"You are really good at explaining! I am talking your language! That's good explaining!"

She laughs. She's still crying a little, so she's not sure whether she's feeling better or if she's just feeling very unstable. "You're really good at learning languages!"

"I extraordinarily like learning languages! I think I will go with you to Valinor even knowing there is one of me in Valinor because I do not want to wait to learn more your language!"

"'I really like learning languages' sounds more natural with the rest of what you're saying, you don't know very many complicated words yet. And you'd say 'more of your language.' Don't you have to stay with the planet if you're, like, in charge of it?" She's not even going to attempt to process what 'one of me in Valinor' means.

"I really like learning languages, I want more complicated words of your language. If I am in charge then that means I don't have to do things."

She frowns. "I - suppose that's true." Maybe 'master' is a better translation for the concept, what does she even know about anything. "I know a lot of words in this language and I know two other languages, too, if you want to learn those. On Earth there are hundreds and hundreds of languages. I only know three, but I can teach you those three."

"Hundreds and hundreds! Yes I want to learn all the ones you know."

"OK! I - would like to leave the planet and then I will definitely teach you more Etra La and Confederate One and Yahivi."

"The shuttleport is not far, it's where you arrived. We will leave the planet and go to Valinor and learn the other languages and someone will teach the Alteri how to get planets doing nice things."

"I - I guess if they can stop people who can blow up planets then they might be all right. Can they - I don't know if you have enough words for me to ask this in a way that makes sense, but - the Alteri have lots of Liars and they're terrible to them and - and if you're strong enough to stop people who can blow up planets, then - I just. Is there anything you can. Do for them. Do you think."

"If something is terrible then we will fix it. I don't understand what is terrible so I don't know how we will do it. What is terrible?"

"They - Liars are slaves of the Alteri but you don't have that word and I don't know if you have that concept. Slaves are - you know when you have the construction 'my pen', because the pen belongs to you and you own it? A slave is someone who someone else owns, so they can do anything they want with them. Like a pen."

"Oh! We had that, we had Melkor and he did that. Then the Valar stopped him. We will stop the people doing this."

"OK," she says, with a sort of cheerful disbelief. "That's - good luck with that, then. And thank you."

She is either going to get an entire other civilization killed or most of her civilization killed or else free everyone she knows. So that's no pressure at all, is it.

"If they want to be alive we will have places for them. I am sorry we did not know sooner."

"They do want to be alive. Most of them. I'm sure. They - I guess it might be hard to free them without giving the Alteri the chance to kill them first, but - hopefully there's something."

"I am sure there's something. Before we leave I will tell the Valar and they will figure out something."

"OK. Thank you. A million honors upon your ancestors if you pull it off."

She is going to free everyone (or get everyone killed) and then she is going to hide in a closet for the rest of her entire life (or be tortured and killed herself after watching her niece and nephew be killed in front of her) and then never have to be embarrassed about anything ever again (either way).

Or this is going to end up being a dream or something, in which case wow, this is a pretty nice dream, but it's going to completely destroy her concentration tomorrow and they're gonna activate her implant when she screws up and wow she is so incredibly tired.

They reach the shuttleport and get on a shuttle which seems to be being rushed together just for them. People bow to the leader of the planet; he ignores them. "I do not know what my ancestors would do with a million honors," he says, "I only have eight ancestors. Do most of your people have more ancestors?"

Oh wow people are bowing, that's not terrifying at all, keep it together Imrainai.

She doesn't, actually, quite keep it together; she digs her nails into her palms and focuses on her breathing and thinks about languages and reminds herself that if she were supposed to bow then someone would probably tell her and they're not going to activate her implant they're not they're not they're not.

" - I didn't - sorry, what?" She replays the sentence in her head as best she can. "Uh, I don't - that makes me worry that I explained the concept wrong. I'd have to do math to make a proper estimate, but I think - almost everyone must have thousands and thousands of ancestors?"

" - how? That's so many."

"We've - OK, so, Liars were created by the Alteri seventy thousand years ago, and all of my ancestors probably started having kids at twenty or a little before, but supposing all of my ancestors happened to be the youngest children in their families, then generations might be more like forty years on average, and - I can't do that math in my head but it's a lot."

"Oh! We were created less thousands of years ago. My father's father and father's mother were created, and my - mother's mother's parents and my mother's father's parents were created. So eight ancestors."

"Oh. OK. I guess if you haven't been around very long then that would make sense."

Her breathing is juuuust about back to approximately as normal as it was before.

"Are you all right?"