Instead it's suddenly stunningly bright. The sky is silver, the light is streaming from some point on the horizon and is far brighter than a sun ought to be. Everything is dazzlingly pretty. 

"...Is this a pocket dreamscape? How advanced was that thing?" Imliss wonders.

There's no one around to answer. They're in the middle of a field. It's a stunningly picturesque field.

If it's a dreamscape, she should be able to oppose it. On the other hand, if it's a dreamscape, it's probably too advanced for her to be able to break. She tries anyway.

"...I couldn't break it, but I--didn't feel anything there to push against," she says, puzzled.

"Let me try."

She tries.

She gets the same result.

"That's really weird."

There's a gentle breeze. There are deer eating in the meadow, unafraid of them. 

...

Idaia walks up to one of the deer.

It eventually gets nervous and darts off, but not too far. 

Okay, if she approaches slooowly does it run away again?"

...nope, if she's patient enough she can get in petting range. 

She pets it. Carefully enough that it won't run away, but--

"Imliss I think it's real."

"How's that even possible?"

"Hell if I know."

And a minute later they'll hear hoofbeats. They'd have heard it much sooner if they were Elves. 

They are not elves, they are dreamshapers. If the source of the hoofbeats isn't immediately visible Idaia conjures a peculiar twisty-looking set of binoculars and looks in the direction the sound's coming from.

Then she'll see a man on horseback with a large dog bounding along beside him. He's not particularly pressing the pace. He is an Elf, and has heard and seen them, and he pulls up the horse at the site of binocular conjuration. 

Gosh he's pretty.

If this guy is responsible for the snake she's going to be super pissed off at him but she really doesn't think anything about this situation is normal enough that she can assume that.

"Guy on horseback with a dog," she reports to her sister.

The guy on horseback with a dog heard that very clearly, but doesn't speak the language. He approaches, slower. 

They don't look like Elves. They don't look equipped to be all the way out here, either. 

"At least with someone to talk to we can get some answers about what the hell's going on."

"Yeah."

They start walking toward him.

So he'll dismount. They don't seem to recognize him, which is so entertaining he is definitely not going to say who he is.  "You're far afield."

...Hello language barrier, so pleased to see you, not.

"I don't speak that language," she says, more to demonstrate than for the words themselves.

Huh, okay. Where the Halls are you two from?

...Whoah.

We're from Kilaiuossa. We were attacked by--we thought it was someone's working, gone hostile by carelessness or malice, but I've never heard of a working that could teleport people before.

And I've never heard of a working. So you're extremely lost. Welcome to Valinor, how are you liking the weather, we can ask it to change if it's boring us. 

Right now weather is kind of the least of our concerns. We are extremely lost indeed. What do you mean you haven't heard of a working?

I have not heard of a working. If a little bit of defensiveness comes through, it's because usually 'what do you mean you haven't heard of' means 'how is there a son of Feanor that stupid' and - No one has heard of a working. What is a working. 

A dreamworking? Like with the binoculars? ...So, uh, you know how if you're having really intense dreams sometimes stuff from the dreams affects your environment while you sleep?

I am pretty sure that doesn't happen, actually. 

Wait, what?

I have never had dreams that affected the environment around where I slept. I don't think dreams can do that, they're in your head. 

Well they work like that in Kilaiuossa. And if you train at it you can do stuff like that on purpose, while awake.

I've never heard of that happening. And you've never heard of it landing people in other worlds?

Other worlds?

This world's got Valinor and it's got Endore and Endore doesn't have your species and if you were from there the first thing you'd be commenting on was the light. 

It is weirdly bright. What's Endore?

The world outside Valinor. It's dark there because the Treelight doesn't reach it. 

...Treelight?

He gestures in the direction of Telperion. It's right there; they should be able to see it just fine. 

I don't see anything.

So he sends what he can see. 

...I can't see that well, she says after a stunned pause.

