"Huh. Does it work?"

"Yes. It does mean that we can take time off if we need to, such as when there are children in the house."

"Sounds nice."

"It is!"

"Am I keeping you from anything? I wouldn't want to overstay my welcome."

"I have no plans."

"Well, all right."

"It's convenient that people here like my singing. I could have sold off some of the jewelry, but it's finite and I might be here for a long time, even forever. And there's no basic income and apparently debt is a serious problem if accumulated here."

"...forever?"

"Elves do not die for no reason. A Vala can put us back if we die for a reason, but it's never happened to me. I don't have dangerous hobbies."

"Huh. Lucky Elves. Raising the dead isn't a power I've heard rumoured around here."

"Nor I."

"But I'm well aware I don't know everything."

"And I've been on this planet less than a month and should not assume I know even most things about it."

He laughs.

"What things have surprised you so far?"

"Slavery."

"Don't have that one at home?"

"We used to, but only one person practiced it and now he is in prison."

He laughs. "Wow, that's just absurdly nice."

"It really wasn't."

"...how's that manage to be a bad thing?"

"He's a Vala and there were many millions of them."

"...'there was only one of him and he's in prison now' is still pretty absurdly nice, honestly."

"Perhaps in a sense."

"In the long run, 'lots of people kind of suck' is always going to beat 'one person really sucked and then stopped that' in the nastiness race, you know?"