He laughs out loud. "Maybe they'd agree to it, really."

"Somehow I suspect they'd be more annoyed about the part that involves walkways so that people can travel over their heads."

"Yes, I think that'd give them some reservations. I haven't met them; I can't actually say for sure."

"I haven't met them either but so far I know exactly two things about their policies and both are geared towards being hostile to your people, so."

"We, ah, started it. In a very regrettable fashion that we also cannot set right."

"And if they were saying, 'when Morgoth is dead, you and I are going to have a reckoning' I would be more sympathetic. And--nope. Not going down that road."

"Sorry, not going down what road?"

"Ranting about Doriath's king's policymaking based on two pieces of information."

"Wise. Kingship is hard and I'm sure there will be two nasty things to say about you, no matter how well you do at it."

"Yep. I still think those two decisions were bad ones and will continue to do so until and unless I get some really surprising evidence to the contrary, but extrapolating from there is a bad idea."

"The Ages make flawed rulers of us all."

"And if I manage to refrain from making any mistakes quite as egregious as the ones that have been made so far it will be largely because I had those mistakes to learn from."

"Well, temperament counts for a lot, there. But yes."

"I shan't pretend I'm not stubborn, but on the other hand, I shan't pretend to myself that I'm not stubborn and fail to realize I need to compensate."

"Just remember that you have a lot of resources, all right? We want to see you succeed, we're not going to laugh at you if you come to us in horrible confusion about tax law or a complicated murder case."

"Right. Well. Hopefully nothing like that will come up soon."

"I expect not."

"There won't be that many people to start out with, which should help."

"It's a good way to learn, get steady at the helm before the complications compound."

"Yeah."

"Mistakes happen. Admitting them is more important than avoiding them."

"I think that depends on the mistake, but admitting them is essential to avoiding repeating them, so."

"And most aren't as big as they feel."

It's. Kind of obvious why you're warning me about this in particular. That last comment sounded like--it had more context for you than for me.

I'm legitimately just warning you about all of the pitfalls I have seen in a millennium of a lot of different people trying to rule a lot of different societies.