"My what have they done to you," says a man dressed in a warden's uniform who definitely wasn't sitting in her room a moment ago. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in."

"Well, it's not as if I have a bell attached to me."

"And what brings you here? And, whatever it is, who does it bring?"

"I come in search of romance! My name isn't pronounceable by a mortal being such as yourself but I suppose you can call me Q."

"You are dressed in a highly inappropriate outfit for a seeker of romance with a prisoner."

"Oh, my apologies."

And he snaps and now he is dressed in an outfit vaguely reminiscent of a fairy tale prince. A swooshing sound effect accompanies the transformation, as well as a burst of light. 

"That's an improvement. And, uh, what are you."

"I'm Q."

"I had understood that to be your name."

"Well yes. Can't it be both?"

"I suppose it could if there is only one of you."

"There are a few others but I doubt you'll run into them."

"That would explain why I'm not acquainted with the species. And... why here and now?"

"After uncountable aeons of life I realized that I was lonely and with no others in my species open to the concept I set about searching for the most suitable possible partner."

"Via what algorithm?"

"I've always fancied the Federation before and well, here I found you - a fair maid, the most virtuous in the galaxy, locked away only for the crime of having a heart. A perfect candidate."

"You fancied the Federation so you toured its... political prison."

"Well I checked the other people as well but none of them seemed nearly as interesting or romantic."

"I don't think I've actually been accused of being romantic before! Checked how, precisely?"

"I skimmed their history - it didn't take very long given how short your lives are."

"Are you talking about my file with the government or something more invasive?"

"Only since back when you were born?"

"I was not concerned for my fetal privacy."

"Well what privacy are you concerned with?"

"Mental, principally. I don't know if whatever it is you do would have been detectable like conventional psi. Also I have some private notes."

"Oh I didn't read any minds in my search - they're so scrunched up and complicated and I can't understand them the least without getting a headache. I suppose I noticed you typed a lot but I wasn't paying attention to what."

"Oh, good, that makes me feel better."

"Oh good!"

"So you are here because you - admire my criminal history."

"Well, it's a very admirable criminal history."

"I confess I agree with you on that point."

"We have so much in common already! How about we spend our evening somewhere more interesting than this drab tower they've got you cooped up in?"

"I assume you know that would be flagrantly illegal, as is of course your presence in my cell such that I must imagine you're suppressing the alarms and spoofing the cameras."

"Well, one of the guards went to press a button but now he's sleeping instead."

"It's not that I object to things being flagrantly illegal in principle, you understand, but it seems like it might warrant more plan-crafting."

"Hm? Why would that be."

"Well, after this evening where will I be?"

"Well I believe it's traditional to return one's date to their house afterwards but if you'd prefer somewhere else I'm sure an exception can be made."

"Are we calling this a house? But being apprehended was tiresome enough the first time."

"I did think the decorating was rather droll but I wasn't going to comment. I could put you somewhere they won't find you? A remote asteroid or an uncontacted civilization or wherever you prefer."

"Well, Davlia ultimately decided not to join the Federation, unless my information is out of date."

A snap, a flash of light, and an unnecessary sound effect later and they are standing on an alien road. 

Q squints. "No it doesn't look like a Federation planet now does it."

"I'm not sure you can tell by looking!"

"I looked over the news and such as well."

"That's probably more reliable." She turns on the spot. "I never did land here. Or most places."

"You know, there are 73 million people here who wouldn't be alive if you hadn't found them."

"That's pretty close to my estimate!"

"Then you had a pretty good estimate!"

The locals are antelopey with twirly horns and clacky hooves. Isabella waves a little when they get second looks.

Q waves as well.

"Is the planet to your satisfaction?"

"It's very nice, though I admit I don't actually know if I would be able to eat local food should I stay long term."

"Ah yes, food. You mortals need that what, once or twice a year?"

"I'm sure there's a species like that but not either of mine."

"Hm..." Q looks at T'Mir inquisitively as if reading something printed on her face.

"Several times a day!? How do you find the time for anything else?"

"It doesn't take that long after you get past the subsistence farming stage of civilization!"

"Well if you insist on indulging in it on such a schedule I suppose this planet's food is edible for both your species."

"I said 'long term' - can I live here for a year, not can I have lunch at that little stand with the bowls of local grain."

"Yes the food is entirely edible and nutritious for a day, a year, or however long you have need of it."

