Someone comes in through the side door, stepping into the bar and looking around curiously.

"Hello?" she calls. "I'm sorry, I didn't know anyone lived around here."

She is very pretty, with beautifully braided hair and delicately pointed ears.

He looks up from the book and greets her with, "Hello! Uh, no, this is – um, a bar."

His hair… is definitely shorter than it should be, naturally.

She notices. She makes an abortive sound of what is probably dismay, averting her eyes and turning a shade of pink.

"Um - that - okay, um. Are you okay?"

He looks behind himself, then back. "– Uh, yes, is there something – wrong?"

"Yes, what happened, are you sure you're okay, do you need help...?"

"I'm… not sure what's leading you to believe I'm not okay but I'm pretty sure I'm okay…" Pause. "It may be worth mentioning that this place gets a lot of different cultures frequenting it?"

"I am really not seeing what different cultures has to do with anything, you must be in astonishing pain, I am so sorry, you are handling it very well, I can try to get ahold of a Maia?"

She is still not looking at his face. Well, hair. But face, too.

"– I am pretty sure that whatever way you think I'm, uh, injured or disfigured or such, is not actually causing me pain? That I can detect?"

Blink, blink. "... Okay? Um. Are you just so used to it or -" she sneaks a look at his face, studiously not looking at his hair as much as possible. "... Wait, um. Are you. Not an Elf?"

"I can possibly cheerfully tell you I am not – I'm a human, instead. Unless being an Elf is the kind of thing one might not know."

"I, no, if you're not an Elf that explains the." She apparently is unable to put to words the thing, and instead waves her arm expressively at him. As if that explains anything. Her eyes are still averted. "I um. Apologize. For being rude."

Pause. "I, uh, thanks but I don't think you really need to apologize…? I'm Dante, by the way."

"It seems kind of like it'd be distressing to have a stranger show up and flinch at you! I don't have to apologize but I'd like to!"

Still not looking at him, nope.

"I mean, it sounds like – you had good reason to?" He doesn't really know what to do about the fact she is not looking at him and feels a little embarrassed. "Should I find a hat? … Or a balaclava?"

"I don't know what that is, um -" she catches the image in his mind, considers, and nods. "- that would solve my, um. Inability to cope with different quirks associated with different species."

He tilts his head a little but turns and asks Bar for a balaclava.

Here is a balaclava!

"Thanks," he says, to Bar, and then looks at the item he has been given. "… I have never worn one of these before," he mumbles, before fiddling with it a little and managing to get it on just fine.

She looks at him and smiles a little, then blinks, alarmingly.

"... Do you not mean to broadcast that much, then, since you may not be familiar with osanwë?"

He looks at her and frowns. "Broadcast – howso?"

Gosh she's rather pretty isn't she.

Okay ignore the thoughts that he probably doesn't mean to be open to the public.

"Like -" this. Elves can do this.

"Elves usually only send what they want to send and I, I am getting the impression that you are sending more than you'd perhaps prefer? Unless I'm being confronted with another cultural difference."

"Ummmno mind reading is very much not a – thing – where I'm from."

He is quite clearly counting, in his head, starting at one and moving on quite swiftly. It's interesting how he's trying to draw a picture in his head at the same time; must be trying to keep busy.

(He tries not to let his embarrassment come through quite too clearly but he has no idea how to stop that. This fact may just be making him more embarrassed.)

"I'm not reading you now," she assures, "um, you should be able to distinguish private thoughts from public ones - imagine a sort of, barrier? Between the ones you'd like to keep private and the ones you'd like to share? And once you've had enough practice at that it should come as second nature, and your mind will be less, um, open."

"… Using a metaphorical barrier will prevent me from being mindread?"

"Imagining one, yes. And thinking of the private thoughts as separate and safe and behind it."

He starts trying to do that. "Does the, uh, the barrier itself, does it need specific imagined properties? Am I just going for an opaque impenetrable blob, or a forcefield, or, uh, I don't know – castle walls or something?"

"It doesn't need to be of anything specific, whatever comes easiest to you."

Pause. "Does it usually take very long to do? – I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting to have my mind read, by, uh," a pretty girl, "um, anyone? At least, I wasn't."

… He said that already. That's how the past tense works. It stays for the sentence. What is he doing. What is he thinking. That might not even be right.

At least he has a balaclava to cover his stupid, mortified face.

"You have absolutely nothing to apologize for," she assures him, very seriously. Still not reading his mind. "I'm sorry I didn't realize it sooner - it sounds like you'd have no reason to expect anyone to be able to read your mind. Children usually take a few weeks to get the hang of it, but I don't know how quickly an adult would pick it up. Likely faster, but I couldn't say by how much."

"– It is read-only, right? The mind-reading doesn't have any mind-writing?"

Blink. "... I could send you thoughts and sensations and you might perhaps mistake them as your own without practice at how it works? But I haven't been doing that, it would be incredibly rude."

