"I think nobody's likely to have made plans expecting additional stork money. Letter to Aydanci's friend mentioned that it might get cut off and - and if it was causing overcrowding he should slow the storks down -"

"Yeah.

When the war's over we'll get immortality to everyone in your world and figure out an overcrowding solution. Somehow."

"Yeah."

"How many children would you estimate we're letting die to go fight this war?"

"Depends a lot on how long it lasts and how quickly the economies can adjust to the increased stork supply without constant help, they might not need to be slowed down at all. ...Some, though. There aren't enough storks out yet to get all of them and there would be, if - but not everyone's leaving Valinor, are they? Some people can still help make stork chassis, put them through - if the portals get closed outright that's squarely the Valar letting the children die."

"If it's more than four hundred thousand or so we could go through the portal to your world instead, if the Valar are inclined to close it - that's the population of Endorë, best I know, and it may already be too late for a lot of them..."

"Except there's going to be all those new species awakening."

"Yup. No idea how to count those, and 'soon' as the Valar count time might mean two Years or fifty..."

"Also, honestly, do we know that Melkor couldn't open a portal of his own if the Valar weren't around?"

"...no.

War it is, I guess."

"Yeah."

They have figured out a mirror setup that refracts shines into nice greenhouses that can grow plants even in total darkness. They have gathered and purchased a Year's supply of non-perishable food that they pack onto the under-assembly boats. Fëanáro's going to keep working on aging. Curufinwe's taken over his other projects, which include magic weaponry and reconstructing war servants, the latter of which he'll help Kib with.

Macalaure has a wind song to help the dinosaurs fly with the extra weight of a rider. He's going to do faster perception next, unless anyone has something urgent. Findekáno has been composing something for crop growth.

A family's been found to adopt Aydanci. Maitimo says they'll be suitable.

Suitable like, 'can, even while being Elves, successfully raise a son who is going to remember being married to a man without making that unnecessarily horrible' -?

Yes, obviously that was an important criterion.

And - he's going to have the same personality but he's starting fresh, even once he remembers things he could get them in any order, if he remembers all childhood stuff first or something he could be forty before he has an inkling he might want me to be in his life and instead go back to nursing a crush on that one antiwar activist or falling for an Elf something, he doesn't have to be married until and unless he wants to be. Can they tone down the monogamy.

I am very invested in your husband not growing up to think that the proper order of things is forever-exclusivity. 

Also, he could be straight.

...I am actually not totally sure Aydanci's oddball orientation isn't inextricable to his personality but yes he could be.

Thank you for finding him good people.

Of course. He'll be happy. What do you need right now?

...does it count as an answer to that question if I say that I need to go meet these people and tell them he likes math and he's never going to be a morning person and stuff like that -

I can take you to meet them.

Thanks.

So he takes him to meet Aydanci's parents. They have a son, who's twenty-five, and were going to have another before the war, and know that among humans men sometimes marry men and nothing negative about this should be said around Aydanci, and the prince Nelyafinwe said it'd perhaps be good for Aydanci to know the other human his age so they'll take him to play with Lári occasionally.

"That's a good idea. He's - I'm probably going to want to give him a general outline of everything once he starts having the dreams. They're really hard to piece together without knowing what's going on sometimes and they can be in any order, he didn't keep notes as much as I did so I can't just give him those but I can tell him what his life was like -" He tells them how Aydanci will be able to recognize a memory dream. He tells them that he likes math and he's never going to be a morning person and that he's so brilliant and manages to get quite a lot of information about who they're going to be raising across before he breaks down crying.

Aydanci's new mother gives him a hug. "We're honored. He'll have a good childhood, really. You'll have him back."

"The important thing is not that I have him back. But thank you."