"Don't tend to carry metal. Or much worth trading for, really. Could offer to entertain your patrons but it looks like we're the only two."

As if in response to his statement, the door opens.

A small human child, probably about six years old, dashes in. She skids to a stop and looks behind her in surprise when the door falls closed behind her, then looks around wildly for a few moments before calming down.

Her hair is a surprisingly familiar shade of brown and tied in a surprisingly familiar three-stranded tight plait. The eyes he could be forgiven for not recognizing, given that he had seen them only a few times before they changed to match his own, but the voice, when she speaks, is recognizable despite a decade and a half of development being sloughed off the top.

"What're you? You're pretty."

"Odette?" he says incredulously. "Bar, did you do something to her or is this a different version of her, because if you hurt her I'm - I quit-"

"My name's Edie, not Odette."

I did not do anything to her. I have not encountered the version you are familiar with and therefore cannot verify if this one shares continuity therewith, but multiple instances of people are a known phenomenon.

"Hi, Edie. I'm - well, it's probably safe enough - Tyelcormo, and I know someone who looks like you who is named Odette. I'm a Quendi; we're all very pretty."

"What's she like? Is she a mutant too? What's he?" she nods at Huan.

"She's not a mutant. I've never heard anyone called a mutant; what are those? Huan's a Maia. They helped create the world."

"I'm a mutant. Everyone at the Xavier Institute is a mutant except Ms. McTaggart visits sometimes and she's not. Mutants do stuff." I'm a telepath. It's interestingly different from osanwe; it seems to somehow convey the impression of another mind brushing against one's own. Can I pet you? she asks Huan.

Yes, Huan says, and pads forward.

"My Odette is not a telepath," Tyelcormo says, "she's a Great Mage in training."

Edie buries her hands in his fur, literally radiating delight.

"Your Odette? What's a Great Mage?"

"The Odette who is a friend of mine. I take it from this bar that there are other Odettes. Where Odette's from people can do magic, but it hurts and changes them so most people only do a little. But some people are very good and it doesn't change them much, so those people can keep doing it forever and become very powerful. They're Great Mages."

"Oh. That sounds like me, I guess. If she's not a mutant is she a Quendi too?"

"No, she's a Man. But she'll live forever like a Quendi."

"You live forever?"

"Yeah. I'm - almost three thousand years old, the way my Odette counts them. I don't know how long years are on your world."

"I'm six," she offers. "And mutants age the same way as humans, mostly. You're three thousand years old, that's amazing. How old is she?"

"Twenty-one."

Thus, friend.

"Do you lllliiiike her?

"Can you read my thoughts even when I'm not sending them? Where I'm from that's considered rude."

Sigh. "I know. Daddy always says the same thing. But it's hard not to!"

"Well, is it hard not to say them? Because if it's hard not to read them but easy not to say them, you can just read them and not tell people about them. That's just as good."

"But it's about someone who's the same as me! I want to know!"

"But imagine if you met Odette and told her! She'd be sad, and that wouldn't be very nice, would it?"

"Why would she be sad?"