"We'll consider our options."

Nod. "Things seem stable enough not to require ongoing supervision here. I think I'll go check on the orcs, then visit Fëanor and see if he wants to patch my armor or if I should go to the Dwarves about it." Pause. "I will do these things after actually eating lunch, I think I remember something being mentioned about lunch."

He smiles. "Over there, if there's anything left. Safe travels. I don't suppose you stumbled, in your efforts to find places for people who've been prisoners of the enemy, across anyone who'd be qualified to handle Sarpalarë?"

"Brithombar apparently keeps ex-Enemy-captives as prisoners; some of the same principles might apply to her and she at least seems less suicidal."

"Thank you. I'll keep that in mind."

"Next time I'm down there I can ask for details."

"We can hold her for now. She hasn't actually shown any impulses towards personal violence."

"Did she get a look at the Balrog?"

"Yep. I was trying to keep an eye on her - though you were a bit distracting - and she looked the same as everyone else - shocked, scared, awed."

Spoken to Artanis yet about how plausibly impersonable she is?

I was going to do that next.

Worth me confirming that she's kept her dot since yesterday evening?

Yes, let's be careful about that.

So Loki goes with him and attempts to collect the dot from Artanis's foot.

It's still there. She looks confused. "Are we doing more testimony?"

"No, I'm just checking that you're still yourself."

"They, uh, wouldn't need to replace me if they were trying to make people in this camp agitate for war with the cousins."

"Please do not agitate for war with the cousins. If you must agitate for war with the cousins, kindly do it in a manner that doesn't involve extracting an oath from a patsy and sending her on a likely suicide mission to assassinate Fëanor and being a disguised Balrog, which is what seems to have happened with this mess."

"I wouldn't have asked her for an oath, that's abhorrent."

"She sure seems to be under one. It's not to your credit that the most plausible explanation for her situation is that she thought you'd do something abhorrent."

"What do I have to do with this?"

"I'm not saying you did anything. I'm saying someone looked like you to do something. We can't be sure exactly who the Balrog was impersonating to her, but you seem likely. If you have another guess by all means say so. We do know that whoever it was their name doesn't start with a consonant or the same sound as Irissë's name, that's as far as we got before the oath clamped down; and suspect personal connection, which you'd have had."

"Huh. Angaráto and Aikanáro's names both start with the same sound as mine, for the record, not that I'm sure it matters whether the thing impersonated me or one of them. I'm perfectly happy to make it known that I wouldn't ask people for an oath that would prevent them from revealing something I asked of them, and that they should never ever agree to that - though maybe she got in a little at a time. Like, the first time, you ask her to give an orc a better weapon and point them south, something like that. Then by the time the ask is 'shoot Fëanor' she's already very invested in this and has done several things that'd count as treason."

"Plausible. It's not obvious how long the Balrog was here; it may have had long enough to build up like that."

"Though still seems smarter to go straight to their camp and straight for Fëanor. Unless the war was the primary aim, and killing him only the secondary one."