"She's with Cor now, they went to find her a way to write things down. My understanding is that normally she has such a good memory she doesn't need to write anything down - which must be really exceptionally good; I've approached good enough but haven't quite given up note-taking yet. But for the rest of us it's an important habit. I don't think he'll leave her by herself carelessly."

"...or hurt her? Or seduce her?"

"I do not expect Cor to hurt her or seduce her. He's one of us too. I suppose I can't rule out that they might come to some seduction-related mutual understanding but it would really not have the details that make that sort of thing frowned upon here."

"It's so odd how people can come in boy and in girl."

"It is, a bit! I seem to be predominantly women and Maitimo vice-versa but apparently some of our alts consider it more or less gauche to find the trait salient. Also Rubelite apparently has more human-shaped bodies and some of those are male, it's probably a coincidence we got this one."

"Thank you," he says when she's done talking with them. "That was - awfully sad but very interesting."

"They don't seem unhappy but they do seem - limited. You'd probably be better positioned to talk up Larya to Khemet than I am."

"I'll attempt it. I guess being limited for your first century, when it's subject to the awful arbitrary afterlife rules, makes sense but it seems so sad."

"It's like someone heard a very garbled version of how childhood works and how long it lasts and tried to implement it!"

"I could see some people benefitting from - a world specifically for children and their parents, that they graduate out of through some life event when they're around a century. It'd have to be watched awfully closely to make sure it wasn't hurting people but it's not impossible. But - wouldn't do it like this.

If we can't get home I think it might make sense for me to travel and figure out more local politics. I'm going to get forked if we're gone more than a month anyway."

"Rúmil's probably going to wait a thousand years. I suppose Findekáno really can't afford to wait on you - will you be okay, if we figure it out but only later -"

"I don't - really know? I - it's more important for them than for me, right, they need me to be there - might press my dad to figure out how to make integration work -"

"Integration would be good. I wonder if Anaander has anything useful there, since she's a hive mind. - don't be a hive mind, but it could have transferable insights."

" - don't be a hive mind? It sounds kind of fun."

"There's no good way to isolate what her problem is unless someone like her with fewer problems appears but she did murder twenty five billion people in a fit of temper."

"And he'll be upset if people bring it up but Cam went through an Arda having a second war with Melkor and in the process found it necessary to apply a black hole to that Valinor to secure a deal that got an oath out of the Enemy. He was in the middle of reembodying all the Elves on a replacement planet he made when he was brought here."

"That's awful but makes more sense."

"Well, Anaander doesn't seem sensitive about it but also doesn't seem inclined to present a justification so I don't know if you'd get anything out of asking her about it."

He considers her for a moment.

"I'm curious if you were ever not the kind of person who'd blow up a planet."

"I barely remember it but I'm sure I started out as idealistic as the rest of you."

"What happened?"

"Everyone died. Over and over and over and over and over again."

"And so you decided that ...wasn't a bad thing?"

"Got less invested in it."