That's good, it's good for governments to be reliable. Mostly. Maybe unless they're really horrible.

Yeah, Melkor is reliably terrible and that seems to just suck actually.

They really think their governments will be all for stopping him! Stopping a terrible evil in exchange for the technology needed to stop another terrible evil seems like a pretty good deal to them. They're not politicians but they can't imagine that their politicians wouldn't think so.

The Elves are very cheered, and go back to the much happier subject of science.

Elsewhere in the world, Imrainai is writing poetry when it comes to her attention that her baby might possibly want to be external right now. Or - that's not quite exactly how the thing works, but she's pretty sure that the thing is going to occur, that was definitely a couple contractions in a row there. She doesn't 100% know how this process works, but she's pretty sure that contractions are a part of it.

" - um. Ettelië? I think the baby might be ready to be outside in a bit here."

"Oh!" he says, and is immediately at her side. "All right. We should go to the medical building, then. Yes? Is that what you want?"

"Yes! We have time, it takes a bit. But yes."

He picks her up and carries her.

Eeeeeeee!

Um. That's good and sensible. She'll just go along with that.

It's not very far. They don't really know much about humans "but the baby will come today probably."

Good job baby! You're almost out!

(It'll be fine, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. It'll be hard, but she can do hard things.)

She paces and reads and writes things in notebooks. She doesn't do anything that she can't immediately stop doing for as long as she needs, because her body is sort of insistent about the other thing that it's doing right now.

"Imrainai," says Ettelië, staring at the floor.

Oh no, are they going to have a conversation, she thinks maybe she is better at having those when small people are not currently trying to crawl out of her.

"Yes?"

"I - it is important to me that you know that I am intending to stay with you and raise your child and be a father to him, and if you die like humans sometimes do thenIwillalsomakesurehehashasamotherbutdon'tdieplease."

" - oh."

Well that's a thing. That sure is a thing. She thinks she might be crying actually? But only, like, a really little bit.

" - I can't think of anything really fitting to say right now because there's a tiny person currently attempting to make their way out of me so can I - can I maybe just. Hug you right now."

Yes they can definitely do that.

That's good, because she suddenly really really needs a hug. She was possibly more apprehensive about what was going to happen after this than she was entirely consciously aware of. And - and she still doesn't know, actually, all of her assumptions about what it means for someone to be a second parent to a baby are going to be different and alien and so she still doesn't know what they are to each other, exactly.

But that's OK. She's going to be OK, and her baby's going to be OK, and the baby's going to have a really really absurdly excellent father who sings and who hopes for the end of all wars everywhere, and after she's done making sure the baby gets into the world safely then they can probably sit down and talk about what him being the baby's father actually, like, means.

After.

"You're really good," she mumbles, still hugging him. "You're just - you're a really really excellent person."

He hugs her and can't come up with an answer to that and so he sings.

She's going to get to hear Ettelië sing for years and years and years, she has the best life, all other lives can go home.

" - ow, I think - I haven't done this before so I don't know what I'm waiting for that means the baby's about to be here but that one hurt - "

He does not stop singing but fetches a doctor with osanwë. Elven labor doesn't hurt. They don't know what to expect either but she should take the painkillers probably.

Oh good, they have painkillers. She could have done this without them, it's not like she's never had her switch activated, but it would have been very unpleasant. 

"Can you - can you maybe stay here and keep singing, while - while the thing happens - "

"Yes, of course, definitely." Hug. "Definitely."

"Thank you," she says, and she doesn't have a lot else to say, because if she tries then lots of complicated messy things will come out. She thinks probably she has enough of that going on right now with the tiny person.

It hurts, even with the painkillers. But she can do things that hurt.

Ettelië sings and frets and holds her hand.

And after much singing and fretting and effort and pain, there is a baby girl.

Imrainai thinks she is probably not dying of blood loss, but she's sort of distracted by the fact that she has made the absolute most perfect baby in existence and that there have never been any better babies ever in the world.