I'm glad you landed in our palace.

I like it here. My parents probably think I'm dead or worse, and I'll miss all the books at home, that's the only real problem.

Dead or worse in our world means capture by the Enemy. In yours?

There isn't a single 'the Enemy', but there's magic that can affect the soul and prevent it from going to an afterlife and some of those are supposed to be worth going to; and I could have wound up in one of the known other planes, most of which are bad in most of the ways my world is bad and some of which are worse. Like the place demons live.

This plane isn't known to yours?

No. We know about elemental and energy planes, and celestial and abyssal planes, and we know that there are other planes besides, but I don't think we knew about this one, or at least I didn't, I probably don't know about all the known planes.

Well. It sounds like it's one where you're needed and one that's all right for you. That's something. Can - is there anything you can do to just make my head clearer, so I don't find conversation so tiring?

I can sort of - um, do you have coffee, here?

All plants grow somewhere in Valinor, but that thought isn't familiar. Maybe ask Lórien?

I'm still really scared of Valar. Anyway coffee is a drink that makes people more awake, sort of like wine only the opposite. I can do something like that.

Yes, please.

So Bella reaches out and tries the coffee-thing, as her Utility Psionics teacher called it.

She smiles. That does feel a little - less foggy-headed. Thank you. I'm impressed that your world teaches these things.

You're welcome. My world teaches all kinds of things; we have subtle artists so we have subtle artist classes. It's not all bad. Fëanáro was absolutely enthralled by writing.

How does that work?

In my language there are correspondences between sounds and symbols, and you can write down the symbols to represent words. I write things down so I don't forget them, and we use books in class so we have things to refer to about the material when the teacher's doing other things, and books hold stories and poems and other kinds of information too.

Oh, delightedly, that is brilliant. Does this last? I want you to teach me, but I probably won't be any good and then I'll lose the energy...

The coffee thing will wear off, it usually lasts an hour or two but you might burn through it faster because you're so tired to begin with. I can redo it. The guideline on it is that it shouldn't replace a normal amount of sleep, but, uh, that probably isn't a problem you're going to have.

No. In that case I'd like to learn the correspondences between sounds and symbols, that has so many artistic applications...

I'm not sure we have all the same sounds in our languages, but I can teach you the Draconic alphabet for sure. As with Fëanáro she points them all out in order and says what sounds they go to.

She sketches them in the air, frowns. There's charcoal and parchment for sketching, in the drawers somewhere near here...

I'd be worried about running out of notebook but probably somebody can just ask a Vala and have paper reinvented in like a day if that happens, Bella says, here. She tears out a sheet and hands over her pen.

She feels it between her fingers, delightedly, then starts making very very small marks on the paper with the pen, delighted. I used to have a very precise hand but now it shakes. Can you do anything about that?

Not with arts, sorry. ...I guess you could try on my boots, I need them to walk without falling but I'm not going anywhere and they're supposed to work for manual dexterity too. She starts unbuckling a boot.

You have...boots that make one's hand steadier?