That's too bad. I don't think I have unusually good vision. Anyway, that's one of the Trees. The other one's gold, she'll wake up in a little while. You are like two hundred miles from civilization and you're lucky I was curious when I heard you or you could have wandered around for a sold few weeks without meeting anybody. 

Thanks for coming to investigate.

I wasn't, like, looking for gratitude, just adding more points on the 'you are really lost' thing. Wanna go to Tirion or to Taniquetil? Tirion's our main population center, Taniquetil's where the Valar live and they might be able to send you back. Or you can just chill out here, that's kinda what I'd do, but I have more company than most. 

There isn't really much to go back to, she shrugs. What do you mean about the company?

Oh, I can talk to animals. Most people here can't do that. So I travel farther and don't get lonely, because I can just say hey to them. He nods at the deer. Like, I told her not to run away, usually she'd see a horse and a dog and panic. But if you're friendly with her I won't shoot her, so I said, it's okay, just hang out here, we're just talking. 

I was petting her to check that she was real and not part of a really complicated working. I'm not especially attached. You can talk to animals? That's amazing.

Well, now that we've had a conversation I don't really want her for dinner, though if you do, can do. There's no hurry to get to Tirion, if you're not in a hurry to get put back.

I don't think either of us is particularly hungry right now. We're--disoriented, I think is the biggest thing. This place is so different from where we just were.

Fair enough. Uh, we can just sit down and have snacks and compare notes on worlds, if you'd like. Or find somewhere shady if you find it too bright. 

I would love to compare notes on worlds with you. The brightness is--well, I had better get used to it, right?

Valar'd probably do something to your eyes if you ask them. Tell me about working, can anyone learn it? What kinds of things does it let you do?

I thought anyone could, but I'm not sure how you'd learn if you don't reflexively react to strong dreams in the first place. Workings involve taking stuff from dreams and putting them out into reality. You can conjure objects or create illusions or sometimes apply attributes of a dream-self to yourself but that's hard. Oh, and it has to be stuff you remember from dreams. If you uncover a note to self from three years ago that describes a dream you had in vivid detail but you can't remember it then you can't use it.

Huh, yeah, might not be learnable then. Oh well. I generally can't learn stuff, it's the way it goes. He rips up a few plants from the ground. Snack? 

I don't know what confuses me more, the fact that you think you can't learn things or the fact that you expect me to eat grass.

I can't. I've had lots of time to try. He takes a bite of the grass. What, humans can't eat grass? Really? Are you sure?

I think grass is supposed to be really hard to digest and that's why cows have four stomachs? What do you mean you can't learn things? She's genuinely puzzled.

I just suck at it. Name a thing, I'm pretty bad at it, except archery and riding and talking with animals and field medicine, and those are a different category of skills. Everything in Valinor is edible. It's paradise. It wouldn't be paradise if everything wasn't edible, would it? Tasty, too.

I won't pretend "everything is edible" would have been on my top ten list for "features of paradise" but okay.

She plucks a stalk and nibbles on it. Tastes better than cut grass smells, I'll give you that.

What would be on your top-ten list? We probably have those, too.

I think "my parents and paternal grandparents" would top the list and I doubt you have those.

We don't die. Our dead, if we do manage to die, come to Mandos and he puts them back alive. I don't know if he has yours. If you're from a different world, possibly not. 

I don't know that our dead have an afterlife at all.

I'm sorry. 

Thank you.

Do you want to talk about what happened?

Dad--made a mistake. Someone else reacted badly to the mistake. Things escalated. A lot of people ended up dead, my parents among them, and all the blame landed on their shoulders.

We were the only ones at the funeral, and we had to skip town because people were--not sympathetic that we didn't agree with the official allocation of moral responsibility.

I'm really sorry. Really sorry. That's awful and I can't even imagine - Want a hug? 

That would be really nice.

Hug.