"I just – thought it best to check," not that he can tell she's not lying – not that he can tell she's not reading him now – not that she can probably do him any harm here – not that he's sure mind-writing would count – fuck he is so dead if she's evil.

It is not helpful to panic over 'what could be's if he has no way to avert them.

So instead, he continues, "Do you mind if I ask, what was it about the face?"

"What? No, your face is fine, it was um. Your hair. It would be painful to have it that short, and, um. Indecent. To have it that. Not braided."

"… Oh." He frowns a little. "Humans don't have that – it being painful – and it's not indecent, at least not in my culture."

She nods. "I did get that impression, I'm sorry for, ah. Making you feel like there was something wrong with you."

He shrugs.

"… So anyway, I haven't actually explained what this place is." He thinks. "Uh, first questions first – do you know what a bar is? Magic? A universe?"

"No, yes, and yes. Does magic work the same way or is it different here?"

"I don't know how your magic works – where I'm from I can't actually find anybody who seems to believe it exists. Uh, anybody sane, that is. A bar sells various drinks usually, this place kinda resembles and claims to be one, which seems a bit silly." Pause. "No offence."

I'm not sure in what way it is silly for this to be a bar.

"… My experience with bars has never included one at the end of the universe that hijacks doors, and I'm not sure 'end of the universe' is even particularly coherent."

"End of the universe?"

Largely a cosmetic designation due to the exploding stars out the window and the time stopping properties of the establishment.

He raises an eyebrow. "I don't think it's particularly – at least not immediately – relevant, but it seems weird that they're actively exploding and we're frozen."

The stoppage of time is relative to the worlds whence patrons arrive, not relative to other events within Milliways.

… He will get back to this later.

"But anyway, yes, welcome to the end of the universe and the bar found at it which is named Milliways. The bar herself, if it wasn't clear, is a person and communicates using napkins." He indicates them.

"It was clear," she says, nodding. "I can tell she's there and is a person. Oh, I haven't introduced myself, have I, I'm sorry - I'm Calassúrë Vetuilë."

"Hello," he responds (smiling, not that it's visible). "Dante, if you don't recall."

"I think at the time I was too busy having, um. Sincere but sadly mislead concern and was a bit distracted," says Calassúrë, a little wryly. "I um, you don't need to wear the part over your face if it's uncomfortable, you look fine."

He pulls that part of the mask down, being careful to keep his hair covered. "Oh, uh – not immediately necessary but what would you prefer I use to refer to you, if I were talking to someone else? I'm not clear how your name's structured."

"Either is fine, the first is the name my mother gave me, the second is the name my father gave me. The first is the one people more commonly refer to me as. But if Vetuilë is easier to say or you find it prettier, feel free to use it instead."

Nod. "My full name's Dante Maestri – the first part is a given name, latter part is inherited."

"From your parents? Are you very important, then, or - this might be another cultural misstep, I apologize."

"It's from my father – most people have names inherited in the same way, where I'm from."

"Oh. All right. What's it like, there?"

"… I'm not sure how to describe it. Uh, the city I live in is I think the smallest in the country, has a cathedral, quite a few old stone buildings and some more modern ones in the outskirts? It's surrounded by a lot of countryside? – I don't suppose the telepathy thing can do pictures."

"It can, but I haven't been reading you. I can start if you'd like? What's a cathedral?"

"– Uh, yeah, you can read me but I apologize in advance for anything that might slip through? A cathedral's, like a big church? It probably differs in some way, I'm not sure how."

"Sure, let me know when you'd like me to stop. Second question - what's a church?"

He tries to think of pictures of both cathedrals and churches! "A… religious building in which people congregate for prayer? I suppose you probably don't have Christianity if you don't have humans."

She studiously does not make a face at the architecture. Cultural differences: she's aware of them now. "I suppose not, since I don't know what that is either. Pardon me for the constant repetion, but what's Christianity?"

"It's… a large and very popular religion, widespread, um… has a holy book called the Bible… has some controversial views in some denominations like – there are some default views of sexism, 'traditional gender roles' and so on…?"

He really has no idea how to describe Christianity properly. He is trying not to be rude about it, at least not in public thoughts.

"Oh, do you not have Eru or the Valar there?"

"Not that I know of? I don't recognize the terms."

"Eru sang the world into existence with the help of the Ainur, the most powerful of which are called the Valar. But it sounds like someone else made your world, and... gave you strange instructions to follow?"

"Exactly who made the world is up for debate, there being a lot of different religions, and what particular strange instructions are to be obeyed varies." Pause. "A lot of people do not believe in any religion at all, even, and think the world came into existence naturally. Far more than used to."

"Oh. Well. I can walk up and say hello to a god, so that's a bit less up for debate where I come from. It sounds really confusing and probably a bit upsetting to just - be alone in the world with no one to look after you."

He is a little surprised at her being able to walk up and say hello to a god.

"A lot of people are, I think, quite upset by it, yes. And most people don't think we have any sorts of magic, either, so we're stuck with more mundane methods of doing things."

