"Yeah. Or indirectly, the conversations on that topic are all indirect. We were talking about how Dad considers all the population of Middle-earth his subjects - incidentally, the newcomers would win a lot of mileage by swearing fealty, he'd probably back down entirely on the children if they'd do that - and whether this obliges him to protect them all."

Loki pulls out her little notebook and her pen - stops - looks at the map still stuck to her hand - and illusions letters onto the page instead. "I'll mention the option; the Nolofinwëan crowd is much likelier than the Fëanorians to go for it but I don't know how likely that actually is."

She nods. "The Feanorians have strong feelings about who should be King? Who's theirs, is he any good?"

"I'm not sure if he actually uses the title 'King', but Fëanor leads them and like many monarchs he has both strengths and weaknesses in this capacity."

She rises onto her tiptoes and raises an eyebrow. "All right. And the others?"

"Nolofinwë is in charge but I've mostly been talking to a couple of his children, whereas Fëanor I've had more direct contact with even if he delegates a lot to his sons."

She nods. "I think audiences go faster if you're there in the morning, particularly if everyone else is having a slow morning."

"Thank you. I'd appreciate guidance on the phrasing - Fëanor wants to express his dedication to defeating the Enemy and his hope that he can consider your father an ally in this matter; one of his sons is wondering if Doriath can be bribed for such help with any sort of cunning invention. Fëanor's very brilliant and can be asked to cunningly invent things."

"Maybe tie it to the fealty thing? Say that he's Finwë's son and cannot, until his father is avenged, imagine taking another, but he'd be happy to honor the ancient friendship between houses by giving my father Middle-earth's rightful ruler nice presents? I don't know if they'd feel mischaracterized but I expect Father'd be pleased."

"...I'm not sure if they'd feel mischaracterized either. Maybe I should put it off until I can run that by them; somehow I don't think anyone involved will consider it a disaster to wait half a week..."

"No, definitely not. Or a few years, if that's easier. As far as we're concerned, they just arrived and are not even yet remiss in introducing themselves."

"I don't think I'll leave it for years, especially not now that I can take notes without having to use up desperately finite paper." Words appear; she turns a page; more words appear. They're written for herself and Lúthien won't be able to read them. "There are I suppose some advantages to being the most impatient person around: when I am the one a plan is waiting on I can operate on precisely my own schedule."

"All right. Mother's still working and not available, unfortunately."

"Alas. Any loose estimate of when she'll be up?"

"It varies. I"m sorry. She'd told you she'd work with you, so I'm sure she still plans to, but she operates on long time scales and it won't have occurred to her you might already be itching to leave."

"I have a twice weekly appointment with the Fëanorians currently standing, because they're collecting and hosting orcs for me until I find somewhere else for the orcs to go. And when I do find somewhere for them to go they may continue catching more of their own fellow orcs for me to fix and I don't like to delay that. So I won't ever be here for very long all in a row until there's some sort of permanent halt to the orc supply."

"All right. She's with us most of the time; I"m sure it won't be a problem. What was your other question for my father?"

"I was counting the alliance and the bribery as two questions, mostly because they're from two individuals. I might be forgetting something else, but I can't remember what it would be if I am."

"All right. Does that mean we've nothing to keep you here longer?"

"I was told I should insist on a grand tour."

"Oh!" she brightens."You should!!! Now?"

"Why not?"

"So this was once a natural cave system - we've expanded it tremendously - but we left the original caves, intact as we could manage them, as a tribute to Aulë, and they're spectacular. All these odd crystal things." She starts walking. "And you've yet to see any of the really big spaces, where tens of thousands of people live - there's ropes strung everywhere and occasionally someone falls and needs my mother, but it's much much safer than it looks. And there's an underground river."

"If someone falls and needs your mother while she's - away - what happens?" Loki asks, following.

She looks surprised. "We can wait. We can mostly just tell our bodies to stop, and they do, though it's unpleasant and you'd never do it for fun. And don't do it outside Menegroth, my mother's presence halts natural decay here. Outside, the things that live in harmony with our bodies wouldn't stop just because you told your body to, and something bad would happen. Is Asgard like that?"