He is uncomplicatedly certain that her parents didn't deserve this and that even if they messed up a little bit it's completely awful of people to hate them for it and good people'd stand by them to the bitter end. He projects this as much as he can without projecting why he believes it. He is still determined not to tell them who he is. Not being a grandson of the King is too good to pass up on. 

Okay, Idaia's going to be crying on his shoulder and clinging a little, if that's okay.

Thanks.

I'm so sorry. I wish I could actually do something. 

Sympathy from someone other than me is going to help her a lot.

Well I can sure as hell do that. What an awful mess. Both of you. I'm honored to know the truth about what happened and would have been honored to meet your parents. 

They were pretty great.

I'm sure they were fantastic. I'm so sorry.

And this all is why we don't really have anything to go back to. We were sort of in transit when we got got but there wasn't anywhere specific we were going.

You can stay here. Paradise, and everything. If you want to get a house in Tirion you can do that, if you want to just live off the land out here you can do that. Or there's Valimar and Alqualonde, I don't know what kind of place you'd want to live in. 

I think we'd get tired of grass if we tried to live on it, even if it is tasty for the moment. And I think we should learn the language. What's it like, here, besides "paradise"?

Uh, depends a lot on where. Tirion's a big city, very focused on learning and inventing and crafting, people there are really really good at whatever they do and very generous with it but the expectations are pretty high. I can't stand it. Also way too much politics, there. There are a bunch of outlying mining towns that are - Tirion in spirit, far lower stakes. Valimar's astoundingly pretty and in the hills of Taniquetil but a bit incomprehensible to outsiders, usually, lots of invisible social conventions. Alqualonde's by the ocean, scenic, uncomplicated. They all have different Kings. There's a democratic collectivist crowd down south. They're very likeable. There are people who live in trees and have no goverance.  Anyone'll take you in and be happy to teach you the ropes. 

Where do you live, because from the way my sister's hugging I expect that to matter to her.

Tirion. I know I said I can't stand the place. I travel a lot. 

Why do you live there if you hate it?

My family is pretty important to me too and they're all there and most of them happy about it. 

Fair enough. Well, if it means you travel more and found us, I certainly won't complain.

I travelled all the time even when Tirion was less stuffed with drama, I like exploring. 

We're grateful, regardless, Idaia sends, her crying jag having subsided.

Seriously, don't be, this is the most interesting thing to happen in a while.

Yeah, because having a stranger get saltwater on your shirt is super fun.

If that happened to me and it is actually not super hard to imagine I really hope someone'd understand and not whine about their shirt. 

I may or may not be gratuitously depressing right now.

Okay. Well, I can get a new shirt if you actually manage to ruin it. 

Hug. I'm normally much better company, I promise.

I find most people terrible company and I like you two great. 

Thanks. What're we doing right?

Um! So far you haven't speculated about any random peoples' personal lives or made vague knowing implications while giving each other highly significant glances. Popular form of communication; I hate it. You had a bad thing happen and were very articulate about how so I didn't have to try to wade through to figure out what I could say that'd actually help. You are randomly lost on another world and have decided to stay because why not. That's excellent. 

Sounds like a pretty low bar, although I do take full credit for the getting lost and deciding to stay bit.

I don't dislike people because I have high standards, I dislike people because they mostly suck. 

I really can't disagree with you.

Course not. Down south is where I like the highest proportion of people, for what that's worth. 

It's certainly worth something.

It's also the most socially liberal, I don't know what your world considers normal or if that's a thing you care about...

You could say that.

You could also say that she came this close to breaking a guy's hand once after one too many misogynistic come-ons.

That is not a problem I'd expect you to experience anywhere. The Eldar are very very sexually conservative. Pretty sexist, but mostly in politics, which fuck politics. But yeah, might like it down south. 

The Eldar?

Those of our species who live in Valinor. I didn't want to tar the people I've never met with the same brush. 

Have you met everyone in Valinor, then? she asks teasingly.

