When we spoke to the Eldar, we told them what Valinor was. We told them the things they could learn and pursue in it, and told them that many such things were beyond our imagination. We made it known that they could remain without our wrath or our judgment. I would like to offer you the same thing.

I - I like it here. She could do with less Being Expected To Go Have Conversations With Gods but at least they're Valar and not, like, Mother Khaele or something.

Very well. Welcome. Is it your desire to be considered a member of Finwë's people? This many people change later, as their will or their ambitions change.

I seem to have - fallen in with them and don't know the other groups... Aren't you millions of years old and supposed to be ultra patient why are you asking these things on day two Khersis Dei dude - she should probably get out of the habit of swearing like that -

Of course we can return to the subject later. It is a pleasure to have you in Lórien.

Thank you.

Do you have any questions for me?

Headshake. She is pretty sure she can get information like "so do we eat the plants here or is it too sacred and we go somewhere else for dinner" and "who do I talk to about reinventing paper" from less intimidating sources.

Go with my blessing, then, Isabella Swan.

Thank you.

And he disappears and the world stops buzzing.

She relaxes noticeably. Gets to her feet.

Rúmil is smiling worriedly. Everything all right?

I'm, you know, not a decorative statue or cursed to bring drought wherever I go or trapped in a glass bottle or being tortured to death or charged to start an order of paladins and schism a church in a seventy-year war, so as meeting gods goes...

Are those things that have happened? You poor thing, no wonder you hate the idea. What on earth is a paladin? You've used the word several times now and I thought it was a person but then 'start an order of paladins' makes it sound like a sticky bun...

...That startles her into a laugh. A paladin is a holy warrior, like a cross between a fighter and a cleric. They have magic horses-or-horse-equivalents and they're mostly known for exorcisms and killing the undead and public service stuff like that, but they're also heavily involved in the hierarchies and theologies of their churches, the paladins of a particular religion are an 'order', and, yes, it is a thing that has happened that a god decided to start his own paladin order and the paladins wound up not getting along with the existing clerics of the same god and they fought for seventy years until the paladins managed to convince a bunch of the clerics they were right, kill the other clerics with double agents, and establish themselves as the only branch of the faith. Naturally the god didn't show up to clear anything up during this mess.

That's appalling.

Yeah. In my plane world history is mostly appalling.

I don't suppose that god is actually anything as bad as Melkor but - it strikes me as a difference of degree.

I don't know much about that god in particular. I'm surprised I remember that much detail about the paladin order thing. He's not popularly worshiped in the Imperium. It's mostly Khersis these days, Mother Khaele in second place.

Oh? What are they like? What is worship?

Worship is sort of a collective word for all the things people who are - fans of a specific god - do. Khersians go to services where clerics or nonmagical church officials give lectures on morality and ways that members of the Khersian community are expected to behave, often conflating the two, and there's a gesture they make that if it's backed up by a lot of faith in Khersis has minor magical powers against undead and demons and stuff, and they tend to randomly ask him for or thank him for things even if there's no reason to believe he was intervening and sometimes in lieu of thanking whoever actually did the thing they're thankful for, and they talk a lot about how much they love Khersis and how this influences their politics, and they obsessively reread the Scriptures. Khaele's followers are mostly nymphs - they're a species she made and has a lot of personal contact with - and some druids and farmers and stuff, she's a fertility and nature goddess, lots of people will throw her some token respect about those topics even if they're mostly something else or nothing else. Like, they manage not to kill a houseplant for a month, thanks Mama Kh.

Huh. So not very similar to studying under one of the Valar.

Yeah, sort of. Although Khersis hasn't been personally heard from in... I think coming up on a couple hundred years? Since he incarnated.

That's a long time for a short-lived people.