It's really hard, even when it occurs to Bella that it would sure be nice if the air was very still near where they're trying to do smoke signals.

Pax's letters probably weren't designed for smoke signaling, Rúmil says wearily after a while.

They weren't. I mean, it works in cartoons but cartoons are very simplified in a lot of ways.

Well, hard things don't usually work the first day you try them. We can try some other things once they occur to us.

Nod.

When they're tired they also all smell like smoke, so they decide to go swimming again. And then climbing.

Bella's not competent to climb. Unless the trees want to help. Do the trees want to help?

The trees are happy to help, but she's still very much not an Elf, who are leaping between trees and between branches. Rúmil, also not competent to climb for a different reason, sits at the base and listens to them, smiling.

Bella is satisfied to climb up a tree, briefly be in a tree, and then climb back down the tree, then go sit with him.

Did the other books you brought with you have projects you'd want to pursue?

Not exactly. That's not what they were for, they were intended to go with classes I can't really take here. I guess I could start on reinventing the entire field of wizardry! ...I think it involves fancy inks and stuff, maybe those are around for art even if they haven't been applied to spellbooks.

We have lots of kinds of ink. And you can experiment as much as you need!!

Bella squirms with delight and cackles.

He laughs, too. How good can one get at magic, if you study for a long time?

Epic. Epic good. And humans can do it, so even reinventing the system it shouldn't take me all that long by local standards.

He starts to reach out to put an arm around her, hesitates. What are the human rules about touching?

...Complicated. If I'm guessing right about what you were going to do it's fine.

He withdraws his hand. It seems like you're dealing with enough complicated things.

She snorts. Maybe. What are Noldor rules about touching?

By Cuivienen everyone slept very close, for warmth. There were things you'd ask about but not much you wouldn't do, if you were friends or someone was lonely or sad or it was cold. The Valar explained that civilized behavior is a bit different than the things we'd been doing, and now everyone's trying to decide on a new set of policies. I think Tirion's hosting debates.

...wait, how do the Valar know how civilized people handle physical contact? That sounds like one of the things that ought to confuse them. Also debate is a hilarious way to decide on a set of social norms.

Eru, their creator, had...a vision? a plan? something like that, and there are lots of bits that they don't remember or that are very vague but others they have opinions about. It does seem very arbitrary at times. People were married to multiple other people and they thought it should be very obvious that you couldn't possibly do that.

Plenty of species do polygamy on my plane. Humans, even, some places, although mostly not in the Imperium.

Well, I guess Eldar really aren't one of those species, and Cuivienen just had odd norms because of the constant death and terror.

I'm not sure how constant death and terror causes polygamy.