...what a tedious sort of spellcasting. But the singing's great!

He agrees. Music is much nicer. This universe does not seem to let you compose it. 

You can't compose music? Huh?

Oh, I can, it's just not magical. Must be something about Arda. It's inconvenient but with the teleportation I can take day trips.

Huh. But it works after it's composed?

It does. I wonder if it's working off Arda, somehow, and I haven't tried checking if it works remotely without any Quendi as an anchor.

How close do you think an anchor Quendi would have to be, just anywhere in the same plane or closer than that?

I mean, I don't even know if it does require an anchor Quendi. As I said, I haven't had the chance to test it. Does music work in your new dimension? Are there any Quendi in your new dimension, for that matter?

Right now there's Rúmil, and when Fëanáro goes home there'll be him too; I am not aware of natives and the civilizations there don't seem to have magic music as a thing, although they do have things that seem like variants on subtle arts of one sort or another.

And if magic music were natively a thing someone would have noticed. Perhaps I'll have to enlist a human to help me check. We don't have any way of travelling to dimensions we haven't had specified. 

Score one for wizardry, then, we were able to narrow down habitability parameters and such and land otherwise at random.

Nice. I think in principle Loki's magic could do that. She was cutting some corners, trying to get teleportation as fast as possible - as far as she knew we were all long dead at that point and the Valar were debating whether to let mortals stay in Valinor...

Nod.

I think it must have been a rough subjectively-almost-a-decade, by all accounts she barely talked to anyone. I suppose giving your alternate self therapy's not any less complicated. 

Oh, no, that I'd feel much more confident in doing if I thought she couldn't handle it herself.

I don't know her well enough to evaluate whether winning was sufficiently cathartic to fix everything for her. 

That wouldn't be what I'd expect to fix it? More - she would probably not require outside help to figure out what would fix it and go and get it.

She might not have known subtle artists were on the list of possible answers, though.

Oh, I don't think she'd be very comfortable with subtle arts work even from me even if she did need it.

Is it odd to have a talent for something you wouldn't be comfortable with others using?

At least I'm not an incontinent mind-reader, those exist. I'm glad of my shields and I'm very scrupulous about consent.

I would have expected as much. 

Good, I hate having to explain to new acquaintances that no I am not one of those subtle artists.

Loki had lots and lots of opportunities to make any demand of us she pleased. I trust her and other instances of her. And I don't mind my mind being read the way she does or I assume you would, it is mostly full of music. 

Yeah, I have become acquainted with a wide range of attitudes toward mindreading.