way? Not impossible. Hard to pass up, though. 

Perhaps.

Do you want to try? She asks, oblivious of his suspicions.

Once we reach the garrison, perhaps.

Makes sense. It's really convenient you have this telepathy thing, I'd never be able to have a normal conversation while running. I wouldn't have the air.

If the pace is unpleasant we can slow a bit, we'll still make it by nightfall. You are faster than any Man I've trained with. Likely because she isn't a Man, but still.

Well, I'm using magic to augment my muscles, so if they don't have it then of course I'm faster.

They do not. They'd likely be eager to learn.

Helping things that already work work better is a pretty efficient use of Effort magic. And Effort magic hurts like muscle ache, so it goes really well with exercise.

Sounds extraordinarily useful. Can you explain how your world's magic works?

There are three kinds, Effort, Sympathy, and Conquest. They each involve imposing your will on the world in different ways. With Effort, you push at it until you get what you want, with Sympathy, you coax it into doing what you want, and with Conquest, you command the world to be as you want. Sympathy makes you more diplomatic and more conflict-averse; Effort makes you stronger-willed but it also makes it harder to change your mind, and Conquest gives you stronger force of personality but also bossier. Most people who become mages specialize in one, if they have a particular resistance to the mental effect, or try to balance them so they cancel each other out a little. Also there's lots of meditation, that helps counteract the effects.

I see. So if I desired to destroy the Enemy-

Well, for one thing, if he's anywhere near as powerful as the level of bloodworking you've suggested implies to me, you'd have to train for a long time to get strong enough. As to how--that depends on a lot of stuff. If I wanted to kill someone and was equally skilled and powerful in all three kinds, I might order him to die, or convince his heart to stop beating, or push the air out of his lungs. Among other things.

He nods. I am very intrigued by your magic, and do want to learn it when we reach safety for the evening.

Fortunately I can teach you sitting down. Her legs are going to be so sore by the time they reach where they're going.

You're welcome to try horseback riding. Perhaps magic would keep you on the horse.

...I really should have thought of that earlier, she replies with chagrin.

He stops running. I would have suggested it, but I knew rather little - and still do - about the limits of your powers.

She slows, turns, and skids to a stop. Usually I don't try to apply magic to a skill I don't have at all, but not falling off a horse is simple enough that it's really not the same thing. I apologize in advance for what I'm sure is going to resemble a sack of potatoes chucked onto a saddle.

He'll forgive you. And he gives her a lift up, careful not to touch her hair.

She knows, from miscellaneous novels, that in this situation you're not supposed to grab the horse's mane, which is good because otherwise she probably would have. Suspecting that she might do it by accident if she's startled and her hands aren't anywhere, she tentatively rests them on the horse's back just ahead of where she's seated.

Well, they fight their wars with steel armored magic-moving mounts, he can't fault her for not learning. He shows her how to sit, instead.

She winces slightly--her legs aren't as sore as they would have been if she had run all the way there, but they aren't completely happy with her, either--but corrects her posture without complaint.

And they're off, at approximately the same speed but with more comfort for his - guest? prisoner? enemy spy?

Whatever she is, she isn't aware of his confusion to clarify it, which is just as well since he would have no more reason to believe her than he had when she told her story in the first place.

And they're in not just before darkness but by dusk. He explains the situation to the garrison with private osanwë as they ride up. 

Illia dismounts when everyone else does, possibly using magic to not just fall off in a heap. It's still probably the least graceful dismount her host has ever seen.

She looks exhausted and shell-shocked, and his instincts are to get her a good dinner and a good night's sleep and then ask about magic. Perhaps no one will mind spending the night on high alert, if it either proves warranted or else means they learn magic in the mornings.

There's that inconvienient and bewildering mortal custom that he can't ask her to join him for dinner without someone appointed to accompany her. He thinks it applies to taking a meal into her guest room, as well. 

"We don't have a meal hall," he says. "Is it all right if someone brings you something?"

"That sounds fine, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are or what cultural context might possibly make it not all right."

"The Men known to me have all kinds of rules about who can eat with who and who can be secluded with who. They insisted that these were universal among Men; is that not so?"

"Secluded with...oh. It's fairly common, but it's not universal and frankly it's fairly silly." She snorts. "As if anyone would have that on their minds after riding a horse for hours. Although I suppose it's probably different if you're any good at it," she reflects wryly.

Well, that's a cryptic answer if he's ever heard one. "If that's not the custom of your people, you can join me for dinner," he says, trying not to sound like he finds the customs of Men as bewildering as he does because they're brave warriors and good people and deserve no contempt for their numerous oddities.

"That sounds nice. Thank you."

So inside, then, to the cramped quarters of a northern siege tower, which didn't know he was stopping by and therefore did not import nice food. The cook is very apologetic, and he spends a while reassuring him before leaving with two dinners of lembas and potatoes.

"I'd probably think a dry crust tasted delicious right now," she says when she tastes the lembas, "but I'm pretty sure I'd think this was great even if I wasn't famished."