See: machines. They work using fancy stuff called electricity. He has a bit of understanding how that works, but not a ton.

She tilts her head and inspects the machines. They are hideous. The result of different aesthetic tastes, probably. But if she pretends they're like her unfinished songs, all function before form...

"Those look very clever," she says sincerely. "You seem like you do a good job with the resources you have. Do you want me to teach you a few magical songs, or maybe how to write them?"

"I think that'd be very useful! What sorts of things are required for them to work – is it a particular instrument?"

"Just singing! Instrumental accompaniment optional. Are there certain effects that might be more helpful to you? I have a few healing songs, but I don't know what other trials you face."

"Healing would be useful – I don't suppose you have anything for old age, mental illnesses, vaccination against disease…?"

"Mental illnesses, um, would probably require a Maia or Vala, I could write calming songs for people with panic attacks or the like, but that doesn't really solve the problem and is maybe a little bit morally questionable. And, uh. Old age and disease? I don't know what either of those are."

"Uh, maybe Elves don't have it but – my species gradually wastes away as we get older, finds it harder to do things and more easily, uh, breaks bones and so on? Disease is a broad category but severe enough or combined with sufficient old age can result in death."

She looks a bit queasy.

"If you get old enough do you - are you stuck in a body that's failing you forever, that sounds awful, I am so sorry. And, uh. That still doesn't explain what disease is, though I'm now concerned for your re-embodiment situation if you don't have gods to put you back...?"

"… Re-embodiment is not a thing, and 'stuck forever' has never happened – after long enough you are basically guaranteed to die, but it's improving."

That sure is a horrified expression she's making!

"Oh, oh no, all of you, eventually dead and unable to be brought back, that's awful, I'm sorry."

And then she begins singing. It's beautiful.

Gosh. He – did not expect that.

(… Barrier. He forgot the barrier.)

She's not going to read his mind. She's busy singing beautifully. This song sure is pretty! And sad.

... And kind of long, is she going to be singing for a while?

He would not like to interrupt, if he can avoid it.

… He does seem like he might like to, after a few minutes of it.

Nnnope that Elf is still singing gorgeous mournful music. She might need to be interrupted.

"– Ah, sorry to interrupt – I just – uh, this might be another cultural difference."

That sure is one embarrassed human.

She trails off mid-note, blinking confusedly.

"... I'm sorry, is singing for your dead disrespectful? I am maybe really bad at this..."

"No, no, it's just – normally songs do not last that long."

"Oh. ... Because you only have so much time, oh no I'm sorry am I wasting your life, I can probably get you to a Vala and they can probably extend it!"

"Oh, I – that – not –" He looks like he's having trouble responding to that. "— I wouldn't want to term it wasting my life? But, uh, yes the limited time could be part of it, and I don't know much about your – uh, gods – but maybe –?"

"I mean if anyone could fix it, it would be the Valar, um -" she has a moment of indecision, "- how fast are you dying, should I not try to get a good idea of your whole world and how to fix it before involving the Valar so you can stop imminently dying, they, um. Are good gods but would be worse at cultural differences than I am, and I'm a little concerned they might do something wrong without knowing it was wrong."

"There are – a lot of people, like seven billion, and we live like seventy-five years? I'm eighteen and, like, a month, and people often have kids at about thirty, does that give an idea? – Also time is paused there while we're in Milliways, so the rush isn't immediate for other people."

She is a little stuck on 'seventy-five years.'

"You die as children?" she says in a hushed whisper.

"… People are typically considered legally adults at eighteen, and a few more years after that to be fully grown?"

"Cultural differences," she reminds herself, sounding like she is having a little trouble not bursting into song again. "... Okay, so that's completely horrifying and I am horrified, but I apologize for, for - infantalizing your species, I don't know how you work. If you are an adult at, at eighteen," she shivers a bit, "then I will believe you. So you're... newly an adult. With maybe fifty years left to live."

"It could be up to something like eighty years left. Depends on how healthy I am, how much technology improves, how lucky I am. But yes."

Nod.

"What are the major problems you have to deal with in regards to old age, you mentioned broken bones and disease but I got the implication that's not all? I maybe have a number of songs to mitigate this, or could scrape together the shoddiest song of all time for it, if it saves your life it doesn't have to be pretty."

"I'm not a biologist, I don't know all the details, but cells have problems dividing properly, there are issues with the replication of the DNA and this causes other problems down the line – weaker tissues and bones, a harder time absorbing nutrients I think, things like cancers, a weaker immune system and so on?"

He asks Bar to borrow a book on it, expecting that'll have more accurate – and useful – information.

Book! Calassúrë reads it, frowning.

"This is very complicated," says Calassúrë, seriously. "I don't think I'll be able to figure out something that'll work perfectly in time, we'd be working with half solutions cobbled together as competently as I could manage. This is your life that we're risking here with what we do, would you rather I try to figure out as much as I can while here and try to hand a solution to the Valar so they don't, uh. Mess it up. Or would you rather go to the Valar right now and risk them maybe. Not handling things with the grace they maybe should, but probably competently extend your life."

