Hugs. And eventually their shuttle lands in a national park in Utah.

And they nervously head inside.

"Hi! There's ten of you upstairs, should I get any of them, would that make this more or less awkward."

"Uh.

No, I think I just want an explanation."

"You can start with this," she says, and hands him the explanatory napkins.

He reads those and says, "...okay, and you -"

"My name's Edie Lehnsherr. I grew up on an Earth much like this one, except it never was an Arda and it has daeva! There are three kinds of daeva: demons make things, angels change things, and fairies move things. I'm a demon. It was in the vicinity of now-ish as you see it that daeva became public knowledge. I became a summoner--one summons daeva to do tasks in exchange for things, all very consensual except when things go horribly wrong. Summoners, as it turns out, become daeva when they die. My twin and I died in a car accident a few decades from now. Eventually Maitimo from Abbadon, which is one of two Space Ardas where Valinor and Endore are separate planets, summoned me. Abbadon differs from the other Space Arda--Singularity--in that Singularity has--had--long story--magic Valar and Maiar like yours, whereas Abbadon Maiar are shapeshifting hive mind beings and Abbadon Valar are daeva. Anyway, they invented transdimensional summoning to make demons easier to pay--demons can create anything if we can specify it well enough--and he got me, to make ships to cross from Valinor to Endore. Then he brought us down to the planet to get things organized--we weren't helping with that, but there was some legal stuff. So then the Valar say no one's allowed to leave. We head for Alqualonde, the nearest shuttleport.

It's my understanding that this usually involves us killing people but in Abbadon it was the Valar who killed everyone who died. And then they blamed me for it."

He warms considerably at 'us killing people'. "Okay. And you found Milliways and then you found us -"

"Well, first I met Cam, who is from my world originally--turns out he was responsible for making daeva public, which is fantastic--and was summoned to Singularity by accident. But yeah. Um, maybe I should let someone else explain most of the rest of this, I don't think I probably know enough technical detail to make you happy."

"That I'll get from the alternate me. Unless most of the rest is technical details?"

"No, but--um, I'm really not sure how to explain Mirror, which is the fourth Arda we know of. ...We currently know of four Ardas. Singularity and Abbadon are the Space ones and Mirror and yours which your Maitimo has named Ozymandias are the not-Space ones."

"And Mirror requires technical details?"

"In Mirror I'm evil. We're not sure if everyone is but it seems likely a lot of people are. Father was assassinated by Nolofinwë before the Oath even happened and then upheavals ensued and I ended up running the place and we've talked to the me and he's evil."

"And what are you doing about that."

"Trying to reform him. It's going slowly."

"I think maybe we should wait to tell this story until everyone's here."

"Thirty minutes tops," Cam says.

"We've been told we'll find it upsetting."

"Yeah. Uh, Matt -"

"I'll tell it. I told them already why I was coping badly with being in a new environment demanding of a lot of decisions without any support -"

"He usually exports stuff that involves having preferences and being curious to us."

"I'd ask 'do I want to know' but obviously I don't. Tell me anyway."

"He got captured. He was in Angband fifty years. Felt like longer. Enemy can do time-dilation. Enemy also likes breaking up his torture with hallucinations in which you are rescued."

"Oh."

"It's fine. I got a lovely disability benefits package after the war."