I'd be the pretext, not the reason. And none come to mind.

Okay, is there a way to win it quick and clean and with a stable endpoint?

I like the way you think.

Uh, if we kill the right people in the fortress on the way out and then I go to the King and offer to give him whatever public statements and whatever opening he wants if he lets my brother conduct the sack of the city it'll be as clean as you can get.

How clean is that? I'm assuming my mother's usurpation was probably exemplary even compared to other planets' histories of warfare.

How many people died? The King actually only killed ten, taking power, but two of them were my parents so I am not inclined to be too impressed with his restraint. My brother'll take the city cleanly, in the sense that no one who isn't holding a weapon will die, but I don't know how much people will want to fight back.

Fewer than ten in the initial sweep, a few more than that in enforcing unpopular laws. Why are these people waiting for a pretext to go to war in the first place?

My husband's country is technically a sort of protectorate of Doriath and the King can't afford a fight with them. Doriath won't help Nan Elmoth if they're invaded for my husband having kidnapped and forcibly married me, but if the King did it just because my husband's undercutting his relations with Belegost then they'd probably wade in.

I might like to know more about the geopolitics here but I don't know how long we have before I'm spotted.

Dunno either but I can turn around and go home and keep talking while you hide or whatever you want to try, the palace is only ten miles' ride from here.

I don't have that projective range.

Meaning the 'I am telling the Truth' thing won't be in effect? Because it's really useful and soothing but I can fill you in on geopolitics quite effectively without it. My range is hundreds of miles with people I know and you are - very knowable - so I bet I could reach you at almost that much already.

My telling the Truth thing is in effect however I communicate except in writing but I can't use it as a form of communication in its own right that far away.

I'm both reading and sending, though I've been trying not to read everything since I noticed you didn't seem to have private thoughts. 

Oh, like her dad. That's fine, that doesn't bother Elspeth. Incidentally I'm a terrible repository for secrets and if mindreading is common here that makes me even worse at it than usual.

Yeah, everyone can do it. The King likes asking oaths you're not keeping thoughts tucked away from him. I wasn't really thinking we'd be keeping a lot of secrets. 

Wow, my mother would hate it here. Anyway, I can scurry up a tree and learn about geopolitics until we have a plan?

Better than nothing. And your mother's smart. There's a lot to hate.

Elspeth scurries up a tree very nimbly.

Wow, wish I could do that.

She starts riding home.

Okay, big picture: the continent is called Beleriand. A few hundred years ago it was ruled by Thingol and Melian in Doriath. They were in the middle of wiping petty-Dwarves off the face of the planet and they don't have the best relations with regular Dwarves either but they're all right except for that. There were a bunch of minor communities only nominally Thingol's to the northeast and northwest of him, and the Laiquendi to the east and the Falathrim to the west. 

Elspeth's with her so far. Wondering vaguely what the difference between petty and regular Dwarves is but assuming it's not relevant to the story.

So the Enemy comes, sets up camp in the north, rallies all orcs everywhere to his banner, begins capturing and enslaving everyone. Wipes out most of the northwestern communities and the entire east, has the Falas in bad straits, Doriath's holding on because they have powerful magic. 

Now there's the Noldor. We lived in Valinor, which is the continent just over. Before the Enemy arrived here he destroyed the Trees so nothing could grow in Valinor anymore, killed the old King, sparked a civil war, and took some powerful magic weapons. That's the civil war that the current King ended, the minute his father got killed, by assassinating a select few people and forcing loyalty oaths at swordpoint from a lot more, and then with a united host fought his way out of Valinor, landed here, conquered back everything the orcs had taken - Valinor had more advanced weapons - and then found the Enemy beyond his capabilities. So he settled down, started building, plans to absorb the whole continent politically and then take the fight back to the Enemy. Men came across the mountains in desperate straits because the war's even worse over there, and he made them all his vassals and is I think taking advantage of how rapidly their population increases, compared to ours. 

He's - very straightforward to work with, he makes it clear what will make you his enemy and that that's not to your advantage. He also murdered my parents and keeps my brother chained to his wall, so.

Elspeth is now wondering if there are enclaves of not being fucked up, because she can match most of this but she could also talk all day about perfectly lovely bits of Earth. The not-fucked-up is probably less relevant to the story.

Uh, I think some of the Dwarven kingdoms are perfectly nice internally, and Valimar's very strict but in a way that'd mean nearly none of this could happen.

Not exactly a stirring recommendation, but she did say she couldn't recommend any parts of the world. It's probably a good thing Jake isn't here, he's already presumably beside himself with worry but at least it's vague. That's four species here, Elves and Dwarves and Men and orcs, which is sort of as many as Earth has if you count hybrids as their own thing. She's still not sure what the Enemy is exactly.

Vala. They're immaterial and as far as we know indestructible and they're also - like, everyone else has some common elements to how they think and process and what their goals are. The Valar and Maiar are just kind of - different. Nothing they do makes much sense from our perspective. There are fifteen and most of them rule Valinor, not kindly but not heavy-handedly, but this one wants to do more mass murder and torture than the others would allow. Or different mass murder and torture. They don't really care what he does to orcs but they get upset if he touches Valinor or their favorite Elves.