"Is she aware we can interact via these - dreams -"

"I'm not sure, it depends on how much mindreading she can do."

"Well, that's terrifying."

"Yep. She has a psion but I don't think the psion can have picked up meaningful amounts of mindreading yet so she'd have to operate on Vala magic alone, there's that."

"Is there a plan to stop her -"

"There's options - maybe she took you so you couldn't convince her psion to turn on her -"

"Should I be trying to do that? Would I be able to try if I weren't - wherever I am - is she trying to get me to work with her -"

"...she might be trying to get you to work with her but your main skills are less useful to her than they are harmful if deployed against her, I think. You wouldn't try directly, anyway, you'd tell me what to say, you wouldn't be able to talk to her psion but I can."

"How long can you do this for -"

"It depends on how long you stay asleep."

"...okay. What can I do for you in the meantime, then -"

"I didn't actually pull you into the dream to have you do stuff, I just wanted to check on you - if you don't remember anything I'm not sure if there is anything -"

"Don't remember anything. Sorry."

"Okay.

I suspect you're not going to wake up to anything very pleasant so I'd stretch this out by default but you can wake up whenever you want."

"This isn't any bother for you?"

"Nah."

"...okay. Want to tell me about things?"

"Sure. What do you want first?"

"I'm - thinking that this is going to happen multiple times and I'm more deterministic than you, it makes more sense for you to pick something -"

"...makes sense. I could tell you people's names."

"You know me well."

"Yeah."

So here's Maitimë's entire family tree - she can do faces, it's a lucid dream, she's omnipotent - here's all the Valar, here are random palace-dwellers, everybody whose name Isabella knows.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"How'd we meet, what are you working on..."