I see the animal. We probably have something similar, I just didn't travel as much as Irissë. He looks at one of the other people quitely crowding the room for heat reasons, sends the elephant. She nods.

Yes, he muses, Valinor has most animals somewhere. Okay, so what you need to do is think of a way of delineating public and private thoughts. Some people do this visually, spacially, with other senses...

Assuming the delineation is supposed to be a metaphor, spatial works as well as anything else. Private thoughts can stay safely on the correct side of the cranium, and public ones can go here, held out on display or pushed from one person's forehead to another's.

I can see the process you're choosing to delineate your thoughts. You want to go higher up - the fact you delineate is in the private side. The fact you think at all is in the private side.

It's weird to think of the fact of thinking as secret, but it does make some sense. Thought takes place physically in the private space, after all.

Does everyone just get used to doing this all the time?

It becomes instinct, yes. Most people pick it up in ten, twenty years? I've never known anyone to take more than fifty, and I have some relatives who are thoughtless and temperamental. Bitterness, grief, anger.

It takes years? If your year is anything like the same length as mine, a decade is a long time. Let alone five.

Not for everyone. Just - even if you're bad at it, you'd definitely have it down by then. You are older, motivated, you'll likely learn quickly.

I'd better. Wouldn't want to pick between broadcasting every thought out loud and spending half my life as a hermit.

Half your life?

Well, you did say those numbers were on the long end of the range.

You misunderstand the source of my confusion. Are you that certain your death is imminant?

Imminent? I hope it's far enough off that I wouldn't put it that way. But a hundred years would be a very long life span. Is your year just that much shorter than mine, or are people here immortal as well as telepathic?

We do not die, save by violence or grief.

Humans get about three score years and ten, or eighty if they're strong. It's better than it used to be, but there still aren't a lot who live to a hundred. Violence isn't required, but I don't think we even can die of grief if you mean that literally.

Immortals. That's good for them and all, but back home people who live forever tend not to have particularly human-compatible goals, let alone ethics.

You didn't conceal that thought, were you intending to? You need to sort of practice at it regularly. Are you a Man, then? I've never met one but the short lives are supposed to be rather their distinguishing characteristic.

Which thought? I meant to send the human life span summary. 

Anyone she shows or tells about the existence of the spirits and monsters becomes her responsibility. If after falling from the sky and everything else it's a telepathy accident that gives it away, then... that's probably exactly the same. Complete strangers who could and probably would accidentally inflict bad karma by violating a code they don't know about.
Anything about there being immortals on Earth definitely should have been private.

Yes, I'm human. The species gets called man sometimes, but the word's ambiguous.

The thought which accompanied the life span summary was that in your experience of our kind, we are unconcerned with yours. He grimaces. It turns out to be difficult to hear only the thoughts you're deliberately sending, save by not listening at all. I'm sorry.

Experience of his kind? Could be worse, but this implies elephant. (Should be private, but privacy isn't reliable yet. Back to the pachyderm it is, just in case)

I'll have to get better at privacy one way or another, if everyone here has this extra sense. Is there somewhere out of range I can practice?

No one will be able to hear you if you're a hundred yards off and not shouting at us, but it's a bit cold out there.

If it's between that and having my private thoughts indistinguishable from other people's public ones...

Might be time to take a risk. I should see if I can get my heating system working again. If it still works after the crash it'd be warmer than in here, and mobile.

You have a heating system? Lovely.

I'd be happy to share it, once everything works that needs to. At first it should probably just be whoever's testing the telepathy. Is there someone who's some combination of cold and trustworthy?

Everyone is cold, and to my knowledge everyone untrustworthy is very far from here.

Anyone who can be spared, then. I'd jump straight to using it to heat a tent, but for the moment I should be around as few people as possible.

Understood. He says something in his language to one of the people in the tent. She turns around.

Hey! Findekáno says you want to go outside, test a heating thing you have, and practice not thinking out loud?