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She and Gem talk for a long time about how to safely search for Ardas. She is an indestructible magic rock who can teleport and can turn off pain, there is not much disastrous that can happen, but the whole reason they are looking for Ardas is that Ardas tend to have problems, and if she shows up while Eru is involved things could get even worse, so it is worth the time invested in precautions.

 

There are not many places in Arda that are reliably a safe place to land at any point in the timeline. Eventually they settle on trying a teleport to the air just outside Valinor (they considered targeting for Tol Eressëa, but that will miss Ardas where the Elves are still beside Cuivienen), while in the form of a swift.

She tests that if she is adjacent to an Arda this will work, and she tests that if she has no idea whether she is adjacent to an Arda (Gem teleports her somewhere unfamiliar) this will still work.

And she goes to each of the hundred sixteen worlds that have been discovered so far and she tries to teleport to the air just outside Valinor, and when that fails she tries to teleport to the air half a mile above a Bell, because while she is doing this she might as well check for alts.

(She should check for alts of the Noldor too, of course, but she is confident all Bells will react well to learning they are an interdimensional meddling collective of magic-workers and she is less confident about the alts of the Noldor so she only checks for alts of her wife. All non-Arda Finweans so far have cooccurred with a Bell anyway.)

She is in Aurum now. She tries to teleport to the air just outside Valinor. No. She tries to teleport to the air well above a Bell.

It goes.

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So I have to be okay with it but it doesn't actually have to happen, long story.

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You okay with a bounce back to Aurum to check that?

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Yeah, sure.

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Pop. "Golden, can we borrow Alice for a bit?"

Finleran's eyes swivel very fast and he watches Golden rather intently.

 

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"We'll find out in thirty seconds. What do you want her for?"

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"The new Earth? Was invaded by alien slugs that crawl in through your ear canal and can read your mind, pick up all your abilities, and impersonate you flawlessly. We're checking whether hexed-on and daeva indestructibility does anything for it - we can also check whether vampirism does, while you're at it -"

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"Is the Bell -" The door opens and Alice bounces in "- okay? And/or evil?"

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"The Bell is not evil; either she is okay with some Bell-managed residual trauma from the war or she is flawlessly being impersonated, Kib thought she would not prefer that I check so I didn't. Boots should be able to check less invasively and Cam might too. Hi, Alice!"

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"Hi!" says Alice. "So the way this works is you have to intend on trying it if I don't interrupt you. This is compatible with being sure I'll interrupt you, but you do need to at least mostly intend to follow through if I don't."

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He does not actually anticipate he will be that messed up by letting a Findekáno get a complete read on him. "Okay."

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He makes an uncomfortable tail movement but then follows it up with one that should be interpretable even to a non-Andalite Matirin as 'well, I have never had any luck at talking you down from things' and then starts morphing.

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It's gross. Everyone stares in horrified fascination.

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"Can't move enough of the ear out of the way," Alice reports. "On an indestructible person or on a vampire either."

"That is a remarkably unaesthetic sort of power," Golden remarks of the partial morph-in-progress.

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He demorphs. <Our Andi is an estreen, a person who can make it very elegant.>

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"Andi is your Bell's sister? You're the only one who has one of those."

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"Well, Loki has a sister, but Loki's adopted, is the new Bell adopted?"

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"Golden, you immune to Andalite thoughtspeak too?"

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"...did he say something? Apparently. Sorry," she says to Finleran.

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<She is not. She lived with her mother until it was necessary to feign her death, and rescued her father from being a Controller, and her mother died in the Atlantic strike.>

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He repeats this out loud. "Gosh, this will be inconvenient."

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"I used to have more gaps for convenience powers. They've tightened up. Possibly at some point someone should actually try this with Elspeth but Alice won't be able to see in advance, hybrids throw her off."

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"Well, Elspeth doesn't mind if people read her mind and spends most of her time around people who habitually do, so I doubt a Yeerk could infiltrate with her, but we can keep her well clear of Yeerks until we have a chance to test that."

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<We can get some animals to morph Yeerk - it will take some time and be inconvenient, but it could be done - and then she can run that test.>

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Repeat out loud for Golden.

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