"If you actually manage to get me home before there's any more turnover of primes I might advocate for oligarchy-of-primes. It's been proposed, but the current set might do particularly well with it."

"It's what I'd expect to arise, honestly. What makes them well-suited?"

"Sarelle and Ekador are both brilliant, so am I, Patience and Loel cover people skills in sufficiently different ways that I expect most people would get along well with at least one of them even if us non-people-person primes put them off, and we all get along with each other very well and have strong magic and the inclination to creatively apply it."

"That does sound perfect," he says. "The prince won't object?"

"I don't think he would, but I'm relying on private information for that assessment."

He nods. "We generally don't have turnover, politically. This is the first time a king died and it's been disastrous."

"Was there even a clear succession?"

"There was, but it was assumed the King'd be retiring when they came up and people didn't feel any obligation to abide by them."

"Oh dear."

"I just want to win the war, and I think my half-brother wants the same thing at least enough to pretend there's no dispute. And as long as his people stay out of my way I don't think it'll be an acute crisis."

"Isten's half-brother disappeared and has been generally presumed dead, so there's no dispute there, although there could be if something happened to Isten."

"Or if he resurfaces? That actually seems quite concerning."

"That I'm not worried about for private information reasons."

"Ah, okay. 

The political crisis here will probably either be obviated by the war or Maitimo'll sort it. Hopefully. Half-brothers add lots of complications but mine is well-intentioned."

"That should help."

"At least here, having a real Enemy is quite clarifying on silly political disputes."

"Hopefully."

Father, Maitimo says to both of them , you're making her nervous because now she's implicitly taking a side in a disagreement she doesn't have enough information to evaluate.

But I told her she didn't need to do that.

She's powerful enough that her presence is.

Fëanáro sighs.

Thank you.

So if telling people they needn't have any interest in our succession dispute and it's peaceful anyway doesn't suffice to communicate that, Fëanáro says irritably, what exactly does?

In the general case I don't think you can, he says, I could devote myself full time to ensuring there are no political consequences of Kiri landing here but there's only the one of me and we want to make diplomatic contact with the locals so we can convince them not to shoot orcs on sight. In the specific case she's got the telepathy and you could probably step close enough for her to verify that politics has not crossed your mind in a month and using her for political advantage is totally uninteresting to you. He's smiling at his father fondly. She might be mildly baffled. 

Fëanáro sighs again. Kiri, can I step in range?

You may if you like.

So he does.

"...ee," she giggles.

"Hmmm?"

"...there is not really a nonweird way to say that you have a pretty mind."