"Everyone already knows. And the people who'd be coming back from Mandos would look fixed. If they'd be - not fixed - it'd be in their heads."

"Everyone already knowing isn't a visual reminder."

He pouts. "I just want him to have eyes. And he'd be less lonely, too, and could go more places."

"It would be more convenient but it's not up to us."

"Yeah. Do you have any more chocolate?"

"No, but I can go back and chocolate more fruits if you like."

"Yes, do."

"In the future that's probably the sort of request you want to stick a 'please' into," she says, but she did offer, so she gets up and goes back to Lorien and returns with chocolate fruits.

"Ooooh. It's good your world has so many more flavors than ours, no one would have thought of any of these things if you were still back home."

"Well, the flavors might be around, but they could take a while to find, people are still exploring Valinor."

"Every plant and every animal is somewhere in Valinor, the Valar say. Maybe not all the ones from your world though."

"Maybe not. The sheep looked like sheep, though. I'm not as good at identifying plants."

"I haven't ever seen a sheep." He's pouting again.

She osanwës him a picture of a sheep.

And now he's smiling. "How many animals do you know? What do they look like?"

"Oh, gosh, let's see -" There are farm animals near where her dad lives. Horses and cows and chickens and ducks and pigs and geese and turkeys and one person has an alpaca. Dogs and cats, all kinds of breeds and colors. Birds - parrots and pigeons and seagulls and sparrows and crows and eagles and vultures and bluejays. Squirrels, rats, mice, raccoons, foxes, rabbits, deer. Bugs: butterflies and beetles and caterpillars and mosquitoes and dragonflies and ladybugs and spiders and centipedes and bees and wasps and worms and gnats. She's been to a zoo. Koalas and mockdragons and lions and tigers and giraffes and elephants and zebras...

He's bouncing again, mouthing the words for each of them. "I'm going to stay still," he says, "Until father trusts me to leave the palace and then I'm going to go see everything."

"Oh, is that a standing challenge he has for you?"

"Yes, once I show I can sit still and not run off then I can leave and go out because I won't run off but I can't sit still it's so hard."

"Can you do other things while you sit still?"

"I'm not very good at needlework and embroidery, and she does those so seeing them makes Ata sad. Polishing gemstones gets boring."

"Remind me how long you have to sit."

"Through audiences. They're not really very long. It's just hard because I'm bad at stuff."

"All right, I changed my mind about which safe spell is next. I had better not go in the palace because your mother might spot me; can you bring out the scroll from the safe pile titled 'Prestidigitation', from my room?"

He's off at once.