"Fine. Silence the area, please, if you have other things to check for invisible beings do those, what if we invented and spoke a language? How many samples does Allspeak need?"

Loki silences and colorfloods.

"Overlapping area-effect songs do stack if you're sufficiently clever with them. Thank you for catching that. We figured out how to stack the cognition one further. After about two months with high-speed cognition it becomes hard to move out of it; there's a few hours' withdrawal in which motor reflexes are retarded and subjects report dizziness, confusion, bad headaches that healing can't fix, and an inability to process sound normally. After about a year these effects persist for a day or so when leaving compressed time. They get worse if you keep doing it. My father weighed the risks and decided to spend most of his time with high-speed cognition. I'm ruling in his name. This is known to only about ten people."

"...Do you want to see if I can fix the headaches?"

"That'd be lovely, but isn't the priority. We've been communicating asynchronously and the last letter I left him I told him what your messenger said; if he thinks it's worth rejoining the world he'll do so. Distractions cost him weeks, not hours, now, and time is at a very dear premium. I think I need more context on what you're trying to do and why."

"So I've got a fair ways on the Men's settlement but I am sort of expecting that as soon as Thauron doesn't shatter into pieces of ice whenever he tries to adopt physical form," smirk, "he can steamroll right over it. I was thinking to buy time for them, but if Fëanor's running accelerated by that much I might not need it - I might just start running accelerated, although I need occasional breaks to an extent I think he doesn't."

"It's been three years. I don't think we'll have even prototypes for another three, and it could easily still be seven. Five years' reprieve would be very well timed now, but you being unable to pursue your projects is a high cost for it. You'd need to be somewhere very very safe to attempt what he's currently doing. If anything did attack him he'd be helpless. And we know the side effects for beings like us, not like you."

"I would expect to be able to get some work done, although it would slow me down."

"And you expect to be able to draw it up in a way that doesn't get you killed or worse?"

"That part I'm much less sure about, hence the consultation. Nolofinwë doesn't think I'd better."

"Airtight wording is possible. It'd be nice to have Melian as a resource but at a guess she'll attempt to stop you from doing it. You sure we couldn't take Thauron again?"

"Then the best choices seem to be to go to Doriath, work on teleportation at as much acceleration as you safely can, stall on the negotiations, and anticipate that Thauron will probably carry out or order a massacre and send you pictures, or evacuate the Men, lose the advantage of space to stall, hope we can drive him off with casualties in the thousands and not the tens of thousands, or find a wording that you think is airtight and waltz into Angband with a really effective way of killing yourself if you're wrong."

"Yes, that would seem to be the approximate options. I'm not thinking he'll let me stall very long. Didn't work last time, I only get so much time by relying on an intermediary messenger."

"If he lets you stall it's probably because he's not ready, not because he doesn't recognize the tactic. We build our cities into mountainsides, we enchant them from the ground up, and we don't expect to be able to hold out against Thauron without massive losses. The Men are not in a defensible position and their position cannot be made defensible even were were prepared to deploy significant resources there. Which we're also not prepared to do, because it's entirely possible that truce made with you, Thauron comes here."

"Yeah, that occurred to me too."

"Have you run this by Maitimo?"

"Uh," she says, "no. You think this is reason enough to go bother him?"

"Okay. I'll stop on my way home."

"Shall we spend a few hours drafting wordings? I can spare the time, you've been dropping by less frequently."

...Elves. "Yes, please."

So they spend a few hours on it. Someone brings food, an elaborate array of Valinor delicacies that they didn't have when she'd left because the crops weren't all established yet.

He shows her how to stack zooms. He sings for the rest of the evening; stone-moving is in fact coming along quite well and more than past the point to be useful to Maitimo's city building - "but I can't leave Tyelcormo as regent, he'd both hate it and be bad at it."