"I'd rather know," she reassures him. "It's just slightly awkward to talk about. So, um, my plan was that if I still wanted you when the war was over and I was older I would know it was serious; actually talking about it now complicates things. Er, if I don't love you forever you're not going to end up like Aegnor, right?"

"I have both a better track record of coping with loss than him and also way more reasonable priorities."

"Just checking. Anyway. I get that the age difference bothers you and the last thing I want to do is pressure you into doing anything despite being uncomfortable but can you tell me what age I need to be before it stops being an issue?"

"Um. I told the little you several hundred but I'm not sure that's actually - a principled answer - why are you worried about pressuring me?"

"Uh, because insane amounts of magic?"

"Did I tell you - you know, I don't know if I did - Melkor came to visit us in Formenos, before he went openly evil. He wanted to convince my father to work with him against the Valar. My father was, I think, briefly tempted, the Valar had just exiled us. And then Melkor made the mistake of making a very vague implication that he could hurt us if he wanted to and my father slammed the door in his face and said 'begone, jail-crow of Mandos!'

Nelyo later got the chance to spit in his face but that's less of a happy story -

-we are not pressurable."

"Okay, then I am in fact fully-grown and Andreth has made some remarkably accurate-looking remarks about your species not maturing much once you come of age--see also Aegnor acting like a seventeen-year-old boy with his first crush--and I'm not sure why the age difference is such a big deal, although the political and other reasons not to do anything anywhere anyone is liable to find out until Morgoth is dead do remain."

"That seems utterly reasonable but as I told the six year old you I am reckless and make bad decisions."

"I am nonzero amounts of reckless but I don't usually make bad decisions out of it and it was my idea," she points out. "Also, Andreth is a sensible person who many people think highly of and she outright told me that the age difference thing was silly and if it weren't for the politics I should definitely kiss you."

"And you're not going to have a harder time - denying rumors, behaving normally, whatever - back home?"

"I haven't said I love you even though I'd be perfectly comfortable saying it to someone I was friends with because if someone I was just friends with with no crush reacted as though I had meant it romantically I could clarify the issue and I don't want to lie to you about how I feel about you because I was planning to stop hiding it at some point in the undefined future but I have no qualms whatsoever lying to someone whose business it is none of and to the extent that lying would be more difficult I think having this conversation at all would do it but I don't think that's a meaningful amount."

"Okay. And...I told the younger version of you this but the war is the most important thing in my life and even after it my family will be the most important thing in my life and I can be very very fond of you but don't ever expect me to choose you."

"As long as you understand that Illia comes first for me too and that if the Oath coerces you into trying to kill people--or you feel the need to for some other reason and I disagree--I'm going to stop you--I'm okay with that. ...For the short term, anyway, I'd want to talk about that before getting married but that's to the tune of 'I don't want to swear off children forever and I'd be leery of having children with someone for whom the children wouldn't come first' and I'm not willing to risk assuming that you wouldn't choose your father or brothers over a hypothetical son or daughter without asking."

"Only person the Oath wants dead is the Enemy. And I'll feel betrayed if you decide we're wrong about something and stop us but not more betrayed if we've kissed. Marriage is - not in wartime. Not worth thinking about now."

"The only person the Oath wants dead is the Enemy until and unless he decides to sow discord by giving someone a Silmaril and they decide not to give it back. I am confident in my ability to bargain for and/or steal a Silmaril if that should happen but not so much that I'm willing to commit to not holding you back. If--if there was, something like Alqualonde, where you had no better options, is the kind of thing I'm thinking if, I would make everyone stop killing each other, not help them kill you."

"And if we ever disagree enough maybe we'll stop wanting to kiss each other. As I said, I don't think I'll feel worse about that because at some point we got around to it."

"Yeah. Probably it won't come to that, though."

"I like the way you found yourself here and immediately adopted our problems as your own. I like the way the Enemy makes you angry. I like watching you get stronger. I want to be there for that. I want to be there for you, if the war endures long enough for you to get ground away by it. I think you're great. Also all of the largescale magic tricks you pull are really hot."

"Before you, people who I told about my issues were separated into 'potential shoulder to cry on' and 'not'. No one actually said anything that helped before. And I hate the way you don't think as highly of yourself as you should and I want to hold you until you believe me down to the bottom of your soul that you're amazing. And when you smile--god, you have the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen in my life."

"All twenty-one years of it."

"I've met a lot of people in those twenty-one years! Many of them smiled at some point!"

"Does the bar object to people kissing, do we know? The bar, ah, has opinions."

"Bar, do you object to people kissing?"

Not a bit. However, you may wish to know nudity is disallowed in the main bar area. It is not forbidden in private rooms or the back yard.

"So Bar is coded to my social norms more than yours, it seems."