"Well if you and Maitimo want to play Oromë I'm not going to tell you to let them alone instead," he says. "He sounds happy. Thank you for that."

"You're welcome. After I've gone and called your cousins idiots I'm going to check in with the Dwarves and make sure they will in fact have him."

Tyelcormo smiles. "If they won't, it's only four years. That's the schedule we settled on. Well, unless Father decides to move us across the continent after all, but reading between the lines I think Maitimo wants us to do that as an apology - we'll take higher casualties in any subsequent battles, we'll go hungrier, we'll be colder, it's a nice symmetric way of making things right - and it's hard to be in the mood for costly sacrifices on their behalf right now. I hate wearing armor."

"Yeah, I wasn't sure that suggestion would get much traction. Let's see, other matters. Círdan says the orcs may wait in Arviernen for Ulmo's verdict on whether they're welcome to travel to the uninhabited island, by the way, and if Ulmo says no Arviernen itself is theirs. He's very nice. Milan cannot pronounce your name," she points at Tyelcormo, "and called you blond-with-dog for an entire conversation."

Loki writes down the Thindarin correspondences. "I haven't caught anyone putting a consonant after my name, which I don't think Allspeak ought to be covering up. I have no strong opinion on the strategic suggestion, although if maybe-lost maybe-threatening scouts are a problem it might really make sense for you to be farther apart and you might be the more movable of the set."

"She wasn't lost," Tyelcormo says. "It's plausible to me that she was acting on her own recognizance or with the approval of one of my cousins but not my uncle - it's remarkably clumsy for him - but she wasn't lost."

"I do think it would be most responsible of me for someone who can shoot - and see as well as you can; I can shoot but only with my own eyesight for aim - to demonstrate the viability of archery from there to here. Or back, if it's close enough that the same distance can be covered uphill."

"From that distance the slope matters quite a lot. I'd be happy to show you where we found her, though. Hey, if I'm out with you I probably don't need armor, you have the healing -"

"I mean, healing is only useful after you have already been hurt, but yes. Also I can turn you invisible."

"I'm not particularly worried about getting shot, I have a strong preference for not getting dead. And sure, we can go invisibly. Right now?"

"No rush, just before I leave. Lúthien proposed this revision of the alliance request, which I think needs at least one more iteration...?" She pulls that out: Finwë is the only King of our people, and he remains our King even as we join your kingdom, but it'd be our great honor to demonstrate our commitment to serving your people with the gifts of ours, or something like that.

They look at each other. "The diplomats in the family are all either currently-birds or currently-trying-to-talk-to-the-local-populace-about-the-assassins-problem," Tyelcormo says. "Sounds fancy to me, but if I had to decide that stuff I'd probably say 'hey, Elwë, your borders are everywhere you're committed to keeping orcs away from and our borders are everywhere we're committed to keeping orcs away from, your people are everyone you'll protect and our people are everyone we'll protect'."

"I didn't go straight to Elu with this not because I was worried it wasn't fancy enough - I wouldn't know better than Lúthien would - but because I didn't know if you'd assent to the contents as stated."

"I mean, translated out of diplomat speak that basically says 'we'll obey your orders when and only when we feel like it, but we won't be obnoxious about it, and we'll pay you off if you start feeling like we're pushing it'. Right?"

"Something like that. Or, 'No formal fealty for you, but feel free to keep deluding yourself about informal fealty, we encourage you to have positive affect about us with this cool loot'."

"Yeah, we're comfortable with that."

"Okay, cool, next time I'm there I'll pass it along, pick out some loot or list some options if you want to let him pick a thing. What's your preference for showing me the supposed assassin's vantage point first versus me telling the orcs they have somewhere to go first?"

"It's a bit of a hike from here, why don't you finish up your business here first so you can head straight out? And we'll send some jewelry, everyone likes jewelry, some rocks from Valinor are actually scarce here and we know which ones the locals were most impressed with."

"Did Valinor just have equal numbers of all forms of rocks?" laughs Loki. "Where are the orcs at, how are they doing?"

"Valinor had 'as much as you need' of everything. We've got them all settled on their end of the lake. The increase in security made them nervous, even though I told Vár it's got nothing to do with them. And they were disappointed not to get any new friends."

"Maybe they can catch their own new friends when they're south of here. Are the things we were thinking of sending with them as escorts ready to go soonish?"

"You mean the horses, grain, crafting tools? Tell Nolofinwë to swear not to try to have my father murdered."