Maitimo's conference room is in its own wing of the palace and has its own entrances and exits so he doesn't have to see his family too much. Though it went fine, meeting his family. Everyone hugged him and wept and he hugged them and was silently annoyed with himself for not figuring out how to cry on command, and since then they'd taken their cues and their workloads and avoided him.

Macalaurë shows Findekáno in and looks between them with profound uncertainty and apparently decides they aren't going to kill each other and everything else is not within the scope of his duties and leaves. He closes the door behind him.

"I'm so sorry," Maitimo says, as soon as the door closes. Perhaps he should have said it sooner, so it did not seem that he was reluctant to express guilty publicly, but he was transfixed by Findekáno, Findekáno, standing right here with his hair braided and his freckles all in place and his expression angry and the Enemy did a very very good job this time.

"For what, exactly."

"For making promises I couldn't keep. For earning trust I was going to end up not deserving. For everyone you lost and everything you suffered because of us, for not yet having done more to set it right - Findekáno, I've had this conversation five times, forgive me if I treat some of its features as rather persistent -"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have seen you for the first time after escaping Angband, and had a conversation with you, five times that I remember."

"So you want to skip the part where you apologize?"

"I don't want to skip it. I will happily spend the rest of the year doing it. I want you to have some context for it, because I couldimitate the feelings I had while doing it the first time but I am trying as much as I can not to lie to you -"

"That's a change."

"Yes, it is. I don't think you're really my cousin and I find it terrifying to be alone with you and I don't actually remember much of my life and particularly little of the time we spent together and is that enough truth? Can I get back to apologizing?"

He opens the door. "Why didn't you mention that? We can do this in public - you could have told me to leave -"

"You might be real," Maitimo says, "and I really don't think we can do this in public."

Why not? We don't have to speak out loud - it's not a secret that we were once friends - let's go up to one of those lovely spacious conference rooms you have and glare at each other silently from across the table, it is not exactly as if I came here to melt into your arms - he reads Maitimo's reaction. Is that what you thought I wanted?



And then, is that what I wanted the last five times?

Yes. Maitimo says.

Well. I, it happens, am actually your cousin and not the Enemy and am pretty angry with you and gather you have some issues and also I don't really believe you that you're done telling me lies. And I am perfectly happy to conduct this entire conversation in public somewhere and even if we conduct it here have no intention of being seduced.

Maitimo stands very still. It's convenient, how now when surprised he mostly forgets how to move; it lets him avoid betraying anything else. Findekáno stands at the open door staring at him. We can always reschedule?

I'm fine, Maitimo says. Now is fine.

He decides not to point out that it hasn't even been five minutes since Maitimo claimed he was going to try not lying, and 'I'm fine' is - Great. Okay. Are you doing this because it's really inconvenient for the Nolofinwean host to hate and mistrust you, or because you feel a debt to me personally, or because there's some kind of plan that requires me to jump when you tell me to -

All of those.

Okay.

And I love you and I let you down and I hate the thought that you hate me for it.

I don't. I tried, for a while. It wasn't really worth it.

Maitimo still isn't moving.

I don't actually believe you that you love me, Findekáno says. Or maybe better to say that I believe you'd say it anyway.

I don't think I would. Not unless it were more necessary than it seems to be in the current situation.

Ah. So. The less useful I am to you the more I can trust you.

I never really considered what dreadful incentives my management style created.

I don't expect that if I stopped being angry with you that would change any of our current strategic position. Everyone's getting along tidily. Is that - new? In the conversations you remember?

It wasn't typical of them. It is also not very realistic, though. He still hasn't moved.

Maitimo, did you want to go somewhere public or not?

Not, I think. My father would disapprove if I threw myself at your feet and begged your pardon and I'd like to feel like if I'm deciding whether to do that you're the only audience I have to consider.

Should I close the door?

As you like.

If the Enemy hadn't gotten to it first I would probably slap you.

You can do that if you'd like. I think you'll have a hard time anticipating which actions of yours hurt me and how much. There are lots of perfectly innocuous comments and gestures that will scare or hurt me a lot more than that, and yet I prefer talking to you to not talking to you...

It's more that having you actually in danger made me realize that I was actually repulsed by the idea of hurting people in vengeance. But okay. Are there conversation topics you want to warn me about?

No.

He closes the door. Walks back over. Sits down. I wanted to ask you to tell me all of the times you lied to me, what your goal at the time was, and how you felt about it, and how I could have known, if there was any way at all. But that's going to be a tall order.

I barely remember most of the interactions I had with you. I don't think I was in the habit of lying. I don't know. You could tell me things that happened and I could tell you what I think I might have been thinking.

Oh. If you barely remember most of the interactions you had with me, what do you mean when you say you love me?

There's a difference between memories of events and memories of the way the world is. Remembering a fact and remembering how you learned it. I don't remember how I learned I love you. I'm sorry. I do want it back.

Your father has necklaces for memory.

I don't believe that any of this is real, and I don't want to install fake ones.

Right.

I don't remember ever lying to you.

Do you remember burning the ships?

I remember being present for it.

But not doing it?

I do not remember doing it.

Why would the Enemy take that from you?

Perhaps he was in a merciful mood.

Do you want to know the names of everyone who died on the Ice?

Yes, Maitimo says. Yes. I do.

So he tells him. Maitimo commits them to memory with his usual intensity. It is - it is not exactly cathartic. It is just exhausting. Loki seems under the impression, he says when he concludes, that soon we'll be able to bring back the dead.

Yes.

If you can do that, then it would be possible to forgive you.

I personally probably cannot do that.

Your father.

He might be able to contribute. Would that make you forgive me?

Yes, I think so. I'm upset that people died and suffered much more than I'm upset that you left us to die and suffer. If somehow we'd crossed the ice without casualties I would find it easier to forgive you. It'd be a personal grievance, instead of a wrong that's really beyond my capacity to forgive because it wasn't primarily against me. You leaving me to die is for me to decide how I feel about. You leaving everyone to die isn't.

I think you can still decide how you feel about it. You perhaps can't absolve me, but I was not looking for absolution.

And how the hell would anyone absolve you of a crime you don't remember?

I'm not actually sure that has anything to do with it. Whatever steps would make it right haven't changed. People might hold me less culpable if they knew more about what I've experienced, but only in the sense that they'd think of me as less of a person.

Would they? Would I?

Yes.

I really doubt that.

Because you don't have a good enough imagination. I didn't either.

Do you want to talk about it?

I don't mind.

Do you want to talk about it because i"ll pity you and be more forgiving and this will help your goals, or because it'll help you to talk about it, or because you think I'd benefit from knowing -

You would not benefit from knowing.

Okay.

I'll meet you at the door.

She's there by the time he's out.