"Would it be reversible, do you know? I'm not sure how exactly they'd be liable to mess it up, and – it's not urgent on the scale of days."

"Not knowing specifically how they'd solve it, no I don't. At a guess, the important thing is keeping you alive, and everything else is reversible or changeable given the time to do that in. It's - still urgent, I should still get the right people involved sooner rather than later, um. How do I involve other people from my world, I came in through the forest and I'd rather not wander back out and maybe lose you entirely."

"… I don't suppose you can call people, long-distance, with – osanwë? You need to be holding the door for it to stay attached to your world, or someone from your world."

"Oh, I can just open the door and it work fine? Then yes, I can do that -"

She stands and goes to the door -

- and the door disappears.

"... Um."

"… Really."

She takes a measured step back, and the door reappears.

"... Okay. I would like to politely request access to my home, please."

Door: still there.

She takes another step forward to grab the handle -

Aaaaand now it's gone.

"Is this normal."

Dante looks back through the napkins.

"… Bar mentioned that sometimes the establishment withholds doors from people. For often unspecified reasons."

"Exciting. Could someone specify some reasoning that I could argue with so we don't have to save seven billion people by ourselves?"

Silence.

"Okay then," she says, with quiet and understated fury. "If I am the only Elf allowed then I'll damn well be the only Elf necessary."

Gosh.

(Dante is trying to be careful not to let anything leak from his private thoughts.)

"… On the bright side, we maybe do have a chance of saving the seven billion people."

"We should have more than a chance," she mutters, "we should have all of the resources of Arda to save them all, but if we don't get that, then I guess I'll make do. Okay - how does this place work specifically, what information can I get from Bar, is there a good place to sleep besides those chairs over there, and is there a place I can aggressively make beautiful to go sing in when I get stressed...?"

"You can get lots of information from Bar – she can get books from worlds known to her and loan them out so long as they're published, you can buy nonmagical nonweapon nonliving objects for – what was the phrasing – reasonable currency-dependent prices, there are rooms upstairs you can rent out, and there's a backyard with trees and a lake that you, uh, can at least sing in but I'm not sure if it covers 'can aggressively make beautiful'."

"The backyard will do if I don't end up wandering back to my world through it. This is probably a stupid question, but explain currency, please?"

"… There's a big organization at least in the country I'm from called the Bank of England, and they're well-trusted, and people walk around with coins of various shapes, sizes and metal content as well as notes – rectangular pieces of paper – with various quantities of value written on them, and each of those entitles people to a certain amount of I think gold from the Bank of England were they to try to trade them in, so people give them to each other in return for various services or goods to try to incentivize each other to do things."

"... Uh. Okay. Why?"

"Why… do people use currency? Um. I think because just taking stuff would be infeasible – inconvenient, to say the least – and you don't always have exactly the thing that someone else would want in return for something, so settling on a standard… currency… makes trade more convenient?"

"Okay, but - why is trading even necessary, if you're, I don't know, a baker, and you like baking, why don't you just bake however much you'd like to and hand out what you've made to everyone that needs or wants it, instead of demanding they give you something you don't want in exchange? If everyone does that, everyone just. Gets what they need. ... Is this not how it works in your world. This is how it works in my world."

"This is not how it works in my world. In some places it would not work, I don't think, to just bake large quantities of things and give them out – it would result in lost product if there wasn't sufficient demand, and most people would not like to just – bake – their entire lives and then rely on the goodwill of other people, and – there is not really enough of things to go around? I guess maybe that would be different, with different incentives, under a different model."

"Oh. Uh. We have enough things to go around. I live in Valinor, which is a paradise made by the Valar for Elves. That is probably why I am so confused - so this is a, a distribution method? Of limited resources? But then they have to acquire currency all the time by doing things other people want, what if they don't want to do things for a while and want to take a break? Can they then not exchange currency for things they need?"

"If they have currency saved up and then take a break, that works fine, they just – keep it and it might change in value but the stuff they don't spend on rent, or accommodation or travel or food or luxuries while they're on their break, that stuff can still be used after they come back from a break? … Our breaks might be shorter than you're used to, though, people don't tend to have more than a few days off work at a time, unless they're unemployed or in education or retired or something."

".... I think I don't know enough about the factors at play here to really comment on. That. But it sounds like the logistics are less than ideal, and I will probably want to try to fix it once I stop your. Dying randomly problem. Your dying randomly problem takes precedence."

"I think it probably does but it could be tangled in this a bit – part of why I ask about the inoculation is because there are some diseases we can defend against but mostly only using barrier protections, like nets to keep bugs away, and – well, distribution is a problem getting present vaccinations supplied everywhere, but vaccinations might be easier to distribute, longer-lasting, more effective and so on, than other protections."

