"Yes and yes. Ancestors are people who came before you, your parents' parents and everyone before them, especially if they're dead. One thousand is a number, it's ten hundreds. Honors is - like, kind of like respect? If you want to show someone that you respect them then you do something to honor them. Like, like have a feast for them or tell everyone how great they are or compose an epic poem about them, or something. So you're saying that you're so happy the person is helping you that you want to honor their ancestors a thousand times for bringing them into the world. Which is a lot of happiness."

He looks like he's in fact experiencing that amount of happiness. "Very good. You said the Alteri want planets? Want all the planets? They worry about people on planets that they do not rule?"

She looks - like she is experiencing a lot of feelings and is not sure what all of them are. But this is important, so -

"The Alteri - they want planets so they can have everything on the planets, and so they can tell everyone on the planets what to do. I'm, uh, I'm worried that they're going to follow me through the gate and try to enslave everyone and that if they can't they might blow up the planet. In which case I am very sorry."

He shakes his head dismissively. "It would be sad, because - you have seen the small people?" He pats his shoulder.

"The - the animals?"

"Yes. If the planet was blown up, they would not be anymore."

"Right yes OK but also everyone would be dead."

" - no. We would all be in Valinor. Valinor is where we are when - hmmm - the only everyone dead would be the animals. But this would be sad. So we will ask the Valar to come teach the Alteri."

She blinks uncomprehendingly. "Valinor?"

"I think I need a lot of words I don't have and maybe words your language does not have. Valinor is where we wake up when we die. Valinor is fine. Not extraordinarily but fine. If the Alteri want to make people die that is fine. But if they destroy the planet the animals will die. Animals do not wake up in Valinor when they die."

"Oh," she says, weakly, before her brain decides that this sounds very fake but that it's not an argument she's going to win. "Then I guess only I'll die. That's, uh, cool, I guess." It is not cool at all, she does not remotely want to die, but she's having trouble thinking of how to - say anything.

"You think you are like an animal and do not wake up in Valinor?"

"Liars don't wake up anywhere when we die. Neither do Alteri. I don't think anyone I know does. We just - we just die."

"So then you should get on a ship and go to Valinor in case the Alteri come before the Valar have arrived here."

"OK," she says. "If it's not, uh, any trouble or anything. Thank you. So much."

"If it's not any trouble means..."

"If - if it won't cause any problems for you or be an inconvenience or - or anything." It occurs to her that this is an extraordinarily stupid thing to say. "Um, but if it's only a little trouble then I want to go anyway. Because I like - not being dead."

"You should go even if it cost a whole planet, because people should not be dead."

- and she cries.

She doesn't want to because it's dumb and she's not worth a planet and crying is childish and dumb and humiliating and it's even moreso in front of someone who runs a whole planet, but she's crying silently now and she's not sure how to stop.

"Thank you," she says, after a moment, and doesn't know how to say anything else.

"I will take you to the shuttle. They take five days to reach Valinor and they are not very big, will you be okay?"

She nods. "I'll be OK." Not crying not crying not crying, Imrainai, you need to stop. "Sorry."

"What is sorry?" He stands up and starts walking back to the shuttleport.

She follows. "Sorry is - sorry is for when you make a mistake or you do something wrong or bad and you would like the other person to know that you acknowledge the wrong thing and you're going to try not to do it again, except I might do it again because I'm really not very good at not crying but I'm sorry about it anyway."

"Crying is mistake or wrong or bad?"

"Crying is - not always bad but I just - feel like I shouldn't be crying now. I'm not good at explaining it right now. I'm sorry."