"Yes! We met the Endorë Elves and Dwarves and orcs and they were all terribly interesting."

"I wonder what it's like," he muses, "to be able to just - meet people."

"I know you have reservations about sharing a universe with Eru, but no one would know who you are, there."

"I have so many reservations about that. And - I can talk to almost anyone I like, even here, if I don't tell them who I am. But the not telling them who I am makes it..." he trails off and shakes his head. "I think I'd have some of the same problem even with people who hadn't otherwise heard of me."

"What's the problem exactly?"

"...I really hate lying. I can do it if I have to, but I hate it. And with something as big as 'by the way, I'm the Emperor', even just not mentioning it feels the same way."

"You could tell people in my world that you are the Emperor of another planet because you have the most powerful magic there and they would go 'ooh, what does it do'."

"I'm not sure that helps. Maybe a little, but - still the feeling of 'if they knew the rest...'"

"One of Melkor's servants - not an orc, a Maia - made out well at her trial. She helped him, but she's not going to hurt anyone now, and she lives on a volcano near orcs and helps them out with things."

"Yeah? Think we'd get along?"

"I don't really know her personally, but perhaps."

"Well, whenever we find your world again, I wouldn't mind being introduced."

"I wonder if you can make a portal between Endorë and Valinor."

"Probably, if I went to both places. The kind I use are temporary but I can make them permanent, it's just a hassle."

"It takes twenty five local years to travel between them one way."

"Then I imagine it'd be really convenient to have a portal or two!"

"Maybe not directly onto Valinor's surface, the Valar are very protective, but to a station or moon in the system."

"Sure."

"The Dwarves in particular would love you."

He laughs. "Why?"

"They're very passionately cognizant of the fact that in a well functioning economy money represents value - free time and comfort and satisfied preferences - and even if you happened not to charge for the portal they'd be aware that you could have made scads of money on it and consider you to have provided a lot of value."

"Aww."

"Dwarves are great."

Giggle.

"And orcs reproduce very fast; they're not desperate for space yet and we are hoping they will have a way to find new places to live by the time they are, but portals would speed that up."