"One can live on them indefinitely. Not very filling, though, and being constantly hungry isn't pleasant even if you know you're getting enough. We are working on refining them."

"There are ways of making yourself feel less hungry that don't nourish. Drinking a large amount of water, I think, and chewing on things you're not actualy eating. I'm not terribly familiar with the subject, and they're far from perfect, but they exist."

"Water's often also unavailable on the move, or in combat." He smiles. "We could look into chewing on things you're not eating."

"If there are other humans around it might be useful to ask them about this. I wish I could tell you more, but this isn't really a situation I was anticipating when I was deciding what to study."

"There are. The Men who are allied with us live in Dor Lómin, the kingdom southwest of mine - so, behind it, with respect to our shared enemy - and they are men of great courage and valor."

"I'm glad to hear it. I wish it weren't necessary."

"As do we all. Is your world peaceful?"

"It is right now. There have been wars in living memory, but not involving Genosha."

"Your sense of living memory is -"

"...Excluding Great Mages, so about a century."

He nods. "Why do Great Mages live longer? A spell they cast on themselves? Could they do it for others?"

"Mages, while they practice, can reverse aging in themselves and others, especially people they're close to. Most mages actually do live longer than a century, but they're rare enough that most people don't count them. It doesn't actually take a Great Mage to live forever, that's just the idiom. I'm probably never going to be a Great Mage, but my sister will, so assuming she hasn't been flung somewhere I can't get to her in the next few hundred years or so I don't anticipate dying of old age."

"It overjoys me to hear that your community has conquered one of the great wrongs done to your people."

"Not as well as we'd like. There aren't enough mages and there are too many people who aren't. A century is still the most most people can expect," she says softly.

"I'm sorry." It's now quite late, and quite dark; he gets up and removes a couple of lampstones from their box. 

"It's...I haven't thought I was going to be one of them for years. It's less personal for me than for some people. But--it was a problem we were hoping to solve." She looks at the lights with interest. "I thought you said you didn't have magic?"

"This is engineering." He smiles. "Well, actually, there's magic to it, but of a kind that bears no resemblance to what you described; we just harness the power of creation a little bit, and it only works for making artifacts. And there's enough of a process to it that it seems more like engineering."

"Oh, cool. We have lights made by engineering at home, but they look nothing like those. How do they work?"

"I'm regrettably no craftsman. Family politics rather made that impossible. I can put you in touch with one when we head in."

"Well, I'll have to meet someone like that at some point if I'm going to explain how tanks work, at least."

"Back in Eithel Sirion we have our share of capable craftsmen. I can shoe a horse, but a steel tank sounds beyond me. You know how to do it?"

"I couldn't make one, but I know enough of the principles that I expect it could be reverse-engineered."

"Then I'll summon them to come hear you out." He pauses for a second. "They should arrive tomorrow evening, with some more variety in food."

"Alright. I could try teaching you magic, in the meantime."

Another smile. "Sure, go ahead."

"...I've never tried explaining the sensation to someone who presumably has no point of reference. It's probably a good thing you're telepathic. It feels like this," and she thinks of three distinct yet closely related actions, "and, um, what's a good beginning exercize, which one do you want to start with?"

"Can we start with effort, as you said you favored it?"

"Sure. So--" she glances around for a convenient implement. "You've never done any magic at all before, so I'd want to start you on something really small--and it's best to start with something that no one will care if it's damaged, too."

"I could ask someone to bring us a plant? There aren't many non-essentials in these fortresses."

"Gratuitously damaging a plant seems wasteful and anything that wouldn't damage it would be too complex. Um, a random rock would probably work."

He nods. "Could someone bring us a rock?... Are plants scarce, where you're from??"

"No, but they're alive, and--they don't have minds or anything, if there's a good reason then there's no reason not to hurt a plant, but doing it just because feels vaguely wrong."

"All right." Someone knocks on the door and hands them a rock. He sets it on the table.

"Try pushing on it, like I showed you, to get it to move. It should be--" like this. "It'll probably take a bit, but you should be able to get it to work. And it it hurts that's a good sign because if it doesn't hurt then you're not succeeding at doing magic at all."

He concentrates. "Can you send again what it's like?"

She sends it again.

He concentrates again. The rock slowly starts moving.

"The more you push, the stronger the effect gets and the more it hurts. Anyway, Effort is my specialty, but different people have different aptitudes--you should probably try Sympathy and Conquest too."

"How are those done? Effort sounds like the one more natural to me."

"Feelings like that are usually accurate but it's still a good idea to try all three just to be safe. Sympathy feels exactly the same except you're coaxing instead of pushing, and Conquest the same except with commanding--" like this and this.

The rock scoots across the table again with Sympathy. Conquest takes a lot more tries.

Illia observes this. "Does Effort still feel more natural than Sympathy?"

"Yes. And the consequences strike me as less worrying. I have been told I'm too conciliatory." He smiles as if this is a private joke.

She nods. "That makes sense. The three factors that generally influence how you specialize are your talents, your resistances and what you'd rather risk."

