"Yeah, when it doesn't come with the death it seems like a pretty clear win. I will maintain that we are generally prettier. Totally worth the horrible fates and the lack of free will."

"You are indeed very pretty, but I'm pretty sure magic could close that gap too if we really wanted to." She taps a finger beside her copy of his silver-glowing eyes.

"Can you grow hair long with magic? Back in Tirion that's all any of us would have used it for." He would definitely comment that she doesn't need magic but that'd be out of line, she's twenty-one and there's a war on.

"What, really? That wouldn't even be hard. Way easier than re-growing your brother's hand." She touches her temple and grows her hair a couple of inches to demonstrate, incidentally causing her braid to hang looser than its customary plaited-tight-to-the-scalp.

He is possibly blushing a little. "That's amazing. And, yes, would once have been peoples' favored use of magic, we're a little vain about that sort of thing." Canyourebraiditwithmagicyoushouldprobablydothat - no, he's not a child - "yours is very pretty, is that magic or did you grow it out?"

Is he--

"I don't usually do magic to my hair. A little bit, sometimes, smoothing out split ends and stuff;"

"Well. It's a pretty neat use of it. Regrettably no one will ever be able to ask you to do it for them."

"Right, because it's--intimate."

"I don't know what's analogous in your society - perhaps being naked? If there's a reason, then it's fine, but you wouldn't suggest it to a friend as a nice recreational activity. Which is a shame, it's a delightful one."

"Nudity in the presence of others is usually but not always sexual, for assorted cultural reasons. It sticks harder on some people than others. Illia's genuinely embarrassed by it, but I don't really care outside of context."

"And I have in fact engaged in lots of definitely platonic hairpetting, but it's good to know the principle so you don't accidentally offer it to someone in an awkward context.'

"Andreth says elf hair is pleasanter to touch than human hair."

"I suppose she would know, wouldn't she? Elf hair's probably pleasanter to touch than human-who's-been-malnourished-and-living-in-a-warzone-hair, I have no idea if between an healthy Elf and a healthy human there'd even be any difference - I'm not actually sure how much of the differences in appearance is just that, we didn't grow up hungry - and it might be that if you liked ours better you could tweak it. Seeing as you can apparently do whatever you want."

"I can absolutely do what I want. But I'm pretty much restraining myself to copying traits from your species that have unambiguous practical benefit, since most of the point of Beth Miqlat--Illia finally named it, means 'house of refuge' in Hebrew--is the fact that Illia and I are human."

"Beth Miqlat," he says, "she did well, that's beautiful."

"My sister is not an elf, and could cope perfectly well without, but she does like beautiful things very much. I copied your eyes at her urging--she did the same with Fingon, first, and spent hours staring at the new colors."

"The eyes are also an obvious strategic edge. If you can see Thauron coming that much faster, you have that much more time to do something. Hair would be purely cosmetic, and though personally the amount I'm willing to change how I want to look for political and symbolic reasons is 'none' I'm sure Maedhros will nod approvingly at you and possibly suggest other ways you can do design and titles and procedures to emphasize mortal-ness."

"Well in my case it's refraining from changing, which is much easier. The eyes took some getting used to. So far the most obvious thing I can think of that I've been doing in terms of emphasizing species is wearing clothes based on designs from home, but then we don't exactly have titles and procedures yet."

"That'd do it. Maybe also hairstyles, jewelry, a crown if you're going to wear one -" he shrugs. "I hated the court in Tirion and when Father was dead and Maedhros missing and Maglor had the crown I checked on him regularly, terrified he'd choke on his dinner and the bloody thing would fall to me. I'm really not the person to ask."

"I've been wearing my hair like this since I was six, so that's not an issue. Crown I think we already talked about in passing. Jewelry--I'll leave that to Illia. I don't think I'm likely to get into melee for someone to choke me by a necklace but that doesn't mean I ought to risk it."

"Magic jewelry can all be in the form of rings, I guess."

"Magic jewelry would be another issue," she acknowledges. "The tradeoff I'm willing to make for pretty and the tradeoff I'm willing to make for magic are not the same."

"That's itself pretty strong proof you're not an Elf."

"True enough."

"Anyhow, there's really nothing to improve on. I think you'll make a fabulous symbolic human princess. Have you eaten dinner?'