high-energy physics

[warpfairy]

Federation political prisons are not particularly uncomfortable. She's not going anywhere, but she can read, she's considering taking up an instrument, the only really awkward thing is that she doesn't particularly want to be supervised while she's sweating her way through her next pon farr one way or another but that's years off. That and she wishes she'd taken longer to get caught. But she was running out of the really low-hanging fruit anyway.

This is what she signed up for. She makes up imaginary profiles of people on the planets she got to, people who can live longer fuller lives with the stars in reach, one per day. One per day and she'll have loads of estimated impact left unused when she dies. Perfectly reasonable tradeoff and she can still read books.

Someone wants to interview her about Vulcan; they don't want to lose anything that anybody remembers; she gives the interview and then picks up some poetry.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh well. I'll see if I can convince Charlie, anyway."

And she calls her dad.

[lintamande]

And Fëanáro waits patiently for her to be done.

[subtly_artistic]

"Charlie'll wait to see if Ranae disappears like I did and calls him before making any rash decisions."

[lintamande]

"That's fair enough," he says. "So now we just give your mom some time."

[subtly_artistic]

"Yeah." Sigh.

[lintamande]

"Are you sad?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Not exactly, I'm just not sure what it'll be like having them here. They're - comfortable with being small, they brought me up to be small for good reasons, and here I am founding an Elendil and sciencing wizardry... T'Mir's going to be very weird for them..."

[lintamande]

He hugs her. He still cannot really reach past her knee for hugging, but it's a very loving knee-hug.

[subtly_artistic]

Scoop. Snuggle.

[lintamande]

Rúmil comes by a little while later, is encouraged to hear the news, shooes Fëanáro with a project idea. "I don't know that we should have him doing introductions for new people."

[subtly_artistic]

"I mean, my parents are not high-stakes in terms of what impression they have of the company I keep, I can probably salvage things and Ranae in particular adores kids, but as a general matter probably."

[lintamande]

"I was not worried they'd wreck any familial relationships. He's the one likelier to avoid someone if he hits it off badly with them." He shakes his head. "Congratulations. I hope they are a fraction as proud as they should be."

[subtly_artistic]

"Well. Not yet. But maybe later."

[lintamande]

He shrugs. "All right. If you have a few hours and don't want to spend them standing around, there's more here on the Elendil charter..."

[subtly_artistic]

She has a few hours until she's supposed to call Ranae back! Charter.

[lintamande]

The time passes quickly.

[subtly_artistic]

"Okay. Mom calling time."

[lintamande]

"Best wishes."

[subtly_artistic]

And Bella calls her mom again and finally reports, "Okay, she says I can summon her conditional on my actually being myself etcetera."

[lintamande]

"Lovely. Do we have a nice place for summoned people to arrive?"

[subtly_artistic]

"...I was just going to land her in my bungalow. She is not a Quendi and will not need to be overwhelmed by beauty to like the place."

[lintamande]

He laughs. "Okay. I'll leave you to your family reunion, then, call me in if for some reason it needs to be courteously interrupted with something important for you to look at."

[subtly_artistic]

"Will do. Thanks."

[lintamande]

And they leave her to summon her mother.

[subtly_artistic]

Which she does.



An hour and a half later she and a person who looks like an old version of her with much shorter hair emerge from the bungalow.