"Noted."

Hug. "What was flat Arda Tirion like?"

"Compared to what? I've never seen a Space Arda Tirion."

"I'm not sure there are any cities we've both seen. Just - what did you notice about it."

"I don't know if this will mean the same thing to you as it did to me, but--it was beautiful. I was--so impressed, everyone was so skilled, took the time to make things look nice--I was so happy living among people who it mattered to live in beautiful places, we weren't in Tirion very long but Formenos was the same--and I loved the lectures, and that I had the opportunity to do as much good as introducing the printing press was--and--I was so glad to have a family again, people who would never betray me--the way they did in my hometown--"

Hug. "How'd you reverse engineer the printing press, had you used one before -"

"Uh, I already told you Kilaiuossa hadn't invented electricity, right, they were still in common use."

"Yes, but I didn't get the impression they were, like, household -"

"Well, no, but--right, I probably haven't mentioned--my parents taught at the university."

"That'd do it. The university had a printing press?"

"Yeah--still does, I guess, if it's only been six months in the past thirty thousand years..."

"So you knew exactly what you were building, that's useful."

"Well, it was a little challenging to adapt it to Quenya."

"Oh, I remember my father trying to puzzle that out."

"It's peculiar that the writing's the same whether or not he invents it."

"We should, like, list all the mysteries in that category - why do the names match, why do elements of the history match even after there've been divergences, why do normal and Flat Ardas have the same languages..."

"Why is it that your parents are always the same gender but mine aren't..."

"Elves can pick the genders of their children - back when I was born it mattered, my parents deliberately had a boy -"

"But Idaia and I are always girls...so far, anyway..."

"...yeah, no idea there."

"Which is why it goes on the mystery list."

"Bar, are there lots of books written about Milliways?'

A few.

"Are any of them particularly informative?"

They tend towards the memoir and the observational study when not outright fictionalized or speculative. There is a sort of ethnography I like very well, admittedly largely because I was invited to expound on my unique mixology practices for its author.