"Then I suppose if I do wind up with some sort of problem it will be a more unpredictable one, like if they're getting all their copper from a specific bean I can't stand or something. I wonder if I can order a bowl in mime. I'd try it but my assets were very much frozen."

An extraneous flourish later and there is a cloth bag labeled "$" in her hand.

"What, no domino mask? - where did this come from."

"You wound me, I made that money through my own honest labor." 

"When was this?"

"Just a moment ago, right in front of you."

"And the labor in question was...?"

"Making a bag of money, of course."

"Counterfeit is labor but I would argue it is not honest."

"Oh all right," a snap

- and now T'Mir is instead holding a chunk of dilithium worth several times more than her former ship. 

"Ha. Now I have to sell this by mime but that might be fun." She experiments with ways to carry it and winds up with it on her left shoulder.

"If you'd rather not I could give you the language? Or give them yours I suppose."

"Have you done that before, giving ordinary mortals a language?"

"Yes, I once gave everyone on Zythron 3 a different one."

"So what you're saying is that in the past this experience has not been positively reviewed by the recipients."

"Well, I was a good bit younger then."

"How old are you, anyway?" she asks, starting at a sedate stroll into the Davlian town to see if she can identify some kind of bank.

"Oh I've moved beyond that sort of thing."

"How old were you when you did that?"

"16? 17? Hm, 18 billion at the oldest - I was something of a late bloomer embarrassing as it to admit."

"Well, at least you didn't find yourself hurried by circumstance."

"The big bang did make everything seem more urgent but my younger self wasn't really mature enough to notice this was the case."

"What was it like around here before then?" She picks a likely building but finds it not open to the public when she tries the door and moves on.

"Dark, a bit humid."

"I used to play hide and seek there with an old friend," he adds wistfully.

"...no longer in touch?"

"Not for some time, no."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I imagine it must happen a fair amount over enough billions of years though."

"Not especially?"

"No?"

"I imagine it might for mortals but we Q are beyond such things."

"Oh, well, if you normally only make friends within the species that would certainly help."

"Well, they did start to seem rather dull after long enough. No panache, no sense of adventure, no originally in the lot of them. Except me of course."

"The appetite for adventure provoking the linguistic, uh, shuffling, on the planet you mentioned?"

"Well they were awfully rude. Or I was. I can't really remember who started it."

"You had a social interaction with the whole planet, did you?"

"At the time I certainly though so but looking back on it I think I may have been mistaken."

"Have they recovered from this mischance?"

"Oh yes I got around to fixing it once I realized how inconsiderate I'd been."

"Oh, good! How long did that take?"

"A year or two? Really I just needed to calm down."

"Have you considered working on techniques to calm down faster?"

"Well I really have grown since then but I'm curious what you'd suggest?"

"I mean, from my own vantage point an obvious thing to try would be Vulcan-style meditation."

"Is that what makes Vulcans so boring most of the time? Well except you, of course."

"Yes, but it's not as though the techniques force you to use them, it's just customary for Vulcans to practice on a constant basis."

"Aside from sapping all the fun out of everything what does it do?"

"It prevents violent and irrational outbursts and failures of coordination."

"Violent and irrational outbursts? Me?"

"Soi-disant, if you are to be believed!"

Q grins.

"If so, how would I do this meditation of yours?"

"I can teach you, but it assumes some things, like that you are a humanoid whose consciousness is or at least can be principally located in your body." Is this a bank or something? It looks likely. They are capable of identifying the dilithium, at least, and give her some money. She is not sure if she is pawning, selling, using as collateral for a loan, or leasing to a museum, the substance, but she has money and gets to stop carrying the big metal chunk.

"Well it certainly isn't. As to whether it can be... well not without being a good deal less Q than I prefer to be."

"Understandable not to want to diminish yourself. Can you, mm, partition?"

"How do you mean?"

"Be the same amount of Q but section off a bit of that quantity to principally occupy something that at least mostly behaves like a humanoid body. Not detaching it, that would presumably have all kinds of consequences, but talking to it from the rest much less."

"Hmmm... I suppose that could be managed."

"We'll find a place I consider suitable to start meditating in much quicker if you can provide better assurances on the quality of your language implantation."

"There really isn't any chance I'll get it wrong. Will that do as assurance?"

