The guard looks unhappy. "I'll ask him to come outside."

"Thank you."

He emerges a minute later. "You never did tell me the Asgardian for 'I lose hours of work every time I am interrupted'."

Loki gives it to him. "I do apologize. But If you can think of something that works for this orc it may be replicable and save more than one of them without having to bother you further." She wraps the orc in silence before he says something else regrettable; that worked on the friendliest of the thirty-six who agreed to test case.

He brightens. "That does work! Good! What exactly did this one say?"

She repeats the words.

"Yes. I just - thought you might think of something. You're good at that and you know more about what's going on than I've had a chance to pick up. And I don't think much of Mandos's reported opinions on anything, it feels a little like remanding custody of a prisoner - however obstinate - to a known atrocity-committing tyrant."

"That's precisely what it is. But the way to fix this is to figure out the underlying machinery of the universe and swap out some bits so orcs have free will, which is after 'break everyone out of Mandos' in my list of priorities, and even if this one did have free will it sounds like we might still have to kill him."

"Yes. I thought it was worth a try." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry about your hours of work." She unsilences the orc. "Any last requests, opinions on the disposition of your body...? Anything not strategically foolish."

"I'm sorry," Fëanor says to her. "It is unpleasant to be confronted with a problem you can't solve just by being even cleverer."

"Extremely," she says. "Thank you for your help anyway, and for catching the other thirty-five, and hosting Vár and her batch..."

"By all accounts they've more than pulled their own weight. I should get back to work, do you have other questions while I'm distracted from it?"

"Found Doriath. You shouldn't go there, but I am welcome back; any messages you want passed along?"

"Tell Elwë that I intend to avenge my father, and would be grateful to consider him an ally in that endeavor."

"They seem to be oriented very defensively but I'll convey that. I'm also planning to ask if they're willing to be a refuge at least for children in case of emergency."

"We have some fortresses planned deep in the mountains, for that possibility. It's a good idea to ask nonetheless."

Nod. "And I'm going to overfly Angband again now that the smoke is gone and I won't have to make it invisible to see anything. I'll be back on schedule for another batch of orcs and to show you what I find."

"Not that I have heard of. I'm going to ask at Doriath next time I go what parts of the continent are already settled, and then the converted orcs can go form their own community farther south somewhere no one has claimed yet."

"All right. I'll tell them not to be enthusiastic about seeking them out until then, then. The locals here - who incidentally have a long list of grievances with Elwë, you should ask Macalaurë to give you the whole story - say that everything is settled from here to the sea, there's an unsettled island, and the eastern part of the continent was slaughtered in the beginnings of the war and is now unsafe and uninhabited."

"I did notice the island. Do you suppose if I tell the locals that Elwë tried to talk me out of converting orcs at all they'll make space for them in out of spite?"

"Predicting Quendi behavior is not a particular strength of mine," he says. "Ask Macalaurë that as well."