"Maybe I like singing more than you do."

"Maybe - you are a really good singer after all."

"Why was there a lot of singing in the simulation for Sauron's boyfriend?"

"It pretends that his family got him out of Angband, so there's a whole host of Elves around. Elves sing a lot."

"Does Sauron sing to his boyfriend in it?"

"Yeah, sometimes, when he's pretending to be his Elf boyfriend or one of his brothers or something."

"That's nice of him," she says, not entirely sure whether it's true. 

"I'm antsy from the not tinkering for so many days so I'm going to go do that now and probably through the night so no sleepover this time." says Bonesaw. 

"Okay. Do you want me to sing and then go or have you had enough of singing?"

"Sing!"

Bonesaw will fidget through it and mutter some ideas under her breath because she in fact really wants to tinker but her friend offered to sing for her and she can't exactly say no to that.

She can make it short, and then she shoos.

Goody! And Bonesaw is going to do so much experimenting and she has so many ideas for her big project. She goes into a fugue and barely sleeps for the next several days as she works, not calling on Beka at all.

And then, very early one morning, there is a Bonesaw in Beka's dorm, crouched on Beka's bed, yelling excitedly: "Orf! Wakeuuuuuuup!" and bouncing up and down slightly. 

The orf wakes up. (So do her siblings, who clear out of the room as quickly as is politely possible.)

"I'm up!" says the orf. "What is it?"

"Smell this!" she says, shoving a not quite blooming flower at her face.

"But not too much! Smell it a normal amount!"

Sniff?

Nothing happens immediately.

Bonesaw impatiently waits a moment and then asks "How does this sound?" in an incredibly melodious fashion. 

"Oh that sounds nice have you been practic- oh wow," she says, because her own voice sounds different too. "Wow! That's so cool!"

"Do re mi fa so la ti do!" Bonesaw sings proudly - all the notes sound as they should except somehow it sounds exquisitely pretty in a way it wouldn't normally.

"That's gorgeous! The flower is doing it?"

"Yeah! It actually makes everything prettier, not just sounds. Like if you look at one of your tattoos it should also look much nicer?"

She looks. "WOW. I love it! What would have happened if I'd smelled it too much?"

"Lasted longer - like a bunch of hours - and been a lot more distracting while it was active and maybe a bit too sweet sort of? I don't think one that isn't blooming could get that intense from just one try - if you smelled a bouquet of blooming ones all your senses and even your thoughts can start seeming really really pretty in a way that's too distracting to do much else even though on a deeper level you know it's not really actually pretty and it'll feel artificial and unsatisfying."

"Really the neat part is if you smell them at lower doses then that all the time for weeks. Then everything will seem unsatisfyingly artificially pretty but without them everything will feel dull and drab."

"Huh, I guess I better watch out then, that sounds sad."

"Oh I don't think we're going to plant them in Angband and I can give you immunity if you want - though partial immunity would be harder and at lower doses they're just plain nice."

"They are!! I just meant I might run into them in your lab and shouldn't smell them there too much."

"Yeah," says Bonesaw while nodding, "Some guests in my lab should smell them too much but definitely not you."

"Oh oh also! When it blossoms fully the petals are narrow and pink and tan colored and it looks like your pocket tattoo!"

"Oh, cool, did you do that on purpose?"