She grins wryly. Yeah, I'd picked up on that a little.

I wish you'd met them in better times, we're usually very generous people in every sense. My father and brother dying and me being worse than dead was so hard.

Yeah.

I hope you all end up okay when you go back.

I bet killing the Enemy will help. And then if he thinks this is real he'll kill himself and that will not help. But.

Yeah. I meant in the meantime, though. They seem to be having trouble with the idea that things won't just go right back to how they were, and I know you plan on basically pretending that they have, but that sounds really hard if you have to do it all the time and with people who know you well.

Since they want to believe it I won't even have to pretend very hard.

...yeah. That wouldn't be true at all with kobolds, she chuckles.

Oh? Not very self-deceiving?

Yeah. Our world is dangerous enough that that's really not safe.

So is ours, but it wasn't when we all grew up.

Mmhmm, I've noticed that.

In Valinor you could afford to lie to yourself. And I suppose we sure did.

From what I've heard, that's really not your fault. Not that that helps here, though.

It was my fault. I could have done a lot more, if I'd known what we were facing.

Sure, but you didn't know.

Should have.

Sigh. Maybe. But from what I've heard it sounds like the kind of place where it'd be hard to figure that out, too.

You know better now, you'll do better now. No point in doing anything with the past but learning from it.

Yeah. But I don't want to teach my brothers to be less naïve on this front.

Yeah. I kind of think Tyelcormo might do okay, but Carnistir and Curufinwë don't seem to have the flexibility, even if there weren't other reasons to worry about how it'd go. Like, if they had to we could help them through it? But it'd be hard for them.

Curufinwe is not able to think about anything less interesting than engineering right now, he's not going to be interested in me beyond whether I try to force him to bow to a King Father'd have hated.

Sigh. Yeah, probably.

Which I might decide to do! In which case my mental fitness will certainly come up! But I have at least a little space to maneuver in.

Nod.

Anything you want me to do or not do related to that, by the way?

Don't think there's anything, but thank you. I'll just do what's needed.

Nod. All right. I would like to make that easier for you if I can, though.