There's not much racing off; three new worlds, one with useful transmissible magic and one as big as Edda, is an important multiverse thing in itself. Food! Mingling!

Space Rúmil finds Telperion's Rúmil and Boots and thinks flat Ardas are weirder and weirder the more you get to know about them - Trees, really? Trees. Okay. Trees. What were the Valar thinking. 

"Yeah, even Materia has a sun. I don't think it's a star, but it is a sun."

"Our Valar -" he waves a hand - "shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but at least they got the concept of stars and planets down in its entire."

"- they're not dead anymore unless something happened I didn't hear about?"

"No, they're back, but in the intervening years we - came to terms with what they had been, and hadn't been, and complaining about them is now less appealing."

"I see. Anyway, they managed well enough to give Space Arda a huge head start, if I'd landed there instead of in a Flat Arda I would've been even more overwhelmed."

"We'd have been glad to have you but it sounds like you landed in a good place to make a difference."

"They credit me with glass and the wheel. It's a bit much."

"1179, huh? We had glass and the wheel but didn't have the movable-type printing press, yet, let alone computers. You'd still have been coming from a world with fancier consumer products."

"It's true. Although it took me longer to reinvent the crystal ball than to say that I was pretty sure you got glass by melting sand."

He laughs. "I cannot imagine growing up before the invention of writing."

"Me either. Your Luster alt helped his Fëanáro invent it, presumably that's usually what happens."

"I'm not surprised in the slightest." And he is interested in the history of Warp and of Materia, before they joined the multiverse at large - how did the Federation come about, how about the Imperium, how about the gods...

Boots is happy to comment on Materia and the Imperium and gods; she calls T'Mir over to talk Warp.

Warp is a little hard to summarize what with being "crowded", but T'Mir will do her best and she knows her Federation history.

The Federation history fascinates him, particularly all the ways the early-space-Age wars scared them into banning whole categories of advances - 'like the Valar, though I suppose at least it wasn't divine decree -"

"Did the Valar ban genetic engineering in particular or other things?"

"No, they were fine with that - Valian ecology comes standard on flat Ardas but was designed by us, on the Space one - new species is a taboo because of what Melkor pulled with orcs but I expect some day we'll move past that - anyway, they banned a bunch of categories of blessing development as potentially disruptive and the study of cryptography as antisocial."

"Cryptography in full generality?"

"Yep. You could sneak a tiny bit in as theoretical mathematics but it was the stupidest of restrictions."

"I've been told that by default Elves are exquisitely docile people who might in fact have negligible rates of peering into things they were not invited to see, but the idea that having password protection on one's files is antisocial..."

"Yes, it was not disastrous in the way it would have been in a human civilization - we managed to continue having electronic commerce, despite the fact you could trivially steal peoples' money - but sometimes I almost wish we were less docile, would have forced the Valar to reevaluate that outlook -"

"Nnnnno that's worse."

"...what happened?"

"I think that's sort of what happened to Shadow? I'm not sure exactly how the cause and effect went."

"Ah. Ugh."

"It's also unusual for Elves to have commerce per se, isn't it?"

"Flat ones don't! We do. We had a population of fifty-six million, no matter how docile fifty-six million people are you can't run that without commerce. We were post-material-scarcity but used currency to fund space exploration and major development projects and aid to Endorë and you had to pay for things like the opening nights at shows or a large apartment in central Tirion."

"I'm not sure whether I would have been more comfortable if I'd landed in an Arda with currency or not. It would have been easier to navigate but I would have had to do it with the money I didn't have."

"I'm sure we'd have found something for you. Our world has no native magic; we were so excited to learn some dimensions do."

"I'm not saying it'd have taken me very long, but it didn't take me very long in Telperion either. Is it just a total mystery how your Ainur work, or are they an exception?"

"So we used to think they were just that much more advanced than us - they're millions of years older, in millions of years we'd have been effectively gods even without magic - but the fact they seem similar to the flat Valar and the flat Valar are definitely not advanced is suggestive that they're really magic."

"Yeah. Unfortunately, detect-magicking them won't tell you anything, that doesn't even turn up results on flat ones."

"I wonder if ours refill mana."

"Let us know if you find out!"

"I might go seek out my Olórin when I get home, let him know that his alt finds it a very entertaining job."

"Olórin's great. I've been working a lot faster."

"Have we asked any of the ones with wars why they stayed home?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I wouldn't be sure how to phrase it, personally."

"Fair enough."

"There just doesn't seem to be a polite way to go up to a Maia and say 'hey, your alt is a neat person, and yet you failed to show up to a war, along with virtually all of your non-evil conspecifics, explain yourself'..."

"I think I'd try 'Melian was able to protect a pretty big kingdom; was that only because she'd been there already? Did you think about going?"

"That's much more diplomatic."

"I try." He smiles at Telperion's Rúmil. "I'm so glad you ended up with the resources to do right by Fëanáro."

"So are we."

