"...Missing vocab word."

"People descended from me. In magic it's a natural category, easier to do than 'people I approve' and harder to coerce and impossible to be interpreted as political."

"Does it count Lári?"

"I will do it so that it does."

"It seems like it might be inconvenient if you all die or something but I'm probably just a little too accustomed to 'and then a bunch of people die' as a possible next narrative item in arbitrary narrative."

"Well I think at least a few of my children are at some point going to marry. And no one in Valinor dies. And the Silmarils are sufficiently dangerous that having them in arbitrary hands might not be an improvement over them ceasing to function. Also, it gives any enemy with the capacity to kill my family the incentive not to."

"Good points all. Although if you have enough descendants it might stop being a good filtration criterion."

He nods. "That problem is at least a few hundred Years off."

Nod.

I might also have a more complicated system in which I can authorize power users, but in that case I'll say it's bloodline to avoid the politics.

Makes sense.

Have a lovely married life, Kib.

Thanks.

Maitimo is in a good mood when they head back to Tirion.

That went well.

Yep! My father's not very difficult, really, but most people find him so.

I think he is... not trying to be easy.

He tries very hard not to be, I think. It's exasperating. My life would be so much easier if he exerted any effort - because he's not socially oblivious or anything - on being likeable.

Why doesn't he?

I think he thinks that regard won by being likable is - worse than worthless. He tells people the story about his mother being forced to stay dead so his father could remarry, you know, and he tells it so emotionlessly, and he'd get the reaction he wants from more people if he sounded sad but I think what he's curious about is what they think of the information when their cues to instead play social games are stripped away.

That did occur to me as an explanation when he told me.

Maitimo smiles happily at him. But sometimes one does need to actually play social games and he never ever will.

I think emotionlessly relating his story is sort of gamey.

It's admirably honest in an odd way.