Way too many of them. 

Poor soul.

Hardly your fault.

I promise you, I'm sympathizing, not apologizing. If it were my fault everyone was insufferable it would involve silly hats or something else more sensible than politics.

If they make the mistake of putting me in charge perhaps I'd mandate silly hats. No, people'd probably just take that deathly seriously. 

I wonder if there's a limit to how silly you can make them before they stop doing that?

Oooh, there's got to be. I think if I mandated they be ugly people'd stop cooperating. 'Who put him in charge', they'd say, and maybe notice the silliness of the whole system. 

She sends him an image of a sombrero piled high with wax fruits in assorted unnatural, clashing colors.

I think you might have done it! We have a hat that would get Tirion to reconsider monarchy!

She might be laughing enough to make breathing harder, at this point.

Good. That's much better than crying. 

I almost want to make this hat. As a testament to the pointlessness of political drama.

Do you know how to weave hay? We could do it - though I'd use wax fruit, the real thing'll get bruised and look less pretty...

Yeah, definitely wax. I...have a vague idea of how to weave hay?

I can do it! Or show you. Wax'll be easier since you have Talks-to-bees here with you, otherwise it's a bit of a pain...

Why did you let your sister make something like that, they'll say. If anyone lets my sister do anything I have yet to see it, I'll say.

Your sister has great judgment and you should join us, it's not hard at all. 

I will help you make this atrocious hat but I refuse to wear it.

I was not planning to wear the hat unless someone attempts appointing me King, in which case on goes the hat. 

Wait, is that, like, likely?

Halls no. 

You kept bringing it up, is all.

I have a brother who actually wants the job and will be good at it. When the King steps down it's all Nelyo's, and if Nelyo never marries or has kids my father has five more sons to throw the cursed thing at. 

...But you are in fact a prince?

My condolences on being inextricably tied to politics.

It is the absolute worst. 

I land in a magical kingdom after fleeing my family's undeserved disgrace and immediately meet a beautiful prince who can talk to animals? When the hell did my life turn into a fairy tale.

I am only a little bit unusually pretty for the Eldar. 

What, really?

Yep. My older brother - he of the 'wants the crown' - is remarkably so, and so's my father.  Not that either of them have the temperament to enjoy it. I am more flirtatious; perhaps you're confusing the two. 

No you are literally the prettiest person I've ever met by a landslide.

Well then I should keep you out here in the woods so you can consider thinking so. It's wonderful for my ego.

So everyone's pretty in Paradise, huh?

I think that's just an Eldar thing. We have a lot of control over our bodies. And we care a lot about prettiness. That's why an ugly hat could do what nothing else could. 

And your eyesight was way better. ...Are we even the same species?

And we can't do the dream thing and you don't have the telepathy...

And you're really tall.

Again, not unusually so. 

Not for your species, apparently.

Wonder what else. I'd suggest arm-wrestling to tell if we're stronger but that I am unusually good at. 

I fight dirty anyway.

Oh? I have six brothers, betcha you can't come up with anything I haven't seen. 

Six brothers? Of course I can.

Are you challenging me to an arm-wrestling match? Because that sounded like a challenge to an arm-wrestling match. 

You know what, sure.

Let's go. 

Surely there's a convenient arm-wrestling surface somewhere around here.

They can find a rock. Here is a good rock. 

Hello convenient rock. Is the initial arm-wrestling setup as universal as it is intuitive?

It is!

Oh good.

She's not fooling herself that she's as strong as him; years of self-defense lessons have given her decent muscle tone but there's a difference between that and someone who runs around the countryside for fun all the time. But the point of the exercise was to fight dirty, after all.

As soon as the word "Go," she conjures a weird stick-thing to brace between her hand and the rock, just to buy some time, and then leans over and kisses him.

This is in fact not a move anyone has ever pulled on him in an arm-wrestling match!

