And a minute later, Tyelcormo says, my father's the King. So you know. And he's coming over now.

Good to know. Does everybody know about my range limit or does Aleko need to do perimeter duty or what?

I told them, but I really don't think they're going to mind too much. The only thing that matters is the war.

If you say so. "You don't have to watch my borders like they don't know," she tells Aleko.

And a minute later a very gaunt very intense unhappy-looking man walks in and Tyelcormo rises. Father.

Hello, he says to Kiri and Aleko. I'm going to sit over here because I don't mind if you read me but if only people who do mind avoid you then it'll be notable. Feanaro. You're from another world?

Yes. It has a sun, for example. And humans.

What are those?

The sun provides a day cycle and warms the planet, mental image, and humans are our species, I've never heard of yours before today.

Likewise. I'd like to learn your language, both because that'll confirm you're not a trick of the Enemy and because that way your brother can participate in the conversation. Is this a good time for that?

Sure. How do you want to do it? I learned what I know of my second language mostly out of books but I don't have any Welchin-to-whatever-you-speak texts around.

The easiest way is for you to just talk, and then also provide a translation in osanwe, but if you're new to it you may find that hard to do at once.

"Is this good?"

"Good. Is this Kiribel? Is this Welchin?"

"...What?"

Kiri snorts. "He's practicing, I guess. This is Welchin, yes, and I'm Kiribel, and that's Aleko, and correct my pronunciation if necessary but you're Fëanáro?"

"You're Kiribel, you're Aleko, I'm Fëanáro. I'm practicing, I guess. That's Tyelcormo. Correct my pronunciation if necessary."

"Your pronunciation is really good for someone unfamiliar with Welchin, as it happens."

Can you tell me how you got here and what you want to accomplish now?

"I was called out to address a weird creature loose in a town near my house. I have no idea what it was, I've never heard of anything remotely like it, but it looked like a giant snake with a mirror for a face and it was eating people, to the extent you can call it eating when the apparatus involved is a mirror and the destination is an otherworldly wasteland - though nobody else landed here with us, so maybe other victims landed elsewhere. I was going to burn it but someone whose son had been eaten practically tackled me asking me to hold off and see if there was a way to get him back first, and the snake got close enough to 'eat' me and Aleko while I was distracted."

There are no incidents like that recorded in our history, and no otherworldly arrivals. Go on.

"It is a bad time for me to be away. The fact that I still have my magic powers suggests that the primacy, which is a political and magical position which is passed on with those powers, rests with me, and therefore solely with me - there's only one prime per element at a time. All five primes are necessary to ratify new monarchs, and the other four primes are all due to a series of misfortunes newer at their jobs than me, and I'm the only person who knew all their predecessors in enough detail to give them any hints about how to work their powers. They can learn the politics other ways, but the magic is close to incommunicable and even primes of the same element don't all do it the same way. I really don't want Prince Isten to have the slightest bit of trouble assuming the throne when his father finally dies, it is loosely possible that my prolonged absence will disrupt some magical ecosystem that might or might not really exist, and yet I am not prepared to commit suicide - this might not manage to transmit the primacy either, if whatever does it can't tell if I'm alive or not when I'm not at home, and anyway I like being alive. However, it sounds like there is no short-term solution to getting us home, so I suppose I want to get my bearings here and maybe see how easy evil gods are to set on fire."

That last earns her a fierce smile. Not easily, but I think it can be done. The Valar might be able to send you home but they also might decide that you'd offended against them by walking in their territory and they also might spend a decade debating it, both things would be in character.

"Getting me home in a decade is barely more helpful than me living out the rest of my natural lifespan here, that would be plenty of time for any political interests that have a way to leverage my absence to decide it's permanent and get decisions made on that basis."

"...living out the rest of...your natural lifespan...is how long?"

"We're seventeen now and humans die of old age beginning around late sixties, early seventies, with some lucky specimens persisting past a century."