"Thank you."

"Welcome."

"Apparently Lúthien wants to have a princesses sleepover."

"You don't like me, do you? And I don't like Maedhros, or is he not invited?"

"I don't think she was planning to detach him from the wall for the purpose. Should I like you?"

"Are you trying to get me to like you?"

"No. Do you want me to?"

"I'm a little curious what it would look like, honestly."

"I've been learning magic from Melian. I want to be able to protect a realm of my own someday and aid Doriath in the meantime. I've been helping Lúthien with spell development, too. We haven't been sleeping - she can sing. I suggested restraining my cousin because oaths don't nag you when you can't act on them so independent of whether he planned a suicidal assassination now the oath can't force his hand steadily towards one."

"Is that why he is chained to a fucking wall."

"Yes."

"Then I can be somewhat less cross with Lúthien about it."

"Oh, good. She likes you."

"I like her too when she's not chaining anybody to a wall."

"I enjoyed the look on his face. I don't think she did."

"Does he flirt with you? He doesn't mean it."

"He doesn't flirt with me. That would be weird."

"He's flirting with Lúthien. As much as he can get away with it under the circumstances."

"Well, that's also weird." Mental note to advise him that there's some fated drama about Lúthien falling in love and it being a disaster and please don't court that happening ahead of schedule with you of all people.

"Not really. Using people is kind of his entire approach to life."

"I didn't mean weird in the sense of out of character."

She raises an eyebrow. "He's not going to marry her, he's just going to try to charm the Silmaril out of her hands. Unless the best avenue to do that was to marry her, in which case I expect somehow he'd do it, and then Eru help them afterwards."

"Well, I will remark that I think it's sketchy and we'll see if he listens to me."