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This is the wrong building. She could have sworn the RA said "take a left at Emily, first on your right", and Bella did exactly that, and here she is and the rooms in this place don't even seem to be numbered, it's all letters and names. She's not going to find Intro to Subtle Therapy in Room 206 like that. Maybe the RA meant take a left after Emily, not before Emily? Maybe she was supposed to go the other way around the quad and approach Emily from the other direction? She's going to be late.
Bella tries to get out of the letter-named-rooms building to go ask Emily for directions, but that's not a stairwell after all, and there's someone shouting at her not to come in and she flinches back and clonks her elbow on the door and boots or no boots she's down and she -
- is falling -
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subtly_artistic
"Huh. But Lórien doesn't?"
subtly_artistic
"Nope. And my knife doesn't seem more magic than it should even though Aulë's supposed to have done something to it."
"You can tell how much magic something is? And maybe what the Valar do is just - the laws of the world, so not magic. I mean, they created everything, but it doesn't make sense to say everything is magic. How is magic technically defined?"
subtly_artistic
"Not to a very fine degree of 'how much', but more versus less, yes. Magic is in fact technically defined as what turns up with divinations like this, assuming nobody's deliberately concealed the aura - so subtle arts don't count, and divine powers don't count, and species of people or animals just hanging out being themselves don't count unless they're using spell-like abilities even if they do have supernatural powers."
"Then things the Valar do are probably divine powers."
subtly_artistic
"That's my guess. Of course, if the divination can't find it at all it's hard to categorize it definitively."
"Is there a separate divination for divine powers?"
"I think you're a real wizard."
He nods. "I'm going to go write more, I wanted to have the whole story soon."
The grown-up blinks at Fëanáro. She says something he doesn't understand, and then Hello?
You don't have leave to touch me, he says reflexively, backing up. Or the beautiful artwork. Unless it's yours. Is it yours?
She looks confused. What artwork? Everything in here is Emily's, I think -
He clutches his book protectively. Okay.
Where are your parents?
So she doesn't know who Fëanáro is. That means he can't let her find out, because then he'll take her home. They got turned into orcs, he says.
She looks horrified.
I'm okay, it was a long time ago. He feels sick to his stomach. He doesn't want to get sent home but he also shouldn't have said that. Someone will fix them, it's going to be all right.
You don't have leave to touch me, he says reflexively, backing up. Or the beautiful artwork. Unless it's yours. Is it yours?
She looks confused. What artwork? Everything in here is Emily's, I think -
He clutches his book protectively. Okay.
Where are your parents?
So she doesn't know who Fëanáro is. That means he can't let her find out, because then he'll take her home. They got turned into orcs, he says.
She looks horrified.
I'm okay, it was a long time ago. He feels sick to his stomach. He doesn't want to get sent home but he also shouldn't have said that. Someone will fix them, it's going to be all right.
subtly_artistic
"Emily doesn't own books," Bella says. "She can see - sort of, not very much like people with eyes see - but she couldn't hold a book or anything."
"Oh, okay. What would you have said, there?"
subtly_artistic
"Maybe just the first sentence. I mean, I'd also be wondering why you were telling me I didn't have leave to touch a thing but if I didn't know what thing you were talking about that would keep."
He carefully makes a note of this.
"Want to hear the next part?"
"Want to hear the next part?"
Where are the people who are taking care of you? the grownup says.
I don't need taking care of, he says. I'm grown up, just very small for it. Why are you here? Can I help you?
I was looking for my classroom, she says. I should go to class. Are you supposed to be here?
Yes.
She looks skeptical. She backs out of the room. He flees to a corner so he isn't visible from the door and goes back to trying to understand his book. If the symbols are sounds and the creator was not using Quenya he will need to hear people talking, he can't guess which sounds they use if he's never heard them. But he doesn't want to leave the book and he doesn't want to see people. He can hear them speaking if they walk down the hallway but the ones in the other rooms are muffled enough to not be particularly useful. He tries picking out specific voices and mapping out the sounds in the language and how frequently they are spoken and how they cluster and what rules govern their positions in the words.
That's not going to be enough. He's going to need to understand meaning.
An hour later the grownup comes back and his ear is pressed against the wall and he is scowling.
I don't need taking care of, he says. I'm grown up, just very small for it. Why are you here? Can I help you?
I was looking for my classroom, she says. I should go to class. Are you supposed to be here?
Yes.
She looks skeptical. She backs out of the room. He flees to a corner so he isn't visible from the door and goes back to trying to understand his book. If the symbols are sounds and the creator was not using Quenya he will need to hear people talking, he can't guess which sounds they use if he's never heard them. But he doesn't want to leave the book and he doesn't want to see people. He can hear them speaking if they walk down the hallway but the ones in the other rooms are muffled enough to not be particularly useful. He tries picking out specific voices and mapping out the sounds in the language and how frequently they are spoken and how they cluster and what rules govern their positions in the words.
That's not going to be enough. He's going to need to understand meaning.
An hour later the grownup comes back and his ear is pressed against the wall and he is scowling.
subtly_artistic
"You've got much better ears than me. Not as dramatic as the eyes, I think."
"How well can you hear?"
"Huh." he looks fascinated. "Maybe because you always live in cities? I have heard that our hearing was actually a problem when we started building Tirion, we'd lived in the woods and living so close to each other was just too much noise. The stone helps. The water features help. And people eventually got accustomed to it."
subtly_artistic
"Huh, I wonder. I mean, there are species with much better hearing than us who live in cities okay - although they don't do it as habitually as humans, I guess..."