Okay. 

I am not sure I can stay in Seattle for a month, it's a very strange environment and it's a bit hard.

Strange how, what's getting to you?

The walls, the fabric, the smell and taste of the air, the architecture, a lot of things are really dirty, I - um - maybe I should show you Menegroth? So you have an idea?

Okay.

So she builds her the mental image, meticulously, the silvery light and the towering ceilings studded with false stars and the stone soft to the touch and the ground carpeted with flowers telling the comings and goings of all the people in the kingdom. Wide passageways, softly glowing, people gliding through them...

...okay. Can you give an idea of the extent to which this is a thing you need like breathing or a thing you need like sleep - the way I sleep - or a thing you need like chocolate, because there's options all along a curve of inconvenience ranging from 'take you to a planetarium or a park or something once daily' to 'leave you in the woods most of the time'. This is already a pretty fancy hotel, but maybe a bed and breakfast would be pretty in closer to the right way - but we'd have more personal attention that way -

Like you need sleep, maybe? I spent today with my eyes closed singing and that was just fine but it created all the flowers and I'm usually pretty extraverted and would rather be interacting with people, just probably not in Seattle. A park would probably do.

Okay. We can go sit in a park for as long as you need. Bella produces two copies of an umbrella and some books, changes to civvies, and offers Lúthien one of the umbrellas.

Umbrellas are pretty great. Human inventions are all pretty great, she just can't stand extended exposure. It's really not meant as an insult.

Well, there's a park not too far away, and a bench that Bella smooths water off before she sits on it under her umbrella and pulls out a book.

And she relaxes and looks at the trees and hums quietly and waves at pedestrians.

If you wave at strangers they're gonna be kind of confused most of the time.

Why?

It's a non-default behavior, so they assume you must have some kind of reason, and won't know what it is.

Oh. Okay. 

Once you're looped in you can take more risks with attracting attention and you'll pick up more English and stuff and you can talk to people besides me more often.

Thanks.

I'm sorry. I don't want to be a burden. I'd really be fine out alone in the woods if this gets to be too much.

It is possible I will eventually want to leave you in the woods for a bit so I can do things in unpretty locations but definitely not before you're looped in. This loop the priority is getting you looped.

Thanks. The park helps a lot.

Good. And there's other pretty places, humans do like pretty stuff, we can go to museums and stuff.

Thank you. I didn't think it was that humans thought ugly things were pretty or didn't know how to make pretty stuff, just that you didn't need it the same way.

Yeah. Although some humans do have such weird aesthetics that you could gloss it as them thinking ugly things are pretty.

Well, like, I don't think Noldorin cities are very pretty, they're all stone and glass and no wood except for panelling and they're paved with precious metals and sparkly with gemstones and scarcely a tree in sight. But the Noldor must like them, because they're still Elves and would be miserable if they didn't find their space beautiful. I assume those humans find their ugly things beautiful enough for them. 

That or they're getting other things out of it - I think people who like certain kinds of awful screamy music are in it for the subculture affiliation - but yeah.

Subculture affiliation?