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Bella's house gets done, and she fills it up with things. She experiments with magic, and theorizes when she has more data to work with; when she runs out of her steadily increasing mana supply for a day she studies Quenya. One morning she sits bolt upright in bed, realizes she has not seen a single wheel since she got here, and runs off to Mahtan to explain the concept, which is, it turns out, new.
When Fëanáro is feeling sociable she hangs out with him. He finishes his novel. (In it, the school turns him over to social workers and adopt him out, he escapes his foster family, he encounters a dragon and talks his way past it with stories about Arda, he studies wizardry and is unreasonably effective at it, when the dragon opens a portal to Arda he sneaks through too and the Valar slay the dragon, he fixes his mother with magic, and then he masters planar travel himself and conquers Bella's plane.) He finishes his typewriter, too; Bella's of the opinion that it would have been easier if he made vowels separate instead of consonant-hats, but it works okay like so. She acquires one when there is more than one, and learns to type, because crystal balls are a long time coming.
She has made some progress, though. She finds the common thread in dud combinations that produced an aura, and successfully decomposes all her original spells into pieces and begins to make new combinations. Most of these are trivial like the increased character limit arcane mark. Reverse-engineering her undead-damaging spell, though, gets her (small) arcane healing well in advance of when she was expecting to have that down. So anybody who lives on her block and cuts themselves cooking breakfast can knock on her door - or that of anybody who's getting the spells as she turns them out - and get that seen to without bothering a Maia.
Once a month she sees Miriel. Bella doesn't have any ideas that land any better than "forget you forgot something". But forgetting the contents of that foolish, foolish oath is at least a holding pattern that lets Miriel pretty much live her life, so, therapeutic success? ...Bella makes sure to remind Fëanáro that he is very adorable and lovable and adored and loved.
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subtly_artistic
Mostly staircases, some ladders. He sends mental images.
subtly_artistic
She will definitely have to go have a look at it in person one day.
She'll be welcome when she does! And it's probably a good time to head over to the show, no?
The show is very very beautiful. They got four nice seats together and have a lovely time. There are lots of people ducking in and out.
subtly_artistic
Bella stays for two and a half hours, and the music is lovely; then says a silent goodbye and leaves to go to bed.
Rúmil's friends leave town the following morning.
subtly_artistic
Bella works on stuff. She's quite good at teekay now, although not as good as she had expected to be at age thirty; she can at least braid her hair to Tirion standards with a couple mirrors and not use her hands, and she can get quite elaborate that way. She will borrow and then enchant necklaces for anybody who asks, and on days when she has none of those she works on testing other spellcraft. Soon she has a launderer. She works in a bit about that to her lecture the morning of, and then shows up and tells everyone who attends what she's been up to.
They are very deeply impressed with her. There are even more questions than last time.
subtly_artistic
This is, even with the necklace on, an excellent use of her time (she does not want to singlehandedly meet demand for launderers and antislide necklaces; everybody else should hurry up and learn to wizard.) She will answer all the questions there are.
And the questions continue over a very very long dinner.
subtly_artistic
Wow this is a longass dinner. As long as she can simultaneously talk wizardry (telepathy means never having to apologize for talking with your mouth full) that is okay. It is even efficient.
A few days after her talk she receives a request to travel to Taniquetil and speak with the Valar in the Máhanaxar.
subtly_artistic
Um. Okay.
She packs for a couple days; even flying won't shorten the trip that much. Debates going the long way so as to more easily bring somebody with borrowable better eyes, decides against. She lets Fëanáro she's going to be gone, and Rúmil. And she flies to Taniquetil.
All fourteen of them are gathered there.
Thank you very much for coming here to join us today, Isabella Mariel Swan.
Manwë is not speaking and not doing osanwë, at least not conventionally. The words are just being communicated. It's a bit alarming. And the presences of all of them at once is extremely distracting.
Manwë is not speaking and not doing osanwë, at least not conventionally. The words are just being communicated. It's a bit alarming. And the presences of all of them at once is extremely distracting.
subtly_artistic
Yeah that's kind of alarming. She waits to see what they want with her.
When we last spoke, you told me that you desired to retreat to Tol Eressea because of your dislike for the pace of Valinor. We thought this was a wise compromise. We had some reservations about the solution you created, but desired for you to return to the people you care for and who care for you. We are very concerned with the free distribution of this enchantment. Most people in Valinor are happier with the current pace of days. Now that necklaces exist, they have to take them or fall behind, and we expect that eventually everyone will be wearing necklaces and less happy than they were before.
Not want them. Feel that, unless they have them, they will be inevitably far behind their friends and peers, and take them despite not wanting them. If everyone wanted them there would be no problem.
Imagine that there were necklaces that granted a hundredfold speedup in perception over yours, and most people took them, and society was ordered around them. Would you be freely choosing whether to speed up perception, or would you be choosing whether to participate in society?
subtly_artistic
"I'd probably wear one of those a lot even if nobody else had them."
You are very unusual. Perhaps this was an inevitable complication of having a mortal in Valinor. Regardless. The necklaces no longer work, except for yours because you were the only person the time-slide caused any distress. Please do not try to design things that make the typical person less happy and which they'll have a hard time not using if everyone else has it.