"Kib and my father went on a scouting mission to the human world. My father saw a baby being dropped off and decided he wanted her. It was lucky, later, because we were desperately short on servantmakers. Also she's a lovely young woman."

"And Kib thinks it was nice Aydanci had a friend his age who grew up the same rate."

"Stop that!"

"Make me."

"I like you," Maitimo says to Cam. "If you're Thauron he's really outdoing himself."

Cam snorts. "You can get Loki to show you a fun little cinematic illusion of her killing her Thauron with her bare hands! She got mine too but it wasn't as neat-looking."

"If anyone's curious the way Kib makes us stop doing 'that' is by having non-Bell-generic thoughts, which is a bit harder."

"Killing ours was very satisfying too, though no bare hands were involved because we had servantmaking. I can't imagine how satisfying it would have been if I'd believed it was real."

"Loki's on the lookout for a way for Maedhros to kill a Sauron one day. Since he didn't get to even fully appreciate her doing it the first time. Though he did throw her a lovely party."

"I feel so sorry for both Maedhros and you," he says complacently to Mitros. "You are missing out, not being in love with one."

FIndekáno giggles.

"...I did marry her," Mitros says. "And if there's ever a spell for it I'll take it in a heartbeat, why not? But yes, you seem to have had it all before you got tortured into insanity and so did Kib."

"I think it's probably technically inaccurate to say he got tortured into insanity," Iobel says. "One of the dubious advantages of the not thinking strategy. I mean, I'm sure it didn't do him any good but I imagine he spent most of it insufficiently present to... appreciate it? And we're good at self-therapy, not that he'll have taken the time to do much of that. He'll probably have fewer hangups than you do if he ever concedes the point on this being reality, although he won't be as good at hiding whatever he's got."

"Ugh."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that. It took an earthquake to get a reaction from him like stepping too close would get from Maitimo."

"Earthquakes? Why earthquakes?"

"Fucking figure it out why don't you."

"Oh, come on, you know we're going to take that as a challenge."

"Oh, now he's testing us," says Iobel. "Charming. So if my theory's right and why shouldn't it be the earthquake would have had to happen while he was thinking and forming associations normally and, ideally, in a context he can't now recontextualize as being fake; unlikely to be some mundane natural disaster, that would be an irrational fear; but earthquakes are totally the kind of thing Ainur do, aren't they -"

"I bet you're very pleased with yourself."

"No you don't," Cam says, "you're saying that because if we're taking cues from you about how to act you want to throw us off, and it's easier to hide shit like that with sarcasm than to try more elaborate subterfuge."

"When the army made it back to Mithrim there were fourteen thousand dead and fissures in the earth, nice and neat, as if he'd had weeks in advance to decide exactly where the crust would crack open. You'd think by then we'd have stopped underestimating him."

"Saurons are good at escalatory nastiness. Or maybe it's the Melkors, I'm not actually clear on how much steering they do, Sauron seems to have all the personality. All the creepy, evil personality."

He nods curtly.

"Kib, anything to keep an eye out for besides earthquakes?"

"Oh, fuck you."