"I think you keep expecting me to, um, understand all of the things you're talking about, and I only vaguely have a guess at what diseases are, they are bad and can kill you and vaccinations prevent it? But I do not understand the basic details, here, how do diseases commit their murder, are they malevolent? So please back up and explain everything to me like I am an Elf from paradise that has never known strife in my life. Since that's what I am."

"Um." Pause. "They attack, in various ways, the little components that make up our bodies? Some of them they – cannibalize the cells and put them to work making copies of them, I think that's viruses, and I don't remember the details of the others – but they're not so much malevolent entities, they're too small and simple to be described like that, they just… have a goal they are trying to achieve and as a side effect end up doing all sorts of horrible things to us which can result in death."

"That sounds terrible, and it is probably a horrible idea to want to give them little closed off disease sanctuaries to do their thing in peace in, but Eru help me that is absolutely what I thought of first. So they... eat people... but they are very small. Do they. Jump? From one person to another? Like murderous grasshoppers? Where do the vaccines come into play, here?"

"… It's mostly through contact, with infected people spreading it to surfaces or directly to other people, but some of them have particular requirements to transmit – some come in, uh, bodily fluids, as opposed to just on the skin. Vaccines teach the immune system – automated defence system? – what the diseases look like so it can get rid of them – uh, kill them – faster."

She attempts to visualize this. It's hard.

"How small are they, and - how does everyone get an immune system, do they have to buy one?"

"The immune system is natural, comes with the body and gets trained on things as a child – we don't get any feedback from it, not directly, but sometimes we get fevers when fighting off certain diseases? That is, our body temperature rises. In terms of size, they are… uh, literally microscopic, which I think is nanometers but I'm not totally sure – could look it up?"

"... You keep giving me details that are sort of distracting from the new concepts I'm trying to grasp, and while I appreciate knowing all of the details eventually, before I have a grasp of what an immune system is I don't need to know about, um, fevers just yet. Thank you, though, I know this is hard to relate. I'm sorry I'm not getting it all immediately."

"– Right, I should just – try to answer questions as they come up, not preempt." Nod.

Nod. "Thank you. Okay, so - everyone has an immune system that fights very tiny critters to keep the person safe from them. It figures out how to do this during childhood, and vaccines teach it how to handle certain, specific diseases efficiently. Is that all correct?"

"I think so, yes."

"Okay, so where do diseases come from, is there someone making them?"

"– I don't suppose you know about evolution?"

"Nope, what's evolution?"

"… It's – long story short, it's how we think people and animals and these diseases came about? But that's a very long story, it happened over millions of years. The diseases are still around because they use our bodies to replicate themselves – I think I already said that, it's not extraneous information?"

Calassúrë looks at him. Confusedly.

"... Also perhaps keep in mind that literal gods made everything on purpose, where I came from, so, I'm. Still really confused. I think you maybe overcorrected and stopped giving me information about things instead."

"Okay. … Life started a long while ago, and we're not totally sure how, and it started with very small organisms – the things that cause disease, they're small organisms but the first organisms were even simpler – and the ones that managed to survive in their environment for longer were the ones that reproduced, and this eventually created humans and animals that could resist disease and do things in the environment, and also diseases that could use our bodies to reproduce."

Blink.

"I think you skipped some steps there, how did that eventually create humans and animals and diseases?"

"… I think you may be better served reading an introductory book to this sort of thing." Because he thinks he is utterly failing to cover the salient details. He didn't even take Biology at A-level. "It will probably cover concepts in a better order and in better detail than I could."

"Okay. Thank you for trying, anyway."

And she requests books and begins reading.

He is available if she would like to ask him some sort of question about what she's reading. But she might be better served just reading more.

Meanwhile, he gets back to the old book he was reading when she came in.

She's Noldor, if she needed to ask questions about what she's reading she'd have to go live with the Vanyar or something. She reads.

"- Okay," she says, without preamble. "I think I could maybe make a song to boost immune systems, but this doesn't seem like a good time investment, what with how you're slowly dying. Which I'm not sure how to fix - am I correct in thinking that even your bread dies of old age?"

"… Yes, but I wouldn't have thought to phrase it that way. Uh. I think it depends quite a lot on what you could do, other than that, whether that's a good thing to aim for."

"As far as I can tell, the old age problem has too many factors at play to solve with songwriting, I can't possibly layer a song that'll do that much at once. It'd need to be an artifact or something, and about the best thing I can say about my ability to make artifacts is that I can make something glow."

"Could maybe try the door again, in case the landlords were just being particular about timing?"

"I can give it a try, yes -"

Nope.

She sighs.

"The immune system boost could help quite a lot – I'm not sure what long-term effects it'd have, being exposed to less disease, but it could at least add quite a good percentage to our lives. … I feel like I should have mentioned my world might have magic but I've never found anyone else who thinks it does and I keep having problems getting confirmation on it."

"What makes you think it has magic, and if you're sure, how can I pin it down where I can see it and study it into submission to save everyone from old age?"

