Yeah has he tried being less evil that would help.

"I am trying for 'honest with you about the level of evil I am'."

And that level is 'too much' and honestly where does he think he's going to get with this. There wasn't a time limit in I swear to tell Elspeth the truth without omitting information she might find relevant, anyway, she can just ask him what's up occasionally if she has any reason to suspect he's being sneaky.

"I was hoping to get to 'we can discuss plans for negotiation on recovery of something necessary to win the war without getting angry two-word answers from you', but if I'm making the prospects of that worse I will go get back to work."

It's really very hit-and-miss whether any given thing he says improves matters there or not, which seems almost funny considering that he seems to pride himself on his social skills and Elspeth by rights ought to be Easy Mode. Probably it's all the evil, he should get that checked out. Anyway if she is to have some negotiation role other than sitting there legibly thinking true things he could tell her about it.

"You are not easy mode! Most people want less terribly hard things from me and are not constantly distractingly loathing me and I am particularly unaccustomed to people periodically loudly reevaluating whether murdering me'd be a more convenient way to achieve their goals. or whether their mother might show up at any moment and do it for them.  If Doriath can't be persuaded to give up the Silmaril, do you have any ideas about things I can do other than invade and take it?"

Most of these problems would go away if he were less evil. Like, substantially less evil, not trivially less evil. Is he sure she ought to have thought about that ahead of time before going and sitting near people from Doriath, because that seems like it could go either way.

"I think if an army arrives at their border it will not be a surprising conclusion that the army has contemplated attacking them."

Yeah, but he said 'other than invade'.

"If it'd require them not being prepared for it then I guess you should not think about it, no."

Well, she doesn't know if it'd require that or not, not having thought about it.

"Thank you. Let me know if you need anything."

If she needs something what's she gonna do, keep it a secret?

"Well, I'm not reading you constantly. It is unpleasant to do so. So you can bring it to my attention."

Noted.

They march on Doriath.

Elspeth will go with the negotiating party. This is even sort of like her actual job except in every way.

The negotiating party explains the situation and explains that they're happy to keep all three Silmarils close to Doriath's borders so part of Doriath remains protected.

Doriath observes that currently all of Doriath is protected, and this seems strictly better. Eventually the Valar will probably do something, anyway.

Well, they could also conduct Silmaril research inside Doriath but that would probably require them to let Noldor in and Elspeth can understand how that might be distasteful. Waiting for the Valar to show up seems dumb; they've taken this long and clearly are very busy doing whatever they're doing.

Yeah, there's no way they're letting any Noldor inside Doriath, the Noldor are universally terrible. They have been managing just fine for centuries and expect to keep managing for additional centuries. Shame about the Noldor losing their whole empire and having to huddle around the Silmarils; maybe they shouldn't have bombed Angband.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Noldor are Doomed. Things they think are a good idea just aren't.

It was sorta her idea.

Well. Their condolences. They are not giving up their Silmaril.

They do realize the Noldor in addition to being terrible are also stupid and therefore swore an oath and literally have no choice but to keep trying to get the Silmaril, right?