"Is becoming more stubborn becoming more set in your current opinions? Like, if you think they're correct, is the risk that you'll be unable to notice when the circumstances have changed, or just that you'll keep caring about the same things?"

She spreads her hands. "There are as many answers to that question as there are people, I'm afraid. In general there's considered to be a much greater risk for refusing to acknowledge that you were wrong than for refusing to observe that things are changing, but," she shrugs. "I'm afraid there are no guarantees."

"It must be tempting to diagnose the foibles of your friends as resulting from unbalanced magical practice."

"Oh, yes. What's really funny is when you try doing that to a new acquaintance and it turns out you've guessed their specialization wrong."

He smiles. "I'm tempted to identify the specializations of people I know who've never heard of your magic."

"You can try, but it's not always what you would think--my sister's a Sympathy specialist, but almost everyone guesses Conquest, she's so resistant she can do mind magic to herself--that almost always does dramatic things to you, but she came out of acquiring masochism just a bit politer."

"Hmm! 

...there's mind magic? What can it do?"

"Almost no one does anything with it, so it's hard to say for sure."

He nods. Scoots the rock across the table. "Most Men require more sleep than I, am I keeping you up?"

"...Sleep would probably be a good idea."

He gestures towards the room behind him. There's a very small but richly appointed bed. "Good night, Illia."

"Good night--um, I'm not sure you ever introduced yourself."

"Fingon. I was at least a hundred before I got the titles straight myself and they've only grown since then, so you can stick to that."

"Good night, Fingon."

"Good night." And he focuses on the rock.

And she sleeps. She really needs it, too, after the day she's had.

In the morning there's lembas and nuts and water and wine on the table and he's spinning the stone across the tabletop. "Morning," he says. "Don't worry, I've been alternating them."

"Wha...?" She asks blearily. "Alternating the stones or the magic, I'm not awake enough to tell the difference right now."

"The types of magic, so I didn't experience an overnight personality change."

She laughs. "It's not as sudden as all that," she assures him. "You're not doing anything yet that could even begin to show a noticeable change overnight, let alone a complete personality transplant."

The rock spins across the table. "Reassuring. Did you sleep well?"

"Very well. What about you?"

"We require less sleep than Men, and this was very diverting."

Which probably translates to "I was up all night playing with this." Whatever, she's a university student, she can't judge. "I should probably teach you the meditation techniques for limiting the influence the magic has on you," she muses. "You're not going to be influenced by the level you're currently playing with, but it's better to have the habits in place before you need them."

"Yes, that sounds useful."

"I'm glad I don't have to try teaching these things to someone who isn't telepathic. So, um, how about I do the meditation myself--I could use it, honestly, after yesterday--and you can watch, and listen to what I'm doing, and ask questions after."

"That sounds good, yes."

She sits up, crosses her legs, and closes her eyes.

It's an intensely introspective process, and also oddly ruthless, examining her feelings and crushing the ones that appear too new and too explicable-by-magic dispassionately. She runs through dozens of simulated situations, and practices responding to them in ways that don't support what the magic is presumably doing her.

"Thank you, that does seem useful. How common is it for people to experience major personality shifts after a few decades of practice?"

"I don't know the exact statistics, but most mages retire after less than half a century for exactly that reason," she admits soberly.

"Hmm. We were planning a major offensive within that time frame, so maybe we'll just push it to the limits for a few decades, try it, and then spend a couple centuries in perfect isolation on the beach with - with an old friend of mine, celebrating our victory."

"Should I not ask?"

"Ask what?"

"Who it is? You sounded like you were avoiding saying it."

"Oh, just realizing you wouldn't know the name. The - ah, either most powerful vassal or most loyal ally of my father to the east is an old friend of mine and very much looking forward to winning this war."

"Ah. Well, I'll do what I can to help hurry that day along, then."

"It's been four hundred fifty years, we're not dawdling on your account."

"I'm joking, mostly, and the rest is mostly trying to--adjust."

"Adjust?"

"Suddenly being in a war zone is a pretty big change for me. The best way for me to deal with it so far seems to be assuming that I can do something meaningful to help."

"We can resettle you somewhere safe as soon as we determine that you are in fact yourself safe."

"I mean, yes, but that wouldn't make people not die. Except me, but I'm only one person."

"We grew up in a peaceful land. It takes some adjustment."

"That, and if my sister showed up here then you can bet she's already decided to do whatever needs to be done to end this, or will when she finds out if she hasn't, and...I don't want to be the useless twin."

He laughs. "Understandable. Well, if she's shown up here and not with the Enemy, then she's probably either alone and will be found - hopefully by our scouts - or with some of my people, so we'll hear of it soon."

"It will be a relief to know she's alright, assuming she is."

He nods. "How often does magic produce results that unintended?"

"I've never even heard of anything like this," she says wryly.

"Discouraging. Ah, well, I take it that if it takes a few centuries to get the skill level to reverse this you'll both be around, which gives you a profound advantage over most of your kind."

