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Akibel Mowar is on his way home from the blacksmith's when he spots it. People are shrieking and fleeing from it, which seems reasonable, as it's a fuckoff huge snake with a mirror for a face. A big mirror.
Kib can't so much flee. He can shriek - he can lurch in the direction of the nearest house and try the door - it's locked. He can amble briskly...
He can break into a run when the snake gains on him and fall flat on his face.
And he can get eaten up.
And it's too bright too bright too bright and he flings his arm over his eyes.
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secondchance
"A reasonable preference. Weird how?"
secondchance
"It's actually recent, ish - last couple years I've started having this recurring dream-character and she's replacing my regular dreams. It's only in the last couple weeks that it's been all Aly dreams all the time and no, like, piloting a boat made of clouds in a sea of molasses or whatever."
"Hmm. I hope the recurring character is at least interesting?"
secondchance
"Sort of? I just get snippets of, like, her life. Out of order. From her perspective. It's a nice enough life. And she's basically exactly like me except for being a girl, so while it's a little weird to wrap my head around having spent hours having dreams about being a girl she's not uncomfortable to inhabit or anything."
"Are you going to wake up a girl one day? Do humans do that?"
"We do that. But very rarely."
secondchance
"Huh. Is it the same principle as just deciding not to grow hair or bleed or whatever?"
"It is. I can't imagine having a sufficiently strong and detailed preference, but occasionally someone does and so their spirit steers their body into shape."
secondchance
"Sounds convenient for them. I don't have this problem, Aly's fine with being a girl and I'm fine with being a guy and it's only right after I wake up that I'm all 'that was, intellectually, sort of weird'."
"I bet. Does she live in places you've seen? Speak the common?"
secondchance
"She lives in Lapis, which is a real place but I've never been so I assume all the architecture is made up. Speaks the common and Harthanic, which is a real language that I don't actually know so I assume that's made up too."
"Humans don't get prophetic dreams?"
secondchance
"No? Do Elves? Anyway so far I haven't gotten anything claiming to be set in the future or even recently. Recently by human standards."
"Some Elves do. Not me personally."
"Mothers also sometimes get flashes of foresight when naming their children. At a guess, you don't have that one." They've reached his father's house.
"Hello," Fëanáro says a minute later, "come in, Kib, what are you doing Nelyafinwë -"
"Escorting the only human in the world," Maitimo says, "it's a good use of my time."
"No," he says, "it's not, politics is just an appallingly bad one and lowers your standards. Curufinwë can loan you the biology journals if you want to try to catch up with us."
"I don't think I'd stand a chance," says Maitimo agreeably, but he goes off in the direction his father gestured.
"Escorting the only human in the world," Maitimo says, "it's a good use of my time."
"No," he says, "it's not, politics is just an appallingly bad one and lowers your standards. Curufinwë can loan you the biology journals if you want to try to catch up with us."
"I don't think I'd stand a chance," says Maitimo agreeably, but he goes off in the direction his father gestured.
"Professionally so," says his father. "Valinor is a waste of his talents. The good news is that you are made of cells. The bad news is that that means we don't have the equipment yet to learn where aging is happening, biologically, if it is."
secondchance
"...What would I have to be made of for you to have the equipment to do that?"
"Well, if you weren't made of cells we'd have encountered disaster much sooner, and this would stop being a biology problem insofar as we understand biology. You are not technically a species - you don't reproduce - so anything was possible."
"It does. That's why the Valar and Maiar aren't species."