"I haven't known you long enough to be sure we have the same opinions on what constitutes doing something wrong!"

"I confess I have not a clue how to remedy that."

"Well, you could wait till we're better acquainted, or go into more detail on how it would, hypothetically, work, if you caused me to speak Davlian."

"I'm not entirely sure how I would explain it to a being as limited as you. I could make everyone who speaks Davlian speak your language instead? Or make you a translator?"

"I appreciate your attempts to clarify! For example, 'instead'. Would they speak it instead of Davlian? If so that implies some things about my hypothetical command of English and Vulcan. Would the translator be a computer or are you proposing to make a person for the purpose? The word could be used for either."

"I was thinking in addition to Davlian but could do in place I suppose. The translator would be a computer. And also not a person in case that possibility hadn't occurred to you."

"I have occasionally been known to wonder about holograms, though they weren't high among my priorities when I had the freedom to act on those! I would appreciate a computer translator for now."

In a snap she is wearing a thin silver wrist band.

"I'm ever so curious as to what was high on your list priorities. Or is, I suppose."

"Don't you know? I thought that was how you sifted me out of all the possibilities."

"I certainly know what you did but that's not quite the same as understanding the why."

"But you told me how many people on Davlia are alive because they got warp sooner! To me that indicated you'd narrowed it down some."

"Well I'd say it's for those rather noble sounding humanitarian reasons that the Federation tends to talk about. Except those don't seem to result in people actually being nearly so interesting as you."

"My strategy relied pretty heavily on the rank and file, but I acknowledge there are more of them. What's your present understanding of those noble sounding humanitarian reasons, then?"

"Oh, perhaps saving lives, providing the opportunity to make decisions that matter on grander scale, and the chance to understand those mysteries of the universe you mortals seem so fond of."

"I'm not personally attached to the mysteriousness of the mysteries if there are hints you're itching to hand out."

"I would hardly know where to start with the more interesting ones. Some temporal psychology could be lived through I suppose but I suspect you wouldn't appreciate that."

"You could make a verbal attempt to introduce the concept perhaps."

"I don't think your language has nearly enough tenses for such an attempt."

"No? What a pity. At any rate, my motives were the obvious humanitarian ones! It came up at my trial. The Federation has, not bottomless, but considerable, spare capacity to do geoengineering and medicine and peacekeeping that save and improve billions of lives, and nudging a few on-the-cusp planets some years earlier got them the opportunity to solicit that spare capacity for their needs."

"And in doing so you accomplished those nobles goals to a far greater extent than anyone else in the galaxy who has claimed to share them!"

"It's true, but it only worked with the Federation behind me, however little they knew they were," she shrugs. She finally decides which Space Fruit toppings look best to have on a bowl of "priv" and approaches a food stall. "So the other claims may easily have been as sincere and strong, and just worse-placed."

"Worse-placed?"

"If they didn't have a background conducive to thinking of and implementing my idea or a similar one? A Davlian couldn't have, for instance."

"That should hardly rule out most members of the Federation."

"That's true, but it was also a demanding lifestyle! It would have been incompatible with anyone who couldn't sustain their motivation all alone for extended periods of time without confidantes."

"Well if your fellow mortals were actually willing to act on their beliefs than that wouldn't the case, now would it? They have no one but themselves to blame."

"Surely you've encountered common knowledge problems in all your vast experience."

"I suppose those are a flaw of many lesser species."

"Oh, how is it your people avoid them?"

"By possessing the same knowledge, generally. And by not having such a cumbersomely large number of us running about."

"I think I'd find it dull or even frightening to find all my knowledge mirrored in other people with quite the accuracy you'd need to avoid the potential for common knowledge problems."

"Yes, it can be rather dull. Though I suppose its not entirely mirrored - the rest of them somehow manage to find me rather confounding if you could believe that."

"Have you got stories?"

"I once invited one of them to a party with some mortals I'd found and they couldn't the least bit understand what the mortals were there for or why freezing them would defeat the point."

"Were the mortals all right, afterwards?"

"Well yes, I wasn't going to let the blundering of my less cosmopolitan kin ruin the party."

"I'm glad of that. What do they do all day, that parties are not merely unappealing but incomprehensible?"

"Oh it varies. Spin protons in different directions, form nebulae, metaphorical checkers. Though I do think it was the mortals they found incomprehensible more than the party."

