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]

"Yeah. Although you said there'd been some attrition - how much?"

[lintamande]

"People were scouting for a relatively safe place to build a new city. Lots of interest in the city once it was built, but that'll take Years."

[subtly_artistic]

"Naturally."

[lintamande]

"I think my parents will have more children," Fëanáro says. "Normal children. Who are happy in Valinor. They'll be okay without me."

[subtly_artistic]

"Children are not a fungible resource."

[lintamande]

"Parents kind of are. I have you and Rúmil now."

[subtly_artistic]

"...Parenting is a slightly fungible resource, but I would argue that parents are not."

[warpfairy]

Are you and Rúmil -?

[subtly_artistic]

Nope.

[lintamande]

Rúmil does not notice this exchange at all. "I think your parents love you very much and miss you very terribly, and that it was okay for you to leave anyway."

[subtly_artistic]

Bella nods. "Their priority should be your thriving, and that involves not being in Valinor, it's pretty clear, but that doesn't mean they'll just shrug and figure as long as they can have more kids they're all set. It would be good if we could work something out with the Valar to allow visits."

[lintamande]

"And messaging at a minimum."

[subtly_artistic]

"Interplanar earwires," Bella nods.

[lintamande]

Fëanáro is picking at his fingers. "They could visit sometimes. The Valar'd let them come back for sure."

[subtly_artistic]

"The Valar might decide that if you want to see your parents you have to go there and stay, and not let them leave in order to make that the choice you get. It would be stupid, but it would be Valarishly stupid."

[warpfairy]

"I'm getting a really bad impression of these people."

[subtly_artistic]

"They're better than the gods on my plane but it makes their failures really conspicuous and disappointing."

[lintamande]

"They did a great deal of good," Rúmil says. "They just weren't good enough, and their errors were very very bad."

[warpfairy]

"And they don't wise up when people explain the problems to them. Sounds dangerous."

[lintamande]

"They might, eventually. They do not wise up fast enough."

[warpfairy]

"Well, there's plenty of room here. Fill up as many planets as you like with evacuees with my blessing. ...I seem to have begun construing myself as owning the universe for interuniversal contact purposes, that's interesting."

[lintamande]

"You're Bella in a universe that doesn't eat people," Fëanáro says, as if this explains everything.

[warpfairy]

"I suppose I am."

[subtly_artistic]

"Materia probably stunted my growth. I imagine typical specs for being one of us involve way more hubris than I have."

[lintamande]

"She invented so much stuff in Valinor," Fëanáro says. "So fast."