"Our parents might not be, though," she says, subdued.

"I have no children, but if mine vanished and I could prevent my aging while working magic that would eventually make me powerful enough to find them, I cannot imagine I wouldn't immediately do that."

"Our parents really shouldn't be doing more magic. Both of them had really terrible people for teachers who encouraged them to pursue specialties for which they had great talent and little mental resistance. If they did enough magic to get strong enough to find us then we'd probably have lost them anyway because they wouldn't be themselves anymore."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Can't they respecialize?"

"Theoretically, yes, but--there's a lot of context here. So, the first thing you should probably know in my mother's case is that the man who taught her magic first murdered her parents and kidnapped her, and in my father's case that his teacher was his mother, but the only reason she had him was because her husband wanted a child, and my grandfather died shortly after Father was born. There's a reasonable doubt as to whether either of them are capable of having a healthy attitude towards practicing magic." She shrugs. "Besides, we vanished from a murder attempt. It's not necessarily reasonable for them to assume we're alive."

"I see. I am very sorry." He stands. "Shall we go outside, and work there? It's a beautiful day and I cannot shake the feeling that my human allies are going to be distressed with me over this even if it's no problem in your home nation."

"I've never actually had to deal with people who had their minds so far in the gutter that 'teaching magic' wasn't a perfectly plausible alternative to 'having illicit extramarital sex,' so I can't help you there. But sure, we can work outside."

"What?"

"I mean, Genosha doesn't get a lot of casual visitors, it's hard to get to without a mage, and everyone there has a huge respect for magic. Even people who'll tut about people being unsupervised together relent if it's for magic."

"The general basis for the mortal custom that men and women shouldn't spend extended time alone together is fear that they will be having sex?"

"...Yes? Premarital sex is almost always a big deal in cultures without decent birth control."

"You're using several concepts that aren't translating."

"...So if a woman has sex without getting married first she could end up having a child out of wedlock and this is usually considered a bad thing? I'm not sure what isn't coming across."

"That one can have sex without getting married. We can't do that. I take it Men can, and now that you mention it that makes some other things make sense, but no one ever said so and it's rather absurd. Also your'e saying 'end up with a child' like that could happen to unmarried people, or accidentally."

"Human babies happen when you have sex with someone of the opposite gender without taking appropriate precautions. Why, how do they happen for your species?"

"Two married people decide to produce one and focus very very hard on that goal. We don't do it in wartime. We don't do it if either parent will have pressing obligations in the next fifty years, or have to be absent at all in the next five."

"That sounds far more sensible than our way, but since my sister and I were an accident I think I'm grateful that humans work the way we do."

"I see. 

Among my people it would be a very grave insult to suggest that I'd have sex with children who I spend the evening working on magic with privately. That's probably why none of the men explained their custom."

"...I'm not a child. I know I'm incredibly young compared to you, and have an appropriate lack of experience, but my brain has finished developing and I'm reproductively mature. And, um, yes, there are generally exceptions to the rule when children are involved."

"Nonetheless." 

He sighs. "Do you know how many people I'm going to have to explain that to? Everyone's been utterly confounded by Men, we have trainings on how to collaborate with them without inadvertent serious cultural misunderstandings, this rule features in them, and it's because they can accidentally have children!"

"I would have told you sooner if I knew you didn't know!"

"I'm not upset with you! There've been more absurd cultural misunderstandings, some of them thought all of us were adolescents once because we don't have facial hair, some of them thought we live forever by drinking their blood, and in hindsight - actually, in hindsight, a number of things are explained as actually being about Mannish sexual mores, I should really have pieced it together sooner. 

In which case I wouldn't have given you my bedroom. Sorry about that."

The rock on the table has crumbled into dust.

"That's going to make it so much worse if anyone finds out. I won't tell if you won't."

"And two hundred other people don't," he grumbles at the pile of dust. "I'm not marrying you."

"I should hope not. We've only just met, and the age difference is a confounding factor even if I am an adult for my species, it would be such a terrible idea."

"So. Walk outside?"

"Sure."

There's a beautiful view of the mountains. "Is there an upper limit on how much it's wise to practice in a day?" he asks her.

"Leave time for things like eating and meditation, and take a break if it hurts enough to make it hard to think around."

"All right." A bigger rock, then. He probably shouldn't even do that much, because his other job here is to be assessing whether she's an enemy spy, but if she's not then this is going to be extremely valuable.

If she's an enemy spy, she's one who's very good at pretending how to be an otherworldy human woman who has no idea how to delineate private and public thoughts.

"It's probably a good idea to learn how to augment your body, even if you need to get strong enough that you mostly wouldn't be using magic as sparingly as people back home do."

"Sure. How do I do that?"

"You push on your muscles to move faster or lift harder or what have you, or your eyes to see farther, or your nerves to accumulate muscle memory faster, stuff like that." She thinks about what it felt like to push herself to run faster yesterday.

He looks around, lifts a rock that must weigh several hundred pounds. Sends a feeling. "Like this?"

