Yes she supposes not everyone can be her mother and if she had to pick between her saintly Grandpa Carlisle or, like, Siobhan, as a replacement, sainthood does not necessarily win out.

Is your mother a saint? What would she do in this situation?

Mama doesn't have Grandpa's particular claims to sainthood (she did not have to independently discover drinking animal blood without first killing humans; she did not find herself in a position to need to leave her mate human and none the wiser out of respect for his consent; Grandpa is literally the only person to achieve either) but she is sort of ruthlessly good. Elspeth's own childhood memories are, not fuzzy, but filtered, by subsequent attacks on what she knows was immense affection for her mother at the time - but she has her mother's life from other perspectives, from most of her family in fact - she has what she's built up from the ruins after Chelsea couldn't touch her anymore -

- it's not enough to build up a complete "what would Mama do", but Elspeth thinks Mama would not stop Findekáno from deploying whatever unpleasant forms of resource he has to prevent a country from falling into disrepair, however viciously she'd defend his right not to do that.

I'm going to go back. If you'd like to come I am sure I could use your help; if you would rather travel to my sister's, please do tell her the news.

Elspeth will come with him if he likes.

Maitimo was not expecting guilt and self-loathing to make him stop functioning. This will be a problem; he needs to function, there's a war on. This room might be some of the problem; perhaps he should sleep somewhere else? There'll be rumors - there are of course already rumors, Elspeth goes around blasting it at everyone in her hearing -

He rolls over and sobs into his pillow.

They come back to Himring.

Elspeth already hates him a little less, substantially out of uncertainty about just what he's trying to pull.

Convenient, because once he learns this he hates himself a little less. It's still at the 'incapacitating' stage but it's something.

Findekáno walks into the King's rooms. He pauses for a minute at the door because this room is full of cues for him to behave a certain way and it's going to be absurdly hard to do anything else, here, and part of him wants to turn and flee.

Maitimo is still curled up on the floor. Maitimo looks at him wonderingly.

"Very clever," Findekáno says. "I know you planned this."

"Didn't actually give it a very high chance of working," Maitimo says, "just higher than anything else that didn't endanger the war effort."

"This doesn't endanger the war effort?"

"I made arrangements assuming I'd be incapacitated for a few days, and I don't think I'll be incapacitated for longer that that. There are lots of functional people full of guilt and self-loathing."

"Do you want me to put you in bed?"

A shudder. "You shouldn't have to touch me."

"I'm pretty inured to it. I have a list of demands but I'm happy to make them while cuddling."

Maitimo looks at him like he is a shining beacon of all the light and goodness in the world. 

He lifts Maitimo into bed. He stands back against the wall, by reflex, hands folded in front of him, eyes on the ground. It takes Maitimo a second to notice. "I'm sorry," he says, once he does. "I'm sorry. Three hundred fifty years -"

"Yep."

And then, absurdly hopeful, "you said you had a list of demands but would make them while cuddling?"

So Findekáno climbs into bed and curls up in his arms. It feels nice. Safe. He sends that. Maitimo makes a strangled noise. 

"I want you to swear never to allow an arrangement like this to exist anywhere in your kingdom, between any people."

"I swear it."

"I want to run the country."

Maitimo makes a confused noise.

"You don't seem very functional," he says, "and maybe you get it together in a few days or maybe not, but I'm not confident you'll be functional in a century."

"I won't. The war won't last that long."

"And when it ends?"

"Right now I want to kill myself but I'd give that a good deal of consideration."

"What exactly did you swear?"

"I swear to deeply, searingly regret everything I've done to Findekáno. I swear to hate myself as much as Elspeth hates me."

"..."

"I was going to lose you!"

"Not time-limited?"

"Not time-limited."

"I will let Elspeth know that she has a truly astonishing amount of leverage."

"Okay," he says miserably.

"You don't want me to go."

"I don't want you to go."

"You want me to, what, kiss you and say I forgive you -"

"No. You haven't forgiven me, can't deceive myself about that. I just want you here."

