"Well, if talking to her hadn't gone well I could have woken the other four from the batch in turn, but I do seem to have been very lucky. I doubt it is fate and shouldn't count on it."

"No," he says fervently. "It only takes one stray Iathrim arrow, or the equivalent in the world's other hazards. Stay cautious. But rejoice in this particular good fortune. She's a good kid. Her people obviously need her, or I'd be tempted to let her stay."

Nod, nod. "I'll consult her on the question of orc children."

"You do that. We were going to have a festival tonight, to celebrate the anniversary of our arrival. Will that make your orcs anxious?"

"I have no idea, but I can ask her that too."

"Very well."

So Loki goes looking for Vár.

She's teaching the new orcs how to plant. "Melkor wants us to be strong, billions and billions, for when there are billions and billions of Elves. Gives us these so we can grow food, always have enough, have the most orc children! Have children never hungry!"

"You don't actually have to have billions of orcs," Loki says. "Some populations find they prefer to be smaller than that."

"Melkor doesn't want us to be weak and small," she says. "When you couldn't think how to teach us, you said no more orcs, ever. Melkor is instead of that. Melkor wants lots of orcs."

"...Vár, the pain that you're in until I heal you - when does that start?"

"Start?"

"Listen," says Loki. "I do my magic in a way that nobody else does. I haven't tried teaching it to anyone yet and I don't know if I can. I might be the only person who can stop an orc's pain, or at least the only one who can be fetched. It's important to know if orcs are born already hurting or if that won't happen to ones born among the converted. Because there is only one of me and I can't heal billions of orcs' children, not even if I did nothing else with my entire life and didn't sleep, there is only one of me."

"Oh Loki," Vár says, "orcs hurt because they swear to the wrong Melkor and so aren't serving the right Melkor properly. That's why you can make it stop. Baby orcs won't hurt because they won't swear to the false Melkor."

Loki shakes her head. "That is not why I can make it stop. I make it stop with a spell, that I invented. Melkor does not interfere with the affairs of lesser creatures like you're thinking. If Moringotto did something that made orcs born in pain, instead of - whisking away the new babies and doing something to them then - that will still happen. They will be born, they will hurt, and if there are too many of them I will not be able to fix it."

"Oh. Then I don't know. I don't have children and I don't remember not hurting."

"Some races can have children without meaning to. Do you know if orcs are one of them?"

"You're supposed to have children. As many as you can."

"Do you have to try very hard, to have them, the way Quendi do?"

"No." She shifts uncomfortably. "You need a boy and a girl orc."

"You don't need to explain the mechanics of it," Loki assures her. "But if orcs can have children whenever boy and girl ones are together even if they don't want to, there will be too many children for me to handle, and soon. There are things that can prevent it but I don't know how to make them and I don't know how long it would take to reinvent them."

"Does Melkor want the boy and girl orcs separate?"

"He wants orcs not to have to be in pain anymore, but I'm the only one around who can fix orcs that are in pain. And it sounds like neither of us know if you are born that way or not. What you could do -" She chews her lip. "I'm trying to find a place for you to move once there are too many of you to stay here with these Quendi. You could make sure you are very careful not to have any little orcs until you are there, and when you arrive and you're settled, anyone who very desperately and personally wants to have a little orc - not just to serve Melkor, just because they like little orcs - they can have a small, small number, and we can see if they're all right. If they are, it's not a problem. If they're not, there will be only a few, and I can heal them - and then you will have to stop."

She nods solemnly. "No little orcs until we're in our own land, instead of imposing on the Quendi and eating their food. Even then, only a few little orcs, as a reward for the best, so we can see if they are always hurting, and if they are no more orc babies ever, until Melkor helps us."

"I didn't say a reward for the best; you think absolutely everyone will want children and you'll have to allocate it somehow so it might as well be that...?"