"Well, whatever disaster happened in Valinor is going to have Elu really angry. Most people here have cousins who lived in Alqualonde. ...you could summon a list of the dead so people could check, but I'm not sure if that'd be more inflammatory than useful."

"Maybe a list of the reembodied would go over better? If any of them have been; I won't recognize any names..."

"Oh, good idea. Though they'll guess if you have a list of the reembodied you must have a list of the dead. Also I think they're at least as bothered by what it implies about the newcomers' personalities. Elves don't kill people unless something's very, very wrong with them."

"...except when there's a war on and the people are orcs?"

"If someone's trying to kill you, and your family, and your whole race, it doesn't say much about you if you have to kill them to stop them. I am guessing the people of Alqualonde didn't randomly try to kill the newcomers or they'd have mentioned that."

"That is indeed not my understanding, just checking."

"The Federated Falas had three killings in the five centuries before the war. Two of which were self-killing."

"That's a very impressive rate."

"We would have been surprised if Valinor's was higher, because, you know, Valinor, but it wouldn't have been a 'Doriath seals its borders' thing. What they did is unprecedented. 

They also don't seem very sorry."

"I don't know what sorry looks like on them," Cam says. "I wish I'd shown up earlier."

"Yeah. Anyway, Melian will probably aid you anyway, though she's going to strongly advise against parley with the Enemy and probably mistrust you if you go to it, assuming the Enemy got a chance to bribe you and might have succeeded."

"I am a little hard to bribe," Cam points out.

"The Valar are magic. They probably have lots of things you can't just reproduce."

"All of which I'm doing fine without."

They wait outside the walls and someone eventually emerges to talk. 

"Hello. I have an experiment I'd like to perform regarding Maiar and illusions, to see if I can verify the genuineness of oaths. Is Melian willing to help?"

"What's the experiment?"

"I'd like her to produce and record some illusory words - it doesn't particularly have to be an oath - and then ideally a sentence of mixed real and illusion words, and I'll see if I can conjure the recordings based on certain parameters. I can provide the recording device if that helps."

"She says that she'd be happy to produce and record some words if you provide a recording device."

Cam hands one over. "Hold red button to record, release to stop."

He takes it gingerly. "And it doesn't do anything else?"

"That is absolutely all it does. Although I hear there's a Brithombar ambassador in there and if they'd like a phone I can provide."

"No, thank you. We'll get back to you when Melian's checked this."

"Sure. Can you give me an idea of how long that may take?"

"It could be a few hours."