"I doubt you'd come up with anything we haven't."

"There you go, this one I can get in on the ground floor." Sigh. "Messages, anything...?"

"We were using Sindarin a lot anyway, the locals have a harder time learning our language than vice-versa. If it's convenient for your purposes you can truthfully tell Elu that we're conducting everything in Sindarin, ideally not in a way that implies we acknowledge him as king of the continent."

"Will do."

"Thank you, Loki. Is all well, other than that?"

"Yeah, other than that everything's situation normal."

"I am glad to hear it. We've been vaguely troubled at my brother's communications."

"Oh?"

"By 'we' I mean Finde- Fingon, who reads more into them than I can and gets more of them in the first place. If there's nothing of particular concern back home there's probably nothing of concern to read into the letters."

"Okay. Where is he, should I say hi or leave him be?"

"Suppose he'd appreciate hearing all's well. He's probably furnishing the newest fortress -" he sends a location.

The newest fortress is built into the mountain pass and overlooks the plains of northern Beleriand. Even Elven eyes wouldn't be able to see Himring from here, though. "Hi," he says.

"Hi. Is it just me or is the name change business an aesthetic step down?"

"It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? My cousins really want to maintain a relationship with Elu and I'm the one who murdered their relatives so I can tolerate an annoying name for a few centuries. If it's even that long. I think Maedhros is glad. 'Maitimo' means 'well-formed one, beautiful one' and every time I spoke it he looked vaguely discomfited. And I am not going to call him Nelyo like his family does."

"If I had to change my name I don't think I'd do it phonetically, I'd just pick something. If I were in a really pissy mood I'd suggest Elu could call me 'princess' in whatever language amused him."

"Artanis did that. She's going by "Galadriel" now, which is quite pretty. We take chosen names to have a great deal of significance, so choosing one to annoy Elu would also be an act of significance. And I don't bear him any ill will. These are the ripples of a tragedy of our making, and they'll heal with time."

"Oh, 'Galadriel' is quite pretty. Chosen names are pretty uncommon back home but don't mean anything much. 'Princess' would not be a name, just the title in lieu of going by a new name."

"While it's tempting I think I will avoid the cascade of political catastrophes that would result if I asked Elu to call me 'princess'."

Loki giggles.

"Switching to Mannish for official business rather than making the Men pick up Thindarin. It is a little awkward that they're doing this in large part because I need the backup option of being able to teleport to Doriath, but..."

He raises an eyebrow. "That's a share of our reason, too - the Sindarin locals we're allied with need a fallback of last resort, even if we ourselves cannot have one..."

"Yeah. Failing Doriath, Ma- Maedhros says I should try teleporting to Valinor, where apparently it might take them a year to get around to trying me for being in Valinor without permission. Although the south continent is habitable and empty. Not sure how likely Morgoth is to chase me there."

He frowns. "Might be safer. Is - all well with my cousins?"