"What happens without interruption, there...? I know Miriel dies, that's almost all I have."

"Miriel dies. Fëanáro and Finwë are both disconsolate in different ways - you know how when Fëanáro's upset he tells people they don't love him and they'll deserve it if he dies of grief too and -"

Nod.

"So it was a really rough few Years, on both of them. Finwë stopped asking Fëanáro to do things or stay close or be safe,  just asked us to keep an eye on him instead, Fëanáro avoided everyone as much as possible, and Miriel kept refusing to return to life, and eventually Finwë - had a sort of breakdown, took a vacation up to Valmar to stay with Ingwë and get some reassurance and perspective, and Ingwë's sister met him there..."

"I was frustrated with her for that, and with Ingwë. Ingwë had been suggesting to Finwë that he come take part of a Year off in Valmar, he didn't say 'my sister will be waiting in the suite we set up for you' - Indis had apparently been in love with him for Years, and waited, but she could have waited longer - or they could have exercised some discretion -"

"The timing's pretty close to inexcusable," nods Boots.

"Anyway, Miriel'd been dead six Years when he remarried, and Fëanáro stopped talking. At all. For about four years. I'd started on alphabets by then, and I'd write him notes, and he'd write back, but -"

"Oh no."

"And when he started again it wasn't any better because he and his stepmother would fight - it was always Fëanáro starting it but he - he's a good kid if you figure out how to communicate with him, and she couldn't, for whatever reason - anyway, he'd accuse her of being a manipulative whore who'd thrown herself at his grieving father before he'd pulled himself far enough out of his depression to chain two thoughts together, she'd say 'I make him happy; you make him miserable' -"

"Ouch."

"He avoided his sister as much as he could when she was born, and when his brother was born he ran away from home and we didn't see him for fifteen Years."

"Where'd he go?"

"Mahtan's. He sent us monthly updates, we knew he was safe, but at Fëanáro's request I did not visit and every time his father tried Fëanáro was forewarned and ran away. Apprenticed with Mahtan, apprenticed with Aulë, married at forty-eight in some tiny mining town up north, returned back home to tell his father he had a grandson."

"...how'd that go over?"

"Finwë's matured. Too late, but. He apologized to Fëanáro for remarrying, apologized to him for failing to be there for him, said he was honored to meet his daughter-by-marriage and grandson. Fëanáro wanted a public essecarmë - the naming ceremony, at six weeks - four days out. He said it was fine if Indis and his half-siblings attended. The whole city did.

And he announced that the child's name was Nelyafinwë."

Sigh.

"And Finwë welcomed Nelyafinwë, his first grandson, and Fëanáro's half-brother burst into tears and ran off crying, and Fëanáro and Nerdanel bought themselves a nice place on the outskirts of the city and gradually Fëanáro repaired his relationship with his father but he never even tried for a relationship with his two half-brothers and two half-sisters. The youngest of whom, Arafinwë, himself ran away underage to Alqualondë, married there very young, and rarely returned to Tirion."

"Hasty relationship decisions run in the family, huh."

"Fëanáro and Nerdanel'd known each other well for fifteen Years at that point. Getting out of a bad home environment by marrying into a different one runs in the family, and is just as unhealthy."

Nod.

"Anyway. Fëanáro and Nerdanel have six more; Nolofinwë marries and has four of his own, Arafinwë does as well, the cousins all get along well enough that there were high hopes Fëanáro and Nolofinwë'd eventually be forced to get along just by the cheerful pressure of eleven highly energetic young people. And then the Valar pardon Melkor."

"Who proceeds to ruin everything, of course."

"Yes. Very subtly. All of those relationships fell apart, bit by bit, and once everyone'd been maneuvered into not trusting each other he arranges for Fëanáro to hear that his brother's going to try to get him disowned and arrested, and that if that fails he should expect to die in a convenient accident. And he arranges for Nolofinwë to hear that Fëanáro's trying to get his family exiled from Valinor, and that if that fails he should expect an attempt on his life. And so Nolofinwë does go to Finwe and try to get Fëanáro arrested, and Fëanáro walks in on their conversation and pulls out a gun -"

"...sorry, gap in my education -"

"Phaser but it throws small metal objects instead of beams."

"- okay, go on?"

"And Fëanáro tells Nolofinwë not to speak out against him again, and Nolofinwë ignores him and walks out - which was the correct way to handle it, incidentally - 

- Finwë bans everyone from carrying weapons, tells both his children that no one is getting arrested or disowned or exiled and to cut it out, and seems content to leave it at that, Indis appeals to the Valar and they sentence Fëanáro to a hundred twenty years in exile."

"- did she, like, consult anyone before she did that...?"

"She and Finwë had a lot of fights over whether he was handling it too leniently. Which he was, obviously -"

"There is nothing so lenient that it can't be tilted the other direction by involving panicky Valar."