"Parties are just concentrations of people; everything else about them varies. My mother used to say they were like soup that way, with two soups not necessarily sharing any ingredient other than water."

"What a delightful saying."

"Unfortunately she later found out about a waterless soup, but yes."

"The sheer variety of foods you mortals have managed to invent is quite astonishing."

"Do you even eat?"

"I have no need to rely on such inferior sources of energy."

"Never even to taste it! I suppose it would look pretty silly if you were imagining calories were the only important variable."

"Well, I can also tell the chemical composition down to the smallest atom of your meal without anything so primitive as tasting it."

"Do you see, and hear, or just know things about how waves are behaving?"

"I suppose I've picked up those habits from you bipeds."

"Well, you could try tasting at some point. Or at least smelling, if you feel eating as a source of enjoyment is inextricable from its necessity. Though I have to say I think this stuff is an acquired taste." She gestures at the bowl of priv she's working through slowly.

"What would you reccomend?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you want to start with something relatively introductory or go straight for something in contention for the peak of the genre, but I'm fond of strawberries."

A flash of light later and they are each of them holding a strawberry.

"Bon appetit." Nom.

Nom.

"That feeling! The sweetness!! The watery sugar filling my mouth! The outer skin giving way to such a delightful interior as to flash the very concept of the strawberry's nature directly into my being! 

Q swallows, still beaming.

Isabella giggles, just a little bit. "I'm glad you like it!"

"How you biologicals manage to make so much out of such a paltry sensory apparatus is beyond even my lofty intellect." 

"It makes up in immersiveness what it loses in objective detail."

"I suppose it's not an entirely unreasonable trade."

"Well, we didn't make it on purpose, but we make do."

Q is going to have a second strawberry, this time more slowly.

"Your eating several times a day may have some redeeming qualities as it turns out."

"It's not all perfect strawberries all the time but it has its moments."

Eventually he works his way through the second strawberry.

"Do you need more recommendations or have you heard of enough foods before that you can take it from here?"

"I've heard of enough foods to fill up a Randalian soft drive. Which doesn't altogether help with the problem of choosing which I should try."

"Are you imitating human tastebuds very closely? Because that would narrow it down, if not much."

"It wouldn't take any more effort for me imitate any other species taste buds, though for the strawberries I chose half human half vulcan, which I feel was rather a good decision given the results."

"I guess that makes sense, though I don't think I actually have an advantage over an unmixed human at enjoying strawberries. Are you making the food out of nothing?"

"Yes? Is that counterfeit as well?"

"No, I'm just checking because I don't eat meat that wasn't created de novo and like chicken fingers."

"Are chicken fingers particularly exceptional?"

"No. I have extremely middlebrow tastes."

"I find that quite difficult to believe."

"Oh, why is that?"

"It would be quite the exception to the sterling discernment you seem to have exhibited in your choices so far."

"I didn't say I had bad taste, but I don't tend to seek out exceptional food. Commonplace ones can taste good too. Strawberries aren't exceptional at all."

"I suppose they are not especially rare."

"They're not rare and they're not skillfully prepared, they just grow that way! Many years of domestication helped but that's true of most things humans eat."

"I'd be happy to take your recommendations for unexceptional foods as well, if we just call them that."

"Chicken fingers are good!"

And there are chicken fingers.

She will assume he means to share and have some. She doesn't really care for priv.

After that she asks a passerby if there is a hotel to be had nearby. The first person she asks doesn't know.

Q is happy to share. They aren't even as good as strawberries it turns out.

"Oh I suppose it was terribly silly of me to lead you here without a proper home. Let me make amends."

With a flash the pair find themselves in the grand entryway of a white stone castle. T'Mir may also notice that she's now wearing a dress out of a fairy tale, to match Q's princely costume. 

"I have no particular objection to the dress per se but please don't alter what I'm wearing without my advance agreement. Also. Where is this castle."

"You may have your old clothing back if you insist though I really don't think the outfit was nearly as fetching. As for the location -" and now they are standing in the tallest tower the castle has to offer, rising well above the Davlian village below. She can see the table they sat and discussed at not five minutes ago. The immediate grounds of the castle appear to be the field they landed in earlier, though if she looks behind herself she'll see a rather magnificent garden with a fountain and hedge maze.

