"I don't know. I'm not saying there existed a good solution."

"I am sure it will occur to me in hindsight."

"Hindsight is the clearest sight," she agrees.

And the next day they go to Melkor's talk.

Assuming it's not canceled on some pretext to avoid the prince, anyway.

Nope! The talk proceeds. A group of Men are slaughtering their way across a continent because the continent's nice for farming and the local Men don't have as good weapons.

...That doesn't look like Treelight.

This is all in the Outer Lands, mortals aren't allowed in Valinor.

Except when they land there directly from another universe, apparently. No, I mean, that looks like sunlight. From a sun. Like my birth universe has and this one doesn't.

Huh.

Do you think this isn't this universe?

I don't know. Maybe.

Or eventually our world happens to acquire a lighting system like yours -

He frowns and shakes his head.

Penny for your thoughts?

I was trying to think if there's any way the Outer Lands could not be dark and we'd notice, or the visions could be from another world, or from the past, or you could be from this world's future - why would two worlds have the same kind of lighting...

I don't...think we could have come from this world's future. Our birth world is a sphere.

Then no.

It wouldn't make sense that no one had heard of the Valar even as stories, either.

We have stories about deities but they don't especially resemble the Valar, like, at all.

I am trying to figure out if this targets you or is merely unfortunately timed. It showing a different world would be proof he's trying to target you.

I'm not sure what the implications are if it's not a different world but I don't think I like them.

Well, my father does at least have a point about how we can fix lots of things even if not the ones depicted, now that we know there'll be lots of mortals.

Yeah, no kidding.

None of these people seem to be dreamshaping at all.

Oooh, good catch. I can't think why he'd go to what would have to be a lot of effort to conceal that.

Which suggests dreamshaping is a 'my world' thing, not a 'my species' thing which is academically interesting but likely currently irrelevant. If he's not agitating against us, what's he getting out of this, is the question.

Getting attention and upsetting people? I don't know what his aims are - this doesn't seem like a good avenue to his old aims of 'murder and torture people'...

...Your father's reaction.