I guess. I'm heavily in favor of taking that oath off more people, though, and--honestly--if we find something that could do resurrection I'm not sure I trust him to wait; it might be better to be efficient with use of time he has to spend holding the door.

Isn't that a reason to wait for resurrection?

Yes? Not so much a reason to wait on confirming lack of evilness.

I'll leave it to you. Unhappily. He squeezes Cam's hand again and the new Tyelcormo shoots him an utterly bewildered look.

"Soooo was your Valinor homophobic too?"

"Is that not a universal thing?"

"My Valar are unique among the Valar so far in not actually sucking that much, and they didn't pass on any opinions on the topic."

"Cool on them, I guess. Anyway, that's not why I was surprised, it's more like - are alternate universe versions of people supposed to be exactly the same? My Nelyo has literally never shown even a flicker of interest in anyone, boy or girl, even once we were long past the point where he'd even pretend to give a fuck what the Valar thought."

"Maybe this is an insensitive question, but how traumatized was he at that point?"

"...he acts normal."

"Acts?"

"I don't think he has lived a single second in the past thirty thousand years that he preferred to not existing, and he killed himself as soon as the oath would let him, and he does not seem to have any preferences on the level of 'what to do with free time' or 'how to be treated, short of torturing him' and I'm not sure he even believes he's really out of Angband. But he acts normal."

She hugs him again.

He half-relaxes.

...handsqueeze can escalate into wingputting.

"Anyway, we should go get him. Being - free of the oath - will be something the Enemy couldn't have pulled off - and also maybe you could kill him for real, if you have the magic -"

"I don't think that's a magic we have."

"Anyway. He should know."

I understand the need to be careful but it really doesn't sound like he'd be--relevantly a problem.

Yeah.

"How long do you think it would take him to get here?"

"Uh, he's in D.C. So, like, eight, nine hours? Unless you've got magic for that."

"We might have tech for that, how far away is deecee?"

"Washington D. C.--DC is two letters, D and C, stands for District of Columbia--is the nation's capital, and..." she conjures a globe. "I don't actually know where Zion is."

"Utah." He points.