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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
"We'll figure something out."
Do you think any of this has anything to do with Fëanáro's apparently inexplicable violence spree?
subtly_artistic
I didn't get the slightest impression he was mad about gay people or multiple partners not being allowed but there was definitely an undercurrent of the Valar handling something in a way he didn't approve of.
So we need to make sure that when they do something he decides he's unwilling to live with, he has better skills for getting out.
And taking people with him.
subtly_artistic
I made a house by magic, maybe boats could be made by magic. Or airships.
I don't think that would bother the Valar.
If they make magic stop working, what else should we be pursuing?
subtly_artistic
I'd - I'd really hope they wouldn't touch my subtle arts, but in theory I could get a wide range of results with those if I practice enough, it's just that most of the intermediate practice steps besides telekinesis involve working on minds and I can only get to the 'impose mental constructs on reality' step when I'm a lot stronger than I am; I wasn't planning to go that route. Um, it's possible Vala-theme divine magic could work and then they could case by case any request made as it happened if they really wanted to micromanage it, maybe they'd like that better?
If it gets to the point where we can't do anything else we can ask them about divine magic in a suitably flattering way. I was thinking in terms of science fantasy?
subtly_artistic
Oh, that. I mean, none of the actual science fantasy is written to be realistic because no one knows what science would actually be like. It's stuff like 'because I know the science of Ballistics I can always hit my target' followed by thirty pages of comic book about someone with an ostensibly nonmagical slingshot making ultra-precise shots and making quips. I don't know to what extent real science results would resemble that so I don't know what to say to aim at. Engines maybe. Mass production?
Very energy dense fuel sources. Mahtan's mentioned wanting that. The Valar invite people to study under them in chemistry and biology.
subtly_artistic
Um, science fantasy chemistry talks about novel materials with weird properties - stuff clear as glass but flexible, say, or with incredible tensile strength. Also explosions, but I'm not sure we need explosions unless we can turn them into the dense fuel sources thing. Biology the sci-fan is all about making new organisms or modifying existing ones including people into versions that are useful to have in some way - stronger or resistant to diseases or whatever.
How far out is stronger arcane healing? I want eyes before we annoy the Valar too much, if that's not looking likely.
subtly_artistic
- I can focus on that, crystal balls will wait. I don't want you to have to come back all - fuzzy-memoried.
That would be inconvenient.
subtly_artistic
Yeah. ...It'd. Probably annoy the Valar if I tried to sharpen up her memories.
I'm not sure, actually. Lórien professes a desire that they recover fully and take up their lives as if they never abandoned them.
subtly_artistic
Then he and Mandos seem to have a disagreement or Lórien's lying.
The Valar do disagree on things. I imagine the necklace decision wasn't unanimous. I just - don't particularly want to give us room to navigate by playing them against one another, seems dangerous.
subtly_artistic
They were all there, for the news about the necklace, fourteen of them staring at me -