"Depends, and will vary by place. Some groups will notice almost immediately and rebel almost immediately. A lot of them are going to be killed off. But some of them are embedded in really important things, and some will hold off and be able to organize themselves well enough to take action. They'll be able to take some ships, get some firepower on their side. A lot will depend on the psyons, I think, and on how much the Alteri are depending on the chips." She sighs. "A ton of people are going to die."

"That's - we've got to do better than that."

There is no course of action that's going to result in freedom without massive casualties, but that doesn't seem like a very hopeful thing to say. "Unless the Elves are hiding a bunch of other game-changing tech in their back pocket, the only power that can take on the Alteri without incurring massive casualties is the Carthon Empire. I don't - know anything about the Carthons, not enough to say whether they can be worked with usefully, but they have powerful enough offensive weapons, they have ansibles to keep themselves organized, and they have planets on which to offer sanctuary to the survivors." She bites her lip. "The tricky bit there is taking planets without giving the Alteri the chance to implement a scorched earth policy before they do."

He hugs Kanael. "Why do they - don't they have family there -"

"Yeah, they do. It's - they know the Carthons would rather control them than wipe them out. So if they do it this way, and they do it every time, the Carthons won't attack hastily and they'll be able to hold their positions. For a while, anyway. And they really don't want to live on their knees. I think a lot of them think that would be worse than death. Worse for their children, too."

"Are they right?"

Well there's a question.

"...the last time the Alteri were controlled by the Carthons, they were given lots of things. Medicine. Sustainable energy sources. Space flight. Some versions of the story say the Carthons always wanted to destroy them and that their gifts were misdirection, and others say they only ever wanted to help and were confused about how to do that. But - the price of their help was the attempted destruction of everything the Alteri loved best about their society. Marriage was an abomination. Hierarchy was an abomination. Deception was an abomination. Slavery was an abomination. Currency was an abomination. I think - I think they saw their choice as being between abandoning most of their values and taking the risk of oblivion."

She bites her lip. "And I think there are probably some things that are worse than oblivion. Not many, but some. Whether being conquered is one of those for the Alteri might depend on what their conquerors plan on doing with them this time around."

"...slavery, uh, is an abomination. Some ways of doing marriage are, too, depending how they were..." he sighs. "I'd like to think we can do better. I mostly think we could do better.  But I don't know. I don't know what Lord Maedhros and the King will think is better. ...they could destroy their worlds even in the middle of a slave revolt?"

"I don't know anything about the mechanics, honestly. And I don't deny that slavery is... really bad," she says, with a decisive nod. "But I guess I can imagine someone thinking that the things that I think are necessary and fine are horrible, and - I dunno, I'd probably be really upset if I were sold to a house that, like, banned any verbal communication between people. I might think that my needs are more justified than theirs, but if I'm gonna imagine what they'll do then I have to - try to think of how it must have felt for them. What they'll be expecting it to feel like again."

"Yes. I - we kill orcs all the time, it's tragic, there's just not anything better. Maybe that's it here too. But it's horribly tragic."

"Yeah. We'll do the best we can. And hope that tomorrow we can do better."

"You're a wonderful person, Imrainai."

She ducks her head and blushes. " - well I'm trying to be one of the characters in this story who, when you recite it back to yourself afterwards, you think, well, at least that one was really trying her best?"

" - is that something you do a lot with stories? I think everyone in our stories is doing their best except the Valar and the orcs."

"Well... everyone's trying at something, I think. But it's really hard, when the whole universe is broken and in pain, to just - keep trying to do the very best things you can. Because the very best things are hard, and they hurt, and if you're just one person they're not even going to really fix things. So I think most people are - it's not that they're not trying. But they don't know how much trying they can do, you know? So I think a lot of people set easier goals for themselves than the best ones that they can possibly set. Uh, not that I'm actually consistently accomplishing the best things I possibly can, I'm sure I'm not! But - if I mess things up I want it to be because there wasn't enough of me, or because there were parts of me that I didn't know how to use, and not because there was some piece of me that I wasn't willing to give. I want to be the best Imrainai that I can figure out how to be. If... that makes any sense."

"I think that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

She cannot immediately think of anything to say to that, so she hugs him and her baby instead.

(It's probably an exaggeration. She'd never met anyone older than eighty before she came here, and people where she's from probably have lower standards anyway, and she's pretty sure she's never told any of them the most beautiful thing any of them have ever heard. But she adds it to her list of the nicest things that people have ever said to her anyway.)

You'd think hugging would be hard with a tiny baby who must not be squooshed but it actually isn't! Babies are very suited to being held between two hugging people.

This is such an excellent way for babies and hugs to be!

Ettelië holds her for a long time, looking up facts about humans with his soul. He wants to double-check them. He wants to triple-check them. 

Eventually he kisses Imrainai, very cautiously.

- oh wow.

This is the greatest thing that's ever happened.

No, that's dumb, this is like the third best thing that's happened in the last three days. Fourth best. No, yeah, third.

It's a good thing she's holding a baby because you can't just go and die instantly when you're holding a baby. You could maybe have a heart attack while you were holding a baby. She's pretty sure her heart wasn't going this fast a second ago. She's not actually entirely sure that she remembers how to breathe, you probably die if you just stop breathing, she should really figure this out. How has she even survived this long without dying of embarrassment-induced suffocation.

He must actually like her.

That's stupid, obviously he likes her, it requires way less liking someone to kiss someone than to offer to be their spouse forever and not take any more spouses after they die even if you live for thousands and thousands of years.

But he really likes her.

She really likes him.

She is probably supposed to kiss him back. She makes a very hesitant attempt at doing this. She has no idea how to do this. She is probably really really bad at this. She's never actually done this before. This is quite possibly true of both of them? This is a stupid thing to be thinking about while Ettelië is kissing her. She should stop thinking about things other than the fact that Ettelië is kissing her, the fact that Ettelië is kissing her is actually incredibly important. This is nice. Are they going to do this again. Of course they're going to do this again. But if they don't then she really needs to be able to remember what it was like.

Oh man are they going to do other things. Of course they're going to do other things, married people do lots of things. Ancestors, she is so unprepared to do other things. This is terrible, she is a disastrous conflicted mess who is going to ruin everything. Maybe she can just pretend not to be a disastrous conflicted mess. No, that would be really mean, you can't pretend not to be a disaster who is conflicted about having sex with people you really really like, they'll find out and then they'll worry that they pressured you and then everything will be awful, but also you can't not have sex with your spouse - when they're your spouse, because she doesn't have a spouse yet, she is putting like five carts before her horse and her poor horse is going to have no idea what to do with them - who you're in love with and who you want to have sex with, even though you think you also might just die of being terrified and also of your own sheer incompetence at being a person. She should really actually not be thinking about this she should just -

- she has a baby the baby's father is the most incredible person in the world and the most incredible person in the world has decided to kiss her, because he loves her and wants to marry her and everything is going to be OK.

Or else they'll die horribly, but if you have to pick a way to go then you could do far worse.

" - wow." 

He pulls away anxiously. "I'm not rushing you? I was going to wait - a few years - but, well, it didn't seem like a good idea for any reasons other than that's how long we'd wait if we had forever, which we don't, and even then I think lots of people don't really wait that long."

She thinks maybe twenty percent of her brain is working, and part of the working part is devoting itself to not crying, because crying right now would be confusing and incongruous.

" - we can wait if you want?"

That is not what she wanted to say, damn it, why is she not better at any activity she has ever tried ever.

"I, uh, don't really have as much trouble doing what I want as you do. Not that - it's not your fault at all -"

"I. Uh. Really liked that and I think maybe we should find a place to put Kanael down so that we can maybe practice doing it a couple more times until I can kiss you without worrying that I'm going to forget how to process air. Maybe. If that's not weird or anything."