"Indeed. Anyway, Finwë thinks exiling Fëanáro is a really bad idea, and he solves it by going into exile with him and appointing Nolofinwë the regent in Tirion. About a third of the Noldor follow Fëanáro and Finwë as an act of protest, the rest stay. I stayed, Nolofinwë needed some support to take over gracefully and Fëanáro still hadn't apologized -"

"Apologies seem to be fairly complicated for him."

"Yes. The whole thing was complicated. In hindsight I would have gone with them, though I think by then it was too late to make a difference. While they are in exile Melkor sacks the city, steals the Silmarils, burns down the library, kills Finwë. The Valar'd summoned Fëanáro to a festival of reconciliation. He learned of what had happened only when the Suns went out."

Nod.

"He has something of a breakdown, which his children help him through - swears to get the Silmarils back - it wasn't until after the war that anyone was told why that was important, of course -"

"I mean, I can appreciate the logic of keeping that a bit quiet..."

"Yes, absolutely, but it divided the Noldor further. The people who knew Fëanáro and his children well enough mostly said 'there is a good reason for doing it and a good reason for not telling us', the people who didn't mostly said 'that's insane, irresponsible, and unforgivable, let's make someone else the ruler of the Noldor -"

Nod.

"I said to Maitimo 'you realize the Enemy could give one to anyone and you'd be bound to -' and he said 'I hope the Enemy does do that, it's better than him having all three'. I, um, would say it's not acceptable to play games with stakes like 'get the Enemy to manipulate you into massacring civilians because his instrument of such manipulation will otherwise be put to even worse uses', but considering how things turned out that game looks outright harmless."

"Mm."

"Sorry, should I not bring that up?"

"It's fine, I just don't have anything to add."

"In a bizarre way I find it sort of reassuring to learn that there is such a thing as a compelling reason to obliterate an inhabited planet."

"Reassuring?"

"My home planet was destroyed too. I wasn't on it, but my father was. The official story makes it sound like an act of random disproportionate terrorism."

"My condolences. ...and you're wondering whether that's true?"

"It's hard to substantiate. I haven't devoted a lot of resources to solving the mystery."

"Cam could - or, um, if that'd be upsetting on some level, any other demon could - pretty trivially get the information you'd be interested in..."

"Only if it was committed to unencrypted recorded format, which is unlikely. Subspace transmissions in particular don't count."

"I don't know about subspace transmissions, but even if it was encrypted, if people weren't expecting to protect against demons they've usually failed to."

"I could ask Cam to try things, but it seems unlikely to be fruitful and unlikelier to be constructive."

"Fair enough. I'm very sorry. I'm sure you've been told Loki's working on resurrection -"

"Of course."

"The good news is that civilizations are very resilient to their planet being annihilated and a new one made for them. They will all eventually be alive and some time after that they will be okay."

"It's good to know that."

He nods. "Cam's been, uh, skirting me, should I be attempting to somehow put him at ease."

"Cam is attempting to avoid any attempt to make claims on you, your time, your attempts to put anyone at ease, etcetera. You can talk to him if you like but he is not expecting or hoping for it."

He sighs. "That is very good and principled of him and doesn't sound like the healthiest possible thing but I suppose he already has people more qualified to look out for him."

"Loki's taking point on that."

"And who's taking point on comparing all of Warp's tech with ours and giving everybody the best of both worlds? - what's your cover story with the Federation on all the miracles you can suddenly perform, or are you going to tell them about magic..."

"Leaf has moved here and might be considered point person on technological comparison. We're declining to have a cover story or explain anything - osanwë they know about but it's easily classified as unusually long-range psi, which occurs in many species such as one of mine here. They believe we have faster than light transporter technology, transporters being a sort of technological teleportation solution most commonly used for orbit-to-planet and vice versa transit; this might even be technically feasible, we just don't in fact have that. We think they don't yet have enough intel on us to have noticed much of the other magic."

"And how is the lovely improved federation coming along -"

And she is happy to tell him about the newest member worlds and logistical triumphs.

And he is delighted and fascinated and asks if he can write a contemporary history for the interest of space Arda's populace, who dreamed of finding aliens and were terribly disappointed to live in an empty galaxy.

He is more than welcome to do that!

Cool! Perhaps he will occasionally drop by to consult for it, though he respects that they must all be incredibly busy! (Telperion's Rúmil suggests that he can come and do some of the logistics work, and then free up the time to write his history!)

The Rúmils are going to need nicknames if there's going to be more than one of them around, but that sounds like a lovely tradeoff to the Bells!

The Rúmils consider nicknames. Space does not want something relating to having died, even though that's probably the thing that makes him unique among Rúmils, because it seems a bit insensitive. Maybe Codex, or Compass, something he invented that he probably did not invent on flat Ardas?

Boots' Rúmil looks at her.

"...an invention's not so much going to work unless it's a magical one and I don't think any of the spells you've developed make especially good nicknames... maybe something more generally wizardry related. Or wizardry-and-writing? Scroll?"

"Scroll works! Scroll and Compass - your world has FTL travel and you personally invented the compass, that's - hard to think about -"

"It was over four thousand years ago!"

