A week for the fighting to be over, then we have to set up hospitals and distribution centers and policing and a functional state, I may be down there for a few years. It is very unwise to take over countries haphazardly.

Nod nod. There was a lot of work to do when Mama took over the vampire shadow government and that wasn't even a real country and she was able to retain most of the personnel.

I don't get the sense from my sister that I'll be able to do much personnel retention. I'll of course aspire to it. But if it takes ten years to get Nan Elmoth really firmly integrated into the empire with free travel to and from everywhere else, it'll be worth spending those ten years up front. 

Even really old vampires aren't usually that casual about spending a decade on a thing.

I think I'm a lot older than what you're thinking of as a really old vampire.

Possible. Stefan and Vladimir are a little over three thousand years old and they're the oldest ones with whom she's acquainted.

I am coming up on three thousand and the King's older than that. Old Elves are eight, nine thousand. The Queen of Doriath is millions of years old.

That might be it then. That and vampires are really static as people and have a hard enough time adjusting to new status quos, let alone temporary changes.

Elves don't have that problem! I am looking forward to a decade of nationbuilding. I will miss Maitimo but once it's safe he'll probably visit.

That'd be sweet if it weren't for the thing where Findekáno is under a horrifying motive-altering oath that would have completely escaped her if not for good old unreliable sourceless truth what the fuck.

He blinks at her.

He has no idea what to say but that's a disaster he needs to come up with something -

He tried to slip that past her, right under her nose - she struggles with her magic in case she can fix it like she could make progress on Chelsea's victims maybe maybe maybe -

Please don't do that. It's not going to work and it's a little upsetting - Maitimo, Elspeth's upset, please come help me -

She can't anyway, she's not getting any sourceless truth about what he wants when he's not under oath and can't try asserting it at him - should she go - she's not in personal danger of this one, she can't swear oaths like that, her word is true but it can't strangle her, but what can she even do here if he's going to try to finesse her like that with an informational advantage she can only surmount when facts come out of the ether at random -

Destroy Angband. It's really really important, it is not worth risking anything else over -

Then it should not have been worth risking Elspeth deciding Maitimo is impossible to work with should it.

Obviously not!!!! He is an idiot and I am furious with him for it and deceiving you today is by far the greatest evil he's ever done and I will go yell at him all evening, but Angband is no less important for that!

Everything this person says or thinks is contaminated and she doesn't even know all the details of how, she has the sense of the oath but does not know enough to guess its implementation. She hisses.

Thousands of people are being tortured, are you really going to decide you won't help them because of one? Who's not in fact being tortured, I might add?

I. Cannot. Trust. You.

Right, which is why I am proposing arguments that can be evaluated on their own merits.

No they can't. All of my information here is filtered. All of it. And this can obviously cause me to miss things. I'm not usually among a species of mind-readers and I know how far selective truth can go. Convincing doctors she was old enough to be one of them - calling her gift into service to support a fake name just close enough - she's got such a trustworthy face and people will believe anything she says if it's not literally false, if they haven't heard her speak with ringing honesty before, and she can't usually control who else a person talks to and wedge most of them into motive altering oaths -

He sits down and buries his head in his hands. Fuck. Yeah, I see why you don't - it's not nearly that bad but of course I'd say that - Maitimo, come the hell over here whatever you're in the middle of, she doesn't trust me, we need you -

Well, she can't trust Maitimo either but she mistrusts him differently.

And he walks in, and Findekano leaps to his feet and glares at him. How could you? How could you risk two hundred years of war just for us? How could you even think about it?

I know, he says. I know. I'm so sorry. Elspeth, what do you want to know? "I swear to tell Elspeth the truth without omitting information she might find relevant."