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

[lintamande]

"Well?" he says when she's done.

[subtly_artistic]

"...Uh, Ranae thinks there is a decent chance she is possessed or something and a demon or something is imitating my voice but agrees that a demon probably wouldn't be able to summon her to a place like what I described and says I may do it after she's had a few hours to write letters and pack."

[lintamande]

"Okay," he says agreeably.

[subtly_artistic]

"So I'm supposed to call back in four hours and see if she's ready. I guess I call Charlie now."

[lintamande]

"I sort of wish my parents weren't the King and Queen and could come."

[subtly_artistic]

"That'd be nice, wouldn't it." Sigh.

[lintamande]

"Yeah. Though if they weren't we might not have met."

[subtly_artistic]

"You don't think you'd have come and seen what all the magical commotion was about if you lived somewhere other than exactly where I landed?"

[lintamande]

"I mean, my parents would have let me roam the city and I'd have gotten through apprenticeships unusually fast and I'd have been less sad all the time, I think."

[subtly_artistic]

"Sure. That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me, and we still could have met."

[lintamande]

"Yeah, I guess. What about your dad, is he coming?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Still need to call him. They don't live together, so Ranae couldn't ask for me. ...He might just want to stay behind. He's really attached to his home town."

[lintamande]

"Can't bring the whole town?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Uh, some of the people in the town might object. And I'm not sure he'd think it was the same if it were the whole town but on another planet. And the mana expenditure would be ridiculous and we don't have any Maiar around."

[lintamande]

"Right. We should see if we can get Olórin to come look after me."

[subtly_artistic]

"I suppose you could call him and ask, although Maiar might not be very portable."

[lintamande]

It transpires that Maiar are not at all portable, they don't think. They expect they only exist at all in Arda.

[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.