"Yes, that's right! The hard part is pushing just hard enough, so you don't accidentally break something or fling yourself forward and crash into the ground because you were putting too much oomph into something."

"Hmmm." He tries tossing it into the air and catching it. He tries it again, but this time it crumbles between his hands when he catches it again. "I think I see what you mean."

"We have padded practice rooms and healers on standby to practice this stuff at the University. I don't know if padding is feasible here but I'm a fairly competent healer."

"Healing is a form of magic?"

"I mean, your body heals itself naturally over time, but magic does it faster and better."

"Is it limited to things that would heal anyway?"

"No, that's why it's better."

"Could you regrow a limb? Can you manage traumatic brain injuries? Can you heal Men of those diseases they all get?"

"It would take a long time and be fairly unpleasant until I had finished, but I could regrow a limb. Anything to do with brains should really be done by Sympathy, but it can be done. Curing diseases is trivial."

Enough playing around, then. He has to determine whether she's real and, if so, get her to Dor Lómin. "Men die of disease a lot. Half of them don't make it to adulthood. It's a great grief to us and we have absolutely no idea how to stop it."

"I--I don't know if I'm enough to cover a whole population--how many are there? I can teach some of them while I'm there, too, that'll help, I'm sure any mother whose child was dying would endure the pain to fix them if they couldn't just take them to a mage or a hedgewitch--"

"I didn't mean to overwhelm you. Yes, we can set up avenues for you to teach them magic. Some of them are even literate, we've been trying not to pressure them about it but it's strategically really useful. Isn't disease spread person-to-person? So if it's stopped, it stops, no need to heal every person...and I can teach my people, if the mortals turn out to be ill-suited to it..."

"Most disease is spread person-to-person but not all and the ones that do keep changing so they're all but impossible to stamp out completely--people don't die of sickness where I'm from under normal circumstances but we do still get sick. I can probably improve the situation, though, you're right about that."

"Great," he says. "In that case I really need to be sure that you're not an Enemy spy, because we found you in Enemy territory and your story is implausible and the Enemy has the capabilities to try something like this. Can you think of anything that'll help me decide that?"

"...It hadn't really occurred to me that that would be a concern before. It probably should have. Um--I don't know, are there any qualities spies of the Enemy lack that I could demonstrate? Something he's philosophically opposed to that they wouldn't do that I could that isn't terrible, like spitting on a picture of him? I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with the situation to have helpful advice."

"Regrettably the Enemy's servants are quite capable of denouncing him. I'm not sure they're capable of inventing, learning, and reliably thinking in a language that bears no resemblance to any known on this world, but it's not impossible. The stronger argument is that if this magic can do as much as you say, and the enemy had it, the war'd already be lost - but it's possible that you represent the upper bounds of your magic's actual capabilities, and you haven't demonstrated anything that would have us all dead. You haven't even demonstrated abilities that would let you stab me in my sleep, which the Enemy might risk revealing the rest to achieve..."

"Um, at risk of sounding threatening, I probably could kill at least a few of you before you got me back if I were inclined to do that. I don't use Conquest much, but ordering someone who isn't themself a very strong mage to die isn't that hard."

"That's useful evidence you don't work for the Enemy, then. It'd be nice to have a way of verifying it, but we may be stuck there. ...what's the range? It's easier to kill people than to protect yourself from being told to die?"

"Protecting yourself from being told to die isn't an active thing. The more powerful a mage you are, the harder it is for someone else to do magic to you without your consent."

"And range?"

"I wouldn't say there's a hard limit. I have to know where someone is and be able to comprehend the distance."

"...you can kill anyone who's not themselves a powerful mage, at any distance you can comprehend, if you know where they are? How does your world function?"

"Because it's not hard to find out who's been killing people if people start dying, and then all the other mages band together and kill you. We have a very firm code of honor, and while it's not terribly restrictive, if you deviate from it you will die."

"Hmmmm.

This is unsporting, but settles permanently the question of whether you have the capabilies you claim and would therefore allow us to trust you completely - if we cross to that mountain range and look out, we'll certainly see some orcs, the foot soldiers of the enemy. Would you be willing to kill one, to demonstrate this capability?"

"I would rather my sister were here to find out why they were working for them and if there was some way to get them to not do that, instead, but I'd do it."

"Thank you. We have tried; the problem seems intractable. They won't talk to us and won't agree to or abide by terms. Orcs are - Elves, just like us, only tortured beyond recognition and in the Enemy's thrall. I think he uses them so half because he needs an army and half because it's awful to fight them. We could climb to the right spot this afternoon."

"That seems reasonable."

Assuming--and she thinks this is a reasonable assumption, but it would only take her a moment and a small exercize of sympathy to verify it, once they're there--that he's telling the truth about everything...this may be an atrocity worse than any she's ever heard tell of in the legends of her home. She really hopes her sister's here.

They leave after lunch. They take ten guards. 

And, eventually, there are orcs. Tell me about these people, she coaxes the world when she can see them.

