"We left, didn't we? I basically agree with you The Doom wasn't the best way of reacting to the Kinslaying, awful as it was, and I'm not even sure exiling Fëanor was wise, though I was happy about it at the time - since he'd threatened to murder my father and all - they might grow into it, in the long ages. But it wouldn't go well if you tried to teach them."

"Hence my not asking which way it is and flying there." Loki shakes her head. "It would make things worse. However much they deserve to have someone tell them off."

She giggles. "And hence us ignoring the cousins, and not doing what you suggested to Artanis last night we might have done, if we'd gotten your sister."

"For which I'm very grateful."

"I was trying to imagine it - I don't think we would have admitted to ourselves we wanted to kill them, we aren't monsters, we'd have told ourselves we were just going to take back what was ours, but we know what stealing the ships was like, of course they wouldn't have let us do it, and then we could have attacked them righteously, having secured to the last our assurance that they started it. I am frightened by how easy it is to imagine."

Nod.

"It would be very satisfying to tie Tyelcormo to a tree and demand an apology from him, but I don't think it would make anything better. And I don't want him dead."

"And I'm not sure his dog would let you."

"Oh, if I asked him to fight me to the death he'd tell Huan to stay out of it. In their own way they're honorable, my cousins. Except for Maitimo, and I still don't understand that."

"I can shed no light on the situation."

"I didn't expect you to."

"If there's something you want me to ask when I go tomorrow...?"

"'You know your brother who is currently being tortured in some manner worse than what any of us can possibly imagine, and we've all devoted a fair bit of thought to imagining it? Your brother who was beloved by literally everyone in Tirion? Can you give us a step-by-step account of when he decided his honor and his word were worth throwing into the abyss of your father's insanity?'"

"Obviously not."

"Just checking."

"Like we were discussing a minute ago, wouldn't help anything. And I don't really want to know. I'm not even sure I'd ask Maitimo, if he were still - around."

Nod.

"You've met the rest of them, you can probably get a diluted sense of what he was like. Self-aware, charming, entirely honest about his father's failings, but utterly and unconditionally devoted to him."

"I've never quite... understood that form of family loyalty. I like my father and my sister but I have reasons, and I have acted outwardly as a responsible mother's daughter, also for reasons."

She shrugs. "I don't think anyone understands the house of Fëanor. Though Maitimo would be able to explain it to you."

Nod.

"Like, in a way that would actually make sense and seem sensible, probably. If it'd been him rather than Fëanor for the King I think we'd probably all have tolerated it. I think Fëanor at one point planned to pass the crown immediately to him, but they ended up at odds, a lot, in the later years. Unless that was faked for our benefit."

"If I recall correctly his unavailability was suggested as a reason to heal Fëanor."

"It would be unlike him to let anything as astoundingly unstrategic as a war happen."