"Fine. I want to be the commander of the King's forces and I want you to defer to me on policy decisions and I want a detailed, thorough, honest apology -"

"I swear you can be commander and as long as it won't damage the war effort I'll defer to you on policy decisions and - I murdered your parents and then forced a fealty oath from you with the threat of a civil war and you prevented the civil war and told people to stop fighting and were instrumental in bloodlessly uniting the Noldor and I repeatedly raped you and coerced oaths from you and used your concern for your people to get you to obey me and I would in fact still be doing it if Elspeth hadn't insisted I stop.

I  know too much but if I didn't and you desired it I would walk into Angband and stay there until the score was even and it'd be - it'd be a long time -"

"You didn't even make any of that conditional on - on my continued cooperation with you."

"I did not."

"I was just wondering if that's because you were not thinking clearly or because you'd decided you were not interested in coercing me into bed even on more even terms."

"'not interested' is not the operative thing. I am never ever going to do it again."

"...then I am probably never ever going to touch you again. I don't think I'll want to. It'd be worth it to get what I wanted but I'm not going to independently summon the interest."

Maitimo goes very very still.

"You okay?"

"You're touching me at the moment and if it's the last time I want to enjoy it."

He gets up. He watches Maitimo's face while he does. He feels so heartless and that's really not fair -

Elspeth? Think this is going to work.

For what value of 'work'?

I have the command of our armed forces and whatever title I'd like and he'll defer to me on internal policy decisions where he doesn't think I'm endangering the war effort, and he swore never to permit the existence of this kind of arrangement between any people he has the power to stop, and he did not even ask anything in exchange.

Huh. ...this has not become less probably a ploy for Findekáno's presence/forgiveness/affection/whatever but it has become more probably an earnest one. Better than most of the alternatives.

What alternatives were you thinking of?

She didn't know exactly what Maitimo had done or how it constrained him (and still doesn't). Could have been that he just needed Findekáno present and/or in a slightly more pliant frame of mind to take some further step she has not imagined in detail. If she'd had any specific ideas Findekáno would have known about them beforehand.

He says he swore 'to deeply, searingly regret everything I've done to Findekáno' and 'to hate myself as much as Elspeth hates me.'

...what, indefinitely?

Yes. 

Is he sure that Maitimo actually did that and didn't just say he did it because wow that seems really stupid it's not like she could convincingly pretend not to hate him if he doesn't behave or anything.

He could be lying. He did not swear to having sworn that. 

Okay because that would be so stupid. Also if she, like, dies, she will not be able to hate him any more, she should maybe be worried.

I sincerely don't think he's a state to order people killed. Though I did just tell him that this wasn't going to win me back, so I suppose maybe - want me to go back and ask if it was true, and get an oath not to harm you or order you harmed or bring it about...

That'd be reassuring.

He goes back.

Maitimo's staring blankly at the ceiling. 

"Can you swear that everything you said last time we spoke was true?"

"I swear everything I said last time we spoke was true. I swear specifically that I swore exactly the oath I told you I did."

"And will you swear not to have Elspeth assassinated so you can get out from under your self-loathing?"

"...I swear not to have Elspeth assassinated, or do things you'd consider equivalent, unless it's necessary to protect innocent people from her or keep her out of the hands of the Enemy or some other reason Elspeth-as-she-represents-herself would agree with."

"So are you just planning to hate yourself forever, or..."

"I was going to hate myself forever anyway, off the strength of the first part of the oath. This way if she ever stops hating me I'd be able to stop hating myself."

"You're really fucked up."

"You just noticed?"

"I thought you were psychologically healthy except for not seeing anything wrong with keeping mind controlled sex slaves.

I asked. The first time. I was assured you were of sound mind."

"I am. I'll be functional in a day or two. Go reassure Elspeth."

"...if you're trying to make me feel sorry for you..."

"I promise you, 'get a pity fuck out of Findekano by swearing myself to permanent agony' wasn't my play here."

"What was?"

"Get to keep seeing you."

"Well, here I am. I'm leaving again."

The King nods.

(Elspeth, unsure how long to expect this conversation to take, waits.)

Swears that the oath is exactly what I said, swears that he won't assassinate you or do anything I'd consider equivalent unless you're killing innocent people or working for the Enemy or otherwise in circumstances where you'd agree he was right. 

Okay.

(She's not deliberately recalibrating her dislike but it's kind of hard to direct all that energy at someone who's gone to so much trouble to make himself apparently harmless.)