Oh, good, is it distracting enough to let her win or does she need to escalate?

His hand jerks violently but he doesn't let her win. 

Aw, is he sure? She's a very good kisser.

He is definitely not objecting to the kissing. 

Okay, fine, she'll just have to rely on dreamworking for the rest of her cheating. Retractible but not extensible...thing...between his wrist and the rock. With a spare bit of attention. Because kissing.

What the fuck, he gasps when he loses, and then stares at her with eyes afire. You're right, my brothers did not do that. 

I should hope not! she giggles. Also, wow, I'm impressed.

Wait, by what?

You're very good at kissing?

I was hardly even trying, I was distracted! Come over here. 

She totally does that.

So he gives an undistracted kissing demonstration. 

Ooh.

She can do better when she's not distracted too.

And eventually his brain catches up with his racing heart and - in Elven fairy tales this is how you get accidentally married - he disentangles them. 

You were right, she says, eyes bright, breath heavy. That was better.

Wasn't it? 

He is still staring at her, utterly enchanted. 

Definitely. She's not behaving much differently.

Well then they'll keep doing that won't they. 

Let's see...we're in the middle of a forest, obviously she's not likely to find a bucket of water to dump on them or anything like that...

He catches that thought! Sorry. We were getting a snack, weren't we?

Or making the world's ugliest hat, or something.

Hat! They were getting a hat. He should go find a beehive. 

Beehives are cool! I've never seen a wild one before, she comments cheerfully

Might be a while away, I don't see a good place for one here. Want to come?

Yes, and only partly because you're gorgeous and kind and have a great sense of humor and are a great kisser.

It'd be a really bad time for me to get married and I wasn't really planning on it. Just so you know. 

...Married?

I don't know anything about your culture and I want to make sure we're on the same page. 

Generally in my culture people will wait until some point in time later than literally the first day they meet to bring up marriage.

Okay. Generally in parts of mine you shouldn't kiss girls you are not seriously considering marrying, they will feel mistreated afterwards.

I think I like you enough that I would feel sad if you decided you didn't want to kiss me anymore but that is definitely not a thing in my culture.

I was not planning on stopping.

Oh, good.

Know how to ride a horse?

Yeah. Uh, not so much bareback, though--she shows him an image of a horse's tack as she knows it.

We have that. I don't. Uh, I can hold you, if that's easier - 

Probably!

This is definitely how people get accidentally married but they ride off together and he holds her in place. 

Idaia continues not to know that that's even a thing!

Here are some flowers and he can ask some bees which way to the beehive. 

Well that's remarkably adorable.

Most people are really not that impressed by it.

Why? It's so great!

Not very Noldorin, though, is it? There's the beehive. He's going to ask the bees if it's okay for them to clean half of it out. 

Well, to be fair, she wouldn't know a Noldor from a Sylvan. So what? It's still great.

Noldor: sing less than average. Do more than average. Do not typically live in trees. 

And yet: talking to bees, still adorable.

They're gonna get a lot of honey, do people where she's from eat honey or is that one of those things that's only edible in paradise. 

Honey is extremely edible even in non-paradise situations! Also delicious.

Good. Then they shall have honey, in a little bit. A few anxious bees will sting him, and he'll apologize to them when they do, but most of the bees are cooperating. 

So adorable.

Honeycomb! Has she ever had honey like this, it's the only way to have it. 

Not very often, but not never! The only way, really, is kissing someone who's got honey on their lips not also acceptable?

Actually, there's something to be said for that. 

They can do both. Both is probably the best option here.

This will be lots of fun! He will take even longer to remind himself not to marry girls he meets in the woods. And he will light a fire so they can heat and purify the wax and keep eating honey while it melts. 

These are supposed to be garish fruits. Where can we find bright pigments?

There are various beetles we use for some dyes, there are some flowers that are bright enough, I think we grind some things out of rock - dyes aren't my specialty, but I bet we can do alright -

Well, sure, the point sure as hell isn't to make 'em pretty. Best time for trial and error.

