"Thank you."

She kind of feels like she should mirror him and use his name, but she's not supposed to use superiors' names and she doesn't know how Elves parse the use of their names in this sort of context. She also feels kind of like she should bow, but nobody has told her to do that, and she's not going to default to doing that here, so she just sort of does an abnormally deep nod and then consciously decides that that is enough.

The screen flickers off.

She holds her position for a second and then lets out a breath or a piece of stress that she didn't consciously know that she was holding onto. She looks expectantly at Ettelië. "Was that OK? Did I do OK?"

- hug? "All you had to do was answer the questions, you answered the questions, of course that's okay..."

"OK," she says, not entirely convinced. "Just - they have to be answered right." And also she has no idea how to interact with important people and she's not sure she did a particularly good job of it, because she doesn't know what a good job of that would look like, but it seems like she's not supposed to be worrying about that right now.

She probably doesn't need a hug, but she's not going to reject one if it's offered.

Hug. "Well, you've got to do the best you can, it's Lord Maedhros's job to decide how sure he should be of things."

"That's fair." She sighs. "I guess our best is all we have. We should work on the star charts."

"Right now? I think you should take a rest. They'll be just as good tomorrow."

"Are you sure? It's not that late, I'm not exhausted or anything. We can wait if you think it'd be better, but I don't think labeling stars and talking about system resources is a terribly strenuous activity either?"

He still looks slightly worried. "No, no, it's up to you."

She frowns nervously for a few seconds. She wishes she were better at this.

"I'm not completely sure what the thing is that you're worrying about, or which decisions you think are the right answers here, because there are clearly right answers and I am clearly not getting them. And I really want to be helpful, and I really want everyone to be safe and well and not tortured and not enslaved, and also my brain is probably really really bad at prioritizing, because it also really really wants you to not have to worry about me. And I am not entirely sure how or if I can make all or any of those things happen, but if you have ideas then I would really appreciate some brainstorming help."

" - I, uh, mostly don't think about all of those things. I work for my King and he worries about those things and I don't need to, mostly, I can just trust that someone will tell us if we're needed, and what we're needed for. You seem stressed, and you're expecting a baby and really shouldn't have to spend all your time stressed, so I'd want you to take a break if that would help."

"That sounds simpler. Things were really simple before. But we never had kings, we had owners." She makes a face. "That's a terrible parallel, I shouldn't have said that, that was stupid. I just - I am not the sort of person who's supposed to make decisions, I get that. But someone has to be thinking about how to help the Liars, especially if the Elves can't commit to it. And I could try to forget about it and not think and only ever do the things that people told me to do, but - I'm not going to be able to forget about Taz and Ves and Mathrael and everyone else, and if I could I would still have a responsibility to try to help them, and if I didn't I would still want to - be useful."

She is not sure that she actually wanted to say useful there. She thinks she might just not like the idea of other people making her decisions for her. But that's dumb; she's not the sort of person who should be making important decisions, even for herself, and she's clearly not equipped to make them with any degree of success. Usefulness is not dumb. It doesn't fit with the rest of the ideas, really, but it seems like an acceptable thing to aspire to.

"I really think we'll help the Liars. You can't - you can't swear things during a war because someone asked you to, but I really do think we will."

"I guess. I understand that you don't have obligations to random people you found in space, and I guess it's admirable to take your word that seriously. But I'm glad you think you will. That means... something, anyway."

"- oh, humans don't - Elves can't break their word. If we swear something we will do it, no matter what happens or what we learn subsequently or what has changed."

Her eyes widen. "Oh. Well. OK, that's - did he think - does he know I wanted, like, a declaration of general intent?"

"It's not - sorry, I should have told you that earlier, I never met a person who didn't have it - uh, I'm not clear on what humans mean when they ask each other for 'commitments'."

"I mean, there are different levels of commitment? There's - we can't make promises with the understanding that there are no circumstances under which the commitment will be broken. Like - Alteri marriages are stronger commitments than ours because we can't be certain that we'll be allowed to stay with a particular person, we could always be transferred or sold to another house. But you can make a promise that you'll do everything in your power to do something, and it's good if people can trust that you're the sort of person who follows through on those things. But you can also, just, like, say that you intend to do a thing, without really committing to doing it in all circumstances? And that would be enough for something like this, at least if it's me asking and not, like, a person who matters? It's obviously a really complex situation."

She hides her face in her hands. "I am not the sort of person who asks people to take on unbreakable oaths for the sake of my peace of mind. I just meant, like - Alteri do this thing where they imply that something is in your interests and that good things will come of you doing it, and so you do it, you work really hard, harder than they can force you to work, and then the good thing never comes, and if anyone ever calls them on it they just smugly point out that they are not a Liar." Sigh. "I guess you're really not Liars, either."

" - we're not. But - he did say - is there something you'd have wanted him to say that he didn't, if you didn't want an oath?"

"Just - no, it was fine, I meant it when I said it was good enough. 'I want to help you' is fine, with context. It was just weird at the time because he was clearly avoiding certain words, and it seemed like the sort of thing someone would do if they valued their word but were not, in fact, intending to help, and it sounds like there are just - different reasons why you have to be careful to avoid certain words. Which is fine."

"Okay. Yes. We want to help. It's horrible, of course we want to help. Promises are just - something to be careful of. If an Elf got married and was then separated from their spouse forever they would just be lonely for the rest of the ages of the world."

"That - I want to say that sounds horrible, because it does, but I'm also kind of jealous that you're not just forced to marry someone else you can't stand. But I guess those are, uh, different kinds of horrible." She frowns. "Are you married? Just, uh, out of curiosity?"

It is totally 100% disinterested academic curiosity, and if it were not then this would have no practical implications for her life anyway, but she figures maybe she should ask while they're, like, vaguely on the subject.

"I'm not. It's horrible when someone dies but it doesn't seem horrible to me to keep loving them - it'd be sort of horrible to just stop..."

"Yeah. It's - horrible to want something you have no chance of having, I guess. But maybe it'd be just as horrible to forget that the thing was worth wanting." Sigh. "Anyway. Sorry. Uh. I kind of think I should probably keep working, but I don't seem super emotionally stable at this particular moment, so I guess it might be a good idea to take a break and come back to it, if you don't think not getting the star charts done immediately is likely to cause any catastrophic problems."