They're in pain, says the world, first, and then: they are orcs, they serve Melkor, they hate Elves, they were Elves.

That opens up some pretty horrifying possibilities for how to turn them against each other, but for now...

For now they can have a dozen gees of pressure each on their brains.

He watches. "Thank you. I'm persuaded. Let's return to Eithel Sirion so you can meet my father and so we can determine how best to teach these abilities to those who need them."

"In...a minute..." she gasps, and then falls to her knees and vomits.

Oh. Right. Child from a peaceful society. He carefully puts a hand on her shoulder. "Water?"

"Thanks," she says hoarsely.

"That was a horribly cruel thing to ask of you. It was almost certainly the right strategic decision, but nonetheless."

"He's torturing them."

"I know."

She stands up shakily. "Don't--don't apologize for asking me to do that. It was the right choice, you're right about that. I'd do it again. I will, if it comes up."

"It's sometimes worth acknowledging the costs even of right decisions. We should head back now; they'll be curious how that happened and they'll come looking for us."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"Think you can ride? I can hold you, if that's easier than doing magic."

"I could magic myself to a horse if I had to, but it would be easier not to."

He picks her up and settles them on a horse. "This I can do. Let's go."

Would it be awkward to ask him for a hug? It probably wouldn't help with the whole "my species are adults at this age, honest" thing, but if they thought her a child they were at least treating her like a child with the agency to make her own choices...

He hugs her, quite naturally, without changing his grip on the horse.

"Ah. One ability we have that Men do not is the ability to hear the thoughts of people around us. I should likely have mentioned that sooner; I'm aware Men are generally unfamiliar with it."

Oh. Huh. So it's not purely communicative telepathy. Whatever, it's convenient right now.

"Do you have prayers for the dead? They're more similar to you than to me, or to any Shemeshite."

"May Mandos judge them justly. I've never found it...particularly reassuring."

"'Just' isn't the kindest thing to wish the dead, no. Who's Mandos?"

"The god of the dead."

"My religion only has one god, but even if we're right I don't think there's any particular reason to expect his reach extends here."

"If Eru created your realm it would be surprising if the Valar did not know of it. Though they might know and not tell us. We're on bad terms with them at the moment."

"We call ours Aten and believe him to be primarily embodied as the sun. I don't think praying to him for the souls of those orcs is likely to help, but it can't hurt..."

"As you see fit. I am reasonably sure that their souls go to Mandos, where at least they'll have a great deal of company. I've lost two sisters and a brother to this war."

She shrugs. "Religion is religion. I'm sure there are people back home who would insist that Aten's reach must extend here, or that your gods are false idols, or what have you. I don't think it will do them much good to pray to my god but it might help me."

The concept her thoughts are conveying doesn't make much sense - as if the Valar's existence is up for debate, rather than just their qualifications or abilities or goodness -  but it seems the wrong moment to insist on the point. 

"As you wish."

They're making good time towards Eithel Sirion.

"Actually, come to think of it, if his reach did extend here--whether solely because I was here and one of his or not--I'd be...disappointed...if he didn't appoint me a prophet nearly on the spot, but I suppose that could just be pride."

"What's a prophet?"

She should also braid her hair, because it's now fluttering into his face in the wind and it's making him deeply uncomfortable. "And do you need something to tie your hair back?"

"Oh, if it's getting in your face I should probably do that. A prophet is a servant of Aten who acts as his mouthpiece. The vast majority of them were mages--it was said that he touched them so that they felt no pain from their workings nor felt its shadow across their souls, and carried them up into heaven bodily 'when it was their time'--not sure what that means. I have no idea whether it's true, though, a lot of Scripture is metaphorical."

"Well, it'd certainly be useful if you could perform magic without negative effects. I don't have ribbons, I have some twine?" That's not strictly true; his own hair has golden ribbons braided in.

"Twine works." She twists her hair into a knot at the base of her skull and holds out a hand.

He hands her the twine.

She ties back her bun. "Sorry 'bout that."

"You don't need to apologize. Can you enhance your vision - Men's is much inferior - with magic so it matches mine? You'll be able to see our destination."

"Um...probably. How's it better, specifically? I don't want to make changes to my body I don't understand."

"We can see heat, which means we can see almost as well by night as during the day. I can already see the faces in the windows of Eithel Sirion. I can - actually, it will be faster to -" he sends an osanwë image of it.

"...Oh, wow, that's amazing--give me a minute." She shuts her eyes to avoid the disorientation of having them change while she was using them, and uses Sympathy to tell her eyes that they should be structured like his instead of like a normal human's.

She forgets to specify that they should still look like hers instead of his, which is immediately apparent when she opens them again and looks around, beaming broadly.

He laughs. "Between that and being healthier than any Man I've ever seen, they'll have trouble believing you're not some odd variant of Elf when we get down to Dor Lómin. Very useful, though."

She can see Eithel Sirion now. A castle, built into the mountains on both sides, the river at its front door. The early years of the war, when they'd been young and ambitious and had tastes still shaped by Valinor. It was graceful and beautiful and very dangerous.

