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They send her back.
- they send her back, and where she was when she was last in this plane was a classroom doing some kind of interplanar studies spellcasting, and there must be something wrong with time between the planes because they are still - here -
- she falls, again, and lands, again, and, shaking, opens her clenched-shut eyes.
Vanyel...stays remarkably composed, externally. (He's had a lot of practice.)
"That's - definitely the thing," he says tightly. Focus on breathing normally, he knows how to get through this, it used to happen at some point during almost every lesson he taught and then he had to act like nothing was wrong to his students until he found a good excuse to duck out.
It's the last one. It'll be okay.
Follow follow follow all those dominoes back home and - there - she waits for it to end on its own in case there are any stray bits to be tucked in.
Vanyel breathes and smiles shakily at her and does not put his head down on the desk. "...I'm going to be so relieved if you just fixed that entire problem."
She nudges the dominoes apart from each other. I've never had somebody come back to me and say I didn't get it right before, but all my pre-this-world clinical experience is Elves, so I can't guarantee it to high confidence.
"I don't think so. Unless you happen to have advice on reassuring someone who used to have a god-granted sense of ethical certainty and just lost it, but I assume that's too specific to have come up before."
It is, yeah, closest thing I've got is 'worried about implications of an evil Vala for the goodness of the Vala's boss'.
He doesn't, like, talk, but yeah, they answer to somebody called Eru Ilúvatar.
He's supposed to have created Arda out of music - I don't know what that means either - and have directed the Valar in shaping the world before he stepped back, and it's supposed to be the case that even Melkor in his rebellion by which is meant "scads of torture" will ultimately be seen to be supportive of the glory of Eru's creation somehow, that's what I've got. Why?
Shrug. “I’m just...trying to understand how anything works? I guess it might not be useful information for figuring out how this world works, though.”
Vanyel reads through it.
"Hmm, so he wants to talk, doesn't want to risk himself, but he's got some kind of artifact he can use to relay in close to realtime and he has agents who can serve as the relays. Then he has a couple of questions, things he needs to know to firm up a plan. He knows the range limitation, so he's asking if we can travel to the northern border – if not, he can still arrange something but it'll take longer to get someone in place within three hundred miles of Haven. Um, and he's asking what information you need about the agent who's relaying in order for the spell on the earcuff to find them – is their name sufficient, or name plus description, versus do you need to have met them yourself. Oh, and he's giving us a faster way to reply than waiting for a dream sending a letter up to that town – we can drop a message at this location in the city, he asks that if we use that method we keep it short, just the answers to the questions, and use the same code."
I don't want to travel, random people don't like telepathy and it'd cut badly into my research. Spell target limitations are a little hard to describe for people who aren't used to them - it's approximately 'unique identification', but nothing convoluted like 'nearest person under age forty named Bob' or anything. Meeting them works, name and enough information that if I met a bunch of people named that I'd know which one in short order works. We can suggest Tadri, maybe.
"Heh - that'd get his attention a bit, if he knows you caught onto his spy." It gets a slight smile from Vanyel. "I don't want to travel either, I hate traveling, and we can't Gate. So, sure, probably we should ask for the second thing, where we're in Haven, and suggest Tadri, and maybe give the best explanation you can of your targeting requirements in case Tadri isn't available. Um, is there anything else I'm obviously missing that should go in the next message we send him?"
It might be worth telling him I cannot read the language fluently without help in case he ever wants the option of something being for my eyes only. Though once I have an interplanar earcuff someone could teach Fëanáro, he'd pick it up in a couple days and then he could help me and that's different from an infosec standpoint.
Vanyel looks down at the notes he's been taking. "Um, do you want to tell him about Fëanáro too, or just the fact that you currently need a translator? I'm assuming the second, but..."
I think I want him to know I have friends in another world who will come looking for me only after they in fact know where I am to come looking for me. Right now I'd be bluffing - they might be able to find me directly but they also might try for my world - and I don't know how good he is at sussing that out.
"Makes sense." He finishes writing it down. "All right, I can write out a proper draft in a bit and then run it by you before I try to put it in code? I should probably go ask Lancir about getting leave right away," mostly because he really has to steel himself for it and if he waits he might not have the guts.
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