"I didn't. Varda added it. As a protection for them."

"A Vala. Why am I not surprised."

"Even if the story is upsetting, please keep in mind that we're pretty close to immortality for humans and a way to stop Morgoths, and we're not going to hurt anyone now - if you'd like you can hold the not-engineers hostage for the engineers' good behavior, just please let us work -"

"That bad?"

"I'd prefer you be prepared."

Company, just what he always wanted.

And he tells the story of the war. From why the oath - 'needed a mission beyond 'kill the Enemy', needed people to believe we had a future outside Valinor, thought it'd be - uglier - if we arrived as conquerors, rather than immigrants - knew what the Silmarils could do, wanted to cover for that, knew people'd find 'they swore to get them back just because they were so pretty' believable enough that they might not guess how powerful they really were -

- they'd anticipated that the Enemy might hand some innocents a Silmaril in the hopes of provoking a fight, they'd been sure they could talk or bribe those innocents down and then have a Silmaril, the risk had seemed worth it -

- Alqualondë, how it had happened and who had died - 'I used to know all the names but the Enemy took them' - and the dissolution of the Noldor and his father's psychological collapse and Losgar and losing Imliss and Idaia -

"He didn't do it," Maglor interjects, "he tried to talk our father out of it and when that failed he refused to take part in it, he never tells people that -"

"Because it didn't save anyone -" - saving Beleriand, clearing and holding the continent, his father's death, Angband - 

- recounted clinically, without details, dates and timelines and here's-what-the-Enemy-is-capable-of -

- "and my cousin Findekáno didn't know I hadn't betrayed him to his death in Araman but he - decided I'd paid enough for it, I suppose, if so, and he wrote himself magic to get into Angband and he rescued me -"

Oh, we're doing the 'cousin' thing, okay, Cam notes, without moving or looking at anyone.

Explaining Mirror's going to be fun, she says to Abbadon Maitimo.

Let's - not - right away.

We can't put it off forever. They come downstairs sometimes.

And he surrendered the crown and reunited the Noldor and apologized and paid back what could be paid back, of what had been done, and moved his people across the continent and built a fortress in sight of Angband - 

- the Glorious Battle, the civilian cities popping up like opportunistic wildflowers in the safety they were purchasing - Dwarves were wonderful, everyone should meet Dwarves - first contact with Men - 

- the Battle of Sudden Flame. Thingol and his viciously stupid SIlmaril quest, the Union of Maedhros, they called it, the final effort of the free peoples of Middle-earth - 

- Nirnaeth Arnoediad, it's Thindarin, means 'Tears Unnumbered' - 'my cousin Fingon died' - 

- and from there, clinically again, dates and facts. Fall of Nargothrond. The war of the Dwarves and the Thindar. The second sack of Menegroth. He hadn't meant Dior's children to die, someone had dragged them out into the forest and told them to run and he'd looked for them but why would they answer him, even if they'd heard his army searching? -

- fall of Gondolin.

Sack of the refugee camp at the banks of the Sirion.

The intervention of the Valar and how it ended and how they ended and that is the story of the war.

Yep. Dwarves: great. That is totally the only takeaway from this. Dwarves're great.

There are two Findekanos here and I'm not sure it wouldn't be a disaster for him to run into ours unwarned let alone the Mirror one.

Point taken, I just - 

"So," he says, "basically, Morgoth is fucking terrible and that's why we're here until we can kill future ones more cleanly, and no one is going to take any hostages and you guys are going to, like, take a break outside looking at the giant squid and eating popsicles and then you'll get started on curing mortality and stuff which you have all eternity to do and if the Silmaril thing runs on any kind of balance system eventually you'll have earned enough credits, and if not then you'll have learned enough magic to undo Varda's shit anyway, right?"

"Yes, probably," Fëanor says. "Giant squid - popsicles -"

"Uh huh, Edie and Emily and I are gonna come outside and supervise you to make sure you are relaxing enough. I love you. You aren't okay. So, lake and popsicles. Not gonna insist you act okay or promise you ever will be okay, but I insist on the lake and the fucking popsicles and also since I'm with a girl I guess it technically doesn't affect me tremendously at the moment but is your Arda one of the homophobic ones, too, because we also need to talk about that."

Huan is playing herding dog. 

"Yep, everyone outside."

"I'll provide the popsicles." It kinda says something when you and I are the emotionally mature grown-ups.

I mean, apparently my Arda is the best Arda and we were contemplating five different styles of genocide when we found the door. So, okay, everything's fucked. They're not bad people, it's not like Midnight, they just got really really - stuck. 

Yeah. I wish there was more we could do for them.

Yeah. Sigh. 

Lake. Popsicles. Huan winds between everyone and demands head scritches.

And the door swings closed behind them, which means he has no idea how much time he has before they're right back in here -

He hugs Cam. 

Hug.

"You okay?"