You said easiest way was with another Silmaril? Maybe they can wait until after the war. And we don't have to get involved just because they do.

We don't have to do anything, but I'm still not clear on how much danger the oath accepts as impracticable. If they get forced to attack it we should at least try to come up with an idea that can let them do it safely.

Depends, really.

On?

Who has the other two.

So if they're locked up in Angband they're less of an option and the oath wouldn't let them delay on the third?

No, I mean, if some other stranger has them then maybe we let my cousins get themselves killed.

Oh.

If that happens they probably go after the stranger first, but there might be some possible case...

The Enemy seems very determined to create ones if he possibly can. Predictably.

No one else but Doriath could put up enough of a fight that they go for the dragon first–

Now that you mention it, there's nothing stopping him from repeating what he did today.

Except that it didn't work today.

It'd work tomorrow. He shouldn't be well-informed enough to guess that, but.

We can drop rocks tomorrow, too.

And maybe get a chance to enchant him. Make him think some rock is a Silmaril, then hand it to Melian.

...could've convinced my cousins that the one in Doriath wasn't a Silmaril, couldn't we have.

...maybe. We could have tried it on Maitimo, since he was there. If that bought enough time for Melian to finish the ritual, maybe we could convince your cousins that means Angband would never not be the easier target—

At the cost of Maitimo hating us, but I'm not sure that produces discernible differences in behavior.

And the benefit of Melian disliking us less. Same caveat.

She seems likelier to act on it - though she did let you design the dragon -

That was probably just desperation. If she wasn't going to allow weird long shots, she wouldn't have told us we were allowed to help.

And I'd have expected her not to. Perhaps she's more flexible than I thought.

Or it mattered to her that she wasn't the one doing it.

Why might that be?

She gets to go on thinking of herself as cautious and responsible because she never decided to call up that which she can't put down? From her point of view it was just me being reckless, even if she concludes later that it was worth it.

Sigh.

Well, thank you, anyway.