"I understand. I'm trying to think how likely the Valar are to be able to help."

"That I couldn't tell you. It'd help some if people didn't die of old age, but I still don't think the whole world could reliably keep it down to less than one a week forever, and that's about as much as I could possibly keep up with in the long term."

"Dwarves don't die of old age and the Valar don't know how to bring them back yet when they die of accident, but they're working on it."

"Working on it how?"

"Some wheedling Eru, some contemplating whether various things they can currently do are safe to try."

Snort.

"What would 'unsafe to try' look like, in a resurrection method?"

"Undesirable results for the resurrected party, misallocation of their power such that Melkor could escape while they weren't looking, that kind of thing."

"...that's a concern? Kinda sounds like a disaster waiting to happen."

"Not a substantial concern, but they tend very cautious."

"Still. ...if he springs loose somehow and you need help dealing with him, I'm game."

"Thank you but I really hope that is not the climax of this plot as it were."

"Oh, me too, definitely. But if it comes up."

"Thanks."

"Welcome."

"He's kept in a virtual reality setup. For Elves imprisonment just is a form of torture, so - although it's not the case for Ainur - we're very much inclined to being generous about the details insofar as we can without letting him threaten anyone. Virtual reality is - he can set up things to experience and then they'll be presented to him as sort of illusions."

"...better than boredom, I suppose. I'd hate it."

"I imagine, since your entire interest is having effects on people."

"Yeah."

He is quiet for a long moment.

(In some ways it might be easier if he really knew how she felt about his hobbies. In some ways it might be much worse. He can't really bring himself to ask.)

Flying, flying.

Singing softly. She's familiar enough with the local language to improvise, now, and sings about flying.

Well. It's still nice that she likes to fly.

He goes back to making pictures in the clouds.

After long enough without a conversation she will fly politely around a picture and go home.

For the next few days he's still away from home most of the time, and then sound stops escaping from his wing of the palace at all.

She eavesdrops on the workings of the government.