"Sure!"

"Great! Which one?" 

She points to a stringed instrument she doesn't know the name of. "I'm not sure which ones are easiest to learn, but I really like the sound of this one...?"

The owner of that one would be delighted to give her a lesson in it. It's really complicated. 

She thanks the owner of the instrument and gives it her best shot. Her best shot is not very good. Hopefully they're not expecting her to figure it out right away?

They cheerfully assure her it takes decades, and correct a few things that she could work on right now.

She's pretty sure she doesn't have decades, but as long as they're not expecting her to get it in an afternoon, that's probably fine. It's honestly sort of nice to be allowed to suck at something.

She does her best to follow their advice.

Elves are so delighted to teach her music! Ettelië comes in after a while and quietly watches the lessons from the back of the courtyard.

She is delighted to be taught! Also delighted that Elves are apparently not hard to delight. Operation Make Friends With Elves would be so much harder if they went around expecting other people to live up to the standard of coolness they set. 

She smiles at Ettelië, but continues practicing until she thinks her concentration is starting to slip. She also makes as much conversation as she can, asking people how and when they learned to play their various instruments.

In Valinor, mostly. "There was more time for things like that back then. And more materials."

She nods. She is far too familiar with time and material constraints. 

"There are some people who make music where I come from, but it's hard. We're not officially allowed to own things, and we mostly don't have access to the materials we'd need to make instruments. But there are improvised ones, sometimes. And some people sing. Uh, I don't sing, really, but some people do."

"Singing is really important!"

"There are still artisans that make instruments, they're just fewer."

"I can't wait until the war is over."

She agrees that singing is important, and she hopes that the war ends soon. (She probably doesn't think singing is as important as the Elves do, and she really doesn't know very much about the war or how it's going, but she doesn't feel like those are necessary additions.)

She thanks them for the lesson again and goes to check in with Ettelië.

"Imrainai! Are you feeling better?"

"Less terrible," she says, smiling. "Have you heard anything about how much longer we're going to stay in orbit?"

"If everyone's healthy it may be a few months still. I'm sorry."

"It's fine! Just curious. And wondering what I should be doing, I guess. I've never gone this long before without, like, working on things."

"Is it going to be a difficult adjustment having a baby?"

"Maybe. It can't be that much harder than raising Ves, once they're, uh, external, but I suppose there were other people around when Ves was small. I mean, there are other people around here, but..."

"We can definitely try to get you to Endorë by the time the baby is born if you think it'll be healthier for the baby to have other humans around."

"It's definitely good to have people around, though I don't know how much it matters whether the people are Elves or humans. It's just that the work crews are really - you know for sure that the people you work with are going to make sure the rest of their crew is getting what they need, insofar as that's possible. I'm not sure how much harder raising a baby is without that kind of... communal responsibility, or something. But I'm sure we'll manage."

"Elves do that. I don't know if the humans on Endorë do that but - I'd expect so? It does seem the obviously right way to do it. Elves would be happy to have a baby around, it's just that if you think humans would be better we can arrange that too."

"That's good, then," she says, smiling. "I should probably at least meet some of the humans on Endorë, at some point. Where I end up staying is probably mostly a question of where I can be most useful. There are plenty of other babies in Earth space, and I doubt their fates are objectively less important than this one's."

"Well, while you have a baby you needn't do anything else, a baby is more than enough."

"I don't think it's really a question of that? It's important to do whatever good I'm in a position to do, whatever I think the expectations for myself should be. If taking care of a baby takes a hundred percent of my time and energy, then OK, I'm not going to neglect the baby, but whatever baby doesn't need should go back to helping everyone else. Anyone else would've done the same for me, if they'd gone through the portal and I'd been left behind."