"Like I said, no objection to the dress, and I also don't miss the prison uniform, but the transition is not how I prefer to go about changing outfits. Was there already room for this here? Did you make sure you weren't going to cause subsidence or mess up the watershed or anything?"

"I of course made sure the location was stable and suitable."

He glances down at the ground below.

"I can touch up the watershed and such I suppose." he says, doing so with a wave of his hand.

"You say 'of course', but you appear to routinely perform actions without checking things that I would consider common sense, so I suspect it's necessary to be a bit more granular and basic in establishing common knowledge."

"I promise to do my very best to provide you with a castle befitting at least one iota of your excellence, however difficult that may be."

"Which is a very sweet sentiment! But now I have no idea if its presence will upset the Davlians, so I have to go check that before it would be responsible for me to tour the place."

"If you insist."

"Hopefully they'll be able to suggest a good place to move it to if it's unwelcome here. Are you just omnipotent in general or does it only seem that way from a mortal perspective?"

"My what a personal question."

"Is it? I'm sorry, I've never met a plausibly omnipotent person before."

"I suppose if I had to I'd say that as a continuum the Q have no equal but as individuals we may at times equal each other."

"So, omnipotent at least as long as none of them are paying attention?"

"As fair a way to put it as any."

"Interesting. Is it as nice as it sounds?" She lets herself out of the castle and heads down into the village.

"Well it can be boring but I do expect it beats the alternative."

"Most people are bored sometimes, so not being omnipotent is hardly a panacea."

"I suppose so, especially if they go around locking each other up for good deeds."

"I'm not sure that's a leading cause of boredom. I was not a traveling entertainer."

"A traveling entertainer?'

"Are you asking what that is?"

"Why it's relevant - I confess I didn't follow."

"I wasn't doing anything that would tend to alleviate boredom. Or, I guess that's not quite the case, warp drive does generally make the news, but I don't think anyone would find their lives became more boring after my imprisonment."

"Not even yours?"

"Surprisingly, no! Day to day it's much the same being alone in a cell versus alone on a ship. In the long run I suppose books aren't a sure win against studying a new planet to decide how to disseminate the equations, but it's close."

"Well I do hope I can keep this next phase of your life from being as equally dull as the last two."

"This is at least a highly interesting day!"

"I'd hope so."

"What do you do when you're not getting to know persons you broke out of prison?"

"Oh meeting new species, inventing new physics, debating philosophy, designing floral arrangements."

"Flower arrangements! I would've never guessed. Are the new physics implemented anywhere or just a thought experiment?"

"There's a bubble of spacetime I'll use if it's anything particularly interesting."

And here is a flower bouquet for his charming date, with white roses contrasted against golden flower that she's likely unfamiliar with.

"Oh, how pretty!" Does this dress by any chance have a tall vertical pocket, or a bag, or does she just need to carry these in her hand.

If she looks for one obviously enough she'll find a bag.

"Do you remember what I said about altering what I'm wearing?"

"Oh is providing a bag that? I apologize."

"It is when the bag appears on my person. Handing me one would be unobjectionable." She bags the bouquet anyway.

"I'll endeavor to do that in future, as... mortal as it may be."

"I appreciate the accommodation to my sensibilities."

The Davlians are kind of disconcerted by the castle but none of them go so far as to say that it has to be moved or to suggestively mention a place it would look nicer in or anything.

"Fantastic, shall we return and tour your noble estate?"

"I see no reason why not!"

And they are back in the entrance hall!

And she sets out into the castle in search of a) a general sense of the layout and contents and b) a vase.

The castle has four main above ground stories, at least one level of a dungeon, a library, two pair of kitchens and dining rooms, well over a dozen bedrooms, and one tower that rises up with a spiral staircase to provide views and a reading room. The backyard contains a garden, fountains, and hedge maze.

She can find a vase in either kitchen.

"It's pretty! Is it a copy or did you plot it all out yourself?" she asks, plopping the flowers in a vase and filling it up with water.

"I designed it myself, though some parts are copied,"

"Which parts?"

"The great hall, most of the bedrooms, and the library."

"Where's the library from?" she asks, swinging back in that direction for a closer look at the book selection.

"The King's reading room in Versailles, though I translated the books."

"But how did you pick which translations to go with?"

"Well I did my best to capture the original intent and I dare say I succeeded,"

"Perfect translation is impossible, but as I haven't any French I'll have to take your word that it's at least good."