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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
"It seems like lots of people who didn't want to make the trip into total uncertainty might want to make it once they see what we've done."
She returns contentedly to her work.
subtly_artistic
"I thought of something I forgot to tell you about the future," Bella tells Fëanáro. "A nice thing, that Olórin mentioned."
He goes tense. "What?"
subtly_artistic
"It's nice! I said it was nice! He says in thousands of years your alphabet will still be in use!"
"Well, why would they use a new one? We made sure it was good."
subtly_artistic
Shrug. "Alphabets change, in my plane, there could have been some reason to use a different one. But it's still yours."
He does smile a little.
subtly_artistic
"Have fun with the clay." It is incompatible with necklace-sharing so up she gets.
"Have a good day," he says distractedly.
Fëanáro's new relative stability endures a few weeks.
subtly_artistic
And in that time she gets past foundational principles, shelves crystal balls, and turns out a messaging spell! Would Rúmil like to try talking to his out-of-town friends as a test, if not a full range test?
He would! He's delighted at the idea.
subtly_artistic
Excellent! She plans to make a magic item version if the spell itself seems to work well, but the prototype spell will work basically like an osanwë or subtle arts conversation, beginning by announcing that this is a communiqué from so-and-so and indicating how to reply. Prototype lasts fifteen minutes.
Will it just interrupt people? They might not be delighted by that.
subtly_artistic
Yeah, it will. She could design in some kind of call waiting like magic mirrors have? What would be a delighting design?
Maybe it announces the caller and then the receiver has to cue to continue?
subtly_artistic
Oh yeah, that's pretty easy, although the waiting will run out the spell duration anyway. She can do that revision in an hour and a half. Here you go.
She is a miracle worker! He tests it. It works. There is a conversation that definitely sounds delighted.
There is additional delight at Rúmil's restored eyesight!
subtly_artistic
Yaaaaay!
...okay, does he know anyone in the Outer Lands he wants to try to reach so the range can be checked?
...okay, does he know anyone in the Outer Lands he wants to try to reach so the range can be checked?
Círdan is the obvious person to try for, since he's on the opposite shore of the ocean.