Thanks.

Tyelcomo's coming to talk to you, it sounds like there's some complication in giving the things back or something.

Okay.

"Hey. Are you King or not?"

"Is that going to be necessary to see justice done here?"

"'Starving our people to bail other ones out of their bad decisions' is an interesting definition of justice."

"Their losses must have been horrifying."

"I know that. It doesn't mean we throw away things we need to win the war."

"If I thought it were remotely plausible this were real I would come home and set it right at once."

"You don't have enough information to string us along remotely."

"What information do I need?"

"What resources we have, what constraints we're under, what shape they're in, how likely they are to attack us, what the war effort is going to require, what grows here, what we've been able to duplicate -"

"Give them back what we stole."

"No."

Darn it, she'd been starting to like that one.

Is this mostly a practical problem that I can maybe help with, or...?

I don't think so. If one arises I'll tell you.

All right. It's not going to be a disaster if you can't get them to do it, I don't think; the other host is expecting them not to.

I know. 

Okay. Sigh.

The best thing would be to find another world entirely for them, but I don't think they'll agree.

Wasn't my impression, no. They plan to march on Angband as soon as they're recovered; they could do that from another world, I suppose, but.

Let me think.

Tyelcormo leaves.

It's easy to see what he should do if any of this were real. But he can't do that. So -

She goes to rearrange her pantry, now that it's emptier. It's easily within osanwe range if the kitchen is.

I knew I just had to wait for the plot hook. But still. How unpleasant.

Yeah, so much for that nice quiet winter.

Trust me, I hadn't been expecting it.