"I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eyes that are very obviously magical, except insofar as 'very obviously magical' is not a natural trait and the fact that when I turn to look at them they are not there. This book," he indicates the one he's been reading, "has some mythology that seems to agree with what I've seen but as that's 'not much' I'm really not sure if this is just… confirmation bias or something."

"Show me what you've seen, if you're, ah, comfortable doing so?"

He nods and tries to think back on one of the times.

It was a few weeks ago. He'd just left his school grounds and was on his way back home when he had a nagging sensation that he should look to his right. Human eyesight is really bad – especially around the edges – very blurry and lacking much detail, but the green spark he saw against the hedge definitely did not seem to fit in with the background.

It didn't gradually fade when he looked at it straight on, it just disappeared outright – and he was expecting this, it having happened several times before. There wasn't anything off about the hedge, looking at it straight-on – there was no weird haze, no blurry patch where the spark should have been, nothing obvious that his eyes would slide over, and the green spark returned when he carefully repositioned the hedge to his peripheral vision.

Also as usual, nothing in particular happened when he walked over to it – it didn't leave any obvious change in the environment, it didn't do anything to the nearby plants. Nothing seemed different about that particular part of the hedge. The spark had, however, apparently moved – he couldn't find it again after that.

As with all the other times, however, the spark definitely felt magical.

He then focuses on a few other times – there've been quite a few other occurrences, mostly sparks, in a variety of different colours and sometimes even with an associated… feeling. This one in a lake just outside the city, swimming through the water and clearly enjoying itself, blue to match its surroundings and leaving no ripples or any clear sign it was there except to be visible out the corner of his eye; another one on a neighbour's roof, a yellow spark, giving off a feeling of awe and joyfulness, dancing in the spring air. This other one, a few blocks from school near a residential estate, red and giving off a dangerous feeling – he shouldn't touch it, he shouldn't go looking for it, he shouldn't go near it, and … trying to figure everything out could be hazardous for his health.

None of it really makes any sense, all quite detached from the rest of reality, and he doesn't have much more than cursory details, the information he's gathered by chance encounters with them; he has not had much of a chance to gather information on these things.

"That's strange, but - that doesn't look like confirmation bias to me, it's too... It seems to follow too many rules? Does this happen often?"

"Uh – varies, sometimes the same one is around the same area for a week, sometimes I go a month without seeing one. Probably something like ten a year?"

"Hm. And no one else has seen them that you know of?"

"I'd expect someone to have, just because I don't think I'd literally be one of a kind, but not that I know of. … I don't suppose you know what cameras are, do you, because I – sort of feel the need to explain that it could just be in my head."

"No, I don't. It could be just in your head, I suppose, and I don't pretend to know very much about human psychology, but I don't think it is. It doesn't look like it's imagined."

Nod. "Well – I haven't seen one in here, not yet at least, so it would probably require going back to my world to find one, which has… associated problems."

"Resuming time on seven billion people who are slowly dying," says Calassúrë, sounding unhappy about this.

"Yeah. And no guarantee I'll find one for a month." He sighs. "I was hoping there would be some books about them, but I can't seem to find anything actually useful going on what I have."

"That sounds troubling, I'm sorry."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and someone else will walk through the door with a magical fix."

He does not look very hopeful.

"Am I the first person you've met in here, besides Bar herself?"

"Yeah. She says it can get pretty busy in here, sometimes."

"Perhaps if we stay long enough it'll pick up a bit. ... Bar, you're more familiar with your patrons than I am. Am I, ah. Likely to be confronted with more unbraided hair in the future, should I summarily build myself a bridge and get over it?"

It is uncommon, relatively speaking, for other species to manage their hair in the way that Elves do.

"That's good to know. Thank you."

She pensively fidgets with the hem of her sleeve.

"So, yes. Bridge building."

"… Should I just take the balaclava off…?"

"I, ah." And now she is a shade of pink. "... If you'd like to? That doesn't look very comfortable, anyway."

"It was worse when it was over my face," he shrugs.

He starts to take it off!

The Elf is mysteriously reading this book at this time! So mysteriously.

"I um, apologize for the trouble, anyway."

"It sounds like it's not your fault, if – you know, it's like that where you're from."

His hair seems to be styled, in addition to being cut short. He has no idea what that must equate to for an Elf.

Horribly mutilated and then starched so it's even more actively painful, that's what it equates to!

"I probably could have conducted myself better, anyway. I bet Maitimo would have had better composure."

She is still so mysteriously interested in reading that book.

"… I feel like the exposure therapy might not work too well without the –"

He cuts himself off suddenly, realizing what he's saying.

"Hm?" she glances up, blinks twice, averts her eyes, and then stubbornly drags them back to his face.

"Um. Just that if you're trying to build bridges it might need – that you actually notice the hair thing."

"I definitely noticed, I just. I need to be a little bit ridiculous, first, I will do better if I can feel free to go at my own pace."

Nod. "Sorry. I didn't mean to – pressure."

