"...The supposedly-reformed Enemy."

"It is not in dispute that he was a right monster before."

"And he can't do anything about the monsters?"

"Orome goes over and hunts them. But there are continents full and it's not like they obey the orders of the Enemy."

"Hm."

"Thoughts?"

Vague suspicions.

Makes me nervous too. Nelyo's pretty openly anxious about it.

The supposedly-reformed evil god avoiding the nigh-psychic judge of character would make most people anxious, I think.

All the more reason to leave. Eventually.

Unless that's what he wants you to think.

I'll leave trying to outthink the evil god to Nelyo and Dad. I want to leave because I want a Noldorin kingdom that's not in the land of the Valar.

Fair enough. What do you specifically want out of that, or is it just the social conservatism thing?

That, and I have problems with authority in general.

You really are perfect for my sister. You anticipate responding to authority better when it's 'your brother' rather than 'a bunch of xenosapient deities and your grandfather'?

Nelyo isn't gonna try telling me what to do. He might try telling me the consequences of various things I'd consider doing and then I'll not do things that have consequences I don't want.

Well, I suppose refraining from exercising authority is one way to get people to respond better to it.

He does exercise authority in general. He definitely does. He just knows how I'd react and won't bother with me.

Most people don't need to be coaxed into handling authority better. Idaia's approach is different, she just refuses to recognize any form of authority that she doesn't trust absolutely.

Nelyo she might trust absolutely once he gets a chance.

It doesn't need to be absolute, but yes, Imliss likes him enough that I don't expect it to be a problem.

He's pretty great.

My rule is actually--if someone tells me to do something, the more likely I would naively expect it to be that I'd regret doing it, the more I have to trust the person who's giving the order.

That seems pretty fair. My rule is someone tells me to do something and I go 'why do you think you can do that'.

If it's a crisis? If a building's burning down I think it's pretty reasonable to hand someone a bucket of water and tell them to go dump it on the building before dashing off for more water. Sometimes there isn't time to explain why you need someone to do something.