"Between what--oh, I forgot to leave them looking the same, didn't I. Whatever, yours are prettier, they can think what they like."

"They glow with the light of the Trees that died before the first dawn, before this world had a Moon or a Sun. I'm surprised that you can replicate that."

"I copied the physical structure of your eyes. If my eyes are glowing too then whatever is causing it is probably physical."

"It's more socially disruptive than physically surprising. There are social distinctions between those who saw the light of Aman and those who never did."

"...I never saw this thing, but I don't know what exactly is causing this and randomly messing with things in anything as delicate as an eye is a bad idea."

"I was not asking you to change them back. I'm going to talk to my father now, let him know why we're bringing you in." He falls silent.

She's perfectly content to just look around, marveling at the new colors. Everything is so much more beautiful now, it's fantastic.

...so we're coming in, he concludes when he's explained. She's capable, but very young. Any news on the sister?

No, his father says. If she landed in the East, think we'd hear about it?

Yes, he says reflexively. ...perhaps a couple months late, though.

And now they're really approaching the castle, and the bridge folds down to cross the river.

"Um, so it's been pretty obvious from context that your father is important, but what kind of important is he exactly and is there any etiquette I should know before I meet him?"

"He is the High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, and that was disputed for long enough that you probably want to mind acknowledging it; the Men we've met previously didn't really have much central organization and no concept of Kingship and managed to avoid annoying anyone enough to end up thrown in dungeons. We're a people at war, and don't really care whether one bows at the waist or kneels. How is your homeland organized?"

"The Great Mage Atennesi Cohen created the place and rules it, but he mostly doesn't hold with titles besides 'Great Mage,' so people mostly just refer to him by name. Prussia where my mother's from is ruled by a prince, and Anglia where my father's from has a king."

"Then you'll be fine. If you end up spending more time here than in Dor Lómin I'll give you a primer on our political relationships, but absent a reason I'm not sure it'd be helpful rather than overwhelming. Unless you enjoy that sort of thing?"

"I haven't known you for very long but I don't know anyone else here at all and I like what I've seen of you so far. I would like to be friends, I think, and as an extension of that to know things about your family, but I take no particular joy in politics for the sake of it." She might as well be perfectly frank, if he can read her mind (she doesn't mind, as long as he doesn't judge her for things she wouldn't have said to people who couldn't). She won't be heartbroken if he feels no attachment whatsoever to this random girl who showed up unexpectedly and prefers to simply direct her to people who can better make use of her talents, but it would be nice if she could be friends with the first person she really met here, who has been kind to her.

Your abilities are sufficiently interesting that it's probably worth a decade of my time to get you acclimated -

- no, can't talk to a mortal of twenty-one that way.

"Then we'll skip the politics, though that leaves rather little else to be said of my family. I haven't seen my brother in four hundred years. I had not seen my sister in three hundred fifty when I received news of her death. I have a lot of cousins. They've managed a lower mortality rate."

"I'm sorry to hear that." If she lost her sister she would lose her desire to live--she wouldn't kill herself, that would be an awful waste, especially since she'd be the best-trained mage in this world, but it wouldn't be because she particularly cared for her own sake. It's different for other people, she knows, but it must still be terrible.

"It's....good not to let there be a person in the world who's your reason to keep going. It's hard on them, for one thing, and leads you to take unwise risks for their sake under some circumstances."

"She wouldn't refrain from taking risks for my sake, because I wouldn't want her to and she knows it. When it comes down to it, we're only two people. If it makes sense to risk her life to save a dozen lives, it makes sense to risk her life and my happiness." And while she suspects Odette would be more stably functional, if it were Illia who died--it goes both ways. It's part of how they work, and as long as they're both alive how they work works. It will probably mellow out after long enough, but she can't think of any way of trying to force it that would do more good than harm.

"I hope we find her soon. Politics might become abruptly relevant if we don't hear anything back from the messengers my father sent last night."

"I hope we do." Mostly she has been avoiding worrying about her sister's well-being by firmly thinking about being helpful instead.

"If she has your capabilities I'm sure she's fine; the problem would be that she's somewhere with a strict no-emigration policy."

"I'm worried about the possibility that she might have landed in this Enemy's clutches. I...feel like any politics that resulted from someone trying to keep her from leaving would involve people being mad that she did anyway and her refusing to apologize because she didn't consider them to have any right to hold her."

He laughs. "In that case I'm sure we'll hear from her shortly.

If she were in Enemy hands, would he be able to entice you into going after her?"

"What's the radius of his lands? I think if I found out she were in Enemy hands I would travel to the edge of his lands and try to mercy-kill her."

"We have Angband besieged. You could get that close. You have - surprisingly practical instincts, for someone raised to peace."

"My magic told me in great detail what he was doing to his own soldiers."

They cross the bridge and ride into the courtyard.

He lifts her down. "I was reassured that you checked, rather than trusting me it was the right thing to do, but I wouldn't have had you experience that. It doesn't help anything."