"It's fine, I'm Noldor, we're the high pressure Elven society that everyone else finds obnoxious."

"Oh?" he asks. "… I don't actually know anything about Elves, except what you've told me."

"I... am having trouble neatly summarizing my species. We were invited to Valinor by the Valar and accepted, and have been living in paradise ever since. We live until we are killed by violence or strife. There are several groups, I am of the Noldor, we're the slightly obnoxious and impatient but aggressively brilliant ones; my uncle invented writing, for example."

"… How old is your species?"

"It has been around three hundred Years - Valian Years, anyway - since we awoke on the shores of Cuiviénen. Ten non-Valian years are one Valian Year. I don't know how you measure time, so these numbers might be meaningless?"

"We do have years that we measure time in, but I don't know if they match up…"

"Well, how long are your days, and how many days are in a year?"

"Twenty-four hours and three hundred and sixty five? There are sixty minutes in an hour and I can try to give you how long a minute is, but scaling that up sounds annoying…"

"It probably will be, but I can just get paper and a pen and figure it out, how long's a minute?"

He has a phone! His phone has a timer and he can set it for a minute.

"… Do you have electricity, I think you said no but I don't recall."

"We do not have electricity! What is that, how does it work, it looks like it does more things than just display minutes what are those how are new things added -?"

"... Eru, I sound like my uncle, I'm sorry if that was a bit too strong, that's just very cool and exciting and I want to know how it works."

"No, no, it's fine," he says. "Electricity is really cool – uh, I do not know much about the lower-level details but I know quite a lot about higher-level things, how you'd go about adding more functionality. The clock is standard for the device, there's a standard bundle of programs for it – they're higher-level things, there are lots of them and you can make your own if you read up on how – but they all run on the same hardware, the same physical device, you just have to change some of the data stored on it so it does different things."

"I... think I understand. It's like it has a certain set of abilities - the glowing screen that can change its colors? - and then you teach it different things to display and how to display them?"

"Yes, and it can do calculations of things, and it can communicate with other devices and store information, so – it's quite versatile, especially when it has a lot of other devices to communicate with."

"That's amazing," she says sincerely, about to ask several other questions, then winces and continues, "and I probably do not at all have time to figure out the ins and outs of it right now, fascinating as it is. I can have eternity to figure out the details of it when you are not slowly dying. ... Possibly I could figure out a way to use it to help with song or artifact design, what are some of the calculations it can do?"

"It can do basic arithmetic extremely quickly? Uh, if you need to plot graphs or solve equations, it can do that using various techniques, either numerically or analytically… You could buy a laptop from Bar and find some information on modelling of systems, that sounds like it might be helpful if there are a lot of factors that go into the artifact design and you know some details about how they impact the final result."

She nods. "Bar, could I have a laptop, and maybe borrow an instruction manual or something for it? ... Also how do I pay for things, I am from a utopia devoid of currency exchange."

I have no objection if you run up a tab. You may also return objects, provided they are not damaged. Laptop. Instructions.

Calassúrë begins investigating the astonishingly pretty laptop, reading the instructions and occasionally giggling.

Bizarrely pretty laptop! Sure.

"… What's so funny?" he asks, after one such occurrence.

"It's not so much funny, as it is the absolute most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life! Look! I can input and then sort information! I can color code it! I can have it color code itself! I can have it do math for me and input formulas for it to follow! This is amazing, I love it, I take it back, I'm not from paradise, I'm from a very close facsimile that lacks key elements, paradise would have Microsoft Excel!!!"

She resumes giggling.

Aww. "Have you found out about the Internet yet?"

"No, what's that, is it better than spreadsheets, because I find that highly unlikely, but would be really thrilled to be proven wrong!"

"I doubt you can access it here but you might be able to get an offline copy of Wikipedia –"

He asks Bar if they can somehow get access to Wikipedia in here.

I can provide static instances of Wikipedias from specific worlds and times.

"One from my world, then? … Or I could get a headstart on what might happen, are there worlds that look like mine?"

I can only evaluate world similarity based on published works.

"Are there ones that have the same published works as mine except for future publications?"

Yes.

Ooh! "Is there a similar trend for the future, could I get one that might suggest how my world's future will – oh, well, it probably won't go that way with how we're going to derail things, but could be interesting anyway? … Also a copy of my world's one, if you don't mind."

I can in no way guarantee that any particular future from a similar history will be predictive, but she supplies wikis.

"I wonder if I should ask for something similar for my world... Probably published works on artifact creation or songwriting theory if anything, I don't think I desperately need to know anything from my future."

"That could be useful," he agrees. "Would I be able to help out with that, or does it require a lot of contextual knowledge…?"

"I'm not sure you could do artifact creation itself, though you could maybe help with the theory. Making an artifact is very time consuming, it involves using osanwë on whatever you're making. The theorizing is the fun part, my father enjoys it, but I found it a bit too time consuming. My actual talent of songwriting is much more approachable and gives more immediate results, though I don't know how practiced you are at singing?"

