...maybe. What would be your criteria for being able to put up with it? It makes lies apparent, it doesn't make it impossible to say them.

I do not mind if all it does is reveal whether I am lying or not. Since I'm not planning to lie, in this case I don't even mind if it would produce the truth if I did. I mind if it extracts any other information from my head, or puts anything there.

There are so many of them, she says. But your points about the strategic upshot are well taken. I would have volunteered if all I were volunteering were - me, in a vacuum, not likely to accomplish anything more important by my presence or destroy anything more important by my absence. I imagine you won't find the song any more reassuring than having me swear things but I'll let you ask me questions while it plays if you like.

I'm not even persuaded that doing that kind of thing with songs should work, and you could fake all the effects. I'll ask you questions if that's helpful to you. I do want to eventually hear all of Macalaurë's compositions, I don't know if the Enemy could fake them.

I can spread them out for you, I store them compressed for the effects but I can slow them down again. I'm willing to take your word for it on how the song works so it's only worth it if being initially twitchy when your family questions me will be a problem.

I don't think they'd read too much into it, knowing that you care a lot about mind control.

All right. Is it just Macalaurë's songs you want to hear or would Findaráto's help too?

Both would be of interest. I'm mostly using them to develop a bound on how much time has passed, so two people aren't better than one for that purpose, but more information doesn't hurt.

I don't know how old any of the songs are, for my non-you purposes it doesn't matter if they were all invented in Valinor.

Yes, it's too soon for them to be informative to me. I know about how much Macalaurë can compose in ten years, though, and how to recognize something he wrote and performed, and when I've heard that much music of his that's new to me I'll know it's been ten years. This is useful since it sounds like the engineers have turned their energies toward projects I'm not qualified to evaluate.

All right. Although it might be awkward to play you his stone-assembling one in a Dwarf hotel.

He's going to help me build my city once he has a stone-assembling song.

Yeah, I guess that one you can just hear then.

Do you think if he'd made a better offer you'd have taken it?

I wish you'd didn't have the power to hand me back to him, even though you have just not done it despite extremely good reason. There's security in feeling like I could at least fight.

...well, I'd say 'sorry' but I don't actually think I'm sorry that I am more powerful than most things I meet here, I think it's preferable to the other way around, and most forms of power generalize pretty well.

I know.

Your company is not, now that the company of other people is an option, good for my mental health. Is it strategically important?

No. I was planning to visit you less anyway once I had you set up somewhere. You can decide how much less or hire a Dwarf intermediary for whenever I drop by with songs and news or whatever. Would you rather go back the rest of the way alone?

I would. Thank you for your assistance.

The weather's nice. Approached from this side, Doriath stands out more against the plains.