"Statues?"

"Nerdanel made statues of all her and Feanaro's children when they were little. They were incredibly lifelike."

"Awwww."

"So very aw." Memories!

"Nerdanel's adorable. Fëanáro was jealous that her father apprenticed her before him."

"Of course he was."

"And he had me ask Mahtan what criteria he was looking for there and I translated it into Fëanáro-comprehensible instructions and he didn't do half bad with them, got signed on, I don't know if it was earlier for mine than yours."

"I don't know. I didn't ask much about that kind of thing."

"Yeah, wouldn't have expected it to come up."

"Naively I'd guess so, though."

"I do like to think I helped."

"If you hadn't been helping the Valar wouldn't have kicked you out."

"I mean, I give them enough credit that I think they'd have also expelled me if I were a serial killer, so that's not totally guaranteed, but yes, thanks."

"I think if you were a serial killer that would be a bit less ambiguous."

"Yeah."

"Frankly even if I thought you were a serial killer I might still let you into my universe, as long as I was also confident you were going to fix aging. I seriously doubt you'd kill as many people as the slow degradation of our own bodies."

"...I mean, you are right on the math but if I met a serial killer here I'd probably try to extract their useful magic without having to let them into my world."

"Well, yeah, I did say 'might'."

"Fair enough. I was always used to some people being unaging and some people not, it's like that in my world too."

"Dreamshaping was the only magic there was in Kilaiuossa, and if it's possible to use that to fix aging it took more than a natural human lifespan to get to it, and then there was Valinor, and then..."

"Yeah."

"I don't miss Valinor, exactly. But I miss the possibility of being not-in-Valinor in less terrible ways."

"I miss Valinor. I loved Valinor. Substantial parts of Valinor loved me back. But I loved it the way you love something you want to nurture, not like it was already literally perfect."

"I didn't have the patience for that," she says wryly. "And I'm pretty sure I never got to see it at its best."

"It was - it turned out not to be really safe, but before I was there I didn't even really know what being safe would feel like."