I may in fact be compulsively obliged to make them as pretty as I can given the premise. Is that not an impulse you feel?

...No? Isn't absence of pretty the point of this hat?

Yeah, but - it has to be the prettiest ugly hat it can be. 

I guess if the individual fruits were pretty, but they looked terrible together, the juxtaposition would be more impressive than something that just looked shitty, she allows.

Exactly! Stunning talent and no taste is much better than sheer incompetence. 

You're right there. Okay, we should probably make up little batches of dye and test 'em on really small pieces of wax to figure out what works.

This'll take till Mingling, is your sister going to get worried or bored?

If we actually leave her alone 'till then she will probably assume we're doing things she's grateful not to have to witness but I think she'd want to help with the dye thing.

Okay. We can ride back. Do people in your world in fact marry strangers they meet in the woods because that's the thought that just accompanied those words and I'm a bit startled you're so nonchalant about it, he does not say. 

Should finish off the honey first, she says, licking some off her fingers in a way that probably ought to be illegal.

Well okay fine he will grab her again and they can kiss some more. 

Oh, good. She heroically restrains herself from trying to escalate it any farther than that.

He notices. 

She is so great and it kind of is tempting to get married in the woods if only because he could avoid all the comments back home. No one could try to talk him out of it. Too late. But it wouldn't be fair to her, people thinking he'd unluckily and recklessly trapped himself in a marriage he wouldn't have undertaken with more consideration...

Back on the horse. 

Back on the horse, okay, now how do we finagle carrying this wax he does not have saddlebags...

He has lots of strategies for carrying things on horseback, though!

Excellent. Then they will get the wax back to where they left her sister without incident.

Hi! Tyelcormo says when they get back. We acquired wax and are going to experiment with dyes; want to help?

Ooh, yes!

So dying experiments it is. The silver light goes paler and Laurelin awakens and the sky goes white-streaked-with-ultraviolet. It's a particularly pretty Mingling, or at least he thinks so. 

Tragically, the sisters cannot see ultraviolet.

Then they're not going to appreciate the Mingling very well, are they? Dye experiments continue. 

It's a real shame, that. (Not appreciating the Mingling. Dye experiments are not a shame.)

Dye experiments will occupy them all night, if the otherworldly strangers don't require sleep. 

Well, they'll have to sleep at some point.

He won't have to. He will, though, if they're going to. 

Sleep is very important for people who have dream-based magic!

Oh right. Cool. Then he might just watch them and if it's alright with them listen in on their dreams, do they do magic in their sleep?

Imliss is fine with it as long as he backs out if he sees anything obviously private.

Idaia...is just fine with it.

Imliss does in fact do some magic in her sleep. She dreams about the funeral, and the scent of damp gravedirt fills the air.

He wants to hug her. It wouldn't help. He watches quietly. 

It plays through the funeral and then drifts off to something vaguely sad-themed but dreamishly nonsensical.

Idaia's dreams are way less depressing. They--actually they sort of involve some of the sort of stuff that happened today but with less heroism.

He should probably not watch. She didn't have the 'private' qualifier, though. And. 

He is expecting Huan to question his judgment here but Huan has no comment. 

Not every dream she has that night is quite like that but there is also one involving biting into a bright purple wax lemon and having it dissolve into also-purple honey when her teeth break the skin and then things are sort of like the thing where she licked her fingers indecently earlier only moreso.

He reminds himself that he cannot actually list personality traits and is therefore not in love. Well, can't list personality traits beyond 'daring' and 'creative' and 'sad about her family being villified' and 'great sense of humor' and 'ridiculously forward'. That's not enough of them to be in love. 

Eventually she shifts and stretches and opens her eyes and sits up. Good morning. Or whatever you have instead of morning when it never gets dark out.

