"Mandos I can sort of forgive. But - yes, that one can wait."

"It's not that I object to Mandos being dead all that much, it's that this is how Melkor got out."

"I am starting to suspect that Eru wants Melkors loose and we should keep a closer eye on Telperion."

"If it turns out Eclipse is conveniently adjacent to it or something I am happy to obliterate Telperion's Melkor - seems like you missed me when you swept for Bells because I wasn't home at the time."

"We should have thought of that failure mode, given the tendency of Bells to end up sucked into Ardas. We can add a check for Bell parents from everywhere."

"That'll definitely work with no false negatives!"

"I can't think of any check at all that would've found Stork while you were in Shine, dearest, without wishing on some better tracking."

"Oh well. Parentless Bells will just have to be statistically underrepresented. It's a good thing Andi wanted to find alts of herself, though."

"And they get along, too, or at least they do if it's not highly path-dependent, they did in my precognition but I didn't stick around in reality."

"Matirin thinks they will all the time."

"I admit to being weirded out that Maitimë comes in shapeshifting blue centaur alien. By comparison I'm not particularly weirded out that she comes in boy, although the skew is a little overwhelming."

"Andalites feel like a pretty natural thing for mes to be, really - girl only seems weird until I remind myself that they have Asgardian-style gender roles -"

"What would happen to a you stuck with the less convenient gender role?" wonders Kib.

"It's like trying to imagine a straight me - there's no reason it couldn't happen but it'd be really hard to wrap my head around. I - if it had workable parts I might just work with those, if I was expected to marry someone who could run the country and have lots of children then I - have absolutely no idea. Might not end up seeming much like an alt."

"Alts are weird and less path-dependent than I expect people to be by default."

"What frightens me is when events that should be path-dependent aren't. But - Bells don't seem to come in Elf, probably because not having free will just doesn't suit you. It would not surprise me if I similarly fail to come in 'a gender where my social expectations were all things I couldn't do'."

"We don't seem to come in very similar the way Arda staples do, even the Earth ones have all different magic systems and are all strongly affected thereby at or before age seventeen. We might come in Elf once and just not do it twelve times."

"That would be exciting. I hope there's an Elf of you out there somewhere and that they still manage to avert everything being terrible and then they can meet the rest of you and be appalled at your hair. I'd find that really soothing."

"Last I checked you were not appalled at my hair per se."

"Does Maitimë cut yours, Isabella?"

"...no?"

He seems to read a lot into that, for some reason. And adoringly ruffle Kib's hair.

...Kib takes a little longer and then he laughs.

"I'm missing something."

"I think it only worked because you got her so young - oh gods -"