There are a couple dozen considerations there - I have no idea what kind of intelligence he has, he may know already this one didn't die by swords because he could easily have had someone looking through its eyes from up to a few hundred miles out - our cousins don't have this and it can't be shared with them, but maybe they'd be in favor of spreading the lie that they can and it does...hmmm. 

I don't know that it'd work, but if we try and he sees through it we don't lose much.

We're more than a few hundred miles from Angband. He'd have to have dispatched someone specifically to do that, which only makes sense if he was expecting that the shapeshifter might die and they couldn't rely on getting the memories sent.

Or if he might want to give orders situationally. But true. 

And someone did die in the fighting. We can make that a bit more heroic if it seems suitable.

What? Who– oh.

I was expecting him to run back to see what the explosion was, any minute now...

Nope.

We should have waited, but we didn't have a way to know. 

Last time there were people close...nothing like this...

We should have waited.

Um, could the fake Artanis have gotten an oath not to hurt it? If so it would undermine any heroic battle story.

I suppose it's possible, but I really doubt it - most people'd be very suspicious of me if I asked them for an oath not to harm them -

Then we can at least give him that.

And there's no need to bring Feanorian weaponry into the official story, but if we don't it'd be hard to explain why you're alive. That was a big explosion.

And maybe we can sell it to them as 'you're safer if the Enemy thinks you can do this too'. 

It'd be weird if he didn't just assume they're strictly more capable than we are. He doesn't know about us. Short of the Feanorians actively denying it, that is.

Depends on what lines he's assuming the hosts broke down across.

He had a shape-shifting spy for who knows how long.

Okay. I don't think our cousins will deny it outright.

Me neither.

We'll have to inform both hosts, obviously. Maybe offer regular flyovers to check the other camp for connections to Angband.

Probably a good idea, lest they change their mind about not wanting magic.

Given this, I'm sure they'll want it.

Maitimo already did want it for them collectively, just not himself or his father personally.

I don't think that's workable. Even if he told them and was bearing all the risk, he's still sworn to the dangerous oath, and they've still demonstrated themselves very reckless.

Yeah. Like you said, war'd be a lot easier if they were more trustworthy. I just mean the new risk doesn't change what they want.

It may change how badly they want it.

It should.

They are already at less risk than we were, though. It's not even as if not awakening them dooms them all to rely on us forever.

Everyone's at less risk of that trick now that we know about it, but there's also just the risk they'll attack outright.

And we don't know if there's a limited number of those. That one is pretty worrying, especially since we don't know why it hasn't already happened.

Yep. Though this should deter them from trying, for a while.

And then they come back with some means of countering it. Unless you mean a while in Vala time, it's still a problem.

I don't know what to expect on the timeline. I expect they will come back with something. Maybe we should be slower to react, buy ourselves more time...