The concept's translating successfully. I can teach you Quenya if you want. 

That'd be nice.

So he grabs some rocks and starts going through it - "one rock. two rocks. my rock. your rock. This is my rock. This is your rock. That is her rock. I give her my rock. I give her your rock. I take your rock. I take my rock. I take your rock and my rock."

She nods. "I give you my rock, I give you her rock, I give you two rocks. I take her rock and my rock and your rock, I take...?"

"You take all the rocks! I take all the rocks. You take some of the rocks, she takes one of the rocks."

"One, two, all?"

"One, two, three! Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, two-twelve, three-twelve, four-twelve."

She repeats the numbers in fascination. "You twelve? I and her ten."

Huh, really? I wonder why. "The Eldar count by twelves. Count - one, two, three. Three-Finwe is my brother, because my father is an idiot." He provides the osanwe translation of that, of course. 

"Ten--" she holds up her hands and wiggles her fingers. "Count on--" wiggles them again.

"Then I wonder why we didn't do that. Fingers. Toes."

"Ten fingers. My fingers, your fingers. You and I have--three-twelve and four fingers and toes?" she guesses.

"Yes! I got Huan when I was three-twelve years old."

"Got? When? Years? Old?"

I got Huan when I was thirty-six years old. 

"Three-twelves. Years, uh..." How many years old are you now?

Two hundred seventy? But our years might not be the same as yours. 

"I was--I have fifty-three years."

Well at least she's of age.

I can't think how to check if our years are the same length.

You look like you're in your fifties, to me.

Really? Here's what I looked like in my fifties. He sends a mental image. He hadn't yet been fully grown. 

I think you age slower than me.

Could be. I'd have put you at fully grown so more than a hundred. 

You do not look more than twice my age.

Wait, what do people who are two hundred of your years old look like?

She shows him an image of someone reasonably old.

We have to be like a thousand years old to look like that. And then only if we want to. 

We're dead by two hundred, usually.

What? Of what?

Old age?

Are you gonna die?

Everyone does.

I guess maybe not in Paradise.

No one has ever died in paradise except my dad's mom and that was a really shitty situation but at least involved her saying "I want to die and not come back to life" so you can be pretty sure if you don't do that you're safe. 

So do we just--stop aging?

and does all this apply if no one but you knows we're here.

In general you're immortal either way but we're immortal outside Valinor too. Never heard of anyone anywhere just wearing out and dying like an Outer Lands animal. Might be worth taking you by a Vala to make sure. 

You'd never heard of dreamworking either. I think we had better see a Vala.

Yeah okay. I'll ask Orome. 

What's a Vala, anyway?

Gods? They created the world, they're very powerful, they roam around doing as they please...

Oh. Huh. I don't think my world has any gods.

Might not notice, it took the Valar a long time to run into us. 

Maybe, she shrugs. Doesn't do us much good if they haven't.

They're a mixed blessing. But they do bring the dead back, that's big. 

Yeah. What's wrong with them?

They don't really understand people and they're - the cause of all of our social conservativism, or at least most of it, they're very insistent on it. 

Oh dear.

The thing is that being powerful doesn't mean you're right but it means people get hurt if they don't do what you say, and hurting people isn't right, so it ends up coming out to the same thing. If you take morality seriously, which I don't.

That's terrible logic.

I don't know what a good example for you is, I don't know what your world's like. But, say, take a man marrying twice. Nothing wrong with it. The gods think there's something wrong with it, if the man remarries they'll kill his first wife and keep her dead. So, see, it kind of is wrong to remarry, even though it shouldn't be. 

It's terrible logic if you're using it to claim that your gods aren't terrible, she clarifies, but I can appreciate the logic of sit down shut up and don't provoke the powerful people.

Appreciating the logic isn't the same as putting it into practice, I should avoid talking to any of them more than I have to before I get fed up and tell them off or something.

