"Hi. I don't know if anybody mentioned me to you before, I'm Bella."

"They did! You were going to help us avoid needing to do an interworld Gate. Do you happen to know, dear, if Melkor is dead?"

"He's... as dead as you were a minute ago, which probably isn't dead enough, but will do for now."

"Huh. Well, I have no idea how long it has been, which suggests he won't be able to find his own way out, but probably ideally he would be more dead than that, because here I am, and were I inclined to get up to trouble I could get right back to it."

"Exactly."

"How long has it been."

"Less than two days. They - didn't tell me what I was transporting or - what it was going to do, so I didn't know right away that I could just try the thing I did, I thought -

- I'm sorry."

"- no, no, bringing me back after two days was entirely the right thing to do. I was hoping there would be statues but they can still make the statues, you know, if they want to -"

" - dear, it is not your fault that I died temporarily."

"They did tell me you signed up for it and knew it was risky but I didn't know that, when I helped."

"- if you hadn't helped we were going to go ahead with it anyway, we were just going to have Vanyel Gate directly. And - if for some reason the Noldor had been run by some terrifically irresponsible people who hadn't told me it was dangerous, I think it would've been right to help them too, really, if you could, because irresponsibility is much easier to fix than Melkor. - also I could have inferred for myself that it was dangerous. It was being the magical core and power source for a weapon meant to destroy Melkor."

"Yeah. I guess. But I wanted to apologize anyway."

"Would you like a hug?"

"Yes, thank you."

She hugs him.

"I know your alt," she explains. "He helped me a lot with figuring out how wizardry works."

"Oh, good for him!"

"He kept hoping something would explode."

"He is not going to surpass me on that front."

"Did it explode satisfyingly?"

"It ate Melkor!!"

She giggles weakly.

"It'll be all right, dear. The hardest part is over."

"Yeah, you're right." She sighs. She lets him go.

"Where, ah, are we."

"I'm not sure, I don't know a lot about Endorë geography."

"Huh. I guess I always enjoyed exploring."