"Um. Do you want to learn the thing where you can keep your thoughts back from us? I should have suggested it earlier I just don't pay much attention to peoples' thoughts and didn't realize you weren't already doing it."

"Illia mentioned it and I haven't gotten around to it yet, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to share that and I stand by what my rational mind was saying rather than what my gut feeling was trying to assert."

"You don't owe me an apology for thinking things. Ever. And you're unlikely to think or say anything about my family that I haven't thought or said myself, over the centuries. What matters is how people treat each other."

"You have way more of a right to judge your mom than I do, regardless. Anyway, I should do the thing. Does it usually take long?"

"You'll start making improvements within a few hours, you won't have it down as a habit for weeks. I can tell you when I notice you've slipped up, that helps with habit formation, except I really don't listen to people very much and might not notice. Maedhros would."

"Illia meditated on it and then no one mentioned having heard a peep out of her. I don't know if that means meditation works better or if they were just being polite." Hmm, what's a good division, she wants something personal, different languages would work better if she weren't ultimately planning to teach--whichever brother Maedhros had been referring to when she asked if he had a preference, probably Curufin? She should ask about that at some point. Whatever, the basket thing works, she's overthinking this.

"Shall I leave you to it?"

"Yeah. Let me know when it's time to head out. Or eat again, or something."

"We'll eat and then head out around sunset. I'l find you then."

After about an hour of ordering her thoughts, Odette goes outside, finds a leaf lying on the ground somewhere, and goes back to her room to experiment with it.

People grow plants from cuttings, which means it should be easy to convince this leaf to grow a twig and then a larger stick from its stem. She breaks off part of the stick and experiments with breaking it down and reassembling fibers into a workable paper. Then she coaxes her stick into producing enough wood to make a book's of wood and creates the pages.

Yes, she could probably just ask for a blank journal, but that wouldn't be good magic practice, would it?

She gives the book a hinged wooden cover, and asserts that the edge of each page should attach directly to the spine, since she doesn't actually know how to bind a book. Once she has something good enough to keep, she writes (by magic. Of course by magic. She'll use green ink derived from the leaf's chloroplasts, why not).

He's impressed when he comes to find you. "I've seen a Vala do that. Not anyone else. Dinner?"

"You've never seen anyone but a Vala raise the dead before, so I had better not find the category too intimidating!" she says, getting up and tucking her book under her arm.

Dinner is bread and stew. "Again. Maedhros has the world's most boring tastes. If you'd find you'd be more productive if we had nice things -"

"I'm mostly just really confused by how similar this is to food back home. And I have no idea what else you have, to be honest."

"Uh, lembas, but we use that in the field so people prefer not to have it when it's not needed. I expect "bake wheat" and "put meat and vegetables in a pot" are human universals. We grew up in Valinor, we have elaborate delicacies of whatever type you desire, the Dwarves will trade you for cinnamon and coffee and so forth if you're in the mood..."

"Coffee. I will definitely want to remember that for future reference. I'm not really picky, though, I might want to look into getting more variety later on when I get sick of this but for now it's fine."

"Certainly. I think the King keeps a Valinorian table, so you can enjoy yourself while you're there."

"Sensible allocation of emotional health resources. Art sister gets the fancy food, and rage sister gets the excellent impromptu therapist."

"It's not a strength anyone else has thought I have. You might just need to have more exposure to people who agree you ought to become God and have a sense of how those attempts tend to go badly."

"It's possible. I still appreciate it."

"Ready to head out?"

She downs the last dregs of her stew. "Yep."

"Fight through the night and go to Hithlum in the morning, or rest and go there tomorrow night?"

"Illia's expecting me tomorrow. I'll go in the morning."

"Alright." And they ride out.