I haven't done much sitting down and shutting up, but yeah, if you pick a fight with them you'll lose. 

...Hm.

Are they actually omnipotent?

No. 

I wonder what I can learn to do with dreamworking if I just never die. I wonder how powerful I could get.

It's one of those things that gets better with practice, huh?

Oh yes.

There are fourteen Valar. Some of them are okay. 

Is the one you're talking about taking us to one of them?

Yep. I owe him a lot. 

Good, then.

Huan was a present from him, as much as someone like Huan can be a present. 

Oh?

I rode with him when I was younger and lonely. He taught me everything I know.

Aww

I think if it were just him he'd be fine with how some of the Eldar want to depart for the Outer Lands. But it's not, and the others aren't like him.

So if I ever do end up with the power and inclination to overthrow them I should leave him alone, got it.

You should probably not go around broadcasting that intention. If you ever meet people other than me and Huan.

I do not currently have that intention.

Good.  People can read you like I can, you couldn't keep it a secret and it'd get you hurt. 

...That's going to cause problems. I don't mind you reading me but if people with social conservatism are judging me for what I'm thinking things are going to go south fast.

Yeah, even people without particularly rebellious inclinations usually keep more thoughts private than you do. 

How?

You just, ah, differentiate. Like personally I imagine some thoughts standing in the Treelight and some in the shade of a tree, I know lots of more academically-inclined people have more academically-inclined metaphors, and when you think you practice the habit of storing your thoughts privately if you want them private, and then over time it becomes routine. Did no one teach you as a kid?

No one could read my mind when I was a kid.

Really? 

Unfortunately, yes.

I don't think that's a paradise thing either. I think we're just super different kinds of people. 

Really? Because I think this might have been on my top ten list.

Telepathy?

Yes.

Wow. Fair enough, then. What exactly about it? 

She sends him a burst of affection. That. And--stuff like that. If there isn't properly a word for something I don't have to awkwardly stumble around it, and there's no unfortunate misunderstandings because I chose my words wrong, and I don't have to try to describe things by analogy--she remembers what it was like to kiss him with honey on his lips. I couldn't really tell someone what something like that was like.

Don't go around telling too many people anyway, they'll be unimpressed with me or the wrong kind of impressed with me. 

That was an example. I shan't be sharing that with most people. What do you mean by the wrong kind of impressed?

D'you want more specifically than 'people suck'?

I'm actually kind of curious but not enough to press if you'd rather not talk about it.

So, like, two perspectives on kissing outside marriage. One is 'don't do it; the Prince Tyelcormo found some lost vulnerable girls in the woods and kissed them and that was a pretty dubious thing to do at best'. The other one is 'since it's not allowed, you're a pretty valuable person if you can convince lots of people to do it'.

You have a stigma on kissing outside of marriage? That is conservative. And kind of hilarious.

I am glad you're entertained. 

Sorry. Only funny when you haven't had to live with it, probably.

I come out of it all right, I've kissed lots of people. But it is mostly stupid, not funny, to me. 

Yeah. I mean, stigma on extramarital sex at least makes some sense, you could get pregnant..

What?

Oh, I guess you probably have reliable birth control in Paradise, make it less of a problem.

I have never heard the expression 'birth control' but I have never heard of people getting pregnant on accident and that's horrifying. Also how could you get pregmant outside marriage, I don't think there are any other ways...

Species difference, she concludes. Convenient. Why wouldn't it be possible without getting married, though? I mean, I can't imagine most people would choose to, but the mechanics are the same regardless.

If you have the kind of sex that can result in children you are married. 

What?

That is, like, what the definition of getting married is. 

Uh, okay, where I'm from marriage is having a big party and signing your name in a book beside your spouse's and living together. Here if you have intercourse with someone that's all it takes to be considered married?

Yeah. Usually people announce their intentions and throw a party, but if you didn't you'd still be married. 

Weird. What if you just don't tell anyone?