Well. It was true in a sense that I personally find compelling; if she'd come he'd have been less reckless and despairing and together she and I could have talked him down on the ships, if she'd come we'd have been safer, if she'd come things would be better. And I personally can't imagine loving someone and having the avenue to make things better and protect them and not coming. But I don't think she felt like she could keep on doing it all the way through to our preordained and inevitable deaths, and it's not like my father is an easy person.

...so having someone with free will show up on her doorstep and announce that there has been plot derail might be. Interesting.

Yes. She is utterly certain that we are all going to die, and die badly, and I imagine it'll be a bit of a shock to learn there's hope.

Is there anyone else I should meet besides her - independently, that is, I'll follow her lead if she wants to introduce me to someone?

...I will try to overlook this minor, trivial flaw of his.

Is the impulse to revenge just totally foreign to you?

Not culturally. Just personally. - The emotional foundation's there, I can use it to do things like work faster or hit harder. But I'm more dangerous scared than angry, in the relevant sense; I can think straight through anger alone; and when I'm thinking straight I want people who've done bad things stopped, not hurt, not if that's not important to stopping them - maybe deterring third parties but not for its own sake.

And you know us well enough that torturing us doesn't sound like just deterrence even if there were a good argument it'd discourage future misbehavior.

Yup.

Olwë might in fact think that I personally have done my time, if you tell him enough information.

Should I?

We're not even trying on leave for the exiled to return, and anyway the Doom says specifically that we'll remain in Mandos even should all those we wronged entreat the Valar to lighten their sentence, so I doubt a situation will arise where it will help. If one does, obviously you may share anything that helps you achieve your goals.

That wasn't obvious. But thank you.

I want the Enemy dead. If any of this is real at all you have leave to use me towards that end however needed.

...thank you.

That really should have been clear already.

I would probably have guessed in a sufficiently dire circumstance but it didn't actually cross my mind in so many words before.

It's true of all our people, too, though I'd rather you ask things of them through us because it's we who have the relevant trust. We are here to win.

Nod.

And he shows her how to recognize his mother, and places where she might be found, and more about the Valar, until everything that can usefully be planned for without Thingol's leave has been.

I'll go find Lúthien.

Lúthien finds her, once alerted that Loki's looking for her. "Hey! What's up?"

"Maedhros had the idea that - if Ulmo says it's all right, I haven't asked yet, and if your parents agree - that I could take you for a visit to Valinor."

"Oooooh. And ask them for help, or feel out feasibility of doing so, or just say hello?"