It's the first day of Junior year and Idaia's feeling pretty good. She likes her classes so far, it's a beautiful day, and she just has an indescribable positive feeling. Her last class of the day has just let out and she has an entirely tolerable amount of homework.
Her phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Right. Um. Get Daphne looking for the other Elves...going public wants to wait on immortality and that's like ten years out..."
"Or on more information about Elves, or on a dreamshaping-centric rollout."
"So there's that. What if anything hurt him at all last time?"
"Nolofinwë challenged him to a duel and injured him in it. He walked with a limp ever after. Might have been a pretense to make us think we could win."
"Yeah, and the obvious extrapolation from that is 'hit him with large amounts of explosives,' which isn't really something that invites new action at this point."
"Well, magic weapon. But if explosives work then we're all set and if they don't it's too early to check."
"Okay. ...I'm sure I'll think of more things later but I can't say I'm coming up with anything new off the top of my head."
"By all means. Just let someone know so we can run it by everyone. ...should I have Nelyo come up this weekend..."
"I'm not sure if you mean 'to talk logistics' or if you mean 'socially' and either way the answer is probably actually yes but if it's the latter I'm--sort of nervous."
"Because I haven't seen him or talked to him since he told us which boat to get on."
"Yeah, but--he was the one who told us, and--and Tyelcormo told me what happened to him."
"I told Imliss. It's important to know about, because you wouldn't want to not know and because you might wonder why the scope of his ambitions are so limited these days."
"I'm scared that when I meet him it will be harder to remember what he used to be like and that's selfish and irrational and still produces the feeling 'nervousness'."
"Lying to myself to avoid short-term emotional discomfort is not going to make me happier in the long run."
"I mean, I don't think there's an authentic him anymore. It's not like if you don't have any preferences about what he's acting like he'll be the real thing or something."
"I don't want to tell him to act like he's how I remember for--similar reasons to why I never conjured a dream seeming of my husband even to cuddle or cry on while I thought he was dead. I'd know it was fake, and that would taint my memories of the real thing. If you all were dead forever and there was no Tyelcormo in the world anymore that wouldn't have made a doll operated by my subconscious real."
"So then he'll pretend to be something else. It's a fair preference, I just hope it's not a preference for authenticity."
"If it were a meaningful factor I would prefer that he not feel obligated to perform non-authenticity on my behalf but I do understand that it isn't."
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