"It's nearly instant and intended to cover physical ailments short of death. I have not tried it on an orc but... should make the experiment; I will capture the next one I see if you don't have one on hand. I cannot affect psychological damage, though."

"Then it may do nothing. We don't take prisoners; we could try one if that would be useful to you." He stands up. "My father is dying, but you are obviously already aware of that."

"I was surprised he didn't ask, but the inconveniently phrased suggest he has a fraught history with healing magic."

"If you walk in and say to him 'I'd like to tell you more about the language, and also shake your hand, but there's a chance that shaking your hand will cure some or all of your physical injuries, because I have healing powers,' I think he'd shake your hand. If you say 'I can save you', no."

"The healing powers are voluntary. I do not heal everyone I happen to come into contact with whether I mean to or not."

"That would not technically make my above statement false, would it?" He sits down and gestures at the space across from him. "We discussed it after you left. I think he might ask, given enough time, or he might not wake up - he sleeps for twenty or so hours of the day, these days - and then if we acted on his behalf he'd be grateful, later."

She sits. "Opinions are divided on whether I should heal him even if invited to do so; but apparently oaths in this realm are very serious and whether it was wise of him to make one or not it seemed well-worded to protect the peace, and will, if I understand it, expire entirely if he dies and Maitimo leads your people."

He flinches. "Yes, the King who would succeed my father would not be bound by my father's promises. It won't be Maitimo, though. Opinions are divided? Among my cousins? That suggests far more charity towards us than I'd have expected them to harbor."

"I have been aggressively preaching charity. Why not Maitimo, has something changed?"

"Yes, he's dead." He goes silent for a moment. "We hope."

"You hope?"

"He was taken prisoner by the enemy over a year ago. There is no conceivable avenue by which we can rescue him, and we have explored quite literally hundreds. The best possible outcome is that the Enemy has a shorter attention span that we'd expect and is already done torturing him to death."

"The avenues of rescue are untenable because...?"

"Angband is very deep in the mountains, under magical cover, swarming with orcs, and very large. We don't know where they're holding him, if they're holding him. The locals have on occasion attempted rescues of enslaved family members, and every one of those rescue operations has ended with more people captured. The Enemy is a Vala and we're not strong enough yet to face him."

"Which seems like it might impair your ability to tell me much about the likely political impact of the rescue," she says dryly.

"You'll only do it if it's politically useful? It's all right for my brother to be tortured, if that happens to make my cousins feel like justice has been done?"

"All right? No. Nothing would make torture all right and nearly as few situations make death all right. But I am not omnipotent and I must juggle many things I could be doing. I could be training armies to fend off orcs. I could be working on a spell to get home and travel to other realms which may need help more than yours, or for more people, or in some more efficiently deliverable way. I could be learning about the Men and seeing if they have any needs as great as yours and less fraught. I must put these things in some sensible order or I will sit, paralyzed."

He nods. "That I relate to. If Maitimo could recover, he'd be very good at pursuing any or all of those ends; I don't even know if recovery is possible, after what's been done, and I don't think you can rescue him, you'll probably just die. Do something safer."

"I will probably want to look at the Enemy's fortress to make my own assessment, but I need not do so conspicuously or immediately," she says.

"I can give you all the information we have about the Enemy, and depending on what you're intending to do I might be able to loan you a palantir. Those are all worthy ends, and at least some of them might be advanced by it." He hesitates. "And it sounds like healing my father wouldn't take long or distract from any of those priorities; why not do that now?"

"In addition to needing to order my options by how safe they are and how much good they might do and how emotionally appealing they are - I need to consider the possibility that some things I might try will make something worse. Fëanor is a charming conversationalist and I imagine if we'd met in a better circumstance I would want to be his friend, but you can imagine what I have heard and - have not directly contradicted any of it."

"I doubt they told you any lies."

"I would be entirely delighted," she says, "for Fëanor to spend the rest of eternity studying languages as they morph around him, inventing alphabets and artifacts and arcany. I am simply aware that I cannot guarantee this is what he would do with restored health."