You're good. I apologize for our ridiculous culture. Melkor - just got it into his head you can receive prophecies, and showed up to test it?

Seems like. I am not discounting the possibility that this was evil in some way, but if they are, in fact, the truth as he understands them...

I am now very curious. Go verify, come back to tell me.

It's a bright spacious house with a basement where Melkor is, in lieu of a forge, just heating metal up and shaping it.

That's actually quite cool. This a good time?

Certainly. You selected a wording?

Yeah. Kib reads it aloud, slightly haltingly.

"I swear that the visions I showed you all represent the truth as I understand it." The commentary's harder - none of what I said was false, but I was withholding enough - for the reasons I told you about, much of it is dangerous - that 'represent the truth as I understand it' might be a stretch. 'was true' will go through, 'was true and complete' won't, this is somewhere in between.

I'll take 'was true' for immediate purposes, Kib says, writing a note.

"I swear that the commentary I gave on visions and prophecy was true."

Thank you. D'you want to give me any hints on how your trust can be accumulated or would that degrade the signaling value of whatever I did?

The more you communicate about your goals and how you're going about them, the better I will be equipped to evaluate how you'd do with more complicated things, things likelier to be self-reinforcing...

Did it happen to filter to you that I turn out to be the reincarnation of somebody who managed before dying around age twenty-four to invent the stork golems which retrieve a majority of surviving human babies from where they appear in the wilderness, because that's a thing.

...swords haven't been invented here yet? blinks Kib.

I'm speaking a little metaphorically, they were used in the Outer Lands and there are people who'd recognize one, but there are currently no weapons in Valinor and Fëanáro eventually reinvents them.

He did not strike me as a swords person, Kib remarks. Anyway, I can't offer much advice about what to do about that without knowing what 'that' is. All the politics here seems very tangled up in family ties that I've learned the vocabulary for but don't actually understand.

Reasonable. I hope the oath helps you; feel free to come by here any time you would like to discuss what you're doing and why.

Thanks.

Anything else?

Headshake. Not right now. And he heads back palaceward, singing to himself.

Findekáno has indeed arranged to be alone, which means he meets Kib with a wide smile and an appreciative stare instead of vague pleasantness.

Hi. Is this alone enough for a kiss or just for a smile?

A kiss I wouldn't chance. Am I going to want a kiss after knowing the future?