"What is a compass?"

"Identifies magnetic north, a thing many planets have at one pole."

"It is very useful for exploration and sailing - it wouldn't surprise me if some of the flat Ardas got it eventually, it's pretty early in tech development," Compass says. 

"We just use the sun or stars, or magic."

"I used to respond to more of this kind of question with 'how does Materia handle this task' but the answer is always something extremely low-tech, something magic, or both."

"They're pretty sophisticated on the magic, though," Compass says. "The ethernet? Without any experimenting allowed along the way?"

"The kind of person who becomes a wizard on Materia and gets very far with it gets - really, really good at guessing."

"I might want to write some histories of Materia too but I am going to do Warp first."

"Be my guest."

And so he will chatter happily with T'Mir about alien races in Warp and how the directive came about in the first place and will people react badly if they seem to be breaking the genetic-engineering ban and -

"And here's where I confess to not having done all my reading, but what directive was broken?"

"The Prime one. - Have its contents not come up?"

"I've been looking at infrastructure and learning everyone's names, haven't even poked the galactic politics files yet."

"The Federation obeys a directive that no civilization which has not developed warp technology is to be contacted or interfered with in any way, shape, or form, even if they're busy nuking themselves to death, freezing and starving because their sun went out, being exploited by similarly warp-incapable neighbors who are nevertheless close by enough to do that sort of thing, plagued with trivially curable illnesses, etcetera. I took a low-profile job as a solo deep space surveyor, found and declined to document planets that could squeak by as plausible inventors of warp even if it could just as easily have taken them a couple more centuries, identified scientists likely amenable to discreet plagiarism, and dropped warp equations on their desks. I got a number of them into the Federation or at least trading partner status before I was predictably caught and sentenced to life in prison."

"That is the best criminal career in the entire multiverse. That's a candidate for the best thing in the entire multiverse. Congratulations - why the hell -"

"Why what?"

"Why would there be a law against helping people?"

"So that no one is inclined to colonialistically exploit them and so that cultures can develop without being warped by contact with larger, older civilizations."

"That's - great, if they're not literally dying -"

"They're always literally dying. We don't have naturally immortal species around in any quantity. They are always literally dying and they could almost always be doing it slower. And a lot of cultures could stand some warping."

"Well. We're allowed to do it now, right?"

"Our federated structure is not the Federation, I've managed to sort out my citizenship to a result of 'not', and accordingly we're no more bound by the Prime Directive than the Klingon Empire is."

"Good. And congratulations."

"Thank you."

"She has a little program which takes relevant data and re-runs estimates of how many people are alive now who would be dead if it weren't for her."

T'Mir blushes green.

"That's adorable."

"Thank you?"

"Saving the lives is extraordinary, writing up a program to keep count so you know how many is adorable. It's not really a very principled distinction. Anyway, I was already very impressed by how you two were going about this enterprise but it's all the more of an honor to work for you on it."

"I'm very glad Boots and company showed up to teleport me off that moon so I could get another project underway."

"There's - not a multiverse law that a Bell will drop on you just in time, exactly, but there's something that looks like a multiverse rule that a Bell will in fact drop on you."

"We're so droppable."

"You are like magnets for miscellaneous random accidents."

"I really want to know how templates work but I haven't the foggiest idea how to find that out."

"My father's Luster alt has been lobbying aggressively to be allowed to wish for knowledge about that but Gem's worried we'll break the universe or her wish machine."

"This seems like a reasonable concern."

"There's probably a safe way to phrase it, like 'I wish for all the knowledge about templates and alts that I can have without having it breaking anything', but then perhaps you get nothing at all for your wish."

"I have the impression she does not actually know very much about how it works, which is a pity because it's the sort of thing it'd be nice to be able to use to capacity."

"Yep. ...if we ever understand templates well enough Mitros and Iobel are going to have a kid and that sounds delightful and possibly terrifying."

"Why would them having an Elspeth be terrifying?"

"The surrounding six or so lightyears will melt of cute."

Giggle.

And across the room: "human alts! Congratulations on being human alts! The Elves have shinier hair and longer eyelashes but we've got better magic, that's how this works."

He giggles. "In my world you don't exist."

"Yeah, I heard. Still counts as having human alts - does my mom exist, do I have alt-half-siblings..."

"I have no idea, I don't think I even know who your mother was supposed to be. The Elves seem alright-"

"The Elves are great, just, super Elfy. They don't think our palace is pretty enough, they get really freaked out if you have your hair loose -"

"Yes, I've noticed, there are several of them on Warp. Including a tiny your father, who my whole family is going to have breakdowns over as soon as they get to evacuate."

"That might stress him out."

"Noted."

"Breakdowns, like...?"

