The illusion dissolves. You don't want to watch it how it was afterwards. It ruins everything that came before.

Oh.

My father gave a very moving speech but everyone's constantly quoting it, you've probably already heard the key bits.

I believe so, yes.

And then we spoke the Oath. It had been nearly a Year at that point since the sack of Formenos and my grandfather's murder. The Valar still hadn't offered any comment.

They didn't even say anything?

Well, once we'd started to march for the Ice they sent a herald to tell my father that he was hereby exiled from Valinor and everyone else that they should turn around and go home.

Sigh.

As you can imagine it went over swimmingly. Then we got to the Ice and realized it was impassable, backtracked for Alqualondë....

The Valar are so bad at their jobs.

Well, I hear it's difficult to do things quickly there.

It is. I was astonished by how easy it was here. Thought it might be a simulation artifact.

Sigh. I really don't know what I'm supposed to say to that kind of thing. 'It is not a simulation artifact'? Wordless withering glare? 'At least if this were a simulation it'd be a relatively nice one with satisfying explosions and stuff'?

Part of me thinks you'll say 'yes, fine, tired of it?' and then I'll have to beg you to keep it up. I keep saying things like that anyway. I'm not sure why I do it.

At this point I don't know what I could possibly be hypothetically getting out of it. I don't expect that alone to immediately win you over because if it did a bewildering unrealistic hallucination would of course be the smart thing to try and you have every interest in making all possible smart things to try into worthless mistakes, but... The strategic situation of 'Fëanorians can build nukes, Thauron is dead, interdimensional teleportation is imminently on the horizon in the hands of the side of good' - your reactions to this get Evil Me what information about the alternate universe in which you're still captured and electricity is imaginary and so on?

I know. And I've been reading your books and you are definitely from Asgard. And I haven't told you much of actual, war-without-electricity strategic value, I haven't built anything the Enemy wouldn't know how to build - if you were trying to return to my family and impersonate me, maybe, but impersonating me requires more than knowing me quite well, and they'd see the possibility coming...

And you said I had 'different strengths' from Thauron and I don't think I come off as someone who has the 'faking her entire personality' strength, do I? Plus if you think I'm really from Asgard this does sort of imply I'm not a Maia and can't just have gotten stuck in a stupid oath.

If you were a - slightly different personality, but not unimaginably different - and you got the offer of no orcs suffering, and the job description of 'give people in Angband who'd otherwise be tortured horribly hallucinations of your choosing', and you didn't think you could take him yet...

...Okay, fair. Although I'm not sure why they'd offer me that job description, it's not a high-leverage-of-free-will position.

And I think you'd tell me the truth by this point, if you had enough latitude to pull everything else. He shakes his head.

And ruin our beautiful friendship? No, you're right, I would.

Sixty/forty or something?

Something like that. It wouldn't be unprecedented for the Enemy to do this a hundred times in not-at-all-useful ways just to be very assured I was throughly insane by the end of it. But it doesn't seem the likeliest thing.