"You're gonna have to improve on that if you want a black hole."

"A shame. Don't try evacuating; we will shoot you down."

"Somehow I am unsurprised. Don't get too cute with the prion diseases, I'll start sadly estimating the Dwarf population."

"I do not believe you that you'd rather kill a hundred million Dwarves than Valinor's fifty million Elves, if you get fed up enough with this war to decide to sling black holes around."

"Then you know whose population not to casually cut in half and to make sure they all seem to be having decent quality of life, don't you."

He looks delighted. "No bioweapons that are effective against Dwarves until I've had the chance to deploy them in Valinor. Noted."

Ugh.

"I have no real desire to keep you from your futile war efforts, and you don't seem to have come equipped with counteroffers. Shall I let you go?"

Cam glances at Maitimo.

"You give us the Silmarils back," Maitimo says, "and we'll figure out how to destroy Valinor without his help."

"Talk to me once you have a way to do that," he says, amused. "If it's good enough you're on."

...

That is not really what Cam had in mind when he looked at Maitimo.

"What's with," he gestures at the invisibly-messed-with landscape.

He waves a hand and now it's a cityscape. Waves another and now it's a very elegant amphitheater. "It just seemed crass to discuss the fate of two worlds somewhere pretty."

"I meant the people or people-shaped objects or whatever they are."

"I didn't ask for any oaths of temporary safety from you, and could in fact be inconvenienced if you decided to start creatively attacking me, so I brought backup. They're of course bound not to bother you unless you start something, and then not to retaliate disproportionately. And I am sworn not to provoke you into it, but I do not think I've been provocative in the slightest. I don't want to retaliate myself because I do not want you to know how trivially I can toss you around in a fight."

"Ah."

"Are we done here? I had some fun things planned for after the truce and so am delighted to end it sooner."

"What constitutes 'evacuation'?"

"The planetoid was cute and in the interests of enabling cooperation here today I didn't blow it up. If you do it again I will. If the Noldor want to babysit everyone's children under the sea I shall let them do that a while, I was worried they'd do more interesting things. If I think you're trying to be clever I can just say no ships leave this planet's surface. You can take as many Elves as you like to the refugee planet if you don't ask them for oaths they aren't my servants."

That last bit is exploitable as all fuck. "Can't make more planetoids or can't put more people on that one?"

"Neither."

"Have you been doing enough background reading that it would amuse you to be told that you're worse than Hitler?"

"We're in different weight classes, but I'll admit he punched well above his. Is he in Hell, are you acquainted? You can tell him I hadn't accomplished nearly as much at the same age.

Whichever planet you end up feeding to a black hole, you'll be surpassing him too."

"We are not acquainted and I assume he doesn't read his mail."

"I can also do bioweapons that don't kill people, just cause them torturous pain. That way I don't lose any leverage here but also everyone is in torturous pain. Black hole in Valinor, Cam. You have to admit it'll improve the place."

"I've heard of the concept of a mercy killing, you know."