"He died three times because he couldn't manage to stop being curious or stop thinking he deserved better than to be squished for it. The third time we couldn't resurrect him. We - don't know what that means. 'something powerful hates him', but not more than that. It - I don't think anyone in our family is the kind to survive Materia, innately, but it made the rest of us cautious. I'm named after him. He was everything that our world prohibits, and he was only a kid, and -"

"What did he do specifically that got him killed, or was it pure thoughtcrime -?"

"He was probably experimenting. He quite literally couldn't help himself. No one tried reconstructing what he was up to, for obvious reasons..."

"And he didn't leave notes or anything -"

"If he did, someone disposed of them without telling the rest of us."

"Safety precaution?"

"Materia is terrible. So terrible it inspired renaming evil Arda, did you hear?"

"Boots explained when she proposed the rename, yes."

Antir circles the crowd and lands on Ferardrin's shoulder and then makes a perplexed face at Mitros. "Not him," he says to her, and to Ferardrin, "you're the first Finankar alt to look exactly like him."

"Ah. These are the - spellbinder familiars? Arcane magic might be able to do something about that, if you were high enough level - if you can even get high-level outside Materia -"

"Do something about - letting them exist independently without them and their humans endangering each other? That would be spectacular -" Cricket butts his head against her leg and she scoops him up. "- high level here is distinct from greater versatility and mana? Boots has done virtually all her wizardry outside Materia..."

"I mean, it might be a problem you could just throw enough versatility and mana at but in Materia high-level means the universe lets you do things, all the legendary spells and so forth that I've heard of that seem like they might bear on instantiating Hex's familiars were achieved by legendary people."

"It'd be really nice to be able to separate the spirit animals from people who don't want them. I tell myself they're just sleeping - that's what they do, if they're left long enough, they sleep more and more - but it's not as comforting as it could be."

"Yeah. I can't promise our magic will get you there but that doesn't sound like the sort of thing that ought to be impossible in principle."

Nod. "Someday, something will be able to do it."

"That's the lovely thing about expanding capabilities like this."

"Yes, it is. Welcome to Not Materia."

"Thank you! It is nice to meet you! And you," he says to Cricket. "Cam told me about you when he first arrived, he said if he had an alt in my world they'd be okay if they were just rescued to a nice science world and handed you and a physics textbook."

"I am very soft," Cricket says.

"So I have been told!" And he smiles at them again and slips away to go tell an Elf that they have prestidigitated their hair green and from what he knows of Elves were not doing that on purpose.

"Human Maitimo?"

"Why does no one ever call him 'Elf Mitros'?"

"There's more of them."

"Also because you are terrible," Cricket adds to Mitros.

"Are you terrible? Why are you terrible?"

"I'm not terrible. Lári, right? Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. It's really weird that my brothers come in human."

"You're human," he says, sounding vaguely betrayed.

"Cricket just hates nearly everyone, don't read into it," Iobel says.

"My big brother is eminently hateable so I assume his alts are, too. Hi, Cricket. It's a shame you have to be born to be a spellbinder, it sounds really cool."

"What is wrong with your brother?" asks Cricket.

"I mean, just normal big brother stuff? He teases me if I screw up a servant and someone else catches it, he has a terrible sense of humor, he's way taller than me, I was child labor for his mad war against an evil god..."

"Bleah," opines Cricket.

"What's wrong with his sense of humor?"

"Is that 'bleah' like 'yep, your brother is terrible' or like 'I was hoping for something juicier'?"

"He sounds quite terrible!" says Cricket. "I do not hope people are terrible, I am just disappointed over and over."

"I have no idea what's wrong with his sense of humor," she tells Iobel. "I used to think it was grownup stuff but now I'm a grownup so maybe it's just classified stuff."

"Huh. Anyway, you'd want to be a spellbinder if you could? Not everybody likes their spirit animal..."

"Yep, no question. Magic is cool."

"Can't disagree with you there. Maybe one day we'll be able to do spirit animal transplants, you could take one somebody didn't want."

"Can't do it even with a cubed hex?"

"Haven't gotten any charts for it to click."

"Gem's still down on wishing for knowledge?"

"Yeah. Wasn't within the tolerances the evil fluffs were using so she can't be sure it's safe."

"Bet you'll figure it out someday." And she rushes off to chase down the human Tyelcormo, who doesn't mind being called that at all and who Mitros growls at not to hit on her. 

(He shoots a betrayed look back. "I didn't even know that Elf stuff was alcoholic -")

"...what Elf stuff, I seem to have missed this anecdote -"

"Telars got really drunk at one of these alt meetup things and hit on one of my alts."

"Oh no. Which one? What'd he do?"

"Space, and I think he mumbled something about consent issues - Telars was in fact super drunk - there's nothing in principle wrong with it but on the other hand."

"I suppose in principle it's not any more anything than alts together, but it does seem weirder to me for some reason."

"Anyway, if my brother hits on my alt-sister I'm going to teleport him to the middle of the ocean even if in principle there's nothing wrong with it."

(Telars and Lári have a perfectly pleasant conversation.)

Cricket hops down from Iobel's arms and goes to see who here has not yet been judged.