"I didn't feel it, I just knew."

"Let's go inside."

"Yeah."

The main hall is lit to dazzling, spectacular Noldorin sensibiliities - colored glass refracting the afternoon sunlight everywhere - and filled with soldiers, armed and armored, watching them on both sides. I'd have gone with a more personal greeting, he grumbles at his father, she's not going to be overawed.

I thought she'd appreciate it, now that she can see all the colors.

Nolofinwë is standing at the head of the hall alone. She wouldn't know what mithril is and won't be impressed by the flashes of light off his clothes.

She appreciates the colors! She appreciates the colors very much. Artist was totally winning out of the things she would have been if she had decided her pain tolerance was too low to be a mage.

"Hello, Your Majesty," she says.

"Hello, Illia," the King says. "Welcome to Eithel Sirion. It sounds like we have a great deal to learn from each other. Would you like to join us for dinner, or are you tired from a long day riding?"

"I'm not too tired. I'm going to be doing more magic than I'm used to, it sounds like, so I'd better set my standards for 'tired' back a bit."

"Then we have a meal prepared for this evening. The lady Hareth of Dor Lómin is here and will be joining us also, so you won't be the only Man at the table, and we can begin discussing how to use your abilities to aid our civilian populations."

"That sounds significantly more pleasant than killing large numbers of orcs, and I do want to make sure the disease problem is being handled, but regardless of my age I do have a strong preference that my talents be used where they can do the most good regardless of whether or not it's where I would be happiest. I don't know that this involves killing orcs, but if it does I want to know."

They both laugh.

"We're excellent atl killing orcs," Fingon says. "It's not likely to particularly hasten the end of the war, which would be a worthy end and one that, as I understand it, learning your magic might help us achieve."

"Good. I...did get the impression, however, that orcs weren't the only things he had...?"

"If your power of instant death worked on Balrogs, that would be very useful, but I'd expect it not to; they're minor deities, not biological beings. The main advantage it would have, if it worked, over our existing abilities is range. Balrogs explode when they die, and kill everything in the vicinity. The Enemy seems to be developing some new monstrosity, one young version of which got loose a few decades ago and ravaged the plains until we drove it back. 

How long would you expect it to take us to have a thousand men trained to your level? You're only twenty-one, you can't have been studying this for that long?"

"I've been actively practicing magic for seven years; I've been learning about it all my life because if you ask most people magic is the whole point of my home country."

"So perhaps twenty years, unless there's an advantage to starting in childhood."

"I think most things benefit from starting in childhood if you can manage it, but you don't have to wait fourteen years from starting to learn theory to getting into serious practice so it should be less than that."

"That's good, since I'd have mixed feelings about acquiring and training up children. It means that in no more than a few decades you'll be able to pursue whatever you feel your specialty is, we'll have enough people with the relevant abilities for war." He sighs. "Why don't we draw up a plan for teaching this to our people, and you take a rest before dinner? Your Grace, is Hareth around now to help find her some appropriate clothes, and -"

The King nods. "We began working out a magic rotation in your absence. You can see what has been done so far."

"Back home little kids could get away with messing with tiny magic that didn't do more than sting but if your parents were encouraging you to do anything bigger than that before you were fourteen people might decide they were mistreating you and take you away so you could be raised by people who wouldn't do that. Practicing magic really wants to wait for adolescence at the earliest. What's wrong with my clothes?" They're perfectly appropriate for her culture, but she doesn't know what this culture does and doesn't consider appropriate.

"It's been two days, and large shares of both were spent running and on horseback."

"Oh." That would do it, yep. Technically they could be cleaned by magic but why would she do that when it can be done by hand and magic hurts. "Makes sense. I should probably bathe, too, and get the tangles out of my hair."

"And draw up a bath for her." Someone's already weaving through the crowd. "I'll send someone for you before dinner."

"Thank you." A chance to soak her muscles is going to be so nice--she's been able to ignore the low-level ache just fine so far, but a hot bath is always good after magic or other exertion.

The guest room is underground and windowless, though well-lit with the lampstones and so thoroughly curtained that it actually takes a few minutes to verify there are no windows.

"It's safer," says the woman who showed her to the room. "And we can't get you a bath up in a tower room."

"Makes sense."

They bring actual buckets of hot water for the bath. 

Which reminds her that she needed to talk engineering with someone at some point. Specializing in engineering was an efficient use of magic, interesting, and a good way to act orthoganally enough to her sister as not to be rendered redundant; she's glad of it now.

About an hour later there's a knock on the door. 

She's much cleaner and dry and wearing the provided clothes and she looks a lot more cheerful. Her hair's still loose; if there's any reason for it not to be she has no idea.

"Hello. You all right? I thought we could go through the meditations together before dinner."

"I'm much improved." There was a subtle tension before that's gone now. "That sounds like an excellent idea."

"All right. Your lead."

Meditation is much like the last time, although she makes a special point of emphasizing to herself that people dying is a bad thing even if the consequences of leaving them alive are much worse.