Imliss really seemed to like him, too.

I don't want her to stop liking him! He's great! He has his priorities and they're mostly pretty great priorities. I might even be able to make him make this one of them if I hassled him about it enough but that isn't really what I want.

Oh, so it's that he has other priorities, not that he's being a raging homophobe-slash-dick-to-you.

Of course not? What did I say that made you think that? He could fix it and he hasn't, doesn't mean he's ever been personally awful to anyone over anything.

The way you said he definitely knows--I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions.

Oh, no no no. He just knows everything so he knows that. He pretends he doesn't as well as anyone else. Better, since he's good at pretending.

Okay.

I still think it'd be better if he fixed it but I guess no one's perfect.

Maitimo's biggest flaw and he really does not have many is that he thinks of himself entirely as his goals and sometimes leaks into thinking of other people that way so I don't think he really gets why someone would want to sleep with a man or why besides reducing their effectiveness at their other goals the stigma'd bother them.

That's a weird flaw to have.

Yep. People mostly point it out to him by saying he's too perfect but I think that misses the core - he can model people well but he doesn't actually know what it's like to do reckless uncareful things.

Now I'm half tempted to spy on him just to see if I can catch him doing something uncareful but that would be super rude and there's no way I could get away with it.

I tried for centuries! Entirely careful, that's our Maitimo. I wondered once if he had a secret boyfriend and that was why he was so unwilling to touch those laws but our father's - all right, on that sort of thing, Maitimo'd just have brought him home and with us on his side the rest of the world he could maneuver.

I mean, there's other reasons besides gender not to bring your sweetheart home, is there anyone your dad would have been pissed off about anyway?

Nah. Uh, my uncle. Let's just assume my brother's not secret lovers with my uncle.

Ewwww, she giggles. Yeeeah I think we can rule that out.

Also he's got four kids of his own and married Elves can't cheat. He prods the bond between them. You'd know. Anyway, I mostly just hoped he had a secret lover because if not he is coming up on three hundred and has never kissed anyone and that just seems rather lonely.

She shivers in quiet delight when he prods the bond. I suppose it does. Some people just don't feel the lack.

And none of my business at all, really.

Yes, there is also that.

If Imliss really means to screen her friends by 'makes awful comments about homosexuals' she's going to screen a lot. 

It's less that she's liable to actively screen them and more that if she becomes aware of it she's liable to get chillier towards them. I think she could be friends with someone like that but not close friends.

Very reasonable. I really would be happy to drag you both south. And we could get exiled from Tirion and have to do it anyway.

How are you proposing to get exiled from Tirion?

I mean, lots of people want us exiled from Tirion. I wouldn't even have to do anything.

If it's going to happen anyway, wouldn't it be more fun to do something to deserve it?