I have no idea what love at first sight would be like. Anyway, it's not universal, I don't think Frigg likes Odin that much and I am not at all sure if Odin likes him, but among regular people.

Could've married a girl who had her own secret girlfriend and Fingon could have married the girlfriend, all very neat and stealthy.

Would have been very elegant. The excuses I was making by the time I was two thousand were a bit outlandish.

Seems sensible enough to me. You wanted to marry your boyfriend, not some girl. Though I suppose you wouldn't have put it in those words.

I actually didn't want to marry my boyfriend, it wasn't really on the radar. The part of me that was interested in acquiring Findekáno didn't - intersect much with my day-to-day ambitions. I mostly just felt this sense that even if I told her in advance, and she agreed, there I'd be having taken someone permanently for a purpose I didn't want them for. It'd be a hard relationship to manage successfully.

Yeah, that would be a consideration too. Though the marry-a-gay-one option would at least let it be mutual.

That would have troubled my conscience much less.

And she would have gotten to go around with pretty arm candy. When I used to disguise myself as a boy my usual illusion actually looked kinda like you, I went redhead because I didn't want to look related to my family and the face was superficially similar too. Little did I know how unrelated to my family I am.

She would have been the envy of the city. I personally thought it'd be a pretty good offer even considering, and since I wasn't picking her for looks I could have picked a good eventual Queen of the Noldor for when Grandfather got tired and stepped down - Father was inclined to pass me the crown - and then politics picked up their currents and now look at me, marrying for love to a totally unsuitable candidate for Queen of the Noldor.

A bit, yes. For whatever it's worth I think it's cute.

It's been stabilizing me, in some odd ways. I always thought of it as, hmm - a detraction from my ability to work effectively, and accordingly, given the importance of my priorities, a great wrong I was continuously doing my people. Right now I think it's helping me and that feels very good.

That's cute too. The current version, not the old one.

The old one was accurate given the conditions I was working in. It was wrong. I am just not all that good a person.

Sigh.

Is it more wrong that we'd both be arrested by our fathers? Yes. But given that that was true, and given the magnitude of the stakes here, you cannot possibly disagree with me -

- I can agree that it would have been very noble of you to make the personal sacrifice.

He shakes his head. All well at home? You can ask Macalaurë if he'd be interested in coming next time, I think I can secure him permission by then.

All's well at home. He composed an earthquake warning system, I'm going to offer to put it underground for Doriath here, see if Noldo magic is okay this time. I'll ask if he'd like to join us.

He must be miserable. Please do.

...is composing an earthquake detection song a sign of misery?

Macalaurë is an extravert, the only one among my brothers, and does composition alone in his room, and at the rate he's getting things out for you seems to be doing absolutely nothing else.

Oh dear.

So he'll come here and do a performance and everyone will be impressed with him and he'll cheer right back up, it's really fine. We Feanorians are just bad at looking out for ourselves.

They'll let him sing?