Has he met a Rúmil yet? Scroll is talking with Boots and Kib and Island.

Cricket has not met a Rúmil yet. He goes over to this group and rubs against Boots's leg until she picks him up and listens judgmentally.

"So the bit we're ironing out now is how they can bring their whole kingdom through and then have its people answer to Bella and T'Mir."

"Yeah, ideally while maintaining enough of the internal structure of the kingdom that people aren't flailing in confusion when they need to escalate a complaint or going straight to us with everything."

"They seem very easy to work with so far - which was Compass's read on his Nolofinwë as well, so that's something - but it's still a lot to attempt all at once."

"At least the mana bottleneck's sorted?"

"And the architecture one!"

"And the power levels, to some degree, with Loki's spells we can worry less that we could accidentally invite through something we couldn't handle."

"They're not really optimized for the purpose..."

"They're a lot better than what we had, and not mana-constrained."

"I'll give you that." Kib reaches out to scritch Cricket. Cricket purrs.

"Hi," Rúmil says to Cricket. "And," he adds to Kib, "it's lucky it's a space Maitimo that glued himself to Ferardrin because the space ones have disclaimed all political ambitions and will not make living on Bella and T'Mir's planet weird."

"I wouldn't do that," Island objects.

"You wouldn't choose to live there."

"Yeah.'

"I mean, I'd hope we could work something out, Iobel and Mitros are sharing just fine."

"Sure, but this is your planetary project. I think it should be closely allied with Vanda Nossëo but not particularly subsumeable."

"Subsumption is not currently the plan."

"Good! The current plan is lovely and impressive."

Cricket looks suspiciously at Rúmil.

Rúmil smiles at Cricket. "If only the Valar could have given you infinite mana. Or just given you all the powers of a Maia, that'd be just compensation for what they did."

"As long as I didn't then require retraining on how incarnates work from Elspeth..."

He shudders. "I assume the personality isn't a consequence of the powers, seeing how much they vary."

"They vary, but around a much different distribution!"

"True! And I never did get a good sense of whether that struck-by-love-for-twenty-Years thing was voluntary -" he shudders. "No, indestructible human with Olórin on hand is clearly the way to go."

"I'm having fun with it," nods Boots.

Cricket is still peering at Rúmil making catly facial expressions.

I'd ask Cricket if something's on his mind but it almost never turns out that anyone wants to know what's on Cricket's mind.

Oh? See, now I'm sort of curious.

Cricket hates everybody except Bells. And the standard parent set, he'll put up with those.

"Have I caused you offense?" he asks Cricket.

"No," says Cricket. "I can't figure out what's wrong with you."

"I'm flattered. I think we'll have the kingdom evacuated and integrated in six months? Under a year, definitely, and that's being smooth and conservative."

"Maybe you are also secretly gay," speculates Cricket.

Kib makes a choking noise.

"I feel like I am missing some context?"

"That was what it was the last time I could not find out what was wrong with someone."

"Cricket -"

"I do not mean you, you have not despicably led anyone to believe that you were truly fond of her and then broken her heart."

"...I feel pretty confident I haven't done that," Rúmil says. "Maybe there's something else wrong with me? My skin could be an unappealing color? I used to not have eyes?"

Cricket scoffs.

"Fëanáro beat me to it on developing an interdimensional teleport so we could go rescue Bella and flee Valinor? I thought Valinor was safe in the first place?"

"Are you trying to help Cricket hate you?"

"If it is apparently inevitable that Cricket will hate me, I want it to be for something other than leading you on. I guess I am a stickler for being accurately hated, and -"

"Hmmmm," says Cricket. "Maybe you pet cats incorrectly." He stretches out in Rúmil's direction from Boots's arms.

Rúmil pets him. And stares at Boots, flushing slightly.

Apparently Rúmil does not pet cats incorrectly. Purrrrrrrrrrr.

"You are very soft."

"I am!" agrees Cricket. "It is important."

"I do not think I have been leading Bella on but I would be delighted to play whatever role in her life she likes and if I gave her the impression that I loved her then I meant it."

"I did not coach Cricket!"

"Cricket doesn't seem very coachable! And you seem eminently capable of discussing your feelings, which is why I never raised -"

"Why are we having this conversation at the prompting of a rude cat -"

...Kib is amused.

"There you go," Rúmil says, burying his hands in Cricket-fluff, "I am excessively promptable by rude cats, there's a character flaw for you."

"Hm, no, I do not think listening to me is a character flaw," purrs Cricket.

"What sorts of things do you normally dislike people for? What's wrong with Kib - no, Kib's a Bell - what's wrong with Island -"

"Use of child labor, I am told."

Island snorts.

"Haven't used any child labor," he concedes reluctantly.

Purrrrrrrrrrrr~

I still can't actually tell if you need this advice or not but for whatever it's worth while Bells can in fact discuss our feelings we also enjoy cultivating narratives of being effortlessly irresistible and as such prefer not to be the initiating parties. Loki's an exception, Boots isn't.

