:I don't know if he has to specifically manage the salinity or if he delegates it to a Maia of his or if it happens without help. He probably does manage the ecosystem and the tides and so on. I lived in Tirion, it's not by the coast...:

:Oh, that is the sort of thing that could in theory be delegated to a Maia? Fascinating. What other things do Maiar do?: 

:Oh, all different things, they're such funny people - some of them are almost like us, but some of them only care about things like looking after a specific pond or making sure that there is a number of atoms in a rock that has a particular mathematical property. I knew one of those, the mathematicians all went and checked with her whenever they thought they'd found a new one:

:Fascinating: Leareth is currently being seized by a sudden powerful desire to find Arda right now just so he can track down this particular Maia and find out how their math knowledge works. :That - probably does tell me something about what an Arda would look like from the outside. Hmm. Are there any other properties of Arda that are different from Stork, that you remarked on when you came here?: 

:Stork has a sun and a moon and it's round, the humans aren't born, there's servantmaking which we can't do... things rot here, we don't like that much, but I think not rotting is just Valinor actually, not all Arda...:

:- Things do not rot? I - am very confused how it would be possible to prevent that magically while still allowing the biological processes that living organisms need to stay alive! ...I wonder if Elves look different to Healing-Sight than humans: 

:Well, if you want to look at us, here we are. I think the Valar just slow down all the things that normally do decay everywhere we wouldn't want it:

:Thank you, I will tell my Healers. So they can - selectively slow some kinds of process and not others, on that level of precision? Incredible: 

:It's very nice, you can make a big batch of sandwiches and they'll be there whenever you want lunch for years - we wound up building all our kitchens small here, partly because the space trades off against other things we mean to be doing with our time in this world but partly just because it reminds us not to do that:

:Oh, dear, that would be an unpleasant surprise if you went looking for your sandwiches a month later in a place where rot happens: Leareth shakes his head. :Hmm, all right, I think that is most of my questions on that thread for now. I would like to go observe the Healing songs, and I will suggest that the Healers have a look at some Elves. - Do Elves fall ill with the same general sorts of illnesses as humans do, now that you are not in Valinor? I suppose here you might not since none of the local diseases would be adapted to infect Elves as a species: 

:Sometimes we catch a little something but we have very good control over our bodies and can stop it from getting out of hand. The Healing building is down the street, it's blue and yellow: