What would you rather we do instead?

Don't have better ideas. It just always turns out like that.

She nods. Being around other people usually does, yeah.

's why I don't like it much.

Yeah.

What is it about politics that you don't like, or is it not like that?

Literally everything about it, people being disingenuous, people trying to get an edge on each other, just being around people that much at all, having to pretend stupid stuff matters and stupid people have my respect...

Yeah. A lot of that happens less when it's people who like each other and get along pretty well to start with - I wonder if you wouldn't be more okay with it if you were used to being around people who were more like you in other ways - but some of it is just unavoidable.

I like my family and I still can't stand politics when it's them.

...yeah, I could see that. Not that you don't like them, but you don't really have the right things in common to avoid the annoying kinds of it, you still have the problems it's meant to solve.

Also it doesn't even. Solve problems, I mean. They just get worse.

Mm? Got something in mind?

Literally everything? The Enemy just manipulated everyone into being horrible to each other and now we're barely speaking and there's no King.

Ah. She leans a little more heavily. I don't think I have the story back that far, yet. Kinda sounds like if they hadn't been able to do that they'd have just tried something else, but I'm sure that doesn't really help.

Whatever he tried instead would have been less good for him, because otherwise he'd have done it instead.

Yup, like I said, doesn't help.

What politics is for is deciding what to do - sometimes indirectly, a lot of the time it's about deciding who gets to decide, or deciding how to decide, but basically that. And I think no matter how you're doing that you're going to have problems if someone starts messing with the process.

Also, like, I don't like deciding what to do or being told what to do, even if it's a good process.

Mmhmm. Sometimes that's not really avoidable, though. Like, kobolds do a pretty good job of it - outright telling someone to do something is rare enough that it's usually right to take it as a sign you've really fucked up - but, like, if a tribe is going to stay together they have to decide where to go somehow.

Yeah, sure, communities need to do it. That's why I'm never really part of one, if I can avoid it.

Nod. That pretty much just gets you killed, where I come from.

You'd really rather the hosts were talking to each other more?

No, that's probably a terrible idea. I just wish everything wasn't all fucked.

Yeah. I do think it's moving in that direction, just, slowly, it's not anyone's first priority.

Oh, Nolofinwë and Maitimo will make nice because it fits both their self-images. I don't think things in general will get better.

I mean, people know where I am when I'm here. I've mentioned a couple times when your siblings have come up with a particularly good idea that it was them. It's not popular, I still have to be careful how often I do it, but I can, that's an improvement over how it was when they first showed up.

Wait, what'd happen when they first showed up if you mentioned something was us?

I didn't do that at all until they had a chance to calm down enough for it. At first if I mentioned you at all they'd tense up and go kind of wary - they really didn't like that I wasn't just straightforwardly joining their host and having nothing to do with you.