"Not… particularly…? Definitely nowhere near as good as you."

"You can still sing a few of them even if you're about average, you just might have trouble with some of the more complicated songs, and might not be able to get as much of a range of effect. I can walk you through singing a healing one? It's a good idea for you to have it anyway, considering."

"… I will try not to be too embarrassed about my singing voice, I guess?"

"I'll start simple, okay?" She hums a few demonstrative bars.

He… hums them back? (With the right pitch, even.)

Good! Calassúrë smiles at him supportively, and continues humming the rest of the song, watching for any missteps that need correcting before they start singing properly.

"… I don't think I'm going to be able to remember all of that?"

"Oh. Hm. Can you read musical notation, then...?"

"I can read a bit of it, at least the notation where I'm from? I don't know if the translation effect extends to music."

It does not.

"Well. Uh. I might be able to learn your native magical notation fairly quickly if you know it well enough, or we can break it up into sections and walk you through each?"

"Breaking it up into sections sounds better, at least for now?"

"Sure, okay. This is the first part of it -"

And this time, she sings. It is more impressive than the humming.

… Oh dear.

He tries singing it back, and manages to get a large quantity of the pitch right.

She doesn't wince, but she sort of wants to. That's significantly worse than average Elven singing. Which makes sense, because he hasn't had the time Elves have had to get good at singing, he's eighteen, after all. She just needs to not hold it against him, not dismiss him as incompetent, and help him to do better.

She gently corrects the incorrect notes, successfully looking understanding instead of pained.

"… Did I mention that you're an extremely good singer, as in, I'm not sure there are humans that good."

"Thank you. I'm, ah, one of the better Elven singers, though by no means the best." That prize goes to her cousin. "I don't want to dismiss your entire species, I think it might just be a matter of practice? But we probably don't have time for that, either. Do you want to try a different tactic? Maybe one of your devices could replicate a song?"

"It could! That wouldn't help with developing new songs, though?"

"Well, no, but if a device could do songs it makes scaling them much, much easier."

"– That is a really good point." He gets his phone out again. "I don't know if it has to be high quality but my phone can do recordings, if you want to test?"

"Sure, and we can borrow a higher quality recording device from Bar if this doesn't work. Does the thing that records need a specific kind of acoustical room structure, or?"

"It should work just fine if you hold it near your mouth, the microphone – and device itself, actually – is designed to be used for long-distance voice communication."

He hands it to her. "Red button starts the recording."

"Okay."

She presses the red button, and begins singing. Her voice continues to be kind of astonishing. It's maybe obvious that she was simplifying the song for his benefit, and has now stopped doing that.

He tries not to feel too embarrassed as it's quite clearly (he hopes) a species difference.

And when she is done, here is how to play it back!

She does that. It sounds - not as good as Calassúrë herself singing, but still reasonably pretty. If with occasional feedback issues. Calassúrë winces subtly, but pays thoughtful attention.

"That felt like it worked," she pronounces, once the recording has finished playing. "If - not as well as it could have, with the quality of the playback. Better equipment would fix that, right?"

"It would definitely get higher quality, and you can get pretty high quality – you could listen to some music I have on this? The microphone is quite a bit worse than the speakers."

"Probably a better idea to get better recording equipment, record another song, then play it back through multiple sets of speakers and see how it affects the quality. Not that I'm not curious about your world's music, but we are on a bit of a time table."

"The timetable does seem to be on the order of decades but sure?"

Could they have some better recording equipment from Bar, please?

But of course.

"Even if it is on the order of decades, it's - getting caught up with things that are not focused on reaching our goals isn't - I hesitate to call it a waste of time, but I think it's badly allocating the time that we have. If I can get you immortal, then we have the rest of forever to talk about non-magical music and nonessential cultural details and the like. Instead of failing to make you immortal, and then that being it."

She reads the instructional packet and starts carefully setting up the recording equipment, not letting her curiosity get in the way of efficiently setting up.

He waits for a pause in the setup to continue, "Hm. I agree that we should prioritize, I'm not actually arguing that point, just – we will presumably need to have downtime at some point in the next decade, and learning about my world's music could be one way, so – we will probably get around to it even if we do prioritize?"

"We'll probably have some downtime, but I'm - if I am very mean to myself in the next couple of decades, it'll be unpleasant. But if it keeps you alive, then obviously it's worth it, because I have the rest of forever for recovery. I don't have the rest of forever to save you from slowly dying."

"Oh." Pause. "Thank you? – I don't know how much a lack of downtime would affect your productivity, I guess that would be the only thing to consider?"

"You're welcome. That'll be the main consideration, yeah. I'm not entirely sure, either, I haven't really had to deal with a crisis like this. But I can tell if my productivity is slipping and can take breaks accordingly."

… Nod. "It seems likely that someone else will come into the bar over the course of a decade for us, but I don't know if there's actually a hard cap on the time people have been here alone before."