Rúmil splutters exasperatedly at Cricket.

"Hmmmm I am not sure I can hate you for being incoherent," muses Cricket. "Maybe if you did it a lot."

"...okay," he says. "Lovely meeting you, Cricket. I shall keep brainstorming on things you can hate me for.

Someone's dyed their hair green, I should probably go help him."

Cricket chuckles and leaps to the floor and trots off to see if anyone else requires rude cat prompting.

"It's a very nice shade of green."

"It is! But I am pretty sure it wasn't deliberate - suppose it will wear off anyway -"

"They could probably still use help figuring out what went wrong..."

"Ferardrin's got it," he says a second later, relieved.

"Oh good."

"It was a very good lecture."

"Thanks."

I had been wondering before Cricket... broached... the subject whether he wasn't interested or was just being an Elf about it and I still can't tell, Kib comments to Island.

Being an Elf about it. 

Well, I don't think she can tell either.

Well, perhaps when they're not surrounded by people he will clarify himself.

"Oh no, Lári has abandoned my husband to the horrors of unbuffered crowding," Kib says, "I'd better go rescue him." Off he goes.

People who don't enjoy parties are so weird.

"Hi," he is saying to Golden across the room. "I have decided that since I can't be a demon I want to be a vampire."

"...have you now."

"Being a demon would be better but vampires are pretty great and maybe I can eventually be a vampire demon that'd be interesting."

"You know we have no reason to expect it works on Elves?"

"This is a science world, we can experiment."

"Perhaps more importantly, it's never a good idea to turn children."

"I'm a hundred twenty. Almost a hundred twenty one."

"And half-vampires are full grown at seven; that's not the point. Vampires don't just stop physically aging; we also have static personalities and don't mature after turning. And this is an enormous problem if you're a child vampire and you need flawless impulse control to avoid eating everyone you encounter."

"Can you make me grow up faster?"

"Nope."

"Someday can I be a vampire demon?"

"I remind you we don't know if it works on Elves. But you can ask again when you're grown up and my sister can check with precognition. Do you know what the turning process is like, though?"

"I read all the files! I really want to have all the kinds of magic."

"I understand. You just don't seem like the type to watch movies for seventy-two hours straight to be stronger and faster and also want to eat everyone you meet; it's hardly guaranteed you'd get witchcraft and Hex indestructibility is better."

"I'm gonna get that too."

"I don't think anyone will deter you on that one."

"Are you indestructible?"

"Not yet. There's a waiting list and I'm already pretty hard to hurt."

"Waiting is stupid. Has anyone tried wishing for more than six spells a day?"

"Yes; it had to wait for somebody who had a good backup wish in mind in case it didn't work. Which it didn't."

"That's not fair."

"It's certainly very frustrating."

And he pops home to go try more spell design. He does not say goodbye.

"I think all the Macalaurës are here, you could find ours and finally coordinate the concert that fundraiser's been trying to coax you into putting on together," Gem tells her wife. "Or if he doesn't want to do it one of his alts could impersonate him, that's probably just as good from the audience perspective."

"Shine's didn't murder anyone, and that's sort of tempting, but I guess the thing about alts is that it's different circumstances, not different people, and 'wasn't put in a situation where they'd murder people' is a silly criterion for who I'll hold a concert with -" Maglor?

He comes over. "Hey!"

"Hi! You know how people want you two to do a joint concert?"

"I can't think why, but yes, I'd heard."

"Why is because you're loosely conceptually associated, newish to the Earth musical scene, and really really good singers."

"What a bizarre standard. Were you planning to debut something new or just perform things Earth hasn't heard yet -"

"I don't think they care what you sing very much. Although they'll probably be disappointed if you just solo sequentially instead of doing something actually together."

"Then we would have to work on it together. I hear you two are absurdly busy."

"A bit, yeah. What kind of time investment would this wind up looking like?"

"I mean, I could just write or adapt something for two and Joy could learn it, practice once, it's a human audience..."

"Doesn't mean we should be sloppy!"

"We should be efficient."

"What amount of time would constitute non-sloppiness?"

"Couple of days of practice together, probably?"

"We can probably scrape that much spare time together at this point, I can just do things in known specific locations instead of leaning on Lúthien to do guided-teleporting. The pile of money is pretty big at this point and money is useful. Besides, the PR would be great."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. Two months from now, give me time to write something?"

"Sound good to you, Lúthien?"

"Yes!"

"Great, I'll try to avoid starting any really intense three month long projects."

"Bet we can find and fix a world in less than three months, if it's another one of the low-tech meh-magic ones like most of Edda's neighbors..."

"Well, we'd have to do it in less than two. Or at least get it stable enough for you to take a few days to do other things in that time. We can delay actually scheduling the concert just in case?"

"Sounds good!"

"Lovely." And Gem kisses her wife on the cheek.

"I'll keep in touch!"

And he sees Gem and Joy and waves at them. "Hey! Question - if I get a hundred people to wish-on new abilities for me, does that work as long as the wishes are all individually within tolerances, or could it be a problem?"

"I would not expect it to break the wish-granter. I can't necessarily vouch for how you'll be holding up after all that. And that's a lot of wishes to spend on the project, what do you have in mind?"

"Nothing in particular, but I have half a million subjects, some small fraction of whom have no desire to have magic powers or be a magic rock or be a resource in an emergency but who are happy to wish on powers for other people, and I haven't considered towards what ends this is best used because I wasn't sure if it was safe to try in the first place."

"Well, with the caveat that if the wish is just to add powers for kicks it does not get a high priority slot, trying's not out of the question."

"First try is wish-combinations that give a person immunity to mind-affecting magic, with powers for kicks being the backup if we can't get that one through. Everything else can wait and be a low priority."

"Yeah - I'd especially be interested in being able to batch that, do a large-scale solution - might get one of my alts to use their wish on that one, we could work up a solid five or six on it, I think -"

"I bet Kib could easily hit six."

"Yeah, probably. Not sure how being a magic rock might interrupt the reincarnation thing that he may or may not still have as emergency backup."

"Couldn't he make the wish and not turn into a magic rock?"

"Yeah, he could, but then he never gets to be a magic rock, and it is kinda nice? Maybe not a great idea for him in particular what with the mood maintenance requirements."

"I have to admit to not seeing particular benefits of magic-rock-hood that you couldn't eventually chart on Hex or have wished on for you individually - and, like, it might interfere with daevafying, and everyone should daevafy if it turns out to work for people from non-adjacent worlds."

"What I like about it is mostly that it's so versatile - I can't do enormous things outside my efficiency specialization, but I can do nearly any small thing, including things that are great to have but wouldn't be worth pursuing a generalized magical power for one at a time. But the more I think about it the emotional maintenance is probably a big deal Kib should just avoid."

"Probably. Anyway, I'll add our experiments to the not-a-priority list. Thanks."

"No problem."

And then there is so much to do! Importing more people, blueprinting whole cities to be made, screening and meeting and reassuring people and explaining to them the laws. Compass comes over and stays long enough they will have to repay him in a lot of history lessons eventually, because it turns out people natively familiar with computers and modern technology are in short supply and badly needed. They begin to evacuate Nolordel.

Fëanáro hops over to Revelation without telling anyone so he can summon daeva. Fëanáro finds out about the daeva language thing and is all the more obsessed with becoming one somehow. 

Fëanáro comes back to Warp to find his alt-family staring at him with tears in their eyes. He grudgingly assents to hugs and tells them that this is a science world and he's definitely not going to get himself killed, unless it's to become a demon, and when this provokes horror he clarifies, and then he pronounces his half-family 'excellent but I'm still really glad my mom is alive and happy and things' and starts showing them how to do science to wizardry. 

It is several months before they have anything resembling a breather. But when they do, Rúmil says, "Bella! Would you care to go out flying with me?"

"Sure!"

"I wanted to talk to you about Iobel's cat!"

"Qua her cat, or...?"

"Qua her cat's concern that - well, actually, I am not entirely clear on what the cat's concern was - it found the way Mitros courted Iobel objectionable, yes?"

"He didn't tell her he was gay till after he'd kissed her, is my understanding."

"...that seems like a much easier mistake to avoid making than I was expecting. 

I like you. I am continually impressed by your compassion and your sense and your ambitions and it was a delight to watch you grow, in Valinor, and it has been even more of a delight to watch you here where there are no bounds on how much of a splash you can make. You are the most resourceful person I have ever met and it is a joy to be a part of your life. This does not in any respect need to involve kissing but if there was a lack of clarity about whether I want to -"

"There was no inkling that you might want to!"

"Well, to be fair, likewise!"

"...okay, that is in fact fair."

Air swoop. "Are you interested in kissing me?"

"I'd mostly been deliberately not cultivating an interest because I'd been really unclear on whether it would be a productive interest to have - I've never quite been able to pin down certain things about how my species is interacting with relevant features - um, but there has been some deliberateness to the non-cultivation of the interest?"

He giggles. "You mean my species' relevant feature of throwing a tantrum at things that aren't artwork? You are exceptionally pretty, Bella, but in fact when I realized I had feelings for you I was blind."

"You knew what I looked like! Or at least what my chin looked like. But even more than the I don't look like an Elf thing is the I didn't grow like an Elf thing, I started assuming pretty early on that everybody around me would consider it deeply weird to think of me as an adult in quite that way even if everyone was very gracious about assuming I had an adult level of impulse control and so on."

"I would have felt odd about pursuing a romantic relationship your first Year in Valinor but less because you didn't grow like an Elf, more because there was a sense in which you hadn't gotten the chance to start growing until you were out of Materia. I would very much not want to kiss you while you still believed it dangerous to set your sights exactly as high as you pleased."

"In case I later set my sights higher than whoever I'd previously been kissing?"