"They were powered by the Trees and Melkor killed the Trees when the Valar let them loose, and also after the Valar tried to steal them and Melkor stole them and Ungoliant tried to eat them he swore to kill anyone who withheld one so it wouldn't be great for there to be more of them around anyway."

"...ah. Okay. That doesn't seem like a very wise thing to have sworn."

"I was there, it...really didn't seem like a good idea to me even at the time. Ten minutes' work could have had something better."

"Everyone kept leaving me and Melkor killed my dad and burned down the house and the library and everything I had and then the Valar didn't know the Silmarils had been stolen so they said to break them for them, so they could put the Trees back, I had to, they weren't mine to begin with because everything in Valinor was the Valar's gift to us, and I was so scared and so sad and I wanted to die and go be with my mom and my dad but my children said - said that there had to be an independent kingdom outside Valinor, had to be a place for people to live and be safe without the Valar or Melkor, and they'd never leave, they'd help me get the Silmarils back so we wouldn't be stuck in a box forever - no matter what, we said, we swore, no matter what people threatened us with, 'neither law, nor love, nor league of swords...'"

...hug for Fëanáro. "That sounds terrifying and the Valar are awful. ...I would really prefer it if you did not talk about him in the first person it's confusing."

"Yes, it makes me feel like you reincarnated too, nevermind that Elf resurrection doesn't work that way."

"He's called Fëanor in the language they spoke in the Outer Lands, we can call him that. I know he shouldn't have said nothing could deter him from getting a Silmaril back but people shouldn't have been trying to make him give them up - and the Valar still tried taking them after he was dead, after almost everyone was dead, they just swept in and said my sons forfeited their claim to them so they were the Valar's now - 

- the Enemy destroyed all his mom's tapestries, all of them, and she died when he was little he didn't even know her -"

Hugs hugs hugs. "Well. We can explain to our Valar what will happen if they let Melkor out, since probably they don't know. And if that doesn't do it, we'll think of something else. And it won't have to happen the same way. Your parents aren't going to die, and we can think of something better to do about things you make that people might want to take away, because it is unrealistic not to plan for other people behaving badly, especially Valar."

Weak giggles. "Yeah. I'm going to be epic, no one's going to be able to take my things from me. But don't be mad at him, he was really really trying."

"I'm not mad at him," soothes Bella. Snuggles.

"You said you weren't sure you'd still love me if -"

Squeeze. "I want better results for you than what Fëanor got. I want it really, really badly, it would be so awful if you had to be that scared and that cornered and that dead for that long and with that much collateral damage, and it would make me especially miserable if it seemed like you could have done something else that made more sense instead. I do not like it when people make me miserable even if they're only doing it by hurting themselves, and this wouldn't even be that. But just because this one of you actually went and did the stuff in the prophecies doesn't make me not love you any more than seeing the prophecies could."

"It'll make him sad if you don't like him, though, even if you still like me because you found me in time."

"Well, I didn't talk to him very long, but he is a whole lot like one of my favorite people, so." Squeeze. "I think we'll probably get along okay unless he needs me to agree with everything he's ever done."

"Probably not."

"Didn't think so."

"You don't agree with everything I've ever done and I haven't even sworn anything silly."

"Yep. So it would be weird if your - alt - held people to a standard like that."

"I think his thinking is a little funny because he was in Mandos for thirty thousand years so if people are judging him it's like that, or like the people who killed his children."

"I am not going to kill his children and I am a much better therapist and better person than Mandos."

"Yeah. I told him. He still didn't think you could understand. He wanted me to have a plan for getting to Canada if you didn't understand and you got mad and tried to keep me and I explained how everyone in the palace tried to stop me studying wizardry and I got invisibility and walking through walls so I could get away from them and then he felt better."

"...you didn't tell him about subtle arts, huh? Not that I'm planning to try to keep you prisoner."

"Mandos was really awful and I think he'd be scared of you. You won't mess with his head, right? The other thing he said was that in Mandos if he'd had any regrets Mandos could have used them to change how much regret he had until he regretted it what Mandos thought was the right amount so he doesn't regret anything so there's nothing to use against him."

"Strictest of artistic ethics," Bella assures him. "...I don't think I have ever learned a new fact about Mandos that made me like him more."

"He did send them back. Eventually."