"The reason we have such strict taboos around oaths is it's so easy to cascade them. You go to someone in a form of a loved one and say 'it's really urgent, I can't explain, but swear to trust me for the next ten minutes...okay, I'm your loved one, I'm in danger, if I explain you'll be in danger, if you do what I say you'll be safe, I love you, swear to do what I say for the next ten minutes, thank you now swear me eternal servitude."

"Ah. Fuck. Okay."

"A Maia has no excuse for making that mistake. But still. Children in your world grow up learning not to draw on the floor? Children in ours grow up learning that you die for the King without question but if he asks you for an oath you say no."

Nod, nod.

"I'm going to pace and sing more, if it does not bother you."

"It doesn't. I was wishing I could read local sheet music and violin along."

"I shall ask Macalaure to get on it when he's not busy seducing the whole populace of Brithombar over radio."

Cam laughs softly.

"You think I am joking! When it became obvious to me that my father'd never trust anyone but his children I resigned myself to having to turn us all into collectively everything he'd need, and I think I mostly succeeded."

"I'm actually not sure why your brother would have to be involved for me to learn to read local sheet music. You could recommend me a book on it. I could probably even program my computer to do automatic notation conversion if we mark most of the same conventions."

"I was thinking of the latter. I wouldn't know which conventions to tell a computer to translate, and I don't know a book on how to read sheet music, though I can read it fine."

"Maybe the curators have noticed the oddly sourced reviews in a strange language by now and are already hard at work on it. - Should I be trying more directly to establish communication with Hell? They can't come here, but they could do experiments..."

"Would Hell be excited about the opportunity to think up something with more destructive potential than black holes?"

"Probably somebody in Hell would, there's tons of demons."

"We may end up needing it."

"Let's see if they even have anything to have noticed yet..." Cam intercepts all the submissions from Valinor to the curators and looks through them, then snorts with laughter.

"Oh?"

"They are very disproportionately sending polite reviews of wordless music and recipes and abstract paintings. ...and softcore porn? That's weird."

"...softcore porn?"

"Pictures of naked people?"

"Oh. We, uh, don't find that sexual."

"I'm sure the curators will figure that out eventually! ...they're also flagging non-sexual things as sexual. I'm sure they think they're being helpful but I have no idea what these items have in common."

"Can I see?"

"If you really want to watch shampoo commercials be my guest." Behold.

The tips of his ears are in fact going to turn pink at shampoo commercials. "Ah, so some humans do have hair! I'd idly wondered. ..have you seen a single Elf with their hair loose since you got here?"