"...Asgardians do not live forever even absent violence, but for thousands of years. It is customary to expect a marriage to last someone's lifetime, but sometimes they do not, even if no one involved has died."

"Sometimes couples live separately. It's becoming involved with someone else which is unprecedented. And we've learned. No one will ever do it again. Half-siblings are - not a good addition to any volatile political situation."

"This form of monogamy is very extreme in comparison to even the ideal as understood to my people. Although perhaps you're eliding over the behavior of the unmarried."

"Most people marry young. The royal family mostly hasn't, because you don't marry during troubled times and it's been a rocky century. And a century ago most of us weren't yet of age."

So I'm going to be looking at a rather sexless few centuries, aren't I, Loki doesn't say. "I see."

"We should head back even if you can magically light things, my father will worry."

"Very well."

"What will happen if you teach Fëanor to fight is that he'll excel, because he's very bright, and then best case scenario he'll go challenge Melkor to a duel and lose and worst case scenario he'll challenge Father to a duel and win."

"Is Melkor reputed to be unbeatable...?"

"He's a Vala. We're not going to defeat him in single combat."

"But he may be defeated en masse?"

"Well, we don't actually know. It might be that the most we can do is destroy his physical form while he's invested in it, which will mean he takes a few thousand years to recover his power. But that's a few thousand years of peace, and by then maybe we'll know more."

Nod.

"Or maybe we can't even do that, but we can keep him besieged in his fortress, keep the rest of the world safe."

Nod, nod.

"Or maybe we'll just die. Not trying wasn't acceptable to me."

"Of course not."

"If there's a means to defeat him permanently, Fëanor'd be the one to come up with it. That's the primary disadvantage, as I see it, to challenging him as soon as we see him."

"You don't have anyone innovative and talented about who isn't also... Fëanor?"

"One of his sons. And his grandson."

"...who are irretrievably loyal to Fëanor and cannot be convinced otherwise?"

"The truth is, everyone with any talent in the design and engineering of magic objects studied under Fëanor, because he's by far the best in the field, formalized most of its assumptions, and teaches it quite capably. And even studying under him, it takes centuries to get any good. So, yes, anyone with any talent spent centuries studying under Fëanor and is over there with him already."

"What a pity that he is himself, then."

Fervently: "Yes."

"There is a lot of pity to be handed around, of course. I am no particularly great diplomat myself or I might entertain hope of talking him down from an - outsider perspective he may never have encountered before."