"Yes I did! Talked to my friends. I missed them."

"That's wonderful! I'm so glad. How are they doing?" 

They're really angry at the Valar. Working on finding another place to go.

“Huh - I guess that makes sense, the Valar treated you pretty badly. Have they, um, caused any other trouble for your friends once you weren’t there?”

Fëanáro has been clashing with people about the level of drama appropriate. No divine retaliation.

“That’s good. Does he, um, think there should be more drama or less?”

More. He is really upset that I got banished and thinks everyone else is way too calm though Rúmil assures me everyone whose opinion I care about at all is unhappy and has been petitioning the Valar.

"Do the Valar usually listen to petitions?" Shavri rolls her eyes. "I don't think our gods do. At least not in Valdemar." 

I do not have statistics. They at least don't do it quickly, but they don't do anything quickly.

"They at least answer questions quickly, though, right? You can just go talk to them." 

Yes, it's not really right to say they don't do things quickly. They're ponderous and conservative but they can have conversations at a normal speed, they'll do favors for people on that timescale. Also I'm not sure what was up with them banishing me on no notice, though that could have been Fëanáro bursting in and startling them.

"What was he bursting in about?" 

He'd tagged along in secret with me and Rúmil when I was summoned to see them, and when they explained they were sending me back to Materia he revealed himself and shouted at them that they were worse than Melkor. Uh, to be clear, they're not worse than Melkor, Melkor tortured a lot of people apparently recreationally so it's a high bar.

"Eek," Shavri says quietly. "Um, no, it doesn't sound like kicking you out was worse than torturing people for fun. Unless kicking you out was going to cause Melkor to go back to doing it or something, in which case they'd be pretty complicit in that, but it sounds like no." 

As far as I know they are still keeping him in prison.

Shavri nods. "That, um, seems like a good idea. Anyway. Does this change your plans here?"

I can stop worrying Fëanáro's going to get in trouble going to Materia, and go back to a full schedule at Healers' and such, and in general operate less conservatively here because no matter what they'll eventually come find me even if I'm dead or whatever.

"...Um, does that help? If they come find you and you're dead?"

Uh, not soon, it'd be a big project, but Materians have resurrectable souls.

"...Whoa, really? Wait - do we have resurrectable souls? Could you test that? If so would the spell work on people from here as well?" 

I don't currently know any magic that has to do with souls. In Materia resurrection is divine, not arcane. That doesn't mean doing it with wizardry is impossible but it does mean it would take ages, there's nothing to pivot from the way I had a positive energy spell to turn into healing. So I don't know if your soul is like mine, I don't have a way to check, and even if it is I won't be able to use the information for a long time. This is why I haven't told Van.

Shavri deflates. "...Right. That was the thing I was going to ask about, but nevermind." 

Yeah. I'm sorry. Someday, but maybe not in your lifetime.

Shavri nods and then somewhat awkwardly changes the subject toward telling a random story about some Healing research that Gemma has her helping with. 

Not all the novelty of SCIENCE WORLD has worn off so this is fun.