The one that makes people more charitably inclined towards each other. I promise not to use magic on your sister without her consent unless she's attacking me or attacking you or something.

Thank you.

If the Enemy wants back a prisoner you rescued, that must mean it was really good you rescued them, right?

He may have wanted him for other reasons, but that does seem likely.

Good for you. You've done a lot. That's why they're scared of you.

The ostensible reason Thauron wants to hire me is to place my free will at the helm of some projects. This is probably also what he has in mind for the Men.

Projects you'd be okay with doing, if your supervisors weren't evil?

He didn't enumerate many. Did mention the fight they're preparing for against the Valar, though.

They'll lose.

If only the Valar would help them with that.

I don't know. I came here because I thought it might be a good place to get songs and to ask your father about the Nandor near the Men in case he had input on what they need to hear - I should still do that, although I'd appreciate your help with the phrasing, as ever. After this maybe the newcomers, see if they have anything they'll break out for this that hasn't seemed necessary before.

Okay. I'll ask Daeron to come here right now for the songs thing, and we can ask my father about the Nandor and my mother about Gorthaur.

Gorthaur?

'Thauron' is Quenya. I know a lot of the Maiar by the names the Amanyar use for them, because Mother does, but anyone here will know him as Gorthaur.

Oh, I see. Anyway, thank you.

Daeron arrives a few minutes later. "Lúthien! Loki!"

"Hello, Daeron. Several groups of Men now count using your numerals, if they remember them from the other day."

He is flattered and delighted, she's too kind, he'd love the whole story.

He can have it, more or less as Lúthien has it up to the point where she investigated the demons and found that not all of them were un-neighborly Elves.

"You were giving them songs? How does that work?"

Loki de-baffles the healing song, puts it together. "I listen to someone playing a magic song, and make an illusion of it as it goes by, and form the illusion into a loop so the moment it ends it begins again. Then I speed it up until it won't work any more if I continue, break the loop into two half-loops, so it doesn't go off all the time, and wrap it up in silence, so I'm not constantly followed by competing music. I can attach the looping song onto an object or put it in a place. I'm given to understand that copying songs is a little fraught; some of the most useful I can use freely or almost so but a few I only received permission to place a limited number of copies or none at all but the one I bring with me."

"Huh," he says. "That's clever. I wonder if our soldiers would be interested in songs for sustenance, good aim, and good fortune; I should ask the King."

"If you write them and let me use them I'll happily copy them for you too."

"Very fair. There's one that, now that this is an option, I acutely regret not having had the chance to finish. Perhaps I'll return to it."