"Ah, but would it be intensely beautiful singing about his dreadful big brother?"

"Stunningly so! You'd be moved to tears for him!"

"Now I'm tempted!"

Cáno, Imliss has not yet heard you sing and also both of us are anxious and miserable because various horrible things are the talk of the town. Will you come up to the palace and fix these glaring problems of mine?

Didn't sound very mean to me.

He'll act as put-out as if I'd threatened to have him dragged here, just you wait and see.

Oh, I look forward to it.

He arrives a few minutes later and hugs Maitimo like they have not seen each other in a decade. "You're so demanding," he whines only once the hug is done. "Come manage my mood, Cáno, come impress my friends, Cáno..."

"Come show off, Cáno," Maitimo says, and hugs him again. "Imliss, Macalaure, I'm sure you met but during the prolonged interrogation."

"To be fair, it was a very memorable prolonged interrogation."

"We try not to bore our interrogees. What'd'you want to hear, Imliss?"

"I'm actually not at all sure I've heard enough music here to know about genres."

"Just sound pretty for us," Maitimo says, leaning back in his seat.

"Just smile charmingly for us, Maitimo" Macalaure says, "there's no skill to it, right?"

"None at all! I claim no advantages except an unusually winning smile and no other talents to distract me from continually deploying it."

Macalaure shakes his head at him.

And then he sings.

It is, in fact, a song about the harrowing tribulations of an impetuous young man with a demanding big brother.

Maitimo was so right about every part of this! Wow. Wow.

Other people sort of gather in the hallway, after a while. Maitimo hands around chocolates.

Of course he does.

And after a while he stops and everyone projects awe and delight at him, Maitimo most fervently, and the crowd disperses.

"Your brother told me what you were going to sing about, I don't think I fully believed him until it happened!"

"Maitimo borders on omniscient when it comes to us. Though he also cheats, he knows I've been composing that one."

"What, really? Whatever, it was the best thing I've heard in my life."

"Thanks. You doing okay? What with the City of Drama?"

"I was mostly holing up with books and engineers until Melkor decided to start agitating against my species."