Nod, nod.

"Anyway. Pleased to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too. Please teach your Elf some - things."

"I mean to try."

"Thank you."

"If there's anything urgent or, ah, self-contained and not requiring attitude changes -"

"Nothing that is either, but I appreciate it."

"We'll get there eventually. The magic one can read minds, maybe I can have him just transmit everything until they can make sense of it."

"Read minds. That must be - something."

"I'm honestly very jealous. He has magic to pay attention to a hundred things at once and it's - quite the approximation of omnipotence, the attention for everything and the means to invisibly command it and a few hundred thousand people who will do whatever you ask."

"One of the advantages of monarchy is how pleasant it is for the monarchs."

"And Elves get to skirt many of the disadvantages. Anitam remains a democracy - will probably eventually stop weighting the votes, even - but I cannot say that born to that I'd have had the wisdom and strength of character to give it up."

Slight smile.

"I'd be honored if you cared to visit my Anitam sometime, see what we've done with the place."

"I would be delighted as soon as transport is consistently legible."

"The interworld transit situation involves the tenuous cooperation of some very frustrating gods but our engineers think they can manage a better one and then it should be a straightforward trip."

"How tenuous is tenuous?"

" - so it's another version of the Valar that apparently had some involvement here, only these ones evicted and cast a magical Doom upon their relevant Elves, and agreed to put portals in the ocean for everyone to go through so long as no one annoys them or gets ideas about staying."

"I imagine it would be more trouble than it's worth somehow to send the local Valar to ask them for stable portals, or portal-creation lessons."

"We have no meaningful diplomatic contact with the local Elves or Valar - maybe I can ask my sister-in-law Peka if there's a way of getting anywhere on red princess Peka -"

"Yours decontaminated? ...And moved to Anitam?"

"And married the same person, it's kind of frightening."

"How peculiar. And yet I'm sure I would remember you if there were a you on this Amenta."

"I should think so! When I was two and three I followed like a puppy dog whenever anyone was going to Voa. No, we sat down with the Anitami set and some family trees and worked out that my great-grandparents, who had my grandfather and then died during the occupation in my timeline, died before that in this